Posts by John Smith 19

"No large organisation..deploy core software without a..plan for managing updates and upgrades."

And yet the NHS seems to have done exactly that.

"We've just seen how hard it is politically to address these issues."

Agreed.

Where the "Grey vote" is concerned it's not just the codgers who are sh***ing themselves over the costs of community care.

My "techno fix" would be a human sized and shaped remotely operated avatar which was strong enough and agile enough to handle elderly care, eliminating the travel problems and allowing enough time to properly tend to peoples needs and without risking serious injury doing so.

But the issue remains where the money comes from. Life expectancy is going up. In the UK it is expected that 25% of the people alive today will live to 100, an astonishing figure that's been quietly creeping up year by year, 1% at a time.

"nobody will allow..a payload the size of an airliner..on a ballistic suborbital trajectory"

True.

Even reusable first stages are problematical.

"Do you mean the self-loading cargo?"

Yes.

The downside of such cargo is that it places a minimum size on the whole vehicle, and with that form factor it's going to be biiiig.

Concorde, at 100 seats, was finally accepted by the French as the minimum size for an SST. Most people who've looked at this since have said you need at least 300 passengers (plus baggage) to make this viable. You also need a minimum range from day one of roughly Frankfurt to New York.

One interesting idea is that the maximum use temperature of plastics has been gradually rising. In principle CFC would be viable up to about 250C today. Likewise stainless steel could be an option up to 300c with laser welding or diffusion bonding.

"Never make your code do something that it has no business doing in the first place"

Agreed. Most people would consider it an inappropriate choice for a capability to include in this sort of program. Although I'm sure the same could be said of various other functions in various other programs, where what should have been done was a smooth, common interface to the rest of the system.

However if you have decided to include it to begin with then being suspicious of external input (from anywhere, including stuff that is nominally coming from another program) seems like the basic precaution to follow.

"What's with all the exclaimation marks?"

They don't call him "Mr Bombastic" for nothing.

"What do we have to lose?"

Well think what would happen if all those wobble bottomed staff were let out on the streets again with no money in their pockets.

Takings at McDonalds near airports would crash through the floor.

Economic meltdown.

"and using some low-paid donkey...to plant my device for me. "

It does make you wonder why they would bother, given there are various ways around this.

Unless....

Do you think there could be another reason for doing this?

Of course getting someone to do it for you is not very sporting.

Then again terrorists aren't really known for their good sportsmanship.

"Gotomeeting and other such companies must be dancing for joy. "

In theory yes, it's the logical thing to do.

But I'm not sure how much it's actually happening.

"We paid for a meeting on our site, and we're going to have it"

<sigh>

"And it's politics all the way down to perdition, "

That point is quite correct.

Strip the Jihad rhetorical BS from the issue and you're closer to the mark.

It's estimated the US invasion of Iraq let US companies and individuals steal about $13 000 000 000 000 from the country.

I'd be pi***e if someone came to my country and did that too.

"having a load of Lithium batteries in the hold sounds like a bad idea to me."

Here's the question.

What is Probability(number of Lithium batteries in hold) Vs Probability(laptop with plastic explosive in battery compartment or elsewhere) ?

My instinct is the former is >> than the latter and if the hold is un-pressurized the pressure and thermal stresses will be much more severe on those batteries.

"It's the people "protecting" me that give me the cold sweats."

And so they should.

"if...., you have to adopt those behaviours that make him your enemy, then your enemy has won "

Exactly.

In the US context Bin Laded must have ROTFLFAO when Congress passed THE PATRIOT Act, with one Congressman refusing (because he'd actually read the 200+ pages of it and thought it was a PoS).

Your 12 year window includes 7/7 and that resulted in 56 deaths on its own.

No. I chose 12 years as post 7/7 but let's include them.

And while we're at it let's include the Brazillian electrican that got shot for wearing a heavy jacket on the wrong day as well. That's 57, not 56. And the English nutter terrorist that ran into a group of Moslems leaving their Ramadam prayers in North London and killed one as well. That's a "terrorist" incident as well.

And let's not forget Lee Rigby, Victim of a pair of "terrorists," or 2 people with mental health issues who should have been sectioned?

That's 94 people over a 13 year period, who might (not would, might) be alive today if anyone's encrypted traffic could be compromised at will by "The State," for "The Greater Good." BTW Most of them, including the 7/7 bombers were "Known to the authorities" already.

Meanwhile the confirmed death toll of 1 UK tower block due to either inadequate fire regulations, or their enforcement, is up to 80 (the other 18 are still listed as "missing" IE they can't match the remains found to an actual person, yet). Meanwhile every block so far tested (with similar cladding) has failed fire tests. There are about 600 such blocks in the UK.

BTW 94 is just over 10.5Hrs of smoking related deaths in NHS hospitals for 2014.

I think most of the UK readers of this site who lived through the IRA activities of the 1970's, 80's and 90's would consider compromising end to end encryption (as used for home banking and shopping) a grossly disproportionate response against what might be fairly described as a bunch of "shabolic motherf**kers," compared to the activities of the IRA.

The NHS figure (even better housing safety regs) says there are a lot better ways to save lives than this, but I don't think that's what you're concerned with. :-( .

If you, or someone you know, has been a victim of a terrorist incident I have a special message for you and them.

<profanity filter off>

Shit happens.

</profanity filter off>

You or they were very unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was grossly unfair. But that was the event, which has passed.

It's time to start thinking rationally again.

Most people have lost people who've died before they think they should have. Most deaths are preventable if you're prepared to sacrifice enough money, time or effort to do so.

The question is should you?

The purpose of a terrorist is to make you terrified.

If you (or someone you know) are terrified, they have won.

If you live you life making every decision based on wheather it (might) make you being the victim of a terrorist incident more or less likely, they have won.

When you refuse to be terrified, they lose. Fear is your choice. But understand it is your choice, not anyone elses.

A cold hard assessment of what these proposals will do with the reduction in terrorism, versus the reduction in everyone's security and privacy would conclude they are literally not worth the money they will cost.

But I don't believe "security" is the reason this is wanted. I believe it's a convenient excuse to introduce it. They just as happily use the risk of internet paedophiles, money laundering or drug dealing to justify it as well.

Data fetishists have no shame. They will hijack any issue to drive their agenda through.

"Creepware As A Service"

And remember your donations (of personal information) make this product possible.

We thank you

Signed

SugarCRM.