* Posts by Intractable Potsherd

4159 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Volunteers slam plans to turn Bletchley Park into 'geeky Disneyland'

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Knowledgeable/experienced volunteers a must!

The Midland Aircraft Museum just outside Coventry has a complete Vulcan you can stand under and go in the cockpit. The guides are excellent, too! My wife was strangely affected to be sat in the seat that held people who would have released the bomb on her home country if the balloon went up ...

God, I miss being in the Midlands - so much more to do than in Scotland :-(

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Why dumb something wonderful and intriguing down for the thick people?

That is a really good point!

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Have these people...

No.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Old hands' tales

The National Coal Mining Museum just outside Wakefield is the same idea - people who actually experienced the good and the bad bits of the job giving the benefit to visitors. Well worth a visit.

Intractable Potsherd

I've taken your template and sent it now.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: I don't think this is true.

Hmmmmm ... my general opinion is, and always has been, that if you can remember the name of the person doing a documentary, then that documentary has failed. It has become a vehicle for the presenter, not a documentary. David Attenborough and James Burke, wonderful as they were back in the day, were* essentially brands before there was much recognition of the concept in the minds of the public. Michael Wood consolidated it through the marketing of the "sexy academic", and then Tony Robinson made archaeology a branch of acting. The current crop of PR'd academics are just really irritating - Brian Cox, Neil Oliver and that bunch of vapid creatures on "Coast" are at the top of that list, but it goes on and on ...

I rarely watch any documentaries these days, and certainly not if I recognise the name of the person doing it - I think the only one I've watched in the last 12 months was the series about Bigfoot/Yetis, which wasn't particularly good but had no-one I'd ever heard of on it.

*Attenborough still is, of course, but I don't watch anything by him any more.

IT executive at JP Morgan dies in fall from bank's London HQ

Intractable Potsherd
Thumb Up

I'm probably one of them.

Intractable Potsherd

"I wish I could understand depression (if thats what it was) a bit more."

Please don't wish that - the only way to understand it is to experience it, and I wouldn't wish that on most* people.

*There are some notable exceptions to the general rule who should be made to view their lives in the worst possible light ...

Intractable Potsherd

Re: did he damage the roof of the building @ Graeme

"No, even with some of the attitudes on display here, almost everyone's death is significant to someone. Maybe not on the global scale, but friends and family tend not to care about that."

I agree entirely, but why are these things reported, then? The only people affected are those who knew the person, so it needs no more coverage. If you knew whoever it is well enough, then you will know about it.

(I spend an inordinate length of time yelling at national news channels reporting on some murder or other that took place hundreds of miles away, since every word about some dead person means that something important is being missed.)

Intractable Potsherd

I've experienced suicide both of people I know, and also, twice, being >< this close to doing it myself. Nothing will change my opinion based on these experiences that suicide is the most selfish thing a person can do, and that black humour is a very good, and extremely necessary, way for some people to deal with it. Some of the funniest events I've ever been to have been funerals.

Judge: Google owes patent troll a 1.36% cut of AdWords' BEELLIONS

Intractable Potsherd

Re: @ Lost all faith

GSK* also spend at least that much on marketing, trying to persuade doctors to prescribe medications that have been inadequately trialled.If you haven't read "Bad Pharma" by Ben Goldacre yet, then it should be right at the top of your reading list (that goes for anyone else that uses health-care - you need to know just how broken the clinical trials system is).

*I'm not singling GSK out as being the only bent drugs company - they all are. I'm just responding to your comment.

Intractable Potsherd

@Chairo

I know that it was a joke, but I disagree with you. I was late to Google because of its stupid name, and really needed beating with the cluestick before I accepted that it really was the best search engine out there. My use of Copernic ended the day that I was shown that the most relevant articles were found more efficiently and much more quickly by Google than Copernic - evidence-based decision making rules!

And I still think Google is a stupid name ...

Apple stores? Samsung says two can play at that game

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Carphone Whorehouse?

My experience of Carphone Whorehouse is that the staff know nothing about the stuff they are selling, and everything about not letting you get out of the door without buying something. The ones I've dealt with hate it if you go in with no more than what I regard as the bare minimum of knowledge about what you want to buy (what you want it for, how long you want it, some clue about what different networks are offering, how much you are willing to pay, and a shortlist of no more than three handsets).

A competitor of CW in Coventry was worlds apart when I went for my Galaxy Note - but, of course, YMMV.

Facebook app now reads your smartphone's text messages? THE TRUTH

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Permissions control

I use Comodo Security to control the app permissions: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.comodo.pimsecure. From the notifications it gives, there are a lot of apps busy in the background!

Elderly Bletchley Park volunteer sacked for showing Colossus exhibit to visitors

Intractable Potsherd

Re: I offered a rare piece of computing history to be ignored

Is there a point to your post?

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Commentards Day Out?

Shame this is so far down the comments - not many will see it.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Conflation? @ Robert Sneddon

So right, but sooooooo completely wrong it beggars belief.

Are you a manager?

Intractable Potsherd
Pint

Re: Just what we need...

" ... dim ignorant half-arsed principle-less space-wasting excrement-lobed cognitively-flatulent smug gutless cowardly sneak-weaselling spunk-bubble ..."

You, sir, are a poet! Have one on me -------->

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Visiting The National Museum of Computing

Next time I'm down in MK, I'll make a point of visiting TNMOC, and then going to the pay booth at Bletchley Park and explaining at length why I'm not giving them my money.

Quivering, spine-tingling wearable tech: Strap it on and don't look back

Intractable Potsherd

Re: osteopath=quackery

Quackery only after the point at which the technique is intended to work. Of course it isn't going to cure asthma or colic, but corrections of posture, and the way joints work have some value. I've used chiropractors with some success in the past, and I'm currently seeing an (NHS) physio who has me doing exercises that involve the same type of stretching and manipulation of the joints/ligaments, again with some success.

Prof Stephen Hawking: 'There are NO black holes' – they're GREY!

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Finally he makes sense

"I bet if you start suggesting things like the laws of thermodynamics are just a theory and scientists MIGHT be wrong, then prepare to meet a mob with pitchforks..."

Sadly, the last part of your posting is correct. However, scientific laws are an area that need revisiting every century or so just to make sure they still hold good. Those who would claim questioning "accepted science" are actually confusing science with religion, to the benefit of neither.

Intractable Potsherd

But we can try to understand bits of it and model the rest. Your statement is a classic example of anti-educationist attitudes throughout history.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: How could we have been so stupid? @ Paul Ireland

Just because you want to believe that the universe operates on simple rules (the simplest being "God did it", of course), and you quote someone else who wants to believe the same thing, doesn't actually mean anything. There is a serious tendency in some people to believe that "simple" = "elegant", and therefore only a simple universe is an elegant universe, but that is only aesthetics. Personally, I'd prefer a complex universe that can never be fully comprehended - that is my idea of "elegant", but it has no more objective validity than yours.

Oh, and Hawking - great thinker, seems to have a sense of humour, willing to put ideas out there for people to work with and improve or disprove, and accept their findings. If only there were more people like him.

Vile Twitter trolls thrown in the cooler for rape abuse tweet spree

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Blighty still out of touch

You are on the wrong thread - this isn't about copyright.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: It's trolls. @ Mycho

"If you believe that, when a man is accused of rape, he shouldn't face charges, you are an arsehole."

I believe that if a man is accused of rape, there should be an investigation by the police, preferrably non-biased*, so that if there is insufficient evidence (such as no mitigating evidence), the investigation will end there. If there is some evidence, he should be charged and the case passed on to the CPS who will fairly review the evidence and, if there is sufficient evidence to make a conviction likely, will pass it on to the courts for a trial. I then expect the evidence to be presented fairly, and the jury to consider the evidence in a sensible manner, and make a decision based on whether the prosecution has proved the case beyond all reasonable doubt (something that is very difficult to do when there are only two witnessess, and one of them is in the dock). I also believe that, unless there is an overriding public benefit, either both the accuser and the accused, or neither of them, should have anonymity.

So, no, I don't think an accusation should lead to a charge - and I query which of us is the arsehole.

*Yes, I know - expecting the police to do their jobs properly, instead of trying to hit stupid targets, is living in cloud-cuckoo land.

Intractable Potsherd

English and Scottish law take a fairly pragmatic approach to intoxication as a defence. In general, a crime requires both the actus reus (guilty act) and the mens rea (guilty mind) in order for a prosecution to be successful. The elements of the guilty mind are usually indicated by words like "intention" in a statute. In theory at least,* no guilty mind (e.g. intention), no successful prosecution. Over the last couple of hundred years, the influence of alcohol (and, to a slighly lesser extent, other things) affecting the ability to form intention has gradually been changed - if you think about it, the accused could say "I was drunk and didn't know what I was doing!" and use it as a successful defence. The law now distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary intoxication, with the former not being a defence, but more likely regarded as a contributing factor. In Scotland, there may be a partial defence to some types of crime if the intoxication is as a result of an addiction (i.e. not voluntary), but this isn't widely accepted in England.

*I've ranted on about the increase of "strict liability" offences before on the El Reg forums, and the way that sexual offences are going that way in order to hit the perceptions of a minority of lobbyists.

A BBC-by-subscription 'would be richer', MPs told

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Easy solution...

One of the reasons to dislike the USA is that it came up with the idea that broadcasting is necessarily an arm of advertising. Relying on advertising revenue necessarily means that you are chasing numbers, not quality. It is the worst of all possible media funding models.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Follow what money? @AC 19:43

If any of the other mainstream news providers in the UK (so not Al Jazeera, EuroNews or Russia Today) were producing anything with a significantly different spin to BBC News, I might just agree with you. However, ITN and Sky News follow basically the same path on virtually every story.

What exactly is it that you want the news providers to give you that they don't already?

The internet is 'a gift from God' says Pope Francis

Intractable Potsherd

Re: He should know @ Euripides

"That makes religions no different than any other human organization. You could say the same thing about governments, corporations, the MPAA, the RIAA, etc."

Given that the levels of education in most Western countries at least, where the influence of religion has been reduced, have increased dramatically in the last 200 years, then I'd say you are provably wrong in your assertion that "any other human organisation" wants control and information. I'd also have to be fair and say that a lot of the impetus for universal education, at least in Britain, came from non-conformist religions. So, that's two strikes against your comment.

Really, the accurate statement would be "That makes some religions no different than some other human organisations, like some governments and corporations, and the MPAA and RIAA."

US govt watchdog slams NSA snooping as illegal, useless against terrorism

Intractable Potsherd

Re: the real reason

Unfortunately this is my point of view too. There is a worry at the top that populations are going to be upset about cuts that fail to affect the people making those decisions. In the UK at least there is a good chance of power cuts in next few years due to insane decisions on generating capacity, for instance, and it is at least foreseeable that there will be demonstrations about them.

Almost everyone read the Verizon v FCC net neutrality verdict WRONG

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Careful with axe of myths, Eugene!

"Then, 1934 was the time of Mussolini-inspired state interventions all over the US. It was also the time of the neverending Great Depression. As today, these two things are very strongly linked, "

Of course they are! Depressions require state intervention - what's your point? Ah, look: a link to a Cato Institute publication ... you are one of those that subscribes to the "only a free market works" philosophy.* I have never in six years of following Cato Institute publications seen a single thing that makes me think that the contributors are not the most dangerous people on Earth.

*OK - I'm just funnin' ya, DAM: your position is clear and consistent throughout your posting history.

Survey: Yoof too COOL for Ferraris, want state-sponsored hybrids

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Good, good

Why?

Those NSA 'reforms' in full: El Reg translates US Prez Obama's pledges

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Gracias, El Reg!

Upvoted this time, but stop using "sheeple" - it is a stupid term brought into bad repute by a couple of other posters on here.

Intractable Potsherd

Who's this "we"? I made a point of praising an otherwise lacklustre restaurant the other week because it served its (bottled) oatmeal stout at the right temperature, i.e. just below room temperature. I don't drink ale, stout or bitter if it has been refrigerated, I don't drink lager at all in the UK.

Cocky Spotify drops time limits on free listening, skint music-lovers cheer

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Oh dear

Well said, AC! Don't expect to make a living out of "creating" - do it because you want to, not as a career option. If you *do* make some money out of it then good show, but art should primarily be about enjoyment, not money. The current concept of art as a route to a fortune is modern, and merely transitory in the greater scheme of things.

Clink! Terrorist jailed for refusing to tell police his encryption password

Intractable Potsherd

But surely it would have to be proved that the cards had anything to do with the password before it can be classed as evidence that was destroyed ... and that is a difficult task which could lead to appeals all the way to the top.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Works 4 me

And, AC, it doesn't work work for me. There are few crimes that are so heinous that there should be a specific compulsion on the accused to make an investigation easier. It is the job of the police etc to *find* the evidence, not the job of the accused to *give* the evidence. No evidence, no proof, no crime - that is the way it has been for several hundred years, and there has been no compelling (pun intended) reason to change it.

Why the hell are you so afraid of people that can barely hurt you? Are you same "perp" user as always trolls copyright threads - you have the same casual hostility towards due process.

NSA: It's TRUE, we grab 200 MILLION of your text messages A DAY globally

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Most useless Job ever !

Downvote for being so seriously lacking in vision that you think space exploration is a waste of money. If this humanity you care about so much has any chance of long-term survival, finding a new home is absolutely vital. There is *nothing* more important, and the global space exploration budget is far too small.

Canada says Google broke law by snooping health info to serve ads

Intractable Potsherd

There is a strange corollary to this: using ad-blockers means that I know less about what ad-parasites think they know about me than those who don't block them.

I'm not going to unblock the ads, though.

Intractable Potsherd

... or, there was bigger corruption close to surfacing, and someone decided to let a minor one out. British politics is full of situations where a little was given in order to avoid a serious problem - it is one of the reasons there hasn't been a decent revolution since a Norfolk farmer took the place of a king.

Hong Kong’s mobile-mad cabbies told to ditch dashboard devices

Intractable Potsherd

Re: TomTom

Agreed with regard to the windscreen scraping - do it all or don't do it at all - but not so much with the sat nav. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with a one "right in the middle of the screen", if by that you mean half-way up and along the screen. I have mine as low down the screen on the approximate centre-line of the car, such that the sat nav is essentially on the level of screen I can only see the bonnet through. I have tried other places and found them unsatisfactory - having the satnav on the same line as the mirror, and at approximately the same distance away, means that I don't have to continually adjust focus if I need to look at the screen (though I rely very heavily on voice instructions most of the time). Of course, YMMV.

Boeing bent over for new probe as 787 batteries vent fluid, start to MELT

Intractable Potsherd

Yep - it is also statistically the safes plane currently available based on time from delivery :-)

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Fixing problems the Microsoft way

Isn't there a risk of the electrolyte causing damage to other parts of the airframe when it vents, especially if it is caught in the airflow whilst flying, and turned into an aerosol?

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Gifts from the Gods (while walking in the meadows)

Sadly, I have to agree. I have no problem with Boeing aircraft in general, but the 787 is starting to shape up as one of those planes that go down in history for its failures. For competition reasons I hope it doesn't do the same to Boeing as the Comet did to de Havilland, but it is going to require a big bale-out if (when) a 787 falls out of the sky.

Rap for KitKat in crap app wrap trap flap: Android 4.4 is 'meant to work like that'

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Just star the damn issue

The status of the Issue is reported as closed on Jan 13th, with the comment "Working as intended".

Modern spying 101: How NSA bugs Chinese PCs with tiny USB radios - NYT

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Sceptical @AC 08:08 again

Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, I read Bruce Schneier's Crypto-Gram newsletter after reading this. He puts it thus:

"The NSA's collect-everything mentality is largely a hold-over from the Cold War, when a voyeuristic interest in the Soviet Union was the norm. Still, it is unclear how effective targeted surveillance against 'enemy' countries really is. Even when we learn actual secrets, as we did regarding Syria's use of chemical weapons earlier this year, we often can't do anything with the information.

"Ubiquitous surveillance should have died with the fall of Communism, but it got a new -- and even more dangerous -- life with the intelligence community's post-9/11 'never again' terrorism mission. This quixotic goal of preventing something from happening forces us to try to know everything that does happen. This pushes the NSA to eavesdrop on online gaming worlds and on every cell phone in the world. But it's a fool's errand; there are simply too many ways to communicate.

"We have no evidence that any of this surveillance makes us safer. NSA Director General Keith Alexander responded to these stories in June by claiming that he disrupted 54 terrorist plots. In October, he revised that number downward to 13, and then to 'one or two'. At this point, the only 'plot' prevented was that of a San Diego man sending $8,500 to support a Somali militant group. We have been repeatedly told that these surveillance programs would have been able to stop 9/11, yet the NSA didn't detect the Boston bombings -- even though one of the two terrorists was on the watch list and the other had a sloppy social media trail. Bulk collection of data and metadata is an ineffective counterterrorism tool.

"NSA-level surveillance is like the Maginot Line was in the years before World War II: ineffective and wasteful. We need to openly disclose what surveillance we have been doing, and the known insecurities that make it possible. We need to work toward security, even if other countries like China continue to use the Internet as a giant surveillance platform. We need to build a coalition of free-world nations dedicated to a secure global Internet, and we need to continually push back against bad actors -- both state and non-state -- that work against that goal." (Originally posted at www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/how-the-nsa-threatens-national-security/282822/)

That just about sums it up for me.

Intractable Potsherd

I'd also been wondering about the implications for Dragos Riui's claims of airgap jumping malware. I'll keep an eye out for updates.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Sceptical @AC 08:08

"Though I believe that theft is theft and that murder is murder. I realise others do not agree and I am uncomfortable in their world."

Interesting - I *know* that the world isn't that black and white, and that all of us would be uncomfortable in such a world.

I also don't consider the risk of terrorist attacks, either in terms of planning or the minimal loss of life and health to the general population, adequate to justify the amount of wholesale spying on the population by the government of that population. The only excuse that the government can give is that, in actual fact, they are worried that significant numbers of the population are going to revolt at some time in the near future - in which case the government should be changing what it does, not tightening the fist on the dissatisfied.

Tech titan Bill Gates: Polio-free India one of the 'most impressive accomplishments' ever

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Private vs State charity

To be fair, there isn't a breakdown in the article about what proportion of the total amount spent is made up by the Gates Foundation's $225m. It might be, and probably is, a small percentage of the total spend* compared with the amount spent by e.g. WHO, which needs funding from countries such as the UK.

*$225m isn't going to go far in a country of around 1.3 billion people.

Chuh! 'Grossly inadequate': Time Warner Cable rejects $62bn hostile takeover bid

Intractable Potsherd

There is always a bit I get confused by ...

... every time talk of a hostile takeover comes up, exemplified by the statement " ... Charter chief Tom Rutledge said that Time had rejected proposals in June and October last year and "refused to engage" until December." My confusion comes from this idea that anyone should "enagage" with someone wanting to buy something, whether or not they actually want to sell. I see it as the equivalent of someone coming to my house and saying "I want to buy this house", and then getting all huffy that I didn't "engage" with him when I told him to get stuffed. Where does this attitude of "I'm going to buy whether you want to sell or not" come from? Is it different in the land of big business?