Posts by Simon 15

Re: Bring back netbooks

It seems fairly study to me, I've not managed to break anything, keyboard included yet which is good considering my penchant for percussive maintenance. For the price it's a nice bit of kit and I must have had it a year or more now.

I find Asus kit tends to be generally well built unlike the similar sounding Acer which I've always found to be hit-and-miss with regards to materials quality. From what I remember from the few minutes I used it Windows 10 ran perfectly well for standard office use.

like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JITpUxtji4s

Re: Depends if decent efforts at data security made by Morrisons

Take photographs on the screen displaying the sensitive data with your smartphone... It is very easy for anyone in a position of responsibility to steal data and there is only so much that can be done to stop them. There is always a trade-off between convenience and data security. At the end of the day people in senior positions have the responsibility and should be trustworthy. I agree that people should only have access to the information they need in order to do their job but you have to trust them at some point, they might just have a really good memory or could be writing stuff down using pen and paper!

I call BS on all the comments saying remove USB ports, only allow a single application to run etc. Yes these things ARE possible and they MIGHT have prevented this data loss but come on, really? And what about the techies that will be performing these tasks in order to lock down the computer in the first place? Wont they be able to bypass the security they have implemented? Or do we simply *trust* them not to in pretty much the same way we trust them not to read our e-mail?

In my personal opinion an employer should only be held accountable for the actions of an employee if they have been negligent in their security and supervision of said individual. If a driver working for Eddie Stobart decides to smuggle drugs into the UK using a company vehicle then they are guilty of the crime rather than the company even though it was the company vehicle being used. The driver was employed do do a specific job that had a responsibility and the company trusted him to perform this role. After interviewing him, obtaining references, checking his driving qualifications, licences and other such due diligence he was hired and trained appropriately. Would you now argue the employer is accountable for their employees actions?

Re: Racism

I agree, but if ones features are the same colour, i.e. skin, hair and eyes then doesn't that mean that there isn't much contrast at all? If you have pale skin, blond hair but brown eyes then we have contrast.

What I really wanted to say originally is that there is more diversity in certain races than others, but this would be instantly flagged as racist because such differences do not exist. I therefore chose to use a (admittedly flawed) example of different hair colour, eye colour and skin tone as this is harder to apply the "differences don't exist" claim.

Yes, this is definitely a massive f**k-up by processor manufacturers and although Intel is by far worse affected let's not forget that AMD, Arm and pretty much any modern CPU that uses preemptive/speculative execution are vulnerable too.. If you were paranoid you might even speculate that such a 'feature' was added deliberately.

Although news of the problem did make it to the mainstream media, this was a few weeks ago and probably wont be mentioned ever again. I'd say 95% of computer users are still completely oblivious to the issue and wont make the connection even when they do get pwned. Intel will get away Scot-free as per usual.

Re: The smug, dismissive way this article is written kinda proves their point

Absolutely spot-on, blind hiring practices would be the perfect solution here as discrimination, be it positive or 'standard' is discrimination nonetheless. Organisations or events that are exclusivity for one ethnic group are equally discriminatory yet many of these do exist such as the National Black Police Association, Music of Black Origin awards to name just a few. Can you imagine how unacceptable it would be to have a National White Police Association or Music of White Origin awards? Anything that discriminates between two otherwise equal persons on the basis of race alone, is, by definition racist and abhorrent.

The problem always seems to arise when companies are given targets to meet for the number or people they should be employing from a particular demographic and this is where this racism occurs as one group of people are treated more favourably than another based on the colour of their skin alone. In my view (which I consider to be entirely logical) it should be the person who is the best skilled to do the job who is employed regardless of their gender, race, religion, sexual preference creed, colour or disability. I'd much rather have a black heart surgeon operating upon me if she was the best applicant at interview rather than a white male. The point is, race, along with any other irrelevant characteristic simply shouldn't enter into consideration.

I think that the fact that we have organisations and industries that are predominantly 'white' or 'male' raises several interesting questions. Unfortunately much of the time the key assumption is that this disparity is caused by discrimination, i.e. "The company favours white males because we don't like anyone who isn't Caucasian even if they are clearly brilliant in their field." This is a very lazy and illogical conclusion to make but one routinely bounded about without any thought, of which the most recent example I can recall is the BBC reporting that a higher percentage of black males were being referred to the NHS for mental health assessment and therefore the NHS was inherently racist. If I take this logic to an extreme I could therefore claim the NHS was also sexist as 100% of admissions to the postnatal ward were female. It's clear to me in both of these examples that the observable effect of a disparity in demographic is caused by reasons other than racism/sexism. This doesn't mean than racism and sexism don't exist (they clearly do) but they simply do not explain the observed effect. Clearly more women than men are admitted to the post-natal ward because they are the ones that give birth to children. Would it be too far to speculate that more black males are referred to the NHS for mental health issues because they are more prone to mental issues than the white folk? Racist! I hear you cry, but once again you have judged me based on the observed effect rather than the underlying cause. I'm no expert but I would suggest a more socio-economic reason for this disparity, perhaps more black males have incredibly stressful jobs?

As with far too many issues in today's society, it is almost impossible to have a reasonable discussion about the underlying cause of many of these disparities without upsetting those unable to distinguish between cause and effect. Even our greatest minds are unable to make suggestions that dare to offend modern sensibilities. James Watson, a Nobel prize winner for his and Crick's discovery of DNA has now been shunned by the entire scientific community for daring to suggest that there may be actual differences between racial groups and genders. He is now considered to be a 'racist' (a bit like the 'communist' tag of the 1950's) even though his suggestion was based entirely on the observable evidence. If I recall my history correctly, Galileo was treated in a very similar way when he dared to suggest that the earth wasn't flat. Just because you don't like what someone is saying, it doesn't mean they are wrong.

May I now dare to speculate that the reason why most tech companies employ far more white males than any other demographic is that, one the day, they were the best applicants for the job? This doesn't mean that the companies being racist, it's just the way it was. There may well be (and often is) discrimination further down the chain that has resulted in fewer ethnic minorities applying for the position (poor education, housing, opportunity) and it is this underlying external cause which needs to be addressed at source rather than warping employment practices to retrospectively compensate for it. All 'positive' discrimination does is discriminate against the demographic of people who are unfairly blamed for causing the problem in the first place! Two wrongs don't make a right...

Re: Should Intel (and other chip makers) be held responsible for hardware flaws?

Answer: Yes

Perhaps if Intel doesn't have sufficient expertise in designing and fabricating processors they should outsource the job to another company such as AMD or Arm therefore leaving them to focus on their core business instead which is of course.... doh!

Re: Spineless of them to give in

I think it was the network that censored it rather than the south park creators themselves. I'm assuming you're referring to the prophet Mohammed here too as he was the most prolific paedophile by our modern civilised standards. His youngest wife, Aisha was just six when they were married but to be fair he did wait until she was nine before he sealed the deal.

Not that other religions are any better, but are there any worse?

Always ask the question "What's the worst that can happen?".... Most of the time it's exactly what will happen.

Re: Silly really...

Simple. The people who buy from them are even dimmer still... It's the 'talk talk' effect - no matter what you do to your existing customer base if you sell your product cheaply enough then muppets will always buy it.

Interestingly enough the average life expectancy in Renfrewshire is 82.8 years so this problem would appear to be somewhat self-limiting, I'd tell her to give it a year and see what happens.

Re: Any Ideas?

Yes, a good idea, I'm sure it's been done before. Destroying things we find offensive or might just harm children is the solution! Can we start with religious texts first? They seem to be the most harmful of all publications.

Re: Bright ideas - not

Feel free to leave, I'm sure Europe will take you in.

Re: Of course

He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy.... Clearly has psychological issues too.

Re: I'm torn...

Either that or they prove that if god (assuming christian) does exist he really just isn't *that* nice.... The genocide of the flood seems to support this supposition. I'm not sure how an all knowing being can keep making so many serious mistakes but then again he does work in mysterious ways!

Our fear of spiders seems to be irrational, they catch insects that we usually consider pests. I think people are really just jealous that they have so many legs.

Re: Hardly a surprise

But the thing is that you are free to do all of these things if you so wish as your property should be yours to do with as you please.

For example when I change the oil filter on my car I'll use the cheapest 'decent' brand I can find. It might not be the same brand as the one I'm replacing but it does the job as they are all built to a minimum specification. The car is my property and it's my decision to do what I like with it, heck I could even use cheap crappy filters from China if I wanted to. It would be a poor decision but it would be *my* decision and I'd be responsible for the consequences when the engine inevitably overheats. What would be unacceptable to me is if the car would completely refuse to start unless I used a specific filter dictated by the manufacturer or, even worse the very act of changing the filter myself caused the car to initiate a self-destruct routine and exploded on the driveway this depriving me of its use.

To me it seems that Apple are once again screwing their customers over. It's bad enough that the product is sold at such a markup to begin with (I'll ignore the child labour) but if you dare to use non-authorised parts then they'll destroy your device under the guise of security. I'm quite certain this constitutes a deliberate act of depriving the owner from both the utility and value of their property which could therefore be argued in court. A warning message such as "your device may have been compromised by performing unauthorised repairs" would be perfectly reasonable however.

The underlying problem with Apple is that they are brilliant at business and this is usually bad news for their customers. They certainly have the money to fight off any legal action in court and make bringing a case against them prohibitively expensive for even a Korean multinational let alone a regular individual. They do sell (admittedly) good quality products but way above their natural market value by creating desire, restricting supply and so on. Sadly half the population are below median average intelligence and lap this up in exactly the same way they do for SUVs, 4x4s, red wine, gym membership, curved TVs, audiophile equipment, gold plated HDMI cables etc. And of course once you've shelled out for a 24 month contract at £50 a month for an iPhone you'll then naturally feel the need to defend your poor decision making when challenged by someone who's purchased a comparable Android device directly from China for a fifth of the price. I think most people are also inherently insecure and want to be popular; follow the latest trends; look cool/hip; demonstrate their perceived wealth/status to others and so on. There also seems to be a sense of security/reassurance in buying something that is expensive just because you can, Stella Artois (aka wife-beating juice) for example...

Sadly the proportion of the population who can grasp these concepts is somewhat limited and diminishing on a daily basis. The majority are happy being to be told what to do and will accept this in the same way they always do - "War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength."

Re: Pi Zero availability

18th Jan 2016 - Still out of stock from all major suppliers..

Have just ordered a batch of 20 ESP8266 development boards instead. I would have purchased at least 10 Pi Zeros in preference here but they're not available. I know the Raspberry Pi foundation has more altruistic aims than most other 'businesses' but what a crazy situation to be in where there is such massive demand for a product that you can effectively afford to turn down custom.... I wish I was in a similar situation.

They are sitting on a gold mine here, swallow the pride and shift production to China. Heck, even sell it for a higher price and give it another name (Raspberry Chi Zero?) and I'd still buy loads of them. I'm actually hoping it wont be long until we see unofficial Chinese clones on sale, Banana Pi Zero anyone?

Re: Painless?

Are you perhaps living in a warmer climate than the original poster? :) If so lucky bugger..

In the UK the temperatures average at around 26C (78.8F) in summer with the maximum currently recorded as 37.4C (99.3F).. I too keep a cheap server (Fujitsu Primergy TX310) in the loft (attic) and it runs 24/7 without problem. All the temperatures are always well within tolerance and considerably lower than my high-performance desktop system with the fancy graphic cards etc.

Re: Soup (is good food...)

It's not difficult at all! The problem is that everyone is just too greedy and eats far more food than they actually require.... I sit at a desk most of the day and therefore don't need the thousands of calories that my ancestors doing much more labor intensive jobs did. There is a massive variety of soup commonly available from your local supermarket and I certainly don't ever feel 'bored' or limited for choice.

The benefits of a low calorie diet are very well documented as much research has already been conducted. Searching for 'Newcastle Diet' is a good starting point and there's a huge wealth of evidence showing how chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes can be reversed by an ultra low calorie diet. It's all just common sense really so I'm surprised that it seems to upset so many people! Eat a well-balanced, nutritional diet that provides just enough calories for your daily needs and you'll do well. Eat too much, too little or too much of any one single type of food and it's going to be bad for you... What's so difficult? Fruit and veg = healthy, chips and pies = not healthy..

If you want to find out more about how you can eat less, save money and live longer then the BBC Horizon episode 'Eat, Fast and Live Longer' is an excellent starting point.

At the end of the day we are all too greedy and eat not because we are hungry but to replace something that is missing in our lives or for the sake of enjoyment. It seems a bit sad and shallow to me and I suppose it perhaps explains why we have such an obesity problem in the UK.

Re: Too Small?

Ah you see that's just too organised for me! It's a pain in the backside switching microSD cards between phones, taking them out, storing them in the full sized SD 'caddy' putting that somewhere safe, finding the correct MicroSD from the draw, taking it out the caddy inserting it in the phone etc. I just want to be able to eject one card (preferably without having to take the phone apart) and slot the new one in without having to feel like I'm playing Russian dolls with my storage. As I get older I'm also finding it increasingly harder to manipulate such tiny and fiddly components and usually end up dropping them at least once.

Why not just make the card a reasonable size in the first place? If we continue our obsession with this sort of miniaturisation then before long you'll be able to fit 1TB on a card the size of a pinhead but not be able to find it amongst the lint in your shirt pocket!

I have a HP LaserJet 4M+ also purchased for £10 from a local business who didn't needed it any more. I've had it 8 years and it's still going strong... Best of all it still works without having to replace the ink/toner every time I use it even if print jobs are *days* apart!!

It looks like they must have driven it into the garage with the doors up/open in that fist picture....