* Posts by Rich 11

4575 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jul 2009

Meet the super-speedy white dwarf binary system that's going to grav-wave our world

Rich 11
Alien

Re: Re. LISA

I know where it came from.

Revealed: Milky Way's shocking cannibalistic dark past – it gobbled a whole dwarf eons ago

Rich 11

Re: Why are there 3 dimensions?

Forget it. I've just read your responses below and you fit the pattern of someone spewing word-salad bollocks.

Rich 11

Re: a two-dimensional universe with non-zero mass ALWAYS collapses on itself

If you allow 2-D, I think you have to allow "stuff" like this

You may have to incorporate exotic matter if you want your 2D universe to have a chance of being stable, but that doesn't make the presence of exotic matter a given in any conjecturable 2D universe.

Rich 11

Re: Why are there 3 dimensions?

I didn't expect that it would be a trap. Usually someone uses a hook like that as an excuse to spout off their ignorant, ill-considered, piss-poor excuse of a hypothesis as The One True Answer The Established Authorities Deny.

I can however respect you simply asking a question. Unfortunately, though, I don't think you've really advanced a discussion by stating your list of observations, since they're fairly self-evident. Would you like to respond to my conjecture instead?

Rich 11

Re: Why are there 3 dimensions?

It's where practicality meets parsimony.

Go on, I'll bite. What's your answer?

(I hope I don't regret this.)

It's Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Tech industry speaks its brains on Brexit-monger's victory

Rich 11

Tech giants

"Why are a number of tech giants able to pay little in UK tax while the smallest businesses are often aggressively and unfairly pursued by HMRC?"

Because the tech giants have better lobbyists and can afford more lawyers. Don't expect anything to change.

'Cockwomble' is off the menu: Uncle Bulgaria issues edict against using name in vain

Rich 11

Re: CockWomblers Unite

She manages to make even Piers Moron look momentarily thoughtful and considerate.

Pair programming? That's so 2017. Try out this deep-learning AI bot that autocompletes lines of source code for you

Rich 11

assuming a competent user, of course!

There'd certainly be a risk of following its suggestions without thinking too clearly about the implication of any particular suggestion. No doubt that response would be something a human could learn to cope with, and minimise, but that's still one more load to deal with in an already loaded brain. When I think of the times that I've been writing a document or email and only belatedly spotted that autocomplete/autocorrect has mangled a sentence for me, I can't help but think there's a downside it's going to take some time to get used to and learn to manage.

Rich 11

There are certainly some programmers I wouldn't want to see training this thing.

You'll never guess what US mad lads Throwflame have strapped to a drone (clue: it does exactly what it says on the tin)

Rich 11

Where will it end?

We're guessing it would also be an excellent way of getting rid of other annoying drones.

The subsequent step in the drone-on-drone arms race will be a drone draped with a fire blanket. The step after that will be a drone armed with a hook capable of lifting the blanket so that the flamethrower can get a clear shot.

France seeks science-fiction writers to help futureproof its military against science-fact

Rich 11

If that's the best SF you can come up with then don't give up the day job.

Literally rings our bell: Scottish eggheads snap quantum entanglement for the first time

Rich 11

Re: How entanglement really works, how to prove it

Are you the AC who has been talking bollocks all through this or are you a different AC? If you are a different AC then it would help if you'd create an account and make your independence clear.

If you are the AC who has been talking bollocks all along then I'm mildly entertained to see that for whatever reason you are unable to provide evidence for your original bollocks claim, and indeed have moved onto making obscure and unclear subjective comments. A bit like your original bollocks.

Rich 11

Re: How entanglement really works, how to prove it

Bags of Earl Grey, separated at birth.

Rich 11

Re: How entanglement really works, how to prove it

The tooth fairy also isn't real.

Well, I'm glad we agree on one thing.

Can we also agree that I had a nice walk and a lovely cup of tea yesterday? You're welcome to ask me for evidence, even for such a mundane claim, if you don't believe me. And I'll wait to see evidence supporting your bollocks hypothesis before I think it's anything other than bollocks. If you had it, it would have been so easy for you to provide that from the off.

One more word of advice: if you wanted to demonstrate maturity rather than expose yourself to ridicule, writing in such an opinionated style by describing the target of your ire as 'stupid' and 'garbage' just makes you sound like Donald Trump.

Rich 11

Re: How entanglement really works, how to prove it

amanFromMars1 has deigned to address me. I have reach El Reg nirvana this day. Step aside, lesser mortals.

Rich 11

Re: How entanglement really works, how to prove it

There are days when I enjoy ripping the shit out of bollocks like this, and then there are days when I think I'll just go for an early morning walk and look forward to putting the kettle on when I get back.

The pro-privacy Browser Act has re-appeared in US Congress. But why does everyone except right-wing trolls hate it?

Rich 11

Re: Thank you!

Ah the left's identitarian politics

You're responding to one individual, so why instead do you choose to use a gross generalisation to demean a very broad group of people by claiming its politics are those of gross generalisation? Mustn't you accordingly despise gross generalisations?

Guess who reserved their seat on the first Moon flight? My mum, that's who

Rich 11

Re: Maglev first stage

No doubt there are others.

Mauna Kea. If the run-up isn't long enough then just build the first part of the maglev track underwater.

What?

Rich 11

Only if they're planning to build a very, very long track.

Operation Desert Sh!tstorm: Routine test shoots down military's top-secret internets

Rich 11

Re: I'm so glad we kept one!

"I had argued for keeping at least one physical domain controller but to no avail."

We were successful in making this argument, fortunately. It seems like such an obvious safety net that it's well worth implementing, and a surprise that it can be an uphill struggle to get agreement for it. It's almost like manglement believe the salesmen when they say, "Our proposal will replace all your estate and save you tens of thousands a year."

Boris Johnson's promise of full fibre in the UK by 2025 is pie in the sky

Rich 11

Re: BroBo

I can't see the harm in letting American's try and run NHS services

I think you may not be aware of all the attempts at backdoor privatisation which have failed. Arguably it's happened at scale in the elderly care 'industry', which is shameful. More specifically you could look to the failure of Circle Health. Also try the shortsighted privatisation of specific services such as knee ops and kidneys ops, which resulted in the NHS having to pick up the failures -- there was of course an expected failure rate, but its resolution wasn't covered by the contracts -- and to make things worse the removal of junior surgeons from associated complex tasks meant that fewer surgeons could reach consultant level due to their lack of broader experience!

Any interference in healthcare is going to carry consequences. Look at the 2012 reorganisation, now generally considered a total waste of money at a time when less money was available. Do you really trust politicians to get it right by opening up NHS services to yet more private providers, most of whom will come from a regime where profit is all and shafting the customer is the reason d'etre of the legal department?

Rich 11

Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

I'm glad that you are £3.50* better off. But as a Londoner, just how much did the Garden Bridge failure cost you?

*Joke. Provide your own figure. Then justify it.

Rich 11

Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

He has said UK will leave EU on 31st Oct, "Do or Die".

I think that was a slip of the tongue. He meant 'Do and die'. As some people inevitably will when there's less money for the NHS and he uses that as an excuse to try to sell chunks of it off to the Yank exploit-people's-illnesses industry.

Rich 11

Rural rage

an unprecedented degree of tolerance of roadworks and transport disruption

And the farmers will be the first to complain when they can't get their tractors and trailers -- or the hauliers can't get their lorries -- past a digging crew on Lincolnshire's narrow, ditch-flanked rural roads.

Bad news: Earth is not going to be walloped by asteroid 2006 QV89. Good news: Boffins have lost sight of it, so all hope is not yet lost

Rich 11

Re: Gone dark?

before anybody gets a functioning govt going in London

We haven't had a functioning government in London for the last three years. If you haven't been able to get your act together, liberate Berwickshire and Rebuild That Wall in that time I don't hold out much hope of you achieving anything over the next two months.

It's happening, tech contractors: UK.gov is pushing IR35 off-payroll rules to private sector in Finance Bill

Rich 11

Re: Curious reaction

And before IR35, were you paying less tax by using a personal service company rather than following PAYE?

Rich 11

Sure. Parliament is more backbench than front bench, but with about 95 ministerial posts up for grabs when the ruling party has 312 MPs, how many of those want to hang on to their positions and how many of the remainder want to gain them? Do you think it would be fair to say that probably less than half don't have such an interest?

Rich 11

Re: Curious reaction

we pay a fortune in tax

And what percentage of your income was that? That's the question which really matters, not the size of the bill.

I can live with the fact that some superstar footballer is earning ten million a year, but if his tax bill is only ten percent of that then I'm going to think he's a thieving cunt.

Rich 11

What makes you think MPs argue for their principles? Some backbenchers do, no doubt, but anyone with any ambition spends their day sucking up to the whips and to the ministers. Just look at all the spineless wankers grovelling around Johnson at the moment, giving weak excuses for dropping their previous stances on policy or candidate in the hope of either keeping or getting a cabinet job.

Rich 11

Re: "This measure is expected to impact 170,000 individuals" . . .

Better that than have Farage announce that Brexit is the glorious Year Zero.

Loose tongues and oily seamen: Lost in machine translation yet again

Rich 11

Re: bread is bad for ducks.

Yeah, they have gone overkill on that one. Sorry.

Rich 11

Re: bread is bad for ducks.

I'm gratified to see that a number of people share my concern for the well-being of Anatidae, existent or non-existent.

Next week: Would you allow Mustelidae to share your child's bedroom?

Rich 11

But it is translateable

Changement de paradigme.

(Actually, I'm only guessing with that one! But if you hear it said in a business meeting in France then you'll know to go to the patisserie and buy some eclairs.)

Rich 11

Re: bread is bad for ducks.

You can never be too careful.

We have the best trade wars: US investigating French tech tax plan over fears it unfairly targets American biz

Rich 11

Re: Its not

Take a look at your local high street and you might find there's not quite the choice there that there was ten years ago. It's a vicious circle, although it's not one that's been vicious to Jeff Bezos and his ilk.

Oh, lovely, a bipartisan election hack alert law bill for Mitch McConnell to feed into the shredder

Rich 11

All enemies, foreign and domestic

"Our elections system is perhaps the most critical of all infrastructure to our democracy – and it is constantly under attack from foreign powers who do not share our values."

It's also under attack from domestic powers who do not share your values. Gerrymandering and voter suppression play much more of a role in rigging elections than the Russians likely ever have, while the creation of Super PACS makes it much easier for a faceless funder to influence voters.

I don't have to save my work, it's in The Cloud. But Microsoft really must fix this files issue

Rich 11

I've seen worse, unfortunately. I've seen students walk away with their work saved to a floppy disk (yes, I am going back a year or two here) and expect to be able to carry on working on it at another computer. Any computer, regardless of whether or not it had desktop publishing or CAD software installed on it.

London cop illegally used police database to monitor investigation into himself

Rich 11

ESB

I'll stick to the beer.

JavaScript tracking punks given a thrashing by good old-fashioned server log analytics

Rich 11

use all those log files generated on the web server itself. After all, unless you have more nefarious aims in mind, that information should be all developers need to keep things humming along.

I did that for ten years, then a dozen years ago Marketing decided they wanted prettier graphs so it was all dropped in favour of Google Analytics. If they came back to me now and said they wanted to go back to log files I'd laugh in their faces.

Guy is booted out of IT amid outsourcing, wipes databases, deletes emails... goes straight to jail for two-plus years

Rich 11

Re: on the theory that some data might be on that but not yet in the backup

Do people here really need <sarcasm> tags?

Given the bizarre shit some people post, yes.

Rich 11

Re: Just like divorces, there's rarely a good outcome for all.

I hope "A.P. Veening" is an alias!

I don't.

'It’s not a surveillance program'... US govt isn't going all Beijing on us with border face-recog, official tells Congress

Rich 11

Re: <shouty>Follow the blue line!</shouty>

Americans with dual citizenship already know not to travel to the US on their non-US passport. I mean, why would they ever use their non-US passport, the pinko turrist traitors?

Queen Elizabeth has a soggy bottom: No, the £3.1bn aircraft carrier, what the hell did you think we meant?

Rich 11

Re: By the way ...

If I were a Somali pirate I’d be pissing silly laughing if this boat came approaching

You don't need modern stealth aircraft to fight Somali pirates. Helos, marines, and as a last resort the ship's seven chain guns are far more effective.

Oh good. This'll go well. Amazon's Alexa will offer NHS advice

Rich 11

Re: handed to big technology companies with nothing in return

We get a DEAL.

A worse deal than we have at present, but who gives a shit about that?

Chinese government has got it 'spot on' when it comes to face-recog tech says, er, London's Met cops' top rep

Rich 11

Re: If it flags me up

as a wanted person in, say, Gloucester, I get the police on my back etc, will I get flagged up again in Cheltenham?

Well, yes. We don't want you Glarrsta people coming over here and sullying the streets of our lovely town.

Rich 11

Re: No racism but...

While they think we all look like Nigel Farage.

Bloody hell. I'm never going to China again. I'd like to keep some shred of dignity.

Rich 11

Re: Think about the opportunities!

More likely "Armed police! Hands up else *bang* *bang* *bang**bang**bang**bang**bang**bang* ... *bang**bang* ... [reload] ... *bang**bang* .. *bang* Uh, call an ambulance, someone."

"OK, Sarge. And I'll just kick this chair leg he was carrying into an alleyway."

I don't know but it's been said, Amphenol plugs are made with lead

Rich 11

Ever had an "oops, butterfingers!" moment and taken out a government agency?

Well, there was that time I accidentally dropped Chris Grayling into the Ministry of Justice, and before I knew it two-thirds of the Probation Service had vanished.

Metropolitan Police's facial recognition tech not only crap, but also of dubious legality – report

Rich 11

Re: Help with "Innovative Solutions"

How many even knew that they'd been "identified"?

Presumably they knew they'd been identified by some means when a copper came up to them and said, "Mr X? I'd like to speak to you about your outstanding fine / latest heist / Great Escape." But for whatever reason they still weren't worth arresting.

Will that old Vulcan's engines run? Bluebird jet boat team turn to Cold War bomber

Rich 11

Re: Mid ‘70’s low flights over Central London

I was in a pub in Exeter one evening in the mid 90s, when the bloke I was chatting with suggested I turn to the south and listen carefully. *whumff* Concorde had just gone supersonic about 15 miles out to sea.