Posts by VanguardG

Re: Can Canada sue?

Nations cannot sue other nations. Still, it does seem quite stupid to conduct immigration/customs checks on someone who doesn't leave the airport.

Many years ago ('93 or '94), I went from New York to Berlin via London (Heathrow). Self-contained terminal, in a security zone - and we were all forced to *leave* the secured zone, and go back through X-ray and baggage scan. Not Customs, at least. Just seemed moronic to take people who go OFF of an aircraft, after being scanned and cleared in a nation even more paranoid than you are yourself, and herd them through - knowing full well the entire time that every single one of those people had a connecting flight to catch. And my belt's metal inlays had set off the metal detectors in the US, but not at Heathrow, thus the unnecessary search was also less thorough, which made it more irksome.

I did make my connection, barely - which of course then pushed back from the gate and sat on the apron wasting fuel for 90 minutes for no apparent reason.

I'll get 3 or 4 such calls in one weekend - then none for a month. A few times I've strung out the call with various means, but most of the time, I've decided the entertainment value just doesn't pay for the time investment. I do plan at some point to be "computer-helpless tech support nightmare" and claim my cup holder doesn't connect to the interweb thingie, and how great they called, they can help me fix it. But I'll have to be pretty bored.

Re: Being on a placement myself...

Mihto, patience and respect is good, but its far from a universal attitude. What you experience has three causes.

1. Other placement workers have come in with attitudes of "I am learning new things, you only know ancient garbage. See how brilliant I am at everything". Only to crash and burn in the real world. That makes people a bit...grumpy.

2. Some older workers feel threatened. People who've been in IT a while know that, from time to time, management decides IT is a "cost center", and that the costs must be cut - usually by slashing the hardware budget, but often by replacing experienced workers who command healthy salaries with new college grads willing to work for considerably less. The people who lose their jobs are understandably bitter, but the ones who survive such a purge are also often angry because they have their workloads increased since they have to try to ensure the work still gets done while riding herd on the new hires. So any new, fresh faced soon-to-be college graduate may be a threat.

3. Some people are just jerks.

Most fall into category 1...you'll win them over with a bit of humility, but with such a short time, you may not have the chance. Those in category 2...well, you can try talking about how you have offers for jobs in other companies (even if you don't) but that can backfire if you *do* want to work specifically at the company wherein you're placed. You really can't do anything about the people in category 3 except avoid us.

Re: Whose frowning time, now?

Its essentially the same mindset as the stock market. Some company makes, for round numbers, 300 million dollars in gross profits, and sees 20 million in net profits therefrom in 2016. So...in 2017, some "analyst" performs whatever arcane rites they use and decrees that company should make gross profits of 400 million, and net profits of 40 million. So the end of 2017 rolls around and the company posts gross profits of 375 million, and net profits of 38 million. So they pulled in 75 million more and had 18 million more in the old pocket - rationally, they had a good year. BUT, the stock will *still* get beaten up on the stock exchange because they didn't reach the goals of the analyst.

Same here...they are selling more stuff but not as much more as someone decided they should have, so its frowns all around.

Rationally, any increase SHOULD be cause for happiness - since keeping the SAME numbers will mean less profit since costs are always rising. And the other alternative, a decrease, isn't the road to contentment either.

I wouldn't call it "greed", as some will and have, but even a CEO answers to a Board of Directors, and the Board is answerable, in a way, to the shareholders. If the stock price goes down because the company didn't make ENOUGH more profit, the shareholders aren't happy. When they aren't happy, the Board isn't happy, and when the Board is unhappy, they make sure the CEO isn't happy either. And unfortunately for us rational types that recognize "an increase in profit is an increase in company value, ergo, my stock, which is a piece of ownership of the company, is worth more", the big institutional investors use computer programs that will dump stocks the instant the program recognizes the analysts' targets won't be met. And those guys own so MUCH of various stocks that when they dump their holdings, it drives the price down. So what's needed is for people to stop taking the analysts projections as hard-and-fast certainty, adjust the computer programs to recognize a company that makes money is doing things right, and not penalize them for it. But, that's only my opinion.

Re: Not so much 'why's it still possible' as 'why was it ever...'

"Fortunately"...the surge in ransomware attacks has given many people a sharp poke to be wary of Word files, particularly, and Excel files to a lesser extent.

Most developers (not *all*) are more savvy than your typical paper-shuffler, and will recognize legit offers will *not* come in an easily-edited form like a Word doc...it will come as a read-only PDF, so you can't bump the offered rate up a few points and then accept the more-agreeable offer.

Macros just seem to me to be a bad idea from the outset...probably looked good on paper ("Your document can go out to the servers, or the Internet, and update the data in various cells so the results displayed are real time, not moment-in-time!"). And when it was dreamed up, the Internet wasn't really the omnipresent thing it is now. Credit to Microsoft for having the sense to disable it by default...but enabling it should be WAY harder than it is...or Microsoft should remove it entirely and make macro support an add-on.

Re: perhaps itself encrypted with a key known only to law enforcement

If the history of spies teaches us anything, its that people will spy for foreign powers for ANY reason, and sometimes just for no real reason besides trying to get something over on the government.

Has anyone stopped to think that maybe these terrorists use these phones and apps specifically to divert attention from other things? "He used Whatsapp! It must've been for terrorist purposes, we need to be able to view everything anyone shares!" Meanwhile, the rest of his terroristic cell, none of whom have used Whatsapp before, are arranging the next attacker to use Facebook right before attacking. The next one will use Snapchat...then LinkedIn. Causing governments to demand more and more erosion of privacy, increasing distrust of government among the governed. That's the real tactic the terrorists are using here - drive a wedge between the people and the government, and the government will have all it can handle with its own people, letting the terrorists have free rein anywhere else they choose to operate.

And the government is dutifully following the script.

Re: I'll give

A short browsing of YouTube reveals a vast range of human drivers in various countries all around the world doing some very dimwitted things behind the wheel of a car. It will take a whole lot of doing for self-driving cars to match the capacity of human drivers to do something dumb. This is only newsworthy, if it is, because the not-at-fault car was being operated by a computer. I would understand if the self-drive car was at fault, but the way these get covered, one of these cars could be parking in a parking lot, idle, some idiot could hit the parked car, and someone would still demand the whole fleet be taken of the road (and, ironically, parked in a parking lot) until its determined the self-drive wasn't at fault.

Re: erase option?

That's the great mystery...with "pay as you go" phones so easily acquired, why would anyone take their own phone with them? That was the weak point, as far as I'm concerned, with their much-hyped need to "break" the phones of people who died in murder sprees..."there might be evidence". Hello...if there was any, that phone was sent to the accomplice, and the criminal took a pay-go phone just to distract the cops, since having NO phone would make them suspicious.

Re: US tax liability

Brenda, I have no idea why the IRS acts the way it does toward you, when you are neither living nor working in the US...but trust me, count yourself lucky that all they make you do is tick a checkbox on a form.

The IRS is virtually ungoverned, in terms of being accountable to anyone. And they know it.

Re: What could possibly go wrong?

10 Bitcoins? You lot have ambitious Ransomware writers. I've seen a few of them in the past 18 months and they've all be settling for about 1.

The writer-standard is, if you can tell your story by taking known technology and extrapolating it to a reasonable degree, you're writing Science Fiction. If you are inventing new ways around the known laws of physics, its fantasy. There is, really, very little real science fiction...and much of what is out there is just an Earth tale being told with the characters on some other non-Earth planet, maybe with weapons using magnetic fields to accelerate projectiles instead of a chemical explosion, and advanced forms of body armor. But...essentially stuff we humans could pick up and understand without any problem should one suddenly appear in the garden.

Re: sea power

Perhaps insufficient depth, and a seafloor not easily dredged...the older class of ship had a draft of 27 feet, while this one is rated at 35 feet. The new carrier also has considerably wider hips, 138 feet in the beam versus 95 for Ark Royal. So she'll need more depth and more clearance to the outboard side.

Lastly, the length of the ship (919 feet versus 787) means much more room is needed to turn...even with the help of tugs, it could be the bigger ships just can't be readily made to line up in the slot to slip in beside the jetty. And the older jetty might, possibly, simply be TOO old and weathered to take having a big ship leaning against it anymore. It'd be a bit embarrassing for the RN to have the carrier break off and take the jetty with it for good measure.

Re: The last trump?

Actually, per the Constitution of the United States, this nation is a Republic - not a Democracy. So is the UK - in fact, there are essentially no Democracies anywhere in the world. In a Democracy, every piece of legislation, every action, and every national stance is decided directly by the people in a direct vote, majority rules, there are no Presidents, no Prime Ministers, no Premiers, no Parliaments, no Congresses. In a Republic (sometimes misleadingly termed a "representative democracy" those issues are voted upon by..an elected legislature. That's the only way small communities, farmers, ranchers, and anyone who does not live in a major urban center ever has any chance to get their concerns and desires heard. Its just a shame that we really only get two idiots to select from each four years...we would be much better off to have a bit more of a choice. Some people become, or remain, President entirely because the opposing party fielded such a pathetic candidate. To this day, I still think Michael Dukakis hired a comedian to run his campaign and just never realized it.

Re: @YAAC

Problem there is...*every* company was, at one time, a startup. Its true that for every company that grows into a megacorp, thousands fail utterly, but its also true that thousands more flourish but stay small, either from preference of the leadership or just because the market for their product is very small. Investors don't need to stop funding startups, but they do need to apply a *lot* more sense in selecting the ones that get funding. Seems like many didn't learn from the .com bust - they're still getting dazzled by a new idea presented with flair and charisma, and aren't asking enough hard questions, like "What obstacles do you see to your company's growth, and how do you plan to overcome them?" Even some of today's ultra-stable, monolithic giants would have been risky startups back when they were first organized.

No, investors need to stop investing in charismatic people, and invest in companies led by people with demonstrable business sense.

Re: " Until the "digital era" we've treated humans differently"

Not quite there yet. Serfs were unable to move to another area if they so chose, could not choose to learn a new job...you farmed. Period. Grow crops for the Lord on the good land over here, and whatever you coax into growing in this lousy, rock-filled mudland over there, you can keep, to eat. Want to get married? Not unless the bride-to-be were the daughter of another serf - if you fell for the girl on the next farm but that farm was under another Lord - no marriage. The Lord owning that next farm wouldn't let Miss Serf leave to go help farm someone else's land.

Most of us can still choose who we marry...we set down roots and live in one area, one city, one neighborhood because of our own choice to feel "connected", not because of being forced to. We stay at jobs making us miserable because job hunting sucks, not because we have to. We have time after our jobs to have hobbies, and for some who have skills, their hobbies might even make them more money. I wish I had skills...but, I can find someone to teach me new skills!

I think a medieval serf would kill every person he knew for the life any of us lead today.

Re: Wouldn't it be cheaper...

Well, one must admit that places like China and Saudi Arabia don't really have objective laws about what behavior constitutes a criminal act worth of death. "Due process" may be limited to ensuring the firing squad's rifles are in working order.

Re: Cost Savings

It actually has absolutely nothing to do with saving any money. Its about control, and efficiency. See, people who telecommute get up at about 7 or so, have a shower, dress, eat some breakfast, and sit down at their desk at 8 with a tall cup of coffee. They are relaxed, comfortable, and occasionally distracted. People who work in an office, get up at 5:30, shower, get dressed, eat, and get in the car with a tall cup of coffee at about 6:45 to get to the office at 8, stressed from traffic, angry, "enjoying" their colleagues who may have skipped their shower, and distracted every 20 minutes by people wandering by their cubicle to chat, random noises, and other factors.

IBM has developed this idea that, somehow, their successes in the 70s and 80s were because of this centralized, stress-drive culture. Employees spent 3-4 hours per day just going between home and work, and then work and home...thereby lengthening their commitment to their work to 12-13 hours per day, five days a week, instead of just 9. The longer hours necessary also made people eat convenient poor-quality foods, usually from the drive-through at the fast-food eateries, laden with fats and cholesterol. Eventually, the combination of stress due to the slow crawl of traffic faced 10 times per week, combined with the poor diet and lack of exercise led to heart disease, and early death for employees.

For the employer, that was a win-win - middle aged employees would die, leaving large amounts of unvested money in the retirement plan, and opened up jobs for younger employees, with no risk of being sued for age discrimination or payment of expensive severance packages.

Its not really about saving money - its about killing the workers more efficiently.

Re: We all need less stress...

A steam piston would rely on dump valves to release the steam into the driver channel, and that would allow a few fractions of a second for the aircraft to begin to roll forward before the full force hits. A linear accelerator would go to full power instantly. Seems to me the solution would be to dual-circuit the thing...have lower power to the first few paces of the launch run, literally getting the ball rolling, then a transfer to the full power run for the actual launch phase. Relative to the ship (ergo, the catapult) the aircraft is at rest, and overcoming that inertia-at-rest creates the stressing element. Or use some outside method to overcome the starting inertia...perhaps auxiliary rails to pull the main gear in addition to the nose gear for the first bit, then they release for the traditional nose-gear-only launch system to do the rest.

As for the maintenance problem, steam catapults took up a lot of room - realistically, it should be possible to place two catapult systems where there used to be one, so there would be four at the waist position, #2 just slightly inboard of #1, and #4 just inboard of #3. Set them up as pairs...1 and 3 are active, 2 and 4 can be worked on. In a big push, alternate pairs, no need to wait for systems to reset or be checked...launch 1, then 3, load aircraft onto 2 and 4,and launch them while 1 and 3 are reset and systems checks run. Could also be a form of future-proofing - 1 and 2 could be joined to launch extra-heavy aircraft. Costly? Yes, but this is an aircraft carrier. Its going to be expensive anyway. If you cheap out today, the Navy will want new toys in 10 years. Give them a little extra now, maybe they'll be happy with these for 11 years. Meanwhile, the Air Force will be demanding shiny new stuff too.

Re: Demonisation

Come, AC...you don't think the "sharp rise" might be because someone simply redefined "hate crime" to encompass more behaviors than it did previously, in order to advance their own agenda?

Re: The time has come .......

Everyone has a right to file...but that neither means a day in court nor winning. Note that the court itself is already moving to dump the case even before it goes to trial, before the defendant can even *ask* that it be quashed. In most areas, any lawsuit that's file *must* be accepted, regardless of who its from or what its about - the clerks of the courts (who often have no legal training since their job is just to arrange and file the paperwork, contact respondents when necessary, and write up summonses and subpoenas for the judge to sign) are not empowered to determine if a case has merit. A judge (magistrate, in a few places) is required to read it and determine its merits. And that happened here.

In Scotland, a policewoman wanted 1 and a half 5 million pounds claiming "post traumatic stress" after being hit by pineapple during a riot in Glasgow, and as a result, she was emotionally scarred for life. She got 3 thousand.

So she actually got a day in court, and got three thousand for being hit by a piece of fruit. This guy didn't even get a day out of jail to attend his lawsuit hearing.

Re: Lawyers lose small change behind the sofa

While its true that your (somewhat contrived) scenario would not result in insider trading, neither is it likely to happen...if there is an M&A agreement, anyone with real knowledge signs non-disclosure agreements that spell out severe financial penalties if the proverbial feline is released from the cloth enclosure prematurely, so nobody with true inside knowledge would endanger their personal money by blathering on about such things in public. Yes, one does see the occasional blip story, but its far more likely to be those "nerds" you speak of actually being right once in a while than a legit instance of "in the know" people blabbing about. The NDA is to protect against the partner telling his wife, who tells her best friend, who calls her brother, who calls his friend, who calls 8 more friends who all buy the stock. At SOME point along that chain, one can argue that insider trading doesn't apply anymore - but which point? So, the NDA prohibits any discussion about the arrangements in any setting where there is anyone present who hasn't signed the NDA.

Re: I say let him walk home NOW

D. B. Cooper did it by going down the rear stairs so he wouldn't be sucked into an engine or slam into the leading edge of the wing. One wonders if that's still possible (okay, since there's still no trace of Cooper, maybe he didn't make it either). Of course, not every airplane has such stairs anymore. And after Cooper, one would hope aircraft designers would alter the design so there is only hydraulic aid for raising them, and lowering is purely gravity-induced, that way they would never be able to lower them against the pressure of the airflow going by.

I recall some year ago, one ISP got itself in real trouble after "trying to fight pornography" by banning use of the word "breast", among many other terms. Breast Cancer discussion/support groups were not amused.

Perhaps it still is, perhaps it isn't, but Microsoft will insist it isn't. And in all truth, can you blame them? If they admit its possible, they'll get subpoenas from national governments, non-government agencies, and demands all the way down to divorce attorneys and private employers who manage to convince a judge to sign the paperwork. Everyone wants to snoop if they get even the smallest advantage from it, and all the better if they can make a third party do the work for them - for free. Meanwhile, if two people are using older clients that don't use the snoopware-enabled "plug in" (or "update") and remains a true peer-to-peer, with no ability for any central point to intercept and copy the data stream for storage/analysis/decoding or other use/abuse, whoever is demanding it will get argumentative about it "You were able to handle this for XYZ, now you claim you can't! Lies! Now give us the data, or else." Who pays Microsoft (in this case) for the time required to comply with the flood of "court orders" they can expect if they admit they can snoop on these conversations?

Re: No - it's binary

Given that US Law Enforcement can already seize any personal property "on suspicion" of it being used in wrongdoing, *and* they have no obligation to provide care for that property, this is scarcely much of a hurdle...and our law enforcement system has already proven perfectly willing to spend $750,000 to gain a conviction that carries a $10,000 penalty.