* Posts by Old Tom

226 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Mar 2009

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Brexit? HP Inc laughs in the face of Brexit! Hard or soft, PC maker claims it's 'no significant risk'

Old Tom

Re: Y2K

The date was fixed, but vested interests remainers pushed it back, and keep trying to keep doing so.

You know the drill: SAP has asked Joe Public to name Munich arena so go forth and be very silly

Old Tom

Re: I hate "naming rights"

"City of Manchester Stadium springs to mind"

Possibly not the best example, as the concession from the council to allow sponsored naming of that stadium was part of an improved lease agreement that included a substantial rent increase.

Worried about Brexit food shortages? North Korean haute couture has just the thing

Old Tom

Re: Gotta love El Reg @AC

"but has also said she can't take no deal either."

No, they've said they don't want to leave with no deal; they haven't actually barred it.

Data flows in a no-deal Brexit are a 'significant' concern – MPs

Old Tom

Re: A cynic would say

"it's running up a large bar tab at your local hostelry"

More like your mates running up the bill with chasers, depth charges and hot nuts while you sipped on a small sherry.

Scumbag who phoned in a Call of Duty 'swatting' that ended in death pleads guilty to dozens of criminal charges

Old Tom

Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?

"wearing a very thick coat in summer"

We were given that misinformation early on, but he was wearing a denim jacket. The temperature in London that day was 17°C.

UK space comes to an 'understanding' with Australia as Brexit looms

Old Tom

Re: They should talk to Canada and India next

India is maybe a bit iffy for this, but yes we should talk to Canada. Nothing like Empire as you sneer, but as part of the logical progression of the broadening our horizons and increasing cooperation with the outside world that Brexit has fired the starting gun on.

In this particular case, as four of the Five Eyes alliance are the four Canzuk states, a Canzuk-base for an alliance on alt-Galileo would be a very sensible start.

UK getting ready to go it alone on Galileo

Old Tom

Cooperation

The UK Government has found it difficult to understand that if one stops being a member of a club, one loses access to that club’s facilities.

I find it difficult to understand that the EU aren't happy to agree a simple treaty with us to continue partnership on this. Are they going to go without the Falklands and Ascension ground stations? Do they wish to undermine our military cooperation with France and other EU27 NATO members? Looks quite like toys flying out of the pram.

Think tank calls for post-Brexit national ID cards: The kids have phones so what's the difference?

Old Tom

Re: FFS - NO

What about an ID card that you are not required to carry around?

You'd only need to take it out when you were going to pick up a parcel from the PO, or you wanted to prove your child is old enough to get into an age-restricted gig (with he child's card, not yours of course), or you look young and you want to stop off for a snifter or watch an 18-rated movie, or whatever. You'd just take that out instead of your driving licence. Can't really see the harm.

Great news, cask beer fans: UK shortage of CO2 menaces fizzy crap taking up tap space

Old Tom

Re: dress rehearsal

Blocks of dry ice are going to look a bit depleted after they've been sitting waiting for customs clearance for a few days.

Yes, because everything we import from outside the EU gets stuck for days at customs doesn't it?

Old Tom

Re: dress rehearsal

"Very reliant on imports from Scandinavia and also the Netherlands"

Treat it as a dress rehearsal for Brexit.

What, they're going to refuse to sell CO2 to us after Brexit?

Android devs prepare to hit pause on ads amid Google GDPR chaos

Old Tom

Re: AdMob Trojan Horse

The dev is the data controller

How can a dev linking an ad sdk into their app be the data controller? Sure they are for any app data, but they have no contact with the ad provider's slurped data - the ad sdk provider is surely the data controller.

1,900 rotten apps bounced out of Google Play every day in 2017

Old Tom

Re: Bounced out?

They aren't - "99 per cent of the bad apps were binned by tools that employ machine learning, so nobody ever had the chance to download them" - i.e. they were uploaded, but didn't make it as far as going live.

'Bitcoin heist' shock: Cops seek 4 for aggravated burglary in Midsomer Murders town

Old Tom

Re: Exponuttery

I expect that the author was using 'exponentially' figuratively and linguistically, not literally and mathematically.

ATM fees shake-up may push Britain towards cashless society

Old Tom

Re: Link?

No.

At the time in the UK when you could only use your own bank's ATMs, the Building Societies and some smaller banks got together and created the LINK network to enable them to serve their customers via each other's ATM networks. (Actually, some of them created the 'rival' Matrix network - but that eventually merged with LINK.)

Larger banks eventually set up reciprocal deals or formed networks between them, though I seem to recall them taking the opportunity to charge their customers for this service. Around the turn of the century, they all joined LINK, and most charges were dropped. Now virtually any bank/building society's customers can use virtually any other bank/building society's ATMs (for free).

ATMs that charge you in the UK are not to operated by a bank or building society, but will still connect to your bank/bs via the LINK network.

Why Uber isn't the poster child for capitalism you wanted

Old Tom

Re: Or in 10 years Google just integrate it into Android "find my nearest empty cab).

You haven't clicked the taxi tab in Google Maps' directions lately, have you?

Google blows $1.1bn to hire HTC's Pixel people, forming one big happy handset team

Old Tom

Re: Dave 126

Shame the Motos keep lacking a magnetometer on non-US versions. It's a deal breaker for me.

'Don't Google Google, Googling Google is wrong', says Google

Old Tom

Reveal is a noun - don't your windows have them?

Old Tom

Re: pointy man-made bing

No (North of Sheffield, but over to the West), I'd call that a slag heap.

Foot-long £1 sausage roll arrives

Old Tom
Boffin

Re: We are in IT

But we're at El Reg

So it's 2.1772 Linguine, or 0.0331 Double-decker bus if you prefer.

Dyson celebrates 'shock' EU Court win over flawed energy tests

Old Tom

Only with Brexit, Dyson will no longer have access to the EU court...

So how come Levi Strauss had access to the ECJ when the ECJ agreed to maintain their specially-inflated-for-the-EU prices?

Drugs, vodka, Volvo: The Scandinavian answer to Britain's future new border

Old Tom

Re: Brexit related costs

And with the forthcoming General Election?

i.e. Should Labour win, then only those who voted Labour would have to pay Corbyn's new taxes, only Labour voting energy company/rail/whatever workers have to lose their job/transfer to the state? etc.

UK General Election 2017: How EU law will hit British politicians' Facebook fight

Old Tom

Re: 900 people

"Make voting compulsory."

But then people who are not interested and don't think about the issues at all have to vote. They are more likely than anybody to vote on the basis of some made up statistic or quote that their friends on Facebook passed around that morning.

Decapitating Rockall: How a 1970s Navy expedition blasted the top off the Atlantic islet

Old Tom

Re: After BREXIT the Spanish expect to annex Gibraltar.

And when is Spain going to give Ceuta, Perejil, Melilla and the other 'plazas de soberanía' to Morocco?

National Insurance tax U-turn: Philip Hammond nixes NIC uptick

Old Tom

Re: I'll pay a little more in NICS...

It was reported somewhere that the abolition of C2 more than compensates lower earners for the proposed rise in C4 NIC, I think the break-even was around c.17K.

Old Tom

Re: Richard 12

Yes, there was a lot of waffle on attempting to reform the EU in that manifesto - but on the same page as your quote you get:

"We will hold that in-out referendum before the end of 2017 and respect the outcome" (my emphasis).

And on the next page " We will honour the result of the referendum, whatever the outcome."

Respecting the outcome of the referendum is a manifesto pledge - and that outcome clearly invalidates all the rest of the waffle about attempting to make the EU more acceptable.

UnBrex-pected move: Amazon raises UK workforce to 24,000

Old Tom

What's the Brexit angle?

The retail arm of a company expands its fulfilment workforce to handle its retail growth in the UK - this work is most sensibly handled somewhere on this island, whether or not this country remains a member of EU.

Meanwhile globally-relevant technical departments also recruit because they've got plenty of development work to do. Doesn't matter where on the planet this work is done, but the UK has plenty of relevant skills and a first world infrastructure - so is as good a place as any, and again EU status is irrelevant.

Whatever your view, this is neither in spite of nor because of Brexit.

EU whacks first nail into mobile roaming charges' coffin

Old Tom
WTF?

Is this supposed to make any sense?

Crumbs. Exceedingly good cakes, meat dressing price hike in wake of the Brexit

Old Tom

Re: Well done Brexit!

They're over-sweet shite anyway.

Vegans furious as Bank of England admits ‘trace’ of animal fat in £5 notes

Old Tom
Stop

Re: Fighting your way to the top of the food chain?

I've rambled past thousands of flocks of sheep and herds of cows, and I've never ever seen anyone torturing any of them; they generally look very content (if I may anthropomorphise).

Lethal 4-hour-erection-causing spiders spill out of bunch of ASDA bananas

Old Tom

Re: 'In the same way Cadburys are Kraft foods'

You're behind the times, that should read 'In the same way Cadbury are Mondalez International'.

Will US border officials demand social network handles from visitors?

Old Tom

Facebook id?

Really, how many people know their Facebook id? I'd guess it's significantly less than 0.25%, indeed I'd postulate that 98% of people wouldn't know that they have one and would simply offer-up their name.

I can get my FB id from my laptop's browser, but just quickly tried and failed to extract it from my phone browser. I know I have Flikr and Instagram accounts, but I don't know my handles on them. Same story with Linked-in I know my name, but not the unique identifier they must have. I'd seriously need at least 10-15 minutes at home with my own computer to find all this stuff out.

I bet that's not uncommon, and you're filling this form in on an aeroplane with no Interweb access?

Brexit will happen. The EU GDPR will happen. You can't avoid either

Old Tom
Boffin

Two years is the maximum

Will everyone stop saying that we leave two years after Article 50 is triggered? Two years is just the timeout period if agreement hasn't been reached (unless an extension is agreed).

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

Public masturbation not a crime declares Italy’s top court

Old Tom

Re: Obligatory

I'll raise thee this then.

Top digital Eurocrat issues non-denial about hyperlink non-tax

Old Tom

How much there is to untangle is quite a revelation to anyone who may have not realised how much control over our lives the EU had developed.

Hopefully we'll be out ASAP, and then you can build your Nirvana in whatever way your overlords like.

False Northern Lights alert issued to entire UK because of a lawnmower

Old Tom

auroras in the UK night sky ? When was the last time that happened ?

Quite recently - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35741589

Brexit Britain: HP Sauce vs BBC.co.uk – choices that defined voters

Old Tom

Re: Richmond Sausages are Irish.

They may now be owned by an Irish company, but they originated in Litherland, Liverpool.

http://www.litherland-digital.co.uk/album_8/pages/richmond_story.html

Old Tom

Remainers are all Great Wen-based hipsters?

They live in London (#4 London Underground)

They stream their media (#2 BBC iPlayer, #5 Spotify)

They go on lots of breaks (#6 Airbnb, #8 Virgin Trains, #10 EasyJet)

And they spend far too long on the Interwebs (#3 Instagram, #7 LinkedIn, #9 Twitter)

Old Tom
Boffin

Re: Richmond Sausages are Irish.

No, they're 'Irish recipe', not Irish

Milk IN the teapot: Innovation or abomination?

Old Tom
Boffin

Beaker, tea leaves, boiling water is all you need

Pinch of tea leaves* into the beaker, pour on boiling water, drink when it's cooled enough.

You do not need:

  • Teapot
  • Tea bag - they're full of crappy dust, and seem to be formulated to need milk/sugar to mask their awful taste
  • Straining mechanism - virtually all the leaves will sink
  • Milk
  • Sugar
  • Stirring device

*If it's the first brew of the day, then use Oolong if you can, then your second brew just requires a top-up of hot water.

UK's climate change dept abolished, but 'smart meters and all our policies strong as ever'

Old Tom
Boffin

Re: smart meter

"Oh, and my current washing machine uses hot water from my hot water tank, heated directly by gas... more efficient than the EU mandated cold fill on modern machines..."

Yes but does it 'run the tap' until the hot water comes through? Most of the hot water taken in will be the neo-ambient water in the pipe from the hot tank or combi-boiler.

Brexit threatens Cornish pasty's racial purity

Old Tom
Pint

Newcastle Brown

Scottish & Newcastle got protected status for the term Newcastle Brown saying it had to be brewed in Newcastle. Then they decided to close the brewery and brew it elsewhere, so they got it revoked.

Old Tom

Re: Champagne Cider

You mean Pomagne Champagne Cider?

Christ, I drank that stuff in my mid-teens. They had to drop the Champagne tag in 1979 due to it being a designated area of origin.

European Patent Office blocks staff reading critical articles at work

Old Tom
Boffin

Re: Just the latest example of a failing European institution that's too arrogant to realise...

EPO appears to be nothing to do with the EU.

Larry Ellison's Brit consortium in 'advanced talks' to buy Aston Villa

Old Tom

Yes he was,and then he was at the FA. The Arsenal connection is wrong, someone should mail corrections@theregister.co.uk

State should run power firm spam database, says... competition watchdog

Old Tom

So that's...

That would be Roger Witcomb, Finance Director of National Power plc 1996-2000 ?

Fake Flash update malware targets gullible Apple users

Old Tom

Hey glib 'don't install Flash' people

I have to have it installed for my son's online maths homework. He uses the mac because I reckon it's safer than him going online with Windows.

I always treat Flash update notifications with huge suspicion and go and do the update myself. The fact that their notification has a 'click here' button is a great enabler for the bad guys - it should be a notification, not a link to anything.

Kids' TV show Rainbow in homosexual agenda shocker

Old Tom
Boffin

Re: Sentenced to zippy.

Po was red, Tinky Winky was purple and had a handbag

Android Studio 2.0 preview gives developers instant preview of code changes

Old Tom
Boffin

Re: I haven't dabbled in Android development

It's pretty easy to use a real device.

TalkTalk boss: 'Customers think we're doing right thing after attack'

Old Tom

On my way

As a TalkTalk customer, I do not think they've done the right thing at all.

They did not promptly tell me that they'd been hacked - they did that a couple of days after it'd been widely reported in the media.

They'd already leaked my personal details anyway, as I'd already been called by 'TalkTalk' about a fault on my broadband which could damage my computer. Caller knew my name, address and TalkTalk account number.

By taking their site down, and keeping it down for so long, they prevented me from logging-in to pay my bill quickly, making me lose out on the Speedy Payment Discount.

They'd also left me wondering (until the site came back up today) why my bill last month had gone up. (Turned out to be the end of my promotional discount.)

Anyway, I'll soon be an ex-customer, I was only still there because I'd been awaiting the end of my lock-in period. My leaving was delayed a couple of weeks because their call centre (in Durban) put the wrong kind of cancellation on my account but after cancelling my cancellation, my new provider can take over my line.

TalkTalk CEO admits security fail, says hacker emailed ransom demand

Old Tom

Re: Ongoing, definitely not new

I had a long call from 'TalkTalk' last week, sounded like India. They knew my name and number, address and TalkTalk account number, and were trying to persuade me to let them fix the errors on my broadband. I assumed it all came from the February breach.

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