Re: I still can't get my head round this one
@Terry 6
But with the Amstrad word processor, turning the monitor on/off WAS the same as turning the computer on/off.
Sugar sure was stingy with hardware quality, but he was spot on about simplicity.
1534 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Oct 2010
Why bother with the machine when you can go for its owner?
In the UK you can be jailed (someboody[*] was) for not telling THEM the password when they ask. Has the US not thought of that?
[*] When he realised he was going to jail, he 'remembered' it. But by then it was too late. Mind you, he deserved it.
My view entirely.
I object to the phrase 'defeat device', when it is a software configuration problem.
Software that is expensive to develop and needs highly qualified staff. For most companies it would be more commercially sensible to buy in the software. So I am sure it runs on far more than a few VW engines.
@David132
I sure as hell do NOT want a 'personalised' experience when reading news bulletins or Wikipedia articles. Like Mr Gradgrind, I just want the facts, objective facts.
I do NOT want whirled news spun to the sender's satisfaction.
@ToddR
We are still living in the aftermath of an ice age that ended only some 20,000 year ago. For most of the time since the Cambrian era the world has been much warmer than it is now. That was especially so before Antarctica became isolated some 30 million years ago by an unbroken southern ocean.
The question is whether the world will revert to a fifth ice age (four in the last two million years) or will improve to a more historical level of warmth. It's no use asking the greenies, they don't know, nor does anybody.
It is a duty on all of us under English common law to help prevent crime. So MI5 are entitled to expect more co-operation than they actually get from Facebook etc.
As the US inherited English common law, there are similar obligations in North America with the arguable exceptions of Louisiana and Quebec. Some might argue that Alaska should respect whatever Russian equivalent there is of common law.
@Mage
In reply to your point about Google Translate, one wonders whether in fact our brains do something similar. We don't know.
People have wondered for a long time how language began, and all the early theories were waffle spiced with religion. We need an evolutionary explanation of how we got from the kind of mutual understanding among animals to the achievement of human language.
I like the 'leading from behind' approach. I presume it comes from the Duke of Plaza Toro, the Gilbert and Sullivan character: 'he led his regiment from behind, he found it less exciting'.
The only courses I was ever sent on were to use up the training department budget or to meet some other quota. Nothing to do with what might have been useful to me professionally.
I have just updated a Toshiba Satellite 650 laptop machine, by asking the MSFT website rather than waiting for my reservation to come through. Historic OS sizes are:
Win10: ca 12 Gbytes clean install
Win XP original: ca 1.5 Gbytes
Win98: ca 180 Mbyes.
Win95 1st ed: ca 35 Mbytes
Win 3.11: ca 25 Mbytes
DOS: ca 3 Mbytes.
I ask myself what have we gained from this enormous increase inOS size?
I agree with all the previous commenters who say Tim's proposals are out of touch with real life for poor people.
But one sector that does need the cash is student grants. If the government is serious about getting people from families with no money into university - and I do have serious doubts here - the only way to do it is cash up front. Nothing less than that will do.
Someone whose parents sent him to Eton may not worry about a debt of £30,000 or more. But if your family has no money that is just not on.
My subjective impression of my country, the UK, is that about half the population just does not do reading and writing except under severe provocation, e.g. to claim governemnt benefits. Even then, they usually expect somebody to help them.
But they all have TVs and mobile phones, so who needs that stupid internet thingy, even though it has been dumbed down in an effort to get more paying customers.
Because of the cosmic abundance of hydrogen, we find carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen as their hydrides. Also, elements with odd atomic number (nitrogen) are less abundant than those of even number (carbon, oxygen).
Perhaps NASA have reasons for suggesting the ice is nitrogen rather than, say, methane. Or perhaps some mixture of methane, ammonia, and water. But please would someone give those reasons.
So for those of us who live in cities or large towns (the great majority) voluntary solutions will not work because there are too many people.
Mr Cameron, prime minister of the UK and leader of the Conservative Party, had ideas of a Big Society that would harness the charitable instincts of people. In his own constituency, a small country town, it might sometimes work; but not for most of us.
@Valeyard
Nonsense! 10% of the public are always guilty. That is why the Romans used to kill off 10% from time to time: decimation, they called it. Poor understanding of probability, though. If they decimated at random, that would still leave 9% for next time.
Seriously, not all the public are innocent. But in Britain we prefer the police not to make that too obvious.
Perhaps there was a data error, then.
But nobody checks anything these days until something goes very visibly wrong. The doctrine in schools is that we must not query the creativity of the little darlings by anything so vulgar as re-reading and checking their work.
And so they become the programmers who let the customer find the faults and complain.
I guess that firmware updates are the responsibility of the computer maker, rather than Microsoft, and would rely on the manufacturer's "value added" software being present.
Unfortunately, new machines come with so much crapware that the first thing a careful owner does is a clean install minus all the crapware.
@keithpeter
In the UK they just send CDs of social security data in the post. As you say, they have not admitted that anyone has actually used that information. Also they leave memory sticks in pubs and taxis, but don't admit that.
The UK Treasury clearly did not believe in spending money to protect data about UK citizens. It looks as though the USA has a similar problem.
@dogged
I seem to recall that Microsoft, or the US Government, once disabled the Windows machines owned by whichever wicked government was wickedly ruling Afghanistan in those wicked times.
True, MS are unlikely to bother a private individual who keeps himself inconspicuous, but corporations are another matter.