* Posts by Danny 2

2212 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jul 2009

North Wales Police seek IT services partners in deals worth up to £41.6m

Danny 2

It's a trap

Do you really want to contract to an organisation that can arrest you on a whim? No, the correct answer is no. You want danger money to help the police. (Cough) Cleveland (cough) Constabulary. Offered to show me all the porn they'd seized. "No ta, I have a long drive home". Lit up a joint in their drugs room. "Aye fine, this is going to take some time - as long as you are sure about me driving home".

What is your greatest weakness? The definitive list of the many kinds of interviewer you will meet in Hell

Danny 2

Re: Civil service interviewer training

I sat the EO exam, got 97%. My brilliant sister only got 91%. My girlfriend got 77%. They both were offered jobs, I didn't probably because I'm obviously obnoxious. They asked me in interview why I was applying, and I admitted/boasted it was just to prove I'm smarter than my sister and girlfriend.

Their next question flummoxed me. "What would you do with Africa?" I wasn't aware that the British civil service was in charge of Africa. I can't recall what I said, but obviously the wrong answer. Rejected.

(I think I replied, "What do we do with Glasgow?", because the main interviewer was Glaswegian. )

Danny 2

Re: 50 bad interview stories

British Airways Cadet Pilot

Fifth stage of testing, first interview, with three psychologists. (Why always three?)

"So, you all had to build a Lego tower yesterday, and it didn't go well"

"Ach, don't blame the others, none of them are engineers or capable of listening to advice. I'd say it went well given their interference."

"We paid for you to have a drink with the others last night, which ones would you recommend us to hire? "

"Paul, the posh guy from Manchester Uni flying club."

"And which shouldn't we hire?"

"The Royal Navy pilot. He's maybe just a virgin but he over compensates and is borderline rapist. I wouldn't sleep easy in a dorm with him."

"So why do you want to work for us?"

"I don't particularly. I have a good job, a mortgage, a girlfriend. I just like tests and interviews. Frankly I don't see how we can make this work for me. It's pretty sad that out of tens of thousands of applicants you've selected me so far, that and my fellow finalists does not inspire confidence in flying with your airline in future. I do love flying though so would consider an offer."

Closing interview, with two pilots, one of whom doesn't speak just like in the cockpit.

"We see you only have one half hour flying experience so we can't ask you about aviation. Explain how your car carburettor works."

"Well, my carburettor either works or I get my Haynes manual out and replace it, who cares what it does. I'm not applying to be a mechanic. I've studied intensively for the past few months on flying and planes and would rather you questioned me on that. I do only have a 30 minute discount flight under my belt because it's expensive, but I told the trainer what it was for and he let me stall the plane and do other cool stuff. I know what you want here. You want a truck driver in the sky. Someone smart enough that they can fix any problem, but not so smart that they get bored on the job and start drinking. You want someone who will not screw or demean the rest of the flight crew. That's me to a tee."

Apparently not. I think I mucked up most when I inadvertently stole a large white towel from the hotel. In my defence I left a large white towel that I'd brought.

Danny 2

50 bad interview stories

Tip of the tongue

First job. "What's a memory array?"

"An array is a table of numbers."

"So what's a memory array?"

"An unforgettable table of numbers?"

Got the job, guy had a sense of humour and very few other candidates.

Silicon Glen starts closing down. Went for a job at the missile testing site at Kyle. First question:

"You drove through our security gates without stopping in a car with terrorist stickers, why?"

"I was late and the gates were up. Terrorist stickers?"

"Greenpeace stickers. They were involved in the bombing in Auckland."

"Aye, as victims. The French secret service are the terrorists, you want to watch out for them. Plus it's my girlfriends car and stickers, not mine."

Offered the job, refused it.

Roslin Institute, three man civil service board, height of summer and me in a wool suit. Quatermass weird, ties askew and mad scientist vibe. First question, "You're sweating, why?"

"Because nobody told me I could turn up in my underwear." All their junior staff were in their underwear in the corridors.

They explained the two parts of the job and I said I'd do the half that didn't involve killing chicks. They offered me the job. Refused it.

British Energy, and this is where my career ended. A couple of weeks after 911 I'd dropped a hitch-hiker off at Faslane Peace camp and was blacklisted for that, but I was already due an interview at British Energy as a packaging guy. First question, "We're a nuclear company, does that fit with your politics?"

Weirdly they still gave me a tour and showed off their vulnerable systems.

Last Scottish job, at a place the recruitment consultant said only the creme de la creme got in, three interviewers all flapping away. One said, "You are not right for here."

I agreed and walked out as I had a guaranteed job elsewhere. They ran after me and offered a 20% pay increase. I shouldn't have taken it, but money flatters.

Danny 2

Civil service interviewer training

I knew a clever Civil Service Senior Executive Officer who trained interviewers back in the days you had to pass an exam to reach EO. (Bring back the exams, that's what's gone wrong with the Civil Service)

He hired students to pretend to be applicants. Now the first question without fail all his students would ask applicants was, "So why do you want to be a Civil Servant", and he had instructed the pseudo-applicants to reply, "I don't. I'm a student pretending to be an applicant to train you."

He'd judge the interviewers by their next question.

We used to have a fairly smart Civil Service. Like, in the eighties.

Rackspace literally decimates workforce: One in ten staffers let go this week

Danny 2

Inadvertent far left racist

I don't like companies that outsource overseas to avoid workers rights and democracy. My precedents fought, suffered and died for that stuff. It galls me that some overseas call centre workers question my accent on my call. I would far rather deal with a Liverpudlian, Sunderland or Cornwall accent than any Bombay globalisation blur.

Globalisation is a race to the bottom, not a levelling up. It only benefits he rich as is.

Autonomy founder Mike Lynch loses first stage in fight against extradition to US

Danny 2

FT

Lynch in the FT:

“At the request of the US Department of Justice, the Court has ruled that a British citizen who ran a British company listed on the London Stock Exchange should be extradited to America over allegations about his conduct in the UK. We say this case belongs in the UK.”

...

Lynch’s argument against extradition to the US was founded on a defence known as “forum bar”, which allows the courts to block extradition if a large part of the alleged criminal activity took place in the UK...The SFO dropped its own probe in 2015 after ceding parts of its investigation to the US.

Snow...also criticised one of Lynch’s expert witnesses who testified to the hearings about US prison conditions as being an “unreliable partisan witness.”

The argument that the US penal system is so inhumane that we shouldn't extradite anyone there has been slightly undercut by the rapid decline in British prison conditions. The 'forum bar' should still apply though, if he committed a crime here then prosecute him here. If the SFO can't afford that then maybe they should apply for a grant from the US.

Troll jailed for 5 years after swatting of Twitter handle owner ends in death

Danny 2

Re: calling someone's accent British makes little sense.

Apparently pandemic binge watching of Peppa Pig has made American youngsters speak with British accents. Chances are the phone call was made by a child.

Snail mail would be a fool-proof way to inform patients about plans to slurp GP data, but UK govt won't commit

Danny 2

Define "foolproof"; Define UK

Great article, but two quibbles.

I asked my health centre for a copy of my health records to be emailed out to me, via an encrypted Protonmail account I setup for them in advance. They decided email wasn't secure so printed out my health records and posted them to me. Royal Mail delivered that to my neighbour, who opened it and put it through my door.

"The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley."

Some of us know encrypted email is more secure than snail mail, if requested. I've posted about this several times but I'm not whining, a couple of unforeseen and unfortunate errors wrecked my privacy that made me laugh and cry.

I'd suggest the UK government publicises this awful policy on popular TV shows, such as "The Seven Show", "GMTV", "Gogglebox", whatever. Alongside a critic of the policy explaining the implications. How about a Swiss style referendum asking if we want to have our most personal data sold to corporations?

Second quibble, this is England not the UK. We don't have a UK government when it comes to health. Covid is a crowbar that is helping to rip the UK apart from your shopping trolley car crash PM.

Good news: Jeff Bezos went to space. Bad news: He's back

Danny 2

Re: Executive Summary

No lie, age ten I knew every Max Boyce routine, and every Billy Connolly routine.

I'm not a fan of rugby, but age 14 I'd attend every Welsh after party in Edinburgh. I'd drink all their drinks and they would laugh their heads off because when they noticed I'd sing Max Boyce rugby songs. English and Irish rugby fans were not so amenable, they'd beat me up. Even Scottish bar staff were not so forgiving, they beat me up worse. As you do/did to kids. But the Welsh were party people. Loved them.

My sexiest foreign accents are Welsh and French, in that order. I would come to "Breakfast at Miffany's" if I still ate breakfast, you sound delicious. Here's to the day we two nations become a united Britain.

Max Boyce reads his coronavirus poem When Just The Tide Went Out

Thank the lord you are Welsh!

Danny 2

Re: Executive Summary

"comparisons between VSS Unity and a vagina. And I am something of an expert"

Myffy, as in the female Welsh name Myfanwy?

Bathgate Job Centre employed a Myfanwy Rumbles but due to poor pronunciation the receptionist would often tannoy, "My fanny rumbles. My fanny rumbles, please contact reception"

It relieved the ennui of signing on or working there, and if you think about it the victim of the joke wasn't the Welsh lass, it was the unwitting receptionist making the mistake.

Engineers' Laurel and Hardy moment caused British Airways 787 to take an accidental knee

Danny 2

@Pascal

Like Randy Newman singing 'Short People', I was joking. And I assumed it was such an obvious joke that I didn't have to state it explicitly. I am fully aware the reason five year olds can't drive isn't a height restriction. And though you didn't pick up on this, we didn't make short people wear platform shoes in the 1970s. That was purely voluntary.

[For the record it was the article that blamed the accident on the engineer being short, I just picked it up and ran with it - like you would do with a short person]

Danny 2

Re: The engineer's careers

"I would have watched them do it, or at the very least checked after they had done it."

They were too short to do it, so too short to check. I don't want to say anything politically incorrect, but short people are a constant hazard - there is a reason we don't let five year olds drive on motorways.

In the 1970s we used to make short people wear platform shoes to avoid industrial accidents.

I no longer have a burning hatred for Jewish people, says Googler now suddenly no longer at Google

Danny 2

This is funny!

I don't hate English people, I eventually learned how to pity them. I used to hate girls, two older sisters, but then I loved girls. And then I learned how truly evil girls are. Even the nicer ones.

I just can't hate the Jews. The first guy I ever kissed was an atheist Jew. The first good sex I ever had was with a New Jersey mafia Jewish lass, long before The Sopranos. The Jews deserve credit for a lot of sex and music. Leonard Cohen - Happens to the Heart

It's sad we still have to joke about these things.

Happy 'Freedom Day': Stats suggest many in England don't want it or think it's a terrible idea

Danny 2

The definition of insanity

English nightclubs are open to anyone without a test or a vaccine. Today the government (and I use that word in the widest possible sense) said nightclubs will have to ban anyone without a vaccine at the end of September. So it's safe today but won't be safe in two months? WTF?

Prof Jon Deeks, co-chair of the Royal Statistical Society Covid testing group, said today that the schemes that Boris and co tried to evade isolating were a sham.

"The government has also been doing a thing where they set up what they describe as a ‘pilot’ if they want something to happen."

eg Euros, Wimbledon, schools opening, government not isolating - all secretive 'pilots'.

Danny 2

Re: SNAFU

"not spending the rest of our lives hiding under the bed in case the nasty bogeyvirus gets us"

According to today's Daily Telegraph, under the bed is the very worst place to hide.

Matt - "The monster under your bed has tested positive for Covid..."

Danny 2

Re: From Denmark

Hiya Piro,

It's hard to compare between nations because we are experiencing different pandemics. For example, the Delta variant in Edinburgh has raised infections from 53 per 100,000 to about 600 per 100,000 - from better than Denmark to much, much worse.

The thing is we got it two months before Denmark, so it would be advisable to expect a similar exponential growth in the near future. If I were you I'd keep wearing a facemask and encourage others to also, at least for a few months.

Delta variant now makes up nearly 80 percent of Denmark’s new Covid cases

Danny 2

Market losses, expecting human losses

The FT just reported Fears over Delta variant shake global markets.

“The hope was that vaccines would provide us with the endgame. Now investors are looking at the UK and there’s a bit of fear with regards to reopening so aggressively when cases are still so high.”

Revealed: Perfect timings for creation of exemplary full English breakfast

Danny 2

WAPO on The Fall

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/the-fall-mark-e-smith-excavate/2021/07/15/e969a1d8-e41f-11eb-b722-89ea0dde7771_story.html

I am just surprised the Washington Post has heard of Mark.

Danny 2

Drink y'self fitter

As an Edinburgh Man breakfast is a warm quarter gill. Followed by microwaved scrambled eggs, toasted tattie scone, fried mushrooms and veggie sausage, cherry red tomatoes boiled to remove their skins. Three minutes tops, nae faff.

On the Perverted By Language tour me and my mate were waiting out front of the gig for a lift home by my dad when the band insisted we help load their gear into their surprisingly crappy transit. I was saved by Brixie who Mark had sent out to buy a carry out. She couldn't find an offie on Lothian Road so I said I'd take her to the nearest one if she bought me a bottle of whisky. Brixie broke the law with an underage wean!

This is the data watchdog! Surrender your Matt Hancock smoochy-kiss pics right now!

Danny 2

Re: Would they have bothered ...

"old, rich, desperate and gullible - what more could you possibly want?"

£55,000, no cameras, no kissing or exchange of body fluids. Why that much? I know what I'm worth. I look like a young Prince Philip, circa 1995.

Danny 2

Hand on cock

This was the government minister charged with protecting the NHS and England during a pandemic. A role he was rightfully criticised for, many tens of thousands of avoidable deaths can be laid at his door. This is the guy who urged the police to prosecute his scientific advisor when they broke the rules for sex.

And he didn't know there was CCTV in his office? How stupid do you have to be not to recognise a CCTV camera, or at least read the office guidelines?

I think the police should be seizing his electronic devices. There is an outside chance that Matt released the footage to bump his hottie paramour into helping him dump his wife and kids knowing full well Boris would approve.

This page has been deliberately left blank

Danny 2

@David 132

Nobody likes the SWP, even socialists and workers.

I was at the demo at the Hutton Inquiry when Tony Blair gave evidence, I actually had one of the golden tickets to get in. There was a forest of SWP placards in a pile because nobody wanted one.

At lunch time though, one of my favourite memories of the peace movement. Our ranks were swelled by about a hundred incredibly posh uniformed school children from some Westminster junior school, who all picked up the SWP placards and jumped around screaming, "Hang Tony Blair!"

It was funny because if I'd shouted that then I'd have been arrested, but what could the police do to them? Then they all put back their placards and returned to school, lunchtime revolutionaries.

Danny 2

Celtic nationalists

Off topic but Celtic FC have just signed a Jewish Israeli player. That will pose a dilemma for their "green brigade" ultras who regularly stage pitch invasions whenever a Jewish Israeli plays.

This will seem alien to any sensible English football fan who only has to cope with common racism, but Glasgow is a religiously sectarian city. Don't go there without a bodyguard and a translator. Celtic fans wave Irish flags, Rangers fans wave English flags, and nary a Saltire is seen. Which was bad enough, but it's the way it's always been.

A couple of decades ago the Celtic fans started flying Palestine flags, so the Rangers fans started flying Israel flags. I was pals with a Palestinian refugee in Glasgow who was utterly appalled by this. "I fled for my life to avoid this shit, and now you are dragging me back into it? Nobody asked me, don't involve me in this idiocy."

Which leads to the old joke. "What religion are ye?" "I'm a Jew." "But are ye a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?"

On the upside we don't have your type of racism here. I worked with an orange bigot when Rangers signed their first black player and I asked him if he had a problem with that. "Not at all. I don't care what colour you are as long as you aren't green."

Danny 2

I want some free Britney

Now that her various 'conservatorships' are being challenged or revoked, could El Reg apply to be her new owner? I mean, you'd have to replace the Paris Hilton icon with a Britney photo but think of the publicity she could bring with her next song about chip shortages from the far east.

Dutch Queen, robot involved in opening of 3D-printed bridge in red-light district

Danny 2

Re: Junkie bridge

Sorry, hoor, elsergiovolador

I don't use the word junkie as a pejorative, just as common speak for opiate addict.

I didn't say anything nasty about the junkies in my post. I have personal anecdotes about someone I cared for that I'm not in the mood for sharing. This is worth sharing though. He said to me, "People who smoke dope [ie cannabis] are really stupid, aren't they?"

"No, no, you are really stupid, you are killing yourself quickly."

He died of bone cancer at a young age, presumably random and unrelated to his drug issues.

I believe in the Portugal model.

Danny 2

Re: Junkie bridge

It's as flat as a Doctor Who set, I kept on having nightmares about daleks. In Scotland we have underpasses, where people and vehicles move under roads. You can't have that there because sea-level. 1953 and all that. No stepping on the sand-dunes.

Danny 2

Junkie bridge

My Dutch fiancee told me to buy a bike on Junkie Bridge, but to pay no more than eight guilders for it. Paying more pushes the price up for everyone. It's a bridge where junkies sell their stolen bikes. If your bike is stolen you can buy it back there if you are quick enough. Or you could call the police or fight a junkie, but good luck with that. I asked her how I'd know if someone was selling a bike and she said, "Well, if it's a junkie pushing a bike then ask them."

I paid twenty four guilders, and my fiancee grimaced but said, well it is a mountain bike.

Apparently this is societally accepted. The junkies get an income, the public get bikes. I bought a second one, a typical rusty black excuse for a bike. Because Holland doesn't have hills, let alone mountains.

Try placing a pot plant directly above your CRT monitor – it really ties the desk together

Danny 2

Re: Sometimes the karma gets them

Two scummy Spanish girls stole a Thich Nhat Hanh book from me. He's a Buddhist poet-monk, brilliant, and the book was precious to me. Why steal a book about karma?

Well, I didn't know they'd stolen it so I gave them a lift to their flat. They lit one of those wee night-light candles with a metal case and placed it on top of their TV. Ten minutes later it melted through the plastic and dropped down onto the VDU which exploded. Neither of the girls were seriously injured, I wasn't injured at all, but yep, the karma got them.

Teen turned away from roller rink after AI wrongly identifies her as banned troublemaker

Danny 2

Immigrants

Me and my mate holidayed with his elderly relative in California in the '80s. She'd moved there from Canada after leaving Scotland. She took us to the largest shopping mall we'd ever seen that had the largest ice rink we'd ever seen in it. There was only one person on it, an angelic seven-ish hispanic lass. She was captivatingly talented and me and my mate were close to tears watching her. At that point the old Scottish woman turned up, glanced at the child and snorted, "Bloody immigrants." No sense of irony or self-awareness.

She kept on trying to take us to her Scottish highland dancing club. We went once and were appalled at their racism. In California 'Scottish' or 'Irish' is shorthand for whites-only. They considered us 'bad Scots', and we didn't consider them Scots at all. Scottishness, it's more than a porridge thing.

Buyer of $28m Blue Origin space ticket has a scheduling conflict – so this teen will go instead

Danny 2

My 18th birthday was a company (burr brown) pub party because it was the first time they'd made a profit. I wouldn't have went except a guy from stores was going and he was born the same day in the same town and I wanted to investigate him. He got off with a 28 year old barmaid who he'd been screwing for a while.

I just got free drinks. I had a wee round table in front of me full of free drinks. I'm creative though, so the drinks were in a rainbow of colours.

Red and yellow and pink and green

Purple and orange and blue

I can drink a rainbow

Drink a rainbow

Drink a rainbow too

Disclaimer: I can also spew a rainbow

Facial-recognition technology gets a smack in the chops from civil rights campaigners

Danny 2

Even DNA can't differentiate an evil identical twin.

There was a case in Scotland 15 years ago where a guy raped and nearly murdered a girl. I've got the BBC article up but I don't want to link to it because it is more distressing than you imagine.

His first defence was to blame his twin brother. When his twin brother had an alibi his second defence was to blame a cannabis joint he'd smoked.

Danny 2

Fecal recognition software

The pun demanded it happen, and now Tel Aviv is testing all dog shite for DNA to track down illegal street shit. All dogs have to submit DNA so presumably there is a Dog Shite DBA, Dog Shite data entry, and a Dog Shite Czar. Personally I wouldn't want Dog Shite on my CV, but then some of the places I've worked...

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-tel-aviv-wants-to-collect-dog-dna-to-ensure-owners-collect-poop-1.9996375

UK's biggest trade union takes aim at Amazon over 'price gouging' allegations

Danny 2

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

£100 markup for a thermometer? How much blame lies with the seller and how much with the buyer?

I'm waiting on an Amazon delivery after swearing I'd never use them again, because you just can't buy a 'butterfly in a jar' in the UK. I mentioned I was disappointed to watch "World's Most Evil Killers" because due to my eyesight I was expecting "World's Most Evil Kittens". I just saw "My Cat From Hell", and it explained why one cat bullies another and how to stop that. One thing they did was buy the cat a butterfly in a jar, an electronic toy with a butterfly that flies if you tap the jar. I bought one for Miko in the hope it will distract her from bullying Jet.

Miko is a killing machine, three pigeons, three wee birds this year alone. Jet, well, not a hunter, barely a cat. I saw a butterfly land on his snout and he went to bite it but it just fluttered away. Birds land next to him to feed. All of nature disrespects him and there are no cat self-defence courses.

A butterfly in a jar is a perfect analogy for my life. From the 1970s sitcom 'Bread' to Locked In Syndrome. My cousin in law's brother killed himself after working for Amazon due to their awful employment practices, whereas I'd kill myself before working there. Here's drinking to a faulty O Ring when Bezos goes into space.

Boffins find an 'actionable clock' hiding in your blood, ticking away to your death

Danny 2

Missing Inaction

I met up with my first love and she looks 32, I look double that. I drink and smoke, she exercises and eats well. Live fast, die looking awful.

Other people's deaths no longer disturb me. They are the alarm on the LED clock ruining my dream and urging me to wake up as I hit snooze for nine more minutes of slumber. They are the roadside memorials for teenage Italian motorcyclists that act as milestones on mountain roads, photographs on granite of young men on bikes not wearing helmets because life is just too long at that age, in that heat.

They are the few that you hear about as dozens of others just disappear from view without confirmation or ceremony. They shall never be forgotten, we comfort and delude ourselves even as we ourselves are being forgotten.

Gestaþáttr number 77:

Deyr fé,

deyja frændur,

deyr sjálfur ið sama;

ek veit einn at aldri deyr,

dómr um dauðan hvern.

Animals die,

friends die,

and thyself, too, shall die;

but one thing I know that never dies

the tales of the one who died.

Richard Branson uses two planes to make 170km round trip

Danny 2

Re: Awaiting FlatTards....

RIP Mad Mike Hughes

US offers Julian Assange time in Australian prison instead of American supermax if he loses London extradition fight

Danny 2

Re: He's stuffed

@velv - "Are you suggesting the US will do a Belarus and intercept and divert the flight?"

Um, they already did that to the Bolivian president to try to catch Snowden.

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

Not for children: Audacity fans drop the f-bomb after privacy agreement changes

Danny 2

Might I suggest a choice for the new name:

Audacious.

Danny 2

Trust in me, just in me

Grateful to El Reg for highlighting the telemetry changes in advance. I downloaded the last clean version because I hadn't upgraded in years. I just don't use it that much now.

I confess I still use Paint Shop Pro 7 as my image editor, which arrived on the front of a PC magazine disc. I know there is far better FOSS imaging available, and I had the full Adobe suite at the time, but I just like it and it does what I need it for. It's uncomplicated, pleasant and low maintenance, like the best of girlfriends.

I'll stick with that telemetry-free version of Audacity until enough of you dedicated young people extol the benefits of the fork. I am open to persuasion, hence LibreOffice rather than OpenOffice. And I may play with darktable for a day or two thanks to the original article because that's news to me.

International law enforcement op nukes Russian-language DoubleVPN service allegedly favoured by cybercriminals

Danny 2

Re: I use two VPNs ....

We all huff kittens though, admit it. It's no longer the taboo it used to be. I think it was Liz on 30 Rock who admitted that every woman feels the need to squeeze a babies thigh at least once. Not me, but I used to throw my kitten across the room onto cushions, and it would run back for more.

Two famous 'indy' activist websites used to claim that they didn't log IP addresses when they clearly, obviously and demonstrably did. You kind of have to. I called them out on it and offline they admitted it and asked me to keep quiet 'for the greater good'. The thing is they had already been compromised by the police/security services, either by infiltrators or pressurised traitors.

If you leave honey on the internet then sooner or later it will be turned into a honeypot trap.

Cyber insurance model is broken, consider banning ransomware payments, says think tank

Danny 2

Re: Destroy competition

The theory is that if you criminalise paying a ransom then you start to discourage the crime by removing the profit motive. Sure, companies that haven't invested in security will be thrown against the wall, but that will encourage others to properly pay and respect their IT staff.

It makes more sense than the current British government policy which is, "We don't negotiate with criminals! We're just leaving this bag of money over there and walking away."

Sir Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web NFT fetches $5.4m at auction while rest of us gaze upon source code for $0

Danny 2

The new abnormal

My youngest nephews career ambitions were: social influencer: male model; professional games player. Naturally I mocked him. He has skills, he isn't totally daft, he's just easily distracted by bright, shiny things. What do I know though today? I once bumped into Beyonce but I've never heard her sing. I first heard Ed Sheeran recently in the excellent movie 'Yesterday'.

My neighbour sent his son to me to ask me for advice on how to get a good technical apprenticeship because he knew I'd enjoyed one at his age. I was flummoxed and embarrassed because I had no good advice. There are no good technical apprenticeships here today. I recommended him using the internet to learn some in-demand skills.

I have no envy or issue with impoverished artists hitching onto the NFT bandwagon. I note that Banksy hasn't even though everyone here could easily reproduce any of his work without copyright issues. I may resort to NFTs myself now my applications to Love Island and Naked Attraction have been rejected. Some of us are beautiful on the inside.

Seoul adopts AI for suicide prevention on Han Bridge: Uni boffins train machine learning model on rescue teams' data

Danny 2

@Korev

Bridge jumping is not a good way to kill yourself because your 'rescuers' have to clean up your mess. That's a family and friends job at best, don't inflict it on strangers. I'm old and have considered suicide twice, and now have chosen methods that involve little trauma to others. I'm not rushing.

I saw something just now I've never seen before. There are huge long silken spider threads across the trees in front of me, only visible in the sun. And as the breeze moves the blinding solar dots move up and down the threads and sometimes the entire thread shines as brightly. It's so beautiful I'm glad I lived to this grand old age to witness it. It's prettier than the nicest photograph that Microsoft force onto your PC startup. I know, I know, they are devices engineered by spiders to trap and eat flies, but I'd rather be a spider than a fly.

As to preventing bridge suicides, there was a life saved recently when an adorable police rescue dog, Digby, was loosed upon the victim, who stepped off the ledge to cuddle it. We can't just release puppies and kittens onto bridges though because they tend to jump over too. This should only be attempted by trained police dogs.

UK arm of international charity the Salvation Army hit by ransomware attack

Danny 2

Charging the homeless for a meal and a lecture

I was registered as homeless with the City of Edinburgh council for five years 2007 to 2013, actually homeless for far longer but on the move so unable to register. I was mostly always comfortable outdoors and never had to ask for a free meal due to local friends and family and pre-existing eco-scavenging* / food growing skills. A lot of the homeless I encountered weren't so blessed and relied on a free meal every evening.

There were six local churches that would provide a free meal one night a week, and the other night was the Salvation Army, and the same homeless group of about 200 would congregate at each of them. Most of what I'm about to say is second hand anecdote from multiple sources, but one thing that is documented is that the Salvation Army meal was the only the only one that wasn't free. They charged hungry rough sleepers for food, which is pretty hypocritical if you've read the new testament. They didn't charge much, £1.50 to £2 but if you have no money, no income, no benefits, that is a huge expense.

I never attended but I was told they were the only evangelists and provided the worst meal. Most rough sleepers chose to go hungry on their night rather than sit through their wholly unsympathetic diatribes.

They demonstrated homophobia. There was an odd, sweet couple among the rough sleepers. A Nigerian man and a Polish man, both very tall and muscular, one very black and one very white, always together. They stopped going to the Salvation Army night because whenever they attended the lecture would be old testament condemnations of homosexuality with the preacher looking directly at them.

Other religious centres - yer Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims, started up kitchens that would feed them for free, some of them paying for that by charging everyone else for the same food. More recently a secular charity, Social Bite, opened a cafe staffed with homeless folk feeding homeless for free and over-charging everyone else. Plus you get to eat with George Clooney or Brad Pitt once in a while.

(Joke) The rough-sleepers today don't know how good they've got it, back in my day we were grateful to eat grit.

I was put on DWP work experience, despite having 30 years actual work experience. The DWP asked me if there was anywhere I wouldn't work, and I said an abattoir or the Salvation Army. I immediately offered to clean hospitals but was told it had to be somewhere "for the public good and the NHS doesn't count". Presumably there wasn't an abattoir available because they ordered me to work for the Salvation Army. I refused and so my benefits were stopped and I was reclassified as voluntary homeless, unable to apply for council accommodation.

*Skipping is what poor people always did and eco-warriors started doing twenty years ago. It's going into skips behind stores to retrieve the food waste they throw out. There is a whole etiquette, like never take more than you need, never waste other people's food waste. Technically, legally, theft but difficult to prosecute. It's become much more difficult in recent years for various reasons - more poor people doing it, supermarkets pouring bleach over their out of date food to poison it, lower amounts of food waste.

UK Cabinet Office's spending on cybersecurity training rises by 500% in a year

Danny 2

Re: Question...

This is actually a very clear warning for Wembley increasing it's crowd size for the Euros semis and final matches, never mind letting in 3,500 untested UEFA officials.

Football linked to 2,000 Scottish Covid cases

The report said that 1,294 of the 1,991 total cases had reported travelling to London, including 397 who were actually at the match.

Danny 2

Re: Question...

Well the official social distancing advice varies from two metres to six feet, which is a six inch distance.

Either way is not a safe distance indoors. Aerosols can travel twenty seven feet indoors.

https://xkcd.com/2482/

The highest ever covid case total in Scotland this week, 3,285 people. A month ago Edinburgh had 53 cases per 100,000 - now it's 502 per 100,000.

Two thirds of new cases are young males indicating football / sports fans. People 'think it's all over' and have stopped wearing masks and social distancing. Edinburgh is full of English tourists staycationing, which will only get worse when the English school term ends in three weeks, The Scottish school term ended last week but most school rolls were already decimated due to social isolation caused by a wave of infections. Parents are back at work so thoughtlessly pass their sick kids onto vulnerable grandparents.

43% of UK covid deaths were fully vaccinated. A fully vaccinated 80 year old has the same risk as an unvaccinated 50 year old. My family have been visiting my parents repeatedly and at length without any precautions because they mistake vaccinations for invulnerability.

Revealed: Why Windows Task Manager took a cuddlier approach to (process) death and destruction

Danny 2

Re: meh

SysInternals still provides a command line PSKILL, unlike Windows. Bizarrelyi t's a larger file size than Process Explorer.

Scientists identify sleep-like slow waves as responsible for daydreaming and... sorry, what were we talking about again?

Danny 2

Dreaming in pieces

I just watched a good documentary on sleep by NOVA. Sorry, don't know where you'd find that It points out that many creatures, such as dolphins, sleep by turning off half their brain hemispheres at a time, with the other half staying awake for things like breathing and not getting eaten. It mentioned a 1960s (probably?) case of a man who never slept (sorry, don't remember his name), and brain scans showed that tiny little parts of his brain turned off in sequence.

I can fact check this if/when anyone challenges it - in my defence it was very late at night and basically only one eye and ear were awake. I didn't dream it. I'd like to tell you all about what I did dream but I know that is about the most repulsive thing you can repeat.

Rural Scotland, Wales to get £1bn from Shared Rural Network pot, promised huge gains in next four... years

Danny 2

Pi in the Skye

Devil's Advocate:

It may seem counter-intuitive but bad internet is a boon for rural communities. It inhibits townies relocating or buying second homes, which prices out and relocates young locals. When I lived on Skye I had to drive 35 miles to a laundromat to use an old coin-fed PC with a slow connection on top of a tumble drier that was often on. I'd have to save twenty emails on disk to cut and paste and that was fine by me because I lived somewhere beautiful. Who'd live in London if you could buy a Skye estate with fibre? The Highland Clearances was a national crime, but so would be the reverse.

I asked an ecologist why we shouldn't eliminate midges using science since they do no good and just annoy man and beast. "Oh no, midges play a vital role in the Scottish ecosystem. If it wasn't for midges then we'd be overrun with English tourists."

Study finds crayfish treated with antidepressants become more outgoing, adventurous

Danny 2

Peterson's lobsters with post-SSRI sexual dysfunction

I recommend crayfish, and lobsters and men, are cautious with SSRIs because the common temporary loss of libido can be permanent. And that's depressing. No doubt they are still a boon for the suicidal though.

Jordan Peterson claimed that lobsters reaction to SSRIs explain human hierarchies, which is one of the most bizarre arguments I've ever heard. Here is a great exploration of that train (wreck) of thought: Psychologist Jordan Peterson says lobsters help to explain why human hierarchies exist – do they?