Posts by James 51

Paper mountain, hidden Brexit: How'd you say immigration control would work?

Re: Simple is best

You're forgetting about NI which has a land border with ROI.

UK.gov depts in post-Mad Frankie Maude landgrab over IT spending controls

Re: "Due to missing year-on-year spend figures"

Without the farm payments from the EU lots of farms will close and they won't need that system any more. See, Brexit can help.

Little ARMs pump 2,048-bit muscles in training for Fujitsu's Post-K exascale mega-brain

Is there a RISC version of Crysis?

Five-storey Blue Screen Of Death spotted in Thailand

Not a public fail but Windows 10 (Mrs is not keen on learning to use any *nix) ran an update last night and immediately went BSOD. Think it managed to corrupt it's own boot manager. Strange thing was is that if I went into the BIOS, didn't make any changes and continued to boot it was fine. Kept fiddling with the settings till it seemed to boot every time okay. Guess I'll find out if I get a slightly panicked call later in the day...

UK IT consultant subject to insane sex ban order mounts legal challenge

Re: I don't care what he's been accused of

When we lost the right to silence with the password law that should have been a red flag to everyone.

Microsoft promises free terrible coffee every month you use Edge

How do they stop people with tools like selenium from starting a script and walking away?

BTW if Robert Rankin hears about this I wonder if he (or Elvis and Barry) could sue.

£11bn later: Smart meters project delayed again for Crapita tests

I know no one is going to make white goods that can do that until the smart meter is in place but given the longevity of them there is going to be a lead time of at least ten years on this. Will the meters still be relevant then or will they need more RAM or CPU or Bluetooth chip to do the job?

If everyone was getting solar panels or turbines on their roofs it would make sense. Perhaps if our white goods had the capability to communicate with the grid and run when there is the most capacity available it would also make sense. At the moment it is hard to see it being good for anything that could not have been done cheaper with people or in another way.

Penetration tech: BAE Systems' new ammo for Our Boys and Girls

Think of it in a hearts and minds kind of way. The locals are less likely to stay on the sidelines if you're poisoning the water they drink and the food they eat.

Nokia taps former Rovio man Rantala to market relaunch

Who was responsible for the Nokia 108 I saw in a shop a few days ago?

I'd love a new N900. Cross it with an 808 and I'd be able to put my Q10 to rest.

Tim Cook's answer to crashing iPhone sales: More iPhones

It's a pity that privacy wasn't on the list of features (along with completely removing privacy invading honey pots like Siri and respecting customers (still annoyed about the wrong hand antenna problem)).

Email proves UK boffins axed from EU research in Brexit aftermath

Re: A bit of balance

You forgot the joke icon.

Windows 10 still free, even the Anniversary Update, if you're crass

Re: Twisting in the wind

The anniversary update does remove it as a group policy option for Pro.

Re: Twisting in the wind

I've got one or two pieces of software that run in Windows and don't have a linux version and don't play well with Wine. There's the games too that are the same. Over time I use them less but until I can cut the cord need to have at least one box that sits in the corner until it's needed.

Re: Twisting in the wind

Let's not forget the forced advertising in the start menu.

The power switch gave out on my base unit at the weekend, the plastic clip holding it in place had snapped. Put the reset cable in the power switch jumper and it worked.

Re: Missing option in survey

You forgot the joke icon.

China decrees it will grow world-class enterprise vendors by the year 2025

With the size of the internal market and their ability to keep foreign companies outside or captured as partners to local firms, it is difficult to see them not being able to threaten almost any sector they decide to dominate. Not sure that will bode well for anyone given their track records on human rights and the self certified exceptionalism that allows them to ignore international law:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-36777348

Gullible Essex Police are now using junk science lie detectors

Re: Simple: choose the right question

It is important to remember in these situations that a sense of humour and by extension a statement no matter how hilarious it may be, should not be issued.

I just finished reading Homicide. It goes into how theatre like this can be used to intimidate the ignorant. I wonder what will happen the first time someone gets banged up for violated the terms of their release based solely on the polygraph and it is later proved that the polygraph was incorrect.

What's losing steam at Apple? Pretty much everything

Probably something to do with compression and expansion rather than fiddling with knobs and keys.

One of the main selling points of Apple products is suppose to be the physical design including the robustness and longevity of the product. There has to come a point when the market is saturated and it looks like Apple have reached in. I wish investors and analysts would grow a functioning synapse and then use it.

Captain Piccard's planet-orbiting solar aircraft in warped drive drama

Re: "Green Prince of Darkness" at FauxScienceSlayer

NO 'sustainable' energy

So how long have we got till it's back to the stone age?

Re: @James 51

I agree there is going to be a long lead time but if we don't lay the ground work for replacement technologies we'll never see the improvements which are required. Even if we don't jump straight to all solar planes, they might inform the design of the next generation of planes.

I can't remember if I read this in Accidental Empires or Where Wizards Stay Up Late but the author was telling a story about the creation of postscript. He was working with one of the men responsible for creating it. The short version is that the author kept trying to tell the other person that postscript was too complex and resource hungry to work with their computers and printers. It was only years later that he understood the other man's point that there would soon come a time when that was not the case but he had lacked the vision required to lay the foundations for that time.

UK membership of Council of Europe has implications for data protection after Brexit

Any step towards a UK without a data protection law would require the UK to withdraw from the Council of Europe and its European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), something that Mrs. May has categorically stated will not happen under her watch as Prime Minister.

But it is a personal ambition of hers:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2722361/We-pull-Euro-human-rights-rules-May-tells-PM-It-s-way-rid-foreign-criminals-says.html

Seagate's south UK factory hasn't a future but HDDs do (it hopes)

Re: Sad day for Havant, Portsmouth, and Hayling Island

I am sure May, Boris and David Davis will be telling everyone on the new this is a symbol that Britain is open and ready for business. Can't we control the jobs back?

European privacy body slams shut backdoors everywhere

Re: Decryption, ... monitoring, ... of communications should be prohibited.

If not then new software will be written in the EU with full fat protection and will be exported to the UK and other places.

Lenovo: Our gear will be 10% more pricey from 1 August

I doubt if the prices will ever some down, at least by a substantial amount. The £ to $ conversion already left a lot of room for gouging and I don't see that behaviour changing any time soon.

BBC will ‘retain your viewing history’

Opera use to have a similar pledge about the data they gathered on users of its browser. We're going to find out that that's worth now that it's been bought over. (I know the BBC is not 'commercial' entity but that didn't stop Call Me Dave selling extremely sensitive personal information held by the NHS for a tiny fraction of it's value and there's plenty of MPs who would like to see it privatised or made to pay it's way more (both the BBC and the NHS)).

Free Windows 10 upgrade: Time is running out – should you do it?

I'll upgrade this weekend but only because somehow Win10 sneaky download killed my Win7 Pro install. It won't boot any more but my Windows 7 Pro disk won't recover or even wipe the disk clean and start again as detects a newer version of Windows. I've been using Ubuntu for months and if it wasn't for old games like Blade Runner I probably wouldn't bother at all. If it can't recover it, I'll have to wipe the disk and then will stick with Windows 7. It will be interesting to see how Win 10 responds to having the motherboard and cpu replaced if that is what the authentication is based on. Just waiting to see what Zen is like before I get something new.

GOP delegates suckered into connecting to insecure Wi-Fi hotspots

The pop up on the app says the network may be interfering with traffic but it's hard to tell.

I have pureVPN on my phone (paid for version) but it has never worked great on vodafone and is almost never works on three.

Microsoft ordered to fix 'excessively intrusive, insecure' Windows 10

Re: Rather Late.... - Blackberry Playbook ?

I have two already. Four or five years old and still going strong.

Star Trek Beyond: An unwatchable steaming pile of tribble dung

It was. Exhibit A, his love of antique sports shoes that got more time than the plot did.

Re: Nahh, the old Star Trek was for nerds...

So that is where tribbles come from.

Kepler's K2 mission confirms 104 Earth-like planets

Depends if there are seasons or not and how long the day/night cycle is. It if was tidally locked it might be a Brian Sldiss/Hothouse scenario.

Oz boffins cook quantum computing out of mothballs

Re: So...

When Moore's observation ran up against the limitations of the physics of current technologies.

Software can be considered 'goods' for purpose of commercial agent rules – High Court

A common sense decision, I wish I wasn't so surprised. Nice to see it though.

Brit chip biz ARM legs it to Softbank for $32bn

What's the plan? ARM is already very successful and the new owners have nothing to offer. Unless it's to hand over a bunch of cash and walking away I doubt this will end well.

You really do want to use biometrics for payments, beam banks

If the same survey advocated homeopathy I wouldn't be rushing to the tap. Biometrics are user names, not passwords and I wonder if people understand the limitations of the technology.

EU waves antitrust claims in Google's face, snarls 'You want some?'

I am looking forward to them hauling Facebook over hot coals for the scam they run on small businesses to 'boost' their posts.

You can buy Windows 10 Enterprise E3 access for the price of a coffee

Re: The Question Remains....

We use Java in my department. We support several hundred people and most of our stuff is used by small groups so never had to test it scaled but we've never had any problems.

Samsung deals out microSD-crushing faster fingernail flash cards

I bet lots of devices that ship with this will still use USB 2.0 for the physical connection.

Blighty will have a whopping 24 F-35B jets by 2023 – MoD minister

My math might by a little off but it seems that by 2023 there will be 1,000 people working directly or indirectly on each plane. No wonder they are expensive.

Science non-fiction: Newly spotted alien world bathes in glow of three stars

Re: One to read...

I am trying desperately to remember the line about the sky being filled with stars but keep running into B5 episode guides.

Facebook ‘glitch’ that deleted the Philando Castile shooting vid: It was the police – sources

Re: disturbing

The calm has been explained in multiple articles as a well known survival mechanism. When the immediate danger has passed and her daughter is being cared for by someone else, that is probably when it will hit her.

I was going to say that you'd hope the police would understand that once it's on facebook odds are that it has been duplicated for 'backup' purposes and is recoverable. Just deleting it from the profile is not enough but I am guessing they weren't thinking clearly. Tampering with evidence, they really do have no where left to run.

AMD promises code fix for power-hungry Radeon RX 480 GPU

Tomshardware has a good run down on the power issues:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-480-power-measurements,4622.html?_ga=1.45889636.1935770078.1467877452

So. Farewell then, BlackBerry Classic. You were a classic ... of sorts

It's a pity. I have a Q10 and I think it's great. The tool bar addressed its only real weakness, accurately selecting text on the screen. The keyboard on the passport and priv are too cramped for doing a lot of typing on. If it had a replaceable battery I would have snapped one up. As it is, might wait for one in a sale (although the Q10 is officially discontinued too and is still £150 on amazon).

*edit* Congratulations BTW for being listed as a source on the BBC story about tech price rises.

UK patients should have greater data slurp opt-out powers – report

How is the government of the day not going to sell valuable data for a fraction of its worth and undermine the NHS at the same time if they are caught acting in the patient's and public's interest?