Re: Once again...
> Forcing people to suffer a public (and expletive laden) assault is not considered a harm?
ODFO...
Vic.
Posts by Vic
5860 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Dec 2007
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Linus Torvalds in NSFW Red Hat rant
Success for Einhorn: Judge blocks vote on Apple's Proposal 2
Tuesday 26th February 2013 12:15 GMT
Re: Im not an investor but....
> ride it up into the sky and bailout before it starts nosediving
I'm learning to fly at the moment.
I think many of the large stockholders should do the same...
With an aeroplane, if you pull the stick back, the nose goes up. You start climbing.
Woohoo! We're gainnig height. Keep that nose up. Yeah, we're going up and up.
But no-one is watching the airspeed. And pretty soon, that's dropped below the point at which the wings will still fly. That's a stall. The aircraft starts coming down - rather rapidly in many cases. Pulling on the stick to bring the nose up doesn't do any good - quite the opposite, in fact.
It strikes me that this happens in far too many businesses - the need to generate ever-larger profit figures ends up destroying the long-term viability of the company. If someone would just bring the nose down a bit and les the airspeed build back up, things would fly so much better.
Stalling. It destroyed AF447, it'll destroy Capitalism.
Vic.
Microsoft secure Azure Storage goes down WORLDWIDE
Tuesday 26th February 2013 11:42 GMT
> It's not *the* cloud. It's M$ who fucked up yet again
Sure.
But the issue is about who cares..
If I screw up on customer site, the man infront of me cares. And that means I care.
If a cloud provider (possibly on a different continent) screws up, he's not nearly as motivated as I would be because he is remote from the problem. And the only people the end customer can talk to is a tech supoprt department who will know very little, have no ability to effect any fix, and probably won't even know who is trying to fix it.
Outsourcing your work to any remote provider means you will have less influence over them than you would if the job were done locally. Whether that makes a difference to the business case is something that needs to be managed and documented.
Vic.
Tuesday 26th February 2013 11:37 GMT
Re: Blue Pill? Red Pill?
Imagine if these same managers then asked their IT people about the cloud and were effectively told it "it is too risky and it sucks". Then next weekend, one of their country-club drinking buddies explained how cloud services saved their company 1,000,000 USD on last year's IT budget.
That's very easy. You just point out how much more cash they would have if they didn't bother to pay any insurance premiums for the year.
Cloud has its part to play in the future of IT, but I've yet to see an instance where the purported savings didn't come at the expense of increased exposure to risk.
Vic.
Council IT bod in the dock for flogging scrap work PC parts
Monday 25th February 2013 16:19 GMT
> Where if an item is functioning, it should be sold on, this would reduce waste and also
> recoup some of the original cost.
Not necessarily...
Although there might be a residual value in any unwanted item, paying someone to find a buyer for it might well cost far more than could be realised by the sale. That's a net loss to taxpayers :-(
I think it is negligent of a coucil not to have a policy by which its employees can recycle unused equipment, but that's a world away from mandating that said council is obliged to recycle *everything*...
Vic.
Monday 25th February 2013 16:07 GMT
> He hasn't "permanently deprived" them of anything they were interested in keeping
Yes he has. He removed the high-value resaleable parts. Had those parts made it to the recycler, the Council in question would have received part of the sale price for them.
> he was basically taking rubbish out of a bin.
No. He was taking parts from a pile marked "for disposal". "Disposal" does not mean land-fill...
> If he'd waited until the kit was abandoned in a skip to be taken away and then come back later in an
> unofficial capacity to take it, is that still a problem?
Potentially, yes.
Throwing something in a skip does *not* mean you have relinquished ownership of it. Taking anything out of someone's rubbish without prior consent is still theft. Note, however, that such consent is generally very easy to obtain if you actually ask...
> And why couldn't he have got permission?
Why indeed?
> The council obviously disposed of it, no matter what value was in it
Yes, but "disposed of" does not mean "gave away"...
> Why can't you just say "It's in the bin, I consider it rubbish and I will concede all rights to it
You can. The Council did not.
> It seems there's just too much riding on saying that what he did was wrong
Not at all. what he did was Theft. There is no question.
The annoyance is that he could probably have done something very similar to what he did, but perfectly legitimately. But he didn't.
Vic.
Bundestag holds 'unusual' hearing on German Copyright Act
Apple files 'iWatch' patent application
Top tools for junior Linux admins
Saturday 23rd February 2013 09:48 GMT
And packaging, of course
Packages are essential to the long-term stability of a system. Knowing what you've got and how it got to be there are essential.
It's vital not to be distracted by the ".deb vs .rpm" "debate"[1]. They're equivalent. With one *possible* exception[2], anyone telling you that one or the other is better simply doesn't know how to drive the one he's slagging off.
When I was getting to know Linux, I broke a number of installations by relying on the advice of people who told me just to "make install" eveything. It works - for a little while. Then you find out you've over-written something that another application relied on...
Vic.
[1] I use the term quite wrongly, of course.
[2] I'm not sure it's possible to find out how a package's files have changed since installation in the apt/dpkg world; the equivalent of "rpm -V". This might just be ahole in my knowledge, but I didn't get any answers when I asked the LUG...
John Sweeney: Why Church of Scientology's gravest threat is the 'net
Sony promises PC-based PlayStation 4 for Christmas
Samsung under fire over copy-paste bricking
Friday 22nd February 2013 12:19 GMT
Re: Wow @ Obviously!
> SSH sessions?
Do you have a way to do SSH tunnels in the background?
This is a serious question - one of my customers bought an iPhone and wants to do tunnelled email. I found how to get SSH connections going, but didn't find a way[1] of running them in the background...
Vic.
[1] I probably should have looked a bit harder :-)
Microsoft: Office 2013 license is for just one PC, FOREVER
Friday 22nd February 2013 10:06 GMT
Re: FFS
> sure as Hell it shouldn't make life more miserable to honest buyers than it does to thieves.
Ignoring, for the moment, your incorrect use of the word "thieves"...
This is the case with most digital content these days - the only ones who are forced to watch those unskippable "you wouldn't steal a car" propaganda trailers are those who have bought the DVD legitimately; all the hookie copies have it stripped off.
Various forms of DRM force you to jump through hoops, but then someone strips off the DRM and the media/software is that much easier to use...
So it is that the producers are actually providing an enormous incentive for their legitimate customers to use less-than-legitimate sources for their requirements. This isn't about trying to save paying for something, it's simply that the "cracked" versions of stuff are often much less aggro in use.
Vic.
Clarkson: 'I WILL find and KILL the spammers who hacked me'
Microsoft holds off on shooting Windows Live Messenger
Python-lovers sling 'death threats' at UK ISP in trademark row
You can help fix patent laws … now!
Thursday 21st February 2013 10:29 GMT
Re: Prior user rights
> To destroy novelty, there must be *enabling* disclosure *to the public* before the priority date of the patent.
Sure - the problem, though, is that there have been so many patents granted when there was a gargantuan quantity of enabling disclosure to the public before the application; the "doing $commonplace_thing on a computer"-style patent.
The issue seems to be that the USPTO (amongst others, but it does seem to be the worst offender) sees a computer (or evevn a phone now) as somehow magical; that really obvious operations are somehow transformed by doing them with a CPU. Using a general-purpose tool for some subset of the purposes for which it was created should not, of itself, constitute patent-eligibility. But it does.
The judiciary are finally gettting to grips with the idea, though - we're soon going to be in the situation where the initial phase of a patent trial will be the testing of the patents. That's a significant improvement - albeit still not as good as the PTO getting a clue...
Vic.
Thursday 21st February 2013 10:19 GMT
Re: First steps
any patent is ONLY valid when the company holding the patent is actually producing a product that makes use of the patent.
I disagree with that part.
If you were to invent something - a real invention that is provably functional - that has *monstrous* start-up costs, you'd need to shop that invention around various rich entities to get that start-up capital. Without patent protection, your invention will get ripped off by at least one of the organisations you approach.
What's needed, IMO, is for judges to have the ability to declare shell companies for what they are (and thus cause the parent company to be liable for its losses), and for plaintiffs to have the *expectation* that they will be liable for costs should the court find the case vexatious...
Vic.
Thursday 21st February 2013 10:05 GMT
Re: Prior use rights don't help much
> The real improvement would be raising the bar for the novel inventive step
I don't think we need raise any bar.
What we need to do is to apply the rules as they are already written - if someone else has already done this thing, then your "invention"[1] isn't novel, and not eligible for patent protection. And that's an end of it.
Vic.
[1] And I use the term quite wrongly.
Bill Gates: Windows Phone strategy was 'a mistake'
Russian boffins race to meteorite crash lake as shard prices go sky-high
Iceland thinks long and hard over extreme smut web ban law
Wednesday 20th February 2013 12:11 GMT
Re: Parental Responsibility
> Why is it always parental responsibility rather than societal responsibility?
Would you be happy if society decided to discipline your children?
Look at the variety of people on these fora; each one is part of Society. If you want Society to have a hand in bringing up your children, you need to delegate the authority to do so to Society. That's me and him and Eadon and RICHTO and Zmodem...
Vic.
Ubuntu? Fedora? Mint? Debian? We'll find you the right Linux to swallow
Tuesday 19th February 2013 22:32 GMT
Re: OpenSuSE
> Kmail2. It's the most astonishing pile of festering parrot droppings.
Something about v2 code under KDE :-)
Amarok v1.4 remains my favourite music player/manager. It's properly excellent.
Amarok v2 (pick your version...) is buggy and far less competent. And I hate the look :-(
Vic.
Obama says patent trolls 'extort money', pledges reform
Tuesday 19th February 2013 17:12 GMT
Re: Grammar
> One thing is sure, people do not fight over inventions which do not represent significant profit centers.
Trolls do.
The point of the US system is that it is frequently cripplingly expensive to *win* a lawsuit. Thus the trolls can take a hefty profit from suing someone over an entirely worthless and meritless patent.
And this needs to stop.
Vic.
The universe speaks: 'It's time to get off your rock!'
Tuesday 19th February 2013 13:03 GMT
Re: Space Monkeys
> Human evolution has come almost as far as it can go
No, human evolution has come almost as far as it *will* go.
To evolve more, we need greater evolutionary pressure - and that means a higher mortality rate. I don't see that happening[1] any time soon...
Vic.
[1] Absent any cataclysmic events, naturally, which would probably be too devastating to generate much in the way of evolution...
Tesla's Elon Musk v The New York Times, Round 2
Monday 18th February 2013 17:57 GMT
Re: Am I the only one
> (who wants to pay for fuel?)
You'll be paying for it somehow.
At present, most governments take a substantial tax revenue from the sale of fuel. If we all go electric, that disappears.
Said govenment then has a simple choice :-
- Do without all that luvverly lucre
- Find something else to tax to make up the shortfall.
Hands up who believes it'll be the former...
Vic.
Friday 15th February 2013 17:01 GMT
Re: The Balance Of Evidence @ Psyx
> However, the car would probably have had to have been on 10" Mini rims to have made the difference claimed!!
You do know the formula to calculate the circumference of a circle, right?
54mph to 60mph is an error of about 10%. A difference of 10% in the tyre diameter will make that happen. You don't need 10" wheels for that...
Vic.
Satanic Renault takes hapless French bloke on 200km/h joyride
Monday 18th February 2013 17:52 GMT
The steering isnt legally allowed to be steer by wire (it can be electrically assisted now, but there always has to be a mechanical connection)
Strangely, that doesn't appear to be the case any more (it certainly used to bw).
ECER79 Paragraph 5.3.3.2 gives the requirements for a failure of a "Full Power Steering System" :-
In case of a failure within the control transmission, with the exception of those parts listed in Paragraph 5.1.4., it shall be possible to steer with the performance laid down in Paragraph 6. for the intact steering system
Frankly, I don't see how you could conform to that without a mechanical linkage. But that's probably why I'm a code monkey...
Vic.
Monday 18th February 2013 17:10 GMT
Re: "he drove the car off the road when it ran out of petrol."
> grinding the car into the armco might have slowed it down enough to safely deploy a stinger
A stinger would only have made things worse.
The car would still be accelerating - at least until it started shedding tyres - but the driver would have lost any semblance of control...
Vic.
Monday 18th February 2013 17:04 GMT
Re: Assume it was an auto box.
> If it's servo assisted and the servo goes away it is MUCH harder to steer
It's harder, that's for sure. But it's not a feat of Herculaean strength to steer - particularly at speed. Many of us grew up on cars without PAS...
> had you ever had a servo fail while driving then you would understand
I have had exactly that happen to me. That's why I know it doesn't require superhuman strength to control...
> my car is fitted with a steering lock, and the lock is engaged when the ignition is turned off
I really, really doubt that. It's almost certain that the steering lock engages once the key has been fully removed.
Vic.
Monday 18th February 2013 16:55 GMT
Re: Hmmm
> Cutting the ignition will block the steering well on *any* car.
No it won't.
It may disable the power assist, but it will only disable the steering on cars with no physical steering column.
Removing the key will tend to engage the steering lock - which is why you shouldn't do it...
Vic.
HYPERSONIC METEOR smashes into Russia, injuring hundreds
Monday 18th February 2013 14:28 GMT
Re: the cause of death is organ failure
> Not if you die from hyperoxia.
Yes, even if you "die from hyperoxia".
There are two main types of hyperoxia - the Lorraine Smith effect and the Paul Bert effect.
The Lorraine Smith effect basically causes the lungs to give up. So even though there's loads of O2 in yuor lungs, there's very little in your brain.
The Paul Bert effect causes fitting. It's not excessively dangerous unless the fit causes other problems - the most commonplace, I believe, being loss of breathing apparatus underwater. There's also other possibilities, such as head injuries resulting from the fit. All of these cause a lack of oxygen being delivered to the brain (possibly because of a lack of blood being delivered to the brain).
So yes - nice quip, but not actually true...
Vic.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
