Posts by I ain't Spartacus 10153 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jun 2009
You need to remember that there's a lot more to sentencing than meets the eye. Obviously you also get inconsistency between different judges. But still better that than giving them no discretion, or even worse things like 3 strikes and you get life policies.
In his case he had previous convictions - for the bomb hoax and (an unspecified by the article) previous breach of the Computer Misuse act. That'll add some time. Sometimes quite a lot, in that judges can be very lenient for first offences.
But also another aggravating factor will have been that this offence was a direct response to his sentence for a previous crime (the hoax bomb threat). And that sort of thing really pisses off judges. So I suspect a point was being made.
Anyone who's read anything about the 19th Century railway boom will have smiled knowingly when they got to that paragraph in the article. I mean I would have run a mile from that "investment opportunity" at the loss-making bit - given it's in real estate and not software. But to see that the board own the assets and rent them to the company changes my inner analyst's recommendation from "flee!" to "run away screaming in terror!"
It's a software bug that's been fixed in Neutron Star 1.01. But unfortunately you can only get the update if you've got a valid support contract or have gone with a creator who continues to issue firmware updates after the first billion years.
Some of these creators are complete cowboys. Fly-by-nights. On moment they're delivering a T-Rex and then it's all, "oh we can't get the parts anymore, you'll have to have the new mammals to replace it."
More likely users barely took notice because the vast majority of users wouldn't be able to tell you what a certificate is in the first place
I should point out that most users don't know what a URL is.
And although they do know that something.com is different to something.co.uk they certainly don't know that something.com/scam.com is critically different to something.com.scam.com.
Also they don't know the difference between the address bar and the Google search bar. Which is apparently fine, as Google are perfectly happy with that situation...
Why are users morons for not recognising that accounts.google.com.amp.tinyurl.com goes to tinyurl and not Google? That's pisspoor UI design, not the user's fault for not being able to parse it.
Oh and since they won't allow you to check where it leads, why the hell does anyone who's not a scammer still use tinyurl?
Charles 9,
Why blame the users, for the utter shitshow that is internet security. It's fucking confusing - if the UI is pisspoor and the users are untrained, what do you expect? And don't say for the users to get trained, because there's no easy way to do that.
Take for example the bit from the article about: accounts.google.com.amp.tinyurl.com
Now I don't expect most users to understand that accounts.google.com is fine, in the way that www.google.com would also be fine. But a system that allows accounts.google.com.anything.else.at.all is inherently confusing.
In the olden days it was com.google and so you knew the heirarchy, and you couldn't be fooled by a scam URL - but now you're expecting users to look at a deliberately long URL to notice that if it ends with .com/something.com then that's safe, but if it ends with .com.something.scam.com then it isn't. And that's just silly.
As I understand it, modern US and UK warships (only because those are all I've read about) have the helm directly controlling the engines. No engine telegraphs and bells no more. Which is obviously quicker - although I presume they're limited to what engine power is currently online/authorised by the engine room. For example you might need to press some extra buttons to be able to fire up the gas turbines to go much faster.
Erm, the article even says it. He thought he had throttled back both drives. Seeing as his touchscreen control was only showing one throttle.
Which shows a horible lack of training or panic stations setting in. But then that's why you make your fucking controls useable! So this sort of confusion can't happen.
Interesting. Although there's quite a lot of "if" there. And I'm not sure I buy the idea of landing the entire rocket on the Moon.
I'm a great admirer of SpaceX, but I'm betting that those deadlines will slip by multiple years too.
I must admit I've not read anything about modern lunar landing. So I've no idea what NASA are planning to use - given they're talking about 2024 - not that SLS will be ready by then...
I thought SpaceX's original plan was to use Dragon. But obviously that would now require something of a re-design, seeing as they're only using the Super Draco engines for launch abort, and nothing else. But I'm assuing they've kept them (rather than going for an escape tower) in order to use them for different missions.
Aeroplanes still use wings. And that's 115 year-old technology! It must be rubbish!
Heat shields work. They're simple, they do the job for minimal weight.
Wings are a bastard of a technology to shield from heat - as well as being incredibly heavy - you only use them for landing. We could, of course, go for a lifting body - which saves lots of weight - but is still going to have the problem of a heat shield.
The best solution is either going to be new wonder materials or it's going to be a breakthrough in propulsion othat allows us to slow down enough not to need to do aerobraking. Although in the case of the second, you've still got to carry the fuel - so there'll always be the temptation to just carry more payload and aerobrake.
If we could capture a nice icy comet, and refuel in orbit, then everything would be just tickety-boo. But all of this is a way off. At the moment re-usable rockets are winning over spaceplanes. It'll be interesting to see what the future holds.
Adair,
The margins are tight for going to the Moon. Although admittedly that's more financial - in the sense of limiting the number of launches you require.
Apollo did a direct return to Earth, without entering orbit. Which saved an awful lot of fuel, they'd have otherwise have to have boosted from the ground, then carried all the way to the Moon, then slowed down to achieve lunar orbit and then carried back again. All of which would have required more fuel on those burns, which would equally have required more fuel to carry and so on.
Hence direct return, and some higher g aerobraking. Even more fuel would then be needed to land the capsule - and that also has to be carried and increases the fuel budget for all other burns.
Apollo couldn't do that with Saturn V. And as I understand it, we're not proposing anything significantly beefier - so the same constraints apply. Although the alternative is to use more launches for one flight to the Moon, rendezvous in orbit - and then you can carry as much of everything as you like. The constraint then being cost.
There must be some evidence for something in the court papers, or the case would have been dismissed before trial. Of course that might just be footling issues for a few million here or there - which can hardly be material to a supposed $8bn loss. But there's still a chance that there's more here than we've yet heard about in court. Otherwise HP are going to end up looking very silly indeed.
HP have to do this, because it was either that or the board resign en masses for total incompetence.
By the time all the appeals are done, they'll have retired - so everything is fine.
It's not like they're going to get much in the way of compensation out of Lynch. It's possible they could squeeze a few hundred million out of him, but that's not going to make up for their claimed $8bn loss. Although a few hundred million here and a few hundred million there - and soon you're talking serious money.
This is true. But Rumpole never even had a chance of becoming a QC (Queer Customer) let alone a Circusit Judge.
Hence he was so often stuck being an extremely senior, junior counsel. Not to mention not being able to afford to drink anything better than Chateau Thames Embankment...
I doubt this tactic works in any case where the judge is the one deciding the trial. US, UK or anywhere else. Courtroom theatrics, emotional appeals and trying to obscure with ludicrous detail are for confusing juries.
And even there, from my limited experience of 3 trials on a jury, the best defence barrister was quite clear and concise. He kept it simple, didn't try to overwhelm us with crap by pointlessly questioning witnesses - and was the only barrister to give us a proper speech when summing up the defence case at the end.
Though that might just be because there wasn't enough evidence against his client, whereas the other two were found guilty - and so chucking about pointless detail was all that was left for the barristers to do, after failing to persuade their clients to plead guilty?
Given the judge is an ex-barrister, who has seen all the written evidence (something a jury don't get) - he's already going to know a lot of the questions to expect. So he's also likely to have a good idea of what's pointless detail and what matters.
Equally though, lots of questions answered by the witness does give them a chance to point out any inconsistencies in his evidence. If there actually are any.
Will the Sun still have hydrogen left to fuel it? Or will the trial have to be completed in a heavily shielded bunker, buried in the centre of Pluto?
I'm still reeling from that xkcd explainer that points out when the sun goes, you'll get a fatal dose of neutrinos out past Mars orbit!
Except in the specific case where they piss off the judge! At that point, they're risking their valuable reputations - and thus chances of getting paid by future clients. People are less likely to hire barristers who lost high profile cases - which is why they so often persuade their clients to settle.
That's usually just a caricature though.
I'm sure we've had a fair few old buffers on the bench, but the thing about being a senior judge is that in order to get there you've seen an awful lot of court cases in your career as a barrister - and that means having to work for a whole bunch of clients and master a bunch of different briefs. This should give you a pretty varied education - if you're at all awake during it.
My experience of Crown Court judges (I've been on the jury in 3 trials with three different ones), was that they were pretty switched on and took no shit in their courtrooms.
"The technician has found he doesn't have the right adapter cable. One will be sent from Toulouse at the earliest opportunity. We're sorry for the further delay."
The technician has now begun the process of installating from floppies, 432 of them, but is unable to find the spacebar...
Muscleguy,
Now you're just being silly. Lots of people in suits, weight being an issue - why the answer is obvious! The space ski-lift!
Simply extend ramp up the slopes of Everest, past the summit and into space. Equip all astronauts with skis - and have them pulled up to orbit.
Tonnes of gluhwein to be available as apres space - and I'd have thought fondue was a pretty practical microgravity food.
You know it makes sense!
There's no need for it in countries with developed banking industries. But it can be amazingly liberating in developing countries.
For example I was reading about minibus drivers in Nairobi. The police were hitting them for bribes every day for fictitious traffic offenses. The same happened regularly to all drivers, but these guys had loads of paying passengers, so were guaranteed to have a cash.
So a bunch got together and started only taking payments by M-Pesa. Which meant they could tell the police they had no cash - but were happy to pay the fine by traceable electronic means. Suddenly those fines disappeared, and they were able to lower their fares and not get robbed by the police on a daily basis.
This......crypto is the future, it will be faster, more economical and it's biggest feature, borderless.
Question: How can you have true borderless money?
Answer: You can't.
Not until we have a single global government and financial system, anyway.
If a system has no jurisdiction, like say Bitcoin, then it has no regulation. Boo to governments - say the proponents. Until they lose all their money and seek compensation through the police and the courts - but can't get it.
One of the main causes of the Great Depression in the 1930s was because people couldn't trust banks. So they withdrew their money in panic, causing the very destruction they were worried about. Which meant nobody could borrow to invest, which destroyed future economic growth. That's why governments brought in bank deposit insurance schemes - and regulated banks more heavily.
With our economies far more bank-dependent in 2007, one reason we avoided a great depression was that bank deposits were now guaranteed and Central Banks loaned them as much money as required to keep them going.
The reason the Eurozone went back into recession in about 2010 - and had a worse recession than almost anywhere else (and that Greece suffered worse than any country in the 30s Great Depression) was that the Eurozone failed to learn the lessons of the 30s. They failed to guarantee their banks and so suffered a crisis of confidence and investment.
If your future currency is totally self-regulated, nobody will trust it in bad times, unless forced to. For example if they're criminals, and have no better choices.
The other major bar to borderless money is currency risk. If I'm paid in sterling, then I don't want to be using another currency for my outgoings, as currency fluctuations can be crippling. I've lived this, so I know from personal experience. I was living in Brussels, when the Euro started to recover from the dot.com bust and early jitters about its survival in 2001. So it rose by around 15% in a couple of months - and therefore my salary suddently dropped by the same - as I was still paid in the UK. I'd planned for it - but there was a still an appreciable effect on my standard of living - and at very short notice too. Facebook want to mitigate this by making Libra a "stablecoin" - but that only works against a basket of currencies - and creates some quite serious stability problems of its own that they'll have to wrestle with.
Polling around the months after the referendum suggested that a compromise on EEA membership might have got over 60% support. That is when people were polled on choices between freedom of movement and economic integration, that seemed to be the sweet spot from the polling. Though probably a lot fewer people understood the issues then, and I doubt many grasp them now.
Some leavers weren't concerned about immigration/freedom of movement. Although many remainers are - they just thought leaving was too high a risk/price to pay to restrict it.
However that would still require some fudging on customs (as Norway do) - or the UK staying in the customs union and losing most of the power to make independent trade deals - the reason Turkey is possibly about to leave its customs agreement with the EU).
For some reason May settled on trying to have as close a customs integration as possible, either because of business lobbying or Civil Service advice - and decided that freedom of movement was too high a price for being in the Single Market.
From the decisions the Commission have made, I'm not sure going the Norway route would have significantly changed things, due to their stance on Northern Ireland. As apparently having a customs barrier between the two halves of Ireland breaks the Good Friday agreement, but somehow magically having a border between NI and the rest of the UK doesn't. So I suspect we might still have ended up in substantially the same place, but maybe positions wouldn't have hardened in the same way, so maybe not.
We're in the construction industry. Mostly southern England, mostly commercial work, so fewer of the small companies. Just done a quick search of our 9,000 individual contacts' addresses we've got:
5,000 .co.uk
3,000 .com
200 .uk.com
90 .net
40 .org.uk
20 .org
3 .plumbing
10 .biz
9 .eu and 5 .eu.com
Well it's only sanity a little bit. I mean, it's great that they're now allowing EU citizens resident in the UK to keep their domains - a decision that's way overdue and something they should have thought of when making their stupid and arbitrary decision before.
But they're still banning all non-EU citizens in the UK from keeping their domains. Which in my view is still a shitty decision.
Particularly when 10% of .eu domains are registered from the UK - which might suggest that dealing with this issue would be better done at a rather slower pace. Unlike things like customs arrangements, there was literally no need to rush this decision - or to rush implementing whatever decision was eventually taken.
It might not be all that important, in the grand scheme of things, given how relatively unimportant the .eu domain is - but nonetheless the Commission have handled it pretty poorly (and I'd argue pretty mean-spiretedly) - and should be called out on it.
Simon Ward,
I remember seeing a trailer for The Crow Road, then hearing nothing of it. One of his best books, in my opinion. I think Espedair Street was my favourite of his non Sci-fi - and I'm not sure if that or Excession is my overall fave. So I'm excited to hear Radio 4 adapted it, and disappointed I managed to miss it. Here's hoping for Radio 4 Extra to come up trumps...
His non sci-fi stuff is a lot more uneven in both tone and quality. He himself split them into "nice" books and "nasty" ones. But there were also the weird ones, like Walking on Glass and The Bridge - that don't quite fit into either category. Or Canal Dreams, which I only read once because I thought it wa pants.
I still think that if I'd read The Wasp Factory first, I'd have never read another. But luckily I started with consider Phlebas and The Crow Road.
I've still not read his final Culture book for some reason. Something I need to correct.
TRT,
I'm afraid the sainted Douglas Adams got that tragically wrong. I'm happy to agree about the carving knife and breadknife. Authority is a good word for that, I've not come across anything better than my Granny's wood handled breadknife - which may well be older than I am.
But the butter knife is so wrong! I invested £3 in a Tesco's butter knife a couple of weeks ago, and it's changed my life! Amazing thing. I should start a company selling them, then go on Dragon's Den and do all my own adverts (like US car dealerships).
So it's a short blade, very wide, it looks like a slighty curvy palette knife. Except it's got those weird serrations down one side you get on cheese knives - the shit ones that come with cheeseboards as Christmas gifts and barely work. It's quite a thin blade, and butter is softer than cheddar, so it cuts it into thin slices straight from the fridge. Then the width of the blade means you can spread even very cold butter if you're gentle, and makes spreading it when warm even easier.
I'm quite fussy about tools, and it's always satisfying to get something that's just right ergonomically.
I've got silicone oven gloves that have actual thumbs, so you can grip stuff - and using those horrible cloth ones without thumbs is horrible, and actually a bit dangerous (because of the lack of good grip).
I'd take a ride in a spaceship, even with a high chance of snuffing it though. Even though I think it's a bit weird that people climb Everest, which something like a 2% death rate - I'd take the same if SpaceX were offereing. And I think 2% is pretty close to the current score in space travel.
I'm not really interested in a sub-orbital joyride though, you can get that more safely and cheaply on the Vomit Comet.
To be fair, I'm presuming he's planning to research that.
I personally think this idea isn't going to be possible in my lifetime, for various reasons. But if he wants to spend his money finding out whether that's correct, then good luck to him. You don't generally find the solutions to problems until you start looking for them.
Oh, and from Episode 9 of '13 Minutes to the Moon', Gene Kranz said that there was a guy back in Mission Control who'd worked out a sort of mental algorithm to track fuel use from the telemetry. And in sumulations he'd got so good at it that he was only ever about 10 seconds out on the low-fuel alarm. So he was sat there looking at the readouts to see what control inputs Armstrong was using, with a stopwatch, and desperately calculating away to give them a backup to their sensors.
No pressure...
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