Posts by ElReg!comments!Pierre

Classic

"I thought the really clever bit was talking him through doing all the other stuff, including reentering the WiFi password, while it was switched off......"

Not sure how, but it may have involved an overcharged cattleprod. That, or we're being bullsh...at (?)

Guiding a person through all the config options, from several hundred km away, while their computer was off the whole time is bordering on genius. Or bullshit. Either one.

(edit) just saw Dabbsie's answer to the same... see up

Re: Here come the lawsuits.

"Why is it at all important that we reassure MPs that they are, once again, especially privileged?"

It is very important because they are supposed to be the direct representatives of the people and the people's will. They are thus very tempting targets for anyone in pursuit of a less-than-honest agenda. While it would be quite impractical to individually blackmail or otherwise pressure every single citizen, you can have a law passed -or otherwise influence local and world politics- by controlling relatively few of their delegates. Hence, the delegates must be specifically protected.

Of course it's all very theoretical in modern times, for a number of reasons, including but not limited to,

-the elected representatives not generally giving a fuck about what their constituents want.

-most of the important decisions, and the interpretation of the laws, being largely controlled by non-elected quangos who don't give a fuck about what the elected representatives might think (just in case one would listen to their constituents for a change).

-the law enforcement machine, local authorities and other "seculiar" powers not caring terribly much about the laws or their interpretation most of the time anyway.

> Surly this hurts the consumer rather than Amazon.

Amazon virtually doesn't exist in France. The market of online bookstores (and ebook readers, too) is massively dominated by the French FNAC.

Book prices are already quite low in France (much lower than in the UK for example), because there's been quite a lot of governmental regulation going to keep them so. Penguin Book's racket would not have been tolerated in France; also, pocket books are classified as "essential items" for tax purposes, not as "luxury items". As such they're taxed ~5% instead of ~20%.

All in all, pocket books in France are half the price compared to the UK, and ~60% the price compared to North America. That leaves very little wiggle room for the likes of Amazon (and that is probably why Amazon never really made it in the market); that also makes the brick-and-mortar shops very vulnerable: they have fixed charges and their margins are wafer-thin. Protecting them from unfair practices (such as people using them as showrooms for the loss-driven online shops) is only fair.

Re: Access?

"Within its limitations, And IF done by someone who had slogged up the very long and very steep learning curve Acess generally reasonable - IF: [...]"

I totally agree: Access is almost as good as any other entry-level database system, only a lot more convoluted to use, less reliable, with more limitations, and (for most) more expensive. It doesn't make it completely unusable if you really, really have to (as I did at some point). It does make it the least efficient tool of its class* and a right PITA though.

*that I have encountered, obviously. There may be worse. I've been told horror tales about the database tools in early releases of OpenOffice, for example, but I have no first-hand experience about it.

Re: Used to be a remedy for home sickness

> I suppose now I have to buy a TV tuner card and try and get some software in place.

Depending on how annoying your ISP is, that could just me a matter of 100 bucks and perhaps 2 hours of work (I was tempted to write 1/2 h but obviously the "think of how much time you need then double that. That's half of what it'll take" rule prevails). Basically if you can connect to your home network from outside then Bob is your uncle. Otherwise you may have to set up an NoIP account or similar; I would suggest using a cheap small computer as the streaming server, not an expensive big noisy power-hungry thing. A Pi or a Sheeva plug; perhaps a cubieboard (cubietruck if you're feeling flush).

Re: Bollocks

> Can you contact your supplier if Microsoft are claiming your licences are illegal?

Had done that. They came back to me with new activation codes; hope these work for longer!

> How did Microsoft *know* about these - were you audited?

Windows updates

Re: stupid question...

BTW i don't disagree with you on the fact that planting trees is good, for all kinds of thing; it's just not a very efficient way of trapping CO2.

Re: Steelie Neelie claims "public interest"

>the serious buyers would mostly be going on the basis of reputation.

The serious buyers would mostly be going to the physical winery on the basis of reputation.

FTFY

Re: err

> Aer we going to get a Playmobil reconstruction?

There's a problem with that: how are you going to find a scaled-down representation of the structure?

Oh, wait...

Re: Never...

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

If you haven't seen it, you should (not specifically becaus e of her, mostly because of the brilliant male trio playing the male character). All her other "contributions to humanity" can be safely ognored.

Re: Easy Solution

> Women simply need to get their asses out of the kitchens and into the laboratories, where they belong!

I happen to work in one (lab, not woman). The man/woman ratio at the moment is 3/14. Quite representative of the institute as a whole, too. Kitchens must be quite women-deprived in my part of the world*. Or maybe current policies and prejudices about women in the workplace are 50-years-old and not even remotely close to reality?

*not a bad thing, as I'm the one doing the cooking at home, and guess what, shock horror, it's because I like it, and I'm hugely better at it than my resident other-gender kitchenmate, whose entire skillset in the matter boil down to "pop the frozen dinner into the microwave". Or is it sexist to point that out?

Re: IPv6 is flawed

> Privacy issues being the obvious glaring one

Privacy? Fucking privacy is what stops you? So NAT 3-cards scam trick with IPs is a good thing now? Yeah, I can't see a problem with that argument. Appart from the fact that it's a steaming pile of smelly bovine droppings, that is.

Re: Most people are not like you

In a similar* vein, the "smart" in my TV is a Raspberry Pi hooked up on an unconnected viewing device (in my case a projector, but could be a flat panel or whatever else can take video input). No "black box" firmware -or software- with flaky security.

*but much more fun, if you ask me

Re: Well he is sort of right

There is no intrinsic limitation in the number of "Internet Protocol address" that we can create. Each subset (protocol) that we implement has finite limits, but creating new protocols (and therefore exponentially more adresses) is "just" a matter of adding numbers*. It is very difficult to run out of numbers. I suggest you start counting up and stop when you have run out of numbers to add. Should take you quite a while.

*or letters or whatev' we use to make it more practical.