Posts by Androgynous Cupboard

Re: Toys from pram moment?

Clown Sterling? Is that what they're calling our currency these days?

Hello, Leo from HP here. WeWork sounds like a great addition to our portfolio and we'd like to offer $11bn - I think that's the market valuation? We're sorting a due-diligence report now but it's a formality and we don't plan to read it.

Re: "Parents looking to induct their children into this brave new world of communication"

You are perhaps unaware that "Brave New World" is also a dystopian novel, written some 30 years before 1984? Both are very good. In fact I still sometimes say "Roof! Oh, Roof!" in an ecstatic voice when I get in a lift.

Re: Truth in advertising

Or a Russian or Korean in military uniform?

Tsk, tsk, failing to keep up with modern British usage, as used by Our illustrious leadership, the engorged organs of government and the willing mouthpieces that are the Mail, Telegraph et al.

He's white and from a first world country, so the proper term is "visitor", "tourist" or, was he planning on staying, "expat". The term "immigrant" is reserved for black people, asians or eastern-europeans.

Ingsoc expects your correction.

Re: RASPBERRY PI - COMPROMISES SINCE VERSION 1

I'm not entirely clear if you're complaining because it's too cheap or too overpowered, but I'm certain that the Pi foundation will be glad for your advice to try out a few prototypes first. I certainly hadn't thought of that, and I doubt anyone else has either.

Re: Non sequitur

I thought it was meant to double your staff cost while giving the programmers themselves a sore neck?

Re: changing languages isn't going to fix this.

I'm trying to work out who would downvote such an obviously correct comment. C programmers offended that it's easy to write memory overflow bugs? Rust programmers offended you feel it's still possible to create exploits in Rust? Perhaps Exploit writers trying to throw people off the scent?

Re: Why isn't it used (more) on Earth yet?

You're not wrong. I purchased it from https://www.acoustiblok.co.uk

Re: It's in its infancy, but it will improve

5 bulletpoints, 4 clearly wrong and one (phone tracking) subjective. Repetition, overuse of capitals and, inevitably and somewhat ironically, anonymous. I considered troll but on reflection I am leaning towards idiot

Re: fuchsia

No, that would be their other project you're thinking of. Google Dildo.

Re: Still a PoE hat?

Jeez. They bring you the moon, you ask for the sun.

Re: BASIC as a scripting language

My first commercial IT job was maintaining a C program that had been converted automatically from BASIC. 3000+ line functions called "sub_2560", littered with gotos, no local variables.

If anyone ever releases a /usr/bin/basic, I will find them. No matter how long it takes. It would be like finding the guy that built Skynet.

How much do you think Boeing will be prepared to pay Microsoft to ensure that MCAS does not, in fact, "shove you into the ground"?

Re: Anyway....

You found the question mark key at last. Very well done.

Re: Nobody mourns iTunes?

I dislike it, but I'm used to it. Unfortunately it didn't have to be this way, if Apple had stuck with their own user interface design guidelines. As it is, I have buttons and drop-downs where I should have tabs, left right arrows with no related context so I don't know what they do, icons that change every few releases, and of course the endless shoehorning in of tv/podcasts/apps/account managements, none of which are related to, you know, tunes.

I note that Music app on the iPhone has gone the same way - selecting an Airtunes speaker used to be pretty trivial, now it's play, then swipe, search, press (not too hard, not too soft, just the right amount), wait, hope, with most of these steps giving no visual cues.

I do like their stuff, but in terms of UI they've been steadily disappearing up their own arse since Snow Leopard. A tragic waste.

Re: Security concerns?

Of course there are no pictures. They're camouflaged. Fortunately there are some people in the government with five eyes, which is how they saw them. No one knows how the chips sent the data from the motherboard to China, but of course the Chinese would be keen to keep that process secret, so you can be certain that it's happening - because if it wasn't, you would have seen it.

Surely it emanates from liberty cabbage?

Tarsnap

tarsnap.com

If you're on a UNIX box and not sold within 2 minutes I'll eat my hat.

Re: How would I know if I've been compromised?

I think Rob's just being paranoid. He's been at his desk since 0811 with his phone right next to him and only turned his back for 83 seconds to chat with Ken. About 0823 I think.

> I'll say no more on the matter.

Well that gives us something to look forward to.

Re: Change for the Red Dot

I was irritated that if I wanted to run OSX, I had to do so on a Mac. If I didn't, I would prefer to do so on something other than a Macbook as they're a pain to repair or upgrade. Although they do have nice trackpads, as it turns out. Does that make more sense?

Re: Avoidance vs Evasion

The concept of "command and control" of a company is already a well known concept in the tax system, in particular relating to jurisdiction for tax. Just making a new company with new directors doesn't necessarily make it independent.

HMRC believe they can determine the independence of a 1-man company via IR35, one wonders why they didn't have a crack at the larger fish at the same time.

The point is none of these are insurmountable challenges for a suitably motivated HMRC suitably enabled by a similarly motivated and capable government. I suspect we have the former. I very much doubt we have the latter.

Re: Not much sympathy

I suspect the downvote was for saying you'd like to hear Assange's side of the story. Otherwise I entirely agree - on balance, it's much more likely that Assange (and Trump) are simply stupid and greedy than they are Russian agents.

Great article on this very topic here: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/10/the-invisible-power-of-big-glasses-eyewear-industry-essilor-luxottica

Re: 5 years ...

Yep, 5 years for trespass. She should have quickly put on a police uniform and killed a black man, they would have let her go.

Re: Contractors

I''m sure many of them are. Dutifully paying their tax under IR35, and charging the corresponding 25% premium.

Re: Where is Europe in this ?.

What an entirely accurate username you have, well done.

Re: Bread and riot shields...

Give it a few months and Scotland might be abroad. Particularly now we know they've got swans they're going to be inundated with hungry immigrants (DM link for irony)

Re: Panic

> Visitors still go the USA even with the thousands dead from guns each year.

Some may. I don't.

Re: Why stop there

A few years ago I was in a motorbike crash - enough to snap my bike into two pieces, but I walked away with a broken shoulder. My own insurers pushed me down the path of filing personal injury claims and when I said I didn't want to play that grubby game, they threatened to sue me for costs they'd incurred while working on the claim.

I ended up following the path of least resistance and going along with it as they had chronically undervalued my bike, but there was a very sour taste in my mouth from the whole experience.

Re: Case not proven

Apparently several others would have called but realised they'd done it already.

Re: Are any of them any good?

Vote for Andrews & Arnold here. Had heard about them for years as being "The Geeks ISP" and thought I'd give them a try.

On the few occasions I've had to flick them a support email or call I've rapidly got back a terse response with exactly the information I need - and without the two pages of "thank you for getting in contact" boilerplate, which is surprisingly refreshing. Moved house with them (to same exchange), regraded line, got a block of static IPs, all stuff that would have filled me with dread with a normal ISP and all went off without a hitch.

You've got to give the Tories a point for spinning this as well as they did. When they gave ground to the Lib Dems it was them showing their softer side. When it went the other way, it was the Lib Dems breaking their promises.

Considering they weren't actually in charge (you may remember they didn't actually win the election), the Lib Dems sure took most of the blame for the results.

Funny. I spent the last 30 years getting some work done instead.

Re: Not Just a Store

I always thought this was were Maplin should have gone instead of folding - if they'd hired a few CS students, did demos of some of their kits (and updated them to use modern technology, like transistors) they could have turned themselves into a sort of maker-space lite.

Then I read this and realised they had already been dead for several years.