Posts by CrazyOldCatMan

burn a wasp nest

Why? Wasps have their place in the ecosystem too.. The fact that you don't kile them is no good reason to go all exterminator on them.

(I do realise that there are some places that you do have a good reason to clear them out - like if they are in your loft or cavity wall. But you won't be using a flamethrower to clear them from there unless you are very, very stupid..)

card is revoked, and get a new one

And how do you prove who you are in order to get a new one since your means of proving who you are is no longer present?

Everyone now has their shiny new digital ID..

And what happens if it gets lost/corrupted/damaged/stolen[1]? How do they prove who they are in order to get another one?

You can't secure it with easily-known fixed data (DOB, marriage date, first pet etc) since those are fairly easy to obtain via data searches or social engineering attacks.. And you can't use complex passwords becuase people are notoriously bad at remembering those - so they write them down. Which makes them vulnerable to theft..

It's a very big and complex problem - something politicians and public bodies are notoriously bad at solving. Just look at the fiasco of NPfIT for an example - and that was just covering NHS staff.

[1] The XKCD solution to getting the password springs to mind - one rubber cosh coming up.

Re: Not that difficult...

birth certificates which the law explicitly states that is NOT an identity document

And which isn't guarenteed to be available - especially for someone born abroad.

The problem is (as with most things) that ~80% of cases will be fairly easy and straightforward but that the other 20% of cases will take up as much (or more effort) and require people who know what they are doing to manage.

Which means that the DWP/DVLA/Crapita trifecta of fail can't be involved.

Re: Not that difficult...

they often have a photography on their bank card

Many, many years ago the Nationwide Building Society issued debit cards with your photograph on as a trial to see if it would reduce fraud.

It didn't, and was expensive to do (and the resultant photo on the back of the card was pretty poor quality - or at least mine was[1]) so they dropped it pretty quickly.

One of the major problems that they had was identity verification.

[1] Nearest and Dearest muttered something about GIGO.. I knew I should have expected it from a semi-techie..

Re: Le sigh

Just issue everyone with a photo card 'driving licence'

Not everyone has one of those. And some people (like me) still have the old paper-based licence - why pay to change it and then have to pay every 10 years to renew it? Especially as the process of converting from the old licence certainly isn't foolproof - I know quite a few people that have lost categories from their licences at changeover - including someone who lost the motorbike category - which was a pain since the only form of transport he had was a motorbike..

What you are suggesting is that the DVLA act as a universal identity provider - something that they are neither competent at nor equipped to do.

Re: Man has definitely been to the moon.

Someone dropped a Clanger there

ObPedant Objection - the Clangers live on *a* small hollow moon, not *The* Moon.

Besides which, if they had lived on The moon, they would have at least had some cheese in their soup.

devious lying unscrupulous marketing types

As has been said before - Marketing are the people who hold the customer down while Sales screws them..

beancounters

And politicans who decided that the money that would have been spent on moonbases would be better spent on pork-barrel shenanigans that would (hopefully) ensure their re-election..

Re: So the already exorbitant price of pampers go up...

kiddies isle

Presumably just off the coast of Australia..

(Also known as the Island of Misfit Toys)

Re: Push Notifications?

Gripe water (3.6% alcohol)

Depends on your age (and the type used) - some had much higher levels. See my other post..

Re: Push Notifications?

bit less vodka to his milk

When I were a nipper (late 1960s), we got given gripe water to ease stomach upset. Which (usually - then anyway) contained about 20% ethanol by volume.

So I blame my drinking on my parents - they started it!

Re: BroBo

UK approval body given that we're going to need one of our own?

We (kind of) already have one - NICE authorises drugs and appliances for use in the NHS and, after negotiating with the supplier, specifies the cost of said drugs and appliances.

Which is why some very high-cost drugs that are only useful in a handful of cases don't get authorised for use in the NHS - NICE does cost/benefit analysis on the drugs and, not having an Yggdrasil-like money tree, has to decide where their limited budget gets spent.

NICE doesn't do research or results validation but it could be added onto their existing remit - but since this would increase the cost of the body I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it.

Re: BroBo

rational thinking is not Brobo's forte

Nor fact-checking. As in the latest kipper fiasco.. (No Boris, the EU doesn't require coolbags for smoked fish. However, the UK does (under some circumstances).

And since the original complainant (if he exists) was from the Isle of Man (neither UK nor EU) the point is even less moot.

But it made a good soundbite for the slavering tory faithful.

Re: Just like divorces, there's rarely a good outcome for all.

Tim Tams' - the best biscuit in Oz

Also the nickname of one of my cats.. (her proper name is Tamera[1])

[1] We were on a Celtic naming burst then (and still are) - so her brother is Ruan[3], the next two cats are Tegan[2] and Gwenifer[4] and LatestCat is Anwen..

[2] Pronounced with a short e - not as "Teegan" like some uneducated people do..

[3] "Little red man" - he's an ENORMOUS ginger. Strong in arm and thick in head..

[4] Cornish version of Guinevere.

Re: What goes around comes around....

a good manager doesn't need to know anything about what they're managing

As long as they have good people that do know and that the manager trusts then they really don't. Good management isn't (generally) about knowledge - it's about people skills and process skills.

(Of course, people skills are probably the reason why there are very few good IT people in senior management since good IT skills and abilities seem to be the opposite of skills required to reach senior management..)

Re: "Windows 1 was indeed sorry"

Windows 3.0 (and later) was VERY "fit for purpose"

As long as your purpose was tinkering with your settings to make the damn thing work only to have it freeze and/or crash on a regular basis.

Windows 3 did "co-operative multitasking" rather than pre-emptive so if a programme crashed or froze while running you only option was either to crash out of Windows to DOS (not always possible) or just power-cycle the machine.

Re: Not an entirely fair comparison

Amiga and Atari ST had large portions of their OS's in Rom

And the BBC Micro had 100% of it in ROM. And switchable ROM banks to allow other stuff to live in EPROM or sideways RAM (or in my case, sideways ROM with a switch on the write line because some ROM images tried to corrupt themselves as a precaution against being loaded into sideway RAM. Err.. allegedly).

Both ran comfortably in 512KB

You obviously have a slightly different definition of "comfortably" than I do..

Especially when you add token-ring and netbeui drivers into the mix. And (before Dos 5) you didn't even have the loadhigh command available unless you were using QEMM..

Those people who are nostalgic about Windows 1 & 2 (and 3) didn't have to support it for idiot managers.

Re: Maturity Gap

because we did in fact have one, earlier than others

And the net result was a semi-theocratic semi-monarchy-in-all-but-name that pretty much everybody except those who profited from it hated[1]. And which collapsed as soon as Cromwell died because his son didn't have Ollies brains, charisma or ruthlessness.

[1] The hardline protestants hated it because they didn't kill enough catholics, the catholics hated it because they were being killed, the ordinary people hated it because fun stuff (dancing, strong drink etc etc) got banned and the aristocracy hated it because the people running the country were not the Right Sort.

Re: This is the sort of thing that we should have been talking about

Jamaica?

No - she was happy to do it!

(The old jokes are the oldest..)

Re: This is the same 'think tank'

Eire, Norway and France in welcoming us back to the family of nations first. We have strong historical and modern links

Hmm.. if you include "invading each other" in the list.. (there's a reason why Gaidhlig contains quite a lot of Norse loan words.).

And the Scots friendship with France was based more on having a mutual enemy (Saesneg) than actual friendship.

Re: This is the same 'think tank'

Joining with Gaul and forming a greater Celtic empire

Well - I'm sure that large sections of Brittany and Cornwall would be up for it.. And the Isle of Man could join as well.

And Galicia.

Re: Can someone explain...

Best thing with virus is to let the immune system do it's thing

Until I started taking immuno-suppressors[1] my colds only ever really lasted a day or so and flu lasted less time than average. Since I've been taking them I have to suffer colds and flu normally.

But at least my immune system is (mostly) no longer trying to eat the synovial membranes.

Re: Can someone explain...

like reboiling the water in a kettle is bad for you

The standard advice for making (proper[1]) tea is that "the water should be freshly boiled (and not boiling) and you mustn't use re-boiled water".

I never understood the last bit - what is lost in the boiling process apart from some water vapour?

[1] Made from tea leaves, not 'floor sweepings in a plastic bag" masquerading as tea.

Re: "hysterical shit about Prince Harry "dressing as a Nazi","

Hitler had invaded Britain the best a number of my family could have hoped for was yellow stars

Mine would have got a swift bullet to the back of the head - being a conscientious objector[1] (as well as being a non-conforming member of a protestent body) was not an approved lifestyle.

[1] Most of my grandfathers family did prison time for refusing to fight. And it wasn't a pleasant time. My uncle ended up down a coal mine (and getting the Black Lung that eventually killed him) as the result of refusing to fight.

Re: "because he knew a lot of Germans would like to dispose of him."

Most German truly believed in Hitler and Nazism

I presume that you have cites to back this.

You don't build such a dictatorship and launch a world war without deep support from your country

The current state of the US argues against this.