Posts by Seanmon

UK Space Agency cracks open its wallet, fishes out a paltry £2m for Brit plans to return to orbit

Re: Nominations?

Or half a Donald Trump.

Using WhatsApp for your business comms? It's either that or reinstall Lotus Notes

Re: Oh deary dear...

Like, ummm, credit cards?

Do UK.gov wonks understand sci-tech skills gap? MPs dish out Parliamentary kicking

Well they wouldn't, would they? STEM-educated people tend to deal in facts, evidence, problems and solutions. These types of people don't usually go in for careers where the main skills required are bullshitting, backstabbing, disloyalty and rabble rousing.

I recall a school visit from my then-MP, who had previously been a well regarded neurosurgeon. He admitted his medical training hampered him as an MP because "he had a tendancy to want to answer the question."

What a mesh: BT Whole Home Wi-Fi users moan over update

Head of Bt customer services

If you have any problem with BT, I can quite recommend emailing Libby Barr, Head of Customer Services (whose signature you'll find at the bottom of any letter or bill from BT) and telling her to procreate elsewhere. Worked for me.

I won't share the actual address, but it's not hard to find if you're linked in. I personally feel a bit sorry for Mz Barr dealing with BTs ineptitude, but... You took the money, you made the choice.

'There was no monetary incentive for this' = not what you want to hear about your tattoo

Tit.

That is all.

Former Cisco CEO John Chambers says insects are the new lobsters

Lobsters...

...prawns etc are just essentially big insects that live in the sea.

But I don't like them either.

Transport pundit Christian Wolmar on why the driverless car is on a 'road to nowhere'

Full autonomy won't happen until we get proper Turing-level AI, but...

Use case 1) All-day all-night tireless taxis in an urban environment. Limited range from a central point. Probably needs a bit of investment in the local infrastructure to keep the thing informed where it is, which junction this is etc. Could be made electric and return to a base station/car park when running low. A big sign on the front says "AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE - WILL NOT STOP." It's basically a big roomba.

2) Long range overnight transport on predefined routes. In my case, it needs to know the M40, M42 and M6/M74. I have an after work pint in the Winchester, have dinner and a glass of wine with the Mrs in my own home and pick one of these up at the local hub at midnight. 8am next morning I'm at the hub in Glasgow. I don't care if it goes 50mph the entire way, because I'll be asleep in the back. Then I climb into a No. 1 (above) and get to my Mum's house just in time for the bacon sandwiches.

Outage outed: Bing dinged, Microsoft portal mortal, DuckDuckGo becomes DuckDuckNo

"Bing dinged"

How did anyone actually notice?

She's arrived! HMS Queen Lizzie enters Portsmouth Naval Base

Re: Worth it?

"...if the purpose of the QE live targets is really to have milled some steel in Gordon Brown's constituency;.."

Yes. That.

Glasgow Govan was squeaky-bum territory for Labour in the face of the rise of the SNP. The QE class, and the 45s before them were a naked bribe to keep jobs in the area.

Och. Scottish Parliament under siege from brute-force cyber attack

They'll nae unnerstaun it onywiz.

Two-thirds of TV Licensing prosecutions at one London court targeted women

Stopped reading when you quoted the Daily Mail.

Oh, the things Vim could teach Silicon Valley's code slingers

Ed, man!

UK.gov tells freelance techies to slap 20 per cent on fees as IR35 tax hike looms

"Special rates for Government work!"*

*Still much-missed, Sir T.

Hackers actively stealing Wi-Fi keys from vulnerable routers

What?

"If customers have an issue connecting to the internet, they should visit our help site."

Sigh.

I long for the days when your ISP was just an ISP. I just want the fastest connection you can give me. Thats all. I do not need you ten thousand shite TV channels or your telephone service or your cheap set-top box. And I want to chose my own router, thanks.

Own goal for Scottish Football Association as fans sent phishy emails

Hmm

I once worked with a guy who, last I heard, was working at the SFA. Fellah was once lucky not to make the news for building a system for the NHS which had SQL injection holes all over it. Same age as me and at the time we worked together he had never heard the terms "script kiddie" or "staging server", to name a couple that come to mind.

I have a very clear idea of how this may have happened.

Reports: Twitter chainsaw massacre redux on the cards

I can see twitter being bought by the BBC or the Gaurdian or similar when it gets cheap enough, journos appear to love it. Guess they actually have to research stories and check facts if it went away.

I quite like twitter, I use it to follow local farmers markets, live music venues, a few writers I like. I'm well out of the demographic for dick pics/abuse/trolling/fan wars.

Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and BT bid for Indian cricket online

What's "Cricket?"

Sincerely, everybody, Scotland.

My plan to heal this BROKEN, BREXITED BRITAIN

Oh, it's far worse than that. No. 10 is nothing more than a step on the career ladder to these people these days, the ultimate aim being a cushty $$$$$-paying non-exec seat on several multinational boards, a speaking gig or two at a fancy uni, some well paid but meaningless UN synecure position and all the world travel, big dinners and pimms you could want, all aboard your private yatch.

Detest Thatcher as you should, there was always a sense she genuinely believed what she was doing was for the good of the country. The Camerons, Goves, Johnsons et al don't even seem to pretend any more. Sheer naked mercenaries.

Medicos could be world's best security bypassers, study finds

No auditing?

Last NHS system I worked on (a portal site that hooked into literally dozens of ancient creaky things and pulled all that data onto one screen - quite useful.) the login data was reviewed by an information governance person every month. Anything dodgy - same login used at two different locations at the same time, for example - and someone would get a polite call from IG to explain themselves. Mitigating circumstances, such as real life or death emergency would be taken into account. Seemed a reasonable common sense solution to me.

(Although in fairness, a relatively small health board and that app was by no means universal - maybe 700 users.)

Thin-lipped chancellor tight-lipped on contractor-nudge-onto-payroll plan

Thin-lipped chancellor announces death of UK contractor market.

I honestly think that Osbo's notion of "a contractor" is one of those senior level civil service or quango directors who have the big salary and the job security, yet style themselves "consultants" and take advantage of every tax benefit going.

Yer normal jobbing contractor, meantime, generally has no option but to travel, stay away from home, shell out on hotels etc. Isn't this the point of contractors? We're flexible, we can go where we're needed, stay until the job's done and quietly go away. Well I for one won't be doing that anymore.

(And no grousing about how much we get paid please. I've been lucky enough to be able to work pretty consistently over the past couple of year, and I have not made any more than any other reasonably senior IT or project manager)

UK lawmakers warn Blighty to invest more in science, or else

Quick!

Set up a Digital Tech Media Quarter Digital Hub Catapult!

Preferably somewhere with craft breweries and achingly trendy coffee shops!

Get Lord Bong on the phone!

And not anywhere outside London, God No!

...annd...relax. Good work all round people, that ought to do it.

Skype founders planning non-drone robodelivery fleet. Repeat, not drones

Yeah, that'll work.

Once.

Post-pub schnellnosh neckfiller: Currywurst

Have the Germans discovered spice then?

I lived there as a kid in the late 80's. Coming from the curry capital of Britain, we found it hilarious what the German idea of "spicy" was.

BLADE-WIELDING BOTS conquer humans in RADIO DEATHMATCH

Take a tip; take a lesson

There ain't no use in messin'

With the fellas at the freakin' FCC!

Blessed are the cheesemakers, for they have defined the smidge

Next..

Can we have a similar definition of the Scottish "dod" please?

Horrifying MOCK BACON ABOMINATION grown in BUBBLING VATS as ALGAE

Re: The horror, the horror

Hang on - where did you get snake?

The Great Barrier Relief – Inside London's heavy metal and concrete defence act

Re: Great article, pleasure to read

Falkirk wheel was done a while ago IIRC.

But yeah, any chance of a Complete geek's guide ebook any time, chaps? Or at least a header link up there, for easier reference?

Assange™'s emotional plea for asylum in France rejected

Re: Wow - missed a word

Seven hours later, I just got that. Bravo!

Wow.

Imagine Assange living in Paris. There'd be some kind of self-satisfaction critical-mass event.

Large Hadron Collider gives young ALICE a black-hole ray gun

Bollocks.

The thing that happens immediately after the Big Bang is the Maoam advert.

Google to extend Hyderabad office into first non-US campus

I think you should have, yeah.

Ford: Our latest car gizmo will CHOKE OFF your FUEL if you're speeding

I'm sure...

..there's issues that need to be worked out with this. But nothing I'd imagine a small and strategically positioned piece of gaffer tape couldn't resolve.

Apple Watch 'didn't work on HAIRY FANBOIS, was stripped of sensor tech'

I think it's a rather good idea.

The whole smart-wearable-watch tech thing is still a solution looking for a problem, but Apple could well have cracked it here.

It's going to be a fucking fantastic dickhead identifier.

Tesco tosses loss-making Blinkbox into TalkTalk's basket

GAH!

I like blinkbox - non subscription and generally has more up to date stuff than netflix. One of my 2015 plans was to get rid of TalkTalk, precisely because their shitty broadband offering isn't good enough to support it. G**##*!!

Oh well. Back to standing in the (non-cabled) street waving £50 notes at passing virgin media vans.

'Turn to nuclear power to save planetary ecology from renewable BLIGHT'

Interesting to see

If this gets any coverage in the mainstream press.

GCHQ, police to team up to hunt down child abuse on the darknet

Hah!

When I was a boy, I had to abuse myself!

Apple knob refusenik Sir Jony Ive handed award - for talking BOLLOCKS

Re: Talking of plain English

Yep. I've inherited a rather rare omega wristwatch and a WW1 era pocket watch from my late grandfather. Both are shit, but goddammit they look good.

Sick of the 'criminal' lies about pie? Lobby the government HERE

Frey Bentos "pies" don't even qualify as food.

How many digital commissioners does it take to change a lightbulb? 13!

Re: argi

Certainly would. Farming can be quite a hi-tech business these days.

Red Bull does NOT give you wings, $13.5m lawsuit says so

Re: Applies where?

Irn Bru haven't used "Made from Girders" for decades - for this exact reason. Also, there's no iron in it and it's not brewed, hence the 1970's glam-rock spelling.

Chomp that sausage: Brits just LOVE scoffing a Full Monty

Re: So basiclly,

No to mention tattie scones, lorne sausages or haggis slices. The true masters of the grease-filled fry up live north of the border.

Hollywood star Robin Williams dies of 'suspected suicide' at 63

One of the good guys.

His standup was a bit too full-on wacky for me sometimes, but the man was a genuine talent. RIP Robin.

Facebook pays half a billion dollars for firm that slaps ads on videos

Grr!

The phrase "Better and more relevant ads" is fast becoming this years "superfast broadband." - i.e. makes you want to use your fist as a dental drill on the person uttering.

Yes. App that lets you say 'Yo' raises 1 MEEELLION DOLLARS

Cool!*

* but not necessarily up to date.

How practical is an electric car in London?

Dead end.

Electric cars for personal transport are a dead end and I wish car manufacturers would stop trying to sell us this shit. The technology is a backward step in every possible way, in terms of speed, comfort, reliability and sheer usefulness. Unless there's an order of magnitute improvement in battery technology in the next decade or two, electric cars are never going to compete with an internal combustion engine, with an extra can two of petrol in the back when neccessary. In the UK at least, they're not even particularly beneficial to the environment - most of that leccy is still being produced by burning hydrocarbons.

The place for electric cars is limited range taxi runs in an urban environment. No one cares about the performance of a taxi. Range is not a problem - no-one gets a taxi to go 300 miles. By staying near the city, charging points can be made available. Get the pollution out of our city centres, and use an ICE for the long range stuff.

If google gets a move on, they could even be made self driving. It's easier to make a machine learn a defined area of a city than to make it deal with the near-infinite set of circumstances you might find driving about randomly.

Europe's shock Google privacy ruling: The end of history? Don't be daft

Re: Actually I'm quite impressed

I'm on every social network that'll have me for this exact reason. There is a minor financial embarrassment in my past, I ain't exactly proud of it, but I can't deny it, it was nothing illegal, it happened, it's happened to millions of others. But that doesn't mean I want it top of the list when a potential employer or customer is doing their due nosiness. Drowning it with results from inskypabookwitter works pretty well. Hell, I think I still have a myspace account.

Selfies are so 2013. Get ready for DRONIES – the next hipster-cam-gasm

Heard on R4 this weekend....

Otherie: A photograph of someone else.

I could see drone photos being a bit of fun at e.g. a large outdoor wedding or summat.

NASA finds first Earth-sized planet in a habitable zone around star

No one would have believed, in the first years of the twenty-first century...

Ooh, I do hope they have some kind of elephant analogue. The chances, of course, are a million to one.

Win XP security deadline: Biz bods MUST protect user data – ICO

Re: Yeah, and we all fell for that ridiculous panic that immediately after 31 December 1999

Seconded. I was at BT at the time.

iFrame attack injects code via PNGs

Re: disable javascript in your browser!

I wish.

I agree, I typically run with noScript, but it's just becoming painful these days. Things like jQuery have taken web design away from the security-aware professional developer and put it into the hands of the skinny-suited and trendy-spectacled brigade.