Posts by Andy 66

Re: Dodgy behavior by Vote Leave?

Because being a Brit I always think of it as that, as much of an oxymoron as it is!

C’était un vote sur l’heure d’ete

Have a vote up on me for giving me a giggle

Highly unlikely

Noone on Earth can get Drosophila embros into storage like vertebrate embroys. Hence why the good guys at Bloomington stock center do a stirling job of turning live Drosophila stocks every month to provide the world with the mutants.

That said given that a Drosophila embryo hatches into a larva after 24h, I’m guessing they are in fact unfertilised eggs and not embroys given that the mission was unmanned...

Re: What about Windows 10 that Office is sitting on?

Depends- global annual turnover or Europe? Judging by how much tax these monoliths pay, their declared euro turnover is quite small irrespective of how big their actual euro turnover is

" they could buy FTTC ~50Mbps but think it's overpriced and don't/can't afford to."

---

FTTH may be overpriced, but here FTTC is 15€ a month and provides 350Mbs with TV and phone included. YMMV

Re: No, thank you.

"Just how much do you think can be saved by not having a man read the meter once a year?"

Probably quite a lot if you give that job to a woman… much more efficient

"Ironically for English speakers, one of the most prestigious forms of education in France is the 'école normale'..."

And then you have the ENS - the "Superior Normal School". There's always one that has to try outdo the other by coming up with a posher name ;)

BTW, the remark about it being a nightmare in France for offshoring unis would likely be due to the loi de Sauvadet which automatically converts a contracted position into a permanent position after 6 years. Not a bad system for private companies (prevents the eternal contract), but in higher education, it's a nightmare as your "employer" is the entire French higher education system. So impossible to go from from one uni to another as its the same "employer".

Re: Shall we play a game?

But it is learning in the way a human does since it is confined to the boundaries of the programme a human wrote. The real "I" comes from the realisation of its limits (in this case being it can only play Go) and doing something about it. But then that's why it will always be called artificial intelligence.

Re: "the world will not end"

Changing the icloud password prevented remote deletion of the iphone's contents through logging into icloud.com->erase iphone content.

However, apple's response on that is interesting - if changing the icloud pass prevented auto-backup of information, then shirley the iphone already created a backup before the pass was changed. Ergo, apple has the required info in it's icloud storage servers.

It also begs the question, what exactly is backed up from an ios device apart from the small number of items checked/unchecked in settings->iCloud that can be useful for law enforcement

Re: Pure gold is the least reactive metal...

My missus is allergic to it though. She breaks out in a rash to 9 or 18 ct gold jewelry (probably the impurities), but silver has no effect.

I certainly aint complaining!

Re: "or the Austrian village "Fuck"."

That's a long way from Pussy in the French Alpes

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5515783,6.454918,15z

I see it at least twice a year and it's always cold there. Even the Torrent of Pussy that passes through it is always frozen.

Re: "the Francophone hacker"

Beaucoup me demande

Beaucoup de personnes me demandent

Donc il a raison Mr grammar police

Re: Lane merging

The other thing common on continental motorways which I really miss in the UK is the restriction of trucks (7.5t and up) to lane 1 at peak periods and at all times on many two lane sections.

How about at major holiday weekends, banning trucks altogether from motorways, like in France?

And The W*nker's coming with a late run!

...and now it's back to topless darts at Roehampton.

Re: "...concrete used has finished outgassing..."

except in the source of the energy required to make the cement, which accounts for 40% of the CO2 released. Not sure ingassing from cured concrete will absorb that much...

Re: Your description fits Microsoft more than Google.

"Google doesn't have anything in France, so how Google can violate French laws is a bit confusing."

So why did I see a white citroen blazened with 'Google for pros' on it in the G colours whith a rather attractive woman driving while coming home tonight?

Google are very much present in France pushing their ad revenue stream...

Re: At first

I recently purchased an iphone for the first time in an Apple Store (regent st - first time in apple store, not iphone purchase). The only ever other time I've purchased an Apple product with my existing card is on the Apple.fr website last year for my wife's iphone.

Fanboi jokes aside, I was shocked that the salesfloor dear, after she swiped my card she asked if I'd like my receipt to my email (she had the correct email) and made a remark about the fact I had purchased 2 iphones in 1 yr that showed she had my purchase history on that shitty handheld terminal, after only a swipe of my cc.

Does make one wonder how they are hashing stored ccards to be able to easily index it to an account and it's purchases, as well as how that damn terminal can wirelessly take my swiped cc and access all that info in a secure manner.

Re: Half Time Oranges

It's mathS fer chrissakes.... Maths in the singular sense does not exist since to solve a problem requires >1 input

Re: Fines are fine

Given how French bureaucracy works, there'll be 6 months in writing the writ, 12 months getting it to be heard at the "cour de cessation", another 24 months of deliberation after both sides have made their stance until a decision can be reached, by which time, 2-3yrs have passed by which time Googles terms have changed so any decision is null and void.

Re: A split personality release

Since the inception of OS X 10.0 I followed with amusement yet seriousness about the eye candy and mixed metaphors that the OS introduced, which detracted from the original coveted Apple Human Interface Guidelines. Over time, those problems were erased to an OS that pretty much adhered to those original Jobs-written AHIGs.

Yes I updated to ios7, and boy was I wrong. I am like the others - unlock screen and sudden flash of nausia as everything whooshes into place. I've eliminated all the background effects I can but still this nauseating animation happens. It's a big step back in user interface imo.

Plus why oh why.... On the lock screen, there's an option for emergency calls... Why oh why am I presented with a frikken keypad to amke the call? Who in reality can remember the emgency call number based on where you are in the world? 112 for europe (had to wiki it), 911 in US... Asia? Australasia? The frikken phone knows where I am in the workd, so why not predial it for me?.... If I needed to make an emergency call after an accident in the mountains of Bora Bora and couldn't unlock my phone, am I supposed to know what number to call?

Re: Absolutely Ridiculous

About 3 yrs ago, my wife had her handbag snatched, iphone and all. After filling out a police report (req'd for insurance re-imbursement) she also gave them the IMEI number as she still had the original box. The plod had no idea what to do with this even though she said they could render the phone banned with it. Nothing was done, and calling Orange was useless as they said it's only the police that can issue the ban.

No idea who's right or wrong, but needless to say some scum made a few bucks from it.

Re: Affordability my arse

So, in the US the 16GB 5S model is $649, which is ~€500 (to be on the high side), then add 20% VAT (rough european VAT average) == €600.

So why is the 5S 16GB model being offered up for €699???

I ain't bending over Apple - go shaft someone else.

@Trevor Pott o_O

Don't know what the process is over there, but over the channel you have to activate your card by withdrawing cash at a bank machine. So if you receive your card and never activate it, yet receive charges against that card, you have grounds to oppose them