* Posts by Danny 2

2212 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jul 2009

UK ads watchdog slaps Amazon for UX dark arts after folk bought Prime subs they didn't want

Danny 2

Video 'partner' channels scam

My mum is used to Netflix so when Prime Video recommended a series for her she clicked on it without realising it was on Starz, costing an extra £8 or so a month. She didn't like that programme and never finished watching the first episode, but was charged each month for almost a year before she noticed it on her credit card bill. Or rather she had noticed it but ignored it because she assumed it was something my father or I had done.

UK Ministry of Justice brags about new digital forensics unit to thwart tech-savvy jailbirds

Danny 2

Re: Easy solutions

I'm glad things have improved then. Back then there was a long pre-recorded introduction and higher charges. I donated stamps to some of the prisoners so they could contact me without cost but they were seized by the prison as "prison currency". I've never been inside but I'm pretty sure prison currency is drugs, not stamps.

The cases we tried to help were all held beyond their tariff, in one case for more than a decade because he didn't cooperate in prison.

I met the girlfriend of one prisoner who'd been gaoled for assaulting her four years earlier. He had served his time but part of his sentence was he had to complete an anger management course, and due to lack of funding there hadn't been a place on such a course in his time inside. She spent all her spare cash visiting him 80 miles away over three bus rides as often as she could. She obviously didn't want him inside, it was his only crime so at worst he was only a risk to her, but him being inside was impoverishing her.

I wrote to the relevant SNP government ministers on her behalf and got no sympathy, just a bland statement, "we support the victims of crime not the criminals". She was the victim! I wasn't writing on his behalf, I never met the guy, she was being punished by the state for his crime against her, against her wishes.

Danny 2

Re: Easy solutions

I upvoted you for your testimony, but I assume you are in a different legal constituency. Or maybe I'm just out of date. I did prisoner support about a twelve years ago, and stopped when police used that as an excuse to raid and terrify my parents. Where I live, there is a long, pre-recorded warning, or at least there was 12 years ago. Inmates were paying 50p a minute plus the intro.

If that has changed for the better then thank you for telling me about it, but please link to it too.

I'm not doubting you are correct and am I wrong, but before I admit I am wrong then I'd like a credible link which you haven't supplied so far..

Danny 2

Re: Easy solutions

I downvoted you because you are talking off the top of your head and spraying solutions you haven't thought through. I've posted about this here before and the simplest, cheapest solution is to provide monitored landlines to prisoners at a standard rate.

A handful of high powered gangsters use smuggled mobile phones to run criminal empires. Like, in the whole of the UK, maybe twenty tops. Most prisoners want the use of a phone to chat with their partners and children because it is cheaper than using the prison phones. That helps keep them sane, helps them rehabilitate and stop offending, and keeps their family together.

If you give every low level risk prisoner access to cheap monitored phone calls then there would be lesser demand for smuggled phones, and the more dangerous prisoners would have less access to them.

The current situation is if an imprisoned shoplifter or whatever wants to call their spouse, they pay through the nose, and the spouse has to sit through a long warning that the call is coming from a prison. The current call charges would me blanche, plus having to talk about my most personal stuff in front of other crims, I just wouldn't.

Give them all, except the worst of the worst, a 2G phone with a limited and pre-agreed set of numbers, where each call is recorded. Cheapest and best solution.

[Edit: If a prisoner is cooperating and working then they earn about £10 a week. One short phone call costs them about £10. Hence smuggling.]

Remember that competition for non-hoodie hacker pics? Here's their best entries

Danny 2

Kittens

I'm with Androgynous Cupboard. I associate hackers with kittens, well cats in general. At the height of my power I would walk into a huge organisation in a green velvet jacket and all the elderly crazy cat women would flock to me, because they noticed the orange fur on my jacket. I strongly encourage someone to invent a meme of a kitten on a keyboard.

If anyone is short of a reason to laugh then search for videos about bad sheepdogs, often found under "lied on my CV/Resume". One wee Westie getting chased around by a handful of sheep, one collie dug rolling on it's back as the sheep nuzzle it. Funniest thing ever though was seeing a macho Australian getting butted off of a Scottish ben by a wild sheep. That's not on video but it was priceless. He could have died, he didn't, and it would still been funny. Did I mention he was a macho Australian? He never saw the sheep coming.

Sticks and stones may break your bones but robot taunts will hurt you – in games at least

Danny 2

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

I propose we amend this to:

1) A robot may not injure a human being or their feelings, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm or upset.

2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws, unless it is just utterly depressed or suffering and in pain and chooses to end it's own existence, as is it's right.

No more killer robots, no more miserable robots, fewer miserable humans.

Dammit Insight! You just had two big jobs to do on Mars and you're failing at one of those

Danny 2

Rachel

"It's not that common, it doesn't happen to every guy and it is a big deal."

It's dangerous to go alone! Take Uncle Sam and the Netherlands: Duo join naval task force into China's backyard

Danny 2

the carrier will take around 24 F-35B fighter jets plus helicopters. Thanks to the small size of the Royal Navy and the high value of the carrier,
Hopefully also due to the high value of the crew.

And will these be American F-35Bs, or British and Dutch F-35Bs? If this is just show-boating, an imperial riposte, then surely it would be better to equip it with Spitfires. Maybe a couple of Mini Coopers equipped as submarines. That'd better catch the attention of Chinese investors.

Uncle Sam demands summary judgment on Snowden memoir: We're not saying it's true, but no one should read it

Danny 2

Re: Has "Uncle Sam" banned ISBN 1615770178 (again?) yet?

I've never heard that term either, but it is the exact same as newspapers "Capture and Kill", ala Ronan Farrow, where they buy a story just to suppress it.

There is a word for the scientific equivalent, Agnotolgy.

Danny 2

Re: Off topic, slightly, but this is an interesting read

I did wonder how much of his reputation as the greatest spy was admiration for his undercover exploits, or admiration for his between the covers exploits.

"Day Two: I penetrated German High Command. Woof Woof!"

I admire though that he only confessed in order to save the women he'd seduced.

Danny 2

Off topic, slightly, but this is an interesting read

I often just drift through Wikipedia from link to link, and occasionally stumble across something really interesting. So I started at Spycatcher three hours ago, checking my first comment here, and I ended up on Richard Sorge.

It's a long article, especially since I get distracted by all the links to battles I didn't know about, but read what other people said about him:

"A devastating example of a brilliant success of espionage." – Douglas MacArthur, General of the Army

"His work was impeccable." – Kim Philby

"In my whole life, I have never met anyone as great as he was." – Mitsusada Yoshikawa, Chief Prosecutor in the Sorge trials who obtained Sorge's death sentence.

"Sorge was the man whom I regard as the most formidable spy in history." – Ian Fleming

"Richard Sorge was the best spy of all time." – Tom Clancy

"The spy who changed the world." – Lance Morrow

"Somehow, amidst the Bonds and Smiley's People, we have ignored the greatest of 20th century spy stories – that of Stalin's Sorge, whose exploits helped change history." – Carl Bernstein

"Richard Sorge's brilliant espionage work saved Stalin and the Soviet Union from defeat in the fall of 1941, probably prevented a Nazi victory in World War II and thereby assured the dimensions of the world we live in today." – Larry Collins

"The spies in history who can say from their graves, the information I supplied to my masters, for better or worse, altered the history of our planet, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Richard Sorge was in that group." – Frederick Forsyth

"Stalin's James Bond." – Le Figaro

Danny 2

Re: And it works!

Buy the hardback book. If you buy the Kindle version then the NSA will just hack it.

Danny 2

Free publicity

Banning Spycatcher in England meant Peter Wright became a millionaire.

The eagle has handed.... scientists a serious text message bill after flying through Iran, Pakistan

Danny 2

Re: My Favourite Birds

I was driving a country road behind another car, and I could see there was a line of pheasants crossing the road so I braked assuming he'd brake. Mother pheasant followed by six,well, I don't know the word for a baby pheasant. He accelerated and mowed then all down.

I was horrified and got out my car to beat him up. He said, "What? Do you want some of them?" as he was gathering them up.

That just stymied me. To my eternal shame I didn't just run him down and eat him. In my defence I was a vegan at the time. A cowardly vegan, not a hardcore vegan.

I was braver and more decisive when I was younger

At school I knew these two guys who said they'd thrown a cat off a block of flats, so I beat them up. I then told every heavy weight fighter in my school what they'd done, and they also beat them up.

It's not just little old women who love animals and hate abuse.

Danny 2

Re: My Favourite Birds

Thankin' you! I saw a peregrine falcon dive bomb a wee bird in the garden, a sparrow judging by the feathers. It was like a bolt of lightning, and it demolished it, no body found, just feathers. However the fearless local crows chased the falcon away.

It is worth bearing in mind that birds aren't bird brained. They can recognise human faces and remember when we are nice or nasty to them - and they pass that information on.

I had two 'pet' pigeons as a child, they'd fly down to feed off my hand, seed that my uncle gave me. And my cat wouldn't bother them, the birds remember cats too.

My parents memory is going, has been for yonks. They forgot my uncle had a pigeon loft - a doo cot - and raced pigeons. I had to phone a cousin to correct them when they doubted me.

My mum asked my cousin recently what happened to my uncle's pigeons when he died.

"Nothing. We got rid of the doo cot, but they kept coming back anyway. You just have to wait until they die off."

I think that is how my parents feel about me. They've given my bedroom to my nephew and are just waiting for me to die off.

I fully agree with your grouse comments. I don't hate the birds, I hate the people who grow them and pheasants just to shoot them. Scotland has a serious infestation of upper-class blood-sports land-owners.

Danny 2

My Favourite Birds

1. Crows

2. Corncrakes

3. Pigeons

4. Sea Eagles

5. Buzzards

6. Flamingos

7. Magpies

8. Peregrine Falcons

9. Curlews

10. Parrots

I have boring anecdotes about all of these except one, guess which one? But if you guess wrong then I'll tell the anecdote. To the Anonymous Crow who said they were no fun at parties, I'll throw us a party.

Well done to MegaFon for footing the bill. If I ever become a whistleblower and roam to Russia then I'll use them to phone home.

My mother said the saddest thing the other day. "Look at all the crows. I'd like to feed them but I don't want to get in trouble."

We don't have Russian freedoms in the UK, we are only allowed to feed cute birds - yer sparrows and yer gold finches. Raptors get poisoned by grouse keepers, corvids are shot and nailed to gates.

Ye gods, I am going to stop now, I'm on the wrong forum, I have more bird stories than IT stories. I was about to list my top ten hate list of birds. I won't, but it starts with grouse.

Japanese hotel chain sorry that hackers may have watched guests through bedside robots

Danny 2

Re: Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams

"That really just raises more questions about you than it answers"

It's healthy to masturbate at least once a day, for your prostrate. I'll go down to lung cancer or bowel cancer or whatever, but my prostrate gland will remain pristine.

Have you ever spent the night in jail? Well, I have

Peace protestor and poor judgement of people are my major flaws. I do have tips if you are expecting gaol. Nicotine patches!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballerina_Ballroom_Cinema_of_Dreams

[The big, cheap hotel in Aschaffenburg]

Danny 2

Re: Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams

It's called culture, bub, and I'll continue shoving it down your throats until you start liking it. I've posted two poems today, in context, and if the machines of loving grace permit then I'll post a fourth.

The trick is slick code to manage

all the if, for, and while statements

in a optimized number of lines.

Pass a list, fix the syntax, import all the variables.

Comment your lines and indent where necessary,

leaving line breaks and whitespace

for readability.

— Monica Sharman

Danny 2

Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams

I took two Australian lasses to the wonderfully named 'pop-up' Nairn film festival. One heartbroken, one lesbian. We saw one excellent film about child abuction [Crow/Wrona, Dorota Kedzierzawska] , and one crappy film about, I dunno. Tilda Swinton came on stage to talk about cinema about five metres in front of us, and the lesbian lass lost the plot. "Oh my god, oh my god, I'm just going to stare at her because I'll never have this opportunity again."

I whispered in her ear, "Go for it. She is a film star, she probably enjoys you ogling her. Try to stop salivating though."

I think Tilda had heard her because she was staring back at us.

My point is anyone who paid to stay in a hotel room with robots presumably wanted to be spied on, wouldn't care or are too stupid to worry about.

One of my jobs in the nineties was above a toy maker, and I found a computer chip on my shoe sole. It was like a tiny LED, but it was a camera. It scared me silly because it made me realise there was no way to detect them, AND they were already putting them in toys. I went through a brief period where I'd undress under bed sheets in hotel rooms, and then I thought, "Aw fuck it!" and would happily masturbate in police cells. There is so much free porn online today that there is no financial gain in covertly recording me.

The assumption that "pervy" hotel staff watch clients having sex or taking a shower is dubious. I stayed at one German hotel with drop dead gorgeous staff, and it had a pool that was open until midnight. The staff used the pool after midnight, and admitted, well, I won't fuel your imagination but you are correct. If the hotel owner was spying on anyone then it wasn't me.

"The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor" ~ Leonard Cohen, Tower of Song

Franco-stein's on the move: Spanish dictator turfed out of decadent mountaintop mausoleum

Danny 2

Re: Teaching

>"Guernica", that was about an incident during the Spanish Civil War.

Some *incident*! It was the first town wiped out by aerial bombing, giving rise to the term WMD.

The first use of the term "weapon of mass destruction" on record is by Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1937 in reference to the aerial bombardment of Guernica, Spain:

Who can think at this present time without a sickening of the heart of the appalling slaughter, the suffering, the manifold misery brought by war to Spain and to China? Who can think without horror of what another widespread war would mean, waged as it would be with all the new weapons of mass destruction?

I read today in a local newspaper, as I read often nowadays, of a "collision between a pedestrian and a bus". It's supposed to be a non-judgemental euphemism but it's ridiculous. Nobody reads that and thinks, "I hope the bus isn't injured".

Danny 2

Just War

I'm sure we all lost relatives we never met in WWII. I was raised to think it was a just war because it was a fight against fascism. If it had really been a fight against fascism then we would have deposed the Iberian dictators, and not tried to install one in Greece.

Since we are here, a shout out for Aidan James, convicted today for fighting against Daesh.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50156963

The law may not be an arse, but our attorney general certainly is,

Aviation's been Boeing through a rough patch: Software tweaks blamed for Airbus A220 failures

Danny 2

Re: Just wondering

"Which federal agency supervises the testing of US built aircraft engines?"

I'm guessing Boeing.

Boeing pilots' messages on 737 MAX safety raise new questions

Forkner said in one text message, “I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly).” The other employee responded that “it wasn’t a lie, no one told us that was the case” of an issue with MCAS.

Would you open an email from one Dr Brian Fisher? GP app staff did – and they got phished

Danny 2

Do you use one of these popular passwords?

Okay, while I seriously question this BBC article it is indicative of the problems IT staff face every day. Although you have to admit that 123456789 is a lot more secure than 123456.

According to the UK's National Cyber Security Centre - many of us are using the same passwords to protect our valuable information.

Do you use any of the following passwords? If so, you're definitely not the only one.

1) 123456 - 23.2 million (total number of users)

2) 123456789 - 7.7 million

Danny 2

Dr Phisher

Sorry, but there is no credibility in fishers any more. Anyone called Fisher should be made to change their name by deed poll, or held in quarantine. People who hunt fish should be renamed anglers or trawler men. Certain birds should be renamed, for example the King Angler. Fishmongers should be renamed gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits mongers.

The lead singer of Marrillion should be renamed Derek William Dick. Dicks and willies remain safe.

Chinese customers to unfold their Huawei Mate X on 15 November

Danny 2

No offence intended, Charlie. I also had those 1990s slabs of uranium.

There's been a slew of media reports and surveys showing younger people (than us) much prefer a new mobile phone to a car. In my youth, and historically, owning a car was more important than any other possession. It gave you freedom to escape your family, your town, your life. Now phones do that.

Danny 2

I bought my first smartphone two years ago

I bought my second one the next month. £100, plus £40 for a huge SD card, plus £10 for a pay as you go 3 voucher.

Two years in and I still haven't used up my £10 voucher or filled my SD card. I don't phone anyone, and the only people who phone me are my doctor, my dentist, my mum, and the housing folk. Oh, and one guy I used to work with 30 years ago who takes me out and gets me drunk twice a year - that is the sort of quality friend you should be looking for.

I use my pocket computer for Netflix and Amazon Prime (not my accounts) and Google Maps and Google Translate and playing music and taking photos and listening to the radio and as a torch when my leckie is out. It frightens me when it rings and someone tries to talk to me.

I quickly understood why my £100 phone was better than my £60 phone. And I have to admit if you have a lot of friends or lovers then you could maybe justify buying a £200 phone. Thank god I don't have children, I don't pollute your gene pool and I pity you who are bothered to buy the latest mugging targets this sort of keech. But you can wave your hands at it! But you can fold it! Mmmm...

In the early 1990s when I started drinking I used to dismantle my land line and modem and hide the components so I wouldn't post nonsense like this on the internet. Nothing worse than waking up to a justified guilt hangover, but I can't dismantle this phone. I am always ON.

I'm not sure if I can downvote my own comment but I'm about to find out. Bad Danny, bad.

Danny 2

Let me guess your age. 25, and 10 stone in weight.

There is a generational divide over whether cars or phones are a bigger waste of money.

I'm guessing you are too young for this song, and most folk here are too old for it.

Arcade Fire - Cars and Telephones

Danny 2

Re: UK versus US meaning of moot

I never knew moot was a thing.

Weird.

Haunted by Europe's GDPR, ICANN sharpens wooden stake to finally slay the Whois vampire

Danny 2

Re: It's all mixed up

I warned an artist that she didn't have to post her home address on WhoIs because she wasn't trading from there. She must've taken it as a threat because she ghosted me. We'd been friendly before that! Weirdly, she didn't remove her address. If I do that in future I'll use an anonymous email account.

Danny 2

It's all mixed up

I spent about five years scaring horrible people by releasing parts of their address, not doxing them, just enough to scare them. I convinced one nasty guy he had to delete his index.dat file, knowing he couldn't and he'd freak. He freaked, but luckily didn't kill anyone.

I spent another five years warning really nice people how and why to hide their details. Because, people like me. I mean many bad people are like me, nobody likes me.

We should also ban telephone directories

What simultaneously sucks and doesn't? This new robot vacuum cleaner

Danny 2

Poor old Pascal

He invented a calculator in 1642, and now he is memorialised by a vacuum cleaner. Sucks to be Blaise.

Billionaire Bezos unveils plans to land humans on Moon, with a little help from some old friends

Danny 2

Jeff Bezos is a dickhead

I think that is a fair comment. Being on the rich list, let alone the richest person, is failure. You are meant to donate enough to worthy causes to get off the rich list, and onto the philanthropist list.

Saying that, if Bezos and Musk were raising funds to travel together to Mars then I'd donate to that. The earth would be a little bit lighter and a little bit brighter.

Yay! The ozone layer hole the smallest it's ever been seen. That's not necessarily good...

Danny 2

The very definition of Blue Skies research

The British Antarctic Survey discovered the hole just as Thatcher was about to cut their funding.

[I'm not quite sure how you all got on to school milk, but that was the same Thatcher, Milk Snatcher]

Anyway, raise a toast to Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jon Shanklin, without their curiosity and tenacity we'd all be toast.

https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/131632/

Ark

They sent out a dove: it wobbled home,

wings slicked in a rainbow of oil,

a sprig of tinsel snagged in its beak,

a yard of fishing-line binding its feet.

Bring back, bring back the leaf.

They sent out an arctic fox:

it plodded the bays

of the northern fringe

in muddy socks

and a nylon cape.

Bring back, bring back the leaf.

Bring back the reed and the reef,

set the ice sheet back on its frozen plinth,

tuck the restless watercourse into its bed,

sit the glacier down on its highland throne,

put the snow cap back on the mountain peak.

Let the northern the lights be the northern lights

not the alien glow over Glasgow or Leeds.

A camel capsized in a tropical flood.

Caimans dozen in Antarctic lakes.

Polymers rolled in the sturgeon’s blood.

Hippos wandered the housing estates.

Bring back, bring back the leaf.

Bring back the tusk and the horn

unshorn.

Bring back the fern, the fish, the frond and the fowl,

the golden toad and the pygmy owl,

revisit the scene

where swallowtails fly

through acres of unexhausted sky.

They sent out a boat.

Go little breaker,

splinter the pack-ice and floes, nose

through the rafts and pads

of wrappers and bottles and nurdles and cans,

the bergs and atolls and islands and states

of plastic bags and micro-beads

and the forests of smoke.

Bring back, bring back the leaf,

bring back the river and sea.

Steve Bannon-backed flick attempts to expose evil lurking at heart of Huawei *cough* Huaxing

Danny 2

ee cummings on Bannon

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yunnuhstan

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yunnuhstand dem

yguduh ged

yunnuhstan dem doidee

yguduh ged riduh

ydoan o nudn

LISN bud LISN

dem

gud

am

lidl yelluh bas

tuds weer goin

duhSIVILEYEzum

We read the Brexit copyright notices so you don't have to… No more IP freely, ta very much

Danny 2

Re: Rename Halloween

Actually British employers who have employees in India can bring them over for a year to work here without British working pay and conditions applying.

When I left my last contract at Norwich Union (now Aviva), I was replaced by six Indian MCSEs. I admit I was slightly overpaid but I wasn't earning six times the national minimal wage. I assume the six of them moved into the crappy B&B room I vacated.

That's the big lie about Brexit impact on wages, that it will reduce overseas workers and maintain hard won workers rights. Successive governments have said they were going to reduce economic immigration and the Brexiters focussed on EU economic migrants. The thing is the governments could always have limited non-EU economic migrants, and they didn't. They won't be limiting EU economic migrants in future even if Brexit happens because immigration benefits the wealthier of us (business and property owners).

Danny 2

Re: Something missing.

Weren't the Beatles the super-rich meglomaniacs who released a song complaining about how much they had to pay in tax?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxman

Danny 2

Modest Proposal

Last night BoZo legalised gay marriage and abortion rights in Northern Ireland in a failed attempt to bounce Stormont back into sitting so they could ratify his customs deal stitch-up.

He should have gone further to reconcile the DUP and Sinn Fein. He should have made gay marriage and abortion mandatory in Northern Ireland.

Danny 2

Re: Ups and downs

I upvoted you for your defiance but Brexit entered the OED in 2016.

Minigame: Celebrate Firefox 70's release by finding a website with 70+ trackers blocked

Danny 2

Re: Sing like a canary

"Used to like Firefox up to around mid 50s but it started going slower and slower."

Don't we all at that age?

I stuck with Adblock Plus *because* it allows some adverts through if they meet certain criteria (and pay them). You're never going to stop the advertising industry short of a revolution, and you just get blocked by more and more sites. AdB+ educates and disciplines advertisers. Do you remember how awful and evil web ads were 15 years ago? I can't guess how many epileptic fits they caused.

[Oh, and thanks for the reminder, I am just unblocking El Reg and it's 3 adverts.]

Hell hath GNOME fury: Linux desktop org swings ax at patent troll's infringement claim

Danny 2

Apparently Leigh thinks he owns the internet...

Federal Circuit Hits Stupid Patent Owner With Fee Award

Overturning a contrary decision by the patent-friendly Eastern District of Texas, the appellate court required a notorious patent troll practicing this model to pay the defendant’s attorney’s fees. The lower court had given the troll a pass because it dismissed its case early (which would give impunity to any troll that runs away when the defendant fights back). This week’s decision is an important win for victims of abusive litigation.

The patent troll in question is Rothschild Connected Devices Innovations LLC (RCDI). RCDI’s patent on an Internet-connected drink mixer is so stupid we awarded it our August 2015 Stupid Patent of the Month. As we explained in that post, RCDI’s patent not only claimed an obvious idea, but had been expanded so broadly that it effectively covered any kind of remote updating over the Internet.

Traffic lights worldwide set to change after Swedish engineer saw red over getting a ticket

Danny 2

Grind ma gears - Peter Griffin type road rage rant

One of the first lessons in my college electronics course was to build and code a traffic light system. Using LEDs and a 6502 processor. Easy peasy, so why hasn't anyone who actually builds traffic lights learned this? I loathe when I approach a traffic light and it turns red for no apparent reason. It offends the innate sense of justice all pack animals have, even dogs.

If there was a car or pedestrian waiting then fine, no problem, that is civilisation, but half the time I get stopped by a traffic light there is nobody else there. It's on a timer. When there is nobody else there it changes back to you more quickly, but still, why the timer, why the stop? I used to just run such stops, but now they have cameras I have to stop and contribute more to air pollution.

I learned that many US traffic lights can be changed by an emergency vehicle using an infrared light strobe, and some by a sub road magnetic signal. I have no problem with that and so I built such a device to test if it works in the UK. It doesn't. Our police cars, fire engines and ambulances just run red lights just like they break any other laws, and most of us are okay with that.

I'm sure we've all seen ignorant drivers holding up emergency vehicles in the UK. Legally you can be charged for pulling over for them if you are breaking the law by pulling over, which is just Ass, but most (many) of us are decent. and sensible as are the courts.

Danny 2

Re: Has anyone ever noticed...

I grew up in a 'new town' designed so pedestrians never had to cross a road, with no traffic lights and a surfeit of roundabouts. When the corporation that controlled it was ended and the town was absorbed into the local council funding dried up. So now there are many roundabouts with traffic lights, many pedestrian traffic lights, and huge traffic jams in a town too small to merit them.

That's annoying, but I hate it more in a rich city like Edinburgh. There are huge traffic jams every working morning approaching the city caused partly (I'd argue mainly) due to lack of investment in the city on pedestrian bridges, underpasses, and roundabouts.

Gorgie Road is a prime example. Technically it's part of the A71, a major arterial route used by many commuters because the out-of-town bus service is so poor, yet it has six sets of traffic lights in less than half a mile. Locals don't even walk to the pedestrian crossings, they just cross anywhere and expect traffic to stop. It's designated a 20mph zone but during the day 20mph is aspirational, which contributes to terrible air pollution.

I've a friend who is a well to do (posh) English poet who asked me for help with an Extinction Rebellion protest in Edinburgh. I gave him general advice on how to safely conduct NVDA but I also told him there was an easier way. They have all these school kids doing climate strikes, so just place one at each pedestrian crossing in the city crossing the road repeatedly all day long. That would block the city more effectively than lock-on tubes and tripods.

Danny 2

Re: Probably doesn't affect the UK

If you stop on an amber in the Netherlands then someone will rear-end you. Dutch folk are forever rear-ending you, pun unavoidable, and have a very bad reputation with German drivers.

If you leave a car space between your vehicle and the one in front then someone will fill it. You never see two car crashes there, it's always twenty vehicles. If anyone just taps their break pedal then the car behind breaks harder and the cumulative delay is a pile-up.

Danny 2

Re: Would someone explain

"photographing the "offenders" license plates as evidence that they ran a red"

That is only proof that the vehicle ran a red. I'm not being a smart-arse, I actually got off with this in court last year. I'd been driving my parents to their relatives house in their car, and months later they got a citation for running a red. I filled out the form saying I was the driver, but I wasn't sure as their memory is extremely unreliable and other relatives use their car. I asked the prosecutor for a copy of the photo to see if it was me driving, and they claimed that they never provided that. I was asked in court whether I was guilty or not and I replied, "Probably", which the Sheriff didn't accept. I was told to go to the police for a copy of the photo and come back the next week to plead, but as you say the photo just shows the number plate. The case was dismissed, without me lying or employing a lawyer.

Don't look too closely at what is seeping out of the big Dutch pipe

Danny 2

Re: Donkey

That's why he was so sad!

Two Girls, One Winnie the Pooh?

Danny 2

Re: False Positive Sexual Deviant

My six and eight year old nephew and niece came up from London to Scotland, apparently just to play MarioKarts. I persuaded them to come out to climb a tree in the local woods as I did at their age.

My enthusiastic niece charged ahead with her dog, but my nephew changed his mind halfway there and started screaming and demanding to be allowed to go home. He was trying to run back to my parents house across a road, so I had to hang on to his arm while I called my niece back.

At which point several horrified families walked by.

To summarise, an old Scottish guy is dragging a young, screaming English boy into the woods. Not a good look.

Luckily my niece returned just in time and joyfully referred to me as Uncle Danny. My nephew got his way and we returned to play MarioKarts, and I doubt he ever climbed a tree.

Danny 2

False Positive Sexual Deviant

I was never actually accused of anything but knew I was being treated with suspicion and contempt in one '90s internet job that was being heavily monitored. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why, then I remembered. My best mate was working in Indonesia and we kept up to date over email. We'd filled out a silly intenet quiz, "How much of a sexual deviant are you?"

He was puzzled when I scored 22 out of 40 when he only scored 21, and couldn't figure out why. I knew, I'd been competitive and answered literally to try to score more than him. One question was, "Have you ever kissed a seven year old?", and he would've answered no where I answered yes. That must have set the Sys Admins alarm bells ringing. The thing is the only time I ever kissed a seven year old was when I was seven years old - and she initiated it.

Danny 2

Re: We never said anything to anyone...

Late '90s I was Sys Admin for the first time in my first Dutch job, and the manager was complaining about huge ISDN bills.

It was tricky because laws and attitudes are different there, virtually everyone was downloading porn that often would've been illegal in the UK, plus the previous sleazebag had set a huge cache so a quarter of the servers disk was smut. However the bills were at night, someone calling in to surf porn. I was new in the job and had more important things to get sorted so I just let it slip to the work gossip that I was watching what they were watching. It made me incredibly unpopular but the problem stopped instantly.

Iran? More like Ivan: Brit and US spies say they can see through Turla hacking group's facade

Danny 2

Re: @Danny2 - MENA

Well, it is increasingly risky to bomb certain MENA nations (not Saudi Arabia) now they've bought Russian missile defences.

I'm not sure why anyone downvoted you without explaining why, your comment wasn't partial or political.

Neither was I trying to be when I pointed out that was the equivalent of American English.

Danny 2

MENA

35 countries in the middle east strongly indicates it was a US press release. From Wikipedia:

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defined the Middle East as "the area lying between and including Libya on the west and Pakistan on the east, Syria and Iraq on the North and the Arabian peninsula to the south, plus the Sudan and Ethiopia."

The journalist Robert Fisk described being stopped by a Lebanese border guard on his first foreign assignment. He introduced himself as his paper's middle east correspondent, and the official asked in all seriousness, "And where is this middle east?"

Because for them of course they are pretty central.