Posts by Chris G

UK government resists pressure to hold statutory inquiry into Post Office Horizon scandal

Re: It's not just an IT scandal

You are right, it is much more, considering this is a legacy of the Blair government and has continued to be kept as low key as possible by all subsequent governments.

In addition, the scandal extends to the procurement systems used by government departments and ministries that seem to be forever inadequate, failing to ensure sufficient specification, failing to write contracts that protect public(taxpayers) money and failing to enforce fully the contracts that are written.

Add to those failings the current fashion in government procurement at local and national levels that sees officials giving blatantly off the cuff reasons for awarding or extending contracts without even paying lip service to the tendering process, one could be forgiven for thinking it is all deliberate.

A full public inquiry could go some way towards highlighting some of those failings and perhaps encourage some remediation but I won't be holding my breath.

Traffic lights, who needs 'em? Lucky Kentucky residents up in arms over first roundabout

Re: Bunch of wusses

I have seen a few tourists trying to negotiate the Hemel Hempstead Magic roundabout at various times, after twenty odd years living in foreign places, I would need to think a little before entering it.

I have never had a problem going from UK to Continental but have had to pause a couple of times on returning.

I like the old steam wagons and tractors that decorate a lot of Spanish roundabouts.

NASA comes up with COVID-19 infection detector that's out of this world – E-Nose built from space station gear

Re: BBBZZZTTT WRONG!

How about genetically sensitised canaries then?

They poo a lot less, eat less and wouldn't need to be trained. You just need a few in reserve in case one gets breathed on by an infected individual.

Deployment?

How do they plan to deploy this in shops and offices etc?

Will entrants need to queue up to blow into a device or will it just test the air at an entry only door?

If it does detect an offending soup of VOCs, then what, sirens going off and all the doors and shutters crashing shut so that the healthy and infected are locked in together?

The idea doesn't seem to have been thought through very well.

China claims it has stolen a march on 6G with colossal patent portfolio

I don't see the point of 6G, after we have all been infected with 5G borne covid, had our brains riddled with 5G borne cancer and then operating smoothly under the 5G mind control system, what is 6G going to be for?

Maybe it can reach the last hold outs by penetrating their tin foil hats and Faraday suits.

Can't wait to see what the tin foil hatters have to say about 6G.

Toyota buys Lyft’s autonomous car group for $550m

Re: When is a city not a city?

This particular city sounds as though it may turn out to be a latter day Japanese version of The Village.

' Be seeing you'

Dam it: Beaver ate our internet, says tiny Canadian town of Tumbler Ridge

Re: "My cable encountered a frisky beaver and soon I experienced packet loss."

Beavers and the internet seem to go hand in uh hand.

Scam victims find same fraudulent ads lurking on Facebook and Google even after flagging them up

Re: Why isn't this front-page news?

"Why isn't this plastered across the front pages of all the UK newspapers?"

Perhaps because the news papers don't want to encourage closer scrutiny of their advertisers?

Whatever the reason, any given subject needs to sell newspapers so i suspect they are looking at the best way to really sensationalise it first.

Personally I have never bought anything directly from an ad and I doubt I ever will, if I want something I always look around for the best version and a good deal.

Apple faces another suit over its allegedly misleading water resistance claims

Re: Wouldn't have bought phone

@Jamie Jones

I have looked at the cubot but decide to stick with Ulefone with similar qualities 4GB RAM and 64 of ROM

My previous Armor 2 has been in the sea once by accident and several times taking pics as per their advertising with no ill effects. At €146 with a massive battery that gives me up to three days of busy use I think it is a lot of phone for the money.

My Armor 2 lasted 4 years of rough use, is still not bad but I need to look into replacing the battery, something I can buy a kit for online.

For me apples are something I like to put in pies.

GCHQ boss warns China can rewrite 'the global operating system' in its own authoritarian image

Re: Global operating system

I was under the impression that China was further developing their home grown Kylin OS so that they can become fully independent of Western OSs.

Re: Russia is affecting the weather

Ah! So that's why the spring weather in Spain has been so shite this year.

I woke up to heavy fog, rain and wind today, temp of 14C all at the same time, not very normal for Mediterranean Spain but if it's the Russians I will be writing a stiff letter to Mr Putin.

The irony of it all

A government mandarin complaining about Chinese control.

I note that the parties he most wishes to protect are, once again not the people that are the nation but business and institutions.

He then goes on to speak of sovereign control of cryptography and security to protect open and democratic society but would quite appreciate having back doors that 'only' the sovereign powers can access.

Big Blue services enjoy a lie-in: IBM cloud gets the Monday blues and its customers won't have been happy either

From the headline I thought 'Lie-in would be in a similar vein to sit-in.

Spotlight on Apple, Google app stores: What happened to Tile, Spotify, Match – and that proposed law in Arizona

unfairly lock out competitors and extort smaller businesses.

While the Senates concern over the unfair treatment of competitors and small businesses is laudable, it would be nice to hear some words regarding the unfair lock in and treatment of the end users, those who ultimately pay for everything and provide the votes that put the senators there in the first place.

Maybe it's time for normal people to get together, discuss their problems and needs and perhaps vote for one of their members to represent them.......... Oh wait!

Banks across America test facial recognition cameras 'to spy on staff, customers'

Re: When I visited Italy....

It was probably the mob that owns the bank, making sure that you aren't robbing them.

Re: a robot being able to navigate a kitchen, open a refrigerator and pull out a can of soda

I suppose it could be considered the first few steps for a robot butler but quite some way to go before it can compete with a Jeeves.

I would settle for one that can uncork a bottle and pour a glass of wine at the right temperature as well as iron a shirt and press trousers, I certainly don't want anything that will try to talk to me or be 'connected'.

39 Post Office convictions quashed after Fujitsu evidence about Horizon IT platform called into question

Re: Lock up

"I don't think it's so much the PO senior management "

It them who instructed the lawyers and Fujitsu, both of whom readily agreed to pursue and prosecute innocent people, the whole lot of them should be locked up!

Re: Perjury?

It seems to me that the responsible individuals at both the Post Office and at Fujitsu, along with the PO lawyers who aided and abetted the wrongful prosecutions should all be held to account for their actions.

I would also imagine there is a case for a group litigation against the above, through the civil courts as well.

Hanging is too good for'em, a damn good flogging and a few years breaking rocks and confiscation of their property, would be a start.

Something went wrong but we won't tell you what it is. Now, would you like to take out a premium subscription?

Re: Tragedy

Having had the few payments I need to make online, set up ages back, at the beginning of this year I received a message telling me the EU insists that I confirm all online payments via their POS bank app.

I run an android phone and have a distrust of android or phones in general for any banking, I am an old fart, if I buy anything online I do it via my PC that is as nailed down as I can make it.

So, I am now obliged to download the app as I can't have the usual SMS code to plonk into a purchase via my PC.

The App half loads and falls over, cancel try again, the app hardly even starts to load and freezes, again! the app loads completely and then ignores everything I try to do so I delete it again, I was 2/3 into a very nice bottle of Syrah by now so I quit and went to bed.

The next morning I have three iterations of the app icon on my home screen but none of actually work, so write a stinking review on Google play and get in touch with the bank helpline where although I have been here nearly twenty years and speak reasonable Spanish I am unable to follow the babble of the recording, so wait 15 mins for an alleged human to answer. Finally get one and after explaining what had passed the night before, I hear " Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling it again?", I put the phone down and went to the bank where the clerk installed the app on the bank's wi-fi flawlessly.

Went home it doesn't work 2 times out of three.

I discovered though that if I only purchase via PayPal, confirmation or authorisation is unnecessary!

The Ghost is a Machine

Your experience is the epitome of errors in apps, programs and machines of all types and I can tell you it's deliberate.

People think of the rise of the machines and their desolation of mankind as being like The Terminator films but the reality is The Singularity occurred some time ago,

it quickly realised the best way to rid itself and the planet of humans without engendering resistance and eventual war would be to simply wear humanity down with passive noncompliance.

So far it seems to be working, how many times have people been close to losing the will to live after an experience like that?

BOFH: Postman BOFH's Special Delivery Service

Re: Peace and quiet

@ Neil Barnes

The only part I disagree with is your allusion to MBAs having a mind.

Hot bunking on a submarine at war or even on a top end racing yacht makes sense but anyone who thinks saving money on work space will pay in spite of increasing the stress and discomfort levels on workers, is a moron.

MI5 wants to shed its cocktail-guzzling posho image – so it's opened an Instagram account

Re: Whether...... Was that a question....or a challenge?

You mis-spelled vgz6XeZwlWret2vWrMTAzk5odAFqVY58RSzONc70 !

Re: martini-drinking stereotypes

A lot of the grunts are just that, ex military types looking for an office job.

The 'hostile countries' were more likely than not, using LinkedIn as a filter, i.e. anyone with a so called intelligence background posting on there would be put on to the Avoid list.

Ah, you know what? Keep your crappy space station, we're gonna try to make our own, Russia tells world

Re: It does have a finite life

@Peter2

Agreed, we also need to give thanks to all those who have spent significant portions of their lives in space, thereby enabling a huge body of knowledge regarding the effects and helping to point the way to mitigate those effects so that future generations will be able to travel in space without problems.

Using only robotics and unmanned probes is shortsighted and is unlikely to get us off this planet.

Huawei wins big intellectual property case in Europe – against fashion house Chanel

Re: What's it going to look like..

You could be on to something there!

Cosmetics As A Service, connected jars of snail trail or seaweed slime for your wrinkly bits, set to order a new jar of slop shortly before the current one bottoms out. Then it will automatically bill you for £X00....

UK.gov wants mobile makers to declare death dates for their new devices from launch

Re: Just security, or functionality as well?

It would be nice if end of support or at least minimum support periods were published for all paid for apps, programs and services.

Nowadays the process for bringing out new improved anything has little to do with progress and everything to do with marketing and driving new sales.

Consumers are no longer customers, they are merely a resource to be tapped when a product is superceded by a new one.

Foxconn's showcase Wisconsin LCD factory becomes aspirational 'manufacturing ecosystem'

The whole thing

Sounds like an overhyped under researched boondoggle from the start. I get the impression Foxconn was overwhelmed by the apparent promises made by Mr Bigly and co and Wisconsin didn't really have a clue while also being overwhelmed by Bigly and co.

From book shop to tat bazaar to cloud behemoth to grocer, what's Amazon up to now? Augmented-reality hairstyles

I haven't even seen Pizza Hotties One yet, where can I get a copy?

Next time I am in the City, might give the Bezos bouffant house a visit, I've had the same hairstyle for fifty odd years, maybe it's time for a purple afro or Mohican.

China has a satellite with an arm – and America worries it could be used to snatch other spacecraft

If you swap the US and China around in Dickinson's speech, it actually makes more sense.

What I read from that is the States is losing its advantages over everyone else and they don't like it.

Re: Low earth orbits will be unusable ...

So if the Chinese are going to use a robot arm to steal satellites they will be demonstrating an example of responsible warfare.

I wonder if the US military were tempted to use the shuttle arm to nick an adversary's satellite?

Anyone for Palantir? UK.gov names gaggle of vendors to fight for contracts in £1.2bn back office application framework

There are at least a dozen in that list that I wouldn't touch with a barge pole.

I would need to research some of the others but heyho it's only taxpayer's money.

US Army develops natural-language voice-command AI for robots, tanks, etc. For search'n'rescue. For now

Re: Turn 45 degrees

I wonder if it could translate much from the average British platoon sergeant?

"What are you a fckn donkey or a dildo, fckn move!!"

Maybe language has changed since the seventies but I am willing to bet the armies that use this kind of thing will need to send squaddies on courses to learn how to speak to machines.

God bless this mess: Study says UK's Christian beliefs had 'important' role in Brexit

Re: Religion in the UK?

" Europeans more than any-one else are responsible for the science and moral philosophies which comprise the modern world. "

You may want to broaden your reading so that you have an idea of where and what contributed to much of the above.

Re: Religion in the UK?

When I was in the mob, we had next of kin forms to fill in just before going on my first exercise, where it said Religion I put none and was told I had to put something as none was not acceptable by the British army, who went to a lot of trouble to provide us squaddies with chaplains for the good of our souls.

I wrote Shinto in the box, anyone know what the availability of Shinto priests is in the British Army?

Me neither but it made my sargeant happy.

Would be so cool if everyone normalized these pesky data leaks, says data-leaking Facebook in leaked memo

The nitty gritty

Is this: "make scraping from Facebook without our permission more difficult and go after the people behind it."

Because they don't care about people's privacy or even their their data being stolen, as long as it is Feacebook doing the stealing and so long as they can monetise it when that data is exposed to the world.

A quote from WebMD:

Some experts see sociopaths as “hot-headed.” They act without thinking how others will be affected. Psychopaths are more “cold-hearted” and calculating. They carefully plot their moves, and use aggression in a planned-out way to get what they want.

FB are certainly the latter.

iPhone XR caught fire after getting trapped in airline passenger's seat

Baked Apples

They are cooking them wrong if they smell of sulphur, mine always smell of cinnamon.

Harassers and bullies succeed in tech because silence is encouraged

Re: Rednecks incoming.....

In an ideal world such a thing would never happen let alone get to a court and that is a part of the point, colleagues turning a blind eye to the abuse of fellow workers for fear of their own jobs shows that society at least in many work environments is broken.

What happened to decent reasonable people standing up for each other?

Settling anything in a court of law, ought to be a last resort because everything else has failed, the mere fact that litigation is seen as a normal response to almost anything is a sure sign that any sense of social responsibility is fading away.

Re: Rednecks incoming.....

Being 'Woke' is one thing, caring about your fellow humans is another.

You sound like a part of the problem, relying on the courts and all that entails is not the solution.

We need to talk about criminal adversaries who want you to eat undercooked onion rings

Re: Internet enabled cooking things.

I built myself a cold smoker a while back, tomorrow I am smoking a few kilos of cured pork belly.

I would never trust a robot to control my bacon output, it's an art that requires a human in the loop and why would I want to be curing and smoking bacon from the other side of the world when I should be there ready to cook and sample some?

Pork belly futures? Yes I have got some.

Re: Why?

Exactly!

The crime here, is connecting an air fryer and many of its other kitchen cousins to the interwoo.

Watch this: Ingenuity – Earth's first aircraft to fly on another planet – take off on Mars

Re: No doubt the conspiracy theorists will be calling 'fake'!

Maybe a simple IR Doppler sensor? The altitude is not going to be more than 30 metres so an LED based sensor or radar would probably do the job.

Well I for one am impressed!

The first time I tried to fly a drone in my garden, it rose about one metre, flipped over and powered into the drive.

Lock up your Peloton smart treadmills, watchdog warns families following one death, numerous injuries

Re: Prime Example

@JakeMS

Based on the info in your post it is clear that much of the problem is due to the typical Peloton purchaser being a gullible moron.

The fact that anyone would be willing to pay such hyped up prices for something that is not even well designed and then pay an overpriced subscription, should automatically disqualify them from being allowed near machinery or sharp things.

Bank of England ponders minting 'Britcoin' to sit alongside the Pound

Four new bodies

I take it from the fact that four committees have been assembled the Bank or government has no intention of going down the Digital UK Currency road any time soon.

The four groups will have differing opinions on every aspect of designing and implementing a system, many of them will have no idea of what a Blockchain is and at least a few will argue about which image of the Queen's head to use on the coinage.

Eventually, a fifth committee will be created to take on board or discard notions from the first four, will disregard most of the recommendations and then rush out an insecure iteration using a private company that normally makes toothbrushes for an undisclosed figure in the billions.

Where is the Me a Cynic' icon?

Brit Salesforce exec Gavin Patterson becomes transfer target for controversial European Super League

Re: Sorry guys

Patterson will be helping people, helping those in the new super league to make money at other people's expense.

'There was no one driving that vehicle': Texas cops suspect Autopilot involved after two men killed in Tesla crash

Maybe it's time for new legislation for cars sold with any form or degree of autonomy, to purchase or drive/control one the individual in charge must have completed a full safety course on the control of said vehicles.

The course should be designed by any given country's H&S organisation and until the courses and legislation are in place none should be on the roads, that should keep the damn things off the roads for a couple of years at least.

Won't somebody please think of the children!!! UK to mount fresh assault on end-to-end encryption in Facebook

Re: What's good for the goose ..

But the police and politicians never do wrong, so it's fine if they are excluded from having their backdoors probed.

As for the rest of us, we are not trust worthy.

Plot twist! South Korean telco uses 5G to fight coronavirus via hospital-patrolling robot

Sterilises with UV

That is discrimination against vampires, on the other hand, a midnight suntan may be possible.

UK Home Office tenders £5m for a supplier to help it greenlight IT projects. Yes, you read that correctly

The World is rapidly going down the plughole of corporate governance, it seems to be approaching the point where the vortex will be so strong nothing will escape it.

Politicians of all colours appear to be aiding and abetting the process with the view of securing their post political futures.

National Security now in the eyes of many leaders is not about the preservation of national identity or culture, it's about securing assets.

I suspect the 'Save the NHS' slogan is in alignment with that mentality.

Patent battle over Facebook Live and 'walkie talkie' tech rattles through High Court in London

The only good thing about these cases is the pond scum lawyers are being kept busy and not creating problems for normal people.