Posts by Telecide

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

Re: Thailand had 1 new case today

Having been to Thailand during the second half of March and witnessing their approach, it wasn't just quarantining (although it played a big part, including the forced quarantining of incoming visitors showing symptoms in a Bangkok hotel for 14 days, but would the UK allow a Thai-style State of Emergency, with 7pm curfews, etc?). They were also spraying the streets with disinfectant regularly, temperature testing everywhere and taking other measures long before the UK adopted them.

Conversely, Taiwan (where I was in December) had no lock down like the UK. They were already all over the whole pandemic threat long before it happened (largely because of lessons learned from the 2003 SARS outbreak). They were identifying and publicising cases through an app very quickly, for example. My supplier out there has continued manufacture uninterrupted throughout and can't believe what's going on here. And he thought the Brexit process was a pain in the ass. Now things are embarrassing on a whole new level.

There seems to be many ways of skinning a cat but unfortunately the UK is still not really sure of what a cat is, or how to deal with it other than "keep them separated" (cue music).

Careful with that Axe, Eugene: Excessive use of body spray causes school bus evacuation

Wild Stallion

Can anyone smell horses....?

Private sub captain changes story, now says reporter died, was 'buried at sea' – torso found

I bet....

there is some seamen involved......

Microsoft officially hangs up on old Skype phones, users fuming

smart TV

So from early July my Panasonic TV will be that bit dumber and the £200 TY-CC20W webcam designed specifically for use with Skype obsolete. Can't find a workaround as yet other than reverting to PC or tablet. So much for the future.....

Google's new parent Alphabet owns abc.xyz – and, yup, there's already an abc.wtf

Re: In related news

Please don't take away our L™O™L™Z™

Nothing says 'Taliban' quite like net neutrality, eh, EU Digi Commish?

speed management

Gunther says that car management systems (or medical monitoring systems as given by a US GOP recently) should and presumably would be given priority over YouTube and other entertainment streaming services. Would they if YYouTube, Netflix, etc were prepared to pay more than the car management system operators? Surely a two-tier system would be introduced for profit, not as a public service.

Experts gathered round corpse of PC market: It's ALIVE! Alive, we tell you

Small business upgrades

With the majority of businesses being small, many of these will have (or will be in the process of) migrated across from XP to Windows 7, with the (extremely likely) need to upgrade the pc's they currently run. This is what my business did this year, with a similar server upgrade planned for before July 2015 (ref SBS 2003). This has to be steady, bread-and-butter business for the PC market, no?

Astronomers spot hint of first EXOMOON, possibly

near or far

"This could either be a distant, slow-moving small star circled by a planet about 18 times as big as Earth, or a fast-moving planet relatively closer to Earth that's three or four times larger than Jupiter, with a moon significantly smaller than our planet."

So how do the boffins confirm which scenario is the real one? Redshift?

Dell charges £16 TO INSTALL FIREFOX on PCs – Mozilla is miffed

Re: Sounds about right

I too fix various family, friends and friends of family PC's and do so with a vague hope of my services being somehow repaid if really needed, but am still awaiting for my lawn to be mowed, kitchen redecorated, car washed, drains unblocked etc. And all to be carried out late into the evenings and/or on Sunday afternoons.

NHS England tells MPs: 'The state isn't doing dastardly things with GP medical records'

Are we talking about the same IT experts....

....who have neglected to put into place a plan to upgrade more than 1 million NHS computers from Windows XP, at a cost of $200 per desktop for the first year, going up to $400 in the second and $800 in the third year? I'm not saying that the XP state of affairs would prevent the care.data scheme from going ahead (especially since the total isn't all GP-related) but it'll make it all the more interesting - £120million for Year 1 to stay as they are, with all of the additional challenges that the continued use of an out-dated operating system brings.

Big goolies-grabbing black snake nips unlucky bloke's trouser snake

Swelling

My thoughts also - can the Doc take away the pain but keep the swelling??

Smartphones may soon listen in on you while they sleep

Personal moments

"...more personal moments when it's sitting on his nightstand..." - what sort of things do you come out with while having a good wank??

Grid Lens

Cynics

So, ok many of us could simply achieve the same effect within 5 minutes on Photoshop (or even Paint) but a lot of others either can't do this or simply have better things to do. My kids would probably have fun with this app, but just because I wouldn't doesn't mean I'd piss all over it like you lot.

KitchenPad

Not quite what most cooks need

The turkey will be ready in 4hrs 57mins but the veggies in 7mins? As 'a well wisher' correctly stated, they missed the chance of making a bang-on app here. Hold my calls and sack my cook......

Hobbyist killed by home-made hovercraft

Regulation-haters

Some may howl at the suggestion that a personal hobby such as this should be covered by regulation, but laws are there not to protect us from ourselves but from others. The blade could have easily hit someone else, possibly an innocent member of the public. Its like the 'why should I be forced by law to wear a helmet while on my motorbike' argument. If you kill yourself thats up to you, but what about others, and the extra burden you unnecessarily put on the health service?

Cornish cow plucked from jaws of death by Navy chopper

Fishheads???

Not the Fleet Air Arm - WAFU's if you don't mind. Fishheads are general service.

GCHQ man: Powerline networks do interfere with radio

wi-fi v PLT health issues

Someone I know (a conspiracy nut) switched from wi-fi to PLT because they believed that wireless carries with it long-term exposure health issues, whereas PLT apparently doesn't. Presumably if a PLT-user is inadvertantly turning their house into a massive VHF transmitter, that carries potential health issues too?

Don't mind me, I always wear a tinfoil hat regardless ;)

Chemists create current-bearing plastic

Plastics

Totally recyclable I hope. And not a product of oil either. Otherwise we're going backwards.

NY bomb scare bank worker 'evacuates self'

>sigh<

So the whole angle of the story is based around the woman saying how she 'evacuated herself'. Is that it? While this might make it as a scene in the new Carry On Banking film, this is otherwise the bit of cyberspace which it occupies. Sorry, El Reg, 2/10.

Florida cops left stoned stunned by pot-filled SUV

Its labrador, man.....

Yeah, its dogshit - my dog ate my stash. I've been following him around for a week.

Google, boffins crack Rubik's Cube mystery

The solution in 2 easy steps

1. Move out of your parents house.

2. Get a girlfriend

Fear 2012? Bunker hustler has you covered

Freemasons?

Since when were the Freemasons on the 2012 bandwagon? I think not. And why should our solar system alligning with the Milky Way rim make any difference? There'll be a lot of people looking for new employment after 2012, unless they can think up another apocalyptic deadline.

MPs' Pretty Good Privacy 'ban' finally explained

No conspiracy here

Maybe the shadow government overloads wish to prevent effective email encryption for their Westminster minions as part of the grand plan to control the masses. Or am I barking madly up the wrong tree??

Dead PC tycoon's estate eaten up by credit card debts

@AC 22:27

Shame? He sounds like a liability who was best avoided at all costs. How many peoples lives do you reckon he buggered up in return for a lifestyle which he could not afford?

NASA probes seek remnants of lost 'Theia' planet

confused

can someone explain why, in the animation, the earth is tanking it around the sun while Jupiter is not orbiting at all?? Is there something about the gas giant that I missed??

Final countdown to Conficker 'activation' begins

1st April

Maybe it'll just blow a massive e-raspberry and disappear. I'll be booting into Linux on the day, just in case.

It seems strange that nobody can stop it, although they can dissect and monitor it, and nobody has a clue as to who is behind it. A false flag to encourage further internet restrictions?

Astroboffins probe mysterious 'blazar'

monkeys

blowtorch surrender monkeys?

US woman attacks missus with sperm-filled syringe

Confusing

So the victim armed herself with a turkey baster and her brothers sperm? Bearing in mind that the majority of US shootings occur with the victims own gun, couldn't she see what was 'comming'? Its like something out of a porned-up Carry On film. She could have had someones eye out with that 10cc!

Paris because she wouldn't allow any of that fresh protein to go to waste.

Conficker gets upgraded with defenses

@Tim Spence

From your 'yum' reference, you've been fiddling with Fedora? I've found that distro way too fiddly to be considered appropriate for your average Windows user. The next release of Ubuntu (due out in April) is probably the closest yet to a good, user-friendly, ungeeky Linux distro which someone currently using XP/Vista could cross over to for general web useage, emailing, word processing, etc and not get their knickers in a twist over. I know what you mean when you say about the endless config files, etc. That scenario is greatly reduced and the PnP thing greatly increased with the latest Ubuntu, which is getting close to 'being there'.

BTW, where you mention networks where you know Conflicker has infected, how did you detect this? Is there a way? If so, I'd like to check my work network out (5 workstations) if this is possible.

@Tim Spence

I beg to differ. I dual-boot using Vista and Ubuntu (have dabbled with Fedora also) and use Linux for most instances now, only going back into Windows when there is no alternative. There are a lot of others now doing the same, but admittedly not in their millions. Ubuntu in particular has become so GUI-friendly that many people could use the default installation with a few updates through Synaptic without having to venture into CLI territory. Its not totally there yet but its getting that way. I feel much happier knowing that I have a relatively safe OS with Ubuntu should the brown stuff hit the fan with Windows OS's because of such things as Conflicker.

3D car dashboard displayed

over the top

Pretty graphics, and very detailed. All that eye candy wouldn't be a distraction for the driver, would it??

Paris because she's easily distracted by 3D rendered objects standing upright in front of her, also.

BT accused of 'sharp practice' on rolling contracts

Universal Telecom

Universal Telecom have my company locked into a 12 months termination period which its trying to expand to 3 years under new contracts for new customers (or existing ones who, for some reason, have to re-sign). That would mean, under current rates, I would either have to give 3 years notice to quit or be handed a cancellation charge of about £3600. They are all crap.

Chinese internet surveillance boss arrested for bungs

Internet monitoring

It seems that wherever there is email/internet monitoring you ar eliable to find this kind of thing. I seem to remember the monitoring of financial transactions from overseas to the US was abused by the relevant authority and commercially-sensitive material was fed to American companies. Who polices the police?

MS puts up $250K bounty for Conficker author

@Christopher Ahrens

So the pirated copies of Vista that typically do the rounds on bittorrent sites have Conflicker, or backdoors to allow infection of Conflicker, built in? This makes me glad I'm an Ubuntu user.

Netbook gets Hello Kitty overhaul

Price check

Its £349 according to the Medionshop website. Not that I want one. My daughter probably will. But she'll be disappointed if she dares to ask.

Feds: IT admin plotted to erase Fannie Mae

what a turd

What is it with ppl in the IT world who seem to think that they should be so untouchable that they attempt things such as this? If a sacked car mechanic went and sabotaged the brakes on his former companys fleet of vehicles as revenge for having to be answerable to his employer, we'd all think that the guy is a twat. Why should this prick be any different - because he seemingly possesses power way beyond his physical being? All he is doing is re-enforcing the stereotype of the geeky, no-mates sysadmin who has problems with society generally but has a tendency to take it out on employers and women (probably).

USAF seeks diamond gunports for electropulse ray-cannon

business as usual

You'd think that with the massive economic problems currently facing the US, the powers-at-be would call a halt to R&D of such exotic weaponry. As Rep. Ron Paul said this week "...the problem is nobody wants to cut the American Empire, even Obama's Administration wants to increase spending overseas and increase military spending. As long as you want to run the World Empire... you cannot solve this problem."

OcUK puts £10K bounty on the heads of DDoS varmints

Gibbo - you work for 'superior' Novatech?

Then you are either trolling or are simple. OcUK are far better than Novatech, especially for support (use Novatechs sales line only when telephoning if you want anyone to actually pick up). I've just built a great pc with all bits comming from OkUK (and 4 Gb RAM due to arrive today) and have yet to fault them. I'm sure that they're not perfect, and if they overcharge DON'T BUY FROM THEM, FOOL! I suspect at least some of the ppl who have had problems with their customer support deserved it ('ooppss, I just killed my new mo'board, now to try and convince the supplier that it was their fault').

Disabling Windows Autorun - there's a right way and a wrong way

TweakUI

Does it just fine for XP-based machines - I disabled autorun on 5 workstations and a server in a couple of minutes. I think there's a non-MS freeware version of TweakUI for Vista available too.

Fake plane death businessman left SOS bullet-point list

Shrenker?

Is that like being called a Munson??

Paris because she can't understand what all the fuss is about.

Indonesian HIV/AIDS patients face microchip tagging

Interesting

Sounds to me like an ideal 'proof of concept' experiment for certain western nations to use as part of their big RFID plan. You'd think Papua would be one of the last countries to resort to such new technology - they appear to be way ahead of the curve on this one.

Ballmer's bid to swerve 'Vista Capable' row comes unstuck

@ Gareth Jones

Hows about if you found yourself with testicular cancer and were given treatment described as 'cancer-reducing capable' but, after a precious year of intensive chemo and pill-popping, you found in the smallprint that the course was suitable for breast cancer only? I'm sure you'd kick yourself for being so damn presumptious. Or maybe just laugh your balls off......