* Posts by Jim Whitaker

163 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jun 2013

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Climate change means beer made from sewer water, says North Carolina brewery

Jim Whitaker

Or now.

Jim Whitaker

Re: "Climate change means beer made from sewer water"

That's the Australian model, isn't it?

Boeing paper trail goes cold over door plug blowout

Jim Whitaker
Thumb Up

Real information and professional insight

If you are looking for accurate and insightful information, try these two YouTube channels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnFzT6aUehg&ab_channel=blancolirio and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FcyvFfHsjQ&t=720s&ab_channel=TheBoeing737TechnicalChannel

World-plus-dog booted out of Facebook, Instagram, Threads

Jim Whitaker
Devil

Shrug.

NASA's satellite pit stop project runs out of gas

Jim Whitaker
Go

New approach needed

Now give the task to SpaceX.

Dumping us into ad tier of Prime Video when we paid for ad-free is 'unfair' – lawsuit

Jim Whitaker

Re: They'll reap what they sow

"Didn't watch "Good Omens" until it came out on (discounted) dvd - I really liked the casting but still preferred the book."

I normally have a belief that the film version of a book is worse than the book. Worse, often much, much worse. Good Omens is, for me, an exception to that rule. Indeed I just started last night on about the third watching on Prime.

Jim Whitaker

Re: Question is...

Come on AdBlock, do your stuff!

When red flags are just office decoration: Edinburgh Uni's Oracle IT disaster

Jim Whitaker

"Oracle IT disaster". That headline must be in standing type at so many publications.

Alaska Airlines' door-dropping flight was missing bolts

Jim Whitaker

Re: "poorly drilled rivet holes"

If you read many air incident reports, you will find quite a few where the CVR has been overwritten in much the same way. Far be it from me to speculate why trade unions have argued against much longer recording durations.

'Exemplar' digital hospitals trust hit by multiple tech-related traumas

Jim Whitaker
Unhappy

"NHS administrators tend to regard electronic records as supporting the NHS internal market and a source of lucrative data that can be commercially exploited. Concern about patient wellbeing is well down the list"

Speaking as an ex-NHS (interim) manager, I think you do us a disservice by assuming that approach. What I saw in colleagues would not support in any way your assessment.

Jim Whitaker
Facepalm

Re: "staff [...] had to complete a duplicate entry of records [...] on two electronic platforms"

And a KVM is only applying a sticking plaster to a gaping wound.

FBI confirms it issued remote kill command to blow out Volt Typhoon's botnet

Jim Whitaker
Coat

How many people, on reading this, have gone and power cycled their old router?

Boeing goes boing: 757 loses a wheel while taxiing down the runway

Jim Whitaker

Re: click bait

It is reasonably clear from authoritative sources that it was a wheel which fell off. What matters is accuracy in reporting. If a news source can't copy and paste reliably and then sub-edit accurately, what are the other errors in what is being said?

Tech billionaires ask Californians to give new utopian city their blessing

Jim Whitaker

An archology in the making?

Oath of Fealty is a 1981 novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and I'm surprised to be the first to draw the parallel.

Google to start third-party cookie cull for 30 million Chrome users

Jim Whitaker
Pirate

Re: Only stupid people use google crome

I'm not sure that you either convince or educate people by insulting them.

You don't get what you don't pay for, but nobody is paid enough to be abused

Jim Whitaker
Devil

Spelling mistake

Oh dear; you clearly are not screening your readers carefully enough.

IT sent the intern to sort out the nasty VP who was too important to bother with backups

Jim Whitaker

So this was an important ($$$$) company who thought that backups were something you left end-users to do? I presume they are bust or selling vegetables now.

Rhysida ransomware gang: We attacked the British Library

Jim Whitaker

They get kept for as long as is necessary. The method of having a "trusted" person in your organisation have sight of the relevant documents and for them then to record "conditions met" is attractive. Attractive, that is, until the relevant law enforcement bodies rock up on your doorstep and start asking difficult questions.

Control Altman delete: OpenAI fires CEO, chairman quits

Jim Whitaker

Shortly afterwards:

And about ten minutes later, he was hired by Microsoft.

It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

Jim Whitaker

UK legal position

I wonder what the Information Commissioner would make of this issue?

Vanishing power feeds, UPS batteries, failover fails... Cloudflare explains that two-day outage

Jim Whitaker

That's brave, at least the first time.

Millions of smart meters will brick it when 2G and 3G turns off

Jim Whitaker
Happy

Content

Every so often it is nice to have a gentle warm feeling. Usually I get this from ignoring messages to install a "smart" meter. Now I get double reward from this announcement.

Royal College considers no confidence move after Excel recruitment debacle

Jim Whitaker
FAIL

Data Protection breach?

I would have thought that anyone of the trainees who felt that they had been disadvantaged by this shambles might have a case to bring under the Data Protection legislation. Mind you given how NHS management (especially clinicians in management roles) treat those who point out errors, perhaps trainees eventually with a job will judge it better to keep schtum.

UK procurement is too glacial to bring AI into defense, MPs told

Jim Whitaker

Old story

Where have these people been for the last 50+ years? (I can only speak for my experience; I suspect the problem goes back much further.) I worked (as a Naval officer) in a part of the MoD Procurement outfit in 1973-ish. The headline message of this article was crystal clear even then. I suspect that part of this is inherent in the nature of the activity. On the other hand, think of those activities which have been created or driven as a result of military needs (and funding). Also bear in mind how quickly some things can move when and "Urgent Operational Requirement" arises.

95% of NFTs now totally worthless, say researchers

Jim Whitaker
Facepalm

Oh dear, so sad, too bad

I am so surprised and very disappointed.

BT confirms it's switching off 3G in UK from Jan next year

Jim Whitaker

Re: So.......2G will be here for while and 3G will disappear almost immediately...

But they will, of course, be monitoring bounced messages and using other channels to update the contact details. Won't they?

If anyone finds an $80M F-35 stealth fighter, please call the Pentagon

Jim Whitaker
Holmes

Found it!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/09/18/f-35-stealth-jet-lost-charleston/

Google Chrome pushes ahead with targeted ads based on your browser history

Jim Whitaker
Mushroom

What's an advertisement?

Do I understand from this that there are still people who see ads? Please do introduce them to an AdBlocker.

Southern Water to drink up tech deals worth up to £358M

Jim Whitaker

Re: Sewer spills

And it is a reflection of the short (nine day?) attention span of the media. No wait, perhaps it is us who have the short attention span and the media are just doing what we want?

Silicon Valley billionaires secretly buy up land for new California city

Jim Whitaker
Mushroom

Think of it as evolution in action

Read Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle to see how Todos Santos gets on.

Two teens were among those behind the Lapsus$ cyber-crime spree, jury finds

Jim Whitaker
Facepalm

Pretty tough comments but what about the companies?

Most of the comments so far are pretty tough on the perpetrators and I get that. I too am not comfortable with a mental condition leaving someone free to re-offend. However, I think the elephant in the room is the lack of condemnation of the various companies for the incompetence shown by their IT teams. If they had not made it possible for these two to roam through their systems, then there would have been no (serious) crime committed. Pretty unimpressive.

ICANN warns UN may sideline tech community from future internet governance

Jim Whitaker
WTF?

"The technical community is not part of civil society and it has never been,"

Of course technicians should have an input to the governance and discussions but do we really want anyone who will say that they are not part of "civil society" to have any conclusive hold over something as important as the Internet?

So much for CAPTCHA then – bots can complete them quicker than humans

Jim Whitaker

Re: Task failed successfully.

What do you mean "muttered"? Shouted, more like.

Boffins say they can turn typing sounds into text with 95% accuracy

Jim Whitaker
Big Brother

Old news

Back in another life in about 1973, the IBM golf ball typewriter (aka Selectric) was known to be a target (I could not say whether a successful target or not) of this sort of attack. Ditto teleprinters.

Jim Whitaker

Re: Adding keyboard sounds to Zoom audio

Just as irritating when they are using a pencil.

UK's dream of fusion power by 2040s will need GPUs

Jim Whitaker
FAIL

Fusion power - Coming to a socket near you - Real soon now.

Just like the last 50 years.

Five billion phones are dead in drawers – carriers want to mine them

Jim Whitaker
Flame

Batteries

I'm surprised that so little of the comments are about battery replacement. I have two redundant phones, one of which would still be in use if it was possible to simply replace the battery. Android OS still new enough to not be a security concern, works OK on 4G. The phone I had about 12 years ago had an easily replaceable battery and would still be in use if the technology had not moved on. Hence I support the EU drive to force all similar small electronic devices to have easily replaceable batteries. (Ditto common USB connections.)

Comms watchdog to probe errors that left Brits unable to make emergency calls

Jim Whitaker
Angel

Re: Dry Run

Rather similar to what happened round here. The Parish had been told to collect pledges of funding (~£1k for each household) to co-fund fibre rollout. Then one day I saw a guy climbing the poles at the foot of the garden and was told that we would all be FTTP in a few weeks. No explanation, no further information, just BT planning at its best. Still it works just fine so I'm grateful for that.

Missing Titan sub likely destroyed in implosion, no survivors

Jim Whitaker

Too many hobby horses being ridden - too little compassion being shown.

Amazon confirms it locked Microsoft engineer out of his Echo gear over false claim

Jim Whitaker
Black Helicopters

Every so often, being proved right is so comforting.

My immediate response as Alexa (and others) was announced was "NOT IN MY HOUSE".

Australia to phase out checks by 2030

Jim Whitaker
Thumb Up

Re: They still exist?

Not many people know that. Every day is a school day.

Amazon Ring, Alexa accused of every nightmare IoT security fail you can imagine

Jim Whitaker
Holmes

Wow, that's a surprise.

Fahrenheit to take over Celsius

Jim Whitaker
WTF?

Seriously!

Another of these reports where you spend time checking the date.

Britain's largest private pension scheme reveals scale of Capita break-in

Jim Whitaker

There is an "S" missing.

Datacenter fire suppression system wasn't tested for years, then BOOM

Jim Whitaker

It is a P7 rule.

Online Safety Bill age checks? We won't do 'em, says Wikipedia

Jim Whitaker

Balance is the key.

Of course age verification is a sensible and proportionate course of action for some services. Of course Wikipedia is not remotely one of those.

But then a VPN will probably defeat all restrictions. So only the non-savvy child will be excluded.

Oracle's examplar win over SAP for Birmingham City Council is 3 years late

Jim Whitaker

Well that's a surprise.

"complex customisations which are failing, and proving hard to fix" Well who would have thought that this would be a problem. Shakes head.

SpaceX's second attempt at orbital Starship launch ends in fireball

Jim Whitaker

Re: Starship hasn't had the most successful history?

So was it Mercury you missed because of this?

UK's Emergency Services Network unlikely to start operating until 2029

Jim Whitaker
FAIL

Gosh I'm surprised said no one ever.

Defunct comms link connected to nothing at a fire station – for 15 years

Jim Whitaker
FAIL

Re: Money for nothing, it's the best

Privacy dot com was interesting until I got to the "USA only" bit. :-(

Interestingly Googling for "On-demand credit card numbers" produces Silicon Valley Bank as the third entry. Haven't I heard of them recently?

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