* Posts by TonyJ

1595 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Dec 2010

HP scores $176m win in CD-ROM drive price-fix case – after one biz emailed rival with 'Price Fixing' as the subject

TonyJ

Re: So let me see if I've got this right.

"..."HP passes on these higher costs to the consumers via high(er) PC/laptop prices"

Possibly, but the price they can charge for their kit will be dictated by the market so it possible that this actually meant that they were forced to sell their PCs with a lower markup than their competitors who were not being gouged on the cost parts...."

This. I am far from a huge fan of HP(E) et al over the last decade or so, and it pains me to see the company that was a true innovator turned into a gouged-out, hollow, facsimlie of its former self, but in this case, it is easy to forget just how tight the margins on PC equipment has been over the years.

I was at HP when Apothekar wanted to throw the PC business under the bus because the margins were so thin, completely and utterly forgetting that it was still generating billions annualy in actual profit at the time.

As d3vy says, because of the other big players snapping at their heels (Dell, IBM/Lenovo, etc) HP wouldn't have been able to just increase the price of their PC's significantly oitherwise they'd simply lose the business.

No, I am on the side of HP on this one, for once.

Row erupts over who to blame after NordVPN says: One of our servers was hacked via remote management tool

TonyJ

Re: I dont get how the box itself was compromised

Interesting - in my recent attempts, Netfix pops up a message about using a VPN and won't play.

Big Red tells crypto-coin publication: One does not simply call one's website 'OracleTimes'

TonyJ

Re: But of course

So... one microellison = rampant sociopath

Two and you're into rabid psychopath

Three and you become, what, 2 BoJo's?

Reaction Engines' precooler tech demo chills 1,000°C air in less than 1/20th of a second

TonyJ

Paddington to Bow Church in under 7 seconds

Although with a certain amount of collateral traffic chaos

Mornington Crescent!

Private equity to gobble up Brit virus blocker Sophos for £3bn

TonyJ

I just hope...

...that they don't butcher their free UTM and XG home solutions.

Kiss my ASCII, Microsoft – we've got one million fewer daily active users than you, boasts Slack

TonyJ

Well Skype for Business is going away so...

I agree that the teams interface is -very- non intuituve to use, but when it comes to voice or meetings, it's just the same as SfB in terms of sharing etc.

And one advantage over SfB is the persistence of items.

But I'd rather have the simplicity of SfB for simple quick chats and calls, for sure.

Not a death spiral, I'm trapped in a closed loop of customer experience

TonyJ

This requirement for paper bills/statements...

...is also becoming ever more challenging.

"We need a paper bill from <insert utility/bank>"

"But it's all online now and to save paper they don't send printed copies unless I pay for the privilege...and it'll take days, if not weeks"

"We need a paper bill..."

<sigh>

Plusnet is doing us proud again with early Christmas present for customers: Price hikes

TonyJ

Re: Crappy business models

I was with Sky TV for years. I mean well over 20 - probably even closer to 30 - and going right back to their very early days of an analgue (big round) dish and seperate receiver and decoder.

I was a subscriber to their full package because the kids liked movies and I would try to watch the occasional F1 race or other sporting event.

But I was getting more and more frustrated at their drip-drip-drip price increases and when it crept up to almost £100 per month I had enough. To be fair, I'd had enough way before then but the ex wife and kids did make good use of the package.

When I called to cancel, they were quite willing to lob almost 50% off the montly price there and then.

But I'd made my mind up to leave, so I processed the cancellation and switched to Freesat. There was a bit (ok a lot) of moaning initially because in fairness to Sky their GUI has always tended to be both very slick and very intuitive whereas the GUI in the Linux based Enigma 2 variant boxes is anything but*

But...they got used to it. We still have the options to pause, rewind and record live TV as well as the very convenient series links. We don't miss anything premium as ultimately it tends to find its way to Netflix, Amazon etc and I'm a happy bunny.

With regards to ISP's - I was with Nildram initially when ADSL first arrived here. They were bought (I forget who by) and it tanked, so I moved to Sky when they first rolled out their ADSL product line. After them I tried Zen who, despite most people loving for their quality and service, were truly dreadful to me - I had sub dialup speeds, pings would disappear into the ether and it was totally, utterly, unusable for the time it was in and all they would do was say the problem must be at my end.

I switched to Be and they solved the issues from the get-go and were brilliant. Then FTTC arrived and the only provider was BT, so I went with them for a few years on a business contract.

Again, though, the drip-feed price increases began and by the time I left, between the phone line, the static IP's and the actual broadband, it was topping £75 a month!

Vodafone business fibre with double the number of static IP's, no line rental** and UK call centres who, on both occasions I've called them were brilliant, costs me £32.50 per month all in. And I can't recommend them enough.

* That was until I found Wooshbuild Infinity which does all of the difficult work for you - orders the channels properly for your region, adds decent skins (though I like the default, personally) and a whole load of other plugins and add-ons that are incredibly handy.

** Yes I know they effectively bundles the line rental and they just don't list it as a line item, but still.

Game over: Atari VCS architect quits project, claims he hasn’t been paid for six months

TonyJ

Anyone surprised?

Anyone? Nope, didn't thinks o.

Android dev complains of 'Orwellian' treatment as account banned after 6 years on Play store

TonyJ

"...

Because your "average" user will never look anywhere but in the store.

If you are reading the Register you are not an average mobile phone user. Neither am I but knowledgable users are a small minority...."

This!

It's also why the constant stream of "I switched to Linux xx years ago and haven't looked back" comments become tedious. Yes, Linux is awesome. Yes, it's desktop variants are almost as simple and straighforward to use as any version of Windows - in some cases, arguably easier.

But the point all too often missed here is that none of us are atypical users of either phones or computers.

The same people that buy an average PC from PC World, Dell's webiste etc, don't give a jot about the OS other than, perhaps, wanting something similar or the same as they have at work.

Remember, we are still talking about people who are lost if you move an icon on their desktop! You are talking about a large percentage of a workforce now, who have only used Office with a ribbon - it's been around 12 years!

Also - remember how we are always saying we shouldn't teach non-technical users bad habits? Telling them to install random/semi-random apps from a website is a slippery slope and it's only a matter of time before they're being yelled at "why did you enable untrusted sources, you fool!?"

Here we go again: US govt tells Facebook to kill end-to-end encryption for the sake of the children

TonyJ

Sure...why not...

..but let's mandate the following:

All systems have to use the same backdoored encryption - and I mean all: banks, governments (inluding politicians), police etc

No one and no system can be made exempt from it

The first users have to be politicians and anyone found to be making any attempts to bypass it (as in use an alternative/not use it) should face a mandatory prison sentence.

Let's see how willing they are then. Let's see what happens when (as we all know when - not if) it's compromised, just how happy the idiots are about it.

Oracle demands $12K from network biz that doesn't use its software

TonyJ

Re: Oracle so often reminds me of an Arthur Dent quote

Oh don't...next up "Poetry by Larry"

TonyJ

I was going to say...

...wouldn't touch Oracle software with a very long bargepole, but in this case it would appear that neither does the accused.

New revenue stream has moved from the car park anecdote for licensing and moved it to potentially using the roads. Or paths.

When the satellite network has literally gone glacial, it's vital you snow your enemy

TonyJ

Snow...

I was working in an insurance office about 10 or so years ago.

They had two buildings seperated with a laser link.

I was in one office when snow fell off the roof hitting one of the laser units and breaking one of the mounts.

As I was wondering how to get a fast repair, the company maintenance engineer opened a window, leaned out with a length of 4x2 he just happened to have and oiked the unit up, propping said lump of wood on the window ledge....which to my amazement actually worked and the laser was back in almost the exact correct position.

I still chuckle at that - the coincence he was in the right room, with a lump of wood the exact right length, etc etc

Remember the millions of fake net neutrality comments? They weren't as kosher as the FCC made out

TonyJ

Re: Crime?

"...Isn't identity theft a crime? Doing it on that scale, the directors of these companies and the lobby group should never see daylight again....."#

Only for the peons. The higher echelons get bonuses.

How to lose a UK contractor in 10 days: Make them commit after upcoming IR35 tax upheaval, apparently

TonyJ

Re: "moving to another employer"

"...Oh dear.

Only thing to say to that is that those who move will be the ones who aren't / don't think they are employees :-(..."

So, per the ealier comments adding clarity, that would be "all of them".

IT workers: Speaking truth to douchebags since 1977

TonyJ

Windows 95

Anyone remember it's message of the day function? Might've been 98 to be fair.

I changed themon my machine to be a bit more colourful.

All well and good until I went on holiday.

At least my manager had a sense of humour.

Lucas Pope: Indie games visionary makes pen-pushing feel like an exciting career choice

TonyJ

"...With 16, 48 or 64k to play with, it was pretty easy for one person to fill all the memory in a few weeks' work..."

Or 32k in the case of my own erstwhile BBC B+

I think as well, it's worth remembering that because of the severe limitations of the hardware back in the say, the games had to be very playable, as well as generally being quite unique, in order to allow gamers to look past those sometimes obvious limitations.

Elite (the original on the BBC) was a masterclass in what could be squeezed out of them. When the original sourcecode was released, it turned out that there were no unused spaces (made the code verrry difficult to read) - every line was full to the brim because it was literally the only way to fit it all in!

Multitasking is a myth: It means doing lots of things equally badly

TonyJ

Unable to explain...

"....It was that I was never able to explain to him how I made a living..."

<sigh> Something most of us here can relate to, I feel.

My own father is far from a technophobe in most cases, nor is he daft - he trained electrical engineering apprentices for British Coal back in the day, as well as working as a lead R&D engineer in the food industry. Computers/computing though...nah....

He once told me he'd Googled my then job title and said it made very little sense to him but sounded impressive.

Behold the perils of trying to turn the family and friends support line into a sideline

TonyJ

Except for immediate family, I've always stated a ridiculous price. Honestly, I found very early on that it just wasn't worth the hassle.

It is also one of the reasons I preferred to give old laptops etc away rather than sell them. I can then, with absolutely no guilt, say that they got the laptop for free but there will be no support.

Of course, it doesn't stop them trying but they get short shrift.

As much as I enjoy working in IT (and I do), I don't want to be doing it at weekends and evenings for other people.

Dropbox Paper: Handy for collaborating... oh and harvesting email addresses, too

TonyJ

Seafile or OwnCloud.

I know...old fashioned concept, but you control the data and who can access it/what is shared etc.

I can understand the utility of the document owner seeing who has had access, but not world + dog + dogs fleas.

Also...GDPR?

Time to check in again on the Atari retro console… dear God, it’s actually got worse

TonyJ

Have to ask...

"..“LIAR, yes you did, and now you say again SOON, come on SHOW US SOMETHING HUGE Because I'm VERY ANGRY,” responded one..."

Is that you Bob??

Several months after the fact, CafePress finally acknowledges huge data theft to its customers

TonyJ

"...OK Captain Obvious - tell us again about rudimentary security processes; I could be a full fledged security consultant now just by repeating what you wrote again and again to companies with a clause in my contract stating that if they fail to implement my recommendations, I would get an automatic year's credit monitoring......."

So fucking obvious, yet how many companies breach even the basic rules of security? How often do we read about hard coded passwords, unencryped databases, apparently enterprise-grade applications/backends that have default crappy passwords left alone, database servers that aren't just left connected to the net, but also copies of them left unencrypted and forgotten about? How many times have lazy and/or incompetent devs left things like certificates and keys in their code or on cloud servers there for all to see?

Yeah it might seem obvious but fuck me if too many people can't see the woods for the trees.

It's time the ICO et al stopped pissing about and fined the company directors directly. It will do wonders for focussing their minds.

I got 99 problems but a switch() ain't one: Java SE 13 lands with various tweaks as per Oracle's less-is-more strategy

TonyJ

Re: But it should be

My personal belief is that all Enterprise software should always be LTS with bug fixes and security patches (that you need for support) and the occasional feature release that you can take or leave without affecting support.

Home users, whilst often less technically adept, can make for ideal late-beta testers (but absolutely not pre-Alpha/Alpha/early Beta testing which seems to be far more the norm right now).

This rush to release what are often pointless "features" just to hit some arbitrary bi-annual deadline that they've created for themselves is what is leading to so many code quality problems.

Justice served: There is no escape from the long server log of the law

TonyJ

Re: been there...

"...ah, been there, done that, got no tshirt.. but a cease and desist.

Moved from one company to the direct competitor (nothing in the contract saying i couldn't), had three months notice, as some other colleagues who just by chance left at the same time. Everything good, even got a raise offered and better conditions on the last day. As soon as we started the new job some "tech" found the smoking gun, we had downloaded all company data from the cloud storage... yep, it was synced to the laptops, because why bother segregating information, in fact it wasn't donwloaded but the sync tool had to get the list of files... whatever, it took them 5 months and 2 other more or less identical letters to stop bothering us. In the end for whatever reason (like no proof at all) they stopped... Still cost me a good portion nerves and 800€.

anonymous because people carry grudges for a long time and i don't want this to start again...."

This is one reason I always use a VM for my working machine. Once I am done, it is put into archive. In the event I ever need anything from it, it's brought up off-net. Where I am given a company PC, I will perform a P2V on it.

I love the look of confusion when they get handed back a pristine machine.

TonyJ

Re: Surely...

Reminds me of a time I documented the installation and configuration of an Altiris solution (way before Symantec ruined bought them out.

It had screen shots, and literally a "type this, click that" stream of instructions and nothing was left out.

I passed it to a colleague to run through in a lab environment - a junior, ex-military, guy, with a real chip on his shoulder, whereby his belief in his own abilities far outweighed the actual abilities (and experience, of which he had almost none).

It was a dismal affair with untold steps skipped or done wholesale incorrectly. Of course, initially, the PM wanted to know why my document was of such poor quality it couldn't be followed. Thankfully, new guy saved me from answering by piping up "Oh I didn't follow that...I knew what I was doing..."

Cue the explanation that it was a test of the document and not his [clearly lacking] abilities - please start again, but this time follow the damn document, to the letter

Has outsourcing public-sector IT worked? The Institute for Government seems to think so, kinda

TonyJ

1. "The Institute for Government" sounds like something from The Mash

2. I am sure that on one level, the statistics show a cost saving.. but, in no way is the reflective across the board. Every outsourcer will bid low, with a very specific statement of work and then make up the difference by ensuring even the slightest deviation is done under change control and therefore generates £

3. No way, ever, outsourcing to the likes of Capita, HPE, Computacenter et al works out cheaper in the long term, so I'd be interested to see over how long a period of time these apparent savings appear to occur

I could go on, but in essence I think it's fair to say I highly doubt that the claims would stand up to much scrutiny.

Fairphone 3 stripped to the modular essentials: Glue? What glue?

TonyJ
Joke

Re: USB ports ?

"...Unless you are one of us who work in a machine shop.

My mag connects look like they're going for a full biker beard...."

Wrap the connectors in plastic!

TonyJ

Re: At the risk of making myself unpopular

It is more about making the unrepairable full stop unless it is sent back to the manufacturer. And out of warranty, that is an extra revenue stream.

And part of the claim with glue is that with the correct equipment to melt them (the glues), the devices are in theory easier to recycle: the glues melt at much lower temperatures than plastics, silicon, solders/metals etc.so whack them in the correct type of oven and they are much easier to then disassemble.

Allegedly - I've never seen the process actually at work.

TonyJ

I had to change the USB board on my old Note 3. The micro USB port just became loose.

TonyJ

Re: Android

Some people are a) just never happy and b) love to focus in on the irrelevant - the article was talking in this case about reparbility and sustainability.

Wunderlist creator asks Microsoft to sell him back his biz as Redmond updates To Do

TonyJ

"...Why does he not set up a new company and deliver an open source version?.."

Presumably because he will have to sign a metric shit-ton of covenants saying he wouldn't.

TonyJ

Re: What about "extinguish" do you not understand?

Totally agree...I only found it there because when I noticed them disappearing, I searched online and had the exact same WTF...? moment as you did.

For me, it's a stupid design decision in both cases. Firstly, leave it on by default and secondly, put them in...oh I don't know...somewhere else....if only there was a Display section of Settings? </sarcams>

TonyJ

Re: "small fortune – between $100m and $200m"

Oh I don't know - I think to most people that is a huge sum of money.

TonyJ

Re: What about "extinguish" do you not understand?

You can stop the scroll bars from disappearing - Ease of Access Settings -> Display -> turn off Automatically hide scroll bars in Windows.

Annoying that they turn it on by default.

The time a Commodore CDTV disc proved its worth as something other than a coaster

TonyJ

Re: hmm

Also reminded me of a workshop I used to work in.

When I started (I can't remember why I found this out) it turned out that my bench and the bench next to me were on different phases of an incoming 3-phase supply.

415V between equipment plugged into different benches.

Oh and then there's the time the senior engineer in (yet another) workshop had removed the earth from various mains leads. Not always a bad thing - we all had one set to one side, wrapped with red tape to remind us - but this genius was taking them off the general lead rack, removing the earth, failing to put the earth back and then just returning the cable as-was.

Cue much anger when faulty PSU's weren't tripping the earth leakage breakers because of earth faults and engineers were getting electrocuted when touching e.g. a heatsink that should've been earthed.

TonyJ

Re: hmm

Honestly I shudder when I hear stories like this.

I am a fully qualifed electrical and electronics engineer but even I will draw the line at any electrical work where it should be certified - I'll just pay someone to do it.

I have Hive at home because things like the gelocation really have helped to cut my bills over the time and you should see the number of posts to various groups where someone has taken their old-style boiler controller off the wall and asked the question "how do I fit the Hive controller?" to get various, conflicting, answers. Usually ending in a "I'll have a go".

I think it's because people cannot usually see or hear electricity, so they fail to understand the devastation that it can cause.

TonyJ

Re: hmm

I had a similar issue when we moved into our home. It was a new build and no one else had occupied it.

But instead of getting a bill for someone else, we couldn't get a bill _at all_

The original provider was ELF and they sold up but because we hadn't officially taken ownership when this happened, the new owner had no record of our meter.

It took a year to get a bill, which was huge, at which point I complained, followed by escalating to Ofgen who were surprisngly toothy - I asked for a 50% reduction, after showing them the evidence of my fortnightly attempts to resolve the issue and Ofgen made them cut it by 75% and insisted that I was given the option to pay the remainder over another 12 months. Since I'd taken a decent estimate of our usage and had set aside the money ready for the day they did catch up, I was in a really pleasant situation of being able to pay the amount and have a nice bonus for Christmas.

It is worth noting that this was all 18 or so years ago.

TonyJ

Re: One wonders

"...you're giving the customer too much credit. Who says they had a modem?..."

This! I came here to say I was once asked by a woman at work why her dad hadn't been able to get online with the AOL floppy disk that he'd got with a magazine.

"Oh it could be he chose the wrong modem... what sort does he have?"

"What's a modem?"

"The box between your computer and the phone socket*"

"We don't have one of those...."

*Most people had external ones back then. They had none at all.

Cash carousel spun between Filetek and Autonomy, Lynch employee tells court

TonyJ

Egan...

This strikes me more about Egan padding his bonuses than Autonomy adding billions of net value.

This stinks, and always has, of bitterness on the part of HPE for not doing their homework and rather than face the inevitable backlash cause by admitting it, are hell bent on trying to find the scapegoat outside of HPE.

I've said since the story broke, they failied due diligence and the fault lies squarly with them.

On a related note HPE, I have a bridge...

Dixons hits back at McAfee's £30m antivirus sueball: Your AV didn't work on Windows 10S

TonyJ

Re: McAfee Vs Symantec

For the vast majority of users, Defender is fine anyway.

Let's see what the sweet, kind, new Microsoft that everyone loves is up to. Ah yes, forcing more Office home users into annual subscriptions

TonyJ

MAPS doesn't give physical media.

Sounds like you actuallys had a TechNet subcription before they canned that.

Mind you, you weren't supposed to use TechNet out of a lab whereas MAPS does give you internal use rights.

Actually, for those of us who work in the MS sphere, MAPS is a good buy. £350 a year but you get £75 a month of Azure credits.

No, it's not a replacement in any way, shape, or form, but it's not a bad alternative to TechNet (though not having access to legacy versions is a crock - one of the great things with TechNet was the ability to test migrations and upgrades, but then MS decided "Hey we have online labs now". Yeah, MS, but they don't include legacy versions, ffs.

TonyJ

"...Microsoft Office is still the office software that dominates the world. They gave us a great platform, and now they have a fee, it's fine, don't expect anything to be free forever ..!.."

Wait...what? You know you've always had to PAY for Office, right? Subcription based or not, it was never free.

TonyJ

Re: the wonderful opportunity it is.

I've been doing some consolidation lately and binning off a lot of not-so-exensive to silly-expensive items.

For me, the big ticket items were Sky TV (Sky Q, multiple mini boxes, the full package because the kids liked to watch stuff) - literally finally binned them last month after getting the kids on board with a Freesat box running Wooshbuild Infinity.

My broadband supplier charges no line rental, so the phone line I have to keep, purely for this service is effectively free to me.

Netflix and Prime I do subscribe, to but this was also a contributing factor in binning off Sky - I noticed as a family we were watching more and more stuff on these services and less and less on Sky.

My online storage is free other than the cost of running a virtual server and NAS - I use Seafile and it does a bloody brilliant job. I moved to it years ago from Owncloud as for some reason I could never get to the bottom of, OC started to eat files on a semi-regular but entirely random basis.

TonyJ

Re: I've been recommending it to people for years

"....They always find it is more than adequate for their home needs. I suspect the reason it hasn't taken over the business world is PowerPoint is so much better than the LibreOffice equivalent and managers love their PowerPoint..."

Not just managers - I am seeing more and more TA's using it to do diagrams / drawings that you'd traditionallly expect to see done in Visio. And, to be fair, for most simple drawings it is sufficient.

"...Probably also a few underground Excel jocks with complicated spreadsheets that have grown over the years and the business is now dependent on, but they could buy those guys real Office..."

This is still as much of a pain as it's always been - possibly more so.

Too many departments (Finance, HR etc) that have applications with plugins to Excel, or that have spreadsheets with complicated macros that someone in their department built a decade ago and they run the department/business on. Or those GB+ spreadsheets that contain everything from the birth of the universe to today in them.

And there seems to be no way to convince them that once they're doing this, Excel is the wrong application for so many reasons.

One person's harmless japery can be another's night of LaserJet Lego

TonyJ

Re: That bloody BSoD Screen Saver

"...I remember in the NT 3.51 days when they have 3D screen savers - in the days before 3D video offload existed and Compaq servers had very basic video cards. Servers were running at 100% CPU because one of the admins had logged in and locked the screen and nobody could work as it was scrolling some 3D stuff on the KVM port.

One of my first jobs there was educating the admins about why that was a bad idea and updating the build process to overwrite all the screen savers with the blank screen one. Oddly the problem never came back..."

Yeah you learned very quickly in the early days of Citrix servers to disable (remove the .scr files if my fasing memory is correct) all 3D screen savers because as soon as one activated for a single user, the performance of the whole server tanked!

That didn't stop one customer as late as 2007 having their own exe based custom jobbie though that chewed through near 25% CPU per user.

TonyJ

That bloody BSoD Screen Saver

I remember being on site in a customers' server room.

One of the other engineers walked in, saw the aforementioned screen saver and went "Oh bugger..." and before anyone could stop him, hit the power button.

It was only the customer's Exchange 5.5 server and we all know how that coped so well with an ungraceful shutdown.

Cue many minutes of worry as we watched it reboot to....work, thank god. Bullet, dodged. Thankfully it was also a weekend so no one noticed.

I came to hate that screen saver.

Microsoft blocked TSO Host's email IPs from Hotmail, Outlook inboxes and no one seems to care

TonyJ

Re: Oops

"..Adding a domain is a painful exercise - the system may recognise that you've added their magic key to prove ownership quick enough, but it takes friggin' hours (at least when I was doing it) to recognise mailboxes and aliases...."

I've had it take about 15-20 minutes to add an alias before - well when I say add, I mean begin accepting email to that alias but not hours, to date.

I should caveat that it's been a while since I added one, so things could be worse.

Ohm my God: If you let anyone other than Apple replace your recent iPhone's battery, expect to be nagged by iOS

TonyJ

"...However, I'll caveat this with certain car related things such as replacement key fobs or ECU's are probably justified in having to be 'registered' to the relevant car in question..."

Fair point but the flip side of this is my use case. I just bought my 17yo son his first car - a 53 plate Corsa.

The remote key fob was nadgered, so I bought a brand new replacement off the bay for about 6 quid including postage (and the battery!)

For another 15 quid or so, I bought an Opcom unit as you cannot use the "ignition on to second place and hold a button down" method with a new key.

It was a bit trickier than I was antiicipating, requiring an EEPROM dump and binary viewer to get the security code, but once done, it was trivial to program the new key.

I did that, and set the doors to all open on a single press, rather than drivers door first, then a second press for the passenger door.

But...the options were seemingly endless. I didn't poke and play because I didn't understand what the knock on effect or direct impact may be of my actions, but - and this is the important bit - I had the option. And, had I screwed it up, I'd have had no one to blame but myself and had that then meant costly repairs at a dealer, so be it, but....I could have

My car (well, my son's but you get the idea), mine to bork however I see fit.

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's two-dozen government surveillance balloons over America

TonyJ

"...Sales will take place in regular businesses with much less risk to both the buyer and seller. ..."

I heard an interview with a serving drugs officer on the radio shortly after Ulbricht was jailed.

The officer, as I recall, didn't want to be named because of some of the things he was saying:

Transactions were safer because people weren't buying from random dealers in back alleys in the middle of the night, and weren't being ripped off/attempting to rip the dealer off;

The quality of narcotis actually improved notably because now people had real market choice and if yours weren't up to muster, there were plenty of other sellers. Purer product tends to lead to lower harm as it's the crap they're cut with that causes most immediate problems;

The prices went down which meant that pressure on buyers to maintain a level of purchase went down with it;

The dealers ran loyalty schemes and try-before-you buy schemes with usually accurate (or as accurate as could be expected) descriptions which lead to less harm due to taking something that was completely unknown.

He also admitted what everyone with half a brain already knows - the war on drugs is lost. It was lost before it ever really began!