Posts by Tom 38

Re: 5 people editing one document simultaneously

It's actually extremely useful on corporate google docs, I don't know about Office.

You can configure "viewers" and "editors" so only approved people can change it.

Each user sees where the other users cursor/selected cell, so you don't really get conflicts.

There is only one version of the document in existence, so it doesn't accidentally get wiped out when Bob from accounts finally completes his section and puts it on the share.

You can chat to the other people viewing the doc, and they can see your cursor/position to see what you are talking about.

You can (just about) use it as a poor man's Trello.

However, the most commonly used example in our org is:

"Hi everyone. Can you fill in your row in this spreadsheet with your home working details over the xmas/easter/etc period please"

Re: Comedy gold

Downvote all you like, but you are plain wrong. In most areas, they have an absolute monopoly on fixed telephone lines which is why Ofcom can butt in on pricing access to poles and ducting.

Take this market. Monopoly? Yep.

It definitely doesn't compare to £1800 worth of separates - in fact I doubt it compares to £500 of separates.

Google aren't in the hardware business? Who do you think owns Motorola?

Lenovo?

Re: We want action

Margaret Hodge shocked?

Re: NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett: Go To Jail. Go Directly To Jail…

On the contrary... a great many people, myself included, are saying loudly and plainly: "Disband the spies, police and military, and by all means, bring on the terrorists!"

And then voting Democrat or Republican.

Re: GigE over Coax

Yes, 1000baseT is rated for a maximum cable length of 100m.

I'm moving house next week, in to a block served by hyperoptic, they run fibre to each block and then 1000baseT from the central point to each flat.

Re: So many WTFs!

world police how? He was arrested in Seattle for a crime against an American company. Not sure what you are getting at.

He didn't commit the crimes in America. They are charging him in America. They are American crimes because the company is American. Hence, TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE - someone does something wrong somewhere else in the world, America involves itself.

Missing from the story is how someone who works in Russia and Lebanon ended up arrested in Washington without extradition. Presumably MS asked him to fly over for a chat...

Re: Wow

The suggestion is not that hardware manufacturers absolve themselves of the responsibility to write their own firmware by calling in the "amateurs". They're free to do that, of course, if they want to see their sales plummet.

The idea is that after writing their own craptastic drivers that they then publish the code. This lets competent people look for security holes, and allows the amateurs to fix or re-write the code.

It also allows other competent people to look at what commodity chips the hardware manufacturer has put onto the breadboard and produce a knock-off for virtually no investment.

It also provides insight into any proprietary algorithms you use, eg wifi firmware frequently has (had?) proprietary rate algorithms, and nVidia and ATI keep the very proprietary bits of their drivers in their firmware.

Shuttleworth doesn't care about any of that though, since he is an ideologue and this gets in the way of his faith. Yes, it would be fucking awesome if we had at those bits and pieces, but it would suck balls if it meant that hardware was either more expensive, less readily available or not developed.

Re: Models

strum, science is a model constructed from scientific hypotheses. What is the difference between climate change hypotheses and scientific hypotheses? A scientific hypothesis can be tested.

Climate science produces models that describe what happened in the past in order to generate current measurements. The model takes historical data, and churns out the right number for today - hurrah!

We then look at the future predictions of that model and turn it into policy and taxes, but at no point is that model tested - it fits the old data, and it is right now, and that is good enough seemingly for most people.

It also seems that when you have new historical data that then doesn't fit the existing model, or changes the model forecast, then the implication is that the model is wrong, and it is tweaked until it gives the forecasts that are desired.

Re: Code ripped from projects

There shouldn't be comments at the top of a file declaring ownership because you should not "own" the code you write, it leads to terrible confrontations when someone refactors or otherwise rewrites "your" code in a way "you" don't like. Oh snap.

Re: Unbelievably expensive

That's what fridges, freezers, and store cupboards are for: you stock up in advance, then cook as and when you see fit.

What if you don't live in SmugGitopia?

Re: Que?

Which bit of that was the joke?

Re: @Tom 38

No John, I did not forget that the patriot act puts any US registered company in the NSA's pocket.

You however failed to grasp that the entirety of my post was that US registered companies choose to be US registered. They could choose to not be a US registered company, if what the NSA asked them for was so abhorrent - they make out that it was, now that we know about it.

Re: I can rotate my widescreen TFT into portrait mode

Yes you can rotate it, but I've yet to come across a desktop OS and monitor that automates the screen rotation … Windows 8.n, MS's tablet OS, can't, likewise Linux.

Well, I personally I use FreeBSD, this works pretty fine for me:

> $ grep xrandr .xinitrc

xrandr --output DP-0 --rotate left

xrandr --output VGA-0 --rotate left

I guess you meant "automatically detect what way up a screen is".

Re: I know it's contentious in a free internet

Its alarming just how many routers one can find in the internet with open admin logins and for which the name 'admin'; and the password '1234' will actually work..

This only became a problem when ISPs forced/cajoled router makers to allow the possibility of remote logins by your ISP. There should be no management interface of your router on your WAN iface. Ever.

Re: Are they blond?

But Dell aren't charging for distribution, they are charging for installation, configuration and support of the installation. If Mozilla isn't careful, then Dell will just stop offering this service thereby ensuring that the only browsers available are IE via the OS and chrome via Google nagging...

That is just weasel words, they are charging you to place firefox on some media and deliver it to you. That is basically the definition of distribution.

The cost paid is above what you would pay if you did not have firefox distributed to you.

Plus, no-one will ever choose to pay an extra £16 for Firefox. If they know they want it, they will know to install it themselves, if they don't know they want it, they will forgo paying for things they don't want.

This is basically a rehash of the Dell/MS tax on PCs with no OS, I wonder how much they are being bunged now drive IE usage. Of course, now Dell are privately owned, we need never know.

Re: StoreNav

The other thing with ikea kit is that a lot of their pieces - and I don't know if this is accident or by design - are precisely the right width for 19" rackmount kit. Yep, instead of seeing it as "the 4th goddamn coffee table we've looked at this morning", look at it as "my new AV unit and projector mount".

Re: An event horizon for economists?

I suppose if you're spending $3bn in opex, sometimes it can be worth speculatively spending $50m in capex to try and reduce that to $2bn, but delivering 4 times the capacity.

Plus facebook imagines itself a disruptive company. You don't pay IBM $50m when you can put some geniuses in a shed with some credit cards - much more disruptive.

Re: low cost?

Did you not see the bit where it has workstation graphics and drivers?

Re: From the BBC article

Yes, that is the entire purpose of the data controller, they are responsible for ensuring an entity confirms to the DPA where they deal with personal data. Admitting they had no clue they were even storing the data just demonstrates their failings in regard to the act.

BTW I said misfeasance, not doing your job competently. Malfeasance is deliberate wrong doing, completely different.

Re: Great headline!

Maplins have to keep stock, pay staff and rent prime (ish) retail locations, which is why it does cost more. On the other hand, you can walk in to a shop on your high street and buy a lot of useful kit that you cannot get other than online.

I miss the old fashioned kind of ironmongers/everything shop that you went in with a sheared bolt, gave it to the old timer who would wheeze, then scurry off to an impressive wall of cabinets, rummaging around and then pulling out the exact thing you were looking for. B&Q does not compare.

This may be rose tinted, as when I was a kid almost every saturday involved Dad popping off to Martin & Newby's to get the one thing he was missing. I was talking to him about this the other day, it was brilliant when it worked, less so when it didn't...

Re: This is why you have transactional systems.

Tulip Mania wasn't a ponzi scheme, it was a pricing bubble. Your "real physical" money is exactly the same as tulips, prone to fluctuations in value.

Re: Balancing Imbalance

Don't forget the dropbears.