Posts by John H Woods

Re: Golf Course in UK and Ireland

My non-China cases graph approximately fits an exponential with a time constant of 0.2/days meaning a doubling time of 3-4 days. I suspect UK results will start to lag significantly behind this curve now because it is almost impossible to get tested. I reckon we are within a fortnight of the Italian situation.

Re: Just an FYI

Again, I would say that the WHO have experts in pandemic stats, from the same pool as those on the radio. Of course the "real" mortality rate (there isn't such a thing, really, it's not a property solely of the virus) could be under 1%. But it is still not the case that it could be 'a great deal' lower. If the best guess of the experts is 1-3%, a figure from the WHO largely agreed by the experts on More or Less and elsewhere, commentards need to provide better than "There are a a large number of unconfirmed yet real cases out there" to prove that "will lower that headline figure a great deal."

That was my only criticism of Julz post, and I'm not convinced that it doesn't still stand.

PS: I consider 'a great deal' in this case to be at least half an order of magnitude, if not a whole one.

comfortable win ...

Both comfortable and uncomfortable ... 24 is not really a narrow win, but with a majority of 80, it's not that comfortable.

Personally, I'm conflicted ... I think the "Never Huawei" group are wrong but I'm encouraged that quite a number don't seem to see their role as rubber stamping government policy. But I'm still concerned that some "rebels" are acting due to other interests rather than rational analysis.

Re: How do they know it's real?

I agree with both of you: yes it's well beyond the capabilities of most people, but so is forging banknotes and, perhaps more comparably, artwork.

At $fivefigures and above, I'm pretty sure some clever person could knock up a convincing fake, even if they just made it functional by combining different working parts from several non-functional units.

Re: Easier?

"Maybe it would be easier to just list the carriers that haven't had personal information hacked."

As a public service I can provide that list:

You're welcome

Re: Why can't we have brilliant people without toxic personalities??

Agreed ...

I've been privileged to meet some super intelligent and talented people and most of them were in the "OMG I'd love to hate them but they're too nice" category: people who are more modest about themselves and their accomplishments than I am about having met them.

There were a very small number of highly intelligent gits - maybe they succeed more outside academia and business: in both of these I suspect an inability to meet even minimal standards of interpersonal cooperation is usually a bit of a bar to progress.

Re: More of a question than comment ..

Ken Hagen already answered that question ^^

Re: Why, just why?

Jake - the point of being careful about Covid19 is to avoid being partly responsible for the deaths of other, more vulnerable people. You may be as strong as an ox, and have no worry about catching it. I don't worry that much either. I worry about spreading it.

Technical note: it isn't the flu. And you really don't know enough biology to be spouitng an opinion on it.

Re: Ah, yes, US software ...

... and hardcoded binary gender instead of the 4-valued standard ISO 5218 which has been around for nearly half a century.

Re: De minimis

I think it's a dig at the FCA: Lawyers rule is de minimus non curat lex (the law does not concern itself with trifles) but I think they're implying ... "FCA, in alia manu ..."

Elderberries and Hamsters - off topic

I might be the last person to find this out, but my son, a Middle Ages buff, tells me this is a literal translation of a real insult: your mother is a whore (hamsters apparently being though highly sexually active) and your father is a drunk (most contemporary wine being made from elderberries).

Re: Verbal signals?

See also Tears of a Crime

It's amazing how obvious the little tells are once the experts point them out...

Re: Gwyneth would rather you had a whiff of this...

Seriously don't know whether to upvote you or downvote you for bringing that to my attention

Re: "as your mum once told me"

Buy a separate numberpad and put it where you like

Re: " I don’t believe any “Geniuses” are contractors."

I may be channelling BBT's Sheldon, but I'm not sure any “Geniuses” are geniuses, either.

Re: I'm sure they can afford support

My expericence is that Five Guys, not unlike a lot of Bistro pubs, suffer from what I like to call "Nandos Syndrome": perfectly acceptable food in perfectly acceptable places being sold at a price point 2-3x greater than jusifiable. As contrasted with LEON, for expample, which is, in my limited experience, a little bit pricier than many fast food places, but quite a lot better.

Food at £10/head just has to be good and fresh. Once you get over £20 and start to approach £30 per cover you need to be really special: not just the food, but the presentation, the location, the ambience and the service.

NB: I'm outside London.

Tamper resistant logging...

... is easy... even a line printer in a physically secured room can do it. You'd need secured logs for anything of financial importance, it would seem to be even more necessary in an environment like this.

Re: Selective attention

My wife just said "OMG you never listen to me" which seems a very odd way to start a conversation

Re: Cut and paste ya bam

Browser "dev mode" is usually your friend here but, you're right, it shouldn't be necessary.

" stop people flying the Union Flag upside down."

Could I suggest sticking a Welsh Dragon on it? Even a numpty can tell whether that's upside-down or not!

Re: Performance? Art?

OTOH, I always use SatNav for every single journey... It has saved me many hours of delays.

re: "hundreds of users ..."

Of which an even smaller number aren't seriously breaking the rules

Re: It is all trade war.

"If you can manage to intercept (for example) a DH key exchange it is possible to work out the entire conversation"

Errm, how is it? The whole point of a DH key exchange is secure exchange of the keys on a public channel.

And your great, great, great grandaughter ...

... is pretty fine

-- always has me wondering what 'pretty fine' would be for an octocentarian

Re: Wash your hands

Use the app, then it's just your own shit on the screen

Little obligation

The only person I know who is scrupulous about paying me for help is a somewhat impoverished ex-con. People with cars that cost more than my house, however, think a cup of tea will probably do.

Re: re: all that lovely lock-in

Not just streaming... Even gas boiler sellers would rather sign you up to a monthly payment than let you purchase one-off. Hell, even charity muggers increasingly don't accept cash and ask you to sign up for Direct Debits.

Re: 'Facts' are historically situated

I don't think it's a corollary, it's more like a quantitative version of affirming the consequent:

90% True: If a car is a Corvette, it is owned by a male who is 35-55

therefore (invalid)

90% True: If a male is 35-55, he owns a Corvette.

Re:"updated its hours"

We had the opposite problem: despite being tenants of the pub and the opening hours being up to us and nobody else, Google would never accept our declared hours as authoritative!

Re: Truly hope this is not just a marketing ploy

The problem is not that I don't understand basic chemistry but that you don't understand that your understanding of chemistry is basic.

The only left and right that's relevant here is the the abscissa. This is a scientific issue, not a political one, and it's a simple fact that CO2 has been increasing steadily, it's not "two peaks of a 70 year cycle" you numpty.

Re: I just want a good rPi laptop

If you don't want to do hardware stuff, why not run Raspbian x86 on a cheap Intel laptop?

Re: Autonomy was always a strange proposition

I found one of their powerpoints once on an old system and "read" it with a strange fascination --- it was like the Voynich Manuscript: looks like it should make sense to someone but eventually you have to consider the possibility that it's all just a big joke.