Posts by John Brown (no body)

Re: Not a great day...

But the article is about using a local "special" day, worldwide, hence the potential issue. It's like promoting Xmas Sales in non-Christian countries. It happens, but it doesn't always go down well.

Re: Stupid System

Yes, clearly, from yours and other posts, I'm not the only one thinking this. Surely "grounds for appeal" should include substantive reasons and/or new evidence, not just "we don't like the result". And likewise, as seen in some other cases, holding back evidence you should have used, but kept in reserve in case you lost so as to just the appeal needs to be stamped on to. It seems many of these big litigants seem to put forward just what evidence they think they need to win specifically so as to have something "new" for an appeal. What happened to "the truth, the WHOLE truth and nothing but the truth"?

Re: Why is such a tool needed?

Although obfuscation, no matter how heavy, isn't encryption or DRM so not covered by the law on "breaking" copy protection.

Re: They missed the obvious.

"where applications bundle third party DLLs that then go unpatched for security or stability issues."

Yes, this! Once you start compiling ion static libraries, everyone has to play ball when a vuln shows up in one of those multiple copies and they all need patching instead of just the one dynamically linked library.

Admittedly I'm probably spoiled by FreeBSD and it's ports/packages systems and a unified kernel/userland which rarely have the dependency hell the Linuxes used to suffer from, and still do in some respects.

Re: Add it to the list

Google as a company seems to have the attention span and attitude of failing university students who just want to party with their "new" ideas and toys 'till they get bored and move on to the new shiny.

"How long before we see something like the Queen eating a Corgi on YouTube and it promoted as real?"

When did you last see a royal corgi? /tinfoil hat

Re: Not in the enterprise

The may have gone with the 80's home computing form factor. Shame they didn't go with the full fat keyboard most models other the Sinclair went with, eg Tandy (not CoCo), Apple, C64, Atari (not the 400), Amiga, etc. I really don't like those Apple Airbook alike keyboards.

Re: Helping Google

Does it? I don't recall seeing anything other US street scenes. If they do, then it seems odd that they know which country I', in but never seem to show any UK street scenes. Maybe it's only a tiny fraction of a percentage that is non-US and I've not been lucky enough to get a localised one.

Re: Sadly, no international jet-settng for me

"The most "exciting" cross-border incident for me was when my always-optimistic colleague only brought an out-of-date driving licence for ID for an internal UK flight."

In many cases, just because the licence is no longer valid for driving doesn't make the ID details on it any less valid. Although many jobsworths will try to make it so. My legally valid until I'm 70 pink paper driving licence has been almost refused as ID a number of times by people too young to know about them, even in a car hire place where they should have known better. Luckily there's almost always an older manager or other higher up around put the kids right :-)

Re: We piggyback the 4G from our mobile phones

Wow! At least one person thinks quarantine or self-isolation means you can still go out and walk the streets? No wonder we're in the position we are! Were you at the rave in Bristol too? Or partying with the students in Nottingham?

While I agree with you shouting out GSW in a TV show as is there wont to sound cool, takes LONGER than shouting out Gun Shot Wound. Wound is one syllable while "double-you" is three! (Or two if you live in an area that say "Dubya") :-)

Re: Change the battery

And the date of the BIOS build doesn't mean that's when the machine was built either. Depending on how often a new BIOS is released to production, it could easily be 6-9 months that the boards were produced with that BIOS revision and date, and just as long or longer that they were on the suppliers shelves before they ended up and the machine manufactures.

Re: One positive aspect

HP have been doing this with PCs and laptops for years. The dreaded Feature Byte string can't be changed by the user and it defines the usable hardware in the system. It means you need to use their service or an approved service centre to replace or upgrade much of their kit.

Re: The license plate NULL and the license plate VOID.

ISTR that there was some issue with Police Officers reporting Polish drivers for offences and putting what the Polish is for "Driving Licence" on the report as the drivers name.

Ah here we go, it was Irish police huntung the serial offender Mr Prawo Jazdy of many and multiple unique addresses.

That makes sense for toggle switches, and was the usual standard in the UK when toggle switches were still around. But with rocker switches that only protrude out from the fascia by a couple of mm, it's not an issue. If you fall against one, it doesn't matter which way is on or off, odds are you'll flip it.

Re: Clever!

Yes, Sell By, Best Before and Use By all have different meanings which may or may not mean the food might be unsafe after the specified date. In some case, Best Before or Sell By are only there because there is a requirement to have a date on it because the law says so. Canned goods, as you point out, could well be good for many, many years after the putative Best Before data printed on the can.

Re: Good

You were downvoted because the "ghost notifications" story was covered a few weeks ago and was well known about. It even made the national news on BBC, ITV, Sky etc as well as some front page headlines.

Re: Christine

Or for slightly younger readers, KITT. (Was KITT the true origin of the Cylons?)

The more I hear of the US version of capitalism, the more it seem, from outsdide at least, that it doesn't work. It's geared to encourage monopolies which eventually have to be broken up. But they don't seem to realise that that is a problem, so after the break up, it all starts again with someone else (or the remnants of the break up) eventually becoming top dog again. It happened at the time of the robber barons with the likes of Standard Oil and Carrnegies Steel operations, The big Press Bartons etc. It happened again with Ma Bell, it's happeing again with the media and the likes of MS, Google, Facebook etc and it's clearly happening with comms and broadband. Once a company reaches a certain size, they have so much clout it's almost impossible for anyone else to enter the market.

"33 known UK citizens (including 6 with dual nationality) were extradited from the UK to the US. The US embassy in London reported that as of April 2013, 77 individuals had been extradited from the UK to the US."

Assuming that last stat was meant to read "from the US to the UK", I find it notable that the statement says "33 known UK citizens" but only mentions "77 individuals" from the US. "Individuals", not specifically "citizens". Considering the US preponderance to refer to their people as citizens in official statements, it sounds to me like a massaging of stats so as to tell the truth by not answering the question while trying to show themselves in the best light possible.