Posts by Jeff Green

Re: CzechMate

Walking with a friend in Sarf Lunnun an American lady asked for directions to Fort Neef.

It was only when my very puzzled friend repeated the name in his distinctly Croydonian tones that I could point out that the address her brother-in-law had given her by phone was Thornton Heath ...

If any normal user "wants" an operating system, that operating system is broken. An operating system shouldn't be a "product" as such. It is simply the way to get things done. Most people don't book a holiday on an Airbus 380, they book a Holiday in Thailand or Skegness with appropriate transport. Linux is a HUGE success because everyone uses it, many many times a day, and neither know nor care that they do.

When does anyone notice Windows? When it changes in a way that stops you working or it crashes or it costs you money.

Re: Which bit is broken?

It's always the other bit ...

Whoever you ask!

Sorry, but Microsoft were uttely wrong.

All those complaining that Google were sticking to an arbitrary deadline seem not to have noticed that so were Microsoft!

What is so special about a Tuesday?

If Microsoft had the fix for a security vulnerability and decided not to release it merely because they only release fixes on Tuesday they were 100% in the wrong. You have a fix you make it available, if you are meeting an old friend for a regular lunch every fourth Tuesday is fine.

If Microsoft had sent a mail saying "This problem is proving very tricky to fix and we estimate we are 7 days off a working solution please can you withhold" I would have some sympathy but "We have fixed it but our marketing department thinks it is better to do things on Tuesday so please don't release the info" is crass.

Microsoft are a huge company if they cannot fix a simple bug in their code in 3 months then they need to redeploy some of the thousands of people in other jobs into doing something useful.

Re: So he admits it

Errrrr, where to start ...

"He's unfit for the workplace"? Whose workplace, he's fit for his and that's all that matters.

Linux is ALREADY taken seriously, if you've used the internet today you've used more Linux than Windows, even if you are in a Microsoft house accessing Microsoft based sites that statement is probably true. Steve Ballmer was a total shit but M$ still made billions!

Who recompiles their own kernels? Only amateurs. Amateurs are people who do things for the love of them, professionals because they are paid to. I know who I want looking after my key systems! The Linux security professionals who push out the security fixes are both amateur and professional and normally get fixes out same day.

All the main linux distros these days have release cycles, for non-critical patches this is the way to do things, for critical patches the ONLY acceptable time-frame is ASAP. Waiting for the next 90 day release cycle while the bad guys empty your bank account may well be professional but it is also about as rankly stupid as it is possible to be!

Re: Init freedom

I would be mortified if anyone suggested 99.99% up time for my systems, that's 5 minutes downtime a year, if I wanted downtime I could run Windows. My linux webservers measure their uptime in years, they only get rebooted after a system is put in place to cover them. I do run (for my other employer) systems that are rebooted as a way to reread configurations, horrible but I do not have access to fix the coding, since they have to be rebooted and since they are required to never have more than 1 minute's gap in uptime we fixed the init to take well under 30 seconds.

I do not know if systemd is any good, but for my systems it is fixing a problem I haven't got and may well be introducing others that I do not want. All I ever wanted was an option to stick with a system that works, I never use Gnome so I don't care if that requires it, but then on most of my systems I don't use any sort of GUI so that's not surprising. On a unix box, any unix-like box, you only run what you need, forcing a larger system on a server is just plain bad.

Re: Google isn't the problem, it's just a symptom

In what way would appointing a regulator be pushing back? Who would appoint him if not someone related to a government or three? That apart is the right to be forgotten really a good thing? I am prepared to bet that the Jimmy Savilles and Rolf Harrises of this world would think so.

Sometimes shining a light onto people's past is a great idea and sometimes it isn't. All we need os someone who knows which is which.

Re: Isn't this a federal issue?

Even the inland ones?

Re: It really doesn't matter

I, on the other hand, am a "producer" of copyright material for which I am paid. I am also paid for non-copyright work. I believe that both need to be correctly compensated and have never argued against the existence of copyright. What I object to is the absurd extensions of copyright thqat have disgraced our world for years.

In what way does increasing the copyright term for already existing work encourage creativity and extend availability of art to the rest of us? In what way does preventing transformative reuse help society? What creativity is encouraged by attempts to copyright alphabetical lists? And what creativity is encouraged by allowing people to be rewarded for allowing their property to be stolen!

The camera owner made a great play of not being involved in the creation, had he told a different tale he would have had an arguable case, but the picture would not have been newsworthy, what he appears to want is a cake and a full stomach ...

Re: to quote Flanders and Swann

Hold very tight please ...

Ting Ting!

Re: Realistic percentages

10% is rather high on current estimates Scotland has around 8.3% of the UK population and that's falling as the population of South Eastern England (pronounced London) rises fast, so by the time any independence came into effect they may be looking at around 7.5% of the revenues.

Re: Sometimes, nobody inside cares what *you* think

localhost doesn't have to be 127.0.0.1, it can be any address, although to fit with the standards that should be within the 127.0.0.1/8 range. On my machine it is 127.0.1.1 because I am too lazy to rewrite a very badly written hack I created years ago that used 127.0.0.1 ...

Re: Here is my proper review

I shelled out the enormous sum of £107 for a 7 inch "phablet". It is ludicrously large, but I added a £5 bluetooth headset and it wasn't anymore, it was short of memory until ebay sent me 32GB for a tenner, its battery life ain't great, but it came with a spare battery that takes seconds to change over on the rare days of heavy candy crushing when it wants feeding by 8pm. It has two sim cards in so I get my company and personal calls on one phone.

Yes I still have my Samsung Galaxy 3 but I wouldn't buy it again now, and it's pretty much my reserve phone.

It runs everything I need, makes a great cheap gps system in the car and is even big enough to work on. Cheap and Chinese made it certainly is, but it won't be filling a hole in the ground any time soon!

Re: The other flaw...

In round terms ...

In the year 2011 there were 7,000 million of us, the birth rate was around 25 per thousand in 1995 there were around 5,750 million of us, the birth rate was around 30, and between those dates over 1,000 million people had died. Next date I have is 1950, 3,400 million 5 billion deaths in the 45 years you can keep going with these figures, do a little bit of adding up and come to the conclusion that somewhere between 5 and 8% of all the people who have lived since the first approximations to history (say around 6000 BC?) are alive now.

Not quite

At the time they appointed Elop Symbian was the dominant smartphone platform and still growing, if not as fast as Apple's offering. It only went into decline, and disastrously steep decline at that, after Elop told the world he was killing it.

Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

10.1 is a linear dimension increasing that by 10% gives you 20% more screen area ...

Re: @Idocrase Spitfires

Although it is true the Hurricane had a higher maximum ceiling than the spitfire, mainly due to its larger wing area its performance at altitude was poor and the effect operating height was around 3000 feet lower than the spitfire's. Spitfires also had higher speed and overall agility. Hurricanes being slower and heavier provided a more stable gun platform. Minor damage to Hurricanes was initially easier to repair, because the ground crews knew all about fabric and dope but as time went on repair crews became equally adept at the two aircraft and availability for the two types throughout the BoB were very similar.

In practice the spitfires were deployed at higher altitudes and used to attack the fighters while the more numerous Hurricanes went for the bombers. The comparison between the two types is best made by looking at their service lives. If Hurricanes were better and cheaper it is rather doubtful they would have been phased out quite so early!

In comparison to the German types those who flew both say picking a Mk1 or 2 Spitfire or an Me109 would be tough, but the injector on the 109's engine certainly gave it an advantage in "getting away" as it kept working under negative G loads, it carried cannon which did a lot more damage than a Browning however its turning circle was much wider.

Re: Are you telling me...

Baseball? Isn't that cricket for "special" people?

Re: More Google Irresponsible Stupidity.

Completely pointless and irresponsible. It can never work, just like the car, the telephone, the wireless, electric light etc. etc. .

I agree it sounds more than a little mad but that doesn't mean it won't work or be useful. The point of these Google ideas is to investigate high risk schemes. They're also working on a space elevator. This project is very interesting on a number of levels, the computer based stratospheric steering in particular.

I cannot see this ever being the way to get regular Internet access to a population, but during disaster recovery efforts it could be invaluable.

Re: Butt-hurt Microsoft

It's perfectly OK for them to crush M$ services if they do so by making better products. It would not be OK for them to abuse their market dominance but Microsoft's band of brothers haven't actually presented any evidence that they have done so, merely screamed that they aren't playing fair.

Re: No SD card slot, no removable battery

same two bad features, but half the price!

Re: Backwards Compatibility

Exactly, they consistently provide no backwards compatibility at all.

Re: Double standards

Really?

Apple are trying to prevent people making tablets with rectangular screens, I suppose Samsung could leave that bit out ...

Not necessarily

"You know if you have physical access to a linux laptop you can reset the root password and log in right?"

Not if the machine is set up to prevent that you don't. Encrypting the disk is hardly difficult and short of access to a supercomputer and endless time you ain't getting in without the password.