Posts by John Brown (no body)

Re: @Lars

An hour is always[*] an hour to the person experiencing it. It may, however, measure differently to an observer.

*Waste of time meetings at the office with a PHB droning on excepted.

Re: I'd love to switch to Firefox, if only...

"The most important is "text fragment links." They let you "deep link" directly to almost any snippet of text on a web page. It is an extremely useful feature, and Chrome has supported it for over 33 months, but Firefox STILL doesn't support it."

This why some sites pop up messages telling you your latest release version $browser is not up to date. Because Chrome invents new "features" some good, some bad, which are not standards because they are big enough to not care about proposing new features. So we go back to "best viewed in Internet Exporer V6" because lazy web devs want the new shiny and can't be arsed to test on other browsers and take them into account.

Re: Mozilla is not a very good browser, convince me otherwise

"GUI - it sounds like you'd like Firefox to hire a designer to create a GUI just for you and I wouldn't mind if they did TBH."

I remember the days when themes and/or skins could completely change the look and feel but nowadays, Firefox, in line with everyone else, has restricted that so much that about all you can change, like Windows, is the background image. There are 100's of "themes" in the Mozilla add-ons, but they all look and feel exactly the same.

Re: The real problem is that there are only 2 mobile OSes.

"* Yes, they were found guilty of various practices"

But justice being slow and with many legal means to appeal "wrong" decisions or many years, means that any large company can get away with illegally stamping out the competition such that any fines years down the line are already paid for by the increased income from market dominance. As has been show time and time again.

Re: Firefox not ready for heavy work

I just came across this awesome! report! on the super amazing BBC which partially explains some of the cause of that effect.

Re: Chrome on desktop

"By clicking next-next-finish on installers. Remember the good old days when every freaking installer had Chrome as a (mostly) hidden option?"

Yes, they just keep nagging users to switch to Chrome every time they go to a Google home page instead.

Re: Sauce for the goose...

There are extremists on both sides. From afar,it seems unbalanced in favour of the Rep side. But if these laws effectively make those extreme views protected, it can only get worse. For both sides. You reap what you sow, and it seems these Reps have either not hear of the Law of Unintended Consequences or are dim enough to think it either doesn't apply to them or they can repeal it.

Re: 20‰ more?

Don't they currently operate some sort of "own time projects" thing where people can take one day per week to do stuff outside their normal day job? Taking that back should give an instant 20% productivity "bonus" to Google. Or is that special day every week just for the top flying devs? And does Google actually get a lot of benefit from it?

Re: Architect Smartitect

"Add to that the fact the WiFi gets completely overloaded of more than 30% of the workforce is in the building at the same time..."

Tell me about it! A shared services building and *everyone" has decided they will use WiFi. No, the building facilities people don't provide it. Each of the buildings users provide their own. My problem was to find out why our customers newly installed kit wasn't working. A quick check with a WiFi phone app found 40 wireless routers in range of the reception desk comprising about 15 different networks, all channels congested. There's yer problem!! Fortunately, reception had some old network points properly labelled. It took a while to gain access to the comms room, but a couple of patch cables soon sorted the issue.

Too many people see hard-wired networking as expensive and WiFi as "cheap magic" that Just Works^tm

Re: Architect Smartitect

"This is a bit like educational building plans. Specifications are always pegged down to what we used to need last year, but never to what we might need in five years' time."

Or even *this* year. I once went into a new build school, had only opened a few months earlier, and they were teaching classes on the mezzanine floors because they didn't have enough classrooms! Still, it was better than the inter-war period building they had left, asbestos and all, plus portacabins for the overflow :-)

Re: Architect Smartitect

"And add in to that the "well within budget" fixture that will need a shed load of unbudgetted for maintenance within a few years"

Maintenance for which there will be minimal, if any, budget. Alway lots of cash splashed for "prestige" projects, but nothing to keep them working/looking good into the future.

a small room without air conditioning was chosen as the "server room"

That reminds me of the time a department bought in some wonderful new "space saving" student work stations. Hexagonal, with the PCs in a cupboard by the footwell. The cupboard doors were very well made. So well made that there was no inwards airflow. The hot exhaust from the PCs went into the central column. Which was capped at the top with a big hexagonal plinth for the screens to stand on with no slots in it.. The fault calls for PCs "crashing" started coming in almost from day one.

I have no idea if these were custom made or "off the shelf" units, but they were clearly not fit for purpose. They were, on the other hand, quite expensive so were not going to be replaced, The fix was to cut slots in the top of the plinth and cut the bottom 10cm off the doors.

Re: What?

"Cinder blocks are made from a mixture of cement, sand, and cinders."

With the closure of coal fired power stations and the gradual conversion of steel plants to electric, will cinder blocks go away? Are we importing them? Or importing other peoples cinders to make them? Or is someone out there researching what other kinds of waste can be used to make even cheaper, lighter (and probably weaker0 "cinder" blocks 2.0? Or will heritage railways be the only source?

Re: Facilities 'so called' experts

Agreed. 5 stars. Would read this poster again.

Re: video?

"I suggest walkie-webcams."

Veloci-vid?

Pedo-peeper?

Re: Only way to stop it -

s/salary/remuneration/

Some CEOs, especially at the big tech companies, don't get huge salaries, but do get massive bonuses and share options. Tax reasons usually.

Re: The complexity of all this software...

If there are many car crashes killing many people in the same make and/or model with the same root cause, that's what leads to recalls. A 1000 random crashes with a 1000 random cars of all makes and models and causes, not so much. Likewise, accident "hot spots" being given lower speed limits (and/or speed cameras) or junction realignments to lower the risk. But those often don't make the headlines the way a mass death incident does, even though the end result is often similar.

Re: Beauty

On the other hand, in the highly regulated market of car manufacturing, how did this get past the regulators and out the door in the first place? It's not a manufacturing defect. It's an incorrect parameter. If the regulator has discovered there is an issue with the windows "pinching" people, then that surely must mean there is something in the regulations specifying the amount of force the window mechanism is allowed to apply and under what conditions it must stop or reverse back to open. Tesla didn't apply those regulations and specifications properly. This is quite different from finding out some time down the line that the brake lining wears faster than expected in the real world than it does in the lab, or the glue holding the headlight glass in place deteriorates quicker than expected when in sunlight much of the time (had that latter one happen to me when the headlight glass flew off and over the top of the car while doing 70mph!! Scared the shit out of the driver behind me, luckily well back and out of harms way)

Re: Ethics

"There are no ethical concerns. It's a cockroach. Jesus Wept."

And what about if it was a slightly more cuddly creature? A mouse is ok? A puppy or kitten? A chimp? A human? Where do YOU draw the line?

Re: Law and Order Gangsta Style

He went home in disgust?

Re: Or the other way around ...

Because lots of cars are left unattended and unlocked and/or windows open?

(I still upvoted you for the obvious thought that will pass through the minds of many drunk students thinking it's a funny and original idea and they are the first to think of it though :-))

Re: Not again...

"'Merkins and personal responsibility rarely occupy the same space."

That's part of it. The rest is "Gummint ain't telling ME what to do...muh FREEDOM, damn commie Feds!!"