Posts by Paul_Murphy

Well - how about this as a thought experiment.

Just because <Lucas> produced a film called <Star Wars> should he be able to control who gets to see it?

I can see arguments along the lines of certain films not being suitable for certain age groups, and who knows maybe that will be expanded to include other 'warnings' i.e. an icon of sad leprechaun 'contains an anti-Irish joke!'

But should 'content' be deliberately denied certain people? and who gets to decide - and why?

It seems to me that <Lucas> should be excited that people wanted to see his work, not attacking the 'wrong sort' of people for watching it.

ttfn

No - you did find it...

but when you looked it wasn't a quantum computer any more.

ttfn

And so do we...

Though of course we're 100 years into our 600 already.

ttfn

But BP wasn't about Enigma

It was far more interested in the 'Fish' traffic that Colossus was built to crack. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer)

Since the nicely organised Germans were sending very regular reports to Berlin, and getting regular orders back it made working out what they were up to a lot more straight-forward.

Enigma was used 'on-the-ground' for more tactical purposes.

As for back doors I would recommend reading Paul Gannons book: http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Colossus.html?id=J9ezAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

and decided for yourself what constitutes a back door.

ttfn

oh yeah - all hail to the BT engineer Tommy Flowers, who did the work, insisted on using valves and used his own money (http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/1078/Tommy-Flowers/) to get the project working.

You forgot the homeopathic problem.

2 million fish making their messes in a reservoir? no problem, ditto with flocks of 'bird flu' victims crapping all over it.

One person's pee? I'm surprised there wasn't some sort of homeopathic event horizon thing going on..

ttfn

Actually

In some ways it could be useful - if convicted paedophiles had to drive around with the plates that plates like that it might save an innocent.

On the other hand as soon as people are judged by their car plate it's slippery slope.

I personally think that vanity plates should be banned, and plates certainly not transferable - the vehicle gets it's plate and it stays with the vehicle until it's scrapped.

Unless of course we go for a system that relies on people getting a plate (or plates) that are registered to them (i.e. you need to pay road tax and insurance before you get a plate) before they can drive a vehicle.

Unless it's stolen you know that a car with a plate is insured.

ttfn

I agree - if your local friendly tech person is endorsing, or just keen on a product then that will be seen in more favourable terms than the other options.

It makes a lot of sense all round - we're thinking 'good on them for not tying it down', the hackers are thinking 'great now I can get it running NeXT' and the normal customer is thinking 'this works well - glad I listened to my friend/son/daughter'.

Almost as good as free publicity.

ttfn

>We don't actually need them

Umm we would have found them really useful for the Libya 'thing' - almost immediately after we got rid of them.

The Harriers would be pretty useful in Afghanistan I would have thought, and who knows if they would be useful for anything else in what would have been their future.

The most annoying aspect of this for me is that perfectly effective tools, such as the Harriers and their carrier have been scrapped despite keeping far more expensive, and hardly more useful things such as Typhoons, tornados, tanks and artillery pieces - useful for a European war perhaps but otherwise a very expensive way of doing things - the icing on the cake example is Libya where sitting off the coast with a carrier would have done a much better job.

ttfn

Yep - dumb did mean you can't talk.

dumbstruck,

rendered dumb.

etc.

However english is an evolving language so it will probably mean something else in 150 years.

Thats exactly right (though it's spelt 'worthwhile')

It's virtually pointless to hear from people with no bias, even those with extreme views should have their say. We're human, we're all bound to have biases - even if legally we're not allowed to have them <rolls eyes>

Just because someone says something does not make it necessarily true, it's a view point that can be debated and judged on it's merits.

Let statements be valued according to their ability to stand up to scrutiny - if they are false then they will be ignored.

ttfn

nooooo

Why is it called light then? 'cos it's light! otherwise it would be called 'heavy' or 'massive.'

What I want to know is where the numbers go when they're not being used - I reckon it must be magic, or pygmies or something.

ttfn

:-)

I suspect that the real point is that the NOTW didn't really believe that they were doing anything wrong and/or that since they had been doing it for so long that it was OK - or something.

It's a bit like a goose that lays golden eggs - after a while of looking at golden eggs you forget that the goose was stolen.

I guess that their collective moral compass had been diverted for so long that it just became second nature.

It could also be that given the Murdochs inherent lack of morals they were just toeing the corporate line.

Sad really, until it starts interferring with police investigations - then it becomes unconscionable behaviour.

ttfn

Umm, and the last century.

Even fights that they start they aren't necessarily successful at, unless you are talking about certain people who aim to make a profit from the US war machine, in which case all their wars are pretty successful.

ttfn

Don't forget that you rarely hear the good news.

For all the various 'VM is down today' stories you never get the 350+ 'VM working fine today' stories.

I'm in the Watford area and have seen few problems with the service itself - the most annoying thing about VM is that they don't pass on cheaper package rates when they are available. In the past I would notice that our service was quoted at a cheaper rate on the website and would phone up to complain - normally getting a discount.

As for the service once I started using OpenDNS on my router it seems steadier than it was - not that it was too bad before.

I'm sure that if you visit BT or other websites (aside from BE probably) you will see similar stories and reach similar conclusions.

Oh - I have no affiliation to VM or BE or anyone else, I'm just a customer.

ttfn

nb - 50meg service is very useful in our household (3x computers, 2x laptops, Wii, PS3 ...)

I think that dark matter

Is actually other universes impinging on our space/time.

A simple analogy would be a person living in 2-D land having their 'floor' pushed up from beneath by an external person in 3-D land.

ttfn

tought?

Someone should have taught you how to spell taut, a tort problem by your teacher you could say.

Yes the commenterers can be a problem.

ttfn

I might have a bash at that later, or at least C if I can get it working.

sorry :-)

Well I, for one..

Did not want to see that comment - can I opt of of it, and any other comments like it.

Kids will grow up - and with a developing humans interest in adult activities I would prefer that they have ready access to information that will help them grow up without a load of (religious/ ill-informed) baggage.

I would like my children to be able to find http://www.stayteen.org/myths and similar sites with no hindrance - I would be proud if they came to me with their questions so we could find out the facts together.

In my view hiding knowledge or information cannot be condoned, with the exception of incorrect information, and the answer to that is to encourage a questioning attitude so that doubts can be expressed freely.

ttfn

If the kids...

Are taught to program android apps or games (or other such activities) then the need for correct spelling, to be able to read and how numbers work becomes far more apparent.

The problem today is that all of the fun is drained from a subject and the constant exams and 'league table' mentality stops kids from finding out why they should be learning in the first place.

ttfn

Nothing to see here folks...

Just another silly american - please don't feed the troll.

Yes, the lower-case 'a' is deliberate.

ttfn

Power users wouldn't

However all the technologically illiterate who 'just want it to work' wouldn't even think to question the salesman saying 'and it's safe to use since it will only run windows'.

I can't see anything like this succeeding, but then maybe they are just trying to sneak in another nasty and are using this as a distraction.

ttfn

>average Uk is one third of advertised speeds

The BBC had a chart of advertised vs actual speeds - all the ADSL companies failed to live up to their marketing by a long way, the only one to come close to delivering their stated speed was Virgin.

I must admit that I really like their 50Mb service - handy for our many computers.

I wonder if anyone could invent a solar-powered and battery-backed wifi transceiver thing that could be attached to every telephone pole - it might allow our country to claw it's way back to decent coverage.

ttfn

Well do something then..

Throw a tarpaulin over the lot,

Get a letter from your line manager to authorise disposal with funds, if any, returned to your organisation,

Either sell them on ebay (in lots of 1,5, 10 & 20) or, if nothing else, get them posted on freecycle.

Yes - http://uk.freecycle.org/, where people will come along and put your rubbish to use.

And that's not including local charity shops, re-employment workshops (you know the local council retraining schemes), schools, colleges etc.

ttfn

HaHa

Oh - when to stop laughing.

So you're OK with the programmes, most of which are inane poo,

And you're OK with the adverts - which are mostly a waste of everyones' time and rarely even entertaining.

And you're OK with the channel breaks where they tell you (and sometimes show you) what will be shown - which is another waste of your time.

But you're not OK that you can MAKE A CHOICE to buy this device then install and configure it yourself?

What I would like would be to decide for myself what I wanted on my screen:

Adverts - No,

Breaking News - yes in a bottom banner please,

Anti-piracy 'adverts' - No,

Trailers for other films - maybe remind me at the end of the film rather than showing credits,

The film / programme - Yes please.

ttfn

Dang it.

I was going to go for 'Pressure Evacuation aNd Ignition Speed Enlarger

I'm sure there must be a better 'N'.

I was also going to suggest a weight on the lid and some means of measuring the acceleration of the lid as a guide to thrust.

ttfn

I think it's more likely..

That Google (shall we call it the big G ?) measures other peoples interest in a given web page to give it a rank - if people don't link to the page then it drops down the rankings.

I would find it surprising that anyone at Google would care enough to make any specific effort.

ttfn