Sign in / up

* Posts by Ocular Sinister

189 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Aug 2008

Page:

Cameron aims to bring LibDems into government

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon

A Broken System

"we'll end up with another prime minster that we didn't vote for."

Sorry to burst your bubble, but no prime minister has ever been elected. People vote for their local MP, not the prime minister or their party. Yes, its wrong, but that's the system we have. And, yes, it probably needs changing.

"To be honest, I think the only sure fire way to resolve this is to have another general election"

What, and keep calling elections until you get what you want? In any case, this may work against the Tories - the last three elections before this one had a very effective 'block the Tories' informal agreement between labour/libdem voters that could easily be revived, and the left leaning folk are a little rattled by this result, to say the least.

"Without a one party majority nothing will get done in terms of legislation and anything that does it through will be so watered down you might as well not have tried in the first place."

A few points regarding this:

1. We have had ~30 years of majority governments, and look where they got us (both labour *AND* Tory). Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is not by accident that our politicians are corrupt (whatever their party). The reason we need PR is to spread that power thinner, so the corruption is less damaging. Ideally, we also need some form of direct democracy (i.e. a way of calling a referendum on any matter*) to take power away, too.

2. I would consider it a great benefit if less laws were passed, and more time spent considering them.

3. PR would allow us to take the best ideas of all parties instead of taking all the ideas of the least-worst party. We are selling ourselves very short here as all the parties (yes *all* of them) have had good ideas worth implementing.

"A lot of people have tactically voted and taking the popular vote at face value can be hugely erroneous."

Precisely. We need electoral reform so that we can properly express our opinions. The current system is badly broken for you and many, many others.

* There would need to be some exceptions, such as defence.

0 0

Tories buy YouTube home page

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
Stop

Minority Dictatorships

The problem is, though, the labour party screwed things up by following the same path the Tories had already set.

In any case, this election isn't about the economy - there's no room for manoeuvre there. This election is about parliamentary and electoral reforms and despite Cameron's shrill cries of 'Vote for change' he absolutely doesn't want any change. The same is true for Brown - he had plenty of chances to implement electoral reform - his time is up. I know which way my vote is going 'cos I'm sick and tired of minority parliamentary dictatorships.

2 1

Visual Studio 2010 - your chunky new friend dissected

Ocular Sinister

Does it still...

* ...crash 50% of the time when opening an XAML file?

* ...leak memory like a sieve?

* ...regularly corrupt the screen with random pixels?

* ...feel like molasses on a cold day when working?

1 1
Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
FAIL

Not unless they've dropped C/C++ support

Not unless they've dropped C/C++ support completely...

1 0

Tory £12bn public sector cuts proposal would claim IT scalps

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
FAIL

*sigh*

Repeat after me: Your vote is not wasted if your chosen party doesn't win; it's not a sweep stake; your are not trying to pick the winner. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. Voting for the smaller parties (smaller even then the lib dems) is exactly what's needed right now to give a good solid middle digit to this lot (and by "this lot" I mean labour, tory and lib dems alike).

3 0

Mandybill: All the Commons drama

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
Grenade

Ummm....

No time at all... sneaker net plus a big **** off portable hard drive works a lot better than peer-to-peer anyway...

0 0

LibDems back copyright takedowns

Ocular Sinister
Stop

I've said it before...

...but I'll say it again... Don't vote for the big 2 and a half if you actually want change...

2 0

Microsoft spits out 'browser choice' update to appease EC antitrust probe

Ocular Sinister
Stop

Silverlight...

Way, way, way too late to be relevant. If the EU was actually on the ball, they'd be taking a long hard look at Silverlight and whether they are trying to use the same trick to force Silverlight on us all. *shudder*

0 1

BBC to cull radio stations, halve websites in painful biz review

Ocular Sinister
Thumb Down

Re: Radio 6

To be honest, I've all but given up on conventional music radio, and while Radio 6* seems like the best of a bad bunch, its still really not *that* great. Instead I opt for a range of internet based radio stations while at work, and Radio 4 at home. I stopped listening to Radio 1 shortly after the late, great John Peel passed away (rest his soul etc.) and the way his slot was cannibalized by people that had little knowledge for music, or at best a very narrow minded view. I had hoped that Annie Nightingale would replace him, but instead we got the insipid Lemacq and a load of no-names. Fortunately internet radio has grown to fill the gap.

* A quick scan of the schedule revealed the usual Indie selection plus a dance and a metal show. I'd love a decent New Wave show, or a show that for the darker side of electronic and industrial music. Oh, and a dodgy old goth show. /hides

1 0

Visual Studio 2010 - chunky but has a great personality

Ocular Sinister
FAIL

Awful, buggy and slow

As some who has moved from using Visual Studio 2003/Subversion to Visual Studio 2010/Team Foundation Server, I have to say that the current Beta is shocking. Really, really shocking. Opening a XAML file can take minutes, and there is 50/50 chance it will crash VS2010. The screen frequently corrupts completely - just a collection of random pixels as if they were writing directly to video memory (!), perhaps in an attempt to improve performance. Despite this, it is slooooooow. The integration with TFS is slow, and inconsistent, though I suspect that's as much the brain dead design of TFS (Off line working? Forget it!). Not a problem with VS, but why can I not access source control functionality from with Explorer?

The current VS2010 beta is slow and crash prone - more like an alpha than a beta - and TFS is a world of fail 'by design' forcing you to be on-line with the server to check things out. We learnt that was a crap idea over a decade ago, MS, please, get with the program!

5 1

Attack code for Firefox zero-day goes wild, says researcher

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
Alert

Just to clarify...

I don't mean to say that we shouldn't be looking at higher level languages for these kind of applications, but doing so in the belief that this will solve all, or even many of our security problems is to bury our heads in the sand.

0 0
Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
FAIL

Its not that simple

If you think fixing security bugs is as simple as using a different language, I'm afraid you are mistaken. Its perfectly possible, easy in fact, to write insecure programs that leak memory in C#/Java/whatever.

The only way to fix the problem is to write secure code in whatever language you are using.

Incidentally, garbage collection is possible in C++...

3 0
Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
Grenade

A good point...

But lets not be complacent - its not impossible to chain this exploit with a local root exploit. Given the size of the Linux market right now, I'd say its highly unlikely this would ever get done. If Linux does get a large enough market share for all these kind of exploits to become profitable I shall be installing a *BSD...

1 0

Microsoft re-tiles mobile platform for Windows 7 era

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
Thumb Down

Exactly - It's a bloody phone!

I really don't get the whole smart phone thing. These phones are necessarily larger and heavier and offer lots of functionality that I just don't see myself needing. A better option would be a small, light *PHONE* and a small netbook I can take with me on those occasions where I do need a small, basic computer.

0 0

Westminster politicos told to grasp Vista nettle

Ocular Sinister
WTF?

What a waste of money

Seriously, we are allegedly bankrupt and we're wasting money on nonsense like this? *sigh*

0 0

Microsoft erases Windows 8 optimism

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
Go

They could just cut and paste this

http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.4/

0 1

Bloated Office 2010 kicks dirt in face of old computers

Ocular Sinister
Stop

Reverse snow ball effect

To all those people saying that we'll all need Office 2k10 because everyone else has it... well, I feel there's an inverse snow ball effect here - there was a reluctance to upgrade to 2k7, and if anything a greater reluctance to upgrade to 2k10. And herein lies the problem: the snow ball effect that MS has relied on in previous years simply isn't gaining momentum. Indeed, it may end up being a case that those people with Office 2k10 need to keep their old 2k3 installation to be compatible with the 80% that have stepped off the upgrade tread mill.

2 0
Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
Stop

Clients on Office 2007?

Clients on Office 2007? Not that I've noticed... and if you do decide to export to PDF, just download one of the many free PDF virtual printers and get on with it, no need to dick around with 'one machine licensed with acrobat'.

1 0

MPs frozen out of super-secret copyright talks

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon

And the Torries would do differently?

I hate Labour as much as the next guy (well, maybe not as much as the people who screech LIEBOUR!!!11!! at every opportunity), but I honestly think that the Conservatives would have done the same. Same policies, but a smarter suit. A bit like Tony Blair 10 years ago, really.

0 0

Windows plagued by 17-year-old privilege escalation bug

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon

If my memory serves me well...

The SSH exploit affected windows too, assuming you had applications or services installed that used OpenSSH. Its one of those things that is kind of part of the OS, but isn't...

2 0

MS spins IE security disaster into Windows 7 upgrade opportunity

Ocular Sinister
WTF?

They can enable DEP via the web browser?!

I couldn't help noticing the article linked has a big fat 'Enable DEP' button that claims to turn DEP on, via the web browser. Surely, its only a matter of time before some miscreant works out a way to *disable* it via the web browser...

3 2

Darling forces ministers to draw up spending hit lists

Ocular Sinister
Stop

How much money is the government spending...

...on Windows, MS Office and associated licenses? I'd wager a fair packet could be saved by switching to OpenOffice, even if they stick to the same OS. And I'd be a *very* disgruntled tax payer if I learnt my tax cash was being spent on pointless upgrades of XP/Office 2003 to Windows 7/Office 2010!

As has already been pointed out, the ID cards scheme should appear near the top of the scrap heap...

2 0

Microsoft Office 2007 migration aches foreshadow 2010

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
FAIL

Stupid typo...

*doh!*.. I actually meant 2003!

0 0
Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
Alert

I have a confesion....

I have, and do use Office 2007 on a daily basis at work. Do I find any features that I would miss in 2003? Nope.

> Have you seen any of the new PPT graphics?

Meh, I've no interest in presentations, but yeah, maybe there are some cool pictures in powerpoint.

> Inline editing power

No idea what this is.

> Document collaboration

Tried this, and it didn't work - not because the technology was broken, but because this didn't turn out to be an efficient way of working. The whole thing felt like there were four people at the steering wheel and we went back to the traditional review process. In any case, OpenOffice supports collaboration so its not a show stopper if you want to move away from MS Office.

> sharepoint integration

*shudder*

> document signing

Ummm... there are any number of simple, free ways to sign a document (*any* document) and I don't see why this should be part of an office suite. Should be at OS level.

> native PDF conversion

Again, any number of free solutions (e.g. PDF virtual printers) that allow you to do this for *any* document, not just Office documents. Again, this should be at the OS level, not part of the office suite.

> new power added to Outlook

Is that why the damn thing takes 5 minutes to start? I don't see any 'new power' either, but god knows, I can't find jack sh*t in the new ribbon bar interface...

> It's now possible to practically write applications inside of excel

Oh, shit... Its bad enough with people cobbling together database apps in Access, and now the accounts team can do the same with Excel?

All hands to the pumps 'cos if they really are writing data management apps in Excel we are in deeper shit than I thought.

6 1
Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
Stop

Shiny new!

> Why don't we go back to an abacus and a slate?

Just because something is new, doesn't mean that it is better. Otherwise everyone would already be using my new design for a car with four steering wheels and rear facing seats with the 'ultimate' cruise control option.

What I don't get is what is so wonderful about Office 2007/2010 that justifies investing minimum 3 man-years (it doesn't say how many people were working...) of effort? At even low salary levels, how can you justify spending ~£100K* on something with no apparent benefits?

OK, this is probably chump change for large organisations like banks... hang on a second...

1 0
Ocular Sinister
WTF?

If migrating is Office 2007 is such a pain...

...you've got to ask, why are they doing it at all? What new features are they getting in 2007/2010 that's worth that much pain? Just stick 2007, it still works!

1 0

Google may exit China after 'highly targeted' attack

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon

Which capitalist?

While I certainly applaud Google's actions here, its worth pointing out that China's economic model is capitalist too with most (all?) of the state industries sold off some years ago. The people that bought them already ran them, so no-one really noticed much difference...

0 0

Welcome to the out-of-control decade

Ocular Sinister
Reply Icon
Alert

Yes, they do

Well, I sort of agree with you in that I think cloud computing is a bad idea, but the fact remains the business *are* moving their data into the cloud. I'm just glad that although our company operates a growing business of HR software 'in the cloud', our HR data is kept internal.

0 0

Microsoft delays Visual Studio 2010 launch

Ocular Sinister
Thumb Down

Performance? Lets fix the crashes first!

I was forced to upgrade to VS2010 a couple of weeks ago... I hoped I would be able to open a XAML or XML file without crashing the whole thing. Sadly, if anything the latest VS2010 is even less stable than 2008. OK, so its a beta, but this is pretty bad. And, yes, it takes up to a minute before it crashes, so I guess there are 'performance' issues. And on top of all that I can't get rid of the tabs (I'm a developer for fucks sake, I don't need or want a telly-tuby UI, I want as many lines of code on my screen as possible!). The one useful new feature - multi-monitor support - is badly thought out: Ctrl+Tab becomes useless as the damn 'full screen code window' has an always on top flag! Fail, fail, fail.

0 1

London's stock exchange crashes again

Ocular Sinister
FAIL

So how many times...

How many times has the "five 9s" MS/.Net platform failed so far? Three times? Or are there more that I'm not aware of? And that in the space of, what, 3 years? Considering MS/Accenture were treating this as a flagship installation to show the world how great their respective platforms are, this is a pretty poor show.

0 0

UK jails schizophrenic for refusal to decrypt files

Ocular Sinister
Unhappy

But which party do we vote for...?

But which party do we vote for to get rid of all this crap? None of the major ones even talk about it, and I can see these kind of policies appealing to Tory core vote so I'd be surprised if they rolled them back. Labour won't undo what they did themselves, and the Liberals... who knows what they are thinking, if anything!

Time to vote for a 'little' party I think...

0 0

Microsoft's SQL Server gets appliance of iron

Ocular Sinister
WTF?

More choice of hardware?!

"Fausto Ibarra, Microsoft director of product management for SQL Server, said the advantage of Microsoft over Oracle and Sun is you get choice of hardware"

Heh? Oracle runs on x86, x86_64, Power5/6, Sparc (+maybe MIPS? Not sure if this was dropped). SQL Server support x86/x86_64. This is just plain bull shit.

0 0

Scientists flee Home Office after adviser sacking

Ocular Sinister
Pint

Tories would be better?

While I am completely shocked and dismayed by this, I don't think the Tories would have done much different. Our political system is so stuffed now that we get to choose the colour of their tie but the LaboraTory policies remained the same ill thought out centre right policies that have been screwing us over for the last 30 years.

A pint to drown my increasing despair that we're going to vote for another centre right parliamentary dictatorship come spring next year.

0 0

Windows 7 - the Reg reader verdict

Ocular Sinister
WTF?

@Alan Bourke

Have to bring you up on the whole payroll thing... Both SAP and PeopleSoft run just fine on Linux. I'm more of a PeopleSoft expert and I can tell you that its certified on Red Hat and Novell SuSE (and AIX and HP-UX and, of course, Windows). Client side... well its all browser based, so more or less platform agnostic.

In any case - the whole point is these applications are moving off-site into service providers. No longer will businesses have to maintain large complex applications like PeopleSoft or SAP themselves. This will be especially true of smaller business that don't have the expertise, money or inclination to be running HR applications. They want to focus on their core business and out-source the maintenance of the HR software 'to the cloud'. And that maybe Microsoft's undoing - in the next year or so I see old Windows servers being replaced by online services rather than newer hardware/software.

0 0
Ocular Sinister

Yeah, I got it - It Doesn't Suck

But why should I get excited about it, or bother upgrading? There is nothing in the new features list that makes me want to upgrade. The last time that happened was with Windows 2000 (the move to NT kernel was definitely a good one), though XP had a few worthwhile features too. And seriously, if they must dick around with the user interface, please, at least leave a way for us to get back to the tried, tested and very user friendly Windows 2000/XP interface.

0 0

MS warns of forced Messenger update

Ocular Sinister
WTF?

Does anyone still use MS Messenger?

I haven't used it for years, I thought everyone had moved on to GTalk and then Facebook chat... Meh, whatever.

0 0

BT's giant new faster broadband boxes blocked

Ocular Sinister
WTF?

I live in Muswell Hill....

...and apart from an obscene amount of roadworks, I've not seen any sign of this fast broadband. I guess I have to be a BT Broadband customer to benefit. And they are more than welcome to stick a big ugly box outside of my ugly little box flat.

0 0

Xandros - the Linux company that isn't

Ocular Sinister
Black Helicopters

@George

I seriously wonder if you've even installed Ubuntu 9.04, let alone tried installing OpenOffice on it. All the Ubuntu distributions I've tried have OpenOffice installed out of the box, so to speak. And if it wasn't, installing it does not require any terminal-foo - there is a very functional GUI that allows you to manage your applications that is a bit like an on-line store where you can buy applications - except all the applications are free.

Perhaps as Apple and Microsoft move more towards the on-line integrated application store, people will grok how the Linux installation process works. At the moment I think users are going to, for example, the OpenOffice web site and looking for something to download instead of going to the package manager.

A black helicopter because I can't help thinking comments like this are being paid for...

0 0

Internet Explorer - now with 35% less FAIL

Ocular Sinister
Stop

@mechBgon

A quick google revealed that there are at least two customised builds of Firefox that already support lock down via Active Directory. One is a by a company called Frontmotion and another is called FirefoxADM (though this looks like its been abandoned). I can't say I've ever used them as its not something that interests me, but it seems Firefox can be managed in a similar way to IE8.

0 0

Page: