Posts by Sooty

IBM says GenAI can convert that old COBOL code to Java for you

I'd be curious how it would handle some of the stuff I used to work with. complex recursive calculations. They failed testing once because the testers compared it to an excel spreadsheet, but excel got it wrong because it uses floating point numbers. The Cobol code was designed not to because they aren't accurate enough.

Virgin Media promises speeds of 1Gpbs to 15 million homes – all without full fibre

Re: Don't forget the price cut

that bugs the hell out of me, i don't want the TV, I don't want the phone, I just want the broadband. but it's cheaper to get a bundle, or such a tiny amount more that i might as well.

also that if you actually speak to someone they'll randomly go, oh, our current offering for your package is higher than that, and increase your speed straight away, but will only do it if you speak to someone, not automatically.

Chinese government has got it 'spot on' when it comes to face-recog tech says, er, London's Met cops' top rep

politician speech

"It's absolutely fantastic in recognizing what we're trying to do in catching criminals and, I have to add, terrorists as well,"

It's just a shame it's not very good at recognising faces though...

Easter is approaching – and British pr0n watchers still don't know how long before age-gates come into force

how about a simpler system

If i can pass the credit checks and age checks required to get an internet connection, then i must be over 18. Then just make it clear i'm responsible for deciding what various people watch on my connection.

it'll make things much simpler, and remind parents that they are responsible for their kids viewing habits, not the government.

El Reg talks to PornHub sister biz AgeID – and an indie pornographer – about age verification

big mistake

it's not going to stop people underage from getting porn, all it will do is stop them getting it from the "legitimate" sources. So they'll start trawling the less regulated porn sources, and are far more likely to come across something dodgy.

Soft eng salaries soar by 25 per cent – and, oh yes, devops is best paid for non-boss techies

basically i read this as there are a few, really highly paid, developers in the UK/US etc, and all the lower level jobs are outsourced to 3rd world sweatshops.

average salary in the UK/US increases, as all the day to day lower paid jobs that pull the average down, disappear.

10 years time, there are no lower level developers to come up through the ranks to replace the higher paid seniors, when they leave. The entire industry collapses into barely functional tosh for a while, as the cycle starts again from scratch

Wipro can't believe its luck at sealing 10-year deal worth $1.6bn with Alight Solutions

Alight Solutions

well, they had a good run, the bankruptcy office is that way! -->

No need to code your webpage yourself, says Microsoft – draw it and our AI will do the rest

Re: Oh crap, here we go again

there is a big difference between a web designer, who maps out what the website looks like, how the thing looks and how you navigate, and a web developer who actually implements the design and makes it work.

This is aiming to remove the coding step and have a design automatically made into a site. probably ok for simple prototyping, and low volume low complexity sites, but anything that needs to be a bit more robust, will need a real developer behind it.

Who was it that hacked Apple? Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie, boy boy boy!

Re: embezzlement.xls

One of our offshore developers was caught watching porn on his work machine, not the kiddie variety, and one of my colleagues had to review all the sites he'd been to... to make sure none of them were leaking company data.

he apparently had a thing for "Aunties"

A Reg-reading techie, a high street bank, some iffy production code – and a financial crash

Re: On time, on budget, good quality.

we need this project to go live on this date, now lets figure out what we need to actually make?

isn't this how all projects work?

UK Home Office's £885m crim records digi effort: A 'masterclass in incompetence'

The department had contracted Tata Consultancy Service (TCS)

Well There's your problem.

I wouldn't trust TCS to successfully open a can of beans... that was already open

UK data watchdog's inaugural tech strategy was written with... *drumroll* Word 2010

in fairness

Office 2010 is the last version that is reasonably decent. It doesn't have the "modern" user interface, installs properly and, for a home user, has decent licencing terms allowing use on a desktop and laptop.

Beyond code PEBCAK lies KMACYOYO, PENCIL and PAFO

I sense a Bluestone 42 fan :)

Re: Stupid users are the best.

we use UTS Error in a similar fashion

User Too Stupid

That minutes-long power glitch? It's going to cost British Airways £80m, IAG investors told

Re: Uh oh..

Does this actually mean less capable staff, or fewer capable staff, the ambiguity of it all! :)

I think less capable staff would be the worst of the two...

Stop trying to make The Machine happen, HPE. It's not going to happen

Re: Bed time stories...

I'm sure he could have

Brit hacker admits he siphoned info from US military satellite network

Re: "NCA has people with skills like Caffrey's"

They might have "star trek style" computers :)

Try not to scream: Ads are coming to Amazon's Alexa – and VR goggles

conflicted on the VR one

So if you are playing your new VR game on your Oculus later this year, don't be surprised to see a pair of Nike sneakers appearing in shop fronts, or a Coke can popping up on that table next to you.

I kind of have no real issue with product placement like this, as long as it's below a certain level. Like in films, you'd be more likely to notice something standing out if it were unbranded, or a fake brand, than something you see everyday. it's when the brands are everywhere that it looks stupid, if every billboard or advert is for the same product, every laptop is a the same brand as the adverts etc. If it gets worked into the dialogue so it sounds unnatural. We'll set off for the mission, just after I've finished enjoying this cool, refreshing, Pepsi.

if it's just brand awareness, that's not an issue, if it's noticeable to the point it takes you out of the game, especially in VR, it'll be really annoying.

UK General Election 2017: How EU law will hit British politicians' Facebook fight

Re: 2015 Election

It's been investigated now, it was an "Administrative error". not enough evidence to say it is criminal, just that the people running the country are incapable of correctly filling out an expenses form..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39865801

"Although there is evidence to suggest the returns may have been inaccurate, there is insufficient evidence to prove to the criminal standard that any candidate or agent was dishonest,"

Careful wording if ever I saw it :)

Facebook loves virtual reality so much it just axed its VR film studio

it's not teh tech, it's the content.

there are some fantastic VR games out there, but there aren't enough that take advantage of the platform.

Of all the stuff I've played, there seem to be a few types that are gems. Space combat/flight games are fantastic. I've played the star wars battle for Yavin short that someone cobbled together. a proper updated x-wing/tie fighter game would fly off the shelves. I also really want a nice WW1/WW2 plane combat game, again earlier planes are simple to fly, close range. in general good fun.

driving games are good, very immersive, especially if you have a racing wheel.

but, platform games, and things where you have to move more than a few steps struggle, as it is difficult to create the experience of moving as a person, not in some kind of vehicle. the shooting games are a bit of fun, but really limited by the "stand in one place" mechanic they have to use.

I haven't tried it yet, but i have high hopes for subnautica

Apple leaks new thinner, lighter iPad ... revenues

Re: I'm not surprised iPhone sales are going flat

I don't want to have to manage and keep charged, a set of Bluetooth earphones alongside the phone either. I want to be able to use the most basic, everyday, wired earphones

I'm not surprised iPhone sales are going flat

I'd have upgraded to an iPhone 7 if it worked in a fairly basic use case, listening to music and charging it at the same time.

While I'd have liked a bog standard, present on everything, earphone jack, if they really wanted to go the lightning route they could at least have added 2 ports. Purchasing an additional adapter to do such a basic thing isn't exactly an elegant solution...

Radio hackers set off Dallas emergency sirens at midnight as a prank

Re: Doesn't sound like an important newstory to me.

"I think you missed the part where my post was an obvious joke."

use the Joke icon? ----------------->

Payday lender Wonga admits to data breach

Re: Might be in for a shock

Alternatively, a nice list of mugs who are not very good with their money and are far more likely to fall for a scam.

Uber wasn't to blame for robo-ride crash – or was it? Witness said car tried to 'beat the lights'

Re: Uber driving definitely contributed

Accidents usually happen when

Collisions, the word accident implies no-one is to blame :)

New plastic banknote plans now upsetting environmental campaigners

How long does an animal have to be dead to satisfy Vegans?

Plastic is ultimately made from dead animals from millions of years ago...

I don't see a big difference between this and complaining about a few particles of tallow per note.

iPhone-havers think they're safe. But they're not

Any indication

if the IOS devices affected are rooted or not?

Lloyds Banking Group to hang up on call centre staffers

They outsourced to IBM once before, and brought it back when it was a complete and unmitigated disaster.

Don't forget the commitment to "Help Britain Prosper"

Police Scotland and Accenture were at odds over ill-fated IT project i6

If the Police say that every officer needs x, you base your costs on a guess there are 1,000 officers and it turns out there are 5,000, it's not the requirements that have changed.

the first question anyone competent should ask is, and how many officers, not just guess, then get that in the requirements. They should also ask about projected staffing increases over the next few years, at least over the run of the project.

My guess would be that they intentionally under quoted to win the contract, and were going to use change requests to bump the costs back up into profitability, but then found out that there weren't any/enough change requests to actually get the price up to where they could deliver without making a loss.

Frustrated by reboot-happy Windows 10? Creators Update hopes to take away the pain

Re: I don't understand....

the main annoyance I have is when I've left something downloading, that will take several hours, and I come back to it later to find it rebooted in the middle of it.

UK credit broker fined £120k for spamming folk with five million texts

Re: They will go bust in ......

...with the wife, brother in law, or cousin, etc. as the new company director.

Vapists rejoice! E-cigs lower cancer risk (if you stop smoking, duh)

Re: Marijuana delivery

You can still, just about, get CBD e-juices. but there has been a clampdown on them. You can no longer just buy them on Amazon, for example.

It was officially classified as medicinal, which meant you need an expensive dispensing licence to sell it, which put most places out of business.

I vape with them to help with my anxiety, but if it does become unavailable, i'll have to go back to NHS funded drugs.

there are loads of mods out there that look like pipes, from colourful aluminium to old fashioned wooden ones.

Re: This is all about carcinogen levels

"Propylene glycol and glycerin are indeed permitted food additives but they have not been 'officially approved' for vaporisation and inhaling"

As they are used as the delivery agent in asthma inhalers, I'd imagine they are fairly "officially approved" for inhaling.

Who's behind the Kodi TV streaming stick crackdown?

Re: Said it before, will say it again

There simply isn't enough time in the day to watch the 10% never mind the other 90%. The entire argument that I can't get X on service Y is bullshit. That you can't get steak and chips from a vegetarian restaurant, isn't an excuse to sneak into the local steakhouse and raid their freezers.

it depends on what you want to watch, I'ev only recently installed the plugins into Kodi to do this, but I've used it for a long time to stream from my NAS.

The other night I was reminded of an old film from the early 90's, looked up the name on imbd from the actor I remembered, searched and hit play, I was watching it a few minutes after the reminder.

There isn't a legal service in existence that provides this level of service and this wide range of content. No-one is suggesting you'll watch 100% of the content, or even 10% but if the specific thing you do want to watch is at your fingertips, from the moment you decide you want to watch it, that is incredible service.

Some of these films aren't even available on dvd/blu-ray! You want to watch the original starwars without all the cgi crap added to it, and you want to watch it now. you can!

UK uni KCL spunks IT budget on 'reputation management' after IT disaster headlines

Re: Blame

My experience of consultants is that they come in, speak to all the techies, write up what the techies have been telling management for years into a report, and submit it.

Management look at it and go, oh, that's what the techies have been saying, we really should implement that.

and never is the report heard from again! back to the status quo

Coming to the big screen: Sci-fi epic Dune – no wait, wait, wait, this one might be good

Re: SciFi Channel version

I was going to bring these up, they are actually pretty good, but do suffer a little from budget. It felt like the effects budget was blown very early on.

Otherwise a lot more faithful to the books that the Lynch version

Felted! AI poker bot Libratus cleans out pros in grueling tournament, smugly trousers $1.8m

not sure about this

Poker is a game of 2 halves, one half is playing the odds, which the AI can do very well, a lot better than any human.

Also there is playing the other players, intimidation, reactions etc. it's why online poker is so different to in person poker. I can't imagine the AI isn't going to take into account how the opponent places chips into the pot etc. It might analyse length of time, but it's not going to get clues about body language etc.

Yes you can consistently win money by just playing the odds, but it's called grinding for a reason.

Not only that, heads up is very different as well...

Northumbria Uni fined £400K after boffin's bad math gives students a near-killer caffeine high

Even with bar codes you can get doubled entries. The most interesting was a misread of the bar code that gave a more expensive product.

my favourite was a bottle of high end single malt, normally £35-£40 a bottle rang up at £18 at the till, the guy at the checkout was saying how expensive that was and was it really worth it drinking something that cost so much... I'd have run back and picked up 2-3 more bottles if I'd had the guts.

Forget Tony Stark's Iron Man – exosuits of the future will be spandex

They're techno-trousers, ex-NASA, fantastic for walkies!

UK ISPs may be handed cock-blocking powers

Don't forget the sick filth that is Nirvana's Nevermind album cover.

Batman v Superman leads Razzie nominations

Re: Actually "Zoolander 2" leads this year's Razzies...

Pretty sure I'm not alone, but I thought Affleck's portrayal of a jaded older Batman was the only redeeming feature of BvS.

After all the pre-movie flack he got, I thought he ended up doing a really good job of it, and I'm looking forward to the solo movie.

Re: Hamill owns Joker.

Hamill owns Jokers persona and voice so well, that Hamill deserves to be casted as Joker in movies.

it's why he was cast as the Trickster in the Flash, and even reprises the role in the new series. No-one should have to see Mark Hamill in a unitard and cape though.

Annoyingly precocious teen who ruined Trek is now an asteroid

Re: Blame the EU?

He could have been speaking French, with a French accent, but the universal translator just made it sound like English :)

El Reg drills into chatbot hype: The AIs that want to be your web butlers

Re: I was quite interested in the Echo...

"So I stumped up £50 for a Dot and quickly found out that it is a pile of crap. It doesn't recognise half of what I ask it unless I talk to it like an utter simpleton, and only then if my question or request is worded in the way its algorithms are designed to process the input."

Have you considered hiring it out to work in an Indian call centre to make the money back?

Power Systems running IBM's VIOS virtualisation need a patch and reboot

Re: "So IBM's guidance guidance that will not go down well with users."

yup, patching and rebooting a machine that supports multiple services, even with multiple load balanced clones might be technically easy...

but the real world of big business usually requires you to fill out endless paperwork to try and explain what it is to non-techies, and to be able to prove beyond a doubt that the reboot itself, nor any patch activity, can possibly interfere with operations in any way.

generally you even have to get approval from god just to lower resiliency by taking a clone out for a short period. But that does all depend on your service levels and data criticality.

I'm sure the thought of creating change records and submitting them to a CAB don't fill all techies with dread, possibly.

My fortnight eating Blighty's own human fart-powder

Re: It use the COOL model (Cook Once Eat Lots) tm Me:-)

fry onion and garlic, but don't even bother browning the meat, just dust it in flower and chuck it in raw... It'll hold in the juice and thicken the stew.

You can usually buy a £1 bag of "seasonal veg" at the supermarket that has nearly everything you need for a 5 litre pot. I recommend a big ceramic lined cast iron jobbie.

chuck in various things from your cupboard to add flavour, stock cubes, salt pepper, herbs, Worchester sauce, tomato puree etc.

you don't even need to heat it to boiling, just add wine & stock, & bung in oven for 4 hours.

costs under a tenner (if you're cooking it for 4 hours, get cheap meat, it's far better for this sort of thing), tastes great and will make a lot of portions.

The top doc, the FBI, the Geek Squad informant – and the child porn pic that technically wasn't

Re: Chain of custody

I think the chain of custody isn't an issue here. Yes, once the machine was out of his control, then there is a very reasonable argument that the images weren't there before he handed it over.

however, he wasn't being done over that image, that was just to say "we have a suspicion" and used to get the warrant to investigate further and search the rest of his machines that presumably hadn't left his control.

No matter how bad or how much stuff had been on the laptop, I doubt they could have the slightest chance of prosecuting him successfully if they hadn't found anything else on his home kit.