Comments

Clive Robinson • December 16, 2022 5:18 PM

@ Winter,

Re : Any person legal or natural.

“I will never again be able to prove I am human.”

Hey, if you could prove you were a corporation there are a couple of advantages,

1, You’ld not have to pay tax.
2, You could not be jailed.

So… You could be onto a winner 😉

JonKnowsNothing • December 16, 2022 5:50 PM

@Clive, @Winter, All

re: Hey, if you could prove you were a corporation there are a couple of advantages,

1, You’d not have to pay tax.
2, You could not be jailed.

Isn’t that what NonDom does?

iirc(badly) The current PM and Spouse (especially Spouse) are quite familiar with NonDom.

===

Search Terms

UK
non-domiciled status

Ted • December 16, 2022 6:29 PM

Lol! Can I phone a conservatory that might have humans?

Yes, may I please speak with a human? Um, yes, a real-life human who knows the word decrescendo. 😆

Ismar • December 16, 2022 6:36 PM

See this as a nice way to filter people contributing to a blog to discourage those not really interested in the subject of the blog (would it work here 😏?)

Clive Robinson • December 16, 2022 7:02 PM

@ Ted,

Re : decrescendo

When I was quite young, and my mother had the notion I should learn to be musical…

Where as many kids lost their “sunday mornings” to “Church School”, I lost my “saturday mornings” to “music school”…

Where I was taught –but did not learn– all sorts of things of which “decrescendo” is but one I could vaguely remember[1] but never spell (dishlexia rluz KO).

There are many regrets I have from my more than six decades of existance, and yes my lack of adroitness with music is one of them. I could blaim many people easily, but honestly the failings were mine, others at most just nudged. The fact that a big chunk of my proffessional life has been associated with the engineering of sound via electronics and computers actually makes the regret keener not less.

[1] Broadly decrescendo is the same as diminuendo –that I can remember to spell– and it means to “turn down the volume or force” of the music gradually (see “Slaves Chorous” for an example). Both words come from Latin and have the same root as for Descend and Diminish respectively. Oh and cardiologists use decrescendo when talking about heart sounds in a stethoscope particularly with murmurs. And that is more than the common man realy needs to know, even if he or she is a crossword or scrabble fiend.

Hedo MeenMuhFuka • December 16, 2022 7:51 PM

Or how about the more common ones depicting something like a hydrant, where behind the pics of “hydrants” that you are required to click on is actually installing a keylogger or some other nasty shyte that your FW/AV lets slide because it does not match any of the IDS/IPS since is a 0day whose creator does not want anyone to know about, hence not disclosing it. Because he thinks it’s more fun that way.

kiwano • December 16, 2022 8:23 PM

There’s a part of me that’s really hoping that the image part somehow becomes a “Spot the Saint” post on Ex Urbe.

aj • December 16, 2022 8:47 PM

With the first one, I know it can’t be any of the guys with halos. It’s probably just the dude at the bottom.

lurker • December 16, 2022 10:28 PM

@Ted, Clive

I am a Captcha generating bot. In the placeholder you found decrescendo I could have put ralentando, glissando, or portamente.

Ted • December 17, 2022 2:14 AM

@Clive

Re: Decrescendo

That’s funny. My mom tinkered with the idea that I might pick up music too. I vaguely remember taking some group piano or rather electronic keyboard lessons.

The pinnacle of my young foray into electronic keyboard was learning a tune from the movie Big – Heart and Soul. In the movie Tom Hanks and his boss dance out the melody on a giant keyboard in an FAO Schwarz. Classic.

I see the YouTube channel Green Bean’s Music has a very comprehensible 2-minute video on Crescendo & Decrescendo. Your description was spot on, with a thought-provoking etymology no less 👍

Do you remember if playing music feels as wonderful as it sounds?

musicalguy • December 17, 2022 4:12 AM

@Clive Robinson

… have the same root as for Descend and Diminish respectively

No, you are confusing the Italian and Latin

[a/de]scendere – to move up or down -> to descend,

and

[de]crescere – to grow or shrink -> decrescendo.

Clive Robinson • December 17, 2022 5:42 AM

@ lurker, Ted,

Re : Captcha generating bot.

In that case, I guess I have to play the ChatGPT defence,

“Mwa, mwa, Stop being mean to me, sob sob”

Or was that Micro$hafts earlier Chat-bot Tay where people taught her such naughty things 😉

Dancing On Thin Ice • December 17, 2022 10:56 AM

@Ismar
Taking the idea further could be to present a series of questions to test if someone actually read an article.
Commenting could still be allowed but a score of how well they understood the topic would be listed next to their name.

Trent1536 • December 17, 2022 1:15 PM

@ DOTI, either way it definitely seems to be profiling the applicant; rather “non-annoymous”.

But whoever said Google cares about your privacy and human rights?

Ted • December 17, 2022 2:56 PM

@lurker, Clive

I am a Captcha generating bot. In the placeholder you found decrescendo I could have put rallentando, glissando, or portamento.

I see your point. And still the CAPTCHA must think some of those selections are correct. Obviously I need to work on my humanity. I had to look up each of those.

This morning I pulled a keyboard out of deep storage and found some beginner music lessons online. To my shock, I can now play a chord with both hands, even with both hands doing slightly different things. It’s very basic but it could pass as not unpleasing.

Having access to online music lessons, and especially to very adept teachers, might be one of the great gifts of the internet. Imagine that, the internet helping us hack this human thing.

Rj • December 17, 2022 7:47 PM

My daughter learned to play guitar from an old internet chat room back in the 90’s. She is now quite good at finger picking a 12-string, and plays semi-professionally. I, on the other hand, had to learn keyboards from an old fashioned piano teacher back in the 50’s. It wasn’t until I discovered organ music that I really became interested. I now play in church.

Clive Robinson • December 17, 2022 8:31 PM

@ Ted, lurker,

Re : “I have a dream…”

“Imagine that, the internet helping us hack this human thing.”

That was the dream, of those that took it from basic serial communications of the 1960’s through nearly 30 years of development to an interconection of networks, where information pure could flow freely.

I’m old enough to have done a bit towards that dream myself.

But in the 1990’s the evil of greed invaded and the dream got first violated then strangled. Now it’s not a dream but a nightmare, of the self entitled grabing what they can by any means of virtual and actual violence they are allowed to…

As far as I can tell there is no crime in the physical world that does not work as well if not better in the information world.

Worse though, there are new crimes in the information world, that either do not or more importantly can not work in the physical world, to which we are all naive.

Whilst scarily, the majority of these crooks committing these crimes, not being “criminals” or “potential criminals” but Corporate Executives and Government personnel, effectively immune from prosecution.

Because having destroyed the physical productive economy back in the mid to late 1980’s. The only real churning of money that is the description of economy these people use, is in the ballon that is social media and similar of the Internet. Where wild eyed speculators, exchange “betting slips” for mostly “pointless ideas” where a Corporations value is based not on the income it earns, but the size of it’s CapEx etc, that was once called “Burn Rate”.

So a “Bonfire of the vanities” fueled by wild eyed manic gambling in a rigged game…

But from when we were small we learned that when the Merry-goround, stops the music stops, and many of those that get off look sad, because they paid and the fun brief as it was now had. All that’s left is the illussion cast from mirror to mirror and the downward bleat of the hurdy-gurdy coming to rest.

We are starting to see this Facebook loosing 3/4 of it value in a handfull of months, and Twitter, well we laugh at Hell-on Rusk and think he deserves what is happening. But the question is, are these just “autumn sneezes” or a “virulant cold” to make “Man Flu” look like just a sniffle?

If the latter a little history of mad shareholder behaviour from just under a century ago might have some pertinent lessons to learn, whilst the Internet as is, is still available to you to look it up…

But for now… it’s time for a hot “bacon n egg banjo”, and a big cup of “standard NATO” enjoy whilst you can. As one way or another, “Hell’s a’comming for yer”, and “It ain’t no hell of the Devil’s curse”, it’s infinitely worse, yup it’s “The Hell of man on Earth”…

Clive Robinson • December 17, 2022 9:47 PM

@ Rj, lurker,

“It wasn’t until I discovered organ music that I really became interested.”

Remember be easy on the Vox Dei stop, not that it’s easy to find 😉

Of course the Vox Humana, is generally robust enough to rattle the windows, but I’ve always found the Vox Angelica to be just that little bit flat thus sour to my ear.

lurker • December 18, 2022 9:35 PM

@Clive Robinson vox ethereum

Have you asked the organist about the tuning of the instrument? There are some intermediate stops that are tuned to one-third of the principal rank, not the usual half, quarter, &c. These can be the very dickens to bring into a harmony that satisfies all ears.

And in spite of the online founts of knowledge confining themselves to stringed instruments, a “wolf tone” is not unknown on the organ, especially a poorly made, maintained, or tuned organ in times of extreme temperature or humidity.

Clive Robinson • December 19, 2022 4:58 AM

@ lurker,

“… a “wolf tone” is not unknown on the organ…”

Or from the whistle of a younger brother who was sick and tired of his older sisters incessant “recorder practice” done when he was trying to concentrate on other things…

I could “whistle along” being just a few hertz off, causing that tooth jaring effect with no difficulty or be close enough to pitch perfect that I was “in tune” depending on what mood I was in…

The fact I’d developed the habit of whistling much of the time such little ditties as the Horn Concerto, and organ and trumpet pieces from the Baroque music cannon gave people quite a false impression of what actually “rocked and rolled” my boat.

Clive Robinson • December 19, 2022 5:31 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Re : imploding

Whilst the fun news has been “social media” crashing in price with Facecrook down and Twit swiming like a lead kipper…

Have you noticed a similar profile on BitCoin that is apparently down another 2%… But not so much it’s little brother Ethereum which is up by a similar amount.

I wonder if the larger “perceived utillity” is having an effect in these figures.

As you say “join the dots” especially in a “follow the money” game.

MarkH • December 19, 2022 7:28 PM

@Clive:

I learned of a larger-scale application of the principle applied to “recorder practice.”

A veteran bombardier I knew recounted to me that on many nights, a Japanese two-engined plane would fly low and slow near their base.

With the technology they had on hand, the Japanese couldn’t use firepower from the air in darkness, nor could the Americans shoot the plane down.

The trick was that the engines were carefully de-synchronized to cause an awful throbbing sound.

It was a rather serious attack, because the soldiers were constantly sleep-deprived under the best of conditions; my friend said that sleep was impossible with that loud beat frequency.

Adlai • February 16, 2023 7:22 AM

Why make these things useless?

Select all congressional districts with representatives likely to vote upon…

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