Posts by Chris G

Oh no, look out, Google, Facebook, and pals. You're doomed. Here comes another watchdog to, er, nip at your ankles

FTC

Otherwise known as Feck The Consumer.

Former senior UK council officer fined for doing dodgy data dealing to help his girlfriend

Re: Berk

In my experience, having worked for and with a local council in a couple of roles, there are plenty of other berks in similarly high positions who make this bloke look like a genius.

Don't mean to alarm you, but Boeing has built an unmanned fighter jet called 'Loyal Wingman'

Re: So are we starting a pool?

My typos are getting worse on this phone , weeding should read wedding party.

Re: So are we starting a pool?

"Wingman to MeatLeader; you will attack and destroy that weeding party. You have 10 seconds to comply......"

Insane homeowners association tries to fine resident for dick-shaped outline car left in snow

Re: HOA's - a place for wannabe Nazis

A friend's girlfriend had recentlynrented a house on a very nice development outside. Sacramento.

She went to leave for work one morning only to discover pne of her tyres was flat, the car was on her drive within a couple of minutes of starting to change it for the spare an HOA minion came to tell her she wasn't allowed to do that.

Apparently he was unable to comply with her response due to anatomical limitations.

It was the best of times, it was the WFIRST of times: How NASA's next exoplanet hunter could find 1,000+ worlds

Re: Never mind mapping...

I think you may have found the perfect ballistic material for firinf at an asteroid. Lets face it 2 kilos of copper is worth some money.

Up up and Huawei in my beautiful buffoon: Trump sparks panic by tying tech kit ban, charges to China trade negotiations

Boundaries

This is not blurring the boundaries so much as clearing them away.

American national security nowadays is all about trade deals and often criminal charges arise from trumped up charges based on sketchy laws invented to support protectionism.

Harassment, hate and bile, suicide instructions for kids... anything else social media's good at? Ah yes, cybercrime

But, but,,,,

Taking more responsibility could cost us money and reduce profits!

Microsoft 'welcomes dialog' over HoloLens use by the military, but doesn't have to listen

Patches

No war on Tuesdays?

Bun fight breaks out after devs, techie jump ship: Bakery biz Panera sues its former IT crowd

For maximum profitability

They need soft and hardware that will allow efficient and fast distribution to five thousand customers of five loaves and some fish.

IBM so very, very sorry after jobs page casually asks hopefuls: Are you white, black... or yellow?

DNA?

"When coming to attend a job interview, please bring a DNA sample so that we can verify your ethnicity answer."

China's tech giants are a security threat to the UK, says Brit spy bigwig

Royal Navy Task Force

To the South China Sea.

How many oarsmen will that have?

Or will it be an un escorted aircraft carrier with somebody else's aircraft?

Watchdog asks UK.gov to reissue freedom of information guidance after councils are told to STFU about Brexit plans

I'm thinking of offering B'n'B to Brexiters needing a break from a Hard Brexit, strictly authentic Spanish 'foreign muck' for breakfast though !

Crowdfunded lawyer suing Uber told he can't swerve taxi app giant's £1m legal bill

According to gargle, UK Uber drivers mske between £10 and £16/hr. I was doing better than that in the 80s mini cabbing, we had hire and reward insurance,paid £40 a week for the radio and the rest was ours. I paid back a £2000 loan in six months, cabbing in the evenings after my daytime job.

Uber sounds like one of those cuddly 10 plus percenters who like to shaft both ends of a deal.

In a galaxy far, far away, aliens may have eight-letter DNA – like the kind NASA-backed boffins just crafted

Re: In a galaxy far, far away, aliens may have DNA-like molecules

To paraphrase an old line " There's life Jim but how will we know it?"

Decoding the President, because someone has to: Did Trump just blow up concerted US effort to ban Chinese 5G kit?

Re: "the issue has reached the highest levels of government"

I think the real issue is that when he won the election, Trump couldn't really believe it

He probably spent the first few weeks thinking the Secret Service would burst in at any moment and tell him to piss off because the real president wants his office back.

Since they didn't throw him out he just keeps tweeting whatever comes into his head after the latest Whitehouse briefing so that he looks like he's doing something.

You're on a Huawei to Hell, US Sec State Pompeo warns allies: Buy Beijing's boxes, no more intelligence for you

LaLaLa I can't hear you

No matter what GCHQ and the Germans, among others, have to say, the yanks keep banging the same old drum. Mostly to keep the home fires burning.

It may be a benefit to a lot of people to no longer receive US intelligence considering much of of it is purpose built in house.

There's no 'My' in Office, Microsoft insists with new productivity hub

The ad for the new Office app is the latest spam on my android via CCleaner, 508mb of phone bloat.

Tens of millions more web accounts for sale after more sites hacked, Mac malware spreads via Windows.exe, and more

Beards on wheels

I can't say I have any sympathy for hacked scooters, why do they need bluetooth anyway?

Also there is just something wrong about a bearded adult on a battery powered version of a toy I gave up on when I was about 8 years old.

Pandas so useless they just look at delicious kid who fell into enclosure

Perhaps

A small addition of Kodiak DNA would make them more 'interesting'.

US counterintelligence agent helped Iran lob cyber-bombs at America, say Uncle Sam's lawyers

Re: Yee Gods

From this article, it sounds as though the US needs to think about recruiting intelligence agents who have some intelligence.

Judge snubs FBI's bid to snaffle Autonomy docs ahead of founder Mike Lynch's UK showdown

Re: So Lynch lied

I can think of quite a few senior executives and presidents of organisations who failed to listen to well qualified advisors. Its a good way to end up with egg on your face at the very least.

US kids apparently talking like Peppa Pig... How about US lawmakers watching Doctor Who?

So violence in computer games and on TV have no influence on kids but accents do?

One click and you're out: UK makes it an offence to view terrorist propaganda even once

Re: "Likely to be useful"

From the standard of driving many of them are committing acts of terrorism.

I love the very open to interpretation, catch-all wording used in British law nowadays.

Sci-tech committee: UK.gov's 27-page biometrics strategy is great... as toilet paper

Presumed what?

21 million custody images of people presumed innocent is, I dare say, not how the plod would see those images.

Their view is more likely ' There's no smoke without fire' to which end I expect they would recommend their colleagues to carry a box of matches. What does the report have to say about the wholesale collection of DNA? One of plods other fishing expeditions.

Uncle Sam to its friends around the world: You can buy technology the easy way, or the Huawei

Re: "out of security concerns"

They never needed Trump before in order to buster and bully anybody.

What makes me laugh is how many Americans refer back to the evil actions of the British Empire without admitting they have taken over the reins and extended them.

Re: Friends like these?

Simpler still; " If you are a friend of my enemy then you are my enemy too."

The US has over 700 foreign bases worlwide ' to protect Americans interests' they rarely say anything about the host country's interests because being under some degree of occupation, the host country no longer has conflicting interests.

From Red Planet to deep into the red: Suicidal extrovert magnet Mars One finally implodes

Apparently

Mr Lansdorp now has a selection of bridges for sale.

National Enquirer's big Pecker tried to shaft me – and I wouldn't give him an inch, says Jeff Bezos after dick pic leak threat

Re: My first thought was

" Nudies of Trump wrapped in an Amazon logo"

There's money to be made there, I for one would consider paying to not see them.

Shopping list: Mind leach 5 gallons.

Huawei pens open letter to UK Parliament: Spying? Nope, we've done nothing wrong

Re: Evidence?

If you look at how much 'American' kit is actually manufactured in China, I expect American Corporations are guilty of handing over a great deal more of American IP to China than Huawei could actually steal.

Sure, you can keep Grandpa Windows 7 snug in the old code home – for a price

Re: Updating to Windows 10

For my uses nowadays I will probably just go over to Mint, it should do everything that I need.

European Commission orders mass recall of creepy, leaky child-tracking smartwatch

Re: Don't be so alarmist

Rather than discontinue the watches, every child should issued one with small modification. Only removable with a special key and an electric shock function that can be controlled remotely.

" Timmy! It's time for your social alignment lessons"

"Aww but I wanna play fooAaaargh, I'm going now"

Bbzzzzt! " Ok ok I'm running there now, I love big brother!".

Ca-caw-caw: Pigeon poops on tot's face as tempers fray at siege of Lincoln flats

Go fly a kite

Here in Spain I have seen big buzzard shaped kites on a length of cord at the end of a 4 or 5 metre fibre glass pole, even the seagulls tend to stay away from them.

As an alternative; back in the '70s a mate of mine worked for a commercial freezer installer, their warehouse was infested with pigeons whose poo was causing thousands of pounds worth of damage to the freezers stored there.

The boss paid my mate and I to go there with air rifles three weekends in a row to shoot as many as possible.

The first weekend we took out over a hundred birds, the second weekend they knew who we were and flew out of sight, we found the answer was to tie a couple of pallets to the forklift, one driving the other on one of the pallets and hiding behind the other then raise the pallet over the eaves, shoot a bird and drop back down, probably got about half the number of the first weekend as it was slower. The third weekend I think the pigeons had sussed out that weekends were unhealthy and there were hardly any when we turned up but still plenty in the week, pigeons are fast learners, shooting them may reduce numbers but the best thing is to remove all food sources and put anti bird goo and spikes everywhere they could possibly settle.

Nuking from space might work.

Re: Food

Perhaps better to allow the homeless to feed themselves with pigeons, although I have eaten rat and squirrel on a survival course I think I may draw the line at eating feral pigeons as they can carry twice as many life threatening diseases as rats.

Fine, we'll do it the Huawei, says Uncle Sam: CFO charged with fraud, faces extradition to US over Iran trade claims

Just curious

What is the legal basis for the US to levy sanctions on anyone it doesn't like and to then enforce those sanctions even against those who are not necessarily in agreement with them.

Whats(goes)App must come down... World in shock as Zuck decides to intertwine Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp

Telegram

See Title ^

Data hackers are like toilet ninjas. This is not a clean crime, you know

Re: Cow orker

"How does one ork a cow?"

There is a chance that there is an instructive scene in the 1982 film version of Animal Farm, fairly sure Orwell had nothing to do with it.

I can hear the light! Boffins beam audio into ears with freakin' lasers

@ Blockchain commentard.

A couple or three decades back I heard of an intelligence agency that was experimenting

with non visible lasers to read the CO2 from breath in the hope they could fire their lip readers.

Crispest image yet of Ultima Thule arrives on Earth, but grab a coffee while the rest downloads

Hyper fast connection

Well, it is compared to the Movistar broadband contract I just ended.

It also seems to work continuously which is more than I can say anything Movistar.

Facebook didn't care if your kids ran up gigantic credit card bills – lawsuit

Re: They spent how much?

Perhaps Feacebook has a special premium rate for children.

Straight outta Blighty: Readers, if you were a tech billionaire, what would you do?

Re: Where is the poll option for

The tea leaves in my tea bags are loose, otherwise they would be called tea cubes/tablets/capsules..........

On the dunkable biscuit front, I live in Spain and in the face of Brexit one of the nearby supermarkets is stocking more British goods including some excellent but cheap gingernuts.

Re: Opertunity

Your post is possibly closer to reality than I like the think.

The longer and more laughable Brexit (lack of) preparations and the deal is the more I think we should think about who stands to profit

A fractured UK and Europe are good for anyone who considers their ' National Security' to be threatened by a strong functioning Europe, cue devolution, yellow vest and other unrest around Europe along with Brexit which is damaging for both the UK and Europe whichever way it goes.

What can I say? I like conspiracy theories!

Hardworking Americans keep busy during the government shutdown driving up smut traffic

Hardw**king Americans keep busy during the government shutdown.....................

RIP 2019-2019: The first plant to grow on the Moon? Yeah, it's dead already, Chinese admit

Re: Puzzled

"There is probably no terrestrial plant that can handle that"

The fecking ivy that some moron planted all over my grounds before I bought the place, it seems to actually 'like' glyphosphate even when it is injected into the stems.

If anyone has a gardening sized nuke, I may be interested.

Re: Bad planning

"plus any member of a political party sitting in the house of lords?"

I may need new glasses, I read that as 'the house of turds'!

NHS England's chief digital officer goes full digital, ditches health service for GP app biz

Re: Moving away

"We need to move away from the non-medically trained self interested management-led culture, to a clinician led health service using a targeted mix of trained doctors and nurses who will have responsibility for your health "

I think that reads a little better.

Hubble 'scope camera breaks down amid US govt shutdown, forcing boffins to fix it for free

Re: Crazy

You have echoed my thinking, the jaffa is like a primary school bully let loose in a toy shop without supervision.

Y'know how you might look at someone and can't help but wonder if they have a genetic disorder? We've taught AI to do the same

Re: Why not test the system on politicians ?

Yeah! The Japanese flag in the centre of their face is often a strong clue.

My old aunt had this tech sussed decades ago; eyes too close together shifty expression, thin lips, all indicators of deficiency. She was a racist too.

Drone goal! Quadcopter menace alert freezes flights from London Heathrow Airport

Just sayin'

If there are enough 'credible' reports of illegal drones in places like airports, a responsible state would have to ban or regulate them heavily.

Also good as a diversion for a government in a bit of a pickle.