On a trip from Delhi to Agra in 2010, I saw so much scary driving. Entire families on the backs of motorbikes. A tractor popping wheelies cos the tow bar was grossly overloaded. Bus passengers jumping on and off the buses in the middle of the road, in traffic going 10-20mph. Another bus driving straight at us when we were on the inside lane of a dual carriageway.
Every car journey in India was like a roller-coaster squared worth of white knuckles.
My mistake - GP is right. Just as long as he never, ever accidentally clicks on the Listen Live button he'll be fine. But if he does it, even once, then a ravening horde of TV Licencing inspectors will descend on his demise and commit inventive mayhem on him and his housemates. And he'll be liable for the licence fee.
The TV licensing chaps often like to think of themselves as some sort of police force, and will often try to threaten or cajole people in either of the above two categories into buying a license anyway, but they don't have a legal leg to stand on. They can't demand you buy a license or enter your home without permission or a warrant. IME, warrants are very rarely issued to the TV licensing chaps because the judges know they like to throw their weight around and bully people.
I don't know where you're hearing that from. I've gone round with a TV Licencing officer on his rounds through Watford and I've witnessed first-hand how they operate. He never entered a home without permission, he just asked politely and all but one person said yes (the one that said no actually threatened to punch our teeth out - pity we could see the TV tuned to BBC2 from the doorstep...) As far as I'm aware, about 50% of the visits resulted in no follow-up action due to compassionate reasons. The only ones that were referred for further action were people who could pay, but thought they should be allowed to get away with it.
I love the BBC, especially all the various documentaries and the occasional drama. But no-one else in our house watches live TV either and didn't see the point in paying the money, so to get all those BBC4 documentaries I like so much, I scour iPlayer to watch them after they've been broadcast and buy the DVD if and when they become available.
As for Joe Human, his reaction time is at about 20ms. Hence @5% improvement would be theoretically "noticeable" in a 2 seconds page load. But unnoticeable if Joe Human would have to observe it relative to 2 seconds total. Likely even with a stop watch Joe H. would be in "error area". And 100ms would be an improvement on a 20s load which would challenge patience of any Joe H.
Reaction time is how long it takes you to process a stimulus and initiate a physical action in response - it's not how long it takes you to notice something. Joe Human's sitting there wondering wondering why he's letting this site steal the precious moments of his life away from him loading ads for stuff he doesn't care about. He might not have time to hit the Cancel control before the page finishes loading but he knows his time's been wasted.
I loved how Notes couldn't handle daylight savings (especially when a meeting request came from Outlook). Try explaining to your manager that you missed a meeting because the reminder was automagically set an hour late. God-awful POS.
Only the Crown can assert absolute ownership of the land in England (and the seabed of territorial waters). "Landowners" in England only own estates (the estate in fee simple and the estate in land) and have tenure on the land.
Of course, it'd really kick off if Liz Windsor sent her army round to clear the peasants off her nice patch of dirt (she is Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces after all). Something tells me she can't be bothered with the hassle.
Seconded. I loved how well-realised it all was. Favourite thing was the progress bar for interplanetary video chat to let you know when you could expect a response.
Then make some movies of your own and release them to the world DRM-free. That's the FOSS way. RMS couldn't find an OS he could trust so he started working on his own. Linus came along and tied it all together and now we've got Linux. The point is they didn't just bitch about things they didn't like on message boards, they solved a problem they were having and made the world a better and wealthier place for it.
The content that's getting DRM protection - that's other people's stuff. What they do with their stuff is their business. There's nothing wrong with them asking for web standards (that no-one's forcing you to use) to implement their protection. It's also their problem if they implement a DRM solution that prevents them from selling content to you. That's sales they'll never make and an audience they'll never reach.
I think DRM is self-defeating - content companies will prevent more sales than they'll gain - but there's a world of content out there that's never been protected by DRM. You could spend your whole life being entertained and enthralled by it and never once wonder what the fuck is going on on Game of Thrones or Piranha 4DDD. Or maybe you could add to that trove of free wealth for humanity. You know, contribute on your terms. Just sayin'...
Yep, gotta agree with parent - £22/month for 78Mb/s (measured) from BT and fully ready for IPv6. I got sick of Be Un Limited after the third time they sent me a questionnaire on fibre.
Me: I'd love fibre. FTTC or FTTP, whatever! When are you planning to roll it out?
Be: Mwahaha! I can't believe you fell for that. But we'll keep stringing you along so you keep paying us our subs...
Looking forward to hearing of Be's demise. There's very little I despise more in IT than a company that's all mouth and no trousers.
Drug dealers are the resistance in The War on Drugs.
Actually, drug dealers are the ones hoping that the war on drugs continues, or they'll be out of work.
Nah, they'd just open a cafe or a dispensary (or just work from home) and convert their illicit customers to licit ones. The guys higher up the supply chain on the other hand...
One day I hope to see drug laws across the 1st World that aren't designed to please some tut-tutting old baggage whose sole remaining vice is raining on other folks' parades.
I think the fun is in programming it rather than playing it now. It's a great way to familiarise yourself with a new language or to test out a novel display. It's a small enough project that a decent programmer can knock out their own version over a few days - maybe quicker - and you've got something that just about everyone recognises and can appreciate. The specs for the basic game are online and easy enough to understand.
Once you've got past "Hello, world" and figured out the basics of a new language's flow control, data types and structures, it's a good next step.
Reading the report, all parties consulted were either child protection special interest groups or the ISPs (whose arguments could be dismissed as just them trying to save money). No-one from any civil liberties groups were asked to testify. This is the archetype of the Nanny State infantilising its electorate. And would (as pointed out upthread) require people to sign into their ISP and enable personalised tracking of web browsing.
To upgrade the firmware enabling a Just Scan mode that the (lazy / incompetent / brain-damaged - take your pick) engineers at Samsung neglected to include in the default set of aspect ratios. It beggared belief that an aspect ratio that just displays the picture without adjustment wasn't included in the first place. Especially considering the damn thing has a VGA port and it was obviously meant to support input from a PC. A massive pain in the arse it was too - it needed a custom serial cable I had to put together myself from iffy specs I found online, with the (actually official) firmware update from another hobbyist site as Samsung didn't host it. Then there was the 30s or so sweating bullets as I thought I'd bricked my telly before the new firmware started running. I don't recommend it.
Hmm - never meant to post that as AC. I wondered why I was asked for a CAPTCHA...
Ha! Joke's on you! Colonial traitors aren't a recognised ethnicity in the UK. I can abuse you all I want. In fact, I'm thinking of applying for a government grant. And I bet I can get some cash off Liz too - she's probably still pissed about the whole independence thing.
Not really. The Astra fleet at 28.2 deg E also relays the Freesat channels. No dish realignment needed, just a new decoder (cheap ones start at £13). They'd lose Sky channels and all that but that's just the Simpsons, Cops and a load of other Fox crap. Dunno how losing that rubbish from your life counts as losing out.
Plus, it's not like Sky customers in the UK are unaware of Murdoch's machinations - they just don't care. If they close down his businesses here, the subscribers have gained a salutary lesson in choosing the businesses they support.
Not that I'm saying he's a good liar. Or is he a bad truth-teller? I'm confused now - which is the more litigious or offensive? Anyway, it's a heck of a coincidence. So don't buy a Windows phone if you want to fuck about with it. Or buy one because it's a challenge. Choices, choices...
I wasn't making an assumption regarding his competence, I inferred he's less than technically competent given the two facts stated - he's already had a nastygram and he's still doing nothing to mask his activity. As to the ports, AC below has the right idea - just block all outbound connections but web and SSL from his MAC address. Heck, block every site but iTunes to this dick.
Technical: Block the standard ports for bittorrent at your router and tell him it's your ISP doing it. Change the password to the router and say the ISP did that remotely because of new T&Cs too. If he's such a low-watt bulb that he doesn't know to download and use PeerBlock or Blocklist Manager, it'd be a stretch to think he'd be able to unravel that cunningly crafted web of deceit.
Manly: Cut him loose. He couldn't give two shits about how his behaviour affects you. You could be a pussy about it and hope you find a conveniently non-confrontational legal loophole so you never have to take any form of stand against his irresponsibility. Or you could relocate your balls and tell him to take a hike because you're not going to be liable for his douchebaggery.
My MacBook Pro is over 4 years old now and it still keeps up with the kids (even without an SSD). It was top-of-the-line when I bought it, but it has weathered well and I don't see any point in replacing it any time soon. The way I see it, I'd rather pay for a Rolls Royce and have it for 20 years than buy a Ford Fiesta and replace it in 18 months. GP's mac book is the Ford Fiesta.
In the case of banking info, I'd assume it was the bank that issued the SecurID token to be RSA's customer. So all those tokens will be getting replaced. At least that's how it works in the UK. If a bank told me to I had to pay for their mandated authentication hardware, I'd tell them to get stuffed.
Looks like that move to HSBC is off for the moment. Their internet banking was crappy anyway.
You're trying to make it sound like sarcasm but you're spot on. If the ROI's too low because of legal barriers to entry, then why bother? Especially when there's a richer market a 7-hour flight away. Localisation and translation (because all those pesky Euros will insist on not speaking English) are small burdens to take on if it means that your innovative new application doesn't have a 99% chance of being a millstone round your neck instead of your ticket to Ferraris and EUR2000/night hookers. Offshoring doesn't just mean to India and China, you know.
Slashdot Mirror
On a trip from Delhi to Agra in 2010, I saw so much scary driving. Entire families on the backs of motorbikes. A tractor popping wheelies cos the tow bar was grossly overloaded. Bus passengers jumping on and off the buses in the middle of the road, in traffic going 10-20mph. Another bus driving straight at us when we were on the inside lane of a dual carriageway.
Every car journey in India was like a roller-coaster squared worth of white knuckles.
My mistake - GP is right. Just as long as he never, ever accidentally clicks on the Listen Live button he'll be fine. But if he does it, even once, then a ravening horde of TV Licencing inspectors will descend on his demise and commit inventive mayhem on him and his housemates. And he'll be liable for the licence fee.
The TV licensing chaps often like to think of themselves as some sort of police force, and will often try to threaten or cajole people in either of the above two categories into buying a license anyway, but they don't have a legal leg to stand on. They can't demand you buy a license or enter your home without permission or a warrant. IME, warrants are very rarely issued to the TV licensing chaps because the judges know they like to throw their weight around and bully people.
I don't know where you're hearing that from. I've gone round with a TV Licencing officer on his rounds through Watford and I've witnessed first-hand how they operate. He never entered a home without permission, he just asked politely and all but one person said yes (the one that said no actually threatened to punch our teeth out - pity we could see the TV tuned to BBC2 from the doorstep...) As far as I'm aware, about 50% of the visits resulted in no follow-up action due to compassionate reasons. The only ones that were referred for further action were people who could pay, but thought they should be allowed to get away with it.
I love the BBC, especially all the various documentaries and the occasional drama. But no-one else in our house watches live TV either and didn't see the point in paying the money, so to get all those BBC4 documentaries I like so much, I scour iPlayer to watch them after they've been broadcast and buy the DVD if and when they become available.
i.e. people like you.
As for Joe Human, his reaction time is at about 20ms. Hence @5% improvement would be theoretically "noticeable" in a 2 seconds page load. But unnoticeable if Joe Human would have to observe it relative to 2 seconds total. Likely even with a stop watch Joe H. would be in "error area". And 100ms would be an improvement on a 20s load which would challenge patience of any Joe H.
Reaction time is how long it takes you to process a stimulus and initiate a physical action in response - it's not how long it takes you to notice something. Joe Human's sitting there wondering wondering why he's letting this site steal the precious moments of his life away from him loading ads for stuff he doesn't care about. He might not have time to hit the Cancel control before the page finishes loading but he knows his time's been wasted.
I loved how Notes couldn't handle daylight savings (especially when a meeting request came from Outlook). Try explaining to your manager that you missed a meeting because the reminder was automagically set an hour late. God-awful POS.
Only the Crown can assert absolute ownership of the land in England (and the seabed of territorial waters). "Landowners" in England only own estates (the estate in fee simple and the estate in land) and have tenure on the land.
Of course, it'd really kick off if Liz Windsor sent her army round to clear the peasants off her nice patch of dirt (she is Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces after all). Something tells me she can't be bothered with the hassle.
Seconded. I loved how well-realised it all was. Favourite thing was the progress bar for interplanetary video chat to let you know when you could expect a response.
Then make some movies of your own and release them to the world DRM-free. That's the FOSS way. RMS couldn't find an OS he could trust so he started working on his own. Linus came along and tied it all together and now we've got Linux. The point is they didn't just bitch about things they didn't like on message boards, they solved a problem they were having and made the world a better and wealthier place for it.
The content that's getting DRM protection - that's other people's stuff. What they do with their stuff is their business. There's nothing wrong with them asking for web standards (that no-one's forcing you to use) to implement their protection. It's also their problem if they implement a DRM solution that prevents them from selling content to you. That's sales they'll never make and an audience they'll never reach.
I think DRM is self-defeating - content companies will prevent more sales than they'll gain - but there's a world of content out there that's never been protected by DRM. You could spend your whole life being entertained and enthralled by it and never once wonder what the fuck is going on on Game of Thrones or Piranha 4DDD. Or maybe you could add to that trove of free wealth for humanity. You know, contribute on your terms. Just sayin'...
Yep, gotta agree with parent - £22/month for 78Mb/s (measured) from BT and fully ready for IPv6. I got sick of Be Un Limited after the third time they sent me a questionnaire on fibre.
Me: I'd love fibre. FTTC or FTTP, whatever! When are you planning to roll it out?
Be: Mwahaha! I can't believe you fell for that. But we'll keep stringing you along so you keep paying us our subs...
Looking forward to hearing of Be's demise. There's very little I despise more in IT than a company that's all mouth and no trousers.
And, if it stops anyone else trying to peddle this futile concept, then maybe the USPTO really are doing society a service. For once.
Drug dealers are the resistance in The War on Drugs.
Actually, drug dealers are the ones hoping that the war on drugs continues, or they'll be out of work.
Nah, they'd just open a cafe or a dispensary (or just work from home) and convert their illicit customers to licit ones. The guys higher up the supply chain on the other hand...
One day I hope to see drug laws across the 1st World that aren't designed to please some tut-tutting old baggage whose sole remaining vice is raining on other folks' parades.
I think the fun is in programming it rather than playing it now. It's a great way to familiarise yourself with a new language or to test out a novel display. It's a small enough project that a decent programmer can knock out their own version over a few days - maybe quicker - and you've got something that just about everyone recognises and can appreciate. The specs for the basic game are online and easy enough to understand.
Once you've got past "Hello, world" and figured out the basics of a new language's flow control, data types and structures, it's a good next step.
Reading the report, all parties consulted were either child protection special interest groups or the ISPs (whose arguments could be dismissed as just them trying to save money). No-one from any civil liberties groups were asked to testify. This is the archetype of the Nanny State infantilising its electorate. And would (as pointed out upthread) require people to sign into their ISP and enable personalised tracking of web browsing.
Fuck that.
To upgrade the firmware enabling a Just Scan mode that the (lazy / incompetent / brain-damaged - take your pick) engineers at Samsung neglected to include in the default set of aspect ratios. It beggared belief that an aspect ratio that just displays the picture without adjustment wasn't included in the first place. Especially considering the damn thing has a VGA port and it was obviously meant to support input from a PC. A massive pain in the arse it was too - it needed a custom serial cable I had to put together myself from iffy specs I found online, with the (actually official) firmware update from another hobbyist site as Samsung didn't host it. Then there was the 30s or so sweating bullets as I thought I'd bricked my telly before the new firmware started running. I don't recommend it.
Hmm - never meant to post that as AC. I wondered why I was asked for a CAPTCHA...
Here's an uncensored video of his tweets. He is a really unpleasant person and he broke the law, so he's going to prison. Yay - the system works!
And, even in the US, free speech is not unlimited.
Ha! Joke's on you! Colonial traitors aren't a recognised ethnicity in the UK. I can abuse you all I want. In fact, I'm thinking of applying for a government grant. And I bet I can get some cash off Liz too - she's probably still pissed about the whole independence thing.
No - fuck you, colonial traitors!
Not really. The Astra fleet at 28.2 deg E also relays the Freesat channels. No dish realignment needed, just a new decoder (cheap ones start at £13). They'd lose Sky channels and all that but that's just the Simpsons, Cops and a load of other Fox crap. Dunno how losing that rubbish from your life counts as losing out. Plus, it's not like Sky customers in the UK are unaware of Murdoch's machinations - they just don't care. If they close down his businesses here, the subscribers have gained a salutary lesson in choosing the businesses they support.
Is MS to stingy to pay for good liars?
Apparently not: David Sell, Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft.
Not that I'm saying he's a good liar. Or is he a bad truth-teller? I'm confused now - which is the more litigious or offensive? Anyway, it's a heck of a coincidence. So don't buy a Windows phone if you want to fuck about with it. Or buy one because it's a challenge. Choices, choices...
Mariolatory (a portmanteau of Mariology and idolatry) is usual accusation.
I wasn't making an assumption regarding his competence, I inferred he's less than technically competent given the two facts stated - he's already had a nastygram and he's still doing nothing to mask his activity. As to the ports, AC below has the right idea - just block all outbound connections but web and SSL from his MAC address. Heck, block every site but iTunes to this dick.
Technical: Block the standard ports for bittorrent at your router and tell him it's your ISP doing it. Change the password to the router and say the ISP did that remotely because of new T&Cs too. If he's such a low-watt bulb that he doesn't know to download and use PeerBlock or Blocklist Manager, it'd be a stretch to think he'd be able to unravel that cunningly crafted web of deceit.
Manly: Cut him loose. He couldn't give two shits about how his behaviour affects you. You could be a pussy about it and hope you find a conveniently non-confrontational legal loophole so you never have to take any form of stand against his irresponsibility. Or you could relocate your balls and tell him to take a hike because you're not going to be liable for his douchebaggery.
Your choice.
My MacBook Pro is over 4 years old now and it still keeps up with the kids (even without an SSD). It was top-of-the-line when I bought it, but it has weathered well and I don't see any point in replacing it any time soon. The way I see it, I'd rather pay for a Rolls Royce and have it for 20 years than buy a Ford Fiesta and replace it in 18 months. GP's mac book is the Ford Fiesta.
In the case of banking info, I'd assume it was the bank that issued the SecurID token to be RSA's customer. So all those tokens will be getting replaced. At least that's how it works in the UK. If a bank told me to I had to pay for their mandated authentication hardware, I'd tell them to get stuffed.
Looks like that move to HSBC is off for the moment. Their internet banking was crappy anyway.
You're trying to make it sound like sarcasm but you're spot on. If the ROI's too low because of legal barriers to entry, then why bother? Especially when there's a richer market a 7-hour flight away. Localisation and translation (because all those pesky Euros will insist on not speaking English) are small burdens to take on if it means that your innovative new application doesn't have a 99% chance of being a millstone round your neck instead of your ticket to Ferraris and EUR2000/night hookers. Offshoring doesn't just mean to India and China, you know.