George Carlin
@TReko - I'd never heard of the aforementioned George before. Many thanks for the introduction!
Posts by Justin Case
214 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jun 2007
Python joins movement to dump 'offensive' master, slave terms
Google keeps tracking you even when you specifically tell it not to: Maps, Search won't take no for an answer
Rights groups challenge UK cops over refusal to hand over info on IMSI catchers
US websites block netizens in Europe: Why are they ghosting EU? It's not you, it's GDPR
Friday 25th May 2018 09:51 GMT
Re: Overreach
>> but you have to take into account the purpose of the legislation
Oh, puh-lease! Think of the children. We only did it to protect you. It's in your own best interests. The EU knows best. Along with patriotism, the restrictions for the greater good, are the last refuge of a tyrant. What I'm seeing here is tyranny writ large. Why should a US corp have to jump through hoops to satisfy the megalomaniac leanings of whoever it is who drafts and passes these EU laws?
I was getting on pretty well with my ad-blockers thank you very much. If a site required them to be disabled to enable me to view its content then I could make my own decision as to whether that was a trade I was prepared to make. If a site required registration, again, I could decide for myself.
Now, I have no choice. Except being of a technical bent I could always subvert the ban. But why should I have to?
Friday 25th May 2018 09:22 GMT 
Overreach
I'm in the UK. I fully expect EU sites to comply to EU regulations. If I choose to visit a site in a different jurisdiction I fail to see why the EU should have anything to do with that. I know that the EU says it is so, therefore it is, but still it sticks in the craw.
This feels like the thin end of a very wide wedge. Possibly, the end of the world (wide web) as we know it.
I am discombobulated by this.
Adobe acquires Magento to go B2B2C and beyond
Tuesday 22nd May 2018 10:12 GMT
Adobe and eCommerce...
Given their extraordinarily great record for robust online security, demonstrated early and often with that fantastic contribution to safe browsing experiences that is Flash, I'm sure that Adobe's influence will be positively benign.
Certainly my confidence in this particular platform, tainted as the Magento brand was in my eyes by its association with eBay, has undergone a major shift in the light of this news.
Hacking train Wi-Fi may expose passenger data and control systems
Make masses carry their mobes, suggests wig in not-at-all-creepy speech
Can't log into your TSB account? Well, it's your own fault for trying
Sysadmin’s worst client was … his mother! Until his sister called for help
Ass-troplastic! Printing parts from p.. er... human waste
We put Huawei's P20 triple-lens snapper through its paces
How machine-learning code turns a mirror on its sexist, racist masters
Brit cloud slinger iomart goes TITSUP, knackers Virgin Trains, Parentpay
Friday 30th March 2018 07:40 GMT
I was a customer of Melbourne
who sold out to Iomart.
I remember looking at the new owners and thinking Oh No when I saw their EasySpace connection.
EasySpace were the first ever domain name registrars and hosting service I used, before the turn of the century. I found their habit of charging you to release your domain name to another registrar quite apalling. I swore, once I'd coughed up the necessary Danegeld to extract all my domains from the sticky suffocating fingers of EasySpace, that I'd never have anything to do with them or any company associated with them, ever.
Little was I to know, happily ensconsed with Mebourne, who provided a reliable, reasonably priced service, that I'd end up in their clutches once more.
Looks like I'll be moving hosts again - looking for someone just like Melbourne. Someone who concentrates on getting the boring but essential basics right.
Jupiter has the craziest storms seen yet, say boffins
Too many bricks in the wall? Lego slashes inventory
Hackers create 'ghost' traffic jam to confound smart traffic systems
'A sledgehammer to crack a nut': Charities slam UK voter ID trials
Wednesday 7th March 2018 06:41 GMT
@ Voland's right hand - Fail!
minorities also party on Ibiza you know and for that they need a passport (definitely was the case last time I flew there).
A driving licence is for driving. Not all driving licences have a photo. Not everybody can drive.
A passport is for foreign travel. If you don't travel abroad you shouldn't need one.
Swiss see Telly Tax as a Big Plus, vote against scrapping it
Tuesday 6th March 2018 08:53 GMT
Re: This comment section should be good.
You forgot 4) the smug bastards who say they don't own a TV, never have owned a TV and "what is a TV anyway?", all posted with their own innate sense of superiority :-)
You got it. That's me. I am insufferably smug, safe in the knowledge I am avoiding the endless stream of mindless pap pumped out over innumerable channels into British households.
Of course, there's a small niggling doubt, gnawing away, festering in the darkened recesses of my mind, that I might be missing out on something good. Bargain Hunt, anyone?
We all hate Word docs and PDFs, but have they ever led you to being hit with 32 indictments?
Nobody expects the social media inquisition! OK, everybody did, UK politicos
Getty load of this: Google to kill off 'View image' button in search
Tuesday 13th February 2018 07:40 GMT 
All are equal
Seems odd that Getty gets singular treatment. Surely any infringement against anybody is equally egregious.
All Getty has to do is make sure that the image it offers up to the Google bot has a chuffing big highly visible watermark up it. Otherwise is that not infringing one of the "rules" that says different content shouldn't be offered up on the basis of whether a visitor is a crawler or a regular human browser?
Due to Oracle being Oracle, Eclipse holds poll to rename Java EE (No, it won't be Java McJava Face)
Home taping revisited: A mic in each hand, pointing at speakers
Dodgy parking firms to be denied access to Brit driver database
User stepped on mouse, complained pedal wasn’t making PC go faster
Audio tweaked just 0.1% to fool speech recognition engines
Fridge killed my baby? Mag-field radiation from household stuff 'boosts miscarriage risk'
Get ready for laptop-tab-smartphone threesomes from Microsoft, Lenovo, HP, Asus, Qualcomm
Wednesday 6th December 2017 07:58 GMT
Re: "binge watch TV shows for 12 hours straight"
>>Apparently you've never flown over an ocean, or had a delay or layover that's lasted more than a few hours.
I prefer a non-battery dependent paper based entertainment delivery device instead of sitting there drooling whilst infusing whatever mindless pap comes out of the screen directly into my brain.
Bookz Rool!
Investigatory Powers Act: You're not being paranoid. UK.gov really is watching you
Wednesday 6th December 2017 07:42 GMT
Re: Operation haystack...
>>If they can legally keep my entire internet footprint I should make it as legally large as possible
Just imagine if the bots suddenly developed a penchant for visiting websites where Terrible Things™ are displayed. Quelle horreur!
"It wasn't me m'ud, it was my bot wot dunnit."
A legitimate defence if ever I heard one.
Crown Prosecution Service is coming for crooks' cryptocurrency
Friday 1st December 2017 09:00 GMT
We're all guilty now
the threshold is about 500 quid in cash where the cops can confiscate the money
Outrageous and utterly predictable. Still this must be the world we want. Thanks to Michael Howard, Jack Straw, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, John Reid, Jacqui Smith, Alan Johnson, Theresa May, Amber Rudd. A roll call of shame, if ever there was one. Chisellers and oppressors they are to a (wo)man. Is there one decent, uncorrupt name on that list?
What's that fresh, zesty fragrance? Oh, Linux Mint 18.3 has landed
Friday 1st December 2017 08:34 GMT
Re: No KDE = No Mint for me
Ya mean where it says "As the distro announced in October, it also contains the last KDE edition of the project."?
I did and read the word "last" and that means when there ain't no more KDE in Mint, I'll be gone. KDE was the only reason for my initial dalliance.
Actually, distro tart that I am, I already left. Straight into the lizardy embrace of SuSe
Seven years on, Spain rattles tin cup at Google over Street View slurp
Wednesday 8th November 2017 09:02 GMT
When I move house...
Google was recording the locations of routers to make it easier for Android phones to find out where they are when they detect the same WiFi network, and this is something relatively uncontroversial which iPhones also do.
...taking my router with me that will make a mockery of that particularly obnoxious freeloading means of location.
Patch your WordPress plugins: Scum are right now hijacking blogs
Guntree v Gumtree: Nominet orders gun ads site must lose domain
Scared of that new-fangled 'cloud'? Office 2019 to the rescue!
Why Uber isn't the poster child for capitalism you wanted
Tuesday 26th September 2017 11:00 GMT
Re: @Loyal Commenter "It is bad for everyone else..........."
>>Uber is an example of predatory bandit capitalism at its very worst. They are no example of freedom, they do not enter a market to disrupt it, they enter it to destroy it and impose their own interests on the remains.
What you said. For one shining naive moment back when t'internet was taking off I truly thought it was going to put consumers directly (ish) in contact with producers. Now it's increasingly a market place dominated by big money and thuggish middlemen.
Brit broke anti-terror law by refusing to cough up passwords to cops
How Apple is taming the ad biz. Just don't expect Google or Zuck to follow
Boffins fear we might be running out of ideas
Tuesday 12th September 2017 07:41 GMT
So, what is new?
All the basic everyday "magic" was sorted by the end of the 20th C. Photography, telephony, radio, television, audio and video recording, computers, internal combustion engines, etc. What we have now are the results of incremental improvements to those.
It's not surprising that as the "optimum" is approached, the graph of improvement over time starts to level out. All the low hanging fruit gets taken. The law of diminishing returns kicks in.
Unless something completely new, akin to the discovery of electromagnetic radiation, comes along then I guess it's just shaving a bit off here, adding a bit there and getting marketing to call the result revolutionary for the next few years.
What's your flava? Ooo, tell me what's your flava... of Ubuntu
Wednesday 6th September 2017 14:57 GMT
Re: I must be missing something ...
For me it was KDE 3.5 or thereabouts that hit perfection. Everything was so easy to use. Even Kontact email / calendaring worked great. It's just about getting back to somewhere near now in KDE 5 but the devs seem still to be antagonistic to the idea of a good user experience.
Microsoft's fix for web graphics going AWOL? Disable your antivirus
Daily Stormer booted off internet again, this time by Namecheap
How to build your own DIY makeshift levitation machine at home
Wednesday 16th August 2017 12:17 GMT
Re: Like the idea, but...
Look at it this way. In the olden days a square wave would be generated with discrete components, transistors, resistors, capacitors, diodes, etc (talk about unnecessary complexity...)
Those "olden days" of which you speak, they're my days, they are...
</wipes rheumy eye>
I fully get the point about ease, convenience and all the rest. It just strikes me as ironic that as a result of progress, it now takes millions of transistors to do the work of two.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
