* Posts by LucreLout

3039 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Jun 2014

Police Scotland will have direct access to disabled parking badge database

LucreLout

I suspect there is a lot of misuse of the system but I have no idea how it could be fairly enforced in the spirit of its intention.

Limit the BHP and engine size of vehicles that may be parked using the blue badge. People who need to park very close to their destination will make do with the reduced performance and lack of status of a small fiesta or gutless mondeo.

I recognize its not fair on the genuinely disabled, but at least they'll be able to get a space without some knobber leaving his cockrings in their space (Audi).

Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

LucreLout
Boffin

Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

@Code For Broke

I'd tollerate an argument that desktop at large is dead. But the remainder of your argument is just plain ignorant.

That you can't follow the argument doesn't mean that it is the argument that is ignorant. Try a mirror.

LucreLout

Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

@GrumpenKaraut

I do all my work on my PC. Give me a shiny phone or tablet any time if you want to watch it being thrown out of the window.

I do not know a single person doing serious programming on a system without keyboard, do you?

I too do all my work on a PC. And no, I don't know a single person doing serious programming on a system without a keyboard either.... but then, 99% ish of home users aren't doing serious programming; They aren't even building Android fart apps, they're just browsing the web.

LucreLout

Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

You may have seen somebody running Linux updates and thought that because they didn't have to wait half an hour for downloads and reboot three time that it had failed.

Erm, no, not exactly. I have Linux running in VMs (Kali, and Ubuntu) at home that I use for various tasks, and I'm quite comfortable with that. If you think that translates into a technology illiterate person being able to use it, then you're delusional. At best they'd end up running everything as root, with a lot of stuff they don't need left starting up, and the chances of their keeping it all up to date would be even lower than with Windows.

Patching on Win 10, because its so *cough* granular and frequent, rarely requires a reboot and never takes long to start up. I've been running it for months now and on 7 year old i3 hardware with spinning rust, it *never* takes more than a minute to restart. On a modern computer it would be a lot faster.

The reason users have long start up times is because of all the crap they install. That doesn't change when you change the OS.

LucreLout

Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

Most recently a couple in their 60' s who installed Linux Mint without assistance

Technology illiterate people wouldn't even be able to select a distribution, never mind install one. They'd not have a clue where to find drivers, or how to configure the OS once they'd got it loaded. Patching? Won't happen. Securing? Won't get done.

I know you want LotD to be true, I know you do. But wishful thinking isn't going to make it happen.

It's Windows gives yer average user grief

It doesn't though, does it. It installs itself if it isn't already installed when they get the computer home, it makes a reasonable fist of securing itself, and it even updates itself. It's pretty bloody far from perfect, but for a home user, there is no substitute. Windows Phone has a greater market penetration than LotD will ever achieve, and that's a rounding error at best.

You're confusing you pushing Mint onto people you know for it having gained traction in the market. My friend could have named all her children Mildred, but it doesn't mean the name is making a come back.

LucreLout

5. IT jobs get sexy.

No, never, ever, ever. Noone will EVER get laid with the line "Hey baby, I'm a data miner."

The only time I've ever been able to tell girls in a club or at a party what I really did for a living was the dot com boom. For the briefest of moments, being a developer was 'sexy' and it did get me laid regularly.

I quickly went back to telling people I was a typesetter, and my granny (rip) went back to telling the people in her old folks home I was a male stripper, because she thought it was more respectable than working for a bank.

LucreLout

Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

we can't be sure that Linux won't be the last Desktop?

Sure we can. It won't even be the next desktop, never mind the last.

Linux is incredible given how it came to be, and represents a genuine triumph. It is not, however, any kind of replacement for Windows for unskilled home users or for corporate environments. Users left to secure Linux and keep it up to date on their own would make an even worse job than they did with Windows; Win 10 is at least nearly secure out of the box and it patches itself.

As technologists we can, and in some cases do, use Linux on a desktop properly and without significant problems. That doesn't apply to wider society and it simply never will.

The home PC is fading, being replaced with one tablet or another, that either updates itself or simply never gets patched. The short shelf life of these devices will enact the larger portion of OS upgrades than will actively updating it. A shrinking market isn't about to convert over to a different OS to save a hundred bucks when the one they have patches itself.

Linux on the desktop is already dead; it just doesn't know it yet. That should not be confused for meaning "Linux is dead" which it self evidently isn't and won't happen any time soon, if ever.

LucreLout

Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

How can such a list not feature Linux on the desktop (tm), which has been "coming next year" for decades?

The last time Earth was this hot hippos lived in Britain (that’s 130,000 years ago)

LucreLout

Re: It's true!

@Drewc

I'm not sure it's just about this article, is it?

The Register has always been left leaning (I've been reading it since the beginning), and that's been ok with me, because it's always represented both sides of a debate with a reasonable amount of coverage, even though I'm center right on a classical political spectrum.

What has happened with the last purge and this brave new direction though, is that it's marched off into the left wing wilderness hot on Jeremy Corbyn's heels, and that is most certainly not a good thing. A lot of the smarter, more experienced and capable writers have left (Worstall for example), and what we've got instead is.... considerably more light-weight. It's becoming something akin to the Guardians Comment is Free section, which is nothing short of an echo chamber for the hard of thinking.

The Register has long been one of my favourite sites on the web, but this new direction has way overcooked it, and I'm hoping the staff will reassess before the death spiral begins. Your position at the top of the tech site tree may be as well earned as it is historic, but it is not guaranteed and it should not be taken for granted.

LucreLout

Re: It's true!

@PCar

Yes, quite what this has to do with IT is a mystery to me. Publishing anything by "Climatologists" is going to be wholly one sided. They were never going to stand up and say "Well, it turns out everything I've worked on & studied for the past 20 years was wrong and while this will undoubtedly end my career, all is well with the Earth".....

It is literally no different to putting out a press release from ESSO saying "Burning oil has no adverse impact on anything ever".

No matter which side of the climate debate you sit, this was an astonishingly poor article compared to those of the recent past.

Blighty's Parliament prescribed tablets to cope with future votes

LucreLout
Alert

Re: Another waste of cash.

Another waste of cash.

Maybe, maybe not. What we could do is open up the Surface camera feed 24/7 and see how much our MPs enjoy constant surveillance.

DARPA commits to brain-computer interface development project

LucreLout
Paris Hilton

Re: Yes, we had this after "Firefox" came out in '82...

But you have to think in Russian!

Yes, but even that won't save you when your wife suggests having a weekend in Paris, and your internet enabled TV reads your thoughts and displays relevant imagery....

UK can finally 'legalise home taping' without bringing in daft new tax

LucreLout

Re: I lost track at some point... @LucreLout

Sorry - you aren't old enough. Pop music was murdered by Stock, Aitken and Waterman.

I'm most certainly old enough to recall the days of SAW. However, they gave us the delightful Kylie Minogue and for that, all sins are forgiven. Like a fine wine, she just gets better with age. Obviously, being a formerly long haired rocker, I usually watch her music videos with the sound off and Black Sabbath on.

LucreLout

Re: I lost track at some point...

So did home taping kill music in the end or not?

No. In the end, what killed music was Simon Cowell.

LucreLout

Re: Still Waiting

I quite agree. I've bought Bat Outta Hell (MeatLoaf) on vinyl, cassette, and CD. Sorry Mr Loaf, but since I'm happy to format shift my CD onto MP3, I can't see a reason to pay you a 4th time for some work you did in the 1970's, however much I like the album.

Microsoft's new cross-platform web app framework renamed ASP.NET Core

LucreLout

I've just spent 5 months working with Java & JSP, after 20 years of lots of languages and 16 of .NET. Here's a little reality for you:- ASP.NET is light years, light years, ahead of JSP/F & Java.

PHP is useful to teach children programming but no credible professional developer is going to use it. If you're off Windows then you'd use Java or Python mostly.

Your zeal betrays your youth, so let me give you a little advice - No language stays top of the tree for very long. Java beat ASP & COM+ hands down, but C# & .NET left Java behind with version 2.0, and it's never really caught up. .NET will get knocked off the top slot one day too, but with the current five year plans, it's not going to be Java that does it but something new.

Your career will be long and you will be competing against low paid people from China, India, and Africa for all of it. Don't get hung up on any one technology stack or you'll severely limit your options - something that will matter to you on the wrong side of 40, unless the government start taking ageism seriously.

Which tech stocks are suffering and – crucially – why?

LucreLout

Re: Are the good times over, then?

Are the good times over, then?

Yup. While most market analysts are predicting things to end up very bad for a protracted period [1], my own worthless reading of the tea leaves is that we'll enter recession in 2017, and exit late that year or Q1 2018 [2].

America is growing enough to raise interest rates, oil is so cheap as to be virtually free, as are most construction commodities. There are still largely cheap pools of labour in the world. Someone will find a way to combine that and add value, which gives us growth.

Add to that the wall of cash many companies are sitting on, and there's not the gearing there was last time around.

[1]- From some of the forecasts I've seen at work you'd think the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were saddled up and just finishing their pre-ride piss.

[2]- Technical definition requires two quarters of back to back below zero 'growth' to start the recession, meaning by the time you're officially in one, you've been in it for 6 months already.

Amnesty International accuses tech giants of battery bastardry

LucreLout

Re: Cue lots of Apple hate

On the subject of Voda.... Their statement about being "several steps away in the supply chain" sounds horrendous as a justification.

Anyone who's read any of my posts will know I'm about as far away from being a bed wetting, hand wringing lefty as it's possible to find on El Reg, and I have every sympathy with the near impossibility of auditing where every ounce of a commodity has come from, but they really need some better PR people on this.....

Eight-billion-dollar Irish tax bill looms over Apple

LucreLout

That sort of thing creates a race to the bottom, so the EU is smart to put the kibosh on this.

I agree, it does, but absent a globally harmonized tax system, it is inevitable that some countries will be more desirable corporate locations than others. The EU can't change that, and as it happens, they haven't tried to here - what they have done is tried to clear out the backroom deals that provide special enhanced rates. Ireland's 10% rate will remain and will be the most competitive in the EU; It's where I'd locate any company I was starting.

Nobody (sensible) would argue that government spending is efficient or that there isn't wholesale waste going on. Governments are going to need to get used to a smaller share of the pie going forward as people simply aren't dependent or beholden to them in the way they once were.

Countries outside the EU are not useful for holding the money made in EU countries, you can't divert that income out of the EU to a lower tax country

Actually, you can still do that but it's not as obvious as it used to be. IP may be held anywhere (See my previous posts on U2 and their hedge fund in Holland), and services may be purchased from anywhere.

Unpopular messages aren't the messengers fault. I certainly don't agree with any special deals - the tax system should be applied evenly to all entities, but cost is a major part of the corporate battle ground for this generation of companies, and tax is a large part of that.

RBS and Natwest online banking goes titsup

LucreLout
FAIL

LOL!!

And still they haven't learned. IT is the core of your business, it is not a cost to be cut - it is the essence of your business. Cheap Indians are not capable of doing the job, and by the time they are they will no longer be cheap.

The Day Netflix Blocked My VPN is the world's new most-hated show

LucreLout

Re: Attacking their Customers

It should be simple enough for Netflix to compare the billing address with the country the IP is in. If they match what is the problem?

Travelling? Foreign secondment for a few weeks / months?

There's many legitimate reasons why your current ip may not belong to the country you registered in.

JetBrains announces Project Rider, a cross-platform IDE for C#

LucreLout

Re: Sorry....

For Enterprise Windows Desktop development, that can be a mixed bag of anything, Java, C#, C/C++, VB.Net, VBA, Erlang, COBOL.Net, etc.

Java looks awful on the desktop and Java on Windows is an extremely memory hungry way to do, well, anything vs .NET. Java itself is on shaky ground anyway - the only possible future it has now is if Oracle can be persuaded to flog it to Google. If Google about face and use something else for Android, then the gig is up.

C++ may be fine for pseudo real time apps, but then, most LOB apps aren't real time. C++ will always be with us and is a wonderful language in its own right, but its not about to unseat .NET any time. Ever.

VB.NET/COBOL.NET can't exist without C#. .NET may be the framework, but C# is the language designed for that framework.

VBA.... not for anything outside of Office macros really.

Erlang... great at what it does but its aimed more at switches than desktops. The only app I've seen in 20 years as a professional that was written in Erlang and runs on Windows is RabbitMQ.

Things C# has in its no other languages have [1]:

Visual Studio - head and shoulders above all other IDEs, and by a very long way too.

.NET integration with Windows.

Very large pool of developers.

Its MicroSoft's strategic language (No MS, no Windows, so this debate becomes moot).

Frankly, its a significantly better all rounder than any/every other language on Windows (important caveat).

[1] - Yes, all .NET languages can claim most of these, but C# is .NETs lingua-franca.

LucreLout

Sorry....

These are interesting times for Windows developers, with the PC in decline and Microsoft's mobile platform suffering from tiny market share.

What? Really?

The home PC may be in decline, but most C# developers are paid professionals who work for businesses where the PC is in anything but decline. I'm comfortable writing Java code, so have little to fear from the heat death of MS, but being realistic, barring "Linux on the unicorn" ever coming to fruition, the desktop PC will be around for decades, as will Windows and C#.

Java, on the other hand, is fast becoming a dead language, outside of big data and Android circles. Look at the 5 year plans for each language stack - MS are being very ambitious whereas Oracle, well, just aren't.

The mobile market I'll give you, hence my interest in Java & Android.

Not good enough, VW: California nixes toxic mix fix in strict interdict

LucreLout

Cats....

Hmmm, given the history of retrofitted cats to meet Californian air quality standards (see DMC-12 for reference), I'd suspect by the time the "fix" gets through legislation, the cars will end up significantly and noticeably down on power output, with the possibility that retrofitted parts wear out alarmingly quickly.

In the first instance, I can't imagine everyone is going to be happy with how their formerly nippy car drives and that this will damage residuals for the whole of vehicle life.

In the second instance, I can see that being short as VW seek some sort of scrappage scheme in CA. due to the prohibitive cost of replacing all the emission reduction components as they wear out. Once out of warranty, the emissions reduction system will be pulled out by the owners, and as is so often the case, the exhaust gas probe will find itself taking readings from the wrong exhaust come MOT time.

My 'toy' car is mostly decatted to release significantly more power, and move the peak bhp & torque further down the rev range. However, my car still passes an road side emission test due to the racing cat installed in place of the three cats removed. Adding cats to cars seems likely to reverse the process leading to less power made, and at higher revs.

Windows 10 makes big gains at home, lags at work

LucreLout
Happy

Re: Why keep reporting these stats

@Voyna i mor

I never said it was popular, only that *some* people use it for real work.

Given how free it is, and the generally easy install process (mother in law managed it on her own), I have to admit the take up isn't looking good for MS.

I can't imagine any large enterprise making the leap either. The relentless patching may be "free" to me as a home user, but the current pace of releases would be wholly unacceptable where I work.

My Win 7 PC at work gets updated weekly and rebooted whenever IT require it. Its basically stable, can address more than enough memory, so from a company standpoint, there's little or nothing to be gained from the move. The cost in terms of staff time for testing and patching would be prohibitive more than any licence fee that may apply in years to come. Better to sit out the next few years on Win 7 and see how the land lies then.

LucreLout

Re: Why keep reporting these stats

@AC

There is no one I know with a W10 install that they actually use for anything serious

I use it across my estate, for tasks such as University projects, to working from home (anything from pseudo real time trading systems to simple reconciliations). I don't use it for games though, so can't comment on that.

I'm not suggesting Win 10 is perfect or concern free, but for me it has been extremely stable and the patching non-intrusive, if relentless. Boot times are very much quicker than Win 7, though the system is more difficult to fine tune than 7 if you want advanced settings.

Use of big data can lead to 'harmful exclusion, discrimination' – FTC

LucreLout

@AC

Elevation is important, but you can be plenty elevated when a river bursts its banks and still end up wet.

LucreLout

Insurance companies make use of postcode data to assess flood risk

Well, yes, because calculating the likelihood of a postcode experiencing flooding is trivial and cheap compared to calculating the specific risk to each individual property or part thereof.

It will work in, say, the middle of Carlisle where postcodes uniquely refer to a very small area. 45 miles away, the postcode refers to a much larger area.

Well, yes, it will be. However, the vast majority of people live in towns & cities with small post codes, or in the country at an elevation which never floods. Insurance being a competitive industry, it's hardly surprising that they use the cheaper model for calculating their risk.

Since Tesco opened nearby the number of car accidents in my postcode has soared, as have insurance prices. The irony being that neither the vehicle hit nor the vehicle hitting it is ever a local one - its empty headed shoppers competing to be the first to buy TV dinners and pino that are banging into each other, not those of us who live here. It is what it is.

Investigatory Powers Bill: A force for good – if done right?

LucreLout

Sunset Clauses

The answer is that Home Office lawyers dug up obscure and very broad clauses in Acts that were passed long before the modern Internet was born, and then exploited them in ways that were never intended or envisaged by their original authors.

It is for this very reason that I believe MOST primary legislation should have an accompanying sunset clause such that old acts are forcibly updated for the modern age, and preventing abuse of loopholes aimed at dead industries from curtailing or adversely impacting future industries yet to be envisaged.

VW floats catalytic converter as fix for fibbing diesels

LucreLout
Joke

Did a diesel engine fuck your sister or something?

That was Vin Diesel dude. Vin Diesel!!

LucreLout

Re: Ludicrous lawsuit. No tangible injury.

@localzuk

Other manufacturers haven't been found to be cheating. Sure, their results may differ in the lab to on the road, but they haven't specifically written their software to do so.

Quiet agreed. However, I have been predicting since this issue first hit the headlines, that almost all manufacturers are gaming the system, if not out and out cheating, and that before the issues passes into the history books, that it will come to span all fuel types and most manufacturers.

The means of achieving the lab gains may vary, but I'm unaware of any vehicle by any main manufacturer that does on the road what is claimed in the lab.

Bloke sues dad who shot down his drone – and why it may decide who owns the skies

LucreLout

Re: Missed it?

Potts has previously tried to find out the real identity of posters who's posts he didn't like and has expressed more than clearly how if he met me in real life the only thing stopping him from assaulting me would be if there was a risk of legal consequence. And he took the time to emphasize this wasn't just Internet trash talk but that he'd genuinely like to give me a kicking.

Wow, that is outrageous. If that is the fullness of the situation then he has no place writing articles here or anywhere else.

I'm sure you & I have disagreed on a number of things, but I've no desire to unmask you nor would I wish you any harm. Disagreement is a fundamental requirement of debate, and debate is the purpose of the comments section.

Despite the generally lefty slant of El Reg, I've always taken the view that commentards were marginally (Marginally!!) a cut above other sites, and slightly more civilized and educated [1] in their treatment of others.

1 - I mean as in facts & citations appear more often than cup sizes and fart jokes. I don't mean we more degrees than posters, though I suppose that may be possible....

LucreLout

Re: Missed it?

Yes, quite how Worstalls services were no longer required while presumably still forking out for the wrong-headed bilge Potty trots out every month is beyond me.

#BBW

LucreLout

Re: What is the sky?

I don't know what shot was in this thing, but if it came within shotgun range, it is in someone's close vicinity and I would argue it isn't in the sky.

The simplest laws are often the best so I propose that ground up they start with the following. Unless it is making an emergency landing, if it is over my land and I can hit it with buckshot from my land then it is in my airspace and may be reasonably hit with buckshot until it is no longer in my airspace.

If someones daughters are sunbathing in a secluded spot of their garden, its wholly inappropriate to be flying camera drones overhead to get a better view. The drone owner isn't covering himself in glory here, regardless of what he may state he was or was not doing.

UK energy minister rejects 'waste of money' smart meters claim

LucreLout

Question....

My local water company has decided they have a right and obligation to install one of these infernal smart meters on my property.

What rights do they actually have? Do I have any right to object and continue unmetered supply?

From what little research I've done, the odds of them installing a secure device and keeping it secure by updates & patches seem to be on par with winning that 1 Billion USD Power Ball lottery, from Englandshire.

I'm not worried about the state turning off my supply, more that about 5 mins after install, some it'll become a fun practical joke for the kids to drive around turning off peoples meters remotely.

Catalan town hall seriously downsizes monarch

LucreLout

Re: Inheritance

OK so their great, great grandfather was a psychopath with bigger sticks than our great, great grandfather, why should I pay and follow their inbred chinless wonder of a sprog?

In terms of chinless wonder-sprogs, ole Harry has been to war for this country more than most of us. I'm certainly no royalist, but then I'm not much of a republican either.... However Harry has certainly earned my respect as a bloke.

The possibility of King Harry the whatever or President Blair... well, I know which I'd take and it ain't the treacherous lying coward with the awful wife and red tie.

(yes yes I know ginger bonce was only second in line for the throne and now will never be king but at least William managed to find an attractive wife, which is more than can be said of his Tonyness)

Windows 10 won't come to old WinPhones until some time in early 2016

LucreLout

Re: Almost as good

@Pirate Peter

I do, and like it

We meet at last! I have the other one, and like it too (920).

I'm eagerly awaiting the release of WinPhone 10, so I can see what it's like, not being an insider. 8.1 works extremely well - its rock steady, and my Nokia has outlasted everyone else I knows phone, save for some of those with an iPhone (credit where it's due).

That being said, the reason I'm eagerly awaiting 10, is that I'm planning a jump to a Wiley Fox Android as my next phone, but figured I'd hold out for a couple of months and see what 10 delivers.

Drunk? Need a slash? Avoid walls in Hackney

LucreLout

Re: What's to clean?

@Gordon Stewart

"the authority spends £100k a year cleaning up after al fresco urinators"

Eh? It's not graffiti, it's just a bit of piss - It gets cleaned for free next time it rains!

It does, but that £100k is probably not paying for cleaning. What you'll have is a help line to register complaints, manned by someone earning £40k, they'll need a manager, so thats another £40k, and the reaming £20k is probably their cost centres share of the diversity co-ordination team.

Cyber security buck stops with me, says Dido Harding

LucreLout

Cyber security buck stops with me, says Dido Harding

I agree, so now you should resign.

Who needs CCTV? Get a terrifying slowpoke hoverdrone cam

LucreLout
Paris Hilton

Re: Out o'curiosity ...

@Jake

CCTV isn't designed to "save". It's designed to record an incident and aid identification of those committing an offence.

In my case a combination of CCTV & fingerprints led to the swift (in British legal terms) identification & apprehension of the worthless scrotes responsible, and to an admission of guilt in an interview.

CCTV isn't a panacea, but lets not pretend it has no value either, as that is obviously nonsense. I quite agree that there is a debate to be had on either cost/benefit grounds, or privacy vs detection of crime grounds, which I'm not sure has ever been properly addressed.

Paris, because doing something in front of a camera that you don't want others to see has been known to produce a range of outcomes.

Apply online to go to Mars. No, seriously

LucreLout
Joke

@Davie Dee

physical fitness is obviously a must but they are going to need to rethink this academic requirement as well as the completely useless flight experience if they want to start a colony

Well, in fairness to NASA, with that as a stated goal their advert would look more like this:

WANTED: Group of fertile 20 something female swingers, size 8 (hefty chicks need more thrust).

ALSO WANTED: Two deaf guys that can fix stuff. Must like children.

LucreLout

Re: Only Americans?

@ChrisG

It would be far better if the first human on Mars was Donald Trump! Preferably tomorrow and alone

I actually think it'd improve the quality of politicians if it was mandatory that whichever parties candidate that loses the election HAS to go to Mars. You'd immediately cut out those whose heart isn't really in the game, and those who don't really believe in serving their country.

Assange inquisition closer after Sweden, Ecuador sign pact

LucreLout

Re: rumour has it

@Desidiro

So, what, Assange isn't self aggrandizing? He doesn't court publicity? Really? I think you may need to look again.

LucreLout

Re: rumour has it

@martinusher

What Assange and Snowden have in common is that they both pissed off people in high places.

I think it'd be fair to say that I'm not Snowdens biggest fan, being close to neutral on his actions, with the benefit of the doubt going his way. However... I think conflating Snowden and Assange is a massive disservice to Snowden and most disrespectful.

Snowdens actions were conducted with the best of intentions and not in the pursuit of fame, power, wealth, or status. Can the same REALLY be said of Assange?

LucreLout

Re: One Swedish Charge left

@AC

Not to mention that what he was alleged to have done was not "rape" in any normal sense of the word.

I do hope you know that you are very wrong about this, and why!

Consent to protected sex does not imply as acceptable the wearing of ones wellies up to the vinegar stroke, before whipping it out, yanking off the nodder, and slamming in the lamb just in time to make your war face. That very much IS rape.

Assange was allegedly instructed to boot up before bouncey-bouncey, which is an instruction he chose to ignore, thus consent cannot be viewed as having been in place.

And none of it was a problem until the 2 girls he slept with found out about each other....

Just possibly because having been shot through with his baby batter would be bad enough, but the premise that he was married and unlikely to have been putting it about like a puppy with two peckers would diminish the likelihood of his having a communicable disease. When that premise became known as false, the risks of his behaviour become manifestly higher.

Or maybe it could just be that they each thought nobody would believe them, but found support from each other to make a complaint? Jumping straight to the conclusion that its just a case of "women scorned" is perhaps not in the best interests of justice?

Volkswagen blames emissions cheating on 'chain of errors'

LucreLout

Re: There's a river in Africa - de Nile. Along with de Flect it makes up VW's de Fence.

Actually I do. I'm an American, so you can thank us for winning that war for you while you're at it.

Yawn - turning up in time for the victory dance is winning like Charlie Sheen. And you only did that because the Japs had just handed you your ass on a plate, and you needed our help with them.

In the history of your nation, is there a war you've won without us being there to hold your hand? I can't think of one just now.... Pretty well everyone America has ever fought without our help has whooped it's ass, from the Canadians through to the Vietnamese.

LucreLout

Re: There's a river in Africa - de Nile. Along with de Flect it makes up VW's de Fence.

@Mpeler

Ahhh, how about all those great British cars, eh?

Ok, nobody (sane) would dispute that for the past 50 years, Audi/BMW/Mercedes have made significantly better cars than Rover managed.

That, however, doesn't absolve VW for behaving like Deutschebags over this self inflicted problem. As an organisation, they knew what the rules were, and decided to cheat in order to gain market share over their less dishonest rivals. Now is the time for humility, not nationalistic willy waving.

The idea of announcing a press conference titled "Problem resolved" or words to that effect, is to try to move the terms of the debate, restrict the scope and depth of any impartial investigation, and to try to arrest the PR death-spiral they've brought about. This will not work, and they're being badly advised by whomever told them it might.

Memory-resident modular malware menaces moneymen

LucreLout
Pint

Re: Memory resident?

@Paul Crawford

So how does it survive reboots?

Where I work we have xxx,xxx PCs on the network, plus xx,xxx servers. The chances of all of that being powered down at the same time are nil - barring end of days scenarios.

Anything purely memory resident wouldn't take long to spread back through the datacentre or desktop environment in sync with the rolling reboot or patching.

would making your office work PCs shut down every night be a useful mitigation technique

Its always daytime somewhere in the world, so any large company is likely to be vulnerable to memory resident malware which just "follows the sun" as management types like to think of it.

Beer, because there's always a pub open somewhere in the world.

Samba man 'Tridge' accidentally helps to sink request for Oz voteware source code

LucreLout

Re: Is source code necessary to validate correctness?

@Stuart Longland

Ultimately, you're putting trust in the AEC regardless, even if they do everything by hand.

Yes, I'd agree with that. However, what you're also doing is putting your trust in the quality of AECs developers. With a code release, it becomes easier to validate that the software is fit for purpose and contains no obvious security flaws.

I also wonder what their InfoSec status is, given the affect of altering the code in their main repository, I'd hope there is some sort of independent verification of their process & procedures. That's no slur on AEC, lest they let rip the dogs of law, I'd make a similar assertion regarding all e-voting outfits.

India to add seven new elite IT training institutes

LucreLout
Megaphone

Any chance...

....they could teach some of them how to do the job properly?

I've worked with, and on occasion for, many talented people of Indian origin, none of whom graduated there. In 20 years as a developer, I've yet to work with a single Indian graduate that could be called competent, proactive, or capable [for a graduate].

Every day I deal with people offshore from China to Singapore, Lithuania to America, and the only ones that I know will be unable, unwilling, or unconcerned with regard to doing the job well are those in India.

I realise that will upset some of our offshore friends and some Guardian readers, but it is what it is. All the wishful thinking and pipe dreams in the world aren't going to change that.

Higher quality graduates & staff are available at similar cost in a host of onshore locations such as Scotland or Leeds, so the sooner my employers location strategy catches up with reality the better.

Lest anyones race card be twitching, I have Indian friends, have dated Indian girls, and love a good curry ;-) This is a comment on the quality of their IT staffing, which I'm suggesting is educational, historical, and cultural, as opposed to having a racial basis.