* Posts by Mark #255

481 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009

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Lync users see outages as Microsoft wrangles with network problems

Mark #255
Black Helicopters

obvious

I blame the NSA, of couNO CARRIER***

'I got a little bit upset by that Register article...' says millionaire model. Bless!

Mark #255
Coat

Re: What about a Mars-obliterating catastrophe?

I need more info.

Would Lion bars be affected at all?

British boffin tells Obama's science advisor: You're wrong on climate change

Mark #255

Evidently neither of them reads xkcd.

(No, this is not a call to cease all scientific research and rely on xkcd cartoons.)

Podule-lodged Brit nears two weeks atop ocean peak Rockall

Mark #255

Of Redshanks

Redshanks are wading birds; their typical habitat is shores with lots of sand/silt/mud where they can hunt for wriggly things. Rockall is fairly far removed from that type of environ.

Twitter for iOS embraces Bing Translate in time for World Cup 2014

Mark #255
Facepalm

Re: I can't believe Appple....

This isn't Apple, it's Twitter.

Twitter on Android also has a bing translate link. Amusingly, it tries to automagically guess when translation is needed; unfortunately, it doesn't exclude URLs, so you get

<cat picture>

_Translate from Romanian_

The cute things they say

Mark #255
Facepalm

Re: Lost Files

Oh $DEITY.

In Word 2010 you can 'pin' files to the recent files list.

I don't know whether it's awesome or awful that the developers have used Tales of the Lusers to widen their use-cases (luse-cases?)

BOFH: On the contrary, we LOVE rebranding here at the IT dept

Mark #255

Re: Nut allergy

One course (at Uni) I saw was for Computer Literacy and Information Technology.

The lower-case 'a' was to be retained in all abbreviations, on pain of pain.

Mark #255

Re: Signs on the reserved parking spaces:

No, no.

Business Development and Strategy Manager

Car titans WON'T STEAL our tech, says Musk: DAMNIT, I'll GIVE IT to 'em

Mark #255

Re: This is nice but (@dan1980)

...let a dozen companies infringe and then go after the thirteenth

I daresay a defence of Laches would be swiftly brought in by No 13's lawyers.

(IANAL, TINLA, etc etc)

UK govt 'tearing up road laws' for Google's self-driving cars: The truth

Mark #255

Re: SatNav analogy @theodore

M1: emm one

A59: ay fifty-nine

B247: bee two four seven

(but: A500: ay five-hundred)

A1079: ay ten seventy-nine

are, I believe, typical British pronunciations.

Mark #255

The version I heard was that the car would end up driving past the highest-bidding advertising hoarding.

Concerning Windows Phone and its relevance to the larger business

Mark #255

Re: CalDAV/CardDAV

Android doesn't have native CalDAV support. That is, the calendar will plug into Google calendar, and into an Exchange server (though I've never needed to try this myself) without further ado, but not CalDAV, unless you install a separate plugin (of which there are several available on the Play store).

And woe betide you if you try to use a simple WebDAV store to save your iCal file on.

Moto E pops up with £89 price tag – alongside new LTE Moto G cuz

Mark #255

I've got a G...

And it (being the 16GB model) is very nice. Prior to that I had a San Francisco, but its battery wore out, and replacement ones were horrendously poor, and I ran out of space for apps, and it struggled to run them (and I wanted TEH SHINY).

SWMBO has an S3 mini which she's now looking to upgrade (18 months old and suddenly battery life has fallen off a cliff) - the added uSD slot may well convince her to get the "G with LTE".

Traffic light vulns leave doors wide open to Italian Job-style hacks

Mark #255

Re: Hack away you can't do worse than Bristol City Council

You can probably replace "Bristol" with any other reasonably large town or city. My vote goes for York (20 minutes to travel the half-mile to the A64/A1079 interchange, every weekday evening).

Brit chap weaves silver bullet for wireless health scare bollocks

Mark #255

Shielding Effectiveness only quoted for the fabric...

So, the material itself provides (according to their indiegogo page, and converted into proper numbers) 70 to 80 dB, which is actually quite reasonable for a woven fabric.

But once you fashion it into a pair of pants, and leave great big holes for the leg and trunk, you'll be lucky to get any level of SE worth bothering about.

Also, measuring the SE in a meaningful way would require a body phantom (full of toxic goo which mimics the body's electromagnetic properties accurately enough), so actually it would be a rather expensive measurement.

So all in all it's a good job that the threats these pants are supposed to mitigate are not actually backed up by credible, peer-reviewed science, since the pants won't actually provide the (implied but strictly speaking not promised) protection.

Google updates Maps app for iOS, Android, adds Uber support

Mark #255

Google's small business data sources need work

Wherever Google is getting their info about small businesses and local shops, it tends to be woefully mangled when the business name is based on a person's name. So the registered company name might be "Joe Bloggs Motors Ltd", and Google will list it as "Bloggs Joe Motors". Which is just ugly.

10 PRINT "Happy 50th Birthday, BASIC" : GOTO 10

Mark #255

Re: BASIC is under-appreciated

I learned BASIC on a BBC Model B, and taught myself about subroutines, loops, control etc. I don't recall using data structures, but the other concepts are, if not universal, certainly widely applicable.

It may be ILLEGAL to run Heartbleed health checks – IT lawyer

Mark #255

Section 3?

Section 3 covers intent to impair.

But seeing if Heartbleed is fixed or not (AFAIAA) does not (a) impair the operation of the computer; (b) prevent or hinder access; or (c) impair program operation or data reliability.

It just gets back random data; so I don't see how S3 applies here. *.

Section 1 (unauthorised access to computer), probably (but IANAL).

* For other types of penetration testing, eg SQL injection, I could see how it could apply.**

** Would changing your name as per little Bobby Tables be an offence under the CMA, I wonder.

Murdoch says Microsoft needs 'big clean out'

Mark #255
Trollface

Skycrosoft? MicroNewsInt?

I have to say, a mega-corp merger of Sky/NI and Microsoft would allow me to consolidate most of my daily moans of discontent into a single roar of unalloyed ire.

Samsung's thumb-achingly ENORMO Galaxy Note Pro 12.2

Mark #255
Coat

Re: WTF is the point of this thing

... it runs win 7/linux duel boot...

What, they fight each other? To the Pain?

Win XP usage down but not out as support cutoff deadline looms

Mark #255

Bye-bye, XP

I'm happy to report that my XP netbook (an Asus eeePC) is now running Ubuntu 12.04 as well as it did WinXP. WiFi, webcam, Bluetooth, touchpad, even the 3G dongle Just (F***ing) Worked. Most gratifying.

And for balance, the XP desktop (which does gaming duty) is midway through a transition to Win7 (hurray for eBay, and the Digital River official downloadable Windows ISOs).

Organic food: Pricey, not particularly healthy, won't save you from cancer

Mark #255

Re: Causes cancer, prevents cancer...

Ultimately, you're mortal, deal with it.

+1 Depressing.

Don't look at Maria's SQL, look at MY SQL, pleads Oracle

Mark #255
Unhappy

Re: Cheap swipe

the workbench is a huge improvement over previous tools.

I (foolishly) updated from version 5.something to version 6 and was "rewarded" with a sodding TIFKAM-style abomination.

MPs urge UK.gov to use 1950s obscenity law to stifle online stiffies

Mark #255

I'm afraid this has set off my Poe's Law alarm...

Amazon wants me to WEAR NAPPIES?! But I'm a 40-something MAN

Mark #255

Cloth nappies FTW

As long as you're not on a water meter, cloth nappies work out cheaper in the long run (well, they did for us 7 years ago).

Plus you get a seemingly inexhaustible supply of dusters, napkins etc for the following years.

PM Cameron leaps aboard Internet of Thingies

Mark #255
WTF?

"electricity meters that talk to the grid to get you the best deals"

Which version of the Smart Meter roll-out is that going to be?

Because I'm fairly sure that the ones being delivered by 2017 or thereabouts aren't required to do anything like that.

And I'm stone-cold certain that no incumbent supplier is going to be offering devices which minimise customer revenue without such requirements.

Two in five Brits cough up for CryptoLocker ransomware's demands

Mark #255

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

Mark #255

Re: Private interests

Ben Goldacre is now rather less optimistic. If you look at his tweets yesterday (@BenGoldacre), you'll see - it's the most vexed I've ever seen him.

And given his (guarded) optimism in that piece last Friday, it seems that care.data is sunk.

Brit boffins brew up blight-resistant FRANKENSPUD

Mark #255

Re: Can anybody point me at ANYTHING that is not GMO?

The distinction you're after is "natural selection" vs "unnatural/artificial/directed selection".

Trying to coopt "GMO" as a homonym for artificial selection is either disingenuous or naive.

Scotland to test mobe signals slammer jammer

Mark #255
Boffin

Re: Faraday Cages

No, we couldn't.

Faraday Cages are a static/low frequency concept; as you get higher in frequency, the doors/windows/riveted seams let through more and more energy.

EM screened/anechoic chambers (which do block mobile phone/wifi/etc signals) are really hard to make, and really quite expensive (5 to 6-figure sums) because of it. They're also easy to compromise, either deliberately or accidentally*.

* Yesterday, I had breakthrough into my chamber at 1.8 GHz; it transpired that one of the (sodding expensive) coax cables had degraded.

Is modern life possible without a smartphone?

Mark #255

Shouldn't need the charger

I'd take the charger too (just in case it turns out that the battery is nearing the end of its life), but my last two "feature" phones (a candy-bar Motorola and a slide-to-open Samsung) would last 2 weeks between charges.

UK.gov to Google: Kill impostor taxmen ADs hogging top spot in YOUR search results

Mark #255
Headmaster

Re: Sorry to be grumpy, as usual

The OED describes "imposter" as a customs agent who classifies imported goods according to the rates of duty payable (ie "one who imposts").

Margaret Hodge, PAC are scaring off new biz: Treasury source

Mark #255

The Bible in a tweet

OK, here goes:

"Creation myths, rules and stories which we say are from our God"

My name is Dabbsy and I am an EMAILOHOLIC

Mark #255

QotD

"All important material is directed automatically to a Spam folder where it festers indefinitely." Thank you Mr Dabbs!

Anyway, I have Too Many™, even if you discount the unlimited aliases you get with your own domain name.

THOUSANDS of UK.gov Win XP PCs to face April hacker storm... including boxes at TAXMAN, NHS

Mark #255

One wonders why the hackers are waiting until April. Why don't they just do their hacking now?

Well, if you were a nefarious type, with an unpatched drive-by exploit ready and waiting, do you

  • release it now, and risk MS releasing a patch for it in a few weeks' time, or
  • wait until mid April, and surf the long-tail of never-going-to-be-fixed boxes.

And how much would such an exploit be worth?

HTC: Shipping Android updates is harder than you think – here's why

Mark #255

Re: the Moto G

My Moto G (SIM-free from phones4u) is still on 4.3.

4.4 has allegedly been promised for January, though.

Oi, bank manager. Only you've got my email address - where're these TROJANS coming from?

Mark #255

Re: I am one of the people affected/complaining

...Their Data Protection Officer wasn't having anything to do with me (FFS, What is their purpose!)

This is Yes, Minister 101 - get the tricky bit dealt with in the title.

The purpose of any Data Protection Officer is (obviously) to minimise the blame which can be attached to the company in any Data Protection issue.

Cheap 3D printer works with steel

Mark #255
Facepalm

Re: Why bring up guns?

Also, I thought the whole hoo-haa about 3D-printed plastic guns was the fact that they were made of plastic, and so weren't detected by metal detectors which protected "secure" areas...

El Reg's contraptions confessional no.2: Tablet PC, CRT screen and more

Mark #255
Unhappy

Re: Where are the tiny [HDMI] monitors?

Well, it's not 7", but the HDMiPi project was plugged recently on El Reg.

I would have got one, but apparently we already have enough monitors.

'Copyrighted' Java APIs deserve same protection as HARRY POTTER, Oracle tells court

Mark #255
Coat

I thought that Rosenkranz and Guildernstern were dead.

(My coat's the one with the Compleat Works of Shakespear in the pocket.)

DON'T PANIC: No FM Death Date next month, minister confirms

Mark #255

Re: BTW am I right in thinking UK DAB <> Europe DAB?

Another point is that here in the UK we use Band III (200 to 230 MHz ish) for DAB transmissions, while over on the continent they also use Band L (1450 to 1480 MHz, Wikipedia assures me).

Very few UK DAB receivers are able to tune into Band L transmissions.

Mark #255

Re: radio 5 live

Well, R5L's only analogue broadcasting is through AM (693 and 909 kHz). I remember having to listen to that in the car, and it was frequently dire in audio quality, with fading and other interference.

A 64 kbps DAB stream is at least as good as that.

Moto G: Google's KitKat bruiser could knock out, bury Landfill Android

Mark #255

Re: Here is my proper review

I too have just upgraded from a SF to a Moto G (16GB version), and I'd like to echo the "it's bloody great".

IMO the camera is better than adequate - yes it lacks any real controls (image size, white balance, ISO), but it's quick and the auto-HDR feature provides very nice pictures (I was out at the weekend and got some surprisingly good landscape + skyscape shots).

The GPS gets a fix indoors, which my old SF couldn't do.

And it's built solidly too, which you couldn't say about the SF (I ended up using a case to stop the back coming loose).

As for the downsides, the lack of SD and user-removable battery may be an issue, but I had a 4GB card before and didn't run out of space (well, I did but only for apps, thanks to the ridiculous partitioning of the internal memory), and the battery got removed only when it hung. Also, I miss a couple of tweaks from the CM build I ran on it - gesture support in the SMS app, and the auto-silent-mode you could set overnight.

VIOLENT video games make KIDS SMARTER – more violent the BETTER

Mark #255
Coat

Re: Bad Parma

What? Ham from northern Italy is bad for you?

Bugger.

Google faces fresh privacy gripes for splashing your G+ mug over ads

Mark #255
Alert

Not yet mandatory

I'm assuming that I have a g+ account, since I had to create a google account in order to use Google Play.

It depends on when you joined and how vigilant you were. I got my Google (non-plus) account over 2 years ago, and don't have a G+ account linked to it.

However, my mum got an Android phone last month, and when she created her account, she automagically got a G+ account along with it (which she immediately deleted).

As and when you connect your account to a new phone or tablet, you will be cajoled (Mrs Doyle-like) into "upgrading" to a G+ account.

We go joyriding in the Google Maps-killer's ROBO-CAR

Mark #255

Re: HERE says it's only recording the GPS locations of open Wi-Fi hotspots

Why do they record them at all? Is it for use as fixed reference points?

tl;dr: Yes.

A GPS fix takes time to acquire - maybe up to 2 minutes - and can fail altogether if the receiver can't see enough sky.

(Phone) base station info is virtually immediate, but low resolution: usually +/- a kilometre or two. With a corpus of wifi hotspots, an intermediate Location Service can triangulate the receiver's position really quite well, and gets better in the sorts of locations where GPS performance fares less well (cities with buildings blocking the sky, but full of hotspots).

Ultimate electric driving machine? Yes, it’s the BMW i3 e-car

Mark #255
Boffin

Re: 125kw motor

Indeed. You can work it out for your own car, given the energy density of the fuel (it's 32-40 MJ/litre for diesel), and your average MPG and speed.

I get ~27kW for a small family car (that claims 61mpg on the trip computer).

Mark #255

Re: Finally an electric car I may want...

Agreed, it's just about there (as a 2nd car in our case).

But... it's ~£8k too much. By my calculations, it'd start to be cheaper than our Splash in about 14 years' time (which would probably be 4 years after we'll scrap it).

Even if you compare it to more luxurious competition, the TCO balances towards the i3 only after 6-8 years - just as the battery runs out of warranty.

Dodgy Kaspersky update borks THOUSANDS of NHS computers

Mark #255
Facepalm

Why would you standardise on *one* AV solution?

As the news item proves, if you have an AV monoculture, everything's fine until your entire network gets b0rked by the fuck-up.

Perhaps the bloke who suggested this could talk to a health professional about analogues in the medical world (MRSA springs to mind), and see what they think about a single defence vector.

How the W3C met its Waterloo at the Do Not Track vote showdown

Mark #255

Re: Is there actually any evidence...

That web users actually *want* adverts?

Bit of a straw man?

It seems that ads are the only current reasonable compromise, given that tip-jars and micro-payments as a whole are few and far-between. So I applaud making ads less objectionable, less invasive, and the creation of tools which can express fine-grained user desires more fully.

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