* Posts by Kiwi

4368 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Sep 2011

Boris celebrates taking back control of Brexit Britain's immigration – with unlimited immigration program

Kiwi
Flame

Re: Conservatism

It's a horrible disease that strikes without warning every time it looks like she might be required to do something she doesn't want to do.

Thanks for a great laugh!

I did wonder if it was one of those, since "Jemma" reminded me of a couple of people I know who have every excuse for not working you can imagine (and some even Jemma would see through!). I wasn't sure, was going to look it up, but was stopped by a serious attack of cantbebotheredism.

There are a number of people in my industry who qualify for some level of "disability', including myself, yet remain working. It strikes me how many athletes there are like long-distance runners who lack legs to run with yet still get out and do it, while many able-bodied serially-idle people complain about how hard it is for them to get off their lazy arse and do something.

It's not always easy to change your lot in life, but it can be done - especially if you're able-bodied, reasonably intelligent (at least enough to do your job), and tick any of the trendy "minority" boxes. Even easier if you have someone who you claim as a partner who has the ability to work with you and compliment your skillset such that your weakness is their strength.

I live in a tiny isolated nation. Travel and resources are expensive. Our nearest neighbours are Australians! We don't have the likes of the Europe just a short distance over the water away, the nearest nation to us is somewhere near a thousand miles away. Yet we do so well with what we lack. How come people in the UK have all that opportunity at their doorstep yet moan about how hard they have it?

Toughen up ya bunch of crybaby wimps!

--> Yes, those who squander opportunity do piss me off. Plus it's midnight - sugary snack and cuppa tea time!

Kiwi
Trollface

Re: Confident blustering...

a man who can't stop lying then spends our money on employing a professional liar to help him get elected

I'm sorry, you've just described all male politicians from the lowest village councillor and up. Can you be a bit more specific?

Kiwi
Pint

Re: From across the pond

You good chaps have countered with, "hold my pint."

Well done! Here, have another! :)

Kiwi
Pint

Re: I can't wait

However well things go, we'll still be held back by a self-induced disablity.

You have a few options.

Leave.

Stay and cry like a little bitch.

Stay and work within the system to make life better for you and yours

Stay and work to change the system to make life better for you and yours.

The 2nd option seems to be quite popular on El Reg. You're smarter than that Jamie!

Kiwi
WTF?

Re: Quitters need to suck this up.

Kiss paid holiday time goodbye and as a bonus all business's will save 9% plus on costs on the wage bill.

Interesting.. Do you not have unions over there? "Civil rights" movements/organisations? No worker protection?

I'll offer my services then. We certainly get paid leave over in this tiny little island nation. If we can do it, I'm sure you Brits can!

Kiwi
Linux

Re: Article is factually incorrect

UK population (2020) is about 67.7 million, it was about 63 million at the last census in 2011. That's a net growth of 4.6 million people in under 9 years, or over 0.5 million (~ the population of Bristol) per year, most or all of which is due to immigration.

Bloody hell.. I thought we had it bad, but that meagre "4.6 million" is pretty much the population of our country!

(Of course, we wouldn't have had it so bad if the infrastructure had kept pace!)

--> Closest thing we have to wide-eyed surprise!

Kiwi
Boffin

Re: This will be wonderful!

Britain will be full of the world’s top scientists, researchers and mathematicians, all of whom will become experienced bricklayers, plumbers, experts at car repair, and can spend their summers picking fruit, planting potatoes, and making jam so that at least they will have something nice to eat in the winter.

I haven't been a "top scientist, researcher" or "mathematician". but I have done plumbing, bricklaying, car repair (and truck, bike and even boat repair - stuff anyone able to read at a "top scientist' level shouldn't have too much trouble with).

And last I looked, planting potatoes and picking fruit wasn't quite on the same mental level as "rocket science".

In my childhood anyone with a back yard had a garden, even the most useless members of society grew at least some of their own produce. For me, when I've been stuck I find it much easier to pop out to the garden for bit a or find something to fix on a bike or... Anything different that's easy and lets the brain meander along until it accidentally wanders up to a solution. It's amazing how much thinking you can get done while weeding a veggie patch.

I've known a Brit rocket scientist - a truly exceptional and capable fellow I miss terribly. He could certainly do all this and so much more with his time.. But him aside, are the rest of your scientists so useless that anything out of their own field leaves them stumped?

Kiwi
Pint

Re: @batfink

The day after the Brexit vote, my Turkish girlfriend was told to "fuck off back where you came from" by some knuckle dragger who overheard her speaking to her Mum on her mobile.

I find it interesting that you complain about someone's seemingly racist comments... By using something that itself has been used as a racist insult...

When we throw insults, we're no better than the person we're complaining about who threw insults we find offensive... :)

Kiwi
Paris Hilton

Re: Correlation =/= causation.

You just wait - in 3 years every company that can will be off this grey and unpleasant shithole

OOI, if you hate the UK so much why not leave? Seems like you've had ample opportunity, and even an energetic "partner" living somewhere else who could help you find a roof etc, and who you could build an amazing business with really quickly...

Kiwi
Holmes

Re: Conservatism

A high IQ is an indication of being good at IQ tests. It doesn't actually prove that you are more intelligent than someone who doesn't score as highly as you.

I know people who as kids in school failed basically every test, had a reading age of 5 by the time they were 15 and so on, yet somehow made a right decision and are considerably wealthy.

I know others who had great opportunities : natural talent, high IQ, private school from early childhood, given a great job in the family business and so on, and their lives are a mess - for those still alive.

IQ helps, but it's not a guarantee. Just like hard work often gets you tired and regretful, while many who claim "if you worked harder you'll have what I have" never really learned what hard work actually is.

My lowest IQ test score, BTW, was one that used a lot of US general knowledge. Cultural references, maths based in coin denominations (eg "nickel" and "dime' - "quarter" was obvious, obviously). That was a meagre 125. Highest has been over 150, but that used a lot of local knowledge and math questions in an area I was quite strong in back then. So I have tested with a 150+ IQ (maybe even over 160 but I can't be sure), but it's not helped me get a job. Real experience, and often a friend in the right place at the right time.

And Jemma - what do you do with yourself? I know people who're quite ruined physically yet still work. I also know many "fit and well" people who're unlikely to ever work again, because they don't get out there or will turn down anything but their 'dream job' and won't lower themselves to start in a junior role despite less experience/knowledge than anyone else working there.

Kiwi
Unhappy

Re: I thought we'd had enough of experts?

Science graduate jobs are already woefully underpaid. Importing qualified foreigners will depress wages further.

Why would foreigners want woefully underpaid jobs?

In NZ we've had these wonderful people who, for a fee, offer good high-paying jobs to desperate people - people who have qualifications but can't find work in their part of the world.

So they sell up, pay the fee, move to NZ and... What job?

To survive, they quickly have to find whatever job they can.

And we've had places offering training then work, only the quality of the training hasn't been great. The company even does the exams for the students to guarantee they pass, and the wonderful CV's get the students first-spot in the interviews for post-training jobs. Then the interviewer asks someone with certification bearing Cisco logo about some basic networking stuff in the lead up to a "how would you deal with?" type question, only to find the student with the amazing CV knows stuff-all about computers in general and nothing about networking beyond choosing an existing SSID and entering the given password.

Qualified people don't travel for low wages, they take low wages because the hoped-for or promised jobs don't materialise.

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Like Brexit or loath it...

What happens when they all decide to leave their miserable towns with shuttered coal mines, and move to this town? Clearly these kind of arguments are ridiculous, but we see exactly the same ones made as to why the UK is going to be flooded with Poles or Bulgarians or whatever.

The arguments aren't so rediculous as you may think.

Does your town have the infrastructure to handle the influx? If not, will the influx be limited until the infrastructure catches up? (Housing, roads, plumbing (water treatment, waste water etc), education, entertainment, medical, food supplies, energy/fuel....)

An influx of residents can be great for any area IF the infrastructure keeps pace. Struggling small businesses can find they need more workers, there's more resources floating around, more opportunities etc.

But if the infrastructure doesn't keep up, well.. You really have to live through it to grasp how nasty it can get. You need to be getting 4 people into a place with 2 small bedrooms that you can collectively barely afford to understand how wonderful a housing crisis is. Even more fun when the place is a run-down dump that the owner knows will be rented as people are desperate for a roof.

It's truly a wonderful thing to experience, and really widens one's appreciation for what some problems can be like. But I'm going to be selfish, and hope you never actually have to experience it yourself or watch people you love go through it. You should experience it, but I hope you don't.

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Good, good.

when asked why, stated "to stop the immigrants coming here" as a main reason.

I have a very strong dislike of NZ's broad immigration policies and what they mean for this nation.

Racism has nothing to do with it. What is a problem is the number of people who cannot afford housing, the rate at which infrastructure is falling behind. At the last election I voted for a party with a policy of reducing immigration. We still are getting between 50,000 and 70,000 people per year. I don't really give a stuff about what jobs they do, but our housing, transport, plumbing, electrical, medical etc infrastructure are NOT keeping pace and that is leading to a number of issues for our nation, including housing shortages (too many families living in cars, garages etc), looming power shortages (both due to a lack of new stations and new cabling) though there is still some spare capacity, water (Wellington has just started some work on new reservoirs - IIRC now needed 30 years ahead of earlier forecasts)

The same party I voted for also has a policy of increasing our refugee quote, which will rise to 1,500 this year - personally I'd love to see that at least doubled perhaps quadrupled. Maybe NZ could do 10,000 refugees but no other immigrants (unless some very special needs cases can be proven).

It's not racism, not even close. Nor is it xenophobia or "isolationism". It's a desire for immigrant numbers to match what the nation can sustain, and to be cut right back until the infrastructure has a chance to catch up. It's a desire to lessen the stress and even suffering many people in NZ experience, largely due to issues around immigration (that's not the only one but one that can help).

Did you ever really sit down and discuss the issues with your family? Kudos if you did. Or are you just one of those who decides that anyone who disagrees with you is stupid, without bothering to try to learn something about the other side and lessen your own ignorance?

Kiwi
Alert

Re: Good, good.

I'm sure they are going to enjoy working the fields picking fruit and veg and clearing up after old people in care homes

You do realise you're describing my life now, after years working in various industries including a number of IT-based roles?

You do realise I much enjoy the care work and garden work - much much much more than I ever enjoyed the IT work?

I'd rather wipe off some overweight old cow with diarrhoea than deal with Win10 again! At least we get supplied gloves and can actually get methods to prevent the smell being an issue!

But seriously.. I don't often get called to work in the shittier roles in this job, often just have to be present for a few hours after some medications are taken but no other active role (so can chat, garden, get on El Reg, whatever so long as I am there if the client needs me), the pay is OK, there's some travel, and I get to meet and chat with decent people who may not be able to do much physically but still have a lot they can offer (and some are just right nutters - age is NOT a guarantee of wisdom! I do some house cleaning work and other handyman work as well, as part of the job.

Some day, maybe not too far off, you may find yourself needing the help of one such as I. It might be short-term as the result of someone else's bad driving, it might be the rest of your life and your fault.. Don't denigrate us too readily because when your arse needs wiping and you can't do it yourself, you'll be grateful for someone like me to be there to treat you well while helping you do what is normally one of the most personal and solitary parts of daily life. And I may also be the one responsible for your cooking as well....

Kiwi
Gimp

Re: Good, good.

.which makes you wonder if "we need to protect the dead girls honour, her mother is distraught, make sure coutts gets locked up, make sure any evidence that might prove he's innocent gets mislaid

I truly find that sort of stuff to be disgusting beyond belief.

The media does not need to know all the details of a case. They can be ordered from the court room or given a gagging order (and lets give these things some teeth as well, make sure no one wants to risk breaking one!)

The family and friends of the victim do not need to know all the details of the case, or of what their loved one got up to in the wee hours - they can be given the option to leave the court room as well.

But the judge and/or jury - those who are deciding the guilt or innocence? They need to have all the information possible. If you're saying my death was accidental, and the prosecution is saying you deliberately strangled me, then you need to be able to say "yes, that's what he was in to, we did it often!"

It does not matter who or what the victim is or was, or what their shame their family might feel about their actions when it comes to a matter of judging innocence or guilt. If someone dies during sex as a result of something risky, and it turns out that they were into this, then the defence should be able to present it.

For a trial to be fair, all the evidence must be available.

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Good, good.

If we applied a rule that approval needs, say, 66% in favour on a, say, 80% turnout, I don't think any political decisions would ever be taken.

Plus those sorts of things can actually go against the majority view. With your example, lets say there's a 79.9999% turnout with 100% voting for something - but because it wasn't a full 80% the approval cannot be met.

IIRC at the time of the Brexit polls, we had people saying it should be a 75% majority of all voters for it to be approved. Again, it 74.999% of voters voted "leave" and one single voter voted "remain", then according to these people democracy would be served by that one person getting their wish while 74.999% of the population did not.

(I'm neither for nor against, but as Phil O'Sophical said if there I'd be doing what I can to make it work - for my family, my community and of course my self)

Windows takes a tumble in the land of the Big Mac and Bacon Double Cheeseburger

Kiwi
Coat

Actually, I was making a flippant reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat, just wanted to see if anyone would get the joke.

I'm afraid that unless one was old enough or travelled enough, one would not have met these things and would not automatically get the joke...

Yes yes, I'm going... :)

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Wash your hands

You will be amazed how quickly a trashcan appears near the door when you do that

Being clean 'n green 'n proper waste disposal 'n all that, I'd never considered such an idea! But much thanks for the suggestion, it may well help improve things in these places. And no one would ever accuse me of doing it, my reputation of being borderline OCD for leaving places cleaner than I found them makes me immune to such things! :)

I'll also make some suggestions to some managers in places I visit often enough to be on reasonable terms..

Much thanks!

Kiwi
Trollface

Re: Wash your hands

How are you going to test your immune system, if you're not going around touching things and then licking your fingers?

Anyway, McD's doesn't count as real food, so no need to wash your hands.

It probably does count as a test of the immune system though.. Even if just a test of being immune to good sense and looking elsewhere :)

Kiwi
Paris Hilton

Re: To be fair

Might work if you half the mixture and make 2 loaves so it's a bit thinner. It's great as an alternative to garlic bread with Italian meals though, E.g. mopping up sauce with lasagne or spaghetti and meatballs.

Grumble grumble.. Lasagne used to be my speciality - it's been probably 20 years since I've had any! :( Perhaps about the same for truly decent spaghetti and meatballs.

I was looking forward to Pizza tonight but someone's dropped in a load of stuff that we need to use up, so that'll be next week now. Shall be the first time I've done a stir-fry in 20 years tonight. If the stuff is as fresh/crisp as it appears at first glance (otherwise, some form of vegetable-laden stew - the tastebuds are wilting as we speak)

I'll make one batch of that bread as intended so I know how it's supposed to come out first, then look to do changes. While I seldom follow the recipe much at all, I do like to try something as intended first :)

--> We lack a "stuff cooking in a pot" icon, but I bet she's quite familiar with pot.. )

Kiwi

Re: Possible use of audio

The last time I actually went into one of those places, there were customer-facing signs saying "McDonald's Cola -- the only cola at McDonalds!" and reminders behind the tills that they sold McDonald's Cola.

There could be a good reason for that.

It's been some years since I've had a cola at McD's (just not a fan of cola and don't often eat at McDs), but the last time I did the stuff was quite watered down.

Perhaps Coke will no longer let them use their trademark if they're ruining the "brand experience" by making it so much worse than it already is. Maybe Coke still supplies McDs but are no longer willing to have their brand directly identified with something that'd make "maidens water" look like a strong drink.

FTR : I do like McD's food which is why I visit once every few months. But I also feel "familiarity breeds contempt" would be very true if I visited more than once every few months.

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Tasteless bacon

Stupormarket® meat

--> Thanks very much. Yoink - stolen!

It may be a bit of a challenge, given that they're now virtually extinct, but try to find an actual butcher shop,

Same for green grocers etc. That shite they sell in the Stupormarkets® shouldn't be fed to your worst enemy let alone someone you say you love!

You'll die in your 50s, but at least you'll die with a big smile on your face.

A bit of variety and exercise (try walking around a supermarket looking for quality food - you'll burn a billion pounds of fat before you find something worth eating!) can keep you healthy enough to enjoy good food for many more years than just "in your fifties". Have some ambition, aim to be a fat drain on the public health system well into your 90s - and telling people loudly about how they don't know know anything about food, health, or bad fad diets! :)

Kiwi
Facepalm

Re: To be fair

I know what I'm making for Thursday and Friday dinners now!

Oh, thought it was a pizza base recipe before I read it. Oh well, I can still try it and it might work as that :)

Kiwi

Re: To be fair

This one's a favourite, and no hassle if you have a mixer with a dough hook

Thanks for that! Rosemary going on the shopping list (never tried it, woe is me!). I know what I'm making for Thursday and Friday dinners now! (or maybe invite a mate round I haven't chatted with in a while).

My mixer came really really cheap. Stuck motor brushes. A little worn, but they'd jammed in their holder rather than moving out as they wore down. So it was tossed where a quick thwack probably would've got it working.

I figured a dust/grime issue when I found it, opened and cleaned and noticed the stuck brushes.. Quick clean and rebuild and away it went.

Kiwi
Boffin

Re: To be fair

I often wonder why people who can put together complex apps in half a dozen computer languages can't assemble a decent pizza..

I can!

I found a "pizza oven" unused in a 2nd-hand shop a couple of years back. Didn't take me long to be making my own bases and so on from there. The most 'processed" ingredients I use are the pre-ground flour, or the pre-packed yeast, or the cheese (mix cream and tasty cheeses), or the salaami/pepporoni (work much the same but depends on my mood and the outside temp)

The bases themselves are so simple - dunno why I never started doing it earlier and even wasted money on pre-made bases.

One thing I did quickly discover... The big franchises like 'Pizza Hutt"? Their stuff is really not that great when you make your own, and unless you live within half an hour of one of their stores (including wait times etc) you might as well make your own at home...

Kiwi
Thumb Up

Re: To be fair

Have a deserved upvote..

And teach the missus how to cook bacon!

The first part of cooking delicious bacon that isn't a let-down is to actually buy decent bacon. There really is some watered-down crap out there. Yes, it is possible for some places to sell bad bacon - usually amongst what the supermarkets laughingly call "meat". I haven't had bacon from a butcher last more than a few hours - if I wanted bacon for lunch on Sunday then I better be at the butcher no earlier than 11:30am on said Sunday, or have someone put it in a safe in a bank vault, in a dis-used lavvy.... If I brought a couple of kg's at 5:30pm on the way home for the family dinner.. Did you know you can cook bacon on your exhaust wrapped in tin foil??? Strangely I always forgot to get the bacon, and the family went hungry while I was rather stuffed...

(yes, I was addicted... Made myself sick of it :( )

Er.. TL:DR - buy decent bacon first, then get someone who knows how to cook it right. Try various styles of cooking and flavours of bacon till you find a few that make you happy..

And I agree.. There's nothing more disappointing to walk in to the lovely smell of cooking bacon, and sit down to badly cooked supermarket crap.

Kiwi
Boffin

Re: To be fair

In other words, I no longer know what to believe, so I have to assume that all claims, one way or the other, are just speculative bullshit.

It might be a big surprise to some here but I've made some moves to growing my own stuff in recent times....

I agree that anything pre-made isn't quite of the same quality as that which you grow yourself (though it can often be vastly cheaper - your head of cabbage is more than just the seeds or seedlings, there's the soil, watering, nutrients, protecting from bugs (though I've found a narrow mesh does a great job of that!)...

As to diet... Eat a balance, and enjoy what you eat. Most vegans I know are horribly unhealthy. The one who isn't has recently changed to veganism so give her time - she's on a high from her body getting nutrients it never used to and from learning new tastes and textures, but her body will run out of stuff in time and she'll be telling you how natural it is (it isn't, our gut isn't set up to fully process vegetable matter) while swallowing a truckload of supplements each day - supplements meaties don't need.

And those who eat high-meat low-fruit/veg diets aren't much better off, with many issues sometimes very early in life.

Eat a balance, enjoy what you're eating but at least once a week eat a meal for your body. Vary as much as you can (all sorts of cheap ways to do that), so you give your system a range of nutrients but also you give your mind a range of different stuff.

Me? Anyone who knew me a couple of years back would never have thought these words would come from my mouth but.. I'm over bacon, and I'm over chocolate as well.. But that's because I've had too much of both, and got sick of them, although Cadbury's various betrayals of brand fans and maxing out the sugar content so much that most of their flavours now are just "tastes the same as white sugar" didn't help. Whittaker's, now they know how to do chocolate! (though the "Milky Bar" is still the best white chocolate I know - which is probably a very sad statement on the quality of white chocolate I've had!).

Er, yeah anyway.. Eat a variety, exercise some (sitting on your arse all day doing nothing useful will ruin your health just as easily as a bad diet!), enjoy what you can and forget what you can't.. And ignore the fad diets - at least until someone finds a very tasty creamy greasy meal that's perfectly healthy...

Kiwi
Coat

Re: secret recipe

Maybe you could do both: patent the recipe but also add a trade secret ingredient? I don't know.

Not sure if there's a patent involved, but KFC did pretty successfully keep their recipe a secret for I think over 100 years.

From what I recall the stuff was made in part in separate plants, mixed in another, and shipped ready-to-use to the "restaurants".

ICBW, and wish there was an easy way to check my facts without visiting a library or encyclopaedia... :)

Kiwi
Gimp

Re: Wash your hands

And how do you let yourself out of the toilet after washing them?

I use a few tricks.. Preferably aim for places that have doors that pull out, so when you're in there you push to open. Or look for ones that have hand towels and a bin near enough to use a clean towel to open the door then toss the towel in the bin, or another nearby bin on the way through.

Sometimes I'll wash them before entering the store. Or order food to go and take it somewhere.

And no, not touching those screens for any purpose. As with my last post, I quite loudly refuse. This coronavirus scare will certainly give a decent excuse.. Or maybe "I have AIDS, are you sure you want me touching that?" or something... (New headlines "AIDS Patient Refused Service in McD's" with all the hand-wringing and pitchforks-at-noon etc that goes with such things)

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Wash your hands

"the screens themselves were infamously reported as being coated with all manner of invisible effluent from patrons."

And that is why you were always told to wash your hands before eating food.

I was told by one of their staff I had to order from them. Very loudly proclaimed I had no idea who'd been wanking just before coming in there (emphasis on "coming") and touching those screens. I think their custom and use of the screens dropped off a bit that night....

Kiwi
Paris Hilton

Re: That's nice....

I asked them about it several months ago and received the usual, "Meh. Not my problem" response.
That seems to be par for the course for VF and 'issues' the world over.

I think it'd make global headlines, financial markets would crash, doomsday mongers would claim they were proven right and the 2nd coming was happening on next nearby convenient date should Vodafone ever actually properly fix an issue, handle a customer complaint in a reasonable and timely manner, or just get something right for a change.

(I've met 2 people this week who've said they're waiting for their 2 year contract to end then they're done with VF.. Had to warn them to be sure it doesn't "auto renew" as VF have apparently done to some unwary souls).

Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly? It's about to be screwed for... reasons

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Sonos equals convienience

Do you have any idea of the quantity of data that would be generated by just one household?

Yup. At a pretty decent recording level (not studio quality but plenty enough to work with) you're looking at about 7mb/5 minutes. Using really modern voice-activation technology (like from the 70s or earlier for small devices) to automatically start/stop recording based on sound level, you can limit it to just when people are speaking - so not necessarily 24 hours/day. You would need a little over 2g for 24 hours of conversation.

But without going into more detail, just consider how many home/business camera systems record and hold the data for weeks or months (or more) at a time. They're not just audio but also video (not particularly high quality video but video just the same).

Time doesn't permit me to do a search right now, but there have been articles linking echos or Samsung TVs or something to recorded conversations used some time later (possible an "accidental" release of someone's conversation to a neighbour? Can't quite recall).

The mass of data won't be useful but that isn't reason for a company to not take it if they can. Given the metrics on what Google, Facebook, Amazon etc try to take anyway (and things like Nest fire alarms having built-in microphones..), and given how many people have experienced being near a conversation on a certain topic NOT of interest to them and later getting ads on that topic (I wonder sometimes how much is us just being more aware of it, but OTOH when a friend talks about a newborn baby and then your ads start showing baby products a week later, or one talks about their trip to Phuket and island holiday ads show up the next week...)

I'm not actually saying this does happen of course, but I do respect my privacy enough not to have devices in the home that are designed to listen to conversations and act on what is said. (And yes, my laptop's microphone is disabled in hardware, and if we're having a private conversation phones are left elsewhere)

Kiwi
Thumb Up

Re: Alternatives

Yes - a Raspberry Pi with "Kodi" on board can be controlled by any mobile phone within the home network. The bolt-on ES 9023 sound card feeds a small stereo PLL FM transmitter (about 50 mW into a ¼-wave vertical) via a homebrew audio limiter up in the loft.

Yeah, something like that :) I'd probably swap out Kodi for Music Player Daemon (assuming it's available, should be) but that's because I'm more familiar with it (though I use Kodi for all my videos) :)

Would the Pi's onboard sound not suffice? I've not looked at the specs but I'm aware of a few places using it. Or is the ES's BT/NFC part of your setup? (though looking at the ES specs, I can see a few reasons I'd spend a little more :) )

Kiwi
Alien

Re: Why indeed...

Trevor actually cried after the tests (during which none of us was able to identify which cable was in use) when we revealed that the "amazing" speaker cable we were using was Woolworths lighting twin flex or lawnmower orange-sheathed twin! At the time, the Woolies cable was 25p / yard.

Cruel but necessary... When people start getting into the corporate kool-aid about expensive audio cables, it really is necessary to yank their world out from under them. If it doesn't end in tears today whilst amongst friends, it can only end far worse later on.

You did "Trevor" a massive favour.

--> Still need a "cynical bastard" icon!

Take DOS, stir in some Netware, add a bit of Windows and... it's ALIIIIVE!

Kiwi
Linux

Re: HP drivers...

The specific DLL couldn't be manually uninstalled or deleted. Whatever HP had done had fixed that DLL into place stronger than concrete. Nothing would shift it.

Whenever I came across an "immovable file" on a client's machine, I fed it some Mint. Seemed to clear up whatever was ailing it right quick!

(Usually took an image of the disk first, but not always - depended on the value of data/whether the client was certain they had a recent backup etc)

Kiwi

If you want to blame anyone for the limit, blame Intel. Had they used page aligned (256B) segments rather than paragraph aligned (16B) ones for the 808x, we would have had a 16GB address space for Real Mode programs rather than a 1MB one. The hack of banking switching memory above 1MB into the HMA would have been totally unnecessary.

I doubt any one could've afforded it. I remember in the mid-late 90s 2nd hand 72pin RAM was >$NZ50/MB. The machine could've addressed more, but my wallet wouldn't!

Kiwi

p.s. Remember this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview#DESQview_and_QEMM

Yup.. Loved it, and ran it on my BBS machine (which was also my only machine for a while). 2 nodes + one for me, as well as some extras.

There was a 'spawn" or similar named program for Desqview, and this would open a new 'task window" (I'll call it that coz I don't recall the name) and run whichever command you'd fed it. For the BBS, when it received mail from another system, I made great use of "spawn" to get the processing happing in a "background" task, allowing the front end to recycle in a few seconds (Binkleyterm IIRC, though I played with Front Door, Xenia and something else a few times. Then again, maybe the BBS ended on Xenia.. Was some 20 years back :( )

Free Software Foundation suggests Microsoft 'upcycles' Windows 7... as open source

Kiwi
Linux

Re: I'd like a pony with that one, please

Again, read his post, or does your fanboism make you too blind to see what's Infront of your own eyes?

Ah.. In other words, you're unable to explain how there's "extra hurdles" that you were imagining, and just hoped we'd buy into you own "fanboism". Thanks for proving my point!

Kiwi
Pint

Re: open source wouldn't solve the problem

I will stop feeding the troll!

Feeding trolls is fine.. So long as you're using rat poison or equivalent!

Kiwi
FAIL

Re: I'd like a pony with that one, please

Antisol described the extra hurdles. He didn't use the phrase "extra hurdles".

I used the phrase "Extra Hurdles" to describe said extra hurdles.

Nothing difficult for me to grasp, but I think you're imagining things that just aren't there.

Most of the crickets are dead, but there's still time for you to explain what you believe are these "extra hurdles".

Or are you really unable to do so?

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Happily using Linux for 20 years

And to expand on that :-

Thanks very much for the post.

I try not to be in a position of doing any image editing (not that I do a lot of work, only 30K images in my collection) but is nice to have stuff there I should be looking at later.

I've often seen people like Snake make those claims, but the pros I know disagree. They're mostly doing batch processing as you mentioned, and seldom need to do any work to alter their pictures afterwards (aside from basics like colour correction and cropping/stitching panoramas)

Kiwi
Coat

Re: Do they know an open source Windows would be the death of Linux?

If it was superior, it would have been already taken the Windows place

Well that's odd, I could have sworn my keyboard was qwerty and not dvorak.

Almost any other OS vs Windows (esp OS/2 warp 4 vs 95), VHS vs BETA, Chrome vs Firefox (and forks), bikes vs cars, rail freight vs road freight, many other places where the clearly obviously better choice has been beaten by the clearly obviously rubbish choice.

(Given Android runs a Linux kernel, and there seems to be more Android devices than Windows ones these days, it may be fair to say 'Droid has beaten Windows anyway - just not on the desktop)

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Happily using Linux for 20 years

Just Wow. I hadn't seen that comment. The one that also implies that the OS is crap because the software he insists on using isn't available for it, and that this is somehow Linux's fault and not Adobe's.

Yeah.. Some of my toys are "linux only" or 'dos only", so Windows must be crap. My ancient V3 RAZR had a game I liked that I've not seen elsewhere and it's calendar was not compatible with other standard ones, so all other OS's must be crap and all other calendar systems must be crap.

Really would be cool if Adobe released their CC stuff under Linux.. Cooler still would be if it had a few extra features only available in the Linux version :)

Snake is well and truly out of credibility at this point.

Yup.

"only Photoshop can do!"

I know right. it's almost like they're making statements about the usability of software they've never actually tried.

I wouldn't go that far. In fact, I'd only go so far as "software they've never seen. As yo so rightly point out, the layers window is quite visible when you first open it, as is the "Layer" item on the menu bar of the main window. Any screen shot of GIMP in operation would show at least one of those. So either Snake hasn't seen GIMP, or Snake is knowingly making false statements.

I also note that nobody has come here to tell me about how great photoshop is at bulk-processing hundreds of exposures and stitching gigapixel images together.

Oh but no real photographer would ever do that! If you cannot do it in Photoshop you aren't a photographer! Snake tells me that anyone who is a professional photographer uses Photoshop and anyone who doesn't use Photoshop is not a professional photographer. And he knows what he is saying! After all he is the single person the entire industry has designated as official spokesman! (Well, given his posts you can't blame me for thinking that's how he views himself can you? :) )

After all, I'm sure photoshop is probably what NASA used to stitch this together.

<jaws mode>I think we're gonna need a bigger screen!</jaws mode>

Actually I don't think that's a real image. Looks photoshopped to me.... :)

Thanks for the pic BTW. Tonight I shall turn out lights, turn down brightness, sit real close to the screen and enjoy. Mum might be screaming from the grave about how I'll hurt my eyes, but I won't care - some things are worth a bit of risk :)

I did have a look at sharing one of my better ones but I'm not sure about copyright (it's one I've licensed someone to use). I will have to plan a nice cold clear winter's day to re-shoot - and maybe I can do it better. 360° mountain/plain panorama, 300 individual images (so each one covering just over a degree of view), taken IIRC in groups of 30 pictures from 10 positions around a tall water tower. Took me some effort to work out the geography for the shooting angles as well as the lens/focus to get the best mix for what I wanted. I may actually try doing two cylinders next time, one for foreground and one for distance, but just thinking about thinking about it makes my head hurt. At least I can probably use 2 lenses, 50mm for the near stuff and 300mm for the far stuff. Set the lenses, re-position the camera, shoot, swap lens, shoot, move, shoot, swap lens, shoot... Maybe use 2 cards (1 per lens) as well so I can keep better track of stuff.. Ug.. Result should be great but the effort....

One thing I've noticed with "must use photoshop no real photographer uses anything else" types is they never actually go to any real effort to take the shot. Most of my work is done before the first photon hits the censor, most of their work is done falsifying what the sensor captured. I don't sell many images, but what I sell is something I can be proud of, not hang my head in shame knowing it's a lie.

Kiwi
FAIL

Re: I'd like a pony with that one, please

Just read the post I was replying too. I only got my information from that. You're shooting the mesenger.

You're the one who made the claim of "Extra hurdles".

AntiSol did not say there were any hurdles in his post.

So again, pray tell what are these hurdles of which you speak? These crickets aren't going to live forever you know!

Kiwi

Re: I'd like a pony with that one, please

"I consider my experiences using SuSE 6.3 in 1998 to be still rather indicative of what to expect of Linux-based OSes today"

That's like using Win 95 to be indicative of Win today, there is no real comparison.

Now be fair.. More like Win 98 to today...

(Then again, W98 was more popular and much more intuitive than W10 (used!=popular)

Beware the Friday afternoon 'Could you just..?' from the muppet who wants to come between you and your beer

Kiwi
Pint

Re: The joys of family tech support

My dad makes a list of PC issues , and presents me with them on each visit.

My Uncle was great with that. I'll be there 2 days before moving on to someone else... No talk of computers.. Have the bike loaded, the riding gear on, be saying goodbye and then "Oh by the way, while you're here, I've been having trouble with..." and out comes a list of things that'd take a few hours to fix, that could've been done while we were chatting over coffee on the first day... Sometimes they'd require a full backup before proceeding.

When 10 came out and started giving him serious headaches, I made a small change and now his computer runs mint! He loves it, many fewer issues, and I can remotely correct them quite easily.

(Dunno about elsewhere, but in Kiwiland saying a car was 'running mint" meant it was running very well)

Kiwi
Pint

Re: No good deed...

Days later he's moaning its too slow to play games on so he's bought himself a 'proper' computer.

Quite amazing how quickly some 'skint' people can come into money when the machine you spent some time on (and maybe wasn't free to you if you didn't have quite enough spares) wasn't good enough.

Amazing how quickly some can moan about how bad you are with computers when - surprisingly - the free machine doesn't perform quite as well as another friend's $11,000 gaming rig (with 2 kilowatt PSUs, 3 top-end graphics cards.....)

Even more fun when the machine you made clear to them was a long-term loaner that you wanted back when they upgraded becomes "Oh it was rubbish so I threw it out, I didn't want it around the house any more".

And that gets better still when the next words are "BTW, this new machine isn't quite right, can you come round and fix it for free? You know how poor I am" ("No sorry, I don't do Windows work anymore, no clue what I'm doing with it").

[--> Make mine a 'bitter' please, with a 'twist' of lemon!]

Kiwi
Pint

Re: not a fortune but still

Same thing, different amount of fur.

Disgustingly, some of the machines I've had to work on have more "fur" than any woolly mammoth!

[El Reg, we need a 'mindbleach' icon!]

Windows 7 back in black as holdouts report wallpaper-stripping shenanigans

Kiwi

Re: System restore!

Just do a system restore to a previous date and cancel windows update, simple!

That hasn't always been possible. IIRC the GWX (or a related) update either removed previous restore points or left something on the disk that wasn't touched by restore to make it install itself again as part of the "restore" process.

I can't clearly recall the details (or even if it was XP, Vista or 7) but there was some shenanigans with one of the updates that couldn't be undone with SR.

(I still think SR is perhaps the best thing MS has put into Windows)

Kiwi

Re: yes, yes...

In my experience it's down to how you're accessing the installer.

That may actually be it. The vast majority were pre UEFI boards, others had it turned off for ease of use (some of the pre-UEFI tool boot disks didn't play well with it). And out of habit I've tended to turn it off.

If I a) remember, b) find a spare disk and c) can be bothered I'll actually turn UEFI on and do a test install when I'm giving my better machine a good clean out this weekend. But, a & b will probably kill that long before c gets a look in :)