* Posts by Richard Parkin

177 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Nov 2008

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So bye-bye, Mr Ajit Pai. You drove our policy into the levee and we still wonder why

Richard Parkin

Re: "he was the first Asian-American to head the agency"

Actually, I agree with you but terms like those are favoured by the ‘BAME’ people they refer to. Currently there have been a lot of complaints that ‘BAME’ English (and no doubt Scottish etc) people are being asked “where do you really come from?” but this is after years of people who, if their skins were ‘white’ would be called English, shouting about how important it is to reclaim their African or whatever heritage. Can’t have it both ways :(.

Amazon Lex can now speak British English... or simply 'English' if you're British

Richard Parkin

Re: American English is English

These days I mostly come across Poles/Germans/Letts/whatever in medical situations and it’s a pleasure to understand their clear English compared with the many native English speakers ;).

Can't decide which OS to run today? Why not Linux inside Windows inside macOS?

Richard Parkin

Re: Now how about OS/X in a VM?

As far as your subject line goes, that’s easy enough. You can run MacOS in a VM, but on a Mac, which is what I do to run older versions of MacOS for some software.

It’s annoying that Apple don’t provide this solution themselves, having allowed it to 3rd parties, particularly since I do it for Apple owned FileMaker that runs on Windows just fine but is always broken by MacOS upgrades.

Yes, I know you meant “on Linux” :).

Dutch spies helped Britain's GCHQ break Argentine crypto during Falklands War

Richard Parkin

Actually Apple is controlled entirely by the FBI.The proof is that they make a song and dance about not being able to break iPhones. If they couldn’t they would keep quiet :).

Watch: Rare Second World War footage of Bletchley Park-linked MI6 intelligence heroes emerges, shared online

Richard Parkin

Re: Not filmed secretively ...

And many are speaking, need some lip readers here!

Richard Parkin

Not filmed secretively ...

Much has been made of the banning of cameras at these places but these people are clearly aware they are being filmed so one wonders how much more photographic record there may be out there?

Remember that clinical trial, promoted by President Trump, of a possible COVID-19 cure? So, so, so many questions...

Richard Parkin

Antibiotics can treat malaria

Not entirely true that antibiotics don’t kill trypanosomes. Doxycycline is used to treat malaria because it kills a bacterium that the trypanosome foolishly rely on for their digestion ;-).

Is everything OK over there, Britain? Have you tried turning the UK off and on again? ISPs, financial orgs fall over in Freaky Friday of outages

Richard Parkin

War with Spain now :)

First day out and it’s WAR with Spain :)

Captain, art thou sleeping there below?

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-talks-eu-to-back-spain-over-gibraltar-claims

El Reg tries – and fails – to get its talons on a Brexit tea towel

Richard Parkin

Mug

Seems to me a mug with ’got Brexit done’ is remarkably appropriate, have they thought this through — the mug I mean, not Brexit ... oh wait ...

Everyone loves our new desktop web search design so much – the one with ads that look like links – that we're tweaking it, says Google

Richard Parkin

Advanced search

“ There needs to be an option to conduct a search that excludes e-commerce sites, estate agents*, etc.” You should be able to do that with a ‘saved google advanced search’.

Richard Parkin

Re: Debt

Curiouser and curiouser :)

Richard Parkin

Debt

Curiously if you search for ‘debt’ in DuckDuckGo (my usual) the first 2 are ads (though for what I could not say) but in Google ‘debt’ produces no ads until one shows up near the foot of the page (Safari on iOS).

If at first you don't succeed, pry, pry again: Feds once again demand Apple unlock encrypted iPhones in yet another terrorism case

Richard Parkin

@gnasher729 Exactly! And it sounds like they may have done it again since the report says they’ve tried to access the phone’s ‘contents’. The account and the iCloud backups are probably all locked and inaccessible even to Apple.

Log us out: Private equity snaffles Lastpass owner LogMeIn

Richard Parkin

Re: No one has mentioned Dashlane

1Password for many years. Fingerprint used on iDevices, never a problem. I don’t understand the reluctance to pay for a password manager.

Baffled by bogus charges on your Amazon account? It may be the work of a crook's phantom gadget

Richard Parkin

Re: ecards

I’m sure you’re not an idiot. However I’ve just gone to Amazon.fr, not signed in, and Prime is offered as a free trial (as in U.K.) so surely that implies it is not compulsory?

Since you are a Prime member (sounds a bit rude ;-( ) I guess you are not being given the option to opt out when you buy, but why would? What happens if you cancel Prime?

Richard Parkin

I *think* you first two go to the same list. I deregistered all my devices in one and they’ve all gone — had to re-sign in again to kindle to continue reading a book. Your 3rd list was different for me and just contained fire stick (and a video I had viewed, deleted that too) and Alexa which I’ve never had but did set one up for a relative so it probably got added then.

Richard Parkin

Re: It is hard to find

Yes, I found a similar list but all iOS or Mac with one fire stick. No idea that existed. I think I’ll deauthorise them all and see what happens. None have the identical name to my current iPads (2j and iPhone.

Richard Parkin

Re: Cancel the account challenge

Yes, it’s easy to accidentally sign up to Prime, done that, but never seen default to Prime in U.K.

Richard Parkin

Re: ecards

Also if you have a free trial you can cancel it immediately after signing up (maybe next day to be safe) and the free month or whatever will still apply. No need to ‘remember‘ to cancel.

How bad is Catalina? It's almost Apple Maps bad: MacOS 10.15 pushes Cupertino's low bar for code quality lower still

Richard Parkin

The problems I see all relate to syncing

The problems I see all relate to syncing. I installed the iOS 13 beta on a spare device and it acquired all my iOS 12 Reminders but ‘deleted them everywhere else on iOS 12, Mac Mohave and iCloud in a browser! There were also problems with iOS Mail not downloading messages (OK on Outlook) and some other weirdness that’s difficult to quantify/describe. Made me wonder what else wasn’t syncing. Essentially I was ‘forced’ to update everywhere to get my Reminders back and who knew what else. Now all my devices are on the latest releases and Reminders works fine (I think!) but now Catalina Notes is not updating on iOS Notes. Apple Mail was OK but now the iCloud mail account doesn’t show in the combined iOS Inbox — still OK on the same device with Outlook!

So I’m still wondering what else could be going wrong without showing up ... yet :-( .

That lithium-ion battery in your phone or car? It has just won three chemists the Nobel Prize

Richard Parkin

Re: Isn't Chemistry, Physics?

Biology is fundamental as without biology the others wouldn’t exist ... as disciplines that is ;-) .

US government sues ex-IT guy for breaking his NDA (Yes, we mean Edward Snowden)

Richard Parkin

Public interest defence

Is it possible to argue a public interest defence in this court. Since that is what Snowden says he want in a trial in US it seems like a win for him if it’s possible.

Honey, hive had it with this drone: Couple lived for years with thousands of bees in bedroom wall

Richard Parkin

Re: How could you not notice?

I used to keep a couple of hives but they died out :-( . However a swarm got into my neighbour’s roof (big house) and has lived on happily ever since. I can see them flying out in sunny weather and when my neighbour has a house painter he wears a bee suit and hat to do the upper windows :-) .

Hate e-scooters? Join the club of the pals of 190 riders in Austin TX who ended up in hospital

Richard Parkin

Re: Make helmets mandatory - oh wait, we can't

Wrong, even falling at zero mph onto a hard surface can seriously harm your head.

Ex-Mozilla CTO: US border cops demanded I unlock my phone, laptop at SF airport – and I'm an American citizen

Richard Parkin

I bet Apple could remotely change passwords on their devices

I bet Apple could remotely change passwords on their devices before they cross the border and then restore employees access after.

Aussie engineer accuses 'serial farter' supervisor of bullying, seeks $1.8m redress

Richard Parkin

Open & shut

Seems like an open and shut case to me ;-)

Apple bestows first hardware upgrades in years upon neglected iPad Mini and Air lines

Richard Parkin

Re: Quote from Saint Jobs himself

I’m constantly amazed by people who think St Steve (as they like to call him) think it would have been good business practice to announce that Apple would make a phone or a stylus years before they made one. Have you heard of the Osborne computer? Osbornisation!

Password managers may leave your online crown jewels 'exposed in RAM' to malware – but hey, they're still better than the alternative

Richard Parkin

NCSC recommend you use a password manager and machine generated passwords.

Richard Parkin

So you have all these passwords like “L@Zt*HGYiHEQd=?u8rNb3sfid%Kszv[M6mgejB^i69FE;BUa$rA8x62pkbR98E,” to read off your device and type in on various keyboards (even if only compute or tablet but could be non qwerty). How well do you do with that?

Techie in need of a doorstop picks up 'chunk of metal' – only to find out it's rather pricey

Richard Parkin

Re: I did that once too...

Hydrochloride acid won’t dissolve the bone, just the mineral parts and you’re left with rubbery bones. Standard school procedures in 1950ish labs.

Here come the riled MPs (it's private, huh), Facebook's a digital 'gangster' ('disingen-u-ous'). Zuckerberg he is a failure (on sharing data)

Richard Parkin

Re: We need a new name for real fake news

“Lies” does not cover the anonymity aspect amongst other things.

Richard Parkin

We need a new name for real fake news

“Fake News” has been popularised by Trump referring to news he does not like. We need a term for anonymous untrue news.

Yay, we got a B for maths. Literally, a bee: Little nosy nectar nerds smart enough to add, abstract numbers

Richard Parkin

Were they allowed to take their calculators in?

Were they allowed to take their calculators in?

Whats(goes)App must come down... World in shock as Zuck decides to intertwine Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp

Richard Parkin

Re: a way to block messages entirely from my Facebook

Unless someone knows you and has your details in their contacts when FB will slurp it all. You don’t have to be a member of FB etc for them to have your details.

Clone your own Prince Phil, says eBay seller hawking debris left over from royal car crash

Richard Parkin

William the Bastard

Didn’t stop William the Bastard becoming William 1.

Happy Thursday! 770 MEEELLLION email addresses and passwords found in yuge data breach

Richard Parkin

Why are people here so ignorant of good password practice and security?

Every time this subject comes up there is a slew of completely ignorant comments and it’s clear that none read Troy Hunt’s excellent blog!

London Gatwick Airport reopens but drone chaos perps still not found

Richard Parkin

Rise in handgun crime

Experience in UK does not support you. There has been a huge rise in handgun crime since they were largely banned post-Dunblane, I rememember all the TV programs “exposing” how easy it was to get or convert handguns which in my view then amounted to encouragement to do it

London's Gatwick airport suspends all flights after 'multiple' reports of drones

Richard Parkin

Flying saucers?

As subject :-)

Richard Parkin

Ducks not stupid (unlike TBW)

People stupid not ducks,

Oh Deer! Poacher sentenced to 12 months of regular Bambi screenings in the cooler

Richard Parkin

Re: This is silly.

Possibly he’s coming up for re-election.

Richard Parkin

Re: 'Murica never ceases...

If you only kill bucks it will have very little effect in controlling deer numbers. Wolves will do a better job ;-) .

I upvoted you, never thought that would happen :-(

Hot on heels of 2.0, Vivaldi 2.2 adds tab session management among other goodies

Richard Parkin

Opera first with tabs

I think Opera browser was first with tabs and that Jon von Tetzchner was one of the founders of same. At the time I was a paying user of Opera as it was so much better than the others.

UK.gov to roll out voter ID trials in 2019 local elections

Richard Parkin

Re: So...

They don’t accept printed versions of online bills sometimes.

Which scientist should be on the new £50 note? El Reg weighs in – and you should vote, too

Richard Parkin

Hologram

No idea if this is possible but all the above and they are in a hologram so who you see varies with the angle. Or hundreds of tiny portraits replacing the background wavy lines etc on the note.

Richard Parkin

Re: R V Jones

Yes but he wasn’t shafted by the establishment like the others. Since WW2 is ruling our lives (brexitmania) perhaps a larger group of all the scientists who were important in “winning the war”. Actually in these days when it’s popular to denigrate the Poles, my favourite for £50 note portrait would be the Polish pilots who won the Battle of Britain (exaggeration to make the point).

Richard Parkin

Re: Trio - Tommy Flowers, Bill Tutte and Alan Turing

OK, but I’m not taking Turing off my list just because he’s a toff :-)

Richard Parkin

Trio - Tommy Flowers, Bill Tutte and Alan Turing

On the official web site I voted that they put a trio of Tommy Flowers, Bill Tutte and Alan Turing because they make a good group, won the war and were all shafted by the establishment in multiple ways. It doesn’t hurt that they were the offspring of a gardener, bricklayer and Indian civil servant — not only dead but dead common ;-)

Password re-use is dangerous, right? So what about stopping it with password-sharing?

Richard Parkin

Published leaked passwords

1Password now checks your new passwords against the leaked passwords at https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords which probably contains all the common useless ones like qwerty etc. I think there are half a billion passwords there, maybe more now. Some websites also check against this list when new passwords are created. It’s also used by GCHQ. More good work by Troy Hunt.

It's World (Terrible) Password (Advice) Day!

Richard Parkin

Re: Correct horses

Not sure about songs and poems. I just tried maryhadalittlelamb in https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords

and it’s been pwned 116 times. I’ll let others try some more. There’s still the problem of remembering which poem relates to which site

Richard Parkin

Pwned password list

https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords

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