djr

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• Commented on Social architecture and the house of tomorrow
  Regarding "love swipe keyboards / hate autocorrect", aren't swipe keyboards and autocorrect doing exactly the same thing?...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  "Assume that everyone who was alive within a human lifetime + a bit extra for safety is covered" is a reasonable approach to take if you don't need the hassle of investigating each case you're asked about, especially when all...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  Cameron went to them for some help/assistance marginally better terms, etc & was told to piss off "You remember that treaty that was painstakingly negotiated 7 years ago? I'd like to make some changes entirely to my country's benefit. And...
• Commented on Peak Brexit
  India having 10 times the number of MPs in Westminster as England would certainly have changed post-war British politics....
• Commented on Dark State: how to get signed copies!
  Another Brit here. I've heard of Gilligan's Island, probably mainly through references in blogs like this one, but until 10 minutes ago I always had the idea that it was early 80's. To give a clue about my general cultural...
• Commented on Unforeseen Consequences and that 1929 vibe
  I've seen the argument that the price of bitcoin goes up because there's only a limited supply of bitcoin, so it's a good investment despite having no underlying value, just like the price of gold is much higher than the...
• Commented on Catching Up
  I did notice that you'd given yourself a get out, yes. Still thought it was worth calling you on it....
• Commented on Catching Up
  Greg, Kensington and Chelsea has been Conservative controlled since it was created in the mid 60's. How much power do opposition councillors have? Or is this just "I don't like Corbyn or his allies" trash talking?...
• Commented on Catching Up
  Yes, the Conservatives have 297 of 533 seats on 45.6% of the vote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2017/results/england...
• Commented on Catching Up
  Yes, but that's Parliament's role not some "sharing the blame but none of the power" committee....
• Commented on Catching Up
  Because sharing the blame for Brexit in exchange for gaining precisely no power to shape it isn't an attractive proposition for anyone? Remember that "answerable only to Parliament itself" means "answerable to the Tory/DUP majority", nothing else....
• Commented on The sudden eruption of news
  Does no-one else think this sums up a good reason to be suspicious of the EU? No, because it's entirely in the Brexiteers' heads. One set of Brexiteers make up stories about the EU planning on punishing us. The next...
• Commented on Popcorn Time
  I'm dubious whether the UK would be welcome anywhere near any putative Commonwealth free trade agreement even, given its historical behaviour. Indeed. Brexit cognitive dissonance: managing to simultaneously think "Scotland wants independence? Don't let them have it. And if they...
• Commented on Popcorn Time
  self-employed people don't get the notional fruits of NI payments — unemployment benefits and sick pay Notional fruits of NI payments are mostly the NHS and old age pension. Not having sick pay, etc., might justify a small difference between...
• Commented on The internet of decay
  Not relevant to Australia, but have you seen CycleStreets? They seem to be collecting data about cyclable routes, so avoiding sending you across a busy road, but not looking at integrating with other means of transport. I was surprised to...
• Commented on The internet of decay
  What you're describing isn't use of a sat nav, it's some sort of electronic map display. You're not supposed to be "analysing the relationships between elements in intricate static data" when you look at a sat nav, you're supposed to...
• Commented on The internet of decay
  ... a bank that rounded down, and kept the excess - and an average of 0.5p per transaction rapidly adds up. So the person who programmed that code changed it to divert that into his account. This featured in Superman...
• Commented on The End of the British nuclear deterrent?
  To repurpose something you first have to have built it. Skylon is currently some impressive results from a heat exchanger on a test stand, it's not a vehicle. Even Reaction Engines don't think it will be flying during the Trump...
• Commented on Policy change: future US visits
  Greece joined the EC in 1981. At the time, being a goal for ex-dictatorships was what the EU was about. This also sent a number of useful messages both to countries in a similar situation (Spain and Portugal both joined...
• Commented on The dog ate my homework
  I've used Beyond Compare and ExamDiff and whatever the thing built into Tortoise are (in that order of preference). But my needs are very simple. I don't think any of them would be any use for a novel-shaped document, or...
• Commented on The dog ate my homework
  You could ask whether it's better to monitor changes in a document by carrying all the information in the document (Word track changes) or by keeping different versions and comparing them externally (your favourite diff tool / Word compare documents)....
• Commented on The dog ate my homework
  I assume that sending it back with a covering note saying "the changes are approved apart from removing all the italics - please put them back in" wasn't an option? Someone clearly has to do the donkey work of fixing...
• Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
  Coe was a middle-distance runner, not a player of team sports. The Olympics is much more about the individual events anyway. Samaranch stepped down from the IOC in 2001 - several years before London bid for 2012 - and supported...
• Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
  Greg, you seem to be accepting uncritically everything the Daily Mail ever wrote about the EU, and repeating it whether or not its relevant to the point being made....
• Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
  It would be an amplifier, you're right it doesn't create the mess on its own! A lengthy court case about whether we can un-trigger article 50 would extend the current horrendous mess by some years, and potentially lead to us...
• Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
  "a far away country ... people of whom we know nothing"...
• Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
  Greg, perhaps a bit less SHOUTY NO when you're immediately going to admit that you aren't really sure. A few legal scholars have argued that we could unilaterally go back on triggering article 50, but even they admit that it's...
• Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
  even if AT50 is triggered, we may quite probably, back away at the last moment How would we back away? Once AT50 is triggered, we're out in 2 years. The only way to stop it is by unanimous agreement of...
• Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
  According to wikipedia, "In the United States, about 99% of lead from used [lead-acid] batteries is reclaimed". And now I'm wondering about the overlap between people who have an old car battery in the back of their garage and people...
• Commented on Things Can Only Get Better! (Part 1)
  On the other hand, the Business Insider article feels like a monarchists dream of how the country will respond to the Queen dying. I'm expecting more Queen Mother levels of "oh that's sad" rather than Diana-like hysteria....