Posts by keithpeter

Re: Hmmm

"...anyone sending a message with 10000 recipients ought to have some kind of permission to do so since it's unlikely to be an invite to the pub to some mates..."

No, but it could be a message to 7,500 or so mobile numbers that has to be sent in a hurry at around 5am to try and prevent wasted journeys through very very bad weather. A quick clean up to get rid of the 10 and 12 digit numbers in the database dump (don't ask) and then a queue of messages via a humble dongle. It worked. I didn't do the clever bit (dongle script).

We have much slicker systems hanging off the Intranet these days. Prior blanket permission could work I imagine.

Re: What is Hachette contributing?

"Is it really justified for them to get as much money as the author?"

Paper books will be around for a bit yet so paper needs to get smeared with carbon on an industrial scale and the resulting atoms still need to get shifted.

Having written about 25k words for a published non-fictional project I can say that working with an editor has significant value. Editorial services could be provided by any publisher of course.

Do we *really* want one publisher?

Re: Makes no sense

"Then there is a possibility that SpaceX was exploring a project, the team of specialists failed to deliver on that project so they don't need them anymore."

Isn't that the very definition of a layoff? Or redundancy as we say in UK.

Re: or you could go even more downmarket...

The famously amazing Victorian Gothic Icknield St library in Brum does not have wifi, there is a notice directing readers to the Tesco Cafe in the modern complex that you can walk through to. Reasonable speeds.

Upmarketish: Should anyone find themselves in Birmingham New St Station, look for the Coffee Lounge independent cafe just opposite the entrance. Fast wifi, no landing pages, wpa2 password is written in felt tip by the till, better than 1.5 Mbytes/sec mid morning when the hipsters are not in. I just do Americano, tastes fine, comes in a bucket, not too expensive. They do beans on toast as well as all the panini stuff.

Free connections across Brum centre: Plenty of cafes, chain and independent. Central reference library and the ICC both have free wifi. No encryption but you have to negotiate a landing page and that needs noscript disabled for the initial connection. Speeds around 120 kbytes/sec. Mobile connections (G3 is my limit) are variable across the city centre. Some places are effectively Faraday cages, others its rocking.

Outside centre: Midland Arts Centre (MAC) in Cannon Hill Park has free wifi again no encryption but (more sensible) landing page so you can agree terms &c. Around 800 kbytes/sec to 1 Meg bytes sec mid afternoon weekday. Holds up well at weekend. Nice place to sit outside within range.

Re: Filthy Lucre

"I did try to answer my own question btw - I cant find any info on their revenue from the Amazon hookup. Weird."

Yes, they keep the numbers really quiet generally. Either the revenue from this feature is peanuts and Canonical are to embarrassed to admit that given the hoo-ha, or its huge and people will then ask why Amazon are paying so much for anonymous random desktop search terms like lett*82014*tax*.odt, with the implications that the search terms are not so...

As others have said, I just started using Debian. Quite like Wheezy.

Re: Fishtanks are useless

"Anyway, do him a favour and show him how to setup a webcam, then we can all watch his fish :)"

Crowdsourced fish tank watching. You may just have invented the Next Big Thing

Seriously, as was mentioned up the screen, we need the iot:// protocol with some RFCs. Or it won't really work.

Low power computing: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/08/how-low-power-can-you-go.html

Re: Just one question

@ Frankee Llonnygog

"Is it possible to pledge negative amounts on Kickstarter?"

Spread betting on kickstarter options? Bring it on.

Coat icon: I'm off out to pay some bills

Interview

"I'm somewhat lacking in the skills that let good journalists figure out when to ask whom which questions, not to mention the skills to actually get those questions answered."

@sisk A suggestion: find some interesting people locally who might want a bit of publicity(*) and interview them on audio and edit the result into a podcast.

(*) Charity people, artists, people running workshops &c

The basics

http://www.radiodiaries.org/trh/interviewing/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/skills/interviewing

Re: So whose email do you use then

"Eat that, NSA/GCHQ goons !"

The chaps and chapesses in Cheltenham probably have.

At work: I loaded Chrome to check the appearance of a Web page I'm writing. The popup thingy informed me that the Google Hangouts application is running and logged in... I'm using a different browser now.

The sky won't fall because of this case (which will no doubt trundle through various levels of the legal system for years) but the long term chill effect (drip-drip-drip in the background if you listen carefully) will accelerate very slightly.

Economic power is shifting southward. And that's that.

The tramp: Being totally unimportant has its virtues sometimes.

Re: Post PC

"My wife did it. Her second book was written on an iPad."

Excellent and I hope it sells well.

I'm *assuming* that the opus was continuous prose? Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker on his BBC B+ (albeit with that large clacky keyboard). Lest we forget journalists phoned in copy typed on a TRS-80 via accoustic coupler over Strowger switched phone lines from various Front Lines a few decades ago. Joyce, Auster and Powell weaved their narratives on typewriters (similar ergonomics to a laptop or tablet/keyboard/stand).

I suspect the future will include workstations and laptops for those of us who need to include significant graphical content with our writing and for those who need to edit and convert multimedia content or corral and brand data. These might well be niche products, one hopes with lifetimes measured in decades.

Icon: Trench coat of course. Shorthand pad in one pocket and Talkman in the other.

Re: Realism

"If faced with a rational argument, spout patriotic poetry. Got it."

Don't over estimate the power of rationality and don't under estimate the appeal to emotion in these matters. This is a yes/no referendum. 13% undecided and a 4% gap on the most recent poll I can find.

Re: Lies, damned lies and messing with popcon data

@ Flocke Kroes

Might be worth mentioning that default Debian is Gnome. KDE and XFCE4 take an *active choice* at install time, either 'alternative desktops' route during install or installed afterwards. Installing KDE on a Gnome system can lead to fun (phonon/pulse &c).

Might also be worth mentioning that the *default* for popcorn when using the text based installer is 'No' , i.e. Popcorn results not sent.

Interesting non-the-less. Just remember what happened to Sinofsky who trusted telemetry data....

Re: wireless

Use the electricity supply cables?

I may have totally misunderstood this of course as I have no local knowledge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_over_power_lines

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/17/how-chattanooga-beat-google-fiber-by-half-a-decade/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_cooperative

Re: Learn the First Rule of Computer Science

@ Someone Else

Are these updates automatically applied as part of the general routine update thingy I used to click on in the days of Tiger?

Or are they clearly marked as *firmware* updates (which I take to be an analogue of a bios update) which is a whole order of other?

If former, I have *some* sympathy.

Re: Whenever you hear Oracle whine about Android

@Vic

I stand completely corrected, and educated, and thanks very much for the SLES link.

Re: Poor Bug Fixing

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2014/07/18/10543324.aspx

Another example of what application developers can do.

2nd Law is of Thermodynamics as others have pointed out.

I'm off out while it is not raining

Re: I'm not surprised. (And there's some practical reasons too.)

"Paper-based systems don't stop data theft but the concept of stealing terabytes of data by photocopying/photographing properly secured paper documents is farcical, not so for ephemeral electronic data."

I accept your point about physical access.

However, the spies at present give the impression of grabbing everything they can and then sorting it later. Photographing paper will simply mean being far more selective about what they target. Pre-searching if you like, so that 'metadata', who is meeting whom, who is on what committe, will become key.

The tramp: I just sit on the bench and watch who is coming in and who is going out.

Re: There should only ever be one thing "first" in business...

True, but I suspect Microsoft's collective decision making hasn't decided *which* customer(s) yet. Hence the blunderbus approach.

Ichan's idea of splitting into Enterprise/Consumer orgs looks increasingly sensible (yes I know he just wants the money)

Re: Sad, but hardly surprising

"...their fan and customerbase..."

I can deal with customer base, I can deal with technical managers who buy Microsoft systems because of compatibility and legacy requirements and perhaps because of costs, but I'm having real difficulty with the idea of a Microsoft fan.

And it has just occured to me that the absence of actual fans might be the problem that Microsoft has.

The Tramp: sitting in the sun watching the world go by. Haven't seen a Microsoft device yet!

Re: I don't know anyone

"He writes that it's likely Apple's wearable computer will be enclosed in sapphire glass and have a long, thin screen which is quite different to the usual round watch-face."

@RISC OS

Think of it as more of a messaging and health monitoring device strapped to your wrist and less as a portable timepiece.

Quick check on watch wearing: tends to be males who habitually wear suits. Non-suit wearing males and most females no longer seem to feel the need to strap a small metal or plastic pod onto their arm. Suspect status messaging by suited males but I can't read the codes (see icon). Apple will market to the non-suited ones about use cases that don't involve time.

Teenagers? Almost none. One or two with digital watches.

Re: Translations.

http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/07/13/microsofts-new-ceo-needs-an-editor/

Another translation, with some logic that makes sense to me anyway.

Re: Non-obviousness

"[...] my system uses the superheated gasses that have been through molds in process and sends them back to preheat 'cold' molds. Reduces energy costs for mold temperature control more than 20% over the traditional systems. It's the same system everybody else uses, mine 'just' has an extra leg."

@Don Jefe: and your invention would be patentable (I think) in the UK and most other countries. Should you decide to patent your invention in the UK, and should the patent be granted, and should someone infringe, you would have the option of taking action here in the County Patents Court (low damages) or in the Patents Court in Chancery (minimum 100K type costs, high claims). Your case would be heard by a judge who is a qualified patent lawyer. Comprehensive pre-trial documentation in highly structured formats. Requirement to agree *facts* with defendant.

Perhaps it is the idea that you can just pop down the local District court and run a complex technical case past the duty Judge and a local jury that is part of the problem?

PS: do you run molding facility yourself and use this for competitive advantage or do you licence widely to molding facilities? Just interested.

Re: Rugged?

"Our terminal held for over 24 hours at 95cm, but didn't survive the hour at 1M (the only tank we could get on short notice for internal testing was a couple of cm too short). The extra couple of CM make a big difference."

Would that just be the extra pressure or some other reason?

Such a small difference suggests to my uninformed self a seal that is *really* at the edge of its design at 95cm.

Think of the children: I'm on the scrounge for a free maths lesson idea here.

Re: RHEL's choices determine CentOS

http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2014-July/011410.html

Read this thread on CentOS-Devel just in case the SIGs are of value to you in a production capacity.

Re: sad but true.....

Goethe wrote about this as did Marlowe (himself a spy assassinated in a 'house of recreation' in Deptford) and Ben Jonson.

Where is the modern Wedekind/Berg to write the opera as a cautionary tale?

The tramp: no temptations when you are poor

PS: Can we be careful with the word travesty please?

Re: Actually more like part of the scenarios to "Quantico"

"In September 1978 Janet Parker, a medical photographer at the University of Birmingham, was accidentally infected with smallpox and later died. Her illness was initially diagnosed as a drug rash, but soon afterwards pustules appeared on her body. Mrs Parker's mother also developed smallpox, but survived. The ensuing investigation never established exactly how the smallpox virus had escaped from the university's laboratory."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/smallpox_01.shtml [ near bottom ]

Not just 1950s and 1960s. I sometimes pass the building that was pointed out to me years ago as the lab in question. Makes you think. Try the Wikipedia page and the summary of the Shooter Report if you want nightmares (I live and work in the areas mentioned in the report).

Re: What's to look forward to?

"How can people prefer the poor-security, slower and less manageable XP to modern 7/8? Or IE 6/7 to versions 10 or 11?"

I actually agree with this bit (but I tend not to call people names as that just provokes a negative response).

I currently use a well designed and maintained system at work with Windows 7 like clients (we log into a server), roaming profiles, lots of software, and it is reliable and reasonable to use on core-duo/2Gb class desktop boxes. Secure RDP sessions mean I can keep the employer's data on the employer's system and work at home now and again when needed. Classroom kit just works. On the occasions when it doesn't, a quick call to support initiates a remote session (students always find that funny) and usually the problem is sorted without wasting too much of the lesson.

I can't help contrasting that with a previous employer. 50:50 the classroom kit would actually boot and when it did it took 10 minutes. Support was summoned by messages in a bottle. You had to take your data in on a stick as the classroom kit logged into a different domain from the staffroom clients and the staff domain was purposefully blocked in classrooms.

It should be said: no plans at all that I am aware of at current employer to go near Win8.

"Office 2013 is far more capable than older Office versions and the interface is cleaner too and it supports open standards unlike the older proprietary only versions."

Now that is where I have to start disagreeing. Microsoft's definition of 'support' for open standards is like Putin's definition of 'democracy'. I have plenty of words to describe recent MS Office interfaces but 'cleaner' isn't one of those.

Re: Nice

"TfL noted that while Uber needs to clarify certain elements of how its operates with regards to its Netherlands-based Uber BV branch"

Provided tax income is maintained, I remain neutral on this issue.

The Tramp: can't afford taxis. Can't pay with money for buses in London. Shank's pony.

"Anyway I'm spending this weekend with him so it's all good."

Cherish those weekends.

That is all.