Posts by Intractable Potsherd 4161 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
It sounds as if you really are hustling big time.
"... One day they are going to have to upgrade ..."
Yes, so your argument is that a stable system should be changed every time a new <insert hardware/software update> comes along just in case? That new and untried is better than old and known?
I think you talk bollocks on this topic.
The key part of the article to me is:
"McFadyen said that businesses are often understandably reluctant to move away from using legacy IT systems due to ... [s]ystem reliability, business continuity and the fact that most security vulnerabilities for the technology may already have been flushed out and resolved ... "
Being forced to upgrade a system that works perfectly well, and would continue to do so if not for a decision made by another company with an effective monopoly for no other reason than to make more more money out of its chattel slaves customers is not good. At the end of the day, we, the individuals dependent on the companies being blackmailed by the regulators acting on behalf of the monopoly are going to suffer, because systems that have worked for years are going to be farted about with. It isn't as if we haven't seen what happens when banks change systems, have we?
Make sure you have a store of cash in the house enough to see you through a week's living expenses.
Assange is one of a group of people I am glad exist, but only as long as I don't have to deal with them personally. To do what he has done, publicly and without resorting to pseudonyms and hiding behind computer screens, suggests a very strong personality to the point of being an utter shit, but he wouldn't have headed up an organisation as potentially dangerous to the powers-that-be if he had a different personality. If I knew him, I would probably have told the police where to catch him some time ago ...
In the UK (as in other countries) the state is divided into legislature (Parliament), executive (government and other state machinery), and judiciary (courts etc). The police function is part of the executive, which can be seen in the police being under the Home Office. There is a greater or lesser degree of control of the police by the government depending on time, administration, and issue. That makes the commenter claiming "nonsense" to be wrong. The only real question is to how much the City of London police have been guided to the actions they have taken by someone in government.
I'm an agnostic atheist - I don't *know* whether there is/are a god/gods, but on full consideration of probabilities I believe there isn't/aren't and act in accordance with that belief. In that, I believe in one one less god than a Muslim, and one or three (I never could understand the idea of the "Holy Trinity", just like almost all Christians) than a Christian. Despite my lack of belief, I have never committed an atrocity or felt that it is time for a war to cleanse the world of people who do believe in gods. However, I do think there is a very nasty hypocrisy in some people who claim to have sensations that guide their actions being elevated to positions of power and respect in society *because of those beliefs* , and others being forcibly detained and medicated.
"The guys that run these organisations are not to be confused with Robin Hood and his Merry Men. They are evil. Many would not think twice about terminating with extreme prejudice. "
I'm not sure whether you are referring to the Silk Roaders or the alphabet agencies involved here, so I'll assume you mean both.
I don't want to live in a world where the law always wins ...
You are clearly not familiar with the vagaries of holidays up here. For reasons I have yet to fathom, Dundee does not have several of its "national"* holidays at the same time as the rest of Scotland. The one mentioned here is actually taken in Dundee next Monday. The only way I know when these holidays are is to keep an eye on the front door of the local GP, since they inform patients when they will be closed several weeks in advance!
* To Scotland, and better referred to as "public holidays"
Actually, this seems to be a good idea, if true*. There are a reasonable number of people who would buy the a phone with the OS they know, and then try the other one. There would actually be a way for people to compare OSes back to back, which is something missing from the ecosystem at the moment.
*and depending on how it was implemented, such as being able to transfer key details between the two, such as contacts etc.
Oh, yes - the complete lunacy of taking children to supermarkets! What idiot thinks this is a good idea? OK, I appreciate that single parents might occasionally have to do this (but see above for delivery options). However, when I see a family (i.e. more than one adult with child/ren) I always grumble (to myself or Mrs Potsherd*) that one of them could have come shopping whilst the other stayed somewhere else with the younglings. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by the parents**, the children, or the rest of the shop users by this activity.
* I need to do this more often again - she has started coming shopping with me too often, making a 20 minute weekly shop into at least 40 minutes. The previous conditioning is obviously wearing off.
** or whoever it is with responsibility for the children at the time.
"What matters is whether it is harmful to the environment or not. A clear answer to that question and the decision is made."
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!! The question is never that simple. The question needs to be broken down into elements. For instance:
What is considered to be "harm to the environment"?
What is considered to be "serious harm to the environment"?
What is the harm to human interests if you don't do it?
What is the harm to human interests if you *do* do it?
There are many more, but I've disproved your assertion.
" The local authority introduced an integrated public transport system where buses were scheduled to meet trains."
This happens in the Czech Republic. If a bus or train is delayed, the connection waits for a reasonable time - something I was extremely grateful for when the international train from Vienna was delayed, and arrived at the connecting station 15 minutes after the last train to Brno should have left ... Fat chance of that happening here, and a reason I avoid trains even though they are the better option for many long journeys.
My wife drove her dad's new car the other month. He'd dropped it off, and she'd got in and drove it away without having to start it. After coming back to the car, it wouldn't start ... After phone-calls to me (she didn't want to admit to her dad she'd knackered the 3-month-old car), I directed her to a nearby garage. A mechanic came out, got in the car, turned the key - started no problem. Mrs Potsherd got back in - nothing. It actually took a while for everyone to work out that it was because she didn't start the car with her foot on the clutch, whereas I and the mechanic do it without thinking about it. Neither of us even knew there is a safety interlock on the clutch-pedal these days ...
If people used their indicators reliably, I wouldn't need to come to halt at Give Ways so often. Up here in around Dundee it seems to be some sort of local tradition not to use any exterior indication of anything - not indicators, no lights in bad visibility, no appropriate road positioning - nothing. It is quite simply not safe to pull out if you can see a car until the driver has committed itself to the manoeuvre (and even then there is a 10% chance it will change its mind after beginning it).
Like other commenters, I'm a died in the wool 4WD driver. With the exception of a Sierra for 10 months and a Citroen Xantia for a year (surprisingly good!), the main car has powered all four wheels since 1990 or so (my current car, a 17 year-old Legacy, has been with me for about eight years now). As an impecunious rally fan, my first 4WD was a five-year-old 1986 Audi 90 quattro, and yes, it seemed boring at first. I nearly got rid after a few months because the Volvo 240 GLE I'd had before was more exciting! However, once I realised that it's forte was driving rapidly but predictably, I started to love it. Since then, Land Rover products and the aforementioned Subaru have made up the bulk of my day-to-day driving, but I tend to keep a 2WD around for competing and having fun - the Legacy is a poor autotesting choice, though funny for the spectators!
The Subaru is about on its last legs, and with fuel prices as they are it is expensive to run. Whatever replaces it will be a diesel, and I might forego 4WD for decent traction-control, though an Octavia diesel 4WD at the right price would probably make me quite happy.
It is my strong opinion that "growing up" is carried entirely on the X-chromosome. There is an extremely weakened tendency to anyone with only one X-chromosome, but pressure from two-X people can make one-X people act as if they have some characteristics of having grown up. That is why most techie people are men - they perpetually inhabit a world of not-grown-up, and so can see further.
"The level and extent of the bad, well that's something very hard to quantify."
What is classed as a poison is also very important. If the argument had been pitched in terms of real pollutants (lead, excess nitrates, particulates etc), and efficient use of resources* I would have been behind the IPCC all the way. Putting the focus on CO2 menas that I am totally against them - the whole thing just seems to be about developed countries to shore up less-developed (but without giving the less-developed a way to catch up, because of stupid restrictions on energy production).
*I'm just looking for a new house. One of the key criteria is that it will be able to have at least 4kW PV plus solar thermal, muti-fuel stove, and probably a ground-source heat-pump. It will also be insulated to the fullest (seriously looking at aerogel). I'm doing that because it is sensible and efficient, and it makes me less vulnerable to the lack of vision regarding power generation capacity. However, if anyone calls me a Green I'll get very upset.
It is annoying indeed: I have a long memory, and don't forgive companies for shitty acts easily. This means that, when it comes to new kit, I won't have a Sony (the rootkit still sits very uneasily with me), nor an Apple (walled garden). Nokia sold out to Microsoft. Blackberry won't exist in a year's time at the rate they are going. Now Samsung is out unless they correct this *very* quickly. It looks as if Jolla are launching into a nice open market ...
I moved to Dundee, Scotland's fourth largest city. Guess how many fibre-enabled exchanges there are here?
For the answer, have a look at http://fttc.eclipse.net.uk/, zoom in on Dundee, and then make sure you tick all the little boxes at the top left of the page. Were you right?
Fuck BT and their rollout - the bastards should be fined for failing to deliver on the contract.
just had a look at that site. It doesn't say what you think it says. In fact, the statements issued are so badly worded they are almost meaningless, but the gist is that they are region locked, though (I think) the region lock is disabled once a SIM from an EEA country is registered to the phone. It also seems to say that the region lock can be removed at a Samsung approved centre ...
The important bit is that the new phones *are* region locked by Samsung's own admission. Anyone want to buy a new phone that needs a custom ROM out of the box? I doubt I do ...
How long until the press release saying this was all a misunderstanding?
"... the USNSA and its Five Eyes associates and others are agencies within their respective countries' defense establishment and are concerned with a much wider range of activities than terrorism."
And yet, they are dragging in millions, if not billions, of interactions between people of no interest every day. This is the basis of dissatisfaction that many of us have - this whole thing is sold as "it is keeping you safe from terrorism". Well, it isn't, and the risk is less than trivial anyway. Governments should not be allowed to get away with the argument that, because intelligence-gathering is *sometimes* necessary, it is therefore *always* necessary. There needs to be a reasoned debate about where the balance lies between appropriate and inappropriate intelligence gathering. Governments spying on each other, whilst dirty, is necessary. Governments spying on ordinary citizens is not necessary. Governments spying on private companies, or criminal organisations ... the balance is in that territory, somewhere.
This is where this whole issue becomes very important. There are some things that any sensible country will try to keep secret, and which any other sensible country will try to find out. India, at least because of its rather fractious neighbour, will try to keep a lot of its actions secret, whilst any other country will want to know what India is capable of doing with its nukes and space-capable tech.
This is sensible, and appropriate, use of intelligence gathering, and it would be remiss of (at least) the other nuclear-capable nations that might get dragged in to an escalating conflict not to do it. However, it throws the Belgacom spying issue into sharp relief, since any perceived risk is trivial. This is the importance of Snowden's leaks - that the intelligence agencies are overstepping the bounds of reasonableness.
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