Posts by rpjs

“-et” means “the”

so write either “Stortinget” or “the Storting”. “The Stortinget” means “the the Storting”.

I am not Norwegian.

Sounds like local government to me

Back in the 90s I once deleted three years of financial records for the county purchasing dept from a production Oracle DB thinking I was logged on to dev. The relevant manager didn’t really care because they were the oldest records and only kept for audit purposes which was highly unlikely to happen.

Nevertheless we all agreed the Right Thing To Do would be to restore from the backup tapes. But the most recent backup wouldn’t restore, and investigations showed that no backups had been verified for some months. The problem was found and fixed and in the end I was not in trouble as I had inadvertently prevented potentially much more serious data loss if something important had been fubarred.

I don’t think we ever got the deleted data restored cos the manager was happy that there were some older verified backup tapes which could be mounted if audit ever needed them (they never did).

According to OSM

My house does not exist: OSM says there's a street crossing mine at this point. There is no such cross-street. I have flagged it but it's still there.

Sigh.

Why don't the Home Office just have the honesty to rename themselves the Public Control Department and give the shade of Wilfred Greatorex the credit he deserves?

Casting will be key

I saw the stage play a couple of years back, the writing was excellent, but some of the acting just didn't do it justice. It showed that the success of the original programme was that they combined great scripts with great actors. So finding a new set of great actors will be key to the new series' success. I am not holding my breath.

Have TPB

Hired Michael O'Leary as a PR consultant?

Think of it

as evolution in action.

Well,...

... that's not something you see every day.

Moving it to 2099...

...will at least give a bit more of time for there to actually /be/ a moonbase. Although to be truly plausible it'd have to be filmed in Chinese.

Winamp?

How quaint.

Ooo!

That's a whole percent of Powys's childrens' services budget for 2011-12. That'll show 'em!

Isn't it about time

That we ended the medieval hangover which is the Crown Dependencies and just annex them to the UK as county councils?

Dunno why they don't just invade again

I mean, it's not like we have much of a navy anymore...

Hmm, what's the point of dual mode?

In the US, AIUI, the mobilecos here are *either* CDMA or GSM, so what's the point of building both in? Or will Apple be offering them unlocked?

I do hope that...

...if anyone gets their collar felt for this, that they claim entrapment.

Joined up government?

I suspect that PC Plod has pointed out to the government that social networking helps to alert them where likely trouble is going to happen and help catch the scrotes afterwards.

Tch, kids these days

Spending all their time indoors glued to a screen. Doesn't she know she should be out looting an Argos?

South Atlantic eh?

Wonder if we have an explanation for the Vela incident now? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident

Dennis Potter was right.

That is all.

If you've ever been to Iceland

And I mean more than a stag do in Reykjavik, you might see where the belief in huldufolk comes from. The landscape of the place runs from slightly to very unreal. You sometimes think you're on the gigantic set of a science fiction movie. I don't believe in elves myself, and to be fair, neither do most Icelanders, but you can sort of see where it comes from.

The weird thing is

They got the proportions of the various crosses right. Although it is upside down as well.

Good luck with that

It's a basic rule of dual citizenship (and that's assuming that Bradley Manning is a dual citizen - he may well be entitled to British citizenship but he may not have taken any action required to claim it), that no country can protect its citizen from any legal action taken by another country that he/she is also a citizen of when that person is in that other country's jurisdiction.

Uh, BA

British Airways only require the booking ref and passenger's surname to access a booking. OK, I don't think you can add any paid-for items without having to pay for them there and then but still, seems a bit double standards to me, even though like all sane people I too detest Ryanair.

Sudenly...

...Galileo doesn't look like a waste of money after all!

Stross

The SF writer Charlie Stross has a series of posts on his blog (<http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/04/common-misconceptions-about-pu-1.html>) about the the costs of e-books and the publishing industry in general. He points out that the vast majority of the costs of publishing a book go to humans: author, the copy editor, the typesetter etc, and only a small proportion on yer actual dead tree and the costs of shifting such around.

s/ax/axe/

HTH HAND

Simple solution

Join Schengen.

Life imitates Pratchett and Gaiman

Although they had it in _Good Omens_ that the *whole* M25 was cursed: specifically that the demon Crowley and arranged for it to form the exact shape of the dread sigil odegra, which in the language of the Black Priesthood of Mu means "all hail the great beast, devourer of worlds".

Makes sense to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong

Bu the NYC subway has a flat fare of $2 for any distance travelled, so all you need to do is guard entry into the system. The Tube has fares tiered by zones travelled, which is why you need to touch out on exit to ensure the correct fare has been levied. When you enter you are automatically charged the maximum-possible £5 fare and are refunded the difference between that and the fare you actually travelled when you touch out.

So it's a lot easier to implement the tech described in the NYC system than it would be in London.

Of course, it does beg the question wouldn't it have been cheaper in the long run for London to have gone flat fare and save having to have all the kit for exit checks and, as you point out, Oyster cards at all.