Posts by Doctor Syntax

Re: Lucky 13

flying to Boulogne for lunch

"You can fly to somewhere this side of Boulogne and become lunch" might be sufficiently persuasive.

Re: Quantum vs COBOL

At that extreme, if they do, they're not going to tell you. But as a contra thinking point, do any of our everyday communications contain anything TPTB have any business being able to intercept?

Re: Even if an iPhone . . .

"You still can't do anything on them but browse silly websites."

This may come as a surprise to you, ut you can also use them to make phone calls.

"I solved that problem by making my own ... its hardly rocket surgery."

But rocket fuel?

Self-checkouts are probabilistic. With more than 3 items the probability of a failure exceeds my acceptability limits. If they were paying me to debug them it might be a different matter.

Add lunar and asteroid mining to that list.

Re: what is problem with COBOL ?

"Object Oriented = Highly Overrated"

I spent ages being suspicious of OO until I eventually discovered about 75% of it was IT SOP: wrap new words round what you've been doing all along.

If you're programming in C you have a struct to define some data. If you're using SQL you have DDL to describe a table. At a design level you might have entities in an ER diagram. The extra bit with OO is that instead of having your struct and then free-floating functions you combine the two. Once you've got used to the changed vocabulary and the extra functionality it gives you you've added the next 24%.

All you have to avoid is the 1% of the OO religious fundamentalists with the "everything's an object" approach. Stay pragmatic and it's simply another way of thinking about data and how to handle it. Sometimes you reach out for the set-oriented view of RDBMS and SQL, sometimes OO is what fits the job.

Re: Greed

"Google are now claiming that News makes no money, they also claim that News drives traffic and ad revenue through other Google services to the tune of many millions"

In Google's terms if it only amounts to millions it is no money.

Re: I think it would be rather splendid

And very profitable for someone.

declaring any particular group or country as "terrorist"

How much of its tech industry does the US have to expel in this way before a tipping point is reached and it has to define the entire rest of the world as "terrorist"?

Perhaps this is more easily seen from the PoV of an elderly Brit. The UK is a post-imperial power. When I was born the possibility that this could happen would be inconceivable to most people (many seem unable to grasp that fact even now) but it is the case. It must seem as inconceivable to must USians but, having watched it happen to the UK, I have no difficulty visualising it happening to the US.

"Third, it doesn't stop you being responsible legally, and you can still get arrested if you show up there."

On what charge? (Come to that why would I want to show up there?) You do your stuff in a jurisdiction where it's legal. The franchisee buys a service from you in that jurisdiction and sells it in the US. If no franchisee is willing to take on the risks the US doesn't get that service or, to look at it another way, the US gets the service it deserved by electing the governments it did.

"continue to allow Americans to use the service. That is technically operating in the U.S."

Operate in the US at arm's length with a local franchise.

Re: Essential shopping?

"That being said I suspect it’s mainly the senior police that are getting a massive stiffy over this."

Now that they're being told off by the govt. about this it turns out that it's simply overenthusiastic well-intentioned but uninformed individuals presumably not higher than constables who were responsible. Not senior officers. Definitely not. No way. Shame on anybody for thinking that.

"But that I find it strange as the high risk group, they continue on as normal."

There was a survey by KCL which showed, inter alia that 39% of people thought it was recommended to shop little and often to avoid long queues. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/life-under-lockdown-coronavirus-in-the-uk

Re: Hack is the right word

I think the govt. are finally realising that. They seem to have taken some steps to tell the police to tone down some of the more outrageous actions such as deciding which items of your shopping are essential and telling families children shouldn't play in their own gardens.

"It that sort of abuse of power if they do start doing that, that will stop people being behind the police during this crisis.

No it's much worse than that; public support for the police generally will be withdrawn and may / will take a long time to recover."

It's also possible that public support for the government might be withdrawn during the crisis. In the longer term, of course, that's not a problem, it's democracy; but it does need to be able to maintain support in a crisis.

Re: Peak District

So concentrate on the idiots instead of taking it out on those who are trying to find space to act responsibly.

Re: Wear face protection?

Or two Calmans.

Re: Peak District

In addition to the drive-through coronavirus testing facilities we're now starting to see drive-through blood-testing facilities for those who would otherwise have to visit surgeries for routine tests.

It looks as if the NHS sees being partially enclosed in a car as being safer than parking the car and walking up to the testing centre.

Re: Hack is the right word

Not all of us.

Re: Free the Paedos

I didn't vote either way but I could guess the title caused offence.

Re: If you're not part of the solution, you are an idiot.

After writing the above it occurred to me that had you been our daughter's neighbour* you might have made a similar comment about her going in her car this morning. In fact she was going to collect her mother's prescription. We're of the generation that was told to stay at home and have stuff delivered a week earlier than everyone else and, despite the airy comment about deliveries the pharmacy delivery service is hard pressed.

It may well be that your neighbour is actually providing some voluntary service of that sort. Even if he isn't, you could, so why aren't you?

* In fact, they know better because she shops for them as well as us.

Re: If you're not part of the solution, you are an idiot.

"currently repaving and refencing his front garden"

So this, at least, is being done at home and at least some of the materials, wooden panels, are those on which viruses don't survive well.

"going out several times a day"

Not, as said elsewhere, against the current SI although maybe contrary to advice.

It sounds as if he has a coping strategy. It sounds as if you don't.

Re: "We don't want to do as we're told!"

Some time ago I read a comment from someone who said if he and his young son were to cycle from home it would have to be on a busy road. By putting the bikes in a car and driving half a mile they could cycle in safety. That seems sensible risk analysis to me. The problem with hard and fast rules is that they don't necessarily fit well with reality and reality is where our problems lie.

There was news footage of police - maybe BTP - at station entrances, interviewing passengers at close quarters, about 0.3 to 0.5 Osman, and checking identities to make sure they were key workers.

Re: Hack is the right word

"go out with the police and watch what they put up with instead of sniping from behind a keyboard"

Let me deal with that one first: I have done that very thing in that back in the 70s & 80s I sometimes needed a police or even army escort in NI.

Now to get onto present times:

I'm in the over 70s so anything that presents an actual risk of catching the virus concerns me. We over-70s have actually been under lockdown for a week longer than the general population. Mostly it's been our daughter doing shopping for us. I've driven short distances to my sister-in-law to pick-up, from her doorstep without meeting her or er husband, our share of her Tesco delivery. So, yes take this seriously.

I also live within walking distance of a National Park. Given the amount of space there, a huge number of people could easily disperse into it and maintain separation. There are a couple of local car parks with quite limited amounts of space in them. Even if they were filled with cars the density of walkers they could bring would be negligible. Looking at it from my strictly selfish but naturally sensitive point of view, if the 2metre separation is safe I would be ultra-safe in those circumstances. Nevertheless from quite early on TPTB blocked the car parks off to prevent visitors; this only makes sense from two considerations. One is if it were the journey to get to the car park that represented a threat of contamination and I've not seen even the faintest attempt to show that.

The other is that groups of visitors would disregard the recommended spacing. Unfortunately people do not have to come out into the countryside to do that. The Beeb news site this morning has a report that the Greater Manchester Police have broken up 660 parties recently. Greater Manchester does include a lot of rural areas but there was no indication that the parties were rural, especially as s great number were described as house or street parties or gatherings to play sport. If people are going to be idiots they're at least as likely to do that at home as visit a National Park. From a country dweller's PoV my main concern is that they don't come here and let dogs loose, start fires or the other usual behaviours.

Similar arguments apply to urban parks. If people are allowed to visit the parks they can spread out to a much greater extent than if they're not.

It seems to me that one factor which has been forgotten by the present government is public morale. If the population is going to be locked down then every measure needs to be taken to maintain morale. This is not something that was lost on wartime governments but I think it is partly lost on this one.

Re: When people talk about the abuse of petty authority I ask

Or even general abuse.

Re: Wear face protection?

That's why we have units like the Osman. An Osman is one Osman is one Osman, even if you convert it into imperial or metric units.

Re: Knock one down, pass it around...

Having the data encrypted and trusting someone who says they'll sell you the keys is one thing. But if someone has actually got a copy of your material which is going to be valuable to others would you really trust them not to sell it on however much you pay them? If you can trace them it would be better to spend the money on some heavies. Real heavies.

Re: The real mystery is how Paula discovered the clock work around ...

And suitably or subtly - seasonal.

Re: time standards

"Of course no sane person will be putting this to the test at the moment."

Staff at several major hospitals will use the Northern Line.

Re: Well, I tried ...

Schroedinger's hounds.

Re: Independent bug-gery

In what way are they new? Are they newly discovered or newly introduced with the previous updates? Neither is encouraging. The one good aspect of this is that while the planes are grounded they're not doing any harm. What with being grounded until recertified and the economic effects of the pandemic, will they ever fly again?