Posts by nic.wise
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Capture: Howling at the Moon, in reply to Steve Barnes,
@Steve, you missed the rocket launchers on the apartment block roofs. I am NOT kidding.
About 20 mins walk from our old place in E14. Glad we dont live over there now. Just don't mention "olympic", "2012", "London", "Games" etc in ANY context in print (or billboards, or shop displays, or pub signs) or the copyright police will take you away.
OK, that one is a bit of a joke. But only in that they will fine you - a LOT - not take you away.
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Sorted. Thanks for "letting" us contribute.
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Speaker: Listening to Coldharbour Lane, in reply to Islander,
@Islander: man, the number of times I could’ve used that – thank you
Feel free to. (CC) :)
I can’t recommend it tho. Not at all good for the blood pressure
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Thanks Stella - nice reality check. I had to stop watching twitter - esp searching for my area - as it was winding me up to much. It ended up there was nothing, and most if not all of the twitter stuff was hoaxes and RTs
I hate that they’re attacking their own back yards. Young people smashing in and stealing from and closing the shops where they themselves work, eat, shop.
I hate the consumerism of the rioters. I wish they were chanting slogans, I wish they were carrying placards, I wish there was a clear political point to what they’re doing. I wish they didn’t seem to be so clearly shopping. I do think that any riot is political, even without a clear political point, but I wish the people taking part in this one were channelling that energy into something constructive.
Yup, that bit has really got me. It's not about Mark Duggan anymore - outside of Sunday afternoon, it never was. It's about breaking stuff and stealing things. Pure and simple. It'll be interesting to see what the official reaction is, bring both Boris and Cameron are, in theory, "back". (one may be useful, even if he is a dick, the other is more likely to be a hinderance).
Broken Britain indeed. There is so little consequence for anyone doing anything anti-social here, that something fairly major is going to have to change to make it better.
this post may have been bought to you by way too little sleep and not enough coffee
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Speaker: The great New Zealand phone…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I would say Bletchly Park people were a combination of both - some geniuses breaking codes and building machines, some script kiddies using the tools created to do the breaking.
Ok, I'd say there were a bit smarter than script kiddies see days, but I suspect there migt have been two tiers of people there (or more - I went there s year or so ago, it's very interesting)
they were definitely on the right side of history.
While I agree that some hackers - Charlie ___ who tends to kick arse at the p0wn2own thing comes to mind - are brilliant and know their field well, most are not. We* got anonymous'ed the other week. Amywinehouse.com and a few others got defaced, and some user data nicked.
How did they get in? User: admin. Password: admin (or the name of the designer, which was also at the bottom of the homepage. ). Stupid human error stuff. And the user info was a backup left in the web-readable folder. That's not hacking, any more than it is lock picking if i leave the key under the matt.
Humans are always the weakest link. Especially nontechnical ones.
* I'm on contract to universal music in the UK. It wasn't my team's stuff which got done, but it was the same (mega sized) company.
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Hard News: Asking for a Contribution, in reply to Russell Brown,
That’s actually a good idea. I’d still like to be able to offer a direct reward for financial contributors, but there are lots of ways of doing that
So the blogs, comments, and community aren't enough?
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Done and done. Thanks for all the brilliant content Russell. Now make sure you clean the Paypal account regularly, so PP doesn't lock the funds up :(
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Hard News: Because it's about time we…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I used to go and buy a pound of beans from Monmouth in Covent Garden on paydays when I was working at a record shop in the West End. There, Forbidden Planet and the second-hand bookshops in Charing Cross Road. Good times.
I still do - well, the monmouth in Borough Market anyway. Still the best, most consistent beans in the city IMO.
In the US, I've always managed to find the good coffee on the last couple of days we were there - be it in Maidson, WI, New York, SF or Chicago. Very frustrating. Now I just google for someone selling Stumptown - also not always the best, but usually better than most.
The rest of Europe is a rip, though. Paid the equivalent of $NZ6 for a reasonably decent espresso in Amsterdam.
yeah, I've had both good and bad all over europe. Denmark, however. Wow. 25DKK for an espresso - thats 3 GBP or so, or $6-8NZ. It wasn't good either.
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US starbucks is in the top 10% of coffee in the US. Needless to say, the bottom 90% can hardly be called coffee (tho by comparison, US drip isn't too bad)
In the UK, SB's is pretty much the best of the chains, which isn't saying much, but London has a fast growning coffee culture, and it's not just the kiwis and aussies pushing it forward - the poms are getting into it too (best/most bizaar: a shot from Gwilym Davies at Prufrock in Shoreditch (world barista champ of a few years ago) weighing the shot, and stopping at _exactly_ 20g of espresso.... was VERY good tho)
I've always been both impressed and disgusted by italian and french coffee. IT's very hit and miss, zero crema, but I love how they do it - it's quick (VERY quick), cheap (90 euro cents usually) and chearful. Great way to start a day (much better than $3.50 for an espresso. Come on NZ, this is just getting stupid)
So, in the US: SB's is at the 90% mark. It's possible to find _ok_ coffee around, but good coffee, outside of NY, SF, and Seattle is difficult.
In the UK, it's about 95% outside of London or somewhere "hip" like Brighton or Bristol, and maybe 75% in London (ie, there's lots of better cafe's around, but you have to hunt a little)
In NZ, it was always about 25% - bottom of the heap. Never had a reason to go to one in NZ, really.
I've not tried it in asia for a while, tho their coffee is generally _awful_, so I suspect they'll do ok.
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I love the three-down-to-one stuff if you make the window narrower. Very nice.