Posts by Fred Dibnah

Mate, it's the '90s. You don't need to be reachable every minute of every hour. Your operating system can't cope

Re: installing discipline in the senders of email, that is a wholly different matter...

On a management course before email was widespread, I was taught the 'pile' method of managing your inbox. It went: skim-read the messages then put them on the pile. Let the pile build up for a week or so, then throw the pile in the bin. If a repeat message arrived it was probably important and should be acted on. The rest: meh.

Another guy went on a course where he was told to only spend 20% of his time dealing with email. So he did. He read emails on Thursdays.

As Amazon pulls union-buster job ads, workers describe a 'Mad Max' atmosphere – unsafe, bullying, abusive

Re: There's a simple solution

Yes, buying stuff. Netflix & websites don't directly rely on using & abusing warehouse staff. (I know there's cross subsidy.)

Individuals think that them boycotting AZ won't make a difference, but it will if enough people do it, talk to others about it, and even organise consumer boycott groups. The alternative is to accept the status quo.

Trucking hell: Kid leaves dad in monster debt after buying oversized vehicle on eBay

Re: Unlikely story

That gag doesn't really work in the UK :-)

Oh what a feeling: New Toyotas will upload data to AWS to help create custom insurance premiums based on driver behaviour

Hmmm, A levels, BTECs, GCSEs.....

Re: That's settled, then.

I hope BMW will allow drivers to rent their direction indicators.

UK govt reboots A Level exam results after computer-driven fiasco: Now teacher-predicted grades will be used after all

Re: We don't need no education

My A level maths class had four students. The school had over 1000 pupils. That's a very small school?

Re: We don't need no education

Please explain to me how a school with a single A level maths class of 10 can have an exam cohort of >10.

One of the major selling points of private schools is small class sizes. And with small class sizes go, on average, small exam cohorts.

Re: We don't need no education

The algorithm wasn't applied to groups with small cohorts in each subject, with teacher's predicted grades applied instead. Private schools are the most likely to fall into that group because they already have much smaller class sizes.

The results are only meaningless if you think that all teachers are idiots. Now, I know many people do think that, because they saw teachers in action when they were at school so they know exactly what the job involves. They don't, any more than I know what my GP does because I've been in his consulting room.

Re: "And as for Kier Starmer, fuck off unless you have something constructive to say"

I never knew the LOTO had an older brother :-)

Scotland took 7 days, but that was a couple of weeks ago and the Tories just sat on their hands and did nothing while they watched what happened north of the border. The Education Select Committee was warned back in July that there was a problem.

Dido 'Queen of Carnage' Harding to lead UK's Institute for Health Protection because Test and Trace went so well

She's in pole position for the job.

MI6 tried to intervene in independent court by stopping judge seeing legal papers – but they said sorry, so it's OK

Re: Rather like those superinjuctions

Bloody phone autocorrect. Plus bloody idiot failing to preview his own post before pressing submit :-(

Re: Rather like those superinjuctions

See also the Cuban middle crisis, which should really be called the Turkish-Cuban missile crisis.

VMware to stop describing hardware as ‘male’ and ‘female’ in new terminology guide

Jacking off is a leisure activity for males.

Re: I use type-N connectors

Male or female N-type? Plug or socket? :-)

If we stop using the male/female analogy for connectors, I predict the volume of returns to parts suppliers is going to rocket. It's bad enough already: this is a current listing title on a popular tat bazaar: 'SMA-N adapter connector RP-SMA Female (male pin) to N Type Jack straight'

Butterfingers who don't bother with phone cases, rejoice: New Gorilla Glass 'Victus' tipped to survive 6ft drops

Re: Is dropping your phone common?

I bought an iPhone and dropped it as I took it out of the box. IMButterfingeredO a sticky rubber case is essential, but not just to be able to hang onto the bloody thing. Without a case, the switch that stops the ringer sounding is guaranteed to be in the 'off' position when it comes out of my pocket.

Cisco restores evidence of its funniest FAIL – ethernet cable presses switch's reset button

Re: Either way

In the original advisory, Cisco said the problem was due to a 'problematic connector'. Nothing to do with the button being in a stupid place, no siree.

FYI Russia is totally hacking the West's labs in search of COVID-19 vaccine files, say UK, US, Canada cyber-spies

Re: Difference in response

Don’t forget to add Cuba & Venezuela. When you look on a globe it’s blatantly obvious that those countries have manoeuvred themselves into place in order to surround the USA and attack it. They are using plate tectonics to sneak closer.

Rip and replace is such a long Huawei to go, UK telcos plead, citing 'blackouts' and 'billion pound' costs: Are Vodafone and BT playing 'Project Fear'?

Did you vote for Brexit?

EU tells UK: Cut the BS, sign here, and you can have access to Galileo sat's secure service

Re: Were we not told...

I wasn't whinging (sic) about it, I was, as I said, genuinely curious. No pram with toys here.

E-scooter fanboy so hyped for Teesside to host UK's first trial

Beryl bike share schemes use designated parking bays rather than docks. There is a penalty for leaving a bike outside the bay, but you could stop that dead simply by keeping the meter running until it's back in a bay.

Analogue radio given 10-year stay of execution as the UK U-turns on DAB digital future

Re: Optimod

Other audio processors are available :-)

Robert Orban (Orban are the makers of the Optimod) sold his early processors to radio stations with the strapline 'Be the loudest on the dial!'. Of course the first station to buy one became the loudest, but only until all the other stations bought their own Optimods. Now everyone was equally loud, but with the added bonus of all sounding equally awful.

Re: Radio 4 LW?

TMS is on DAB & other digital, on 5Live sports extra. Most car radios don't have LW these days, so on the move you'd need either DAB or mobile data.

Re: Radio 4 LW?

These days I find the alternative reality offered in the 'Sunday' programme preferable to the version of reality spewed out by the once excellent 'Today', and more believable too. And I'm an atheist.

I was screwed over by Cisco managers who enforced India's caste hierarchy on me in US HQ, claims engineer

Re: The great, the good, and the ugly

Does Priti Patel have a sister?

US starts sniffing around UK spaceports – though none capable of vertical launches actually exist right now

Re: launch from a British spaceport

ESA on Ascension tracks rockets from French Guiana, and the US military tracks rockets from Florida. If you launched from Ascension you'd need to have a tracking station somewhere in Africa, so it might be better to launch from the Americas (e.g. British Virgin Islands if it has to be a UK-owned site) and track it from Ascension like everyone else does.

Health Sec Hancock says UK will use Apple-Google API for virus contact-tracing app after all (even though Apple were right rotters)

Re: "we discovered a technical barrier that every other country [...] is also now hitting."

It's not just scribbling hacks either - some of the the talking ones are just as bad. I woke up to the Today programme for years, but stopped when the news reports became filled with government press releases and little else. (There had always been a bit of that as BBC news always follows the government line, no matter which party is in charge, but in the last 3-4 years it's become more obvious.)

Ex-eBay security execs among six charged with harassing, threatening bloggers who dared criticize web tat souk

Re: Omerta among CEOs is alive and well.

It worked out even worse for Thomas. Henry would have got off scot free if he hadn't had a conscience and punished himself for what he'd done. In today's corporate world he would have made a lousy CEO, feeling guilty and taking responsibility like that.

In Hancock's half-hour, Dido Harding offers hollow laughs: Cake distracts test-and-trace boss at UK COVID-19 briefing

Re: "......worst death toll in Europe"

Posting two links to Daily Mail articles and another to a Telegraph article don't make you look well informed, chum.

I held my nose and read them, but nowhere can I see your assertion that "..teaching unions have been celebrating the opportunity to get paid for an extended holiday", or anything close. As I said earlier, that's a fantasy that you've conjured from your own prejudices.

Re: Blimey...

Step 7 is usually: Hold an internal enquiry and completely ignore its non-binding recommendations.

Re: "......worst death toll in Europe"

The first part of your first sentence is true, although union members are not obliged to make political donations. The second part is a fantasy conjured from your own prejudices.

Maybe you should read your second sentence back to yourself.

UK.gov announces review – not proper inquiry – into Fujitsu and Post Office's Horizon IT scandal

3.

Shirley the system is devised and run by the civil service, under instruction from the government? I know that Yes Minister portrays things as being the other way round, but if the government isn't ultimately responsible then what is it actually for? Shovelling money to itself and its friends?

I've just answered my own question so I'll get me coat.

Ex-Dell distributor in Lebanon ignored ban on suing US tech giant. Now four directors have been sentenced to prison in the UK

'zillas

Switchzilla = Cisco, who make switches

Chipzilla = Intel, who make chips

Dellzilla = Dell, who make.....Dells?

BoJo looks to jumpstart UK economy with £6k taxpayer-funded incentive for Brits to buy electric cars – report

Re: Really good "helping hand" Bozo

The manufacturers can use the month's grace to increase their prices by £6k or so.

Turns out Elon can't control the weather – what a scrub: Rain, clouds delay historic manned SpaceX-NASA launch

Re: Fingers crossed for Saturday

The old spacesuits went stiff as a board when pressurised in a vacuum, which was one reason early spacewalks were so exhausting. I'm sure Gene Cernan and Alexei Leonov would have appreciated one of the modern ones.

The Right Stuff

What a bunch of snowflakes, letting a little thunderstorm put them off. 50 years ago they just got on with it.

https://www.history.nasa.gov/afj/ap12fj/a12-lightningstrike.html

Wanna force granny to take down that family photo from the internet? No problem. Europe's GDPR to the rescue

Re: Seven years

She can still keep the photo in her phone, computer, or photo album, and can share it with her friends & family by showing it to them. Leaving the photo online for the whole world to see is a whole different level of 'sharing'. IANAL but IMO she doesn't have a leg to stand on.

UK's Ministry of Defence: We'll harvest and anonymise private COVID-19 apps' tracing data by handing it to 'behavioural science' arm

Re: Quelle Surprise!

Most small companies don't have dedicated IT staff or a contracter to write or customise software for them, so they use standard email clients. They also *have* to be security-focussed and keep to the GDPR, yet they risk sharing email addresses almost every time they send an email.

You could use mail-merge if you know how to set it up. Most people haven't a clue, and even the IT-savvy sometimes have problems with it.

Re: Quelle Surprise!

Then obviously you don’t have to be concerned about sharing email addresses. Serco & other companies are (or should be) concerned, but having CC as the default copy line makes it inevitable that someone will make a mistake at some point.

Re: Quelle Surprise!

Yes they’re numpties, but so are the people who write email software that makes CC the default instead of BCC.

Fancy watching 'Bake Off' together with mates and alone at the same time? The BBC's built a tool to do that

Re: "together even when they are physically apart"

I'd give a you a downvote for the first para (it's nice to watch stuff with friends & family who can't be in the same location, and to be able to make comments like you would if you were together), and a big upvote for the second. So, overall -->

Re: By requiring Authenticated login for online viewing ...

I can't find the login page on get-iplayer either

Beer gut-ted: As many as '70 million pints' spoiled during coronavirus pandemic must be destroyed in Britain

'Spoons

Standard procedure for disposal of stale beer.

You can't have it both ways: Anti-coronavirus masks may thwart our creepy face-recog cameras, London cops admit

Re: Why bother?

If a Brazilian plumber came to do a job for which you'd hired a Brazilian electrician, the effect would be quite different :-)

Sky Broadband is not the UK's cheapest, growls ad watchdog

Re: Disappointingly

A smartphone is a classic example of 'Jack of all trades, master of none'. It does no one job better than a dedicated device can do, it just happens to do lots of things well enough for most people to tolerate its limitations. Horses for courses.

The Rise of The (Coffee) Machines: I need assistance. I think I'm running Windows. Send help

Re: we obviously also cannot trust what it might spit out when asked for "tea."

If it's USA flavoured Win10, the coffee is going to be watery piss as well.

Re: What annoys me intensely ...

I was asked to run through some PC setup instructions.

1. Insert CD into drive

2. Turn on PC.

No paper clips were provided. It went downhill from there.

Now we know what the P really stands for in PwC: X-rated ads plastered over derelict corner of accountants' website

Re: Really?

"...the company could see its reputation suffer from being associated with these shady pages..."

I agree, if I ran a porn company I wouldn't want to have anything to do with PWC.

Ex-Imagination Technologies boss tells UK Foreign Affairs Committee: Britain needs to stop overseas asset stripping

Re: The Value of the Company

A company exists to make money for its shareholders. FTFY. Stakeholders also include employees and possibly suppliers & customers, but apart from the occasional honourable exception such as Richer Sounds, they don't get much consideration.