Posts by xnfec

Fear and Brexit in Tech City: Digital 'elite' are having a nervous breakdown

Fear and Brexit in Tech City

I lived through the 70's while I was Uni. It was not that bad. I still had a good time. The brown-outs were inconvenient and caused by strikes - we still had Unions then - not popular, I know, but they did fight for our wages until, irony of ironies we earned enough to become tories and then kicked them out. We survived the Blitz too though I sure you are not suggesting we go back to that. In this country we have got used to blaming the EU for everything - both sides do it, it is a convenient scapegoat so it is no surprise we voted to leave. Whether it was a rational choice is another topic. Without the Unions, we let the bosses decide everything so they pay crap wages and then, like Pilate, hold their hands up and say: that's the way it is, what can I do? The EU has kept the peace in Europe since it's inception. For that alone is worth keeping it and staying in.

Re: The current plan does not matter

If we don't trust the government to act in our best interest then why have them? http://www.roughtype.com/?p=7114 (After Math) says we no longer use or need our brains and politicians and the propaganda (PR) folks know how to manipulate us into backing whatever hare-brained scheme sells most papers/page views/biscuits.

Let them vote. They can't make a worse mess than we already have.

Re: France is pushing slyly to poach much of the rest.

Actually, "France" is spread right around the globe. From France proper to Cayenne in South America, Martinique, Guadeloupe & St Martaan in the Caribbean. St Pierre & Miquelon off the coast of Canada, Tahiti, Wallis & Futuna, New Caledonia in the Pacific, Reunion and Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. With a bit of wire and few computers they could easily go 24/7/365

Object to #YearOfCode? You're a misogynist and a snob, says the BBC

Outsource Coding to India, China and Vietnam

What makes you think they won't be able to innovate and manage cheaper than us too?

Gov report: Actually, evil City traders DIDN'T cause the banking crash

Where was domino 1?

At the moment this read as if it is what the author wants to be true. The problem is that HBOS and RBS, badly run though they were were not dominoes 1 and 2 in respect of the global financial crisis but near the middle of the chain (presumably Spain and Cyprus are near the end). Like Northern Rock, they could not survive when the environment changed and the environment began to change as soon as Bear Stearns and later Lehmans hit the rocks with their dodgy instruments and other shennaningans. Time marshalls his facts well but he is picky with them.

Meet قلب, the programming language that uses Arabic script

Computer Languages

I recall reading in an article about the early days of computer science there was some discussion of whether english was the best language for code. A team lead by Grace Hopper was tasked with studying the problem and they found that english was the best.

The interesting thing about this will be if it becomes possible to write programs that could not exist in the languages current today.

Brits now spend more on debit cards than rustle or jingle money

Cash - too many trips the machine

Give the rising cost of things these days you would find yourself either going to the cash machine after every purchase or carrying around very large sums of cash. All in all, plastic is much more convenient.

Mobiles give you brain cancer?

Mobiles

If you are not sure what to believe then the answer is to see what the insurance companies are doing. If they are doing nothing then no worries. If on the other hand they are treating this as the next asbestos then you should probably consider changing your behaviour.

German police raid home of man who operated Tor server

TOR Raid

If the police are so interested, why don't they run a TOR server themselves?

Renewing the mythology of the London ricin cell

What were they actually doing

While I am sure that the government failed yet again to appear even remotely plausible, it is not clear from the article what Bourgass was actually up to. Was he actually trying to make Ricin and if so why? He may have had nothing to do with Al Qaeda but was actually involved in a terrorist plot?