Posts by Doctor Syntax 40485 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"If Reg took US checks and real credit cards (not bogus sham PayPal)"
Real, non-sham PayPal is an alternative. Especially for those who don't want to spread their credit card details, including the security code, far and wide to people they've never even met, maybe not even on the same continent.
"The ironic thing is that he uses adblockers too, for the same reasons."
The really ironic thing is that that will apply to many if not all of the advertisers. However, they're not really advertising, they're giving the readers the benefit of their valuable marketing messages which the readers wouldn't want to block.
"If it's a free service, don't trust it to keep your data safe. Seems like common sense."
Nevertheless, if you seek or accept custodianship of someone's data it becomes your responsibility to keep it safe, even if you're providing a free service. Responsibility isn't simply a consequence of being paid.
"e.g. the the texting driver who eventually killed someone (mentioned in an earlier post) was let off seven times and allowed to keep his licence because he claimed he would lose his job if he was banned."
I've always thought that if you were driving for a living the expected standards to which you're held should be higher, simply because you're presenting yourself as being a professional and also, of course, because you spend more time driving and the risk you present to the public is directly proportional to that time.
A comparison would be along the lines of someone complaining of a headache and his mate advising a couple of aspirin - unless the mate is a medic who should be aware of possible serious causes of the headache.
"You can replace 'calendar' with whatever you like - the OP was clearly just trying to come up with a simple example."
Of course. I was just taking his example in the same way. Whatever you use a service to store there's likely to be lots of criminal value in it beyond the login and financial stuff. What other examples do you want? Email server? Password store?
Got on site one morning to find a SCO box pretty well jammed solid.
Some job had gone wrong overnight and was still trying to write a humungous log file. The box had been set up without partitioning the storage much if at all so the file was in the root partition along with more or less everything else.
Simply deleting the file wouldn't work because the program was still running; until it closed its handle on the file the disk space wouldn't be released. Deleting any files that could be spared didn't help much because the space released would be filled by the elephant in the room almost immediately.
It turned out that a SCO box with a full file system ran very v.e.r.y v..e..r..y slowly, probably because the file was buffering a load of stuff and choking most of the memory so everything else was trying to run in about 4K left over and thrashing. That made running ps to find the PID to kill more or less impossible.
And the box was a couple of hundred miles away at the end of a slow modem link - not that the speed of the line had much influence.
Eventually it got arm-wrestled into submission. I like to install Unix systems with multiple partitions, especially keeping directories that might grow, such as /usr/spool or /var separate.
"Never use your own machine on stage."
OTOH I've seen relying on the lecture room's machine be a little...difficult. This was back in the days of slides. There was a 35mm slide projector and an ancient epidiascope (no, spill chucker, not an episcopalian) which would take very large glass slides. The lecturer brought along glass slides which were too big for the 35mm & not big enough for the epidiascope. It ended up with someone suspending the slides in the gate of the large projector with sticky tape. IIRC the lecturer belonged to a department which shared that particular lecture room.
"After hours of PowerPoint presentations she wanders on stage with some notes and just talks to the audience."
I used to do more or less the opposite. I had a carousel of slides in my office. I could pick it up, collect the projector and do an introductory talk on forensic science with no notes because I'd pitch it at any level of audience from a school class to CID training as required.
7 - Leave the lectern. If there is one, don't even stand beside it. Put your large font crib sheet on it that you can walk over to whilst talking, and quickly glance at if you need a lead. Show determination and confidence.
It used to be the case that people would be bound to the lectern. Then the occasional person would avoid it and, of course it looked special. Eventually all presenters avoided it. I've often wondered whether, after a series of such presentations it would be more effective for the presenter to stand behind the lectern and look authoritative.
"white is a vague reference to what the color of this board may have been at some distant point in time, mid grey would be a better description"
We had a nice new supposedly highly reflective screen so it would be legible without taking too much care over blackout. A cleaner wiped it over with a not too clean cloth. The streaks and dribbles were there for ever.
"Andrew Neil on This Week wondered why on earth C4 would pay so much for the show without securing the talent"
I'm wondering whether C4 will still take it. I'm waiting to see it offered back to the Beeb who'll want a couple of million knocking off the price and the original presenters insisting on a pay rise to go back. Karma.
"hundreds of years ago and then kept having new things tacked on to it with more weighty sentences for those who can't pay for a top lawyer"
Hundreds of years ago you could be hung* for not being able to pay a fine. I don't thing they've added more weighty sentences than that.
*Or beheaded in Halifax.
“and we do suggest to our customers to look at a dedicated email provider if they want to look at something more encrypted or secure.”
Very sensible advice. Having email independent from the ISP makes it much easier to jump ship from the ISP. Having your own domain independent from the email provider also makes it easer to jump ship from the email service.
"Use an online hosted email address or run your own server locally."
There's a range of options. One is to use a small, specialist hoster. Unless it's the sort of thing you do for a living yourself they're going to be better at securing things themselves (see Charles 9's post above) and small enough to care - it's their livelihood.
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