kropotkinlives's comments

Or textpad. I regularly edit 400Mb files in that no problems at all, running macros and all sorts. Shame it is unicode challenged though :(

Am I the only one that doesn't like anything that Dolby has been near? Sounds 'wrong'.

Exactly that. Only some of the mechanisms need to be destroyed.

It's the arse end of the ranking but the rate of growth is scary and that's what matters.

That is merely human nature.

Humans in quantities more than one aren't trustworthy even if their initial intentions are good. Bad solutions attract bad people eventually. That's what happens in that 6 months...

No I mean nationalise as in transfer from private to state ownership or control.

Most of the UK was nationalised at some point in time but I had a stab at how successful centrally planned economy was in East Germany from the worker's perspective here.

Those two points are 100% factual.

The benefits cap reduction paid for people who are working to have their personal tax-free allowance raised and decreased the reward for not working ergo they are helping working people by providing tax relief as a reward. This just isn't the same "helping working people" soundbite that the vocal minority of media and population are annoyed about however which is where the disparity arises.

They are ramping up surveillance with the intention of combating online terror. But there probably isn't anything much going on, but they're still doing it so they can be seen to be doing it.

Now I don't necessarily agree with the situation, would personally smash the state in a second, nationalise all industry and live as a strong fisted respectable worker under a common flag, singing Auferstanden aus Ruinen in a second but newspeak and doublethink it is not.

I'm playing "with the big boys" i.e. 500 million market cap enterprise financial. I'm not sure why I do this other than it's easy to disappear into the noise occasionally and put my feet up. In fact if we disappeared tomorrow there would be a chorus of "meh".

The space shuttle we have is, to paraphrase [1], made from piss-soaked snowflakes and we are crossing fingers that it isn't all going to melt in our hands overnight.

Sometimes it does dissolve in our hands and at that point, that's when the extensive hordes of ancillary staff roll out to lick butt.

So when you think that you're playing with wooden blocks, you're right, but you're probably doing it a bit better than piling them up randomly for the highest margin to support a massive hierarchy of unnecessary staff. And you're right, it is pretending. But it makes money, and that's all they care about at the end of the day.

Good luck for you still have hope of doing an honest job.

[1] http://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks

Agree.

After 15 years of using smart phones right back to Palm Treo things WP is the only platform that is depressingly boring and entirely uneventful.

And you know what, that's why I use it. It just works.

I've been left in the poop a couple of times by Android and iOS. Even old windows mobile shot me down once or twice.

Powerpoint doesn't kill people. People kill people.

Fair point! I'd forgotten about Netscape 4 and eternal Bus Errors on the SPARCstation 20 I had back then :(

For once, it appears Microsoft are the only browser vendor moving in the right direction and that is scary.

Got a Tassimo here which is a barista in a box I.e. similar.

The killer for me isn't the quality which is 90% as good as my local shop but the lack of hassle - it requires virtually no maintenance or cleaning unlike a grinder/machine setup, no trips down the road, 1/4 of the cost, no fighting for a table, not having to queue up and no horrible paper cup that you have to buy in case there isn't a table.

Its a great concept and selling well here in the UK.

Yeah that was where I started with the idea and then decided to see if I could dope some silicon to make a diode then move up to transistor level, then a simple IC.

You could knock up a point contact diode or even transistor without too much pain but that's not as much fun :)

There's info on how to make point contact devices in here: http://www.qrparci.org/wa0itp/csts_book.pdf

Indeed. I tried to make a transistor with the reverse side of a pile of 74LS IC dies I extracted with solvents, household chemicals and a blow torch. I managed to make an acceptable diode that lasted about 2 minutes at a mere 200uA of current. I gave up then and decided that the transistor was the base abstraction layer I could be bothered with.

For ref diode recipe:

1. 74LS die. Turn it over.

2. Small pile of borax on one half. Small pile of sulphur on other side.

3. Apply torch until everything is baked nicely.

4. Scrape off surface with a razor.

5. Poke two pins connected to your circuit until you find a bit that works like a diode (can take a few minutes). I used a simple home made curve tracer out of a twin-t oscillator, buffer and an oscilloscope. Don't hit it with much current or it'll kill it instantly.

Neither.

Just get a job at GCHQ and proudly do a bad job.

You're right.

However don't expect any sympathy from those of us who do understand and have fought against it where possible any more. The citizens of the UK have hanged themselves over and over again simply due to idiocy, media induced hatred, class war and nationalism.

We deserve this fate.

If you want to make a difference now, it's best to do it from the inside as the political winds cannot be stopped. Sabotage is the only answer.