Posts by Chris Evans

Retailer Co-op: Attackers snatched all 6.5M member records

funeral parlors!

I've never heard of Undertakers in the UK being called "funeral parlors" we've enough Americanisms already thank you. Funeral Directors.

Double-detonation supernova could explain why the universe is full of candles

Type ia supernova,

At first I thought it was: "Type LA supernova" but it is "Type ia supernova" With my default browser font upper case 'i' is indistinguishable from lower case 'L' : e.g. IlIlIl !

I hate fonts like that, I should change it. Any recommendations for a similar easy to read font with distinguishable upper case 'i' and lower case 'L'?

TUPE or not TUPE? How AI and cloud are rewriting the rules of supplier transitions

Unclear!

e.g. "Smart suppliers and customers are already adapting their contracts" I suspect this is the contract between the old and new employer. Employees just need to know are they being transferred as per their current contract, offered a revised contract[1] or not transferred.

[1] AIUI if the revised contract is significantly different the employee can opt for redundancy. From which employer old or new would depend on the contract between the old and new employer. If the old employer sold a subsidiary that they were contracted to they would have no choice but the new owner would have to honour their contract, offer a revised one or make them redundant.

Microsoft dangles extended Windows 10 support in exchange for Reward Points

Cheaper than $30 a year?

If "OneDrive storage... costs $19.99-a-year plan gets you 100 GB of OneDrive space" why not buy that rather than pay the $30 a year. Presumably you don't even need to use it! Or have I misunderstood?

Microsoft testing PC-to-Cloud-PC failover for those times your machine dies or disappears

Cloud PC costs?

I'm interested to know what 'Cloud PCs' prices start at. I'd guess the will charge over 10% of that for 'Cloud PC Reserve'

Doomed UK smartphone maker Bullitt Group finally liquidated

Creditor hierarchy

Secured creditors, those with a claim on specific assets

Administrator/Liquidator fees

Preferential creditors like employees for wages and certain HMRC debts,

then unsecured creditors.

BUT employees preferential entitled is arrears of wages is up to a maximum of £800, and holiday pay!

Re: At least PWC were paid!

I suspect it would be more accurate to say "PWC were paid part of their fee!" given that all liquidators I've heard of, charge hundreds of pounds an hour I expect they actually made a significant loss. My heart bleeds for them!

NASA to silence Voyager's social media accounts

Re: No tears children ..

"It's all part of the dismantling of the state and it's agencies the people voted for." Not all Americans voted for him! 77,302,580 49.8% did but 75,017,613 48.3% voted for Kamala. They have my sympathies!

I've realised Trump has done me one favour. I often buy goods priced in US$ they are now about 10% cheaper thanks to his undermining of the dollar.

Odd homage to '2001: A Space Odyssey' sees 'Blue Danube' waltz beamed at Voyager 1

Disappointed!

I was disappointed that the film didn't show the final stages of docking. I was looking forward to comparing it with my abysmal record of docking in Elite!

Torvalds' typing taste test touches tactile tragedy

Re: Strange keyboards are the bane of IT support

This left (both) handed keyboard is a bit more reasonably priced.

https://www.cjemicros.co.uk/micros/individual/newprodpages/prodinfo.php?prodcode=A4T-USBKBDLH-BK

Tab key on the right please

I often have to input a lot of numbers and then use the tab key at the other end of the keyboard to the number keypad. I've yet to see a keyboard with a tab key near the number pad.

Re: Strange keyboards are the bane of IT support

"What I wish I could find is a keyboard with the number pad and/or function keys on the LEFT side". Left or 'both' handed keyboards are readily available. I've been selling an a4tech one for well over 10 years.

If you can learn to use the mouse with one hand and a numeric keypad with the other I'm sure some data entry could be much quicker!

HMRC's Making Tax Digital scheme also made tax more expensive – by £300M

Re: Keying is not compliant

Please point us to the regs that forbid keying?

The overview document at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-tax-digital/overview-of-making-tax-digital doesn't seem to have any regs!

When?

When is this quarterly account submission coming in? I've not heard anything. (VAT has always been quarterly for most businesses)

Re: Small business VAT

I've heard no suggestion that mytaxdigital.co.uk will start charging, they told me several years ago that they had to write the submission software for their own use, I think they see it as publicity for their services.

Re: Small business VAT

For VAT returns I use the free service available at:https://mytaxdigital.co.uk/

It only takes a couple of minutes to enter the 9 boxes!

There are other similar sites I believe.

HMRC have just sent me a letter saying filing Ltd company accounts is changing next year. I've always submitted on line via the web but the suggestion is I'll need to buy software.

For the partnership I'm in I use Andica.com software, about £25 a year.

Google says it's rolling out fix for stricken Chromecasts

Chromecast alternative?

I have a 2nd generation Chromecast which I don't use much so didn't know of the problem. Looking longer term if they are now discontinued what can I replace it with when it dies?

I only use it to 'cast' video from our laptop!

ESA cuts the ribbon on 34,000-core Space HPC center tailored for space workloads

I wonder if it will run a spillchecker!

The link to send "expressions of interest to has "The ESA Space HPC will allow you to boost your projects by performing complex computations and processing massive datasets more efficiently and rapidely"

It also says "We will come back to you shortly to 'exchange' on your needs." what’s wrong with the word discuss?

Troubled French outsourcer Atos finds pot of gold at the end of UK state bank Rainbow

Where is all the money going?

With contracts like these how are Atos not making vast profits but instead are being bailed out by the French government?

SpaceX has an explanation for the Falcon 9 bits that hit Poland

Batteries toxic?

"...venting all propellant and discharging the batteries..." so what happened to the batteries?

They'd be dense so less likely to break up totally during re-entry and won't they be toxic?

Your days of driver sync via Windows Server Update Services are numbered

Implications?

What (if any) are the Implications for home and small business users?

Most of whom (including me) have just let Windows Update do its thing.

Remember it'll cost ya to keep the lights on for Windows 10

$30 Option for consumers

From ElReg's first posting on this subject: "The ESU program for consumers will be a one-year option available for $30." https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/31/microsoft_windows_10_support/

Intel pitches modular PC designs to make repairs less painful

Re: WTF

Only the A3000 was an all-in-the-keyboard Archimedes. The A300 and A400 series had separate keyboards. For the later all-in-the-keyboard A3010 and A3020 the name Archimedes had been dropped.

Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever

Interface that looks a lot like Windows 10?

With most? Windows users on Windows 10 what is needed is an interface that looks a lot like Windows 10

Also I use 7+ Taskbar tweaker to let me reorder my Firefox windows, is there anything that would do that on linux?

First all-Indian chips to debut this year, 25 more local designs in the works

40 years out of date, they were making chips in India back in 1984!

In 1984 SCL were making 6502 CPUs and building them into an authorised BBC Micro clone the 'SCL Unicorn'! I bought and sold one a few years ago. More details and photos at:

https://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Computers/SCL_BBCB.html

In 1984 6502 weren't that far behind the curve I expect India couldn't keep up with the vast investments needed for chip manufacturing.

Tech support fill-in given no budget, no help, no training, and no empathy for his plight

Re: Prejudice in fiction

Wikipedia lists no 'Biggles in the Sud'. Biggles in Africa & Biggles in the Gobi are the closest I could see.

BT unplugs plans to turn old cabinets into EV chargepoints

Re: the Wi-Fi connectivity challenge surrounding EVs

Many people will sit in their cars whilst they are being charged, they will want WiFi

Zuck takes a page from Musk: Meta dumps fact-checkers, loosens speech restrictions

Will Trump last four years?

I think not. If his health doesn't get him first I predict he will do something that gets him impeached or is that just wishful thinking.

Request

Can I go to sleep now and be woken in four years time or whenever sanity returns to the planet please?

Naïve Reg hack thinks he can beat Christmas food comas once and for all

MWIS?

I had to google MWIS!

https://www.mwis.org.uk

Mountain Weather Information Service

They don't cover Sussex where I live.

Re pessimistic forecasts.

As a cyclist I check the forecast so I can be prepared.

The Met office are even worse than the BBC. Google weather I find the most accurate.

Apple Intelligence summary botches a headline, causing jitters in BBC newsroom

I can't make up my mind if the downvoters think I should trust AI-generated info or they just didn't realise I was being very sceptical! I might have expected the former from the general public but surely ElReg readers are more clued up an AI than most people.

I follow the maxim 'Just because something is AI-generated doesn't necessarily mean it is rubbish!'

Coder wrote a bug so bad security guards wanted a word when he arrived at work

Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence!

Google blocked 1,000-plus pro-China fake news websites from its search results

Example please?

For a laugh I'd like to visit one of these sites. Anyone known of a typical one?

Undergrad thought he had mastered Unix in weeks. Then he discovered rm -rf

Re: Colour Me Shocked...

A Plus1 added a parallel printer port to an Electron as well as two ROM cartridge slots and an analogue port. There may have been a Serial port cartridge but it certainly wasn't common. n.b. I've taken delivery of an Electron & Plus1 today!

O2's AI granny knits tall tales to waste scam callers' time

Please please set it up so I can redirect the scum to it.

If automated i.e.

Caller: This is your credit card company Please confirm the following payment to Amazon.... or other scam. Press one to speak to an agent...

Me: Redirect call to Daisy

If a human i.e.

If automated i.e.

Caller: I'm calling from your credit card company Please confirm the following payment to Amazon.... or other scam.

Me: My wife does all our finances please hold the line and I'll get her

I then Redirect call to Daisy

Japan's wooden cube-shaped satellite rockets to space

Photo?

Some very good photos of it are here:https://www.nanosats.eu/sat/lignosat

UK watchdog hints Voda-Three merger will likely pass

Why not long term safeguards?

I've never understood when they decide short-term safeguards are needed what is going to change to make long term safeguards unnecessary?

Russian court fines Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

How long will Putin live

I did wonder if there was something to look forward to, so looked up Putin's age, he is 72.

I am disappointed to report that according the UK's ONS a 72 year old's average life expectancy is 86 years/

"However there's a chance you might live longer. There is a 1 in 4 chance you will live to 92 years.There is a 1 in 10 chance you will live to 96 years.There is a 2.8 percent chance you will live to 100."

So no comfort there, I do wonder if he keeps away from windows and balconies...

JPMorgan Chase sues scammers following viral 'infinite money glitch'

The glitch may have been...

The glitch sounds to me like there was an update to the software that allocated the cheque value to 'cleared funds' balance of the account holder rather than the uncleared balance.

RAC duo busted for stealing and selling crash victims' data

The accident claims management company should have been in the dock with them

In this and the 2021 case It shouldn't be too hard to find out who the accident claims management company was! Even if they were paid in cash surely they just need to ask those people who's details were stolen who contacted them?

I know many people will just have put the phone down or ignored the email but a significant proportion must respond otherwise it wouldn't be worth the money.

OS/2 expert channeled a higher power to dispel digital doom vortex

You actually trust ChatGPT?

"Nowadays it is just as easy as opening a web browser, go to google, chatgpt or bard (or whatever) and asking for assistance, and most of the time you'll have the answer." I wouldn't trust ChatGPT to provide an answer that involved several steps and trying to use google search to confirm it, would probably be a self fulfilling prophecy whether correct or not. I'm reminded of: "Just because it's in a newspaper doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong!"

What is missing from the web? We're asking for Google

Re: Search in images..

"For example many years ago I read an article on audition that used an image of a bear on a bicycle to illustrate that all of the hearing spectrum is important."

I must be a bear of very little brain as I've no idea what that means. Please explain?

Re: My starter for 10

On the one hand Google probably knows more about me than I know myself and will sell it to anyone. On the other hand they do provide some very useful services. I'd be rather lost without their search, maps/street view/Sat nav directions & youtube!

Choose Your Own Adventure with Microsoft 365

Re: Do you have access to an IT professional for advanced support and services?

"(And then there's the "we are in the cloud" where they just run the same workloads on VMs in a cloud, instead of VMs in Hyper-V / VMWare on prem - again, not cheaper and mostly the same people needs)"

And adds a single point of failure that you have no control over!

South Korea creates $445M bailout fund after payment glitch trips up e-commerce giant

Possibly not fraud!

"It is impossible for such a business to not have the money to pay all merchants in full without there being some sort of fraud going on... right? " Well that is how it should work but many companies don't use a separate 'Clients funds' account to their own account and even if they've not been profligate with spending they could end up with cash flow problems. It could be fraud, extremely bad management or just poor management we just don't know yet which.

Second NHS IT system confirmed to be affected by CrowdStrike issues

Re: Which Windows PCs are effected and should you turn on your PC!

I know that but it is only affecting Windows PCs and many users won't know if they are using CloudStrike's anti-malware product. If it would be correct to say this will probably only be effecting organisations that are big enough to have an IT department then stating that will reassure many people!

Which Windows PCs are effected and should you turn on your PC!

It's not affected our 4 Windows 10 PCs (mix of home,pro,32 & 64) it might be helpful to know which systems are failing!

If a Windows PC hasn't yet been turned on today is it safe to turn it on now?

I suspect old Windows xP, 7 & 8 might not be effected, if so that might help people with old normally unused systems.

Singapore's banks to ditch texted one-time passwords

.. you don't carry it around with you..

" physical number generator... you don't carry it around with you..." how does that work? I don't work on the move myself but I do do 2FA at home and work, on the same accounts.

FCC: T-Mobile US unit gave blind customer the runaround in massive tech support fail

Re: The comments in this thread

I see no posts blaming the victim! There are posts pointing out not all blind people are the same!