Buying votes...
The Tory's have bought DUP votes in the commons, Corbyn bought votes from the electorate. It's all just a bunch of false promises and bribes dressed up as politics...
Posts by enormous c word
157 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jul 2015
Northern Ireland bags £150m for broadband pipes in £1bn Tory bribe
Teen girl who texted boyfriend to kill himself guilty of manslaughter
Tuesday 20th June 2017 14:56 GMT
Re: @bombastic bob - Not my kind of girl "friend".
@Martin, I don't see what this has to do with Feminism - I do kind of get Bombastic Bob's point, though - there is something weird going on in society where people are using their perceived / presented vulnerability as a means of empowerment.
(some) Cyclists (I cycle too) seem hell bent on putting themselves in danger with cars so they can make a point about the nobility of their actions in the face of danger.
Social Media addicts seem to want to share their every ailment and discover some dubious ailment to classify themselves with.
Kids glory in being no good at maths, while Talent Show contestants ("who really, really want it, because it's their dream") spend more time relaying their sob-story than developing an actual skill.
Z-List celebs only seem to have an existence in the public eye while spilling their guts.
Everyone just seems desperate for attention from total strangers.
Uber sued after digging up medical records of woman raped by driver
What is this bullsh*t, Google? Nexus phones starved of security fixes after just three years
As you stare at the dead British Airways website, remember the hundreds of tech staff it laid off
Hundreds of millions 'wasted' on UK court digitisation scheme
Friday 7th April 2017 19:19 GMT
The same old story:
[XXXX_Govt_Dept] embarks upon project XXXX to completely re-work the XXXX at a cost of £XXXX [...] XXX years late £XXXX over budget with nothing whatsoever to show for it....
It's a boiler-plate spend-and-waste story, can anyone name 1 massive govt IT innovation that actually spawned a positive result?
UK to block Kodi pirates in real-time: Saturday kick-off
Ah, the Raspberry Pi 3. So much love. So much power ... So turn it into a Windows thin client
Zuckerberg thinks he's cyber-Jesus – and publishes a 6,000-word world-saving manifesto
Co-op Bank up for sale while customers still feel effects of its creaking IT
Tuesday 14th February 2017 12:54 GMT
Re: Jumped ship last November
Interestingly I do my banking with First Direct and mortgage with Nationwide. No complaints with either. Telephone Banking with First Direct is second to none. Online banking isnt flashy but it does exactly what I need it to. Nationwide (was with Derbyshire) have no complaints with either.
Tech Trailblazers Awards: Shortlist out - now it’s over to you
How Rogue One's Imperial stormtroopers SAVED Star Wars and restored order
Friday 3rd February 2017 11:11 GMT
Rogue 1 Wins
Agree: Rogue 1 (ep 3.5) beats Force Awakens (ep 7) Kylo Ren is just not intimidating as the bad guy, the other characters were pretty forgettable too. the storyline was just too busy and the StarKiller base overblown - why does anyone need the ability to destroy 5 planets simultaneously? Does 5 simultaneous planetary destructions really make a bigger statement than the ability to destroy one at a time?
I enjoyed ep7 but I loved ep 3.5
Things I missed in ep 3.5 - the opening sequence was disappointing - there is only one way to begin a Star Wars movie - rolling text to introduce the story and a big ship flying over head with a massive one following soon after.
The score didnt match up to the originals (or even the god awful prequels)
Trump's cartoon comedy approach to running a country: 'One in, two out' rule for regulations
Wednesday 1st February 2017 11:40 GMT
Re: @enormous c word I like it
@Graham Marsden
Honestly, I dont know about US law but there's plenty of ridiculous laws in the UK - 30 seconds on google found these:
- It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament
- It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside-down
- In Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless except as a clerk in a tropical fish store
- Mince pies cannot be eaten on Christmas Day
- In Scotland, if someone knocks on your door and requires the use of your toilet, you must let them enter
- In the UK a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman's helmet
- It is illegal to remove a dead whale found on the British coast as it automatically becomes the property of the King / Queen (1322)
- It is against the law for anyone to fly a kite or slide on ice in the street (1839)
- It is illegal not to tell the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing
- It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armour (1313)
- In the city of York it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow
- no person shall import into England potatoes which he knows to be or has reasonable cause to suspect to be Polish potatoes' (2004)
- it is illegal to carry a plank of wood along a pavement (1839)
- it is illegal to impersonate a Chelsea Pensioner
Tuesday 31st January 2017 12:50 GMT
Re: I like it
@phuzz - so just leave all the old shit in there because it's easier to do nothing than to do something.
Thats why the US has so many gun deaths (28 mass shootings in first 30 days of 2017) because 'the right to bear arms' was written into the US constitution (in 1791 when a 'well regulated militia [was] necessary to the security of a free State') but never since repealed.
Still think repealing old archaic laws is a silly idea? On average ~8,000/yr dead US citizens might disagree.
Tuesday 31st January 2017 10:25 GMT
Re: I like it
I like it too. Regulations are like code - every line of code is a potential vulnerability. Redundant code is especially vulnerable since it is no longer maintained and is poorly understood.
Every regulation represents a potential loop-hole - in the UK, the most outrageous TAX avoidance schemes take advantage of archaic laws, regulations and inconsistencies, they slowly get repealed, but in the meantime, 2 more loopholes are found.
This is a good idea. It's a shame that it has been tarnished by Trumps name and the hysterical-reactionary-anti-Trump response is that everything he says/does is bad. Law of averages says he will have a good idea once in a while.
Microsoft sued by staff traumatized by child sex abuse vids stashed on OneDrive accounts
Thursday 12th January 2017 13:23 GMT
Re: poor widdle snowflakes... wait, what?
My wife feels guilt about taking our 4yr old into Nursery for full days. I personally have necked and plucked chickens - but I can't bear to watch surgery (on people) on TV. I cannot begin to understand what effect seeing huge volumes of such images would have on me or any reasonable-minded individual - whats more, I don't want to find out. If you're ok with it, or think the average person should be ok with it, then perhaps you should seek help. If it's in *the cloud*, then it has been made public and shareable - no matter what you think you know or think should be the case. I really don't have a problem with any such (public) information being reviewed and reported. I just pity those who have to review it.
Top cop: Strap Wi-Fi jammers to teen web crims as punishment
Barcodes stamped on breast implants and medical equipment
Friday 30th December 2016 10:29 GMT
Re: But how to know if someone has an implant?
This is a good idea, don't let technology get in the way of it's success.
The RAF solved this with the LITs project 10 years ago, all aeroplane parts are recorded, they know where every piece is and they don't need NFC to do that. Recalls can be targeted to only those assemblies that require it, preventative maintenance can be performed (just before) the point of failure etc. The NHS could learn a lot from the experiences gathered in this project.
But what will happen no doubt is that the NHS will consider its requirements to be so unique and special that it will thumb its nose at existing solutions and embark upon one of its typically over-ambitious projects and piss £M's away on an overly-complex / poorly-considered IT projects that is destined for failure instead of spending it on hard-working hospital administrators exorbitant salaries.
Raspberry Pi Foundation releases operating system for PCs, Macs
Thursday 22nd December 2016 13:57 GMT
Re: 2017 will be ...
"2017 will be ...
... the year of the Linux desktop (again)"
Its here already - most folks only need for Computing is their phone / maybe a tablet - they probably run Android which is Linux. I just bought a couple of little KODI/xbmc boxes of Amazon - one runs as a Media Streamer, the other I removed KODI and plugged in a USB keyboard and mouse and an old VGA monitor - and got a £30 Android PC. I have 5 Android devices, an iPhone and a Win 7 laptop.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01IDLV9UC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Brussels cunning plan to save the EU: No more Cookie Popups
Tuesday 20th December 2016 14:29 GMT
Re: We have the politicians we deserve
The point is that in Brussels, we aren't represented by people we voted for. Having a stable Civil Service in the UK (for instance) means that while political parties come and go, at least the business of government can carry on lead by (but unhindered by) whoever just won the most recent popularity vote.
In Brussels, however, the euro-parliament is a side-show to distract you from the loss of democracy. Actors (former politicians usually) playing the roles of politicians are plied with huge amounts of money and benefits and they play along with it because it's a get-rich quick scheme where the whole family can join in.
Six car-makers team to build European 'leccy car charge bar network
Thursday 1st December 2016 18:15 GMT
Re: Oh no...
The problem is one of the infrastructure to supply this amount of juice to each charging station - not a problem while there's so few all-electric cars around and the charging stations can be subsidised by petrol / diesel sales.
Lets say a typical petrol/diesel filling station has 10 bays, and a refill takes 5 mins and costs £50each, they can *potentially* service 24 * (60 / 5) * 10 = 2,880 vehicles per day or take £144,000 revenue per day (so long as the fuel reserves are sufficient of course).
Lets say a typical recharging station has 10 bays, takes 30 minutes to charge and costs £25each, then they can potentially service 24 * (60 / 30) * 10 = 480 vehicles per day or £12,000 revenue per day.
But of course, the filling/charging stations aren't 100% busy 24 hours /day, lets say they are 25% busy throughout the day, then it's £36,000 for a petrol/diesel station and £3000 for recharging station.
Both need to be able to accomodate peak times, where 10 vehicles are refuelling/recharging at the same time, which is a huge problem for the charging station - if each car needs a 400kilowatts feed, then they need a 4megawatts feed - equivalent to the needs of about 4000 homes.
So only answer is to put a medium-sized fossil fuel burning power station at each recharging station to guarantee delivery for peak times. There are currently about 8,500 petrol stations in the UK, so we would need 6 times more than that for an all electric (because electric cars take 6x longer to recharge) so that's 51,000 electric charging stations / 4MW powerstations ...
Married man arrives at A&E with wedding ring stuck on todger
Tuesday 15th November 2016 13:07 GMT
Re: Doctor stories
:-) I always smile at the story of the guy who slipped in the shower and got his old Nokia stuck where the sun dont shine. Obviously it was a vibrating phone - once word got out, he was deluged with calls which was apparently quite off-putting during the removal *procedure*. I'm reminded of the old Dom Jolly / Trigger Happy TV routine - "Hello, I'm in the theatre. Yeah it's hands-free. No it's shit, gotta go, ciao"
Zuckerberg says just one per cent of news on Facebook is fake
Hell Desk's 800 number was perfect for horrible heavy-breathing harassment calls
Smart Meter rollout delayed again. Cost us £11bn, eh?
Uber drivers entitled to UK minimum wage, London tribunal rules
Web devs want to make the Internet of S**t worse. Much worse
The exploding Note 7 is no surprise – leaked Samsung doc highlights toxic internal culture
Fanbois iVaporate: Smallest Apple iPhone queues ever
Brexit must not break the cloud, Japan tells UK and EU
Thursday 8th September 2016 12:23 GMT
“To maintain the level of information protection and free transfer of data.
Once the UK is no longer bound by the EU’s data protection legislation, the smooth cross-border transfer of personal data between the UK and the EU may become difficult. This could affect ICT businesses conducting data centre operations based on their establishment in the UK with declining demand from data centre users such as Cloud operators managing personal data within the EU.
Furthermore, the transfer of information between a parent company and its subsidiaries could be affected.”
WTF has this got to do with building cars? Or the economics of building cars. I can see that it might inconvenience some DataCanter operation, but seriously International Companies deal with this sort of crap all the time. This is not an issue on any level.
Microsoft has open-sourced PowerShell for Linux, Macs. Repeat, Microsoft has open-sourced PowerShell
Sunday 21st August 2016 23:06 GMT
Re: "On Linux we’re just another shell"
Woohoo! Another shell!
And not only that - it's *Just* another shell. Who'd have thought the world needed _just_ another shell - it's right up there with *just* another reality TV programme, or *just* another hair care product.
Powershell for Linux / OSX - thank you MS for solving the problem that doesnt exist, for re-inventing something that isn't needed. BASH grep, awk, sed ports for Windows already exist in abundance, and lets face it most of the worlds IT now runs on some for of Unix these days (call it Linux, Android, OSX, BSD, Unix; AIX., HPUX, Solaris).
More gums than Jaws: Greenland super-sharks live past 400 years old
Tuesday 16th August 2016 13:41 GMT
Re: Typical specimen is older than America
@chivo
"Nicely done! I could care less if he's got a fucking potato head and crossed eyes if he can lead a country sensibly"
What are you trying to say? That you actually care a lot? Or did you mean to say "I couldn't care less..." you need a negative in there or what you're trying to say makes no sense - unless you have no idea of what you're talking about - in which case who cares.
And yes, while we in the UK did vote in the Tony bliar (see what I did there?) what amazes still me is that the US actually voted in Al Gore, but got dumber-than-a-bag-of-nails George W Bush, then actually voted him in properly next-time-around after he'd made a fool of himself and a mockery of the US.
By comparison Donald (would have made more money had he left his huge inheritance in the bank) Trump sure does knows how to run a country (oops! I forgot to put a negative in there)
Post-Brexit spending freeze in UK is real, says enterprise distie titan
Thursday 4th August 2016 14:15 GMT
oh here we go again ....
I find there's a particularly snide level of hysterical arrogance from people who voted to remain in the EU and didnt get their way. They blame the (narrow) margin of the vote on protest votes or Northerners voting because they dont understand what they're doing. Guess what - that's democracy and everyone gets a vote - no-one's vote is more valuable or righteous than anyone else's.
...and BTW, no you can't just keep re-running the referendum until you get the result you want - that also isn't how democracy works. If you (exiteer/remainer) couldn't get your shit together and turn up on voting day then don't bother whingeing about it now - complacency isnt an excuse or evidence that your opinion is more valid.
Personally, I don't know anyone who regrets the way they voted (either way). Lots of nervousness about how things will progress and concern that those governing may not be up to the job.
Johnson gave appalling performances in the debates and the fact is that we voted to leave _in spite_ of his desperate wannabe Churchill-act. I'm astonished he's still in government let alone in his new role as foreign secretary.
Liberal Party of Australia: why are you paying so much for ancient software?
All this Brexit talk derailed UK tech spending, right? That's a big fat NOPE
Wednesday 22nd June 2016 12:06 GMT
My problem is that while I favour exit from the EU, I just don't want to be represented by the likes of Farage or Johnson. I don't like that we seem to be in the process of being lead like sheeple by the nose into the hands of unelected officials with a puppet local administration who are powerless other than to accept rulings. But I'm not sure that I trust a Cameron-lead government to look after my interests either. At least I can choose who I vote for - but if the pseudo-government is just a distraction, then what does it matter who I vote for?
An Australian points-based immigration system sounds sensible to me, and I actually have no objection to immigration levels increasing so long as it is reasonably controlled so that our school / health / housing / commercial infrastructures are developed in-line with an influx of people.
It worries me that immigrants forced to take menial low-paid unsecure work because the corporates want to maximise profits and are actually creating a new under-class of vulnerable people while at the same time making it much more difficult for native kids to enter the workplace and learn (at a young age with the support of their families) workplace values.
On the flip side we are fortunate that our NHS (as an example) is propped up by highly skilled / highly desirable immigrants (who would no doubt still be able to enter into the UK through this Australian points-based system). But at what cost to the developing countries that they came from and who presumably subsidised their education training at considerable cost?
A longer wait at passport control while going on holiday doesn't seem such a big deal.
Work Visa's will be re-introduced, I guess - but for long-term contracts, that's acceptable. It will make it very much more difficult to work abroad on a short-term assignment - but doesnt that mean that employers will have to invest in their local workforce rather than pulling or sending someone abroad to do a week here or there.
We're told that if we leave the EU, then the value of the pound will tumble - but that's good for exports, isn't it? Don't we want to revive our manufacturing capacity to something beyond luxury sports cars and JCB diggers.
I guess a weakened pound will make it harder/more expensive for retailers to buy cheap from abroad - but doesnt that mean our local farmers will finally get a fair deal. Surely it's better for the environment if food isn't transported huge distances.
Brussels doesnt generate any money, it funded by the member states - I don't know what the cost is, and I dont understand the subsidies and rebates, but I do recall reading that Neil and Glenys Kinnock pocketed £10M over 15years as European Comissioners. That's about 6 schools or 285 - 400 school teachers -or- 8,871 - 12,000 school places (assuming an average class size of 30)
Confirmed: Dell software sell-off
Dad of student slain in Paris terror massacre sues Google, Twitter, Facebook for their 'material support' of ISIS
Chinese numerologists are betting Dell/EMC deal will make them rich
Monday 20th June 2016 10:23 GMT
Re: Numerology?
WW1 probably finished at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month because November was already agreed and to keep things simple they went for the 11th @ 11:00 to make it easy to remember. After all they probably didnt want some moron taking a pot-shot a couple of hours later and starting the whole mess up again ;-) I think the saying "the eleventh hour" came from the end of WW1
Anyhow the end of WW1 wasnt a surrender by Germany, it was a cessation of hostilities and a humiliating disarmament with reparation of costs to the allies - many germans thought the German *surrender* (which it wasnt technically) was premature and lead to WW2
'I am not a lizard' Zuckerberg proclaims in public Q&A
Unicode serves up bacon emoji
'UnaPhone' promises Android privacy by binning Google Play
Sky! Blue!, Oceans! Wet!, Yahoo! Overvalued!
Banning computers makes students do better on exams – MIT
Monday 16th May 2016 12:11 GMT
No thanks
You have to weigh up the questionable value of the activities performed on computers, the effect that has on learning and learning approaches against the extended set up time required by barely IT-literate teachers, the arguments in class by children who become increasingly de-socialised by obsessive/repetitive use of computers.
Consider the value of IT skills learned by a 5 or 6 year old who will enter into the workplace in say 10 or 15 years time and the rate of change in IT against the value of learning lifetime skills in reading, writing and simple mental arithmetic.
I see computers used to great success in keeping bothersome children occupied (playing on Mums smartphone while she chats to friends or keeping them quiet while on a long car journey) and laptops and tablets in schools serve much the same invaluable role, especially where there are children who don't have English as a first language or behavioral problems - the laptop doesnt require any real communication and keeps them nicely occupied.
I'm a big fan of using these invaluable teacher aids / activities for other peoples children at school or if we're out and about, but personally, I'd rather my little kids (aged 3 & 6) get a real education and spend meaningful fun time with us.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
