Posts by Don Bannister

911 goes MIA across multiple US states, cause unclear

Re: Tharg Note: ‘Behind CenturyLink’s 911 Service Outage of 2014’

40 million seems an odd number. Certainly doesn't seem to be binary related. Arbitrary choice by programmer ?!

Outlook.com trips over Google's spam blocking rules

Puzzled !

Surely an alias address will still be from the same outlook.com domain. Or is Google filtering on individual addresses, rather than the domain ?

The Register meets the voice of Siri Down Under

I once worked on a TV quiz show that used a voiceover artist. She had recorded the network messages for an Irish mobile operator. She said she'd completely forgotten about it until checking her voicemails one day, and heard herself !

Ahead of IPO, Reddit blends advertising into user posts

LLM training includes adverts

So they're adding adverts to the stream of consciousness that is being ingested to train an AI LLM !

I'm sure that'll do wonders for the quality of output ....

Nokia brainwave turns cell towers into cash cows with backup batteries

Sods Law

will dictate the mains failure will occur just after you've run the batteries down to export power at a good price ....

How governments become addicted to suppliers like Fujitsu

Re: Anointed proprietary monopoly

Though, unless something changes, she is still a CBE ....

PLACEHOLDER ONLY Someone please write witty headline here

Some years ago, while using specialist development software written by a chap we knew, was rather surprised to encounter the error "Pointer f***ed" (and without asterisks !!)

Bank's datacenter died after travelling back in time to 1970

Re: Priorities

I used to work in the broadcast world, and came across a couple of such stories where the big boss wanted to know what was going on ....

1. In person. "What are you doing to get this fixed ?" Reply: "Talking to you"

2. On the phone, after rather tetchy reply from the fixer. "Do you know who I am ?" Reply: "Yes - do you know who I am ?" "No" Reply: "Good !"

Home of the world's longest pleasure pier joins public sector leak club

Re: Your NI number isn't privileged and nothing should hang off it

They aren't unique - do tell how that might come about !

And I've found quite a lot of banks & finance institutions do indeed use your NI number - quite often for ID and/or anti-laundering checks ....

Customer data security is our highest priori- ha ha ha whatever, suckers

Top article Dabbsy !

A lot of good sense about security issues. A trailer for "UFO" and a Pink Floyd video. Oh - and use of the word effulgent. What more do you need on a Friday ?

Not sure if you're STILL running Windows XP? AmIRunningXP.com to the rescue!

Re: For some reason...

The source code for that site is quite an amusing read ....

Comprehensive security in the home

Re: WebRoot

Just out of curiosity. I can see what appears to be two different Webroot companies. One has a dot co dot uk (Webroot Software Inc), and the other has a dot com with a /gb/en/ (Webroot). To which were you referring ? Cheers.

Texas students hijack superyacht with GPS-spoofing luggage

Unless the team had the luxury of a cruise from Texas, I wonder what airport security / TSA would make of a box of GPS spoofing kit. Though in practice, my experience suggests that the more complicated something looks, the less attention it gets !

Would I be right in assuming the equipment has to spoof multiple GPS satellites ?

Post-pub nosh deathmatch: Bauernfrühstück v bacon sarnie

Don Pita

I must say I reckon that Don Pita bears a _remarkable_ resemblance to a certain Michael Barratt (he of BBC Nationwide, many years ago) ! Wanders off in nostalgia ....

Airline leaves customer on hold for 15 hours

Music on hold !

.... 5 minuets - a bit of relaxing music - nice idea !

Further - I know of a certain accounts software company in the North East whose helpline gives you the option of selecting the genre of hold music you'd like :-)

Religious wars brewing in ICANN gTLD expansion

What about howmanydaysisitto.christmas ?!

German KIT v Fighting Seawolves in student cluster deathmatch

Re: Stoney Brook?

Mmm - tried that link. It came up with a message I wasn't expecting:

"This video contains content from Channel 4, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds"

I'm in Northern Ireland, which AFAIK is in the UK. Unless I missed something on the news ! My ISP is Virgin Media (cable), the location of whose IP addresses I would have thought were easily determined.

Google adds default end-to-end encryption to search

When on google.co.uk ?

As the title says. If you put in https:// for google.co.uk, it just reverts to a normal http:// connection.

'Race against time' to find LOST TREES from the MOON

What's WITH the random CAPITALISED words in THE headlines

As it says. This author has done this a few times - I'm wondering what it means ....

CNN flashes gay todger over interwebs

Irish ?

Just wondering if Lester maybe has some Irish relatives. Gobshite is a particularly splendid word when said with an Irish accent. And much used on the Emerald Isle, too !

Lateral thought saves sizzling server

Solving another intermittent problem

When I was at Uni studying Engineering some years ago, we had a Professor who did a bit of external consultancy. He would occasionally tell us about some of the jobs, and this one was my favourite.

He was called to a paper mill to try and find out why just every now and then the paper was coming out with uneven thickness and, at considerable cost, had to be thrown away.

He looked around at the operation and asked them a few questions. He then said that he could fix it and named (by his own admission !) a hefty price. They were so keen to get it resolved they went for it.

He said "See that window up there - put some blinds on it". He'd worked out that when the sun was in a certain position it was falling on just part of the mill rollers and they were expanding with the heat !

I do hope there are still guys like him teaching ....