Posts by Ian Johnston

A friend of mine has a smart meter in Edinburgh. There is no comms hub, or at least no separate one. Just a meter and a remote display which has not worked since the day it was "installed".

Re: Whatever happened to "Don't be evil".

Apartheid, eh? What's life like for the Jewish populations of Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Egypt ... I don' t see any protests about their treatment, so I presume they are all fine.

Re: Glad I'm retired

The Viz poster was for Skegness, not Scunthorpe, based on an 1906 Great Northern Railway poster called "The Jolly Fisherman". The original artwork for the GNR original and the Viz version are next to each other in the National Railway Museum stores.

Re: Two men say they are Jesus. One of them must be wrong.

If Jesus is capable of returning even once, why shouldn't He do it twice simultaneously? The laws of physics and biology are already out the window at one return.

A "robot" does not need to move itself or anything else. All it needs is some form of sensor, some decision making and some form of actuator. demanding movement is like demanding that a computer have flashing likes and big freestanding tape drives. Very 1960s sci-fi.

Did you know a Keurig is technically a robot?

A bimetallic strip thermostat is technically a robot: it senses the environment, makes a decision and implements that decision in a way which affects the environment.

Re: Crime... or something else?

War crimes can only, by definition, be committed during war - including civil war. With whom is NHS Dumfries and Galloway in a state of armed conflict?

Re: don't mess with the man...

Doubtless you can give us a few examples of banks stealing billions from their depositors.

Re: This morning's local news

It would have been a better argument - though still not a good one - if he hadn't stolen all their Bitcoins.

Re: Don't dignify the tabloids

This is exactly the sort of artifact we're getting from camera phones stacking multiple exposures in the background

According to the BBC EXIF data shows that the image was taken with a Canon lens. Other reports say Canon camera.

Given the amazing integrity of our newspapers there is also the possibility the member of staff was approached by a reporter and offered money.

The possibility? i think the phrase you are looking for is "absolute dead certainty".

Re: Hard to fight the feeling that had this been a regular person

That all sounds very theatrical. What actually matters is not how they deal with unauthorised access, but how easy it is to get authorised access.

Re: Gnome

Whoever decided that two buttons on a window was better than three...

Not to mention the genius who decided that having two identical "gear wheel" icons doing completely different things was a good idea.

Re: Coincidence...

Neither does this Linux user. What he likes about Linux is that it Just Works unlike Windows which all too often only just works except when it's just not working.

I would like to use the latest version of Musescore. It comes as an AppImage only. Which doesn't work - let alone "just work" because my fully updated latest release of Linux Mint doesn't contain the right C library.

Re: Coincidence...

The reason Linux isn't "seen as a replacement" is down to legacy applications and long standing stubbornness of the only application in the world that can do a job must be a Windows application.

The gamble which is any attempt to print or use sound in Linux doesn't help. I write as one who has only Linux installed on the five computers I have in regular use. I'm currently using, for example, a Thinkpad with Linux Mint on it which absolutely will not print to my Brother laser printer, whether I try to connect by USB, directly over the network or as a shared printer. The same printer works fine with a desktop running the same Linux.

Re: Using phrases such as "Genetically predisposed to violence" ...

That does not mean you can identify a genetic predisposition to violence nor, even if there were, would it ever be strong enough from you to deduce criminality from genetics.

How do you know? Has this been studied?

Re: Using phrases such as "Genetically predisposed to violence" ...

Only if you believe that a genetic predisposition to violence correlates with a genetic predisposition to darker skin, and there is certainly a name for that.

Re: Seems more common than I thought

Most HR people couldn't spell "sent". Four letters, all different?

Re: Linux Mint

I'm using Linux Mint on two desktops and a laptop now (successor to Xubuntu, successor to Lubuntu, successor to Ubuntu with which I replaced OS/2 in 2006).

Linux Mint is shit. Sound is a gamble. The two identical desktops are attached to identical printers; one can only print using wifi and one can only print over USB. One will tile windows left and right, one won't. And so on.

However ... Windows is even shitter and Linux Mint doesn't use snaps, which is why I put up with it for now.

Re: I don't get it either

US drivers are barely trained and in some states not trained at all. Happy sixteenth, here's your licence. They couldn't possibly deal with manual gearboxes, which is why they make pretty effective theft deterrents.

Re: I don't get it

Assuming I'm alive long enough to see Lvl5 cars become commonplace, what will happen to all the people who love to buy performance cars?

They'll still buy performance cars, just as they do despite the existence of SUVs, automatic gearboxes and SUVs with automatic gearboxes.