* Posts by MonkeyCee

1254 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2013

SpaceX wows world with a ho-hum launch of a reused rocket, landing it on a tiny boring barge

MonkeyCee

Re: Bad people winning the world.

"AFAICT, Elon Musk is not a nice guy to work for"

Probably true. He seems obsessive, and keen to use his smarts to make things happen. Well, become a billionaire, then go make things happen. See other comments regarding the in at dawn, out at midnight work ethic.

I'd rather more of the 0.1% with ~45% of the wealth did things like this, rather than vanity projects.

A competent arsehole owner/boss who will fight tooth and nail for their company, when you share in their vision, can be great to work for. Exhausting, frustrating, but getting shit done well with management onboard is a wonderful thing. Musk doesn't even steal nearly as much credit as he could.

He's a terrible businessman anyway. Rocketry is all about bilking the government through a cartel, not launching things into orbit at a low cost :)

Trump's America looks like a lousy launchpad, so can you dig Darwin?

MonkeyCee

Fuel + oxidizer = thrust

The development has, in my limited understanding of scary chemicals, come around full circle to using essentially the same fuel mix as the original designs. For the part where you're going through atmosphere liquid oxygen and kerosene is highly effective and very safe. Safe compared to pretty much everything else suitable, and there's obviously a fair bit of engineering going into making all go bang at the right time in the right direction.

For the parts outside atmosphere, I know about as much as wikipedia does. Liquid oxygen and hydrogen apparently.

But doing it the same way for years when you've got a highly effective solution is usually a Good Thing when it's as error tolerant as a rocket.

COP BLOCKED: Uber app thwarted arrests of its drivers by fooling police with 'ghost cars'

MonkeyCee

Re: An alternate perspective

"I don't get the point about how the concept of an app that connects drivers and passengers to enable carpooling etc. can have so many ethical issues in some peoples' eyes."

Because companies that provide these services already exist, chiefly taxis and minicabs/private hire vehicles. There are existing, often quite extensive, laws and regulations that cover them, the vehicles they use, and the people who drive them.

Uber avoids some to all of these, whilst taking the business from the existing companies. It also pushes a lot of the compliance issues that would normally be expected to be taken on by the company onto it's drivers.

So while the current systems are not perfect, and there are no doubt real problems with deliberate shortage of NY taxi medallions, or with sexual predators driving taxis, Uber won't help (and will make worse) the safety aspect, whilst *probably* improving the market aspect.

Uber is cheaper because it isn't complying with rules that add extra cost (access for mobility impaired persons etc) and because they pay their subcontracted drivers less than normal taxi drivers. So by cutting corners and lying about what they are doing they gain an advantage over the law abiding competition.

Why they're still making a loss is a bit of a mystery, since they should be quids in, less their legal bills.

MonkeyCee

Re: Cleared?

"I don't know that NZ would have such protections around entrapment. Given National's track record of changing laws when cops do illegal things to make it no longer illegal...."

NZ cops obviously source their internal lawyers from the same source as Uber :)

It's pretty common that the following occurs:

1. Court case falls apart when the evidence is shown to have not been collected legally*

2. Cops point out their lawyers said it was OK

3. Judge points out that no-one asked the courts, and that the police lawyers are wrong

4. Cops point out that they'll have to toss hundreds of convictions, and abandon several other prosecutions

5. Judge says "try doing your job within the law then FFS"

6. Cops pull strings with politicians

7. Law gets changed to fit cops position

* The public can take pictures in public spaces freely. The cops must still apply for warrants even if the cameras/mics are located in public, unless it's a permanently installed CCTV

We found a hidden backdoor in Chinese Internet of Things devices – researchers

MonkeyCee

Re: FFS since when is a GSM to VOIP gateway...

"I find the "Fake News" term boils down to sloppy reporting combined with indifferent editing"

Erm, no. That's not what fake news is. It originally was used to describe events that did not happen, that are being presented as having occurred, in order to elicit a particular response or confirm a particular viewpoint. It's the latest new/old thing in terms of propaganda and misinformation.

Most "proper" reporting involves some element of cherry picking or selectively ignoring facts that don't suit your narrative, rather than outright lies. Outlets that deliberately lie for satirical effect only get away with it because it is considered clear that it is not to be trusted. Same for gossip mags and Weird News type publications. Places like InfoWars and Breitbart (and equivalents from the loony left) should come with the same "pinch of salt" type deal.

What the Donald does is declare any story he dislikes, or feels does not 100% represent his views as "fake news", which also helpfully distracts from the issue of how certain countries are using fake news articles as propaganda to forward their own goals. Still better than him calling the free press "enemies of the people"

Obviously the USA and the Ruskies are the ones at the forefront of these shenanigans.

Two-thirds of TV Licensing prosecutions at one London court targeted women

MonkeyCee

"Men are 22 times as likely as women to be imprisoned. We should do something to correct this imbalance."

Perhaps men should stop committing the majority of crime. 98% convicted rapists are men. Roughly 80% of those convicted of assault, burglary, robbery and domestic violence are male. Same for vehicular theft, vandalism and handling stolen property.

White collar crimes are a bit more equal, although men are usually more likely (60-40) to have been convicted off them. Embezzlement, fraud that sort of thing.

That women generally get lighter sentences is an issue, but it's not enough to explain the differences in prison population.

As for the telly licence convictions, partially due to women being less likely to tell a person at their door to fuck off. Which tends to be my default if they are trying to sell anything.

I've let the cops in when they ask nicely, without a court order, but only because I'd rather they didn't decide I was uncooperative.

Prisoners' 'innovative' anti-IMSI catcher defence was ... er, tinfoil

MonkeyCee

Re: Wouldn't it be cheaper...

"wouldn't it be cheaper just to put a round of .303 into the cranium of any offender"

Of course it would be cheaper. Just lead to a completely different society, and where offence escalation is the norm, so if you catch someone doing something that will get them executed, they'll consider murdering you, since it's not going to make any difference. There's also the small issue that we're all guilty of something.

It's also a lot cheaper if instead of treating cancer in people over 40, heart disease in those over 50 and pretty much anything over 70, we just give them a big shot of morphine and comfy place to pass on.

Cost-benefit is not really a good plan when it comes to human life.

Also deterrents don't work (alas). Or more specifically don't work on those who are getting jailed, as they've already decided violating the moral/ethical/legal rules are OK for a certain situation.

MonkeyCee

Re: Ready for the down votes, but...

"a few low powered jammers dotted around the prison buildings would suffice."

Based on my limited knowledge and experience, the answer is no, that will not suffice.

NZ Corrections has some barmy contract for some private company to block mobile signals. Original budget was 20 million plus a million a year to run it. Currently cost ~2 billion, and is about 95% effective (at the cost of ruining mobile around prison sites), meaning that almost all confiscated phones fall into the 5% of phone+sim combinations that work. There are also often spots where you can get a clear signal which are not apparent in a site survey, but are to lags who have a lot of time on their hands.

Having the telecoms company trace and log/block phones was the more sensible and realistic option, but wasn't done as it would have had a higher running cost.

Post-Brexit five-year UK work visas planned – report

MonkeyCee

Re: Meanwhile...

"you'll being laying in that hospital trolley even longer"

Don't worry, with the changes to IR35 you won't even have to wait that long.....

I reckon 6 weeks or a cold snap until the NHS starts to properly break down.

MonkeyCee

Re: If only..

I have, in part due to economy. But mainly because I'm married to a citizen of that country, my child is a citizen of that country, and I own a house there.

Since I've had the right to live and work here since before I was born, having this taken away* is a real PITA. Every institution pretty much shrugs and says "For two years it'll be the same, after that fuck knows".

So thanks to this BS I may well be forcibly separated from my family**, have no ability to plan for work or study after a two year horizon.

I also don't really want a third citizenship. It's annoying enough for tax with two, one being commonwealth.

*to some degree, to be decided when the brexiters get round to working out their plan in a realistic universe, and resolving that with the EU's universe. Which leaves me utterly re-assured.

** it's pretty likely that either Germany, Belgium or the Netherlands will let me become a resident, since I pay tax and don't break the law much, as there is quite strong political will towards keeping their brits

MonkeyCee

Immigration

Pedant alert:

Net immigration is ~300k. Actual immigration is ~650k, so about ~280k comes from the EU and another ~290k from the rest of the world, the remainder being returning brits.

Get orf the air over moi land Irish farmer roars at drones

MonkeyCee

Holy hell John. Look, I know all your comment is saying is that you're a big man with a gun who don't need no help dealing with all the scum of the earth, but jeez....

First up, this story is not in the UK. Although the legal codes are pretty close, and to a USian it can get confusing.

But even assuming that, it take about ten seconds googling to find out how the actual law is applied, so I've no idea where the utter bollocks you're spouting comes from. If you don't know, feel free to ask. And if you just want to say "In Texas, I'd have shot them all and buried them in the desert" just skip to that, rather than lying about the law.

Here's the summery from the CPS

https://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/householders.html

In short, you can use reasonable force to secure your property, and reasonable force to defend yourself and others. This includes using a weapon, and is based on your perception of threat. So in your example, arson/attempted murder, home invasion or rape would almost certainly allow you to use a firearm in defense. For securing your property I would expect that threatening by pointing would be OK, but no shooting. For trespass alone, pointing is probably over the top. You should still call the cops first, but you're not legally prevented from taking care of yourself.

If someone gets killed or injured, then it seems reasonable that people get investigated. The CPS in general will not be prosecuting you over and above the intruder for threatening them. Even if you kill them, you may well escape prosecution. However if you set out to harm them, by not calling the cops, setting a trap, or harming them after they have been subdued, then you could (IMHO should) be prosecuted.

The perception of the US as trigger happy is that there seem to be an awful lot of people being shot. As compared to say Canada, which also has high gun ownership, lots of rural areas etc.

Jinn workers besiege delivery app co-founder to protest wage changes

MonkeyCee

Re: Targeting immigrants as a workforce?

"In the UK?? That doesn't seem like a good long term strategy what with Brexit and all."

Unless you're hell bent on employing EU workers, brexit is going to make ZERO difference to the ability for immigrant workers to come to the UK. Turns out if you reduce the supply from area, it increases from others.

Half the current immigration (120-150 thousand a year net, 280-300k gross) comes from countries outside the EU, over which the UK has pretty full control over whom they let in. Despite much talk from T.May, both as her stint in the Home Office and as PM, she has presided over the largest amount of immigration to the UK for 30 years.

It's all in the carefully chosen words. "Taking control over immigration" "control of our borders" "getting the right sort of migrants". Sounds enough like "kick out the furrners" to get the racist vote, while allowing the politicians plenty of wriggle room to keep the supply of cheaper labour entering the market while waving their hands and saying "we never promised *that* you silly peons".

We've found a ‘vaccine’ for fake news. Wait! No, we really are Cambridge researchers

MonkeyCee

Re: Is this about fake news, or hidden ways of censorship?

"And what "facts" would that be, considering that global warming is one of the most hottest topics for debate around the world right now?"

Really? I thought the debate was fairly settled on "climate change is happening" and that global warming (leading to wetter weather etc) was definitely happening.

If it's caused (or how much the cycle is influenced) by human activity is still being argued, but that seems fairly clear to most people.

What should be done is definitely not settled, still being debated, yadda yadda.

As for the whole "fake news" shebang, it's interesting what is considered fake and what isn't (despite not being true). Cameron and the pig was clearly bollocks, utterly unsupported by any evidence, but everyone ran with it, because it was funny.

People also prefer lies/fake news/alternate facts because the truth often is complex and fails to support whatever view someone is expressing without a spot of selective editing. Eg: USAians are super litigious even when it's clearly their own fault using the example of McDonalds hot coffee, even though the facts of that case point to the opposite, that serving food or drink at too high temperature in flimsy containers is dangerous. Or bitching about H+S while ignoring how many lives it has saved. Or the whole brexit campaign, on both sides.

A lie can get around the world twice before the truth gets it's boots on and all that.

Why Theresa May’s hard Brexit might be softer than you think

MonkeyCee

Re: Stretch your legs on March 25

Lying isn't election fraud. Alas.

The ASA also doesn't moderate political ads.

It's also a bit of clever rhetoric, since it asked something more along the lines of "We send x bajillion to the EU, wouldn't it be better spent on the NHS?" which is not a promise to do anything. You can also agree with that even while voting Remain.

Not counting the rebate is a manipulation of facts in the statistics/accounting deception style. Anyone who cares enough to understand is aware the figure is lower, but is less likely to be swayed by the line in the first place.

It was also a neat trick of having multiple "official" Leave campaigns. Their claims supported each other, but they could always point to the other side and say "I never promised that". I have trouble keeping straight who said what out of Gove, Farage and BoJo, along with the vario

Ooops! One in three tech IPOs now trading below their starting price

MonkeyCee

Re: Why?

"Is whoring your users from advertiser to advertiser really that profitable?"

Short answer, yes.

Bear in mind that various traditional media, with far more real-world costs (newsprint, radio, TV) can make good money purely on selling adverts. Hence why "free" papers continue to be profitable.

Facebook is a media company where other people generate the content. Much like Google and the various other social media platforms. It's just much much MUCH more personally targeted, both data gathering and in advertising.

The part that bothers me most is less the shilling of goods and services, it's the influence and manipulation that FB et al are being paid directly to do. Political advertising is obviously not illegal, but is influential when you can target specific demographics with just the right sort of article/ad.

FB and the Tories have kept a bit of a lid on it, but the 2015 election win is widely held to have been due to micro targeted advertising campaigns through FB aimed at swing voters in tight races. There's some suggestion that the negative campaigning worked even better, persuading Labour voters to switch to SDP/Greens/UKIP in races the cons couldn't win.

Considering how effective gerrymandering has been in the UK and USA for breaking representative democracy, and the resistance to any form of change to the systems, this will just allow an even more effective form of forging consent and ensuring people vote the right way, even if for the wrong reasons.

No idea how to deal with it either. Obviously banning political advertising is Not Cool, since that can pretty much be used to cudgel any dissident opinion, and requiring warnings like "this utterly baseless piece of propaganda was brought to you by $Party" is going to be dodged pretty quickly, since there are plenty of think-tanks etc that can be used to front someone else's agenda.

So since FB can probably now sell you the ability to win an election, I'm pretty sure they've got their money+power printing machine running quite nicely thanks.

I'm sure there's a modern equivalent to "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel", it'll be interesting to see what happens if some party pisses off Zuck enough for him to break them.

CBI: Brexit Britain needs a 'sensible and flexible' immigration programme

MonkeyCee

Re: Employers have called for a "sensible" immigration programme

My issue with the Leave voters is very little to do with what each of them individually decided on as their reason(s) for voting that way, but that that many of their views where mutually contradictory.

Most will repeat things that are demonstrably false. When these falsehoods are explained, they are dismissed as the conclusion is clearly "correct" and doesn't need no steenkin' evidence. The persistence of BJ's assorted euro myths managing to show the EU as being some evil empire, rather than the UK being somewhat incompetent (eg prawn cocktail flavorings)

" It's incredibly bigoted, almost fascist perspective that only serves to divide our society "

Perhaps you missed the lessons on what fascism is. It's about might = right, that force is the only true measure. You'll notice that it was a right wing, Britain first, Leave voting chap who decided to gun down a democratically elected representative because he disagreed with her.

If you're voting for the same cause as the actual fascists, then I'd take a good hard look at yourself.

PS Remainers are about as racist as the Leavers, just in an "exploit them" rather than "shoot 'em all" kind of way

MonkeyCee

Re: @Doctor Syntax: It will be horrific

"apparently the locals are basically to f'ing lazy and work shy to actually get up each morning and pull veggies out of the ground."

That's one way of putting it.

My experience is that unskilled agricultural laborers are treated like stock. You get driven to the field in a cattle wagon, you have to work fast and accurately whilst freezing your tits off, and you get called a lazy PoS if you suggest that maybe they should follow even the most basic of safety rules or have work breaks more than once every four hours.

Much the same as hospitality manages to flaunt labor and H+S rules, and if you disagree you get shown the door, there is a cultural acceptance of a way of working that most people find a tad dickensian. I've also found that if there is even a whiff of a union or basic knowledge of labor rights it is a very good way to get your hours cut to zero.

In defence of farmers, since I've got plenty of friends and family who are, they have one of the hardest jobs out there, and they expect much the same of their staff.

Oh, and whatever happens wrt brexit, seasonal EU labor is hear to stay. The laborers just don't get to. Stay that is. Just make sure they are shipped in and out each year, and May can say they aren't immigrants.

MonkeyCee

Re: It will be horrific

" "you're going to have to dig your own potatoes."

There'll be enough unemployed natives looking for seasonal work."

If there where such natives, then there wouldn't be the need for migrant labor in the first place.

It's incredibly naive to think that by blocking one source of cheap labor migrants, that somehow the local labor force will suddenly decide to pick up the slack, rather than there will be migrants from other countries instead.

AI shoves all in: DeepStack, Libratus poker bots battle Texas Hold 'em pros heads up

MonkeyCee

Re: The use of games to train and test AI is prolific

Good poker players can still read you through a screen. Most of the actual play is interpreting what bids the other player(s) are making, and thus what they are claiming to have.

So you can make pretty good play by making a bot "tight and aggressive" with fairly simple mathematics. You can teach someone who knows a bit about probabilities, and paying attention to how quickly a player makes a decision can also give quite a lot away. So less "Ted rubs his ear" but more "Ted tokk less than a second to decide, Ted is probably not bluffing".

Teaching a decent Magic player how to beat fish takes a few hours. Anyone who can handle high school stats should be able to after maybe 6-8 hours practice. It's much less about what odds does hand x have, and much more about how much of the pot is your money, and thus what your expected profit is if you call/raise.

You can memorise the 20-25 hold'em hands that you should play, and fold the rest. That alone will allow you to beat most face-to-face players.

As always with AI research, it's only really useful if it's a general rather than specific AI. Which is the point why Deepmind is actual AI, wheras Deep Blue was a specific problem solver.

Florida Man sues Verizon for $72m – for letting him commit identity theft

MonkeyCee

Re: Not only in America

"In fact, the precedent base at present is - if there is the smallest suspicion that you have done it deliberately setting up "burglar punishment facilities", then you are at fault."

IANAL but my understanding is that the crime being committed (by the homeowner) is something like "setting man traps". In NZ at least it's still used, dating from people setting traps for poachers. This is generally a bad idea, since while scrotes are scum, you can't go around killing and maiming them. As much as that sounds nice, vigilante justice, especially blind (no check on who falls in the pit or triggers trap) is strongly discouraged.

Only know this since some charming vegan save-the-planet types poisoned the milk at a previous workplace, and that was what they got charged with, as no-one was actually harmed.

Barcodes stamped on breast implants and medical equipment

MonkeyCee

Re: But how to know if someone has an implant?

My implants have a serial number that I have several printed copies off, also recorded in a database. No writing required. Also comes with barcode and QR code, something humans are also poor at reproducing ;)

Not sure how useful the bar code being on the things would be, it's also a bitch to engrave titanium.

Pro tip, don't get kicked in the face. Even the best replacement teeth are worse and waaay more hassle than the originals.

How Rogue One's Imperial stormtroopers SAVED Star Wars and restored order

MonkeyCee

Vader

It had proper bad guys. Who are scheming against each other, which adds to their depth.

Had decent action sequences, and (IMHO) a proper character arc for the protagonists. If you attempt a suicidal mission against all odds than success still involves you all dying in the process. Which the protagonists accept, don't spend their time whining about, so their deaths have some gravitas. Rather than some redshirt or Sean Bean dying at the end of act 1 and everyone else lives happily ever after. Duty heavy as iron and all that.

Still has the usual issues with the fairy tale of the US. Plucky (American) rebels against evil (British) empire, evil empire is super evil for no point other than to justify chaos caused by rebels. Wheras for most non-USians the empire is pretty clearly the US, with it's super CV being taken out by the equivalent of a zodiac with a limpet mine, and plenty of oppressing brown people in sandy countries.

Landmark EU ruling: Legality of UK's Investigatory Powers Act challenged

MonkeyCee

Indeed

GCHQ may well do what they like, but they have been shown to have been breaking the (very small) amount of legal restrictions that where placed on them, and deliberately hiding the evidence from the court that is supposed to have oversight of them.

So passing the law to retroactively make ~15 years of illegal surveillance legal, and the retention of data also legal was pretty much the goal. It's why the same legislation has been making the rounds for a decade or so now.

Non-existent sex robots already burning holes in men’s pockets

MonkeyCee

Sex surveys

Slightly off topic, but sex surveys are one of the handy tools to show just how inaccurate surveys are, especially when dealing with anything that is not the norm to be publicly discussed.

Durex does surveys into people's sex lives, as part of their market research for selling condoms. For straight people, apparently men have on average 3-5 times the number of partners (over a lifetime) than women, based on survey answers*. Since proving that the average number of partners for both genders** in this section of the population is equal is trivial, it's clear that some combination of the following factors:

- people lie about their number of partners

- people have different definitions of "sex", such as counting (or not) oral-only partners

- men with low numbers and women with high numbers do not answer the survey

It's also one of the more fun examples to give in class when showing that self selecting surveys will almost always miss data. CPI basket of goods selection is far more important (wealthy people do not answer it) but less interesting to show that you can clearly see incorrect results.

* exact rate depends on country, NZ being the only place where the ratio is roughly 1:1.

** This is for straight people who've only had partners of the opposite gender

Trump's 140 characters on F-35 wipes $2bn off Lockheed Martin

MonkeyCee

Re: The new President

"What a way to run a country."

To be fair we haven't seen how Pence will run the country yet.

Trump is going to be spending all his time being presidential, he doesn't rely have time for policy, domestic or foreign.

Make Christmas Great Again: $149 24-karat gold* Trump tree ornament

MonkeyCee

Re: Drumpf was the grandfathers name

Neither Trump nor Farage are anti-immigrant. Both their politics and personal life clearly show that.

They are against the "wrong sort" of immigrant. White ladies with careers who like wealthy douche bags are perfectly acceptable, even if they flout working visas.

Since they are usually clueless about what sort of person migrates, what age/gender they are, and their average economic contribution, because all their "good immigrants" tend to fall into the category of "immigrants".

Both Farage and Trump are quite keenly aware that the support they get for immigration stems from some mix of rascism/fear (yeah, yeah, you're not racists, just on their side) and mainly from changes to jobs. But they can't promise to return jobs, since that would require workers to be more productive than the Germans or cheaper than the Chinese.

The democrats are not any better. They don't have any real answers to the jobs question other than than education, and tend to just ignore the states and districts where the industry is gone and isn't coming back.

Stay out of my server room!

MonkeyCee

Re: storage of IT equipment.

"Once, an old old OLD freezer. Locked. Rusty. most definitely was NOT empty."

My bad. No carpet in the van that day.

Why I just bought a MacBook Air instead of the new Pro

MonkeyCee

Re: I can understand

Big fan of the x220. Last "proper" laptop keyboard, 5 rows, non-chiclet keys.

Pretty easy to service and repair yourself (including screen fixes).

Once you've maxxed the RAM (it can do 16, but 8 will do most people), decent drive(s) and a spare battery, you'll still be cheaper than a new machine.

Antivirus tools are a useless box-ticking exercise says Google security chap

MonkeyCee

All the same

"Ah, a New Zealander. Met any attractive sheep lately?"

Wouldn't know, it's all cows there now.

Given the relative rates of bestiality in the population (OZ >> NZ) and convictions* for said nastiness (NZ > OZ), I'd be a bit careful about those insults.

Then again, it's those accusing others who are always a bit more suspect.

* the trend is to use animal welfare laws rather than bestiality laws, since it gets a lot less press that way.

CERN boffins see strange ... oh, wait, that's just New Zealand moving 2m north

MonkeyCee

Re: More a storm than a quake

As mentioned in other comments, depth+intensity is far more relevant than intensity alone. NZ has masses of small quakes, I wouldn't bother getting out of bed for anything under 30 seconds duration.

The quakes that done for Christchurch where shallow, hence the much wrecking, quite close together (long enough to repair and have it wrecked again) and with liquefaction being the major destructive force.

Even then, Christchurch wasn't totally fucked. That took government spending ~4 years deciding on what parts of the city to save (so your property could be fine, but be in a red zone, so no road or utility repairs), using 10+ year old property valuations for insurance, and getting in some of the dodgiest salvage companies out there to do the cleanup.

A story I've heard repeated in several differing formats goes roughly like this. Everything in a salvaged building belongs to the salvage company, apart from intact safes. If there is a row of buildings, with one quake damaged building at the end, then the business owners are not allowed back in the other buildings until the damaged one is demolished. In the process of demolishing the damaged building, the neighboring one becomes "unstable". Repeat down the row. Note that the salvage companies would then strip the remaining stuff in the buildings *prior* to demolition. Known at least three companies and a dozen individuals that lost much of their professional equipment, only to see it for available for auction a month or so later. Mainly engineering type kit, specialist tools, prototypes etc.

Also, if you drop a safe ~10 times from a couple of stories it usually is no longer intact.

So after being (legally) stolen from, being offered 60% of your properties value (if you had insurance), and then watching the various government bodies fuck things up, much of Christchurch's talent went to the 'naki or to Oz.

Brexflation: Lenovo, HPE and Walkers crisps all set for double-digit hike

MonkeyCee

Re: Brexploitation

"As for Farage, not sure he cares. "

His salary is in euros. So is his (German) wife's.

So he's in clover.

Probably sharing a pint with Cameron, having a laugh over leading the country into a fractured state then fucking off.

Brexit may not mean Brexit at all: UK.gov loses Article 50 lawsuit

MonkeyCee

Re: The majority of people who voted, voted to leave...

"Getting lawyered up is always the final pathetic position of the desperate."

That's what the government is doing, in order to avoid an Act of Parliament. That's why they will appeal it. It's Ms May standard playbook, why follow the law when you can just rule by popular diktat.

Once A50 has been triggered, by a majority vote in parliament, then we're leaving the EU. Until then, it's *just* a politically divisive topic that gets a MP gunned down in the street, by the "we're not racialist" side.

"If you didn't vote, then your fault."

The amount of hoops I had to jump through to get my vote (been outside UK for 14 years, back for 2) was quite a lot. If I hadn't come back to the UK for a bit I'd have not gotten any vote on keeping my EU citizenship.

"The fact that the majority didn't vote the way you wanted"

That's not what majority means. No group (leave, remain, abstain) got a majority. Since the plebiscite was not required to be acted upon (despite much foaming at the mouth) it didn't have a proper majority requirement, which would have explicitly cast the abstain voters into one of the camps (typically the one for maintaining the status quo).

While I voted remain, and live in the EU, I can perfectly well accept that the UK will leave the union. Means I have to get a third nationality and (hopefully, depends on how UK citizenship works post EU) keep my current citizenship. It's a bit of a pain in the arse, but my life isn't going to be badly affected.

Still think it's a terrible idea for the UK. The government and Parliament are going to be spending years sorting this out (including big fights over who controls what) instead of addressing issues of actual import.

So there's a nice distracting, divisive "issue" that the public can be relied on to focus blindly on (see also abortion, gun rights etc) while the elites can get on running the country without any awkward public interaction. Just wait until something dodgy comes up, guarantee that it'll get buried in brexit news.

Alleged 2010 flash crash trader loses latest appeal against extradition to US

MonkeyCee

Re: Using software to defeat trading algorithms

It's exactly that. It's also something that you can see happen ~20 times a day in various markets. A mini crash every week or so. Prices being "forced" just before certain benchmarks are taken.

He got charged about 5 days before the statute of limitations kicked in. To ensure no-one else could get charged for the same crime.

His real crime is not having nearly enough lawyers and politicians on his payroll.

Smart Meter rollout delayed again. Cost us £11bn, eh?

MonkeyCee

Re: What's the advantage to the consumer?

" If you want something that gives you your 900-1200lm in little used circulation space,"

Not sure which CFLs you're using, as there does seem to be a bit of variance around. The first few generations where certainly iffy with certain applications. But for the ones I've got (Callex branded, made in China) they chuck out ~850 lumen on start, getting to 1100 after about 5 seconds, which should do the job even if you are only switching it on for a few seconds.

But the main point is that you'd be mad to change a bulb that works well for current purpose, and should last until it gets physically broken in that use case. 50 years maybe before it wears out from use :)

I've got various fitting that probably have filaments in them. Too little used, and too much hassle to open them when they aren't actually broken.

MonkeyCee

Re: What's the advantage to the consumer?

Ah, actual repayment times. Great fun :)

It's like the weird attitudes people have towards lightbulbs. I want a 900-1200 lumen bulb in a e27 fitting, with 10-20k hour lifespan. My options are a filament bulb (100 watts, 1 euro), CFL (23 watts, 2 euro) LED 900 lumen (12 watt, 12 euro) and LED 1200 lumen (17 watt, 20 euro). The CFL are head and shoulders above the others, but get pretty much all the hate. The LEDs will pay back their additional costs at roughly a euro per thousand hours(20 cents per kwh) , so for normal use after about 6 years. Which is around the lifetime of the bulb.

Or for solar PV*. The companies will INSIST you calcualte the ROI assuming you use all the power you generate, and you cost that power at full retail. Despite the fact that isn't ever going to happen, and some 30-60% will go to the grid at some fraction of the retail price, which roughly halves the value of the generated power. Thus most go from a 5-6 year repayment to 10 year repayment, which means the frequency and cost of replacing the inverter becomes a fairly major factor.

This is not to say you shouldn't do these things, but that the ROI is vastly overstated, and often involves sinking a large chunk of cash up front. Same as running old appliances until they die, even going from a C to an A+ energy rating will only save you tens of pounds each year.

Oh, and your 300W mystery nightime draw? That's the weed plantation next door ;) 250W for the lights, 50 for the fans and pumps.

* Depending on FIT, subsidies and tax credits, PV can totally be worth it. But that's political :)

Possible reprieve for the venerable A-10 Warthog

MonkeyCee

A-10 is awesome :)

It's a great example of a single purpose air frame (ground attack) that through various political and practical pressures is one of the best in the world.

It's also a great example of airpower that the USAF/RAF haaaate to bits. Almost as much hate for the A-10 as for drones.

While it's probably the best ground attack craft, it's one of the worst things to be in if the other side have fighters or even rotary wing craft. Combined with it's usual mission of being slow and low, most airforce type pilots would rather run a mile rather than fly it. It's why a bunch of the USAF ones are designated as spotters, without any change to loadout.

It's also a very cheap plane to run, and is incredibly popular with ground troops.

Hence most of the discussions have been the USAF saying they want to get rid of them, the army, navy and marines lining up to say they'll be happy to have them, and their budget, followed by the USAF loudly protesting that it needs ALL the money for shinies, because USAF.

British jobs for British people: UK tech rejects PM May’s nativist hiring agenda

MonkeyCee

Re: The elephant in the room - stagnant wages because of the free movement of labour

"I want to do a part time degree in AI and despite being by UK standards fairly well paid and working in tech as a software engineer - I can't afford to "

Study in Europe then. I'm doing Data Science at Maastricht, and their AI Masters program is very nice. Taught in English, fees are 2k euro a year.

Massive demand for interns from the course (roughly two internships offered per student) and if you've already shown to be able to work at a professional level you;ll get a wide range to pick from.

Get in now, and you can probably finish before the Brexit negotiations finish :)

UK will build new nuclear bomb subs, says Defence Secretary

MonkeyCee

putin vs trump

C'mon, you can't contrast those two, other than no-one really knows how much money either of them have :)

Trump will talk a lot about how much he'd win the fight, because of his winning mentality. Putin wins a fight, then a few months later goes on TV and announces that there may have a been a small altercation.

BOFH: There are no wrong answers, just wrong questions. Mmm, really wrong ones

MonkeyCee

Re: 2B) or not.

Them: "good news; you're not an axe murderer".

Me: "Don't be silly. Axes are dirty. Fire is pure. Only fire will cleanse the filth from this world. Definitely no axes."

Apple wants to buy Formula 1 car firm McLaren – report

MonkeyCee

Thank you EC

I'm glad that the EC is kicking Apple about it's tax arrangements. At least if they spend some of their sack of cash on doing something new it'll be better for all of us than it sitting offshore.

McLaren is an excellent high tech engineering company. Even without doing anything about cars, they should be able to improve Apple's manufacturing operations.

My tin-foil hat thoughts was that faced with the US and EU getting together and probably forcing Apple's hand on paying tax, Apple has a plan that involves setting up some suitably state-funded (and loved) industry and use that as a negotiating stick for a better tax deal. Buy a car company, start the negotiations about where you'll site your factory, in exchange for the usual backhanders.

Guess we're lucky Apple's not buying into the F35 project ;)

TRUMP: ICANN'T EVEN! America won't hand over internet control to Russia on my watch

MonkeyCee

Re: I honestly don't know who'd be worse

"You mean even MORE than Obama has managed?

Actually, most people I speak to have seen Obama as a reasonable President. "

There are Trump advocates who sincerely believe (with much truthiness) that Afghanistan is Obama's war. As in, he declared war and invaded them, so this mess is his fault.

Hackers hijack Tesla Model S from afar, while the cars are moving

MonkeyCee

Your Corolla doesn't catch fire after a 100mph impact? Damn....

Paint your wagon (with electric circuits) but leave my crotch alone

MonkeyCee

Oh gods...

Plumbing is just a mind bender for me....

In the Netherlands, getting the builders and the plumbers to talk to each other, except to agree it's neither of their faults, is the biggest pisser. I've ended up doing a bunch of the building type stuff myself otherwise we go for weeks without a shower.

Current bullshit is the shower cabinet no longer leaks on the sides, or where the panels meet, but the drain trap seems to overflow. I say seems, because actually catching the bugger in action doesn't work, and seems to either dump 1-2 liters or 10+, without any clear reason why.

I'm at the rip it out and put in a bathtub stage.

I'm lucky tho. One of our neighborhood buddies had their next door "indoor growing arrangement" spring a leak, which saturated two storeys worth of wall and a ceiling with a green tinge.

Watch SpaceX's rocket dramatically detonate, destroying a $200m Facebook satellite

MonkeyCee

Re: Wet beach sand

Ah, all these delightful comments about the more energetic chemicals reminds me of Max Gergel’s memoir “Excuse Me Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide?”

Both very entertaining and extremely terrifying at the same time. Much like rocket fuels :)

L0phtCrack's back! Crack hack app whacks Windows 10 trash hashes

MonkeyCee

Re: Nope

Another trick for a stand alone windows 7 box is booting off a live linux USB, and do the following:

- pick an input utility to bugger with. In this case, the on screen keyboard

- rename that utility (osk.exe to osk.old)

- rename cmd.exe to osk.exe

- reboot into windows

Now you can call the osk from the login screen, which will in fact run cmd.exe with full admin rights.

Then resetting the password is a simple command: net user *username* *newpassword*

Ireland taxman: Apple got NO favours from us, at all, at all

MonkeyCee

Re: See the needfor US tax reform

But the reason the EU is sticking t's beak in is that the US also allows corporations to defer paying taxes until..... well, until they feel like it.

Since there have been previous tax holidays, allowing corps to pay their deferred taxes at a lower rate, then "proper tax planning" means the corps will hold of paying tax until they can get the maximum discount.

The EU feels that this is bollocks, and that taxes should be paid relatively promptly, based on where the profits are booked. They have called out the US Treasury department on this issue, and as rightly observed, any tax paid outside of the US will count as a tax credit for the US profits.

It's also cheaper to pay lawyers to string this out, while sitting on a big arse pile of cash. Hell, the interest alone is probably covering lawyer fees and associated bribes.

I'm not quite sure how various Irish/Dutch/Luxembourg tax laws have survived so long, since they are clearly being used to avoid taxes. It's all well and good that double taxation is avoided, but it's (relatively) simple to claim that back, but if your laws designed to avoid double tax result in no tax, then it's clearly taking the piss.

Combined with some spectacularly lax oversight of the arrangement by the Irish, such as having billions be transferred to a company that isn't actually based in *any* country, it's been clear for 20+ years that Ireland has been bending over backwards to accommodate this arrangement. No idea why either, since it's not like Ireland makes very much on this arrangement.

As for playing bullshit with tax for personal reasons, my understanding is that with a trust* or two in play, and making loans that are never paid back, it's possible for Jo Public to pretty much avoid taxes too.

I think the only way actual tax reform would occur is if the majority of taxpayers (ie people with incomes from selling their labor) starting doing the same tricks as the major wealth holders. Once every man and his dog has a personal and family trust set up, and an offshore stash pot, then the abuses by the big players might get addressed. More likely is that the rules on wages/salary will be re-interpreted, and some new form of trust will be created, to ensure that nasty things like NI, income tax and death duties are paid by the plebs, not the "proper" types who run this joint.

* trusts usually pay some tax, AFAIK 10% every 10 years, or a bit less than 1% pa.

New booze guidelines: We'd rather you didn't enjoy yourselves

MonkeyCee

Don't worry brave brexiters! Those puritan killjoys, the ones who interpret every EU directive to best fuck with the British public, they will still be with you. Since it's Whitehall fucking you, just using their (often batshit) interpretations of EU law, you can rest assured that silliness will ensue.

Most europeans drink. The anglos drunk. It's all about getting smashed, not about the journey.

Back to gardening with my bucket of adequate refreshments :D

Microsoft: You liked Windows 10 so much, you'll get 2 more in 2017

MonkeyCee

Hackintosh

Eh, they work OK. Colour is usually a bit off, and wifi can be iffy.

Getting a hackintosh to work is about as hard as getting linux to work in the early 2000s. Usually pretty fine, and you get 95% of the stuff working OK. Still got a bootable OSX for this box that I haven't used in.... 3 years I think?

It's quite a lot easier (and far less fussy about hardware) to install some flavor of linux and make it look Mac like.

Most of the time the extra hardware cost is easy to recoup in either less support costs, or being able to get decent money in a couple of years time selling on old kit.

California to put all your power-hungry PCs on a low carb(on) diet

MonkeyCee

PSU quality

Now I'm a little obsessive about PSUs, since they tend to be something (along with high end GPUs) that it's worth spending the extra bit of cash on upfront to get a more reliable experience later.

Hence I've often forked over (personally and professionally) for PC Power and cooling kit, and always been very happy with it. Very few failures, and the one that did they fell over themselves to replace and get back the bung unit.

Trying to justify the extra cost on the basis of power savings is *nearly* impossible. Even running 24/7 machines the difference between silver and platinum rated PSUs are minimal compared to initial costs. The difference in cost between a "minimal" sub-bronze PSU and the cheapest silver should justify cost recovery during the life of the machine, but increases the PSU cost by 20% or so.

However, the cost of downtime while buggering about replacing a dead PSU, or finding that the PSU spec is wildly optimistic about how much it can actually supply simultaneously on the 12 volt rail, is what the big time saver is.