Posts by LazyLazyman 63 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Aug 2013
I assume that is another one like chocolate and sausages where some EU countries force rather narrow definitions of some foods which just happen to match their local product whilst excluding other, perfectly valid products.
Also, nothing wrong with dominos as far as takeaway pizzas go. Yes, its fatty and full of junk, but then sometimes thats what you want.
"However, I do believe them to be a more viable and sensible stop-gap than scattering our nations with piddly little fission reactors, which are horrifically expensive to construct, just as expensive to take down, create waste that we don't want to face up to and deal with properly, and occasionally go wrong in ways that we don't like things built near population centres to go wrong."
"I do believe"
And thats the problem. So much public "knowledge" of the problem is nothing more than faith. Fission reactors are mostly horrifically expensive to construct because of the red tape, we would not need to be "scattering our nations" with them, as we would need less than the number of coal or gas plants, they are less difficult to remove (and leave the environment radioactive in the surrounding area www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/) and the waste produced is actually only deemed unsafe because of the paranoia of people. Nuclear "waste" is mostly less radioactive than the soil of Devon or any other area on granite bedrock. And the high level waste can now be re-used (Old reactors could not use it, but new ones can). The reactors are far less of a danger than coal, oil or gas overall, but people are not interested in the hundreds of thousands of deaths from these every year, as they are not sensational.
I suspect that the issue here is El Reg playing the red top card. I doubt he has banned players from owning apple devices, which is implied, just that he is switching all team issue devices over the windows, which makes sense. It's not like apple do something unique, and how many sys admins say no when users start wanting (with no other justification that style) iPhones and Macs in a work place instead of the company issue crackberry and windows PC so they can keep things simple?
"at shift change one day there was a can of Pepsi in the "Team room" fridge."
If I was working there I would not be able to resist the opportunity to wind management up with cans of Pepsi placed in draws, fridges, toilet cubicals, store rooms and just about anywhere else I could get away with it after an investigation like that.
The thing is though, getting a Linux machine to play nicely with a wide range of peripherals and software is not the same as putting petrol in your car. Putting the right kind of fuel in your car is more like knowing how to plug in a mouse.
And no, you are not required to know how to change a wheel or a bulb. Cars in the UK do not have to carry a spare wheel and bulbs on most modern cars are a pain in the rear to change. My headlights require the removal of the wheel and wheel lining, not something you can realistically do without a car lift. Most modern cars do not carry a spare wheel, only a can of tyre weld, which should never be used anyway as it ruins fixable tyres and just goes all over your leg when the hole is to big to fix. You do need to know when there a bulb is blown or a tyre is illegal, but anyone can do that.
The fact that people don't know these things leads me to think they know nothing about basic car maintenance. Most people don't want to mess about getting a printer to work or knowing what to do when your computer suddenly decides to stop seeing your router. They just want to switch it on and do what they need to do. Apple understand this. Microsoft kind of try to, but also have business needs in mind. Linux still seem to be in the phase where cars were with groups of geeks standing around snorting "Of course people know how to clean and fix a carb. Otherwise they shouldn't have a car!".
As someone who lives in the cotswolds, hopefully not at all. It's bloody annoying being stuck behind some numpty looking at a hill or something. You may look for someone behind you, but too many people just dawdle along in a world of their own, with no idea that whilst they may be on holiday the line of people behind them are just trying to get on with their lives. Same thing with tourists in Oxford when you are trying to go shopping.
Why the fuck do all of these twatter users have to jump online the second there is a problem. My sister in law dose it and so do many people my wife follows (Or followed until they started stupid campaines against companies for "poor customer service" because they whinged on twitter rather than calling customer service to get an issue fixed).
The argument with my sister in law goes round and round
"X company did Y"
"Have you called them? Last time I had a problem they were very good"
"No. I posted to @Xcompany and they DIDN'T COME BACK TO ME"
"Why don't you call them?"
"Because they should be able to sort it out on twitter! Customer service!"
"Yes, but they have no idea who @Ilovefluffycatzlol123 is, and even if they did do you really want your bank/phone company/car insurance etc discussed over twitter?"
"But this is the new way of communicating"
etc.
GCHQ's involvement, however, has defiantly been much more gray area, and where there has been questions about what GCHQ & SIS have done there has at least been a show of indignation by the government. Even in those gray areas they have had not been involved in the kidnap, rendition and torture of hundreds, possibly thousands, of people or the repeated state sponsored murder and completely ignoring sovereign rights of countries.
We may not be perfect, but we do respect international law and at least try and address questionable or illegal activity, where as the US argue they are right.
Some may argue some of the noise around taking action where GCHQ and SIS have strayed on to iffy ground is just show, but unfortunately we won't know for sure for 75 years. At least we are doing something and saying it is wrong.
AC, good luck, and hope it goes well.
Admittedly the people I have spoken too are current or ex military (Mostly USMC) or older more right wing GoP supporters, but not full on teabagers. There are defiantly many people desenting voices, but unfortunately too much mid ground apathy or acceptance along with a large minority who think it is right. Just not enough people who are angry enough to tell them it is wrong.
Not all of them, but enough.
The NSA, CIA, and other agencies in the US get away with this king of stuff because there is still a large number of people in the US who think it is right. They still believe that all this stuff the US government are doing is fine because of the War On Stuff! When questioned about it normally reasonable people will argue that the US must do these things to protect itself, and will point that it is only terrorists that are affected (because everyone picked up and flown to some hellhole outside US jurisdiction, to avoid the US court system must be a terrorist).
When questioned about the fact that stuff is illegal under US law they say US law dose not apply to non US citizens. When questioned about the fact that some of it is illegal under international law, or law of other countries they switch to saying that those laws are not part of US law so do not apply to the Us agents. When it is pointed out that other countries do not do these things they witter on about being the only superpower and having an obligation to protect the world and when pointed to the fact that the world would like them to leave it alone, and that they cause the problems, they go on about how the US must protect itself.
The US government and peoples (As a group, not necessarily as individuals) moral compass is broken, yet no one dare stand up to them.
I'm no fan of the government, but I don't like contrived "facts" and impotent rage:
"Of the 29 Ministers entitled to attend Cabinet meetings, 23 have assets and investments estimated to be worth more than £1million."
Thats not the same as being rich. Many middle aged people on modest incomes have "assets and investments" worth over £1million. Between a average middle class house and 2 modest pension pots a couple in there 50's could easily have that. They still would not be rich, or living a life of luxury, or able to not worry about loosing there jobs.
The causes behind high house prices and large pension funds of the baby boomers is a different question, but not something unique, or even unusual, in MPs have over £1million in assets and investments. If anything given the pay of an MP (£65k) and age it is surprising that some who have been around long enough to get in tot he cabinet DON'T have that kind of wealth, whatever party is in power.
Too true. I think we need the same sort of thing but from a managers point of view. Staff can be just as much of a PITA as management, but as a manager it is part of your job to deal with that. Doesn't stop the moaner who complains about you, takes every attempt to undermine you and upset the rest of the team but will sit and smile and nod when asked directly if there are any problems being less of a PITA.
Small companies however can have problems of there own. You are far more open to the whims of managers/owners. Open to abuse by people who decide they don't like you. They often have no set processes for training, complaints management etc. No guidelines or comeback. Small companies are no better or worse than large ones, they just have different problems IMO.
I'm the first one to level criticism at people for moving overseas to dodge tax and corps using loopholes, but to me I don't see what is wrong with what he has done. He is not hopping backwards and forwards, or messing around with being in the UK for X months a year. He genuinely seems to have moved to an island he owns, and has done for a long time. He could have done allot of creative accounting and employed some very good accountants to reduce his tax, but he dose not seem to have done this. He just seems to have done what we would all like to do, move to a nice sunny place to retire (Albeit not full retirement, as he is probably one of the people who can't stop working on something).
In theory yes, and allot of wargamers are getting very excited about 3d printing. The problem is that they are nowhere near the quality needed. There needs to be allot of improvement before they are good enough for that, if they ever will be. People point to the advances in home printing but forget all the other gadgets that have not taken off.
What it is good for at the moment is hills, buildings, walls and other bits that don't need too much detail.
It is something I can see as being very difficult for some NSA staff. As much as some people are screaming about it being creepy they must be the target of all sorts of spying. I could understand why someone would feel trepidation about any relationship, more so when the other person is a foreign national. If it dose turn out that they are infact sleeping with you to spy on you, which would not be surprising, then you could end up loosing your job or worse.
Whilst I don't agree with abusing the systems like this, there should be some process in place to help those who are at risk, but also prevent just creepy stalking and the like.
I can't understand what makes gambling different to any other business. I can understand why solicitors and banks can ring fence customers money, as (in theory at least) they are not taking money merely holding it in trust. The money dose not become theres. Gambling, however, dose not seem any different to any other business.
If, for example, I go in to a car dealership and order a car, they go bust with my money, I don't get it back (well, not automatically). I don't get the service I pay for. Same with a bookies. I pay them cash with the possibility of them giving me more back, or not if I bet poorly. I can see that they are, kind of, holding it in trust, but no more than the car dealership that has my cash for a new car.
For a given value of survived. Most of them are falling apart, need constant maintenance, and are not subject to the full force of the north sea. That and on most of them the bits in the water are made of wood and concrete. The metal is generally not structural and dose rust badly if not constantly looked after.
xj25vm, the fact that you seem to think that radiation causes hereditary cancers makes me think you may well be the wrong person to be talking about statistics. And adding a "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" just makes it worse.
Follow the link to XKCD and you will see how little radiation is involved. People living in Cornwall or Devon get more extra radiation over there lifetime.
Yes, that is true, but rather than saying "hold on a minute, perhaps we should have an easy way to check the engine oil and tyre pressure" much of the IT industry is saying the equivalent of "Why do you need a dip stick? Anyone who can't just remove the sump bolt, measure the oil volume, then pour it back in shouldn't be driving!".
One of the biggest problems, to me, seems to be the tech industry (Us lot). There is defiantly an attitude (as shown by the comments here) that these things are not complex, but that everyone is stupid. It's the same thing I see on car forums. "ABS is a wast of time. Learn to drive properly" and "The only point in the MoT is people are to lazy".
Unfortunately most people don't give a shit how there PC works, how the Internet functions or how to safely navigate black ice. They understand there part of the world and don't care about the rest. They just want it to work with minimal input. Until the IT industry at large excepts that this is the case and this dose not make them stupid we will continue to have these problems. We will continue to have routers sent out with default passwords and firewalls that throw a wobbly from time to time forcing people to either learn how they work or switch them off. Unsurprisingly people switch them off because it is something complex getting in the way of what they want to do right now.
Apple seem to have got this to some extent. So do phone manufacturers. Car makers understand that most people don't want to get greasy and fix there car, just go to a garage and say "It's broken. Fix it". Anyone saying "Use linux" has missed this by so far they require a long-haul flight to get back to the point. I use linux myself, but it is not currently a practical choice for the general public.
The IT industry needs to understand the public rather than looking down on them.
Many animals are colour blind, especially pray animals. The reason for this, however, is that they have many more rods rather than cones. They have very sensitive perception of shape and pattern.
The whole reason animals have these patterns is to brake up there shape, which works well in there natural environment. Stripes blend with long grass. Squiggly dots with leaves etc. Not so much against the background of sky and concrete.
Hunters in the UK do not use florescent clothing, nor in most of Europe. The only people that do as a matter of course are hunters in the US because they have a habit of blasting away at anything that moves. But, generally, yes, allot of animals cannot see colour very well, but high contrast and harsh patterns are not a good idea. That is why they normally use one solid colour and make it in shapes that are not "human", with camo to hide the obviously "human" outline.
Your forgetting what 80%-90% of these thefts are for. Smack head don't want to strip down a phone and sell it for parts for money they might get in a week or two. They want something hey can sell right now for another hit. These people are not seeing beyond there next high, but they won't waste time stealing something worthless to them.
Last time I checked Tesco did not hold a monopoly, unlike Google. If Tesco were the only supermarket in the UK and, say, put massive advertising for there own brand bread whilst hiding all other bread at the back of the shop they would also be getting the slap down.
No they don't. There are 56 recognized ethnic groups (and probably many more self recognized) with almost 300 spoken languages, at least 30 written languages and more than 15 different scripts. Many of them (Mongolian, Manchu & Tibetan for example) bare more resemblance to Arabic than any of the three "Chinese" scripts.
Not really. It's pretty standard with large donations and finding nowadays. Match funding is done because it encourages charities to go out and find other sources of funding and to maximize funding efforts and investments rather than just sitting around hoping for a large donation.
Fingers! The luxury! When I were a lad our fingers were worn down to stumps from workin' in mine 25 hours a day! We had to do integration using naught but a bit of slate and a stick and if we got it wrong our da' would beat us to death, and we would still be up in mornin' down pit minin' hot lava for lava mills!
I get no cold calls on my mobile or landline, with the exception of my mobile provider who once every 2 years phone me repeatedly to sell me an upgrade to my phone, and every 2 years I have to explain to them that it's fucking annoying and that I like shiny toys and will upgrade when I have worked out what I want, so STOP CALLING ME!
The mother in law has been trained to call my wifes phone.
Interesting this guy gets so many calls yet has to trawl the web to encourage people to phone him. How about just not putting your phone number in all over the place. Almost no one asks for it now.
Yes. Go in to any office up and down the country and you will see the same thing. Men wearing a shirt and tie. You will see about 1/4 of the women wearing inappropriate clothes. From fleece and vest top to looking like they are going to a night club. It seems allot of women do not understand how to dress appropriately in an office. It is all about wearing clothes appropriate to the environment you are in. Men don't wear ties because we like them, and it urks some of us when we see women not fitting in to what is seen as appropriate and getting away from it.
Unfortunately in the case of IT this can mean crawling under desks and behind servers in dusty rooms. Wearing expensive clothes and full makeup dose not give the impression that you are ready to do this.
That seems to be allot of it. "Look at me being a real business person! I have a LinkedIn account!".
The company I work for is in education. We have allot to do with MBA and EMBA students. I have fuck all to do with the actual education side (I'm on the money side) but still have some dealings with these students. Yet still I get a fair number of LinkedIn requests emailed to me, even though I don't have a LinkedIn account.
I'm not sure how they managed that. I suspect that the US lawyers may be involved and not understand UK law.
In the US a summons has to be handed to someone and proof that you received it etc. You have to sign for things and the like.
In the UK it can be sent by first class post or just left at the companies registered address. You can't refuse it in UK law, for just this reason. You can't avoid legal action in the UK by just avoiding the paperwork.
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