Posts by Richie Hindle

Police raid India call centre, detain 500 in fraud probe

Re: Hello, my name is [Anglicised], I'm calling from [major corporation/department]

If I have time to spare, and/or I want to entertain my 10-year-old son, I'll adopt the Yuur Strategy, which can sometimes keep the conversation going for quite some time:

Hello, am I speaking with Mrs Hindle?

Yuur.

Hello Mrs Hindle, my name is Bob and I am calling from Optimise Your Energy Bills Limited.

Yuur.

Can I ask, do you currently have a Direct Debit with your energy provider?

Yuur.

And which energy provider are you with?

Yuur.

I'm sorry?

Yuur.

Did you say "Eon"?

Yuur.

And how much per month are you paying to Eon?

Yuur.

...it goes downhill eventually, but every second they spend is a second not spent talking to anyone gullible enough to fall for their scam.

Re: Hello, my name is [Anglicised], I'm calling from [major corporation/department]

Absolutely - put the phone gently aside and let them talk to no-one. The more time they spend talking to the air, the longer it is before they call their next victim.

Unless I'm super-busy, I'll invest a couple of seconds into an encouraging response, so that they launch into the main part of their pitch rather than quickly realising that I'm not there any more. It's a matter of maximising the ratio of their-time-wasted to my-time-spent.

(The conversation usually starts with "Hello, am I speaking with Mrs Hindle?" / "Yes, speaking." A genuine caller might spot a problem with my masculine tones, but these callers never do.)

Facebook wants to LISTEN IN on the songs and vids playing in YOUR living room

[citation needed]

"you cannot record a phone call without a legal requirement to inform the other party"

Not true in either UK or federal US law. As long as one party knows about the recording, it's allowed (with some reasonable restrictions).

BT! dumps! Yahoo! after! 10! long! years! together!

Re: !!!!!!

If! it! bothers! you! then! you! are! reading! the! wrong! web! site!

Spanish boffins increase GPS accuracy by 90%

Re: GPS for Dummies

You might be sure, but you'd be wrong: "You send a signal from your GPS device..." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/18/stephen_frytard/

Dead Steve Jobs' patent war threat to Palm over 'no-hire pact'

Re: "no-poaching" agreements

It's worse than "resources". These days it's "resource", an amorphous pool of something with no individual component parts.

WTF is... WebRTC?

eBay?

"Seeing a real face and hearing a real voice, you can make a better judgement of an eBay seller’s hyperbole [...]"

If only eBay had thought to buy Skype while it had the chance.

P-P-P-Pick up our PENGUIN-POWERED Pi PIPER of Python

Re: path separators

Also, Windows is quite happy to use forward-slash as the directory separator - applications such as Windows Explorer or the Command Prompt don't like it, but the underlying OS is fine with it.

Profs: Massive use of wind turbines won't destroy the environment

Bah

Stopped reading when you pooh-poohed the researchers for referring to 48% as "half" as though that invalidates the whole thing.

Ten digital radios to suit all budgets

+1 for San Fran plus speakers

Our kitchen radio is a San Fran running TuneIn (£25 on eBay due to a broken microphone) plugged into some middle-of-the-road Creative PC speakers. Works like a charm unless you're using the microwave. :-)

Leaked Twitter accounts 'mostly banned spammers'

Re: Failing Passwords 101?

@Dark Horse: Sure, but then surely Twitter's response would be "It's physically impossible for hackers to obtain passwords from us, because we don't store them. The only possible way they could have been obtained is via a social engineering attack."

Failing Passwords 101?

Does this mean Twitter stores plain text passwords rather than hashes?

It seems incredible that they would, but if they don't, why haven't they come straight out and said so?

Jeremy Hunt clings on as SpAd quits over News Corp emails

Re: Jeremy Hunt

The approved way for a newsreader to pronouce the name is now "Jeremy HHHHHunt".

Higher ground: plants seeking colder temperatures

It'll be the black flowers next.

Google ices native Gmail app for BlackBerry

Lighten up

If you didn't find that one-extra-blow-per-paragraph sequence very entertaining, you're reading the wrong web site.

Dixons knocks £200 off laptops before Xmas...

Attention commentards!

A quick glance at the PC World website answers your questions: "Save up to £200 on selected laptops [...] Plus FREE £50 voucher with every laptop."

BBC One and bureaucracy spared in Auntie cuts

+1

Not to mention the bizarrely non-linear x-axis.

'Boss from hell' knuckle-rapped for 'firing contests'

+1

Thanks for the explanation!

‘Pitstops’ can inhibit viruses

Credit where it's due please

After editing the article according to That Awful Puppy's advice, it would be polite to post a public Thank You in response to his comment.

The Osborne 1: 30 years old this month

Easy

Smartphone, Araldite, sorted.

Nokia E5 Qwertyphone

You're imaginaing it

The article says "The E5 uses the S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 OS".

Google frees Gmail updates from Android

Yes, you can copy text from Android Gmail

"Can I cut and paste yet?" Yes. You always could, but it's fiddly. You need to type a capital S when viewing an email (long-press the menu key to make the keyboard appear if you use a software keyboard) and then drag to highlight the text you want to copy.

Emmerdale shoves jam rags in innocent kiddies' faces

Vox pops

Is it just me, or are those unrelated quotes suspiciously similar?

"I couldn't believe my eyes" / "I was stunned"

"it's not the kind of language" / "It's not the kind of thing"

"my young son" / "my son, who is only seven"

"one of our oldest soaps" / "a programme like Emmerdale"

No, I'm sure it's just me.

'Huge airships to carry freight starting 10 years from now'

Footnotes

Can we have the footnotes on the same page as the content that refers to them? Please?

Net shakeup looms as IPv4 resources start running low

Mobile IP addresses

My Three phone gets its own public IP address if I use the "3internet" APN, or a NAT'd address if I use the "three.co.uk" APN. It's nice to have the choice.

Siphon Wars: Pressurist weighs into Gravitite boffin

Thought experiment

Here's a thought experiment: set a siphon going and then vary the force of gravity. The rate of flow will vary. Now vary the atmospheric pressure. The rate of flow will not vary (provided the pressure remains high enough to prevent a vacuum forming in the pipe).

A siphon needs atmospheric pressure to prevent a vacuum forming in the pipe, but it's gravity that actually pulls the liquid through.

Waterstone's whips out its pendulous dugs

In the name of progress

The old logo was no good because it used the style of font you used to see in... what were they called...? Oh yes, "books".

'Something may come through' dimensional 'doors' at LHC

Lewis

Lewis, whatever they're paying you, it's not enough.

Microsoft arms half-wit developers with PHP handgun

Well done!

Great article! I:

1. Laughed my head off at the article

2. Didn't take it seriously

3. Laughed my head off at all the commenters who took it seriously.

Two heads laughed off for the price of one. Well done Ted and The Reg.