Posts by Nick Kew

Robots will enable a sustainable grey economy

Not just the old

There are people of all ages who shouldn't be driving.

- Those with physical infirmities such as poor eyesight

- Those with social or mental problems such as fondness for booze

- Those of a nervous disposition who might get distracted by, for example, a wasp buzzing around their head

- The impatient

- The easily-distracted (especially in the presence of distractions such as friends or children).

- The absent-minded or dawdler

- The over-confident/complacent

Perhaps it would be simpler to summarise, and just say "normal people" as a first-order approximation.

Murderous Uber driver 'attacked passenger and the app biz did nothing. Then he raped me'

Re: Interesting.

Nice one! You don't have to take presstv at face value[1] to see how that so closely follows the pattern of Western propaganda against countries we don't like.

[1] Or even believe it at all. How should any of us here know, one way or t'other?

@Adam 52 - yep. I expect any public-facing business collects complaints against employees[1], and has no way (unless it be sheer volume) to distinguish the ones with substance from the malicious or frivolous. And would be on the wrong end of an industrial tribunal if it took action against an employee on that basis without at least supporting evidence from the powers of law enforcement.

[1] Or not-technically-employees acting in an employee-like role.

Google hit with record antitrust fine of €2.4bn by Europe

Google vs Spammers

Anyone remember Kelkoo? The annoying, utterly useless links that once used to feature rather a lot in Google search results? I used to have to add "-kelkoo" to searches. A pesky SEO spammer that was, for a time, very successful.

The World at One (BBC lunchtime news) just featured an interview with a Kelkoo spokesman about the Google judgement. He was there because of Kelkoo's prominent Wormtongue role in sweet-talking the commission. If there was any doubt about it, this dispels it: this was a victory for spammers over Google.

If Google were to give in to the likes of Kelkoo, Google would become useless as a search engine.

Tory-commissioned call centres 'might have bent data protection laws'

Re: Hmmm

"behalf of your insurer".

A variant on that is the call on behalf of a utility supplier. I don't recollect details, but one such surprised me by actually knowing who my supplier was.

Come to think of it, that was probably mobile phone, and they could reference the number back to the provider.

Queen's speech announces laws to protect personal data

This looks like Good News

I note the phrase "Establish a commission to ..."

That's Humphrey-speak for kicking something into the long grass.

Oxford profs tell Twitter, Facebook to take action against political bots

Hello? Ghost of Usenet here. Hello???

Re: Nope, the truth is not relative

Neither is a statement of fact. A statement of fact would include whether by weight or by number of atoms.

Did anyone claim a statement of fact? All he said is that they are true statements. In the right context (like in answer to a question that defines the terms), they might also be statements of fact.

It's a long time since I sat exams, but I'm still plagued by this kind of ambiguity if I take a survey or go to a pub quiz.

Your awareness of fake news has been raised.

I don't know how old you are, but think back from now to when you were first old enough to take an interest in news/politics/current affairs, and contemplate how many stories that may have influenced your life may have been at least misleading.

Like 30 years of Murdoch and others (like the convicted fraudster Conrad Black who used to own the Telegraph) consistently spinning against the EU.

Re: Nope, the truth is not relative

There are big Grey Areas.

Any campaigning politician will maintain levels of ambiguity and plausible deniability on many matters likely to be controversial. Sometimes rightly so, like when being pressed to answer a "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. Did you notice in the recent campaign, the Tory campaign centred on (things they said about) Corbyn? That appears to have backfired: it was just too blatant, but if Corbyn had risen to the bait and spent his time denying things that were (often-misleading spin) but not outright lies, he'd've been crushed by it.

Or consider the "Melanie Phillips translation": you take something said in a foreign language and translate it into something monstrous in English.

I could go on. But not here.

Re: Political Bots.

Yep. Can't have Ordinary People diluting Murdoch's power now, can we?

Hotheaded Brussels civil servants issued with cool warning: Leak

Re: That's not hot. This is hot.

Aussie here, ROFL. 29 degrees C isn't hot. 40 degrees C is hot.

40 is normal in Oz, innit? Very nice in dry heat (like outback NSW), more challenging in humidity further north (like Cairns).

My experience longer-term in a hotter climate[1] was that 40+ in the heat of the day was a lot easier to live with than upper-20s in the wee hours of the night. Largely 'cos of the relative humidity, which would top 100% overnight. And the June heat was a lot more pleasant than the August heat+humidity.

My experience back in Blighty - where we currently have high 20s with the sun beating down on my very large, south-facing bay window - is that 30 here is every bit as uncomfortable as 40 in a proper hot climate where it's normal and somehow feels right.

[1] Six years in Central Italy.

Worried about election hacking? There's a technology fix – Helios

The description of Helios sounds a lot like Apache STeVe. I recently ran an election using that[1]. Each voter was referenced by an anonymised hash, generated by the system and known by the voter but not by anyone else. If there had been any question of foul play, we could've enabled individual voters to view their votes as keyed by the hash.

I daresay there are other such systems around.

[1] That election was for a VP post within Apache - four good candidates but no controversy.

You'll soon be buying bulgur wheat salad* from Amazon, after it swallowed Whole Foods

Don't dismiss it. Makes a nice lunch.

The time to buy is when it's reduced for quick sale at your local supermarket.

Re: Have you ever or would you eat bulgur wheat?

Are you sure it was the bulgur in your soup? I've found it neutral on the stomach (I eat it occasionally, not often). Perhaps your soup contained some other active ingredient? Like my artichoke soup, which is delicious and particularly suitable for serving to a love rival ahead of his big date (or, more practically, eating when next day is at home and involves no social events).

Software dev bombshell: Programmers who use spaces earn MORE than those who use tabs

Re: Bad Surveys

Don't diss quiche.

Oh dear. I've nothing against quiche. It was a reference to "Real men don't eat quiche", which was once a bit of a cult, and spawned derivatives like things Real Programmers do/don't.

I guess cultural references are always at risk of being lost in a heterogenous community.

what, may I ask, is wrong with bacon, eggs, or pie

That's easy. The conditions in which pigs and chickens are kept.

Bad Surveys

ObCrustyOldGit: Real Programmers don't waste bytes on spaces or tabs. Fancy layouts are for quiche-eaters. Unless your entire language is quiche (FORTRAN or Python).

More seriously, an either/or question with no qualifiers? Don't most of us in reality just work with whatever convention happens to be in operation on a project? Even when we create an entirely new project, we'll do whatever seems right on the day, and maybe even allow the whims of a toolset-of-the-day to prevail in such unimportant matters!

Pizza proffer punctures privacy protection, prompts pals' perfidy

Choice

It's all about choice.

There are matters in which privacy is important. There are others in which it isn't, and we'd sacrifice it for convenience or other rewards without a second thought. People perfectly rationally make different choices in different situations.

Here's one where I had occasion to curse excessive and unnecessary privacy.

Germany puts halt on European unitary patent

@Peter2

Bill of Rights (1689)

Talk about quoting out of context. That bill was all part of the Hanoverian succession!

But it's a nice thought that the rule of the one-eyed Jock might've been illegal all along.

Re: "Speedy, efficient European processes are the key to our success in the world."

Why are commentards assuming the UK will leave the EPO? It's nothing to do with the EU, and its membership is much wider.

Hundreds stranded at Manchester Airport due to IT 'glitch'

Any airport is a single point of failure.

Not to mention a nightmare.

Capita call centre chap wins landmark sex discrimination lawsuit

Re: Nice to see a win in favour of equality of treatment!

All employees are equal, but some are more equal than others.

"Equality" has become one of those terms you can rarely take at face value. Like "democratic peoples republic", or "strong and stable". Or indeed "Justice".

Cabinet Office minister Gummer loses seat as Tory gamble backfires

a hung Parliament seems the best we could have hoped for.

Damn, I expect you're right. I suppose a hanged parliament is just a pipe dream.

Paxo trashes privacy, social media and fake news at Infosec 2017

Re: "I supposed we should be cheered by this mass act of selflessness."

But you do have to wonder how many will remember what they did tomorrow.

I can never remember what I did tomorrow. It's bad enough remembering yesterday or last week.

The internet may well be the root cause of today's problems… but not in the way you think

Ban Coffee

A historical perspective: much of the Enlightenment happened in the revolutionary social hotbed of Europe's coffee houses, where people would meet and ideas were developed. The powers-that-be at the time felt threatened, and tried to ban the dangerous new drug at the centre of it.

Nothing new in the idiocy of today's rulers.

Break crypto to monitor jihadis in real time? Don't be ridiculous, say experts

The intelligence agencies usually prevent such attacks successfully. Recent figures suggest a rate of something over one attack a fortnight. So what's changed?

If the intelligence agencies had been nobbled, for example by a botched information system upgrade (which no individual would know about, as they work on a need-to-know basis), it might indeed explain two such attacks in quick succession.

With a bit of luck, Thursday will bring an end to the motivation for nobbling them.

Who says anything about videos? Isn't the ultimate inspiration the holy book? For recent terrorist attacks, that would be specifically the, erm, heroic death of the biblical suicide bomber Samson.

Cuffed: Govt contractor 'used work PC to leak' evidence of Russia's US election hacking

Re: Ahhhh Nooo, thats JUNE 1st...

Definitely needs a seasonal adjustment when it talks of top secret security clearance yet tells us " ... and followed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as well as WikiLeaks online"

Class clowns literally classless: Harvard axes meme-flinging morons

So what would Harvard have to say about the Bullingdon club and necroporcophilia?

UK PM May's response to London terror attack: Time to 'regulate' internet companies

I think... I may have technically Godwinned this thread. Apologies.

No. For several reasons.

Most fundamentally, Godwin is invoked by derogatory remarks directed at someone you are arguing with. Your reference is directed at someone or something outside the thread.

If what you're attacking is itself a strawman or misrepresentation[1], then it becomes a non-sequiter, and makes a negative contribution to debate. But that's not the same as Godwin's law.

[1] I don't think it is that, but I'm not going to check so I can say for certain.

Re: Bomb the terrorists!

Shouldn't all education in the UK be 100% secular with no religious connection?

In an ideal world, maybe. But to try and enforce any such thing would be oppressive, and oppression is precisely what religion (and not least religious extremism) thrives on.

Twenty years ago, religion was basically harmless in the UK (except NI). The C of E, not having faced any real oppression or threat for centuries, had become toothless and more-or-less benign (as it still is, compared to most of the alternatives).

Then came Blair, who played with it (and of course with our constitution) like a small boy with his toys, and unleashed Us-and-Them. How long will it take to tame Blair's terror? Well, for a historical parallel, how long was it from the era of real Catholic threat - the Armada, the Gunpowder Plot - to the Northern Ireland peace agreement?

Re: Bomb the terrorists!

Today's terrorism is exactly as widely predicted in, for example, the protests against Blair's invasion of Iraq. The mess we've made in Libya and Syria since then all adds to it.

But it may be as nothing to what we're storing up, with generations brought up in "Faith Schools" to think in terms of Us-and-Them as a way of life. Educational segregation worked so well in Northern Ireland, we'd better bring it to the mainland, and we can all hate each other with real conviction.

Re: The Internet again!

I seem to recall similar backlash against Gutenberg.

Wow! Respect, oh venerable one!

I don't suppose your recollection goes back as far as the destruction of the library at Alexandria? Who was stirring public fear and hatred for education and learning back then, and did it look much like today?

The open source community is nasty and that's just the docs

Surveys and Agendas

I've seen a fair bit of conflict - some of it gratuitously unpleasant - in my decades in open source. But it's a drop in the ocean compared to some other communities, both on-line and real-world.

Surveys can be a particular hotbed. That's not just because the respondents are a sample who self-select precisely because they have axes to grind and see a survey as somewhere to vent[1], but also because surveys have Agendas (such as "diversity"), and those tend to be divisive.

[1] fx: waves at fellow-commentards.

Silicon Graphics' IRIX and Magic Desktop return as Linux desktop

When I first used Linux, I set it up with olvwm, and just used the commandline in the little console window to launch GUI applications. Mostly plain ol' xterms (and variants on that theme) for working in, but also a web browser and other such modern gizmos.

I'd still work like that if I hadn't got fed up with the number of hoops they make us jump through today.

Hardware nostalgia

I remember my second '90s SGI workstation[1] particularly fondly. But that was down to the superb quality of the hardware: a monitor that was a pleasure to use (now long-surpassed by others, particularly Mac), and a fantastic keyboard that still stands out as the best I've encountered in my life.

There was no pleasure to the software. Well, it was a functioning UNIX system on which one could build all the usual apps, but no more than that, and it was certainly buggier than Sun kit of the same era. I don't even recollect the desktop environment, except in that it was the first to be configured with a GUI login screen rather than a CLI login followed by some invocation like "xinit" or "startx".

[1] @work, of course. Way beyond my personal budget.

WannaCrypt: Pwnage is a fact of life but cleanup could and should be way easier

You're 20 years late to the party

Why wasn't MS held to account for deliberately breaking the MIME RFCs of 1992 and '93 when that breakage unleashed Melissa and Lovebug (and left us a legacy of a 'net where MIME headers can't be used to identify and quarantine potential hazards as designed).

BA CEO blames messaging and networks for grounding

Re: EFFECTED ?????

Spoke to Sky News ...

Effected and Affected being homonyms, the error would then appear to be one of transcription.

Re: Where was the "power surge"

I've seen suggestions of a lightning strike,

Might've been me, in the last El Reg commentfest on the subject.

but that could be someone confusing Saturday's cock up with Sunday's thunderstorm.

You mean, my comment posted here on Saturday referenced Sunday's alleged storm?

More likely having observed the very big and long-lasting thunderstorms we had around the wee hours of Friday night / Saturday morning. Caused me to power down more electricals than I've done any time in my four-and-a-bit years since moving here. All my computing/networking gear, including UPS protection. Even the dishwasher, which had been due to run overnight.

BA's 'global IT system failure' was due to 'power surge'

Re: Doesn't add up

Does potentially add up if the root cause was last night's thunderstorms corrupting something. In a manner that wasn't anticipated by whatever monitoring they have in place.

Re: Really a power failure?

After last night's big thunderstorms, it seems plausible power to the datacentre was indeed hit. Or that a power surge damaged something, which might be reported as "power failure" if the details were considered far too confusing for the readers.

Perhaps they had redundancy against one system being knocked out, but ended up instead with two systems each apparently still working but irreconcilably at odds with each other?

WannaFly?

Given that I'm late to this commentard party, can I really be the first to coin a word for it?

Glad to have avoided BA consistently since they messed me about inexcusably in about '95 or '96. BA = delay, expense, rudeness, hassle, and above all, lack of information.

British prime minister slams Facebook and pals for votes

Extremist Agenda

I struggle to think of an agenda more extreme than relegating your own MPs to a US-style electoral college whose role is merely to crown you personally as Supreme Leader.

UK ministers to push anti-encryption laws after election

Re: " I suspect that any legislation will be along the lines of:"

Note. Both house of Parliament have to approve it. Since it requires critical thinking skills (not something you see a lot of in politicians) to realize what errant BS.

Just possible in Their Lordships' house. But the most likely place to find it is in the EU Parliament, perhaps due in some measure to the much lesser importance of party politics.

Re: Liberty for temporary safety

I think the remark about Erdogan refers to the botched "coup" last year. Which was very convenient for him

Yes, I realise that's a strong parallel. And history gives us many more such: we still have some residual effects from the 1605 plot, in that for example the monarch can't marry a Catholic (and Northern Ireland bears more serious scars).

Where the parallel ends is in the timing. As far as I know, the Turkish coup could have happened a year earlier or later and still served Erdogan's agenda equally well. Insofar as it served an existing agenda, as opposed to creating a new agenda, which is a question for historians.

Re: So the person had been reported to the authorities....

You can never eliminate all risks. IIRC the statistically most dangerous place is your home.

Well of course. Most people die when they're too weak or ill to leave home. Though hospitals and hospices are of course much more dangerous. Makes a very convenient bit of spin for those who want to play down road deaths.

It's the inevitable outcome of a society so de-risked that many kiddies can't be allowed out on the roads because of the danger posed by someone obviously more important than them.

Re: Word

The word is Populism. Set up a strawman enemy to appeal to the masses.

Machine 1, Man 0: AlphaGo slams world's best Go player in the first round

Re: Newsflash

Whoa! That's a high bar to set. You'd have to lower it quite a long way to find BI (Biological Intelligence) in the world today, even among our greatest and most famous game creators.

Hats off :)

I'm a very bad Go player. That is to say, I know the rules, and have the rudimentary insight that comes with a mathematical mind, but have never put in serious effort to the game.

Twenty years ago, in an era when Deep Blue had already thrashed Kasparov at Chess, I could still easily beat a leading AI at Go. It was considered an immeasurably harder problem than Chess.

And now they've cracked it!