Posts by Rob

The immovable object versus the unstoppable force: How the tech boys club remains exclusive

Re: Hmmm...

"Why aren't there more female bricklayers? Do the same impediments apply?"

I think this where the comment in the article applies about the need to run for a generation tilted in the opposite direction. Classic barriers that have been around for too long will be the main reason we don't see more female "bricklayers", we have to spend time getting rid of those barriers and then seeing how many women want to be bricklayers before we can truly say that women aren't interested in being bricklayers, that all takes time.

We've started along the path of trying to remove those barriers (I think some sectors of industry need to try harder or at least start), provide more opportunities and eventually we will be closer to a more balanced workforce at all levels in regards to gender.

Whistleblowing saboteur costs us $167m bellows Tesla’s accountant

Check your numbers...

... there's 2, one in the US and one in the UK.

UK's GDS head Kevin Cunnington leaves to tell world+dog how (not) to do digital

Re: If this...

2 of those mentioned were actually delivered by the DVLA before GDS was even created. They would like to say that GDS was responsible but all they did was bolt them into gov.uk once it was launched. HMIRC dealt with online self assessment before GDS and gov.uk came along.

10 PRINT Memorial in New Hampshire marks the birthplace of BASIC

WOW...

... I still have that book that features on the article thumbnail. Couldn't bear to get rid of it, fond childhood memories.

Bandersnatch to gander snatched: Black Mirror choices can be snooped on, thanks to privacy-leaking Netflix streams

Re: Oh for god's sake...

Or perhaps he wrote Bandersnatch knowing full well that this would happen and this alone is the point of the Black Mirror episode?

Public disgrace: 82% of EU govt websites stalked by Google adtech cookies – report

Re: "there were 112 companies slurping up information"

Wrong number, it's 0118-999-881-999-119-725-3.

Don't forget the 3 on the end!

Crypto exchange in court: It owes $190m to netizens after founder 'dies without telling anyone vault passwords'

Its India...

...you can buy a body as well as a certificate of death, you could probably find someone that would do some sort of bundled deal for both if you buy cash (not crypto though).

*taps on glass* Hellooo, IRS? Anyone in? Anyone guarding taxpayers' data from crooks? Hellooo?

Re: Governing America

Amazing... when does the Shaman start? We can supply plenty of chicken bones, there is currently a backlog of decisions to be made in the UK government so the sooner they can start throwing bones the better (do I need to throw some to speed up the process?)

Dozens of .gov HTTPS certs expire, webpages offline, FBI on ice, IT security slows... Yup, it's day 20 of Trump's govt shutdown

Totally agree... right I'm off to catch up on current british politics and brexit.

Ofcom asks networks, ISPs: Hey, wouldn't it be nice if you let customers know the best deal once their contract's up?

This is where the suppliers are winning, they hope that all customers go through a web channel to renew which usually ends up with a crap deal. In all cases phone up and haggle, if they have it built into their model the human at the end will be versed in getting you a better deal that isn't published on their site. That is definitely true of a certain TV satellite provider I know of and I have been able to get better deals in person with EE as well.

US bitcoin bomb threat ransom scam looks like a hoax say FBI, cops

Re: Wandering totally offtopic

I've always gone with WfH, seems to be the most widely used in our outlook calendars (and I usually colour code these with green, not that is relevant).

I'm now thinking I might bugger off at lunchtime to WfH for the afternoon, obviously in the interests of testing the impact of using WfH.

Sacked NCC Group grad trainee emailed 300 coworkers about Kali Linux VM 'playing up'

Sounds like...

... she knew that as soon as she produced anything in that role the gig would be up and they would know she was a fraud.

The hole looks like it kept getting bigger and bigger until she ended up in a tribunal as there was nowhere else to go with the lie.

The alternative is that she was just plain [email protected] crazy.

Slabs, huh, what are they are good for? Er, not quite absolutely nothing

Not surprised...

... I've had a Samsung Note 10.1 since about 2016 but recently I bought a 2-in-1 HP Envy (always need a laptop) and I hardly use the Note tablet now. Between my Note 8 phone and the laptop the tablet seems superfluous (just as well, seeing as it doesn't get updates anymore, might have to cook it to get more life from it).

US JEDI military cloud network is so high-tech, bidders will have to submit their proposals by hand, on DVD

How many bidders...

... have said to some techie, we need to burn a DVD, closely followed by said techie grabbing the corporate credit card and running out to buy a DVD burner.

We don't have any in our office anymore and the one I had in storage at home gave up the ghost, not got round to replacing it, not sure I will. Strangely ironic now I think about it, as I used to spend my working day building DVD masters and then reading a book while I kept an eye on 20 DVD duplicators whirring away... starting to feel old...

Samsung Galaxy Note 9: A steep price to pay

Re: >>>A lot of couriers don't have a stylus when they want you to sign their machine

The Note will notify you if the stylus is too far away from it. Of all the NOtes I have had over the years I have never lost the stylus (I've lost a few replacement nibs though, as they are impossibly small to find in a carpet).

Off with e's head: E-cig explosion causes first vaping death

Re: Souk an e-cig

Why would Big Tobacco do that, they are into the vape industry just under different names and subsidiaries. They harvest plants for nicotine, this is just another market to sell nicotine into.

Too many bricks in the wall? Lego slashes inventory

Some people on here clearly have no imagination

There is a lot of people on here whinging about the specialised bits and how in their day they could build more stuff without the specialised bits. Clearly you lot have a limited imagination, the specialised bits mean even more creativity, you only have to look on pinterest to see the art of the possible, some truely talent builders using those specialised bricks in imaginative ways

Thar she blows: Strava heat map shows folk on shipwreck packed with 1,500 tonnes of bombs

Sailed past this a few times. There was a rumour doing the rounds that she was carry an a-bomb for us to drop on hitler, hence they don't want the ship to explode.

It was also said that the explosion would be large enough to cause issue with Canvey island which has a few refineries on it.

Unlikely there is any truth in any of them, but this ship has been there for awhile so has had plenty of time to build up some urban legends.

Police camera inaction? Civil liberties group questions forces' £23m body-cam spend

The chink in the armour

The problem with these systems which is what the civil liberties is heading towards with their statement is that the lack of data around useage is due largely in part to the systems the store the footage have no formal governance built into them.

Most public sector organisations struggle with governance on an IT system at the best of times which is why you need an IT system to enforce it on the staff using it. These systems have some basics like expiration periods (e.g. footage is deleted after 30 days unless tagged for evidence), but they don't capture other data like checking out a file for use or if it is being used for evidence attaching something like a case number or reference as metadata. Simple additional fields of data attached to a workflow would help build and enforce governance from a systems point of view.

Obviously you then have the argument of blaming the software makers/camera providers for not building this into their software. They would then turn round and say that it wasn't a specification the customer asked for and we're back to the earlier part of my comment.

Sociology student gets a First for dissertation on Kardashians

Re: ?

Desperate human beings who crave the limelight to validate their lives, which unfortunately seems to be a trend in society due to the proliferation of digital technologies such as Youtube and Twitter etc.

Shared services centres supposed to save £128m saved £0... and cost £4m

And everyone one of those muppets responsible for this cock-up will still keep their jobs and move onto the next project to right royally screw up.

UK.gov kicks long awaited digi strategy into long grass, blames EU referendum

Shouldn't be too hard for GDS to spend the money on iMac's, Lattes and other luxuries that help them do the incredibly bad job they have done so far.

Google chap bakes Amiga emulator into Chrome

Re: Deuteros..

... one of my favourites too, I still have it in it's original box along with many others (I also still have my Amiga A1200, just have to get a copy of the last version of Workbench to get it up and running again).

Microsoft Office 365, Azure portals offline for many users in Europe

Re: Fucked for us too....I would love to have avoided this

Sounds common, either that or we work for the same employer.

Digital Services to be killed off early next year, Gov.uk confirms

Re: Is it just me?

What you mean letting an incompetent, inexperienced civil servant do a job that could potentially waste millions isn't the norm?

Don't worry though, if they do screw it up I'm sure those particular staff members at GDS will be banned from using their tax bought macs and Latte Mocha's for a week.

Mobile first? Microsoft decides to kneecap its Android users instead

Great post...

... echoes my sentiments exactly.

BlackBerry emits Android mobe as biz goes down the Priv

Full circle

Reminds me of the HTC devices that used have the slide out keyboard, for good reason as well, they were running Windows Mobile and a hardware keyboard was needed. I can't quite see the point of adding a hardware keyboard when androids native on screen keyboard seems more than adequate.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Hang on Peter, it says it'll finish copying in 10 minutes, no... wait... 5 minutes... oh hang on... it's 8 min-no wait it's 45 minutes... how long will this sea stay parted for?

British killer robot takes out two Britons in Syria strike

Re: Right word?

I venture one further and say instead of outlaws they are barbarians.

Your gadget batteries endanger planes, says Boeing

Re: Confused

Not really because your comparison doesn't in anyway answer the OP's proposition in which they state, smouldering hand luggage in an overhead locker vs pallet of batteries in the hold. The careful reading of the article meant it provided enough information for me to conclude that the volume of batteries in the hold compared to a few in the over head locker is the difference to why one fire could over whelm the fire suppression system and the other could have been managed safely.

I know what the BALPA directive says from reading it, but that isn't what is being talked about, so well done, 3 stars, but could do better.

(P.S. your getting a rant cause someone at work has pissed me off with their stupidity, again!)

Re: Confused

With careful reading of the article it's not hard to imagine that a couple of batteries in a device in a bag in the cabin area is easier to contain than a pallet of batteries in their hundreds all going critical at vary stages maintaining an intense chemical fire for a longer period of time is why the fire suppression system in the hold get's overwhelmed and can't contain the fire.

Oi, UK.gov, your Verify system looks like a MASS SPY NETWORK

Re: Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

It's GDS so we could probably assume it's mostly stupidity going by their previous history.

Land Rover's return: Last orders and leather seats for Defender nerds

Re: Fuel economy requirements

I usually find cruise control kills any good mpg you may be able to achieve. It's designed to maintain your speed not give you good mpg.

Adult FriendFinder hack EXPOSES MEELLIONS of MEMBERS

We know who it was...

... this has got BOFH written all over it, this is the mother load, he could extort the whole of the management and director tier probably.

Blocking mobile adverts just became that little bit easier

Re: Conundrum

Completely agree, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I tend to ignore most ads unless they interfere with my scrolling ability on a mobile device. I've been suffering from banner blindness since the term was first coined.

As someone mentioned earlier, perhaps this is the stick we all need to get advertisers to produce non intrusive ads.

At the end of the day, it's IT, it won't be long before someone finds a workaround, whack-a-mole with Advertisers.

Ex 'Tech City' chief Shields appointed junior Fun minister for internet safety

Re: Communications Data Bill

The fact that you used intelligence and humanity in the same sentence as parliamentary conservatives I'd say yes to the faith question.

Ericsson to Apple: Cough up for licences or stop selling iPhones, iPads and Watches

Sounds more like...

... Apple is just arguing the toss on price, it's what Apple does, I'm assuming the lower FRAND license cost means bigger profit margin per unit regardless of whether they have to throw a few millions at it in court to get that price. In the long term they would make those court case costs back on unit sales.

ICANN urges US, Canada: Help us stop the 'predatory' monster we created ... dot-sucks!

Exactly...

... because while this is all rumbling on and they have happily washed their hands of any responsibility, the £185,000 is earning them some interest.

Death becomes it: Grim Fandango Remastered

Made my year...

... 'nuff said

Dark Fibre: Reg man plunges into London's sewers to see how pipe is laid

Too early

I probably should have saved that one to read this afternoon, my stomach feels like is could contribute something else for the Zayo folk to walk through now.

Users shun UK.gov flagship digital service

Surprised?

No, not really.

Glad GDS have been spanking my tax money on expensive coffee and iThingys for them to play with in their swish Westminister offices.

Elite:Dangerous goes TITSUP

Re: Oook.

I got the reverse, I sold a basic scanner for 2 cargo space and if I wanted to buyback the scanner I would have made a 4 billion profit on the cargo space. At that point I thought something has definitely gone wrong.

Now if only something like that could happen in real life, I would definitely abuse it without a second thought.

Profit-shy Instagram adds 5 new filters for hipster-photo types

I completely agree...

... with this,

"Vulture Central's backroom gremlins still maintain that using Instagram filters is like looking at the world through a pair of urine-filled swimming goggles."

and this,

"New keyboard needed"

Right, can I go home now....

UK flights CRIPPLED by system outage that shut ALL London airspace

Re: Get them to hold at the outer marker

Bruce Willis is on his way as a backup solution, just as soon as his flight arrives.... oh wait....

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

I see where you are going with this

I appreciate what you are trying to achieve, the layout is fine but you probably could have soften the blow by not flipping to so much stark white, as this is part of a phased approach I would have maybe phased your colour change in as well.

Look forward to what else you may do.

Out of professional interest, any chance you could share things like wireframes etc to see your thinking behind the changes (understand if you can't due to commercial sensitivity).

E-cigarettes fingered as source of NASTY VIRUS

Re: Let's sum it up

@AC You need to be careful talking about addiction, nicotine maybe in the same class as caffeine but that too can also be addictive. Addiction can come in more than one form, just because it isn't physically addictive doesn't mean it can't be psychologically.

Re: Let's sum it up

Quite a lot of the main stream vaporisers and cartomisers are brands produced by the major tobacco firms anyway. At no point were they going to let the nicotine market out of their grasp. If they aren't selling it directly in their own product then they are probably supplying the tobacco leaves by the bundle to other companies for their vap liquids, either way they will adapt quickly to the new market which by the looks of it is heading for a boom.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4: Spawn of Galaxy Alpha and a Note 3 unveiled

Pretty much on the nose with this review

I can't see anything I'd disagree with in this review. From my perspective I've seen a massive improvement in quality but that is only because I have upgraded from a Note 2.

My only regret is that I'm now hooked on the stylus, if Samsung ever decide to stop the Note series my life is screwed I rely on it so much. I even have a Note 10.1, these are the only things I use now, with a combination of S Note and Evernote for writing things down.

Now if I could just get the postman to digitise my mail I would be in digital heaven and trees would love me (the paper industry wouldn't).

UK urged to stop bigging up startups, feed 'growing' firms

Re: More to the point...

Thanks for the beer tips folks, I will definitely try some next time I hop over the pond.

Re: More to the point...

@phil dude, I gave you a downvote, I was with you all the way up until you dissed the beer, I find it extremely hard to believe that the Americans have figured out how to brew a decent ale yet ;-)