Posts by graeme leggett

The day has a 'y' in it, so Virgin Galactic has announced another delay

Re: Supplier identified fault

Are you new here? This is the house style.

Spring tears down math geek t-shirt listing because it dared to mention the trademarked word 'zeta'

There was no "horrendously stupid' idea! approved in the TM office.

as Affinity puts it

"Affinity Consultants..is hired by more than 100 Greek Organizations to manage the commercial use of their trademarks"

"The trademarks include the organization's name, nicknames, Greek letters, crest, badge, symbols, and other insignia"

Re: "The Greek alphabet is currently protected legally"

You noticed that the English alphabet existed before it was called an alphabet (first appearing 1475 as "alphabete")

Though I cannot find what it was called in the gap after they stopped calling it futhorc

84-year-old fined €250,000 for keeping Nazi war machines – including tank – in basement

Re: though corroded with rust, could be cleaned and restored to working condition

The Panther also had two machine guns. And it says he had machine guns in his stash. So if any of them were MG34s then he had possibilities there.

Tech spec experts seek allies to tear down ISO standards paywall

Scope of desire for change

is this drive for free access to standards also present in other areas of industry?

eg in food industry example BS ISO 3103:2019

Tea. Preparation of liquor for use in sensory tests £67 (discounted price for members)

or ISO/IEC 17025:2017

General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.138 Swiss francs

The UK is running on empty when it comes to electric vehicle charging points

Re: Elephant in the room

Char.gy say up their lamppost chargers deliver up to 5kW depending.

a random selected council specification says cable supply to street lights should be minimum 6mm² and laid in ducts.

In a domestic situation 6mm² Twin and Earth is rated from 23 to 47 Amps depending on insulation level.

Scam-baiting YouTube channel Tech Support Scams taken offline by tech support scam

Re: not for publicity

commenting on my own comment, tsk.

Jim deals with people after money by exploiting a fear (loss of computer/files) in an area where they are ignorant

in playing the ignorant victim, Jim has the advantage that 1) he has no files to lose so can remain emotionally detached and 2) he knows their tricks (remote, blanking screen, editing webpages) - hence he remains in control of the interaction and comes out ahead.

In this reported incident Jim had something on the line (his channel) and he has less knowledge (youtube channel deletions by scam uncommon - though held to ransom possibly a problem?) - so the attacker has an advantage even though Jim may be more savvy/sceptical in online interactions than the rest of us.

second point - instead of being up against scam call centre drones, he might have been targeted by a more competent group (whether for hire or the jollies) able to make their interaction more convincing (eg IP not resolving to India, fluent English speaker, less bafflegab/working from script in conversation)

not for publicity

Some people are saying 'Jim' is doing it for publicity, but I think this line

"3.28 million subscribers he had gathered" says otherwise

When you've got a follower base that big (and are doing team ups with Mark Rober that exposes how the scammers launder money through) then you don't put your reputation on the line by that kind of stunt.

Hundreds of irate UK Parliamentary staffers sue IPSA over 2017 salary spreadsheet publication snafu

you might have bloody warned us a link was to Order-Ordee

I can do without giving Paul Staines any semblence of my attention

Impromptu game of Robot Wars sparks fire in warehouse at UK e-tailer Ocado

"I'm in a warehouse. With a robot. And it's on fire"

Western Approaches Museum: WRENs, wargames, and victory in the Atlantic

Re: Book recommendation

I read the first part of Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" which looks at the economy of Germany before and during the war.

I only read the first part because that was the extent of the free sample that Amazon dished up. But it was informative on the economics thinking from 1928-ish to 1936 and how that led to Nazi's gaining power, how much they put into rearmament, and how Germany blew any chance of getting some of what they wanted without war.

The money merry-go-round of American bank loans to 1920s Germany which enabled Germany to pay Versaille reparations to Britain and France, which allowed them to pay back war time loans and purchases to the USA was a surprise.

Re: a quote from American journalist David Fairbanks White, …

It's all interconnected.

While UK is in the war, then

1) Britain is a base for operations against German war production which Soviets aren't in a position to attack

2) Royal Navy maintains blockade of German so they don't have access to tungsten, copper, rubber and other things useful for making tanks and ammunition

3) USSR gets some of the Lend Lease via Persian corridor

4) British supplies to Soviets include 5,000 tanks (inc Canadian Valentine production), 1400 radar sets, 1 battleship, 4000 or so aircraft, 13000 tons copper, 114000 tons rubber, £13 million worth of machine tools etc

On top of which are supplies from USA to USSR sent via Atlantic. So keeping the Atlantic open affects the war to the East.

How many Brits have deleted life-saving track and trace app from their phones? No idea, junior minister tells MPs

Re: "it has proved effective"?

September to December was pre-vaccine; the death toll from cases then would be much higher than the same number of cases now.

Also government being reckless/incompetent/uncaring at the current time does not invalidate the app's utility then.

11-year-old graduate announces plans to achieve immortality by 'replacing body parts with mechanical parts'

JAMIE: A new race of Cybermen? But we're humans. We're not like you.

CONTROLLER: You will be.

Florida Man sues Facebook, Twitter, YouTube for account ban

Re: Typical slander

Is he not known for those things?

Richard Branson plans to trump Jeff Bezos by 9 days in billionaires' space race

Re: To quote a well known phrase...

Nothing that new in what Virgin are doing. Parasite aircraft launch was how Yaeger went Mach 1 in 1947 and X-15s flew into space in the 1960s.

Beardie hangs out on private island tax free with his money but was happy for UK gov to pay when 8,000 Virgin Atlantic staff were furloughed.

Russia spoofed AIS data to fake British warship's course days before Crimea guns showdown

Re: Shipping channel

While a possible candidate Navalny is no more likely to say he'd give up Crimea than Johnson is to say he'd sell off the NHS - it'd just give Putin a huge opportunity to attack him.

Pragmatically, if he did become president, Navalny might find he had to make some accommodation over Ukraine.

Re: Shipping channel

The RN have been sending Type 45s to the Black Sea annually since 2017.

As these are air defence ships and in this recent case it was teamed with a Dutch air-defence frigate, I'm sure it can't have hurt their capability if Russia did try flying some of their aircraft near it. Just as it can't have hurt the Russians to fly their aircraft near it and see what that the ships' reactions were.

Mayflower, the AI ship sent to sail from the UK to the US with no humans, made it three days before breaking down

Re: "Artificial Intelligence": oxymoron. Used by morons known as Artificial Intelligentia.

We've been here before

https://www.theregister.com/2013/11/04/doctor_who_mad_computers/?page=1

Gov.UK taskforce publishes post-Brexit wish-list: 'TIGRR' pounces on GDPR, metric measures

Re: Grenfell and red-tape

"unnecessary red tape" is up there with "activist lawyers" as a batsignal for the readers of the Daily Mail.

Excuse me, what just happened? Resilience is tough when your failure is due to a 'sequence of events that was almost impossible to foresee'

That was my thinking partway through reading.

The first business took steps to mitigate total breakdown of the time server but not a malfunction.

And presumably the interoffice networking example was tested by switching off one unit (the event that was being mitigated against) rather than stopping the heartbeat (the trigger for the backup to take over)

The lesson being that in an ideal world one ought to consider all the things that can happen. I recall a story that Feynman while on Manhattan project in order to give the impression he was involved in discussion pointed to a symbol on a process diagram and asked some innocent question about it. Upon which an engineer present recognised that it was a dangerous weak point.

Now all I have to do is remember this for my own work....

Virgin Galactic goes where it's gone twice before, for the first time in two years

Re: I thought space was 100km?

so it should have read ""the first person ever to have flown to space from three different states but only in the States."

For the moment, FAI records elude the Bearded One's toy rocket

Elon Musk hits the brakes on taking Bitcoin for Tesla purchases

Voting

"three-quarters of four million voters indicated they wanted Tesla to accept Doge."

I didn't even know Tesla had that big of a customer base.....or shareholders

WTH are NFTs? Here is the token, there is the Beeple....

Raising funds idea

"fund scientific research into plausible ideas that fall through the cracks"

Shouldn't that read "fund scientific research into implausible ideas picked up by cranks"?

Home office setup with built-in boiling water tap for tea and coffee without getting up is a monument to deskcess

It's why heat output is in British Thermal Units...

'Imagine' if Virgin Galactic actually did sub-orbital tourism: Firm unveils new chrome job on SpaceShip III

Re: Stunning!

18 years after the Wright Flyer's first flight, aircraft were flying ten thousand times as far over open water.

In the early 1960s, (about 20-25 years after the first rocket and jet aircraft flew) aircraft-launched piloted rockets launched from jets were reaching 100 km in altitude.

Virgin really haven't gotten very far very fast.

Ruby off the Rails: Code library yanked over license blunder, sparks chaos for half a million projects

Surprisingly, some room to manoevre

Looking at the text

"Notices of termination may be served no earlier than 25 years after the execution of the grant...

However, termination of a grant cannot be effective until 35 years after the execution of the grant"

So best case situation is a ten year window.

As to the writeup, it's probably better left to legal types to read because it's not written for easy reading.

Chairman, CEO of Nominet ousted as member rebellion drives .uk registry back to non-commercial roots

Re: One question

The board's job is to employ (and check on) executives who in turn make the resources available to do the thing the organization exists to do - that's the theory.

Re: Think that we're not periously close--continually--to idiocy? To lunacy? Think again!

yep. Nazi vote in open election about 30%

Reichstag Fire - presidential decree limits civil liberties

Decree used to remove opposition

Enabling Act passed through support from conservative parties and intimidation of opposing parties gives absolute power to Mr Hilter.

And then the propaganda really begins to be used on the German people.

Re: Think that we're not periously close--continually--to idiocy? To lunacy? Think again!

I think the 48/52 is more likely a case of Pareidolia on your part.

Management manoeuvres

Sounded like the last hours of a junta as they realised the rebels had actually seized the national radio station

With Nominet’s board-culling vote just days away, we speak to one man who will publicly support the management

“Registries are meant to be boring and stable. I don’t want drama. In many ways, I don’t need to know how [the registry] works, it just needs to work.”

Then he should be blaming the present incumbents of the board for creating the drama that got to an EGM.

If he votes No and the vote goes Yes, then he's not going to be to kicked out.

If he did vote Yes and the vote went No then he may have created some enmity with the board.

If he votes No and the vote goes No, then there's no change so far as he's concerned.

So even without considering the Yes/Yes option, it looks like the status quo is makes sense for him.

We can't avoid it any longer. Here's a story about the NFT mania... aka someone bought a JPEG for $69m in Ether

Re: would last in perpetuity because the token is "in the blockchain"

reminds me to go to the British Museum youtube channel to watch more Irving Finkel

Someone's having a laugh...

And it's probably Christies on the way to the bank

Seagate UK customer stung by VAT on replacement drive shipped via the Netherlands

Re: In hindsight

The 1975 referendum to stay in the EC was 67.2 /32.7

Re: In hindsight

Britain didn't get a vote because we don't do things by referendum.

Re: But, but

There's a British Overseas Territory in the Pacific, the Pitcairn Islands.

Combined land area about 18 square miles, population less than 50 (most of whom are descended from the Bounty mutineers and their "Tahitian "companions - unsurprisingly one of the commonest surnames there is "Christian")

UK government may force online retailers to pick up e-waste from consumers

Lack of knowledge/demand by consumer?

It strikes me most consumers are not aware of the requirement for retailers to take waste electricals off your hands when you buy a new one, and that retailers do not do a good job of informing people (because of the extra work for them it would generate).

I seem to recall when we bought a new washing machine locally a few years back, the seller would deliver for modest sum but wanted extra to take the old appliance back to their warehouse where they would be obligated to take it. In retrospect I should have borrowed a trailer, lumped the old one in the back of it and left it by their showroom.

Retailers probably hope that consumers will shove the old item in a drawer or garage and when they do get round to clearing out, make the journey to their local council tip rather than turning up in store broken kettle in hand.

Dangerous flying car drone zoomed into UK's Gatwick Airport airspace after killswitch failed

Re: Hmm.. I wonder

reading the AAIB report it looks like the CAA asked the CASA for information. CASA said get the operators permission to release information but the CAA didn't follow up and ask operator for permission and so didn't find out what CASA knew or thought.

Between that and not actually looking at the drone, on the question of inspection the CAA seem to have not only dropped the ball, but knocked it into their own net.

That said the CAA had made some strict limitations to the permitted flight (eg 20 m max height) on the basis of the lack of geofence, multiple points of failure etc.

UK Supreme Court declares Uber drivers are workers, not self-employed: Ride biz's legal battle ends in a crash

Re: UK vs Feraldom

I'm sure Uber had access to fine array of lawyers that explained the employment laws and how they could affect the use of Uber operatives in UK but Uber execs still decided to sail the narrow path between the laws and see where chance took them

Bill Gates on climate change: Planting trees is not the answer, emissions need to be zeroed out to avoid disaster

Re: Yeah, sure, right.

Same reasons we listen to him on the subject of providing healthcare (inc vaccinations) in developing nations, improving access to clean water - he's got access to experts and the means to act in supporting them.

Re: Nuclear power is a no-brainer

If Texas invested in joining its grid to the rest of the United States, perhaps it could afford switch off the turbines in freakishly cold weather while exporting green energy at other times.

Most anything from Hans Rosling.

his work lives on in Gapminder.org

Games Workshop finds that in the grim darkness of the 3rd millennium, there is only ERP

The value of all its shares is greater than *one* years fishing I believe is the comparison.

Brexit freezes 81,000 UK-registered .eu domains – and you've all got three months to get them back

Re: I won’t be able to use what I’ve paid for

No, there's one set of rules, the EMA give a scientific scrutiny of the pharma company's submission and if it meets spec then it passes on for each country's representative(s) gives a opinion - eg on best phrasing of the package leaflet in their language - within a set time period. Then it goes to the commission for the rubber stamp.

The time period from submission to approval is 210 days maximum for evaluation, then another 60-odd for opinions and approval.

There is an alternative process within EU where having got an authorisation in one member state, the pharma company applies for an authorisation in another one under the principle of mutual recognition.

The UK gov now has:

a 150-day "accelerated" process for "high quality applications" .

Rolling review of unspecified length

67-day procedure for accepting EU marketing authorisations

67-day procedure for accepting national authorisations of EU member states

And if you want to put something on market in Northern Ireland, you still need to meet Directive 2001/83/EC, tand Regulation 726/2004

Re: How fucking petty

Perhaps the rules were dependent on the terms of the withdrawal agreement and future agreement between UK and EU. Which were changing month to month it seems since the referendum.

Re: I won’t be able to use what I’ve paid for

Within the EU vaccines can go through a "centralised procedure" with the EMA or nationally through each countries own medicines regulator. Dealing with the EMA means one contact point, one set of procedures and one set of fees.

And if EMA grants a market authorisation, in this case a "conditional" one, then it can be legally sold throughout the EU.

Re: Is it the EU Court of Justice that has jurisprudence?

Boris said they could, and even got it written down on a piece of paper.

Brexit trade deal advises governments to use Netscape Communicator and SHA-1. Why? It's all in the DNA

Re: 20 year old tech...

I'm sure I remember a Leave (I don't remember which group) leaflet telling me that if we didn't Brexit then the nasty EU was going to let more Turkish come into the UK than currently...