Posts by Doctor Syntax 33004 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"Democracy is being able to change your mind."
OTOH some things in real life are not so easily changed. Getting back into the EU might prove rather difficult and come at a cost of such things as adopting the Euro. That's why insisting on a large majority for a change to the status quo would have been the right way to have run the referendum.
"Tool-less battery removal".
Let it go. It's never coming back.
Maybe it never went away.
I finally replaced my pre-smartphone Nokia with a new Android Nokia a few weeks ago. It has a removable battery almost like the old one. The only disappointment was that it wasn't the same size as the previous model so I couldn't use the old battery as a spare.
"It seems that at least five people think that the Fairphone people can't go bust, but decline to state why Fairphone should be immune to the laws of economics."
Other manufacturers are also not immune from the laws of economics. From that point of view it seems a tad unreasonable to aim this as a specific criticism. The previous point was a fair one; it makes no difference how long a manufacturer remains in business if they're not prepared to support their products with spares.
"All those tarrifs do is hurt the economies of everyone including America by forcing the _customers_ to pay more for the goods affected."
US does not rule the world however much it might think it does. The tariffs are paid by US customers. Here in the rest (i.e. most) of the world they have no effect.
"Metric system is based in absolute science, whilst imperial is based upon the size of some dead guy's foot."
<Cough>
Metric is based on most people having 10 fingers or, if you prefer, 10 toes. Not very different to a foot, really.
Imperial, at least as pounds and ounces are concerned, is binary.
Article 3 of the GDPR states "This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union".
So if the data subject is an EU citizen
No. By virtue of what you quoted, all the subject has to be is in the EU. It doesn't matter whether or not they're a citizen. Of course if the Prime Numpty gets his way it won't make any difference to those of us in the UK after October 31st.
As you said, the relevant figure for petrol stations is number of pumps. Then, in order to make a sensible comparison, divide the count of chargers and pumps by the time needed to load up a unit distance's worth of juice. I doubt that charging capacity will be more than a tiny fraction of refueling capacity.
"I'd have asked to speak to someone more senior and told them exactly what kind of trouble was being caused by their none compliance."
Just charge 150 people's unproductive morning's salaries and the travel costs to their cost centre. Let their more senior person explain it to the beancounters. That's a bit closer to the BOFH solution.
The M/B on my Mythbox reports no keyboard on POST although the BIOS has a configuration variable set to tell it there's no keyboard. It doesn't, however, wait for an F1. For those wondering about this, the keyboard is simulated by the IR remote kit but only when the drivers get loaded.
"Eventually, his colleagues in the call centre tried to convince me that my house was the correct address but in the wrong place"
It sounds a bit like an insurance company's call centre I had dealings with. Someone had swapped the day and month numbers on SWMBO's date of birth on data entry. As a result they were effectively trying to tell me I'd survived several decade's of marriage without knowing my wife's birthday.
Maybe you should think that one through a bit more. J R-M has moved his company out of the UK into the EU. What does that tell you about his estimate of the effects of his political policy on UK as a place to do business? Is that a mitigation any UK employee of any UK business thinks would be in their individual interest?
1. "The greatest ever majority in the referendum" was pretty well a dead heat. A simple majority may be fine in first past the post voting for an MP you'll be able to change in five years time. We don't make much use of referenda. Those countries that do usually require a very substantial majority to make a permanent change to the status quo. Failing to do so is at the core of the govt's problems since then. And let's not forget that word "advisory".
2. " the expressed wishes of 80% of the electorate" At the last general election the turnout was a little under 69% so your 80% is total and utter bollocks on this ground alone. Secondly no one party got even 50% or the votes who did turn out. More bollocks. And the only thing that the electorate are asked to vote on is their choice of candidate in their constituency, all of whom will have a wide variety of policies, individual and party, so there is no direct way of arguing from the vote to any particular policy. Which leads us to..
3. It's the successful candidates, voted in at the last general election who are now challenging a PM determined to ride rough-shod over Parliament in almost as arrogant a fashion as Charles I. That's representative democracy in action.
Labour will probably agree to an election once the immediate threat of 'no deal' is off the table. If they do this (as they suggest) once the no deal bill has had royal assent, but before the extension is asked for then it's possible Johnson could wait, hold the election in mid October, win a majority and repeal the new law to untie his hands.
I think Starmer realises this. Even Corbyn might realise it. It's a possibility but less of a probability.
A year or so ago I ordered a left hand door mirror for SWMBO's car.
Despite being in all day when DPD were supposed to deliver it there was no sign of it and shortly after it was due to be delivered a note appeared on the web site saying that there was nobody in and they'd left a card. There was no card in our letter box. I reckoned that the basic problem was that we have no house number but a spelled out number is in the house name and the site ordered from had no concept of an address without a number. I realised they'd attempted to deliver to a numbered house down the road.
After much effort I finally got a phone number for DPD that didn't immediately drop through to an automated system that told me the package had not been able to be delivered (the first time I keyed in the package number; all subsequent attempts to any DPD customer disservice number would recognise my number from CLI and not even bother asking). The parcel was then sent out with the corrected label. At the appropriate time courier with an anonymous white van turned up so I went to meet him to ensure he didn't escape. I was handed a package. Not, unfortunately a DPD-shipped package but another one I was expecting. I went back indoors and found the familiar note on the website - not in, left card. I'm sure it was the same white-van man contracting for both firms and, presumably recognising the packaging and not bothering with the label, attempted to deliver to the same wrong house.
Despite the fact that they'd never actually attempted to deliver to the right house DPD insisted I'd had the due number of attempted deliveries and took it to the collection point miles away. I drove over there, picked up the box and took it home. I opened the box and found a right hand mirror.
Our neighbour in Lisburn (N Ireland) was in the "Greenfinches" (rather like PCSOs today). A group of French tourists parked in the control zone where you're not supposed to leave a car unattended in the middle of town & went shopping. When they returned they insisted, I'm not sure how, that none of them knew any English. My take on it was that they should have discussed calling the bomb squad to deal with it, i.e. blow the bloody doors and boot lid off. I reckoned there would have been a miraculous recovery of linguistic skills.
"We get banned from driving for dangerous driving or drinking or drugging while driving"
This is the core problem. Drivers can be held responsible and too many non-drivers take this as licence to be irresponsible. It's so much easier to not have to bother to take any responsibility for your own safety if the entire effort can be dumped on someone else.
"My house is on a route that climbs several hundred metres and is a challenge for sports riders"
I live in a similar area but my experience is different. Too many of them are self-entitled twats. There also seems to be a cycle club that annually feels entitled to simply take over the lanes to hold some sort of event, even setting themselves up to act as policemen on point duty whilst singularly lacking the skills to do that.
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