Posts by John Crisp

Skype finally catches Google with group video chat

Agree that one thing I am jealous of is the quality of Facetime calls between my wife and various of her friends, and wish it was available cross platform.

But that in its own right is insufficient to make me want to shell out for a bowl of fruit.

Researcher criticises 'weak' crypto in Internet of Things alarm system

"Our self-monitoring signalling products are reliant on the local IT network being secure"

What is that old adage about ASSUME?

Muppets.

iOS 9 kludged our iPhones, now give us money, claims new lawsuit

1. Please ask once politely if I want to download an update system

2. If I do, ask once politely if I want to upgrade and make it clear my toy may turn to sludge if I do

Cut the backdoor downloads and incessant update whining and leave me in peace

Nope, I do not have a fruity toy, but the wife does and boy, is she mad. So I don't care what the vultures at Apple do, until I get it in the neck from my non tech average user wife. Which is now.

Screw you Apple. I can't sue you here. But I shall enjoy converting as many of your users as I can to something else. Don't get mad. Get even

So why exactly are IT investors so utterly clueless?

Apart from BOFH

The only decent humour left round here....

"so you’d better get in quick if you want to invest in the world’s most expensive alternative to remembering what your mum told you repeatedly ever since you were two fucking years old."

Class....

'Hacked by China? Hack them back!' rages US Congress report

Here we go round..

the mulberry bush....

Hacking group Strontium dogs NATO and government targets

Bad move

I should never have let my girlfriend (now wife) make me throw out the first 100 or so consecutive ones I had.. collected whilst a paper boy... read once, stacked neatly.

Probably worth a mint now. Grrrrr...

Cryptowall 4.0: Update makes world's worst ransomware worse still

Cos they haven't got a back door.... or so they'll bleat

Re: Hunt the bastards down and publicly execute them

The point is that the spooks won't touch it. It plays into their hands.

Just gives them a reason to say encryption is a bad thing and they should have access to it all......

Fixing things does them no favours !

GCHQ 'smart collection' would protect MPs from spies, says NSA expert

Live by the sword...

And die the same way.

AFAIAA MPs are subject to the same laws as the rest of us.

If they have done nothing wrong, why should they worry....

Music lovers move to block Phil Collins' rebirth

Great drummer...

....pretty good singer, but don't let him do his own stuff :-)

Turn up the volume....

https://youtu.be/3pS_eQT0Uz8

Those double handed rolls are a nightmare to do without falling off your stool and he makes it look so easy.

Ah, Genesis glory days.....

Microsoft's OneDrive price hike has wrecked its cloud strategy

Re: Trust, indeed

"I own Windows 7"

Errr no you don't... you have a tightly controlled licence to use it.

Price hikes.... did anyone seriously believe that Microsoft wouldn't turn the screws to extract more profit for shareholders once they got sufficient users ?

They run a business, not a charity. Unlike the Chocolate Factory they do not have the advertising revenue stream and have to make the ROI somewhere.

Windows 10 users will feel it in the wallet eventually. It's just a matter of time to get enough users hooked. Anyone who believes otherwise must also believe in fairy tales !

Web giants, Sir Tim slam Europe's net neutrality rules on eve of vote

Think you have got the common misconception that your MEPs hold the power. Quite simply they don't. Neither really does the Commission.

Note where all the 'escape clauses' come from... the real power in Europe which is the Council of Ministers... i.e. your elected representatives....

Living in Europe as I do I have no problems with 'Europe'. The issue I have is that it is controlled by governments each fighting for their own agenda (and their paymasters) in preference to Europe as a whole.

Until national governments cede proper control to the European Parliament including finance et al (yes, a properly federated United States I guess) then the infighting does nothing but work against the better interests of the majority of people.

Currently we have a half way house that just doesn't really work that well. It 'could' be so much better. But no government is going to give up their bit of power, unless THEY are the ones who can get themselves to be leaders of the whole of Europe. They spent too long climbing greasy poles to be able to see a wider vision and do what is right rather than what is in their own self interest.

After all, if they are no longer seen as powerful, where would all the perks go ?

Downvotes expected for being pro Europe :-)

We can't all live by taking in each others' washing

A great loss

Like many I didn't always agree with either Tims politics or economics but it was always an education and made you think on a wider plane and will be sorely missed.

Good luck for the future Tim.

Actually I believe the biggest change in law/insurance happened in the 90s when after a lot of campaigning by the Law Society on behalf of solicitors, solicitors were allowed to work on a "no cure, no fee basis".

At the time I worked in marine insurance recovery. We were not solicitors so could work "no cure no fee". Our costs and fees were low, we were good at what we did and succesful, and the solicitors hated that.

Even worse was we frequently had to deal with solicitors and took the useless overpaid idiots to the cleaners regularly. We just made them look stupid.

As a work colleague said to me at the time "it'll be like the US in a few years with every solicitor chasing ambulances and no one taking any personal responsibilty anymore. Everyone will sue for everything and that will drive premiums through the roof"

Prophetic words indeed.

Windows 10 out, users happy, PCs upgraded, my work here is done – says Microsoft OS chief

Periscope depth Number One.

Prepare Torpedoes....

Lotus F1: 38°C? Sand in your Vblocks? Must be building a data center in Bahrain again

Whats its all about....

Most people miss the point about F1. It was always was, is, and always will be a manufacturers championship. Thats where the $$ is.

The constructors championship is what it is all about. The drivers championship is just a side show.

I have long said they ought to have a separate drivers championship race in the morning in equal cars. But then no one would watch the 'main event' so that will never fly.

As I say to friends who are bemused by it 'If you want to watch cutting edge technology thrashed within an atom of its life then watch F1. If you want to watch racing then watch another formula'

Personally I love and watch F1 for what it really is - a technological race... the only real interest is which member of a team wins as they are the only drivers really racing one another.

To get my racing kicks I watch other stuff.

The only positive thing to say about it is I remember going racing with a touring car team in the late 80s to Silverstone (before they ruined it) where we were support for F1. I asked the team where I should go and watch F1 qualifying for the first time and they said the inside of the old Becketts. 'And tell us what you think about F1 drivers when you get back'.

The slow cars came out first, down Hangar straight at approaching 200mph and then hearing them lift and turn in. Impressive.

And then the big boys came out. Flat all the way. He'll lift any second, he'll lift any sec......... errrr f*ck he never lifted. How the HELL did he do that ? And again. And faster. OMG....

After an hour I got back somewhat shellshocked at what I had seen. 'So what do you think?' said they.

"They are not like us.... I'm not sure if they are entirely sane"

"Ah" said they. "Now you understand.... "

So forget the racing. Qualifying is the best bit. One man, one ridiculous machine, one lap, balls out. Wrestling with a demon in a way that us mortals cannot possibly conceive.

For me thats what makes F1 great :-)

Jackpot: New hacking group steals 150,000 credit cards from casino

Sure it would have been different if it was the casino at risk of losing cash.

A few punters losing a few bob is a normal day in the office for a casino.

Also ironic bearing mind the level of security they employ on the floor to ensure they don't get fleeced. NSA eat your heart out.

Hang em up and leave em to sway in the breeze.

The Emissionary Position: screwing the motorist the European way

Re: Bunker Fuel

Think you will find that ferries typically run 'medium speed' diesels with variable pitch props as against bigger deep sea ships which run low speed diesels (90-130rpm 2 stroke reversible). It is a much better system for short trip rapid turnaround vessels.

The low speed ones use higher grade fuel for manouvering when decent response is required say in port, but once up to speed at sea they switch to 'bunker oil'. Which is far less refined and hence hugely cheaper.

So by all means run cleaner diesel. But your import costs will rise on all your lovely chinese imports.

Also AFAIAA large ships are hugely more efficient per tonne/mile carried than any alternatives.

Steam is great for power efficiency but the cost for making it is high due to inefficient boilers and hence few if any steam turbine ships are about today.

Not that as an ex navigator I know much about engine rooms :-)

Edward Snowden denies making a deal with the Russian secret service

Re: Interesting comments here

Yeah the Facebook 'we give nothing away' was painful too watch....

I was wondering how he could lie with such a straight face. Ex poker player perhaps ?

:-)

Think the biggest problem was the interviewer was working on a subject way too complicated for him, compounded by then trying to explain that to the masses in 30 mins. Had to stop several times to explain various relevant points to my son due to errors or omissions...

'One Windows' crunch time: Microsoft tempts with glittery new devices

Unplugged

Do I really want my personal mobile plugged into the corporate network and all it entails ?

Just saying.

Are Samsung TVs doing a Volkswagen in energy tests? Koreans hit back

>Also irrelevant - the law is as >written, and is nothing to do >with what anyone says the >"spirit" or the "intent" is.

Not quite right I think.

The law is as written indeed, but often wording can be ambiguous and the judges (in the higher courts) are there to decide what the intent was as you may note when cases are appealed on a 'point of law'.

Plenty of references to this online.

Spirits can go whistle obviously !

Boffins: We know what KILLED the DINOS – and it wasn't just an asteroid

Unlucky for some

Whatever happened you gotta feel sorry for the dinosaurs.

Bit like London buses. Hang around for millions of years and then get a truck load all at the same time.

Real bad luck whichever way you look at it :-)

Audi, Seat, Skoda admit they've been fiddling car pollution tests as well

Re: While these vehicles may all have the code installed

*Container ships use stuff so awful it has to be heated up to get it to flow through the injectors.

Not just container ships, but pretty well any large ocean going ship.

If I remember rightly the main reason for running lighter 'cleaner' fuel (on a low speed 2 stroke diesel engine) was better start/stop & low speed response when manouvering.

Didn't matter on a steamship with oil injected boilers though.

But yes it did have to be heated either way.

Can't remember now if we used tank heaters to get it out of the tanks like you have to for crude oil. But yes, heavy 'bunker' oil was pretty messy stuff.

Ahh... fun times at sea in my yoof..... Lash me to the bar. Mines another large one :-)

German regulator sets VW deadline

Sales of goods

Usually the statute of limitations would be 6 years if memory hasn't failed me, though there may be extenuating circumtances which may extend or reduce that.

In this instance it is probably falls under something like 'contract misrepresentation'.

Normally you would have to prove the manufacturer was at fault, but that's been done. Simply speaking if you bought it within 6 years VW are going to have to cough in one way or another and no excuses.

Happy to be corrected by a knowledgeable solicitor type as I'm very rusty on this stuff.

BT boss: If Ofcom backs us, we promise to speed up UK broadband

Make Openreach contactable

Making OpenReach available to the public might help.

Thry are shielded away where you can't put a round of fucks into the bastards.

You CAN get stuff done with BT if you are an obnoxious determined persustent bastard like me, but most understandably just can't be bothered.

I now get top line support with a personal mobile number and phenomenal customer support from BT. None of that online help shite. But virtually had to threaten to decapitate someone to get it.

OpenReach engineers (if they turn up - at least with me they do now) are generally pretty good. But the management are just beancounters trying to up their percentage rates.

Fix the easiest thing closest to the exchange.

They need to be on the end of the phone with bastards like me haranguing them for anything to change :-)

Hollywood takes a beating in Oscar cybersquatting battle

Re: And now...

Olympics....Think it was enacted circa 1995 or so. A lot longer ago you than you would think, and that probably applies in most countries too.

2012 stuff was enacted about 1/2 a second after the Olympics were awarded.

Can't remember specifically now but as we are in the promotional mechandise business it cost us a fortune in orders that customers wanted but we could not process/accept. People just didn't order anything at all..... a huge loss to the economy (leave aside what you think of promo products !!)

Queenie was much better doing an open licence for the Diamond Jubilee. Just a shame it could not be combined with games.

Olympics was a scam of the highest degree and still makes my blood boil.

'A word processor so simple my PA could use it': Joyce turns 30

Ahhh... Batman...

Google to China: Please Play with us, we promise to respect your strict censorship diet – report

Bulked or baulked. That is the question :-)

Anti-privacy unkillable super-cookies spreading around the world – study

Seems Telefonica / Movistar in Spain are up to it from the looks of things.

Ok on Wifi, and my new little VPN proxy :-)

Testing times as NASA rattles Mississippi with mighty motor burn

Re: OK so how fast

Think they reckoned it was doing 100mph by the time it cleared the tower.

No matter. Numbers will never do a Saturn V justice.

It's like trying to describe say a Ferrari.

I remember well watching launches as a kid. Mind numbing. Awe inspiring. I was 'there' when they stepped on the moon. I felt I held hands with the planet during Apollo 13. Amazing times.

I think it was Michael Collins who when asked what it was like to ride one said something like

"Imagine being strapped to the top of the biggest firework man ever built, they lit the blue touch paper, and then watched from the safety of their bunkers...."

Damn. Come on. Do it again....

BOFH: Why, I LOVE work courses. Please tell me more, o wise one!

Those sending you on the course are a) least qualified to be giving instructions and b) need it themselves

I call bullshit :-) Can't make a silk purse....

Class column

Apple tries to patent facial recognition

Thinks....

Going to have to wear a mask whenever I go out.

Google flubs patch for Stagefright security bug in 950 million Androids

Reckon pigs will fly before I see an update from my carrier. They just aren't interested. Sold you the phone and taken the cash. Then only interested in upselling services.

It's a friggin disgrace but no idea how we can get the bastards to budge.

What would people do if Dell supplied you a Windows box but never pushed you any Windoes updates ?

IMHO Google should be kicking the crap out of carriers. But they don't much seem to care either. They have assimilated you. Got your data.

And I thought Windows 10 was a mess. Makes M$ look good.

EE recalls Power Bar phone chargers after explosion burns woman

I have a small generic power cell for my phone.

It is noticeable that with the short and piddly thin supplied cable it gets very warm very quickly but with a (longer) thicker cable it doesn't.

Clearly an issue with Ohms law there somewhere. Who can I sue ? :-)

MoD splashes £1.5bn on 10-year IT deal to 'keep pace with threats'

Ah so this is why why the useless fuckers can't supply my son (a sapper) with decent kit meaning he has to resort to buying his own if he wants something that's any good.

Might possibly be the best trained soldiers, but that's no good with piss poor kit.

And having dealt with Bristol I can confirm they are a useless bunch of pricks who were probably unemployable elsewhere.

Best place to start cuts is in the MoD civil servants.

Goat well and truly gotten

BT broadband in broad-based brownout and TITSUP incidents

Same issue for employee at home in Chelmsford on Tuesday.

Own router. Seemed to be a routing issue. Pings at 1sec seemed ok but huge packet loss if I tried 0.01 sec. Traceroutes disappeared into the ether.

She gave up and went to the office 20 miles away, and BT, but ok.

They had apparently been noticing similar issues for a few days but assumed it was a.n.other problem.

Joy

Ballmer's billion-dollar blunders: When he gambled Microsoft's money and lost

Who missed the joke

Kin One

Kin Two

'Kin Hell..... said Ballmer

:-)

Crazy Chrysler security hole: USB stick fix incoming for 1.4 million cars

Damn. That's where all the IPv4 blocks have gone.

So with so many cars needing an IP we better hurry on to IPv6.

Now what was it you said about walled gardens and NAT..... ?

Being common is tragic, but the tragedy of the commons is still true

RNLI

"Running the lifeboats is similarly (and to the mystification of other nations) in the UK left to charity. But while the fundraising is national that also really works because the crews are coming from small communities and are welded together socially."

As a crew and helm for the RNLI for 15 years it is indeed a unique organisation.

I believe that there was an attempt for a limited period in the 1970s to have it run by government, but as with many government projects, it was just another department that could have its costs cut as civil servants and their masters saw fit.

The RNLI management felt that this was not in the best interests of the Institution and decided to become completely independent again.

What is amazing is the that the management have a rolling program to visit every station about once every 5 years to meet the workers at the coal face. Having sat in on a couple of meetings face to face with the top brass it was amazing to be able to say exactly what you thought with no fear of reproach, and then seeing ideas mooted put in to practice.

As the then Chief Exec said "You have to tell us what you need. Our job is to provide it. You risk your lives for free. Our job is make sure you have the best equipment we can find to make your job as easy and safe as possible. If we are getting it wrong then tell us to our faces."

I can't imagine many organisations anywhere that have that level of interaction between the top and the bottom.

It is not the sort of attitude you get in government run bodies (ask anyone in the Armed Services..... I have two relatives 'in' and the treatment of our serving soldiers/sailors/airmen is quite frankly atrocious)

I still fail to understand how the Institution does what it does and raise the level of money that it does - I am sure Tim has a theory on how it works economically ! Yes, the crews are local and tightly welded but I think that there is quite a degree of separation of them from the largest body of donations.

The biggest chunk does indeed come from legacies, but that is in the decline and has been for some time (I remember discussing it at one of those meetings probably 15 or 20 years ago), presumably due to social changes. Hence they have turned to other ways of raising funds. Note that the Institutions financial planning extends something like 50 years ahead....

What is most staggering is going to the annual RNLI presentations in London where fund raisers and crew are honoured. I was pretty well in tears most of the time. Little ladies from some small village who had barely been to the seaside, let alone been to sea, spending 50 years collecting safety pins for scrap or somesuch and raising 10s and 10s of thousands of pounds. We loudly applauded every single one. My hands hurt for days, but it was worth it.

Why do they do it ? There is an emotive link somewhere I guess. Island nation, tales of derring-do on the high seas by 'heroic volunteers' (read 'idiots like me' !!!) etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynmouth_Lifeboat_Station for instance

It truly is an amazing organisation. One of which I was proud to be a member of. But what makes it all possible is the phenomenal support of the public. To everyone of you who has ever put a penny in a box, or ridden, or walked, or jumped, or shaved your head for the RNLI, a huge thank you from me for all your support.

Run Windows 10 on your existing PC you say, Microsoft? Hmmm.

Drivers

Do I really need a nearly a gigabyte of HP windows driver cruft when my Linux box installs it automatically without even asking for a disk ?

Ridiculous and I still don't get it. Why do I want all that spyware with every driver ?

Microsoft suspends Windows 10 new-build downloads ahead of launch

28th July. Booked my holiday for a week. So I don't have to answer the phone to all the muppets who decide to try and upgrade.

'But my computer kept telling me too....'

I know quite a few people round here on a shared low bandwidth long range wifi connection who are going to get a shock.

As well as the ones with ADSL on the wrong end of a long phone line.

The Microdoft job creation software just keeps getting better :-)

I cannae dae it, cap'n! Why I had to quit the madness of frontline IT

No wonder I can't find anyone to fill a nice little coding job with lots of opportunities. Young people are obviously smarter than their CVs show, and they have decided to find a job where they don't sliced and diced for a handful of gravel a day and blamed when the house of straw collapses :-)

I wouldn't mind, and I agree completely with the sentiments expressed, but as a slightly unusual small business I have always strenuously fought the boss (read wife) to ensure we don't cut corners with our IT.

So I have a nice little job with good resources and no one interested in filling it. Apart from a few wannabees who 'can do Word' and 'want to be a games programmer'- the painful result of completely misguided IT education policies :-)

Migrating from WS2003 to *nix in a month? It ain't happening, folks

For small businesses... Freeagent (I have no $$$ connection whatsoever) is possibly worth a look. We swapped from Line 50 and not looked back. Worked well with our accountants reporting software.

Other thing that is still largely under the radar is full on Samba 4 (not the cutdown version in RHEL 7). Have a look at the sernet packages.

No it won't enable you to replace 2003 with *nix but interesting nonetheless....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYXWQ0pYpZM

Just saying.... so please don't frag me :-)

Security world chuckles at Hacking Team’s 'virus torrent' squeals

Jajajajaja en Castellano.

Or

Jejejejeje

:-)

Looking forward to getting Windows 10 the day it ships? Yeah, about that...

Windows 1.0 to 10 - any significant improvements barring the movement of the decimal place ?

:-)

Google harms consumers and strangles the open web, says study

Yup in the early days Google were great, or better than the competition (ahhhh... those heady days of Archie Gopher Altavista Excite Lycos Yahoo et al!)

But now they are just another listing site trying to shove shopping and other listing sites (that they probably own) down my throat. Selling what they want you to buy, not supplying the information you seek

I only use them in desperation these days if DDG doesn't give me a sensible answer.

I hate having to climb through 5 pages of guff to possibly get what you might be looking for instead of what they want you to see.

Or you get two links, both in Chinese :-)

Heroes to zeroes IMHO. Shame. Great idea.... but the call of filthy lucre bought out the morals.

Windows 10 is due in one month: Will it be ready?

Come on peeps. You're missing the point. This is a strategic work generation program. If it was perfect there would be no need for puter mechanics and lots of IT bods would be out of a job.

You should be praising MS for releasing shit to keep food on your tables.

Personally I'm pleased I run no Windows boxen. Allows me to do something constructive with my life... :-)

ROFLMAO....

Open-source Linux doesn't pay, said no one ever at Red Hat

Re: Even if it doesn't pay.

"...Red Hat can largely ignore the GPL on the Linux kernel..."

With systemd they can largely ignore Linus and the Linux kernel......

Why is that idiot Osbo continuing with austerity when we know it doesn't work?

Reasoned debate is good to read whether I agree or not.

I generally enjoy your columns Tim, but please leave the hysterical headlines, political opinions and slagging off to the rags where it belongs. Stick to your economics as I am not interested in your political views.

Shame we can't down vote an article... -1 from me.

EU: Explain your tax affairs. Google, Amazon, Facebook: Mmm... nah

Re: Get a life

"So perhaps the disenchantment in Britain stems from the fact that we're not allowed to engage in any democratically meaningful way."

You forget that the it is the goverment WE elect (for better or worse) that appoints and dictates to the officials that set policy. So you do have a some influence. Regrettably nowhere near enough because the politicians want you to be worried about the health service or whatever. Smoke ans mirrors.

Yes, the problem with Europe is there is no democracy but that is because goverments will not cede their authority to the democratically (and proportionally represented) EU Parliament.

If people could overcome their xenophobia and understand the best way to run Europe is via the democratically elected parliament life might be a tad easier. The current system is a mess. But the voters get swayed by emotive (and largely irrelevant) subjects like immigration so they don't see the objective issues like democracy.

And I can't see national politicians wanting to give up the power they spent years climbing greasy poles to achieve.....

This is not about what is best for you, me, or the nation. Purely what is best for your politicians.

Waiting for the downvotes of UKIP supporters....