Posts by lglethal

hole companies? That must be a boring job...

Re: Won't somebody think of the planet...?

"One thing which irks me is the limit on vacuum cleaner power."

Yeah that all came about due to amisunderstanding. A politician was on a train and overhead some people complaining saying "The suckers waste so much energy! They go on and on all day. They've got way too much power. If we could reduce their power, it would be better for the whole country. But of course the suckers will never get regulated. They just suck!"

He walked into the office the very next day and got high power vacuum cleaners banned and considered it a job well done.

True story... *

*Disclaimer: This is most likely not a true story...

Re: What measure of 'drink' did these Americans use?

"So I can safely have 3 bottles of vodka every day and still not increase the risk on my health?"

Yes, but only if your russian...

Re: Death and Taxes

Just curious usbac - In your experience, who carries the can if the web-API service has a false listing somewhere (i.e. a tax has changed and they havent updated their API to the new tax rate). Does the API service cover the cost? Or does the firm making the sale have to make up the difference?

Re: Eviscerated!

It sounds more like an Atari own goal to me. Results still the same, but they only have themselves to blame...

Re: Listening to AT&T and Uber?

Hey whats wrong with the National Association of Marlon Brando Look Alikes?

Re: I don't understand why we need App Stores

OK OK, I'll go back to the decades of DOS and Windows 95 (and earlier). The App stores were called

Tandy Electronics, JB Hifi, Dick Smiths Electronics, Game World, Computer Land, etc.

They might not have been online, but you bought your "apps" in them.

Re: Training the trainer

In the first year of my bachelor degree (Aerospace engineering in the early 2000's), we had a mandatory computing course.

In the very first lecture, the professor started explaining what was a mouse, a keyboard, etc., etc. After about 10 minutes of this, he began to show us how to open a Word document. At this point, he proudly announced that by clicking on the X in the corner you could close the document (all spoken in a tone of voice that left no doubt to anyone that this was amazing magical bleeding edge computing technology). He clicked the X, a pop up appeared "Would you like to save the changes you made to this document befoe closing". 3 options were available - Yes, No and Cancel.

The professor clicked Cancel. The document did not Close. He clicked the X again. Up came the Pop-up. He clicked Cancel. The document did not Close. He clicked the X again. Up came the Pop-up. He clicked Cancel. And so on for a full 5 minutes. At which point I got up and left.

I didnt bother going back to that class. I just turned up for the exams and still got a high distinction. To this day, I have no idea how long the professor kept clicking close before someone eventually took pity on him, or perhaps he did it until the end of the lesson. I have no idea.

All a question of motivation...

It's a question of motivation. Scammers know they need to move quick (well they should have needed to move quick but based on TSB's response they probabaly could have taken their time) to make a profit and so are incentivised to pump out the scams fast.

TSB know very few customers are going to go through the hassle of changing banks just because of this debacle. And when you know that, then you know there's no need to pay for that expensive overtime to repair the system or invest in things like disaster recovery, roll out testing, rolling back systems, etc. TSB's motivation is to spend as little as possible on things to do with the customers and save as much as possible to go to their bonuses.

One motivation inspires quick action and the other does not...

Re: "The US approach maximises consumer welfare"

Theory and reality are often two very different things (i.e. in theory the US approach maximises consumer welfare; in reality the US approach maximises corporate welfare)...

Re: Good Luck

"The answer to all of your 3 key points is more Police on the ground. Not more back door surveillance of a very high percentage of innocent people."

But that costs money! Money that cant be given to companies owned by friends of ours who provide nice little bonuses to us at christmas time...

We cant have that!

Re: "From my experience (Emirates), I'd rather fly A380 than B777"

"My last flight to Washington with an Air France Airbus was quite uncomfortable."

There was your mistake - flying Air France. it doesnt matter which aircraft it is, they are all routinely awful...

Re: Farthings

"life assurance collected weekly by agent knocking on doors"

Isnt this called collecting with menaces? Who did you work for the Mob? :P

Re: I would have done a full rant, but why waste the effort.

@MonkeyCee

In normal, rational countries you would be absolutely correct. But this is America (Fuck yeah!), where people apparently require, at least according to the NSA and other second amendment freaks, the ability to easily possess hand grenades for, umm, self protection or something. Cant have weapons restricted, that would be against the constitution, so its time to restrict the drone access.

Sort of raises the question, if you stick a weapon on a drone, and the drone becomes a weapon, is it then protected under the second amendment?

Chuck them in landfill and then charge the firms for illegal dumping, the scooter has the company's logo and contact details on them after all.

Re: Time flows backwards...

I know, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up... ;)

Re: Carriers??

Also just a comment on availabilities - "Peace Time availability" and "War Time availability" are two very different things. Also dont confuse "War Time availability" with "Dropping bombs on a far off country in support of (not your country's) ground troops availability".

In a proper war where your forces are defending your own land or its ground troops, the aircraft will fly with any number of things that would prevent it flying in peace time. In peace time, the loss of an aircraft for any reason will see generals brought before government inquiries, hard questions, cuts in funding, etc, etc. The loss of an aircraft whilst dropping bombs on a far away land to anything except enemy SAM fire would also be unacceptable in the main.

But in an actual war, those aircraft go up. It doesnt matter if its due mainetance on some bit of equipment, that maintenance will be deferred until after the next attack. No questions asked.

Which makes you wonder, if they arent selling their user data silos to advertising agencies, who are they selling it to?

Re: Salt free

Guys, you're all thinking about this in entirely the wrong way.

The scanner scans the fingerprint and uses some sort of algorithm to create a unique value. It should then be checking that against a local database to say, yep this is Person X. Boom the scanner has done its job.

If it needs to send details that person X has clocked in or out somewhere else, why is it sending anything related to the fingerprint. It can safely send an employee ID number with the details clock in/out time and it has done its job. Encrypt that Employee ID number for sure, but an ID number is not a password so hashing/salting is not particularly required.

The only reason, other than laziness, which I can think of for sending the data elsewhere is that the scanner cant actually do the processing locally (massive failure - means it is sending the fingerprint data externally) or the scanner cant do a simple database look up (equally stupid failure) to assign the ID to the fingerprint value. Neither of which is acceptable.

There is nothing particularly wrong with using a fingerprint for timekeeping in my view, easier than carrying a badge (although not necessarily more secure), but under no circumstance should anything related to that fingerprint or the algorithm value it generates be leaving the scanner. If it does, then that is extremely poor and well worth the company getting a kicking for putting its staff's biometrics at risk...

Overseas GST = level playing field for local businesses (ar at least a more level playing field).

I dont really understand your objection. GST revenue goes directly to the states. That pays for your roads, hospitals, police, etc (which are state funded and not federally funded). Ok you might be able to save 10% on your purchases now by purchasing overseas, but when all of your local retailers have gone out of business because they had to pay the GST and were as such more expensive, you'll find funding for hospitals, etc drops doubly fast because people out of work dont pay taxes, corporation that have gone out of business dont pay tax and those international firms who you're buying from definitely dont pay tax in Aus. Lack of funding = lack of services.

Gain now for pain later, is rarely a great plan.

Government..... Piss-up.... Brewery....

Fill in the blanks to obtain your answer.

Re: Must have been a quite impressive experience

"Don't most people have knees?"

Would that make it a knee jerk reaction?

I'm sorry I'll get my coat...

Re: Any NRA comment?

@ Mark 85. This is definitely an American culture thing. The fact that you feel the need to come out of your own house slowly, with warning and with hands in plain sight just to greet a police officer is, well, staggering.

I'm an Aussie who has lived all through Europe and Asia. Never have I ever felt the need when opening the door to police to act in that way. I have always simply treated them like normal people. And they have always responded in kind.

In no place that I've lived do I need to assume that the cops knocking on my door means that my life is in danger from those very same cops. It sounds like something you'd expect from Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, or a hundred other corrupt third world countries. The fact you feel that way in America says that America has a major cultural issue there...

Re: Self proclaimed...

Funny, I always thought that was the Proclaimers...

Re: Sheepish

£1000 fine is hardly going to put him in the doghouse.

"Seriously, stop giving the twat air...

There fixed that for you...

Re: Last time this happened...

"A bloody obvious design that should have been that way all along i'd say."

Everything is obvious in hindsight. But since you dont have all of the requirements that were given to the designer you're making some pretty big claims about it being a bloody obvious design.

Things like access to the screws for maintenance might have precluded such a design. It might only be possible now due to a redesign of the electronics. The positioning of other panels might not have allowed the change you consider obvious to have been made at the time.

The design worked fine, when installed correctly. Have there been any cases where the window fell out where the correct screws were installed? No. Then the design met all of its requirements and is therefore a good design. Its been redesigned now, and its somewhat more stupidity tolerant, but the previous design worked well.

Never shit on a designer for a "bad" design until you know exactly what requirements they had to meet. When you're designing something for a complex machine you're rarely making a choice between a good concept and a bad concept, you're choosing the least shit design that meets the requirements.

(from an aerospace design engineer who knows a bit about the good, the bad and the shit....)

Re: And I always thought it was Dark 'cos we can't see it

"The problem I have with the idea of dark matter is that if it exists it should be very easy to detect."

Why? Why should it be easy to detect?

A failed star like Jupiter is not directly observable. The only times we have been able to observe it is when it passes directly inline between its star and our planet (definitely a rarity), and when it is larger enough to induce a "wobble" in the orbit of its parent star. But how many systems have these almost stars but which we cant (yet) observe. How many exist in deep space having been ejected from their parents systems?

Brown Dwarves are stars that are very cool, having exhausted their fuel and shut down their reactions, without being large enough to go spectacular (e.g. in a nova). how many of these eixts out there that have gotten so cold and dark that they are no longer producing enough light to be observed. The only way to observe these would be due to their effect on gravitational lensing, but if we are not looking for something directly behind them, then we arent going to see them.

Given the size and numbers we are talking about in our estimates of galactic masses, being off with our assumptions on these sorts of things and a dozen others could account for all of that mass being "missing". It doesnt mean its not normal mass, just that we cant see it, and we arent likely to spot these things in the near term either.

When it comes to galaxies the numbers are just so big, and the assumptions so massive, it often seems easier to make up new laws, but remember Occams razor normally applies. Dark energy on the other hand is a WHOLE other question...

Re: And spending an eternity in Hel would be a bad thing because?

"Maybe she's too hot, I mean, really too hot, something alike 2500+ °K?"

Would that count as going out with a bang?