Posts by Dan 55

Top Ubisoft execs eject after staff complain of 'toxic' workplace environment for women at Canadian studios

That deaf, dumb, and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball

Guillemot of course has been completely unaware what's been going on at Ubisoft for three decades.

UK government marks 'at least' £115m for new Brexit systems against backdrop of chequered IT project history in customs and border control

was never in the EU

It's never as clear-cut as a Brexiteer thinks. They're a British Overseas Territory which has trade advantages with the EU (or will have until the end of the year).

Assurance for tariff-free EU Tristan Lobster trade sought

I think the good people of Tristan da Cunha have just realised they're up shit creak without a paddle. That, or the inhabitants of the UK suddenly start liking lobster a lot more than they do now.

When you see PWA, Microsoft and Google want you to think Programs With Attitude: Web app release tool tweaked

Someone make the Electron-driven bloat stop

Apparently I'm supposed to believe it's normal to thrash the CPU so much that even when the "app" is idling in the background the laptop runs at 60 degrees C.

Admittedly it's a laptop from 2012 but even so it has no problems running anything else.

You call Verizon. A Google bot answers. You demand a human. The human is told what to say by the bot

How to social engineer a Googlebot

Could you get it to send a SIM to a new address and activate it so you can SIM swap someone?

TomTom bill bomb: Why am I being charged for infotainment? I sold my car last year, rages Reg reader

Re: As I read that

You know those helpdesk tickets from irate users who feed you information in dribs and drabs and get more and more irate with you your answers based on just the information you had available at the time because they couldn't file a coherent bug report in the first place?

The end result is nobody cares about you, your old Merc, or your TomTom account which you may or may not have.

Good day to you, sir.

Re: As I read that

If the original map update purchase was set up as a continuous payment with TomTom it could have been carried forward onto your new card when your old one expired.

All the seller needs is a your payment details, as normal, to set up a CPA instead of a one-off payment. They then have the right to charge when and how much they like. Link

The UK Card Association says if your card expires during the course of your CPA, you should check with the retailer whether your new card details have been automatically updated with them, as this will not always be the case. [i.e. it will usually be the case] Link

But if you want an explanation, a CPA being set up with the original purchase and being carried forward onto new cards, and being used for new purchases bought through the in-car screen is it. It requires no extra information from you and the fact that you're setting up a CPA could be buried in a EULA. Yes, it's a guess and might not be what happened, but based on what we know I think it's the most credible explanation.

Re: As I read that

I imagine it was repeated billing set up because you say you bought a map update. If you had ever bought a second map update, I guess they wouldn't have needed to ask again for your card details, they would have just billed you for it using the details they had on-hand from the purchase of first map update.

Likewise for the subscription set up by the new owner of the car.

Re: As I read that

Then that's a UI failure. The reset screen really should list the accounts on the car and a) remind him the accounts will still exist afterwards and he may want to go to each website to tell them to stop billing him or, even better, b) send an instruction to each account to tell it to stop billing him (if it's technically possible to start billing via the in-car screen then it's technically possible to stop billing via the in-car screen).

An email banning our staff from using TikTok? Haha, funny story about that, we didn't mean it – Amazon

Re: Another non-event distracting us

But it's nothing the app couldn't have done anyway with the permissions given to it by the user.

Re: Another non-event distracting us

Do you mean TikTok has root access so it can silently install and execute anything it downloads from the mothership? Please, do explain more...

Smile? Not bloody likely: Day 6 of wobbly services and still no hint to UK online bank's customers about what's actually wrong

Whatever's wrong, it's utterly hosed

10pm, Friday 10 July:

We are continuing to work urgently on fixing customer access to smile online banking and the smile mobile app. As part of this we are performing emergency maintenance tonight across both smile and Co-operative Bank systems and this will take place after 10pm when customers least use these services. This is necessary to allow for further investigations with the aim of fully restoring the service for our customers.

[...]

Following the maintenance, the next update will be available here at 8am on Saturday 11 July.

They need to bring both Smile and Co-op down overnight, not to fix it, but to allow the issue to be further investigated, and that's after a week of most services being unavailable anyway.

Fly you fools!

Re: Vindicated

Don't close it, you might need it if Starling goes TITSUP.

Android 11 will let users stop device-makers from killing background apps, says Google

Nokia

The site says Nokia claims the built-in power saver app was disabled on all devices running Android 9 or above last September, but mine still has it and apps still disappear overnight.

A volt from the blue: Samsung reportedly ditches wall-wart from future phones

Yes but then how many people unplug their wall warts when not in use?

Well, me for one.

I guess if I were ever to install a power/USB socket, it'd be one which uses the switch to turn on/off both power and USB, if such a thing exists.

Don't power sockets with a USB socket use a constantly-on step-down transformer to feed the USB socket so if you wire up your house with them you raise your electricity bill?

Real question.

.NET Core: Still a Microsoft platform thing despite more than five years open source

Re: The problem as I see it

Everyone knows they'll be dancing to Apple's tune for Swift but they have to to get into the walled garden.

Why would they do that willingly with .Net when .Net on non-Windows platforms is still second class and there are lots of other languages to choose from?

If the Solar System's 'Planet Nine' is actually a small black hole, here's how we could detect it... wait, what?

There's a link under the article (Tips and corrections).

Keep it Together, Microsoft: New mode for vid-chat app Teams reminds everyone why Zoom rules the roost

Re: Annoys me

Who, MS' marketing department?

Re: Teams on phone

4) Watch it get into a pickle if you disable microphone and camera permissions and receive an incoming Teams call. Requesting the permissions without getting confused would be too useful.

Re: MS account? Authentication?

It's almost as if they're finally learning from other clients, at least if you access via web browser. Or maybe not, Teams still hasn't got push-to-talk (hold space to unmute). Perhaps the background noise brings people together, or somesuch nonsense.

MS' version of a Clockwork Orange

Full screen, main screen, look ahead, webcam on, no leaving the meeting, Electron-driven hellscape which hammers the CPU so there's no multitasking either. Perhaps MS will also supply you with specula and chair straps just in case you're tempted to work through your hour-long Teams meeting purgatory.

Hungry? Please enjoy this delicious NaN, courtesy of British Gas and Sainsbury's

Re: The current state of education?

Looks like they've outsourced PR too.

Microsoft sues coronavirus phishing spammers to seize their domains amid web app attacks against Office 354.5

Re: Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU)

Yes.

Re: That much downtime?

Why not tag every Office downtime story with a certain tag and, if an article carries this tag, subtract the number of articles this year with this tag from 365 and replace the string "365" in the headline with this number.

Unfair, probably. Enlightening and funny, certainly.

UK advertising watchdog raps ruler on O2's hand over misleading ads for iPad and Surface Pro deals

Re: Ever since

Well, there was pre-France Telecom Orange where it seems they were happy to let their services do the selling then when France Telecom took them over it went from one extreme to the other.

Cereal Killer Cafe enters hipster heaven, heads online: Coronavirus blamed for shutters being pulled down

I'm guessing business has been a bit soggy of late!

I'm a-maized it lasted as long as it did.

Boolean bafflement at British Airways' Executive Club: Sneaky little Avioses - Wicked, Tricksy, False!

Database query failed or returned null for the number of points for some reason and Java/Python/whatever filled in the rest?

Mind the airgap: Why nothing focuses the mind like a bit of tech antiquing

Re: Distractions...

OBS Virtualcam, for all your looping video needs.

Re: Distractions...

The immediacy of IM slows everyone down whereas with an email you have to spend time composing it saying what you've tried and have discounted.

I will happily help but I'm not going to spend all day taking quieres due to a chronic lack of documentation. Anyway, by not being immediately available, I find that many questions get answered by themselves.

The manager is a workaholic who doesn't believe in documentation, but I am not. If that doesn't make me an asset, so be it. I'm way past that threat, as should most people who have spent more than a decade in IT.

Re: Distractions...

In my experience, Do Not Disturb is just yet another status colour, for people who will try and get hold of you anyway and for Teams which doesn't stop people contacting you (at least Skype for Business' Do Not Disturb actually did something). The best that will happen is that notifications will stop but the desktop badge in the taskbar still flashes.

I've found the most effective way of stopping interruptions is setting it to appear away, that way nobody sure if you're away or not.

Baroness Dido Harding lifts the lid on the NHS's manual contact tracing performance: 'We contact them up to 10 times over a 36-hour period'

Re: Damn numbers and facts.

I think that was precisely the other poster's point, albeit expressed somewhat cynically given the government's handling of the crisis to date.

Re: Really?

If you switch to the Daily Data tab it shows they are not publishing lab capacity any more.

Re: @Dan

Everyone is being forced to put their trust in a centralised opaque testing regime, even local authorities and health agencies. Wales decided to set up its own testing in parallel to the UK's testing and as a result they were able to quickly react to hotspots, whereas England was unable to.

With the data the public had, the testing was found to be wanting but instead of improving the testing and data, the government's reaction is to remove public access to it. Scrapping public access is a prelude to scrapping testing or reducing it to such an extent it becomes meaningless.

Not really, otherwise the government wouldn't have got away with this:

UK calls halt to data on number of people tested for Covid-19

After ‘temporary pause’ in publishing figure, government makes decision permanent

So that's no app and (soon) no testing. Never mind, herd immunity will save us... or not.

When a deleted primary device file only takes 20 mins out of your maintenance window, but a whole year off your lifespan

Re: / tmp

The GNU utils should not wipe out / anyway unless you were to accidentally include --no-preserve-root as an option (keep cats away from the keyboard).

UK government shakes magic money tree, finds $500m to buy a stake in struggling satellite firm OneWeb

Re: It Could Be Made to Work ???

Have they really just spent half a billion on state-owned rural satellite broadband? Rural broadband is dirt cheap, if you do it right.

Source in several papers say they did buy it for GPS-like services.

But nobody from government has stood up and said why they've just spent half a billion on something out of the blue.

Re: It Could Be Made to Work ???

Yes, the quango with vested funding interests said it could be made to work (please give us more money so we can investigate how, we'll get back to you in a few years) but the UK Space Agency said it won't work:

OneWeb’s network has been described as unsuitable for navigational purposes by the UK’s own space agency, according to internal documents cited by the Daily Telegraph. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment on the documents.

And here's the article itself, showing its ankles from behind the paywall.

Re: For something one must have.... or for something some think no one should really have?

Perhaps they decided on a different way to funnel money to Branson instead of saving his airline.

Branson-backed OneWeb to raise $1bn for its satellite internet mega-constellation

Re: It Could Be Made to Work ???

Expert on Twitter says it won't work. If we believe experts.

Three UK: We're sending you this SMS to warn you not to pay attention to unsolicited texts

Same sender and text with bit.ly link

How many would go there? I guess a hundred thousand at least.

We all know Android message clients aren't particularly secure.

Your industry needs you: Database engineers, sysadmins and developer vacancies revealed

You can't fool me, I know what rot13 is.

UK space firms forced to adjust their models of how the universe works as they lose out on Copernicus contracts

Re: Tendering - Fair or Not?

The problem is the UK not being allowed to access those ESA projects which had a clause in the agreement specifying the work had to be done by EU companies and were funded with EU money, at least not without a special agreement with the EU permitting it.

It seems this was not a priority for the British government in the negotiations so they can't really turn round and complain as it's the logical outcome of Brexit. The resulting flailing around is pretty humorous though.

Re: Thank U UK

Well, your nation has a chance to put an end to its long national nightmare in November. The UK, not so much.

Well, the British press are saying it was due to good luck, but the good luck seems to have come from French and Dutch police and intelligence services cracking it and passing the information on to the UK.

Erudite, insightful, self-aware and almost human: Give your local database admin a hug – it's DBA Appreciation Day

No, they do make sure they charge for it.

The good news: Vodafone switches on first full-fat, real-life 5G network in the UK. The bad news: it only got sent to Coventry

WiFi 5 over 5G will also beat 5G for most indoor use cases, unless people catch on that their routers are transmitting 5G and set fire to them.

Hurray for marketing.

Analogue radio given 10-year stay of execution as the UK U-turns on DAB digital future

If you switch off analogue without a DAB replacement, that means people start to ask questions like "why was the migration to DAB so screwed up over 25 years that it turns out we don't even need it now?"

Another symptom of the same screwing up is Ofcom daren't push for DAB+ as that means people start to ask the same type of questions.

So DAB is now nationally vital... as a face-saving exercise. Carry on regardless.

Cool IT support drones never look at explosions: Time to resolution for misbehaving mouse? Three seconds

Re: Switching on the "monitor stand"

What happened to horizontal computer cases? They were much more practical than having a monolith from 2001 beside the monitor, sometimes so tall as to tower above it too, while the monitor itself is at the wrong level. Now, all that remains of them is very niche product.

Microsoft sees the world has moved on, cranks OneDrive file size upload limit from 15GB to more useful 100GB

But have they upped the file count limit...

... or is it still stuck on a paltry 20,000 files (try a source tree or two to use it up)?

LibreOffice slips out another 7.0 beta: Spreadsheets close gap with Excel while macOS users treated to new icons

Re: CSV=poor understanding --> CSQDV correct

So you can't really rely on string fields being quote delimited. If you code for a specific version of Excel then all you can really say is you can exchange data with that specific version of Excel.

Double quotes remind me of the 1980s, a backslash for escaping characters is more usual now.