Posts by P. Lee

Re: Ah!

Toleration: coexisting with those with whom you disagree without forcing them to change. The word has been hijacked and twisted to mean: accepting the values and actions of other people as good.

So today, being tolerant of promiscuity means, "I think how you behave is good and should be taught to our children as an acceptable lifestyle," rather than "I think what you do hurts people, damages your ability to create strong relationship bonds, is detrimental to children's well-being etc. which makes you a bad person - but I'm not going to try to get you thrown in jail or castrated for it."

>that no group should be able to tell another group what they can and can't do. And I see

>absolutely no contradiction in the fact that by enforcing that, I would prevent those who want to

>force their beliefs on others from doing so.

I suspect most of us here agree with this. The problem is that government has become quite intrusive and is forcing people to do things they disagree with. It would be bizarre for the Labour party to be forced hire UKIP members or the British Atheist Society forced to hire ISIS members as secretaries and receptionists just because they aren't spokesmen or policy makers, but that is just what is happening for religious groups. The State starts getting involved with morality decisions in business under "diversity" legislation. It gets involved in morality education in state schools, so people who disagree retreat to private schools. Business diversity legislation and national curriculum is then used to interfere with the hiring and teaching practises of private schools, which have been set up, specifically because not everyone believes the same and some people are trying to force their beliefs on the rest of the populace. Do you want to set up a B&B for people with like beliefs to come and stay with you? That's banned. Want to put biblical text up in your obviously christian-themed cafe? The police will shut you down. Neither of those things damage the public, but some lobby groups have pushed hard to try to eradicate all opposition to their beliefs from the public arena. They are the intolerant ones.

Standing up for what you believe generally means you are against the opposite. That's just the logic of "A neq not A" This is where toleration comes in. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of hate-spewing people around, but to a large extent you can't eradicate that in a free society. I would far rather deal with someone who opposes what I believe and talk about the issues than have some mealy-mouthed "everyone's beliefs are equally valued" politician who squashes my freedom trying to maintain that stance.

I shouldn't be allowed to discriminate based on what you are. I should be able to discriminate based on your beliefs and actions. I shouldn't be able to discriminate against you based on your skin colour, but if you always answer the phone with, "Wazzup Homey?" then its reasonable not to give you a job as a receptionist where that culture isn't appreciated. And for balance, if you use the word "like" inappropriately, you also wouldn't be short-listed for a sales job with non-teens.

The so-called "centre" of politics isn't about moderation, its about not being associated with any given course of action which might be unpopular in the future. The left and the right generally have some values - they have a standard and content to their beliefs which I can judge as good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate responses to the current situation. With stated principles I can make an educated guess as to what someone will do in a given situation. The centre of politics is about managing me so I don't upset those in power. It is about not having inconvenient principles. Sadly that puts the politicians at the beck and call of those who can sway, or appear to sway public opinion, leading to short-termism, knee-jerk reactions and preventing sustained consideration of policy, because policy is as fickle as the latest poll and long-term consideration and observation doesn't sell newspapers.

Re: Ha-Ha!

Apple like to switch suppliers so they always have an alternative supplier. Plus, Samsung might value more 14nm fab experience.

Re: "That's a flawed argument if ever I saw one."

>The Bible - and other works in similar vein - don't just give an option; in the instances where such violence is committed, it is actually MANDATED.

Er, no it isn't. I think you'd be hard pressed to find find Christians in your local culture who think the Bible provides a mandate for killing prostitutes. In fact, the bible writers go out of their way to note the non-Israelite prostitute (Rahab) in Jesus' genealogy and that he was friends with prostitutes and other "sinners" rather than those considered "righteous." I know its difficult to fathom, but you can't do Christianity like twitter as it deals with fairly complex real-world issues and often not in an "if X then Y" manner. It seems those who are anti-Christian are far more "fundamentalist" than Christians - its just a shame they don't actually study what they "believe." Christianity doesn't operate on the simplistic computer-game-logic of "kill the bad guy" or "use the prostitute for your own benefit" that GTA uses.

All of this is irrelevant to the shop in question. That issue can be addressed in twitter-fashion: The content of GTA offends a large percentage of their customers who might decide to shop at a rival. They serve their customers, not internet petition writers.

>Start with the first step.

And the first step is "fail-safe."

Health-checks which check the limits agreed by sellers when they set up the re-pricing system.

i.e. Vary the price but don't drop below X.

Actually, I hate dynamic pricing. When suppliers try to game the system for their advantage, I'm inclined to game the system for my advantage too or possibly just to foil their plans to extract more money out of either myself or other purchasers. It makes purchasing an unpleasent experience for me, so I start to get vindictive. How high can I push the price to stifle demand without actually buying stuff?

>What would they do if their children walked into their bedroom whilst they were having sex ?

Did Macdonalds lock their door? I'm pretty sure, "Eeeewww!" would be most children's reponse.

Actually its why we put doors (often with locks) on toilets. Natural? Yes. Do we want to see other people doing it? No thanks.

Re: In other news...

Isn't the point that 12Mb/s is quite hard to achieve with ADSL ot large populations? I only get about half that. Cable TV works but its shared, so the contention for non-broadcast traffic is higher. Fibre is the only sensible way to do high-speed networking over long distances in high concentrations. That's why we use it in the data centre and for corporate WANs.

We know that fibre is overkill for most internet needs, but the point for Oz is that there has been a politcal decision made to push internet usage and the existing copper isn't up to it. If you have to replace copper it makes sense to invest for the future beyond what the market would do (which is what government should be doing) rather than take the simple and profitable route of upgrading the copper with new copper to allow the continuing market segmentation.

There are halo effects too. Even if fibre is too expensive in places, the mere fact that fibre is a larger part of the market should make it more affordable and increases skill availability.

Re: MP

+1

Plan for failures and make them non-lethal. I'll take Jovial on an s/390 and the occasional bout of organised delays over a new and no doubt expensive system written in .NET thank-you.

re: can't figure out what is so good about these sites

+1

Probably why twitter is doing better than FB. Storage of a little text is so much cheaper than graphics. It's also cheaper to push out. Whether FB will borg the function effectively and kill them off that way is a different matter.

What is very depressing is TV reporting on twitter trending celebrity's gossip. Now that is meta-data I'm happy for the government to collect.

I can't wait for FB to fold under the weight of its storage requirements. Perhaps then people will rethink the whole cloud thing and all the other far more important issues than ease of use.

Oi, ISP! I want you to give me a presence directory I can extend as I see fit. XML, LDAP, even just an IRC channel people can query and my software can auto-reply to. I reckon some FLOSS guys can deal with unsolicitated messages safely via IRC.

Re: Olloclip?

She has an amazing hairdresser?

Or is that the most accurate, adrenalin-pumping bungie jump ever?

re: Horse with No Name

I assumed that was yet another drug song.

Am I wrong?

Re: just use MOSS

The UK VAT threshold is where you're obliged to register. You can voluntarily register below it.

At current rates you'd be silly not to.

> why the hell would we focus on narrowing the formats into individual codecs again ?

Because using hardware skirts the royalty issue and enables free software to use it?

That would be my guess, though I hate the idea of setting standards in stone (literally - silicon).

Plus, what's the likelihood of Apple and MS supporting a Google format - even a free one?

Re: With love to our fellows Windows users!

>Pay attention especially to the sublime words "to monetize the lifetime of that customer".

Nice intent for them, but consoles have a lot of the games market and consumers have shown they can do without MS, by using their fruity and robot devices. MS will be back to their business market. A profitable one, but how long will it hold up, when no-one grows up with it?

@Raumkraut

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

The issue is not free speech (contrary to the assertion, "“Pornography is the canary in the coal mine of free speech") the issue is "what does the industry do to produce pron commercially - are the practises dangerous or abusive?"

Perhaps there are some people who feel the need to express themselves by streaming their nudity across the internet, but I'd guess this is just an industry lobby.

Re: I don't want IoT

Also, there's very little I feel needs to be connected even to my home network.

Re: Analysis

The analysis plays into the American's hands - talking about motivation not action.

Fine the companies who don't comply with the local laws and make it worthwhile for whistle-blowers.

Breaking local law is not "a new thing" which needs to be discussed and debated. Only the level and method of punishment needs discussion.

Oi, American politicians, if you try to overrule/bypass our legal system through corporates, we'll keep taking their/your money until they lobby you for a different policy.

re: it suggests that there's something wrong with their case.

Maybe not. They might not want to recognise other countries as equals or that there is a limit to American rule.

Re: well , there you have it....

I'm still not sure about the reason for the obsession with life elsewhere.

There's plenty of it here.

If we found it, what would it prove? How would it change anything?

Re: Blades: future, past, both?

> Everything's flipped to rack upon rack of 2U and 4U servers

I'd hazard a guess that blade vendors got greedy when they saw "enterprise" whereas 2u boxes are built for the low-end.

Surely the managability is in the homogeneity. Blades enforce it because you can't drop in competing vendor's blades and everyone expects that. 2u servers are physically interchangable but it makes your management more complex if you don't strictly control the hardware.

My favourite enterprise kit is still the network load-balancer. The Crossbeam chassis is still one of the most elegant designs I've seen. F5 is also very cool, if slightly less elegant.

Now, if netgear could punt a switch with ARM/MIPS doing network frontend clever stuff...

Re: I just can't be arsed anymore!

>Just today some plonker was hugging my tail and flashing his lights because in his opinion I obviously wasnt overtaking the traffic quick enough,

Which is precisely why speed limits shouldn't be strictly enforced. In Oz, strict speed limit enforcement (3kmph is your leeway even on the motorways) scare many people into staying well below the speed limit (often 20kmph below the limit, in the outside lane) which is frustrating. Being slightly less, er, pedantic, would allow people to drive on the limit without fear of accidental prosecution, removing all reason and excuses for those tailgating.

But Oz is weird. Going east from Melbourne, the speed limit rises when you get off the motorway and onto A roads. Speed limits vary constantly along a road, usually by 10kmph (yes - that's a fast moving pedestrian) and they don't differentiate between repeater signs and speed limit bounderies, so you'd better make sure you see all the signs. They have electronic speed signs on the motorways which never change. They are obsessed with driving slowly, with continuous exhortations to "wipe off 5." I'm not sure if they are saying they got the speed limit wrong for the road, or at what speed you should stop "wiping off 5" - zero I suppose. Running red lights, however appears to be a Melbournian hobby, probably due to the long four-way grid cycle and lack of traffic sensors. They also give turn-left traffic and crossing pedestrians simultaneous green lights. What could go wrong?

Re: Unknown source of kernel lock-ups?

>When Windows issues an update for something, the rabid mob screams about MS selling defective products? What's the difference?

Er, its being given away for free?

The problem is also noted *before release*, so check out the problem-case and see it will affect you.

None of this, "this update contains fixes for windows. Click through these 3 websites, stand on your head and rub your tummy and we might consider telling you what its about.

Re: What a load of

> you're only locked in if you can't be arsed to learn how to cross platform your data.

Isn't that the point? The cloud has very little Windows in it, so "lock-in" refers to being "stuck" on a non-windows cloud platform.

I suspect MS will want things like docker to bring apps to Windows and then leverage their enterprise strengths (AD) as "value-add."

Embrace, Extend, ...

In this case, I think they are just protecting their enterprise against being outsourced to the cloud. Cloud providers are very cost-focussed and windows licensing will usually blow that out of the water especially at the homogenised hyper-scale they operate at. These companies live by their skills and want to cut their license costs to zero. That means MS is just looking at corporate apps, probably on its own cloud - wheee software rental!

MS would rather compete against a linux cloud and gain a little, than fight its own installed base in the data-centre and get nothing extra.

Re: 'all opinions are equally valid'

I disagree with this being a loser's argument. It is actually a condescending and disparaging comment put forward by those who don't hold with any of ideas expressed. The idea is to denigrate someone's argument from being evidence-based to evidence-free opinion, and to suggest that diametrically opposed ideas are the same, but since they are obviously incompatible, they are the same rubbish.

The classic use is regarding religion and means the content of differing religions does not need to be addressed. Since the world as a whole is becoming more religious (just not in the West), I think that's a pretty dangerous stance to take. You may not agree with a religion, but you'll never convert anyone to your way of thinking without understanding the implications of their religion and how they think.

Re: Celebrating since 3 years already

Notes' problem is that corporate workflow is actually quite hard and expensive to do and maintain. By the time companies have grown to the size where its feasible, they're already hooked on the (essentially) email-specific Exchange. Then overcoming the foibles for yet another massive messaging/information system with a superfluous email component is a hard ask. They might be better off (marketing-wise) having email as an add-on or integrating with Outlook as an option (don't know if they do that).

I was going to say that Notes is what those 15-core Xeons and flash arrays are made for, but then I remembered it runs on mainframes!

re: Oz gamers are calling for the bible to be banned:

So they agree such things shouldn't be available?

I would commend them on their progressiveness, but I fear they are just ignorant, like their US counterparts.

Just to be clear, corporations do not have morals. Mothers shop at Target so guess who Target will keep happy? Not the under-18's who don't spend money there and wouldn't be allowed to buy the game anyway.

Mothers tend to be reasonably pragmatic. The chances of children going on a shooting or going on a hit-and-run spree are minimal. It has minimal reward in the real world and very high risk. Abusive sex however has a much better risk/reward ratio (and to a large extent - "use and abuse" - it isn't illegal) and therefore has a much higher real-world incidence.

This is posturing on both sides. Target for removing one game and the gamers for pretending that GTA is a good thing and a shop not selling it is infringing on their "freedoms."

A pox on both their houses.

Re: Although a fairly accurate and amusing portrayal of LHR security...

I got caught taking the well-known explosive Marmite through LHR security going to Australia. Apparently it is a paste and therefore highly dangerous. The upside is, at that point (if you have enough), they will take your entire heavy hand-luggage bag off you and check it.

I noticed that they don't mind it being on the aeroplane, they just don't want you to be able to eat it.

We need to publicise a single phrase to use to express dissatisfaction at the "any other things you want to say?" section. With enough people repeating what they think of the security theatre, maybe it will be so embarrassing that (a) they get the hint that no-one believes them and/or (b) they stop asking for surveys, either of which would be a good thing.

Re: Apple and Amazon... intangible?

It's easy to fix. Use the accounts Megacorp produce for shareholders and divide by an estimate of units shipped in your jurisdiction.

If MegaCorp is unhappy with your estimate, they are welcome to provide the actual numbers.

The inland revenue have no problem assessing people for tax regardless of the figures produced. Its a bit like IR35...

It won't be paid though. As has been mentioned, its just headlines for the masses.

Re: GIMP

>Mind you, going forward Gimp will *require* systemd.

That's going to be awkward on my OSX install....

Re: Fewer OS instances

If containers are app-deployment/scale-out features, it makes sense to build them into your OS. It would be hard to charge an OS-fee on top of that for that function, unless its in a 3rd party hosted environment.

I suppose if MS built them into hyper-v under the label "thin vm" they might get away with it. To my mind, this functionality should be built into the OS - it's all thing things I was taught an OS should do - manage resources and applications.