Posts by Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

Browsers could face two regimes in Europe as UK law set to diverge from EU

Different countries have different laws. Sometimes inside the EU too. See Belgium's ban on video game loot boxes necessitating changes in FIFA Ultimate Team.

Beijing residents blast COVID surveillance device

Yes I am.

Fortunately the left's constant calls for constant harsh lockdowns went mostly ignored.

We didn't. There were lots of calls from the left ( Labour and left of the Tory party ) that we should follow China.

Fortunately we didn't.

That emoji may not mean what you think it means

Re: Too bloody many

If you're on Android there'll be a recent or section somewhere. Your thumbs up should be there.

Re: Confusing emojis

That explains it.

I saw that the other day on a group chat about something positive. I understood the emoticon to be positive in response, but I had no idea what.

What in the 13 colonies is an "eggplant"

Twitter sues Musk: He can't just 'change his mind, trash the company, walk away'

"trash the company,"

Is it the official position of Twitter that Twitter is now "trash"?

Hive to pull the plug on smart home gadgets by 2025

I've got a Hive Thermostat. It's pretty crap. It overshoots the target temperature every time. It can't be difficult to make it "learn" how long before target it should switch off.

I'll be getting a Honeywell or something when I move.

Re: Reciva Radios

...Lidl

Russian Debian-derivative Linux slinger plans IPO

Re: That Explains Things...

The Magnot line was hardly high tech. And it worked fine apart from the big gap at the Belgian border for political reasons.

After occupation the Germans took over the line and it worked well for them.

Elon Musk considering 'drastic action' as Twitter takeover in 'jeopardy'

If he can prove fraud, which it could be argued that the dodgy bot numbers are, then surely that's an out ( and an in for the directors. In to prison ).

Re: Where is the ROI?

He's rich enough that he could just be doing it to improve the world.

Imagine if the left wing cess pit was no longer a left wing cess pit.

Soviet-era tech could change the geothermal industry

The greens will be against it because it will mean that people can continue to live their lives as they please.

If it isn't draconian the greens aren't interested.

Re: what if ...

You could conceivably put such a weapon on a nuclear powered aircraft carrier.

I'd imagine the nuclear reactors would need upgrading or augmenting though.

Re: Could this be the energy source that 'solves' energy for humanity??

If this really takes off to the point where we (some areas?) don't need gas heating anymore, I wonder whether we could repurpose our gas pipes to be use to carry hot water into the home.

Change everybody's boiler for a heat exchanger ( should be cheaper than a boiler and easier to fit ) and stick the cost of the replacement on their energy bill until it's paid off. As it's waste heat and the only marginal costs are of the pumping and maintenance of the pipes, that shouldn't take long.

( Mines the one with the...oh, you can't light a pipe with an induction hob )

Big Tech silent on data privacy in post-Roe America

Re: Democracy

> Who would care what these people thought other than for historical interest?

I suppose you could argue that the only thing it got wrong is that black people aren't only 2/5ths of a person and the rest is perfect. But that seems unlikely, doesn't it?

In reality, it was written to reflect the norms of the time and the beliefs of the time by imperfect people. Do you think that a document that defined black people as 2/5ths of a person is likely to be intended to be particularly progressive in terms of abortion rights ( did abortions even exist back then? ) or anything else?

Re: Democracy

No you weren't.

My comment is merely that either the US constitution says this thing or it doesn't. It clearly doesn't.

Re: Democracy

> The conferred a right to privacy from the Government sticking it's beak into private affairs

That's a politically motivated stretch that has rightfully been overturned.

You could make the same argument to insist on the legalisation of all drugs. In fact, it's the same argument.

> What matters is the *right* that they intended to confer.

No, what matters is what the document says. The document that was written by clearly flawed men with imperfect information.

The way to change it is to vote for it. Not pretend that some historical document says something it doesn't.

> That's fine, but don't try and pretend that you're not stood alongside a large number of people who are

You don't know what my views on abortion are because I don't think I've given them. The only view I've given is whether or not people should pretend that some old document says something that it definitely doesn't.

I believe that people shouldn't pretend that.

Re: Yes, I am ashamed of my country

That's how to do it. Through the ballot box.

Not through dodgy interpretations of an old document in order to find rights where they weren't intended.

Re: Democracy

Why should Americans in California be able to tell the voters of, say, Alabama, what their states laws should be?

If the people of Alabama believe that abortion is murder, that most Americans outside of Alabama disagree isn't of much importance.

You talk of anti-democratic but abortion in America was legalised through the most anti-democractic means - activist judges pretending that the American constitution included the right to an abortion.

If you want it (re-)legalised, do it the democratic way - through the ballot box.

Re: Democracy

The judges merely interpret the law - just as the Roe v Wade judges did in the 70's.

The 70's judges pretended, for political reasons, that the constitution included the right to an abortion.

The present judges said that no, actually, it doesn't.

You know that the Roe v Wade judges were unelected, right? Or were they the right sort of unelected?

Re: Democracy

> Semantics

This isn't semantics. This is the entire debate.

The moral question of the legality of abortion is a completely different one.

> Note too that one of the justices has already written that he believes the same logic applies to the availability/legality of contraception and homosexuality.

Do you believe that the framers of the constitution wanted to include the right to those things? I don't. That doesn't mean that they should be illegal.

> Christian morality

I'm not remotely interested in that. There are two debates, I'm interested and annoyed in equal measure by people such as yourself wanting judges to pretend that the constitution says things that it doesn't.

Re: Yes, I am ashamed of my country

> they are also banning travel to other states for abortion

They ( in my view wrongly ) believe that abortion is murder.

In Britain we used to have a similar view with euthanasia. It was threatened at one point that anybody who helped anybody else travel to Dignitas would face prosecution for murder.

This isn't logically inconsistent. If you believe that abortion is murder, travelling to perform the act should still be punished.

I don't follow that view, but it seems that you aren't even interested in acknowledging that there are two sides to the abortion debate.

> Somehow I think that that last point is going to result in a tremendous anti-Republcan backlash at the polls.

Fine. Good even. If the people want to legalise abortion then they should do it through the ballot box.

What shouldn't happen is activist judges ( as in the 70's ) making up their own laws for political reasons.

Re: Democracy

"Democracy is bad"

- you

Re: Democracy

So you are of the opinion that judges should pretend that "privacy" means "abortion" for political reasons?

Re: Democracy

Voting has nothing to do with this.

This is a re-interpretation of the US constitution after it was previously decided that the right to "privacy" included the right to abortion. Obviously that was politically motivated.

The "voting" argument comes later. Now the states have the right to legalise or ban abortions, use your votes to implement your will.

Re: Yes, I am ashamed of my country

You're arguing both sides of a point.

You think that judges should intentionally misread that Americans have a constitutional right to an abortion based on the right to privacy.

However you don't think that judges should interpret the vague right to bear arms as allowing unlimited gun ownership.

Both arguments are about what the constitution says. You want an outrageous misreading in one case and a debatable reading in the other.

The states can legalise or ban abortion now. The same situation we have in Europe.

Unless you think the "framers" sat there thinking "privacy" also means "abortion", you cannot argue that the right to an abortion is in the constitution. Argue for it to be added, fine, but it isn't in there right now.

Bipolar transistors made from organic materials for the first time

Re: Gatekeeping

> I don't know why you guys keep trying to provoke some sort of class war on what is basically a technical website. It's a story on chips, FFS. What does "woke" have to do with it? Can't you just take it elsewhere? You're all noise, no signal and it's just so dull. Go watch GB news or something.

Congratulations on learning to write without learning to read. That's some skill.

Your carer will note that the OP was who introduced politics into this thread. My response was merely mocking them for it.

Re: Gatekeeping

#somuchguardian

Heineken says there’s no free beer, warns of phishing scam

Over the weekend, due to a logistics issue ( through lack of planning, I ran out of supermarket beer ) I had to buy a four pack of Heineken from the local shop to keep myself hydrated.

It was worse than I remember but I can confirm that it is a passable substitute for high quality beer.

There are better beers. There are better lagers. But Heineken is perfectly drinkable.

If it was a choice between that and water, I'd drink the Heineken.

I don't understand the snobbery against it. It's not like it's Fosters, Carlsberg or ( better than those but not by much ) Carling.

Shanghai lockdowns to end, perhaps easing tech supply chain woes

Re: Hooray! The lockdowns are ending...

I can imagine him reading your post ( and others ) now in reply to his.

"Those bloody grown-ups! They know nothing!"

Re: Hooray! The lockdowns are ending...

He's a socialist so he was presumably dropped on his head as a child. Show some compassion, will you.

Ex-spymaster and fellow Brexiteers' emails leaked by suspected Russian op

Re: some dodgy plotting

Why are you pretending that there is a food shortage in Britain?

Are you being paid to push that lie? Are you doing it for fun? Or are you so misinformed about what's going on in Britain that you think it's actually true?

Re: some dodgy plotting

Why are you lying?

Re: some dodgy plotting

or they could just eat the food, of which there is more than enough in Britain.

I don't know why anybody would lie and say that there isn't.

Re: some dodgy plotting

"Britain doesn't have food" isn't an opinion, it's a lie.

I wasn't seriously saying that the idiot was a Russian bot.

It's an off topic rant, trolling and also bollocks.

Is bollocks not on the list?

I've reported this post. I doubt it will get removed because it follows the party line, but it is so obviously trolling that it's tedious.

If you're going to troll, have a bit of nuance about you. This is really poor effort.

My favourite bit of trolling was to simply post "I was very pleased about yesterday's election result" on the Guardian's comment section after the last general election. You could hear the exploding of heads over the Internet, and I didn't need to use any childish wordplay.

Re: some dodgy plotting

> But then, we had food.

For anybody who thinks that the Re-join cause isn't being pushed by Russian propaganda bots, read the above and think again.

Amazon investors nuke proposed ethics overhaul and say yes to $212m CEO pay

Re: Don't rock the boat

It is a private sector company. Yes it's a publicly listed company. But it's a privately owned company, which I know you know I meant.

Re: Don't rock the boat

What business is it of yours what a private organisation pays to the person that runs it?

It is literally none of your business.

Version 251 of systemd coming soon to a Linux distro near you

Re: Whole System Images?

Android and IOS work like this already.

Lonestar plans to put datacenters in the Moon's lava tubes

Re: Won't somebody think of the data?!

Plus you're going to need the actual laptop to be able to access the data or do anything with it.

Re: Store your data offsite on multiple continents on earth at 0.01% of the cost of a moon backup...

The amount of storage isn't that much. If you're storing the keys in various locations in order to prevent losing them, you could keep a copy of a backup tape with them.

There's no need to do this on the moon.

Remember to spec iDRAC

Seriously, you do not want to make that cable your earth

Re: PCSA, Vampire Taps and All-In-1...

"Younger readers"...."ISDN"

I think you might need to update your references.

September 16, 1992, was not a good day to be overly enthusiastic about your job

Re: HOWEVER

The revisionism is from people who imply that they paid 15% interest rates on their mortgage for months and tell of it like Vietnam vets.

"Kids today, you weren't there maaaan, we paid 15% mortgages".

People who tell of these double digit interest rates always neglect to mention that it was a one day thing that slightly affected one month's payment - it's not as if they were paying 15% for months on end.

Re: my early bird antics cost them over 40k

Because exchange rates should stay the same forever and there's no reason for them to change from what they were in 1992....