* Posts by BongoJoe

1327 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Apr 2010

Want to download free AV software? Don't have a Muslim name

BongoJoe
Holmes

Muslim name?

What exactly is a Muslim name? Is it a name that some Muslims have?

HAM IN SPAAAAAACE! ISS astronaut contacted by Gloucestershire bloke in garden shed

BongoJoe

Re: If it had been me...

Surely a more important question would be to ask if he wanted double glazing?

UK.gov issues internal 'ditch Oracle NOW' edict to end pricey addiction

BongoJoe

Re: FOSS

Do you believe governments are good at software development projects?

When I worked for the Gov many decades ago one massive and important project was written in APL for no plausible reason.

So, I think: No.

BongoJoe

Re: Simple solution

Hire more employees, then the software per employee cost will fall.

But, shirley, you'll need to get more licences for those more employees...

Wait, what? TrueCrypt 'decrypted' by FBI to nail doc-stealing sysadmin

BongoJoe

Re: Errm, you cannot prove a negative.

I do not have fifteen legs.

Windows 10 Start menu replacements shifting like hot cakes

BongoJoe

Re: Hrm, no

Disliking change for change's sake? Well, explain to be how selecting an MS app to make it the active window and showing the title bar to be just 1% slightly darker grey than an unactive window?

I liked things more when the active window was more obvious rather than impossible to detect.

What sort of improvement was that?

Let's all binge on Blake’s 7 and help save the BBC ... from itself

BongoJoe
Headmaster

Re: Mine!

You don't 'own' the road because you paid road tax.

When was the last time you paid road tax? It was back in the sixties around fifty years ago when it was abolished.

The tax you pay now is just a fee enabling you drive that one particular vehicle that's in your particular name on the roads and nothing to do with the old Road Fund Tax.

ATTACK of the ZOMBIE SATELLITE: Run radio hams, run!

BongoJoe

Re: Earworm

That was... bloody awful.

Have an upvote.

James Woods demands $10m from Twitter troll for 'coke addict' claim

BongoJoe

Re: He should be ashamed

I remember him in AGAINST ALL ODDS and ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA.

I never have rated him though even though I enjoyed the latter.

Sun? In Blighty? Nah, just build that rooftop data centre, it’ll be fine

BongoJoe

A shame because otherwise have newspapers, for example The Sun and The Telegraph, could show lots of pictures of scantily clad stunnahs under the strapline "Phew! Wotta Scorcher!"

'Fix these Windows 10 Horrors': Readers turn their guns on Redmond

BongoJoe

Re: Cars

I think that Microsoft have designed my latest vehicle.

The windscreen wiper control wossit arm thing is on the right hand side of my steering wheel but unlike everything else it's now top for off and not bottom and the gear lever has moved to a different position and the handbrake has moved to the other side of the driver's seat.

Further proof in that MS designed the vehicle: the buttons, knobs and such on the heater all move but nothing happens.

BongoJoe

Re: No Control of Updating

Exactly. Anyone remember Microsoft's Search? Anyone with half a wit would have refused to have that installed.

What would the point be of delaying the installation for ninety days? Any issues of it nobbling your machine's speed wouldn't have been fixed in that time. I have lost count of the number of updates and improvements which haven't been fixed at all and are still not fixed.

In my view it's clear: the user/admin needs to have control as to what goes onto each machine,.

US State of Georgia sues 'terrorist' for publishing its own laws ... on the internet

BongoJoe
Facepalm

Ignorance of the Law...

...is not a defence.

So, cough up over three hundred dollars.

Global drug-dealing cyber crime web was centred on ... Aberdovey

BongoJoe
Facepalm

Asking for abuse

Sheep Marketplace. Really...?

Windows 10 on Mobile under the scope: Flaws, confusion, and going nowhere fast

BongoJoe

Re: What should Microsoft's enterprise clients do now?

What is the VBA equivalent like in LibreOffice?

Ashley Madison hack: Site for people who can't be trusted can't be trusted

BongoJoe

Re: Get ready to duck

I wonder how many people run into their own spouses on that site?

Marshall wants to turn your phone UP TO ELEVEN

BongoJoe

Re: Especially as the amp's main benefit to humans is distortion

@King Jack.

Not even electric guitar. Listen to the sound that Jon Lord used to get pushing his Hammond through a Marshall stack.

Mr Lord said that it took his techie many attempts to get the two to work together and blew himself up a few times in the process but the sound that Lord got out of that Marshall just tore the fabric of time and space apart.

Oh, sorry. Got all Hawkwind there for a moment...

BongoJoe

Re: Knobs

Will it have valves?

Microsoft to Windows 10 consumers: You'll get updates LIKE IT or NOT

BongoJoe

Re: I used to be like you

Can you tell me if Eve Online works on Linux? If so, I am getting a new machine forthwith...

BongoJoe

This is why I have turned off my Windows 7 Update Service and then, if I wish, I can then go and find any real essential updates that I need.

Yes, I know that I got downvoted for this the last time I said this but in this game there are no assurances other than that something is going to bork your machine and applications. It may be a hacker or someone breaking into the machine or it may be an update which breaks everything.

At the moment I have taken the path which, for me, offers the least risk. That, alas, is the one with the update services turned off. And the stuff which I do my real work is only fastened to the internet for one hour a day and it does one thing on there: ftp to a known good site (my own) and then turns off. Yes, it's not foolproof but it's better than updates borking the machine and updates being not backward compatible with my applications.

For example, the later versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer isn't compatible with some of Microsoft's own software components even though they aren't even in the same ballpark of functionality.

Some of these updates and improvements are complete show-stoppers.

Some aren't but just a downgrade. I am still, for example, resisting the updates to Skype because the version that I am on is a lot better than the new hipster frappe-latte-chino bollocks that they're trying to foist onto me.

If I were to allow Microsoft to update everything at will then I may as well close up my business tomorrow and start serving petrol at the nearest garage instead. Except that I can't. My mate is already doing that.

The comparison is, of course, with tablets. These update all the time and I accept that. On the other hand, I don't use my tablets for essential stuff and never will.

This auto-update is nothing short of an ill-thought out presumption which should be dropped entirely.

BongoJoe

Re: no matter what MS force on us

...and if one is in the middle of a massive data run which takes hours and the last thing that one needs is a reboot when the CPU is thumping away.

After all these years MS still haven't thought to consider that not all users will be at their desks especially if the CPU and Page Fault count is going full tilt and has done with no user intervention for the past five or ten hours.

The latest from the Redmond HiveMind is that everyone is writing OneNote documents and can handle a five minute interruption whilst they go for a frappe-latte-chino and take their stupid beards for a walk.

BongoJoe

Re: no matter what MS force on us

How many of these updates recently have killed Office applications?

I had one humdinger of an issue recently which borked my Excel applications the security updates stopped any of MS' own Active-X controls working on their own products. The only way to fix the issue was to remove the update and, on my other machines, stop that update buggering up the system there.

And this wasn't just one single security update which did that.

So, back to your question: Why would anyone want a 'fix' to stop important security updates & fixes? the answer would surely now be obvious.

Metadata slurp warrant typo sends cops barging into the wrong house

BongoJoe

Ctizens

When exactly did we become citizens?

Being a citizen means being a chattel of the State and I do distinctly remember being not a citizen but a Subject of Her Majesty and not lorded over by her Civil Servants.

Download Festival face scan: You’re right to be annoyed, said UK surveillance commish

BongoJoe

You know that site which shows where every flight is at any one time. Wouldn't it be good if there were one which tracked the whereabouts of the current Home Secretary, no matter who it is?

What do you MEAN, 'Click on the thing which looks like a Mondrian?'

BongoJoe
Paris Hilton

Re: £££s

My chum and I were once thrown out of a Paris taxi for asking "...and why did they build the Arc de Triumphe?"

icon because...

Post-pub nosh neckfiller: Uitsmijter

BongoJoe
Coat

Re: Northern refinement

Stork?

(see icon)

BongoJoe

Re: Northern refinement

It's for fending off the whippet whilst tucking into the lard doorstop sarnie.

Any proper Northerner would tell you that.

BongoJoe

Re: Uitsmijter is lekker!

This is definitely a home cooking job as most of the shops that sell the uitsmijter are closed when the pubs close

Which is why living in Belgium was preferable. There's always something open somewhere.

One cafe I used to go to in the early hours was last closed during the Occupation. Even now if they have to decorate the place they move the detritus (that's a posh word for the likes of you and I at four in the morning) to the other side of the bar.

Belgium is much derided by its detractors but it's got its priorities sorted out.

BongoJoe
Thumb Up

Memories

The number of times that on work days in Antwerpen that I had a near fatal hangover and the only thing that I could face at lunch was one of these are just too many to mention.

Weekend hangovers, of course, were treated to a pot of mussels on the banks of the Schelde with copious amounts of either Hoogarden (in pre-Interbrew days) and/or De Koningk.

Thanks for the glorious memories.

(excuse spelling. It's the gin. Honest)

Rampaging fox terrorises rural sports club, victim sustains ‘tweaked groin’

BongoJoe

Miscomprehension

Surely this is was all nothing more than an unscreened episode of Brittas Empire.

Rosetta spots potholes IN SPAAACE: Someone call the galactic council

BongoJoe

Re: For Christ's sake NOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...................

I, for one, will not be happy to be paying my council tax to our Intergalactic council overlords

Why OH WHY did Blighty privatise EVERYTHING?

BongoJoe

Re: You fucking WHAT…?!

Wasn't that the one which went from the little known town of Gobowen, just outside of Oswestry, known for its excellent orthopaedic hospital?

BongoJoe

Re: You fucking WHAT…?!

I've always said: Virgin Trains -- Bring Your Own Wellingtons

Digital killed the radio star: Norway names FM switchoff date

BongoJoe

Re: Reception issues???

Not all of Norway is mountainous and riddled with fjords. When I lived in and around Oslo, I would come back to the UK and be glad to see some proper mountains in Snowdonia.

Yes, Bergen is on the edge of a rather large cliff but one would assume that the PTB would shove a transmitter above the city and the same for the major population centres.

Imaging that all of Norway is full of mountains and fjords is like thinking that all of Wales is like The Valleys.

Britain beats back Argies over Falklands online land grab

BongoJoe

Re: Outer Manchuria before the Falklands

Spoken like a man who likes polonium in his tea.

BongoJoe

Re: Outer Manchuria before the Falklands

My favourite example of this was when Peter The Great had the audacity to built his capital city on foreign soil...

We forget NOTHING, the Beeb thunders at Europe

BongoJoe
Flame

Right to be forgotten option

I wish I had this on the entirety of my first marriage...

Courtney Love in the crossfire! Paris turns ugly over Uber

BongoJoe
Thumb Up

What concerns me most is not the French protests but the comments above which clearly show that we've forgotten how to protest in this country.

No use marching on Whiltehall in the weekend when the mandarins are at home or the Cabinet playing croquet at Chequers. Of course protesting during the week, when it would be noticed, isn't allowed so instead the British public are permitted to shout at empty buildings when no-one can hear them.

Good on the French, I say.

Supermarket tweet: Twitter ankles balloon in product, places shopping frenzy

BongoJoe

Re: They REALLY said that? With a straight face?

What sort of restaurants do you go to?

The Martian: Matt Damon sciences the sh*t out of the red planet

BongoJoe

Re: Movie adaptations

Nothing wrong with 70s music as long as it wasn't disco.

HP will stomp EMC's disks into the dust, babble storage mystics

BongoJoe

I am curious as to which course this is. Is it in South Africa?

Engaged to be worried – Verify borks married tax allowance applications

BongoJoe

I tried to verify myself the other week. My passport has expired but I still have a driving licence, council tax bills, utility bills and the like.

The first question: Do you have a valid UK passport.

No.

It then tells me that I am restricted to using only one of the verification agencies in their list and would I like to continue? I would and I did.

So I filled in pages of answers and then when I got to the last page where I was asked to fill in my passport details I came to a grinding halt as it seems that I really need to have both a passport and a driving licence.

I wrote to HRMC about this and then, weeks later, I got some bullshit response which made little sense to me at all. Needless to say that they didn't promise to rectify the issue.

Windows 10 upgrade ADWARE forces its way on to Windows 7 and 8.1

BongoJoe

Re: @Kubla Cant The original post said he was born in 6 BCE.

the haters are also unwilling to admit they've killed more people than believers have

Perhaps because they haven't.

BongoJoe

Re: @BongoJo

The trouble is the old testament was written in Hebrew and the new in Greek. It seems unlikely they would use the same system. (It also sounds suspiciously like you're alluding to Roman numerals where L is 50 not 5000, and I can't see an "L" equivalent in Greek or Hebrew that has the value 5000.) It's possible this mistake happened when it was translated into Latin, but its more likely that what happened was distorted before it was recorded - much as rumours mutate today. The bible is "entertaining" gossip not factual accounts.

You are correct in pulling me up about the abbreviation "L". I apologise for that; it was my memory. The abbreviation was "lp" and thanks for pulling me up on that.

I found the gentleman's website and it is here where he wrote on this and it can be read here:

http://battlefieldreview.com/2ndAi.asp

The part of the page in question is this part (copy and paste coming up: I apologise for this but I think that it makes for interesting reading).

Some commentators have persisted in the ridiculous notion that there were 30,000 Israelites in ambush behind the hill west of Ai where the combat engineers hid, for this is what the Bible account says. However, we need to understand that the King James version of the Bible is the result of translation from Ancient Hebrew into Aramaic into Greek into Latin into English! While the main thrust of the Bible's words are not in question, some of the detail has been muddled. For instance, we know that many of the ancient Egyptian scribes, when copying numbers, for some unknown reason seemed to add an extra zero to the figures being copied.

Worse, the copying in much of the Old Testament was done anciently in a form of shorthand, in which it was the practice to simply drop the vowels from each word. And herein lies a problem: the word for "thousand" was elleph and the word for "warrior" or, in the Bible, a "mighty man" - meaning a regular soldier as opposed to a conscripted levy or a militia man - was alluph, and if the shorthand was employed they both became lp! Which is correct in this case? 30,000 or 30? Let's think about it for a moment - would it be possible to hide thirty thousand men less than five hundred yards (485m) from their target town with wide-awake watchers? No: the noise of their collective wriggling and belching would be heard a mile away! It has to be just thirty. Anyway, how many men do you need to set fire to a small and empty town? Again, thirty seems about right.

On the other hand, when the record says that Joshua sent 5000 to loop around to the right and hide behind his own command position, it only makes sense if, indeed, there were 5,000; what effect would five men have had, charging into the rear of the Ai-ites?

What we are saying is that to understand the records - of any war - it helps to first understand the way the records were made up, the mechanics of the recording. (For the record - pardon the pun! - it is interesting to see that the same numbers problem affects the story of the Israelites under Moses trekking across Sinai after leaving Egypt. In the Biblical book of Numbers the total of the people is given as 603,550 - and that's just the men over twenty years of age, quite apart from their families. At Elim were twelve wells; that's an average of over 50,000 men assigned water from each well. They'd die of thirst just waiting their turn to draw the water! If, however, we apply the elleph/alluph rule the figures change dramatically. This now translates that were 598 regular soldiers and 5550 other men available as instant soldiers when the need arose. Now that number, with their families, would have been able to survive the water queues at Elim. As we said, you need to understand the way the recorders worked. It also helps if you know the type of person who wrote the record; if a copy clerk in a monastery is writing about the technicalities of battle he's likely to get it wrong here and there; we need to read between the lines he ignorantly wrote.)

BongoJoe

Re: I'm confused

I think you will now find, if you look at some real academic researchers, that there is now not much doubt that Jesus did, indeed, exist. What there IS plenty of is doubt about his divinity. I.E. he was just a man like you and I.

I am of the opinion that he did exist. But he was a latter-day Che Guevara, Gandhi, Mandela character with bags of charisma who was eventually put to death by the leaders of his own people who refused to got off their own gravy train and join in.

There's one bloke whom I know is a religious scholar and even though he's deeply religious he's also a military man and he told me how a lot of the bible was mistranslated over the years from the shorthand by those later on who didn't understand military matters.

Intreagued, I asked him to continue. He told me that one of the shorthand for numbering had the letter L for thousand. It was also a short hand for well trained militia. Now, if one considers stories in the Old Testament which had, for example, five thousand soldiers sneaking into opposing towns or whatever then it makes more sense if one considers that it was five well trained soldiers.

Then we get to the sermon the mount. Taken literally having fed the five thousand with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fishes is clearly impossible. Okay, it's seen as a miracle in the bible but let's consider that these five thousand were five members of the Roman forces with whom Jesus met and talked with bringing with him five loaves and two fishes and it now makes sense. But where was the miracle here? Well, consider this a meeting such as we had here in the UK to get the Good Friday treatment going in which Mo Molem received lots of accolades for doing "the impossible". In short, a miracle.

And this is what I believed happened.

Of course your view may and most certainly will vary on this one.

BOFH: Step into my office. Now take a deep breath

BongoJoe

I remember when...

Seriously I was visiting the computer room (they didn't have IT in those days) at the top of a chemical factory's stack somewhere in Teesside when an alarm went off after a particular vigorous shaking of whatever it was that they they were brewing under my feet when the Halon Dump went off.

It was like trying to breathe a brick wall.

Health and Safety evacuation procedures in those days involved thwacking me around the back of the head to get my attention and then shoving me out of the nearest door roughly.

All in all, an interesting day that.

Ed Snowden should be pardoned, thunders Amnesty Int'l

BongoJoe

Re: @Boltar

I can't show evidence that I didn't kidnap Shergar (being only five at the time I have trouble remembering where I was) so where does that put me in your thinking?

And I am having a tough time showing evidence that I wasn't the man on the Grassy Knoll nor that I wasn't Commander Crabb neither.

Yours,

Lord Lucan

Couple sues estate agent who sold them her mum's snake-infested house

BongoJoe

Re: Inspections dont work in the UK

There is a house in the next village clearly designed by an architect who has embraced all things uPVC.

Not only the doors and windows made from the dreadful stuff but they've put a porch on the front with hideous uPVC columns supporting the whole ghastly affair.

This being North Wales it gathered the nick-name of "Ty Plastic" (Plastic House) when it was built about twenty years ago and today not only does it have the same nick-name but it's also a point of reference to any traveller in a series of directions.

BongoJoe

Re: Inspections dont work in the UK

This is what riles about the UK.

Since when have uPVC door and window frames been superior to oak?

Chinese bloke escapes execution for Forbidden City nude photo shoot

BongoJoe

Hats Off

to the model for enduring that suspension business.

I wonder if I can get Mrs Bongo Joe to hang like that from the IKEA light socket on the ceiling?