Posts by Craig 2

Netflix starts 30-day video data diet at EU's request to ensure network availability during coronavirus crisis

Re: Money back

Yes, I'm sure you need that extra £2 a month to go and hoard more bog rolls...

Reducing bitrate. If bandwidth is the capacity, bitrate is the load. It's better to prevent saturation in the first place than allow automatic measures.

Also, it's a sign of our hedonistic existence that during the first real pandemic in modern times, Netflix availability is a concern!

Morrisons puts non-essential tech changes on ice as panic-stricken shoppers strip stores

Re: "throughput of goods is in excess of the usual Christmas peak"

Just buy a copy of the Daily Mail - I can't see any other reason for wanting to.

Wipe your arse with the Daily Mail and your backside will end up with even more shit on it..

Very little helps: Tesco flashes ancient Windows desktop on Scan-As-You-Shop device

Re: Handheld shopping...

Said employee is probably instructed to do the exact opposite ie. Pick oldest stuff first to help with stock rotation.

If I remember rightly one supermarket even made an advertising point of saying "we will always pick the freshest" for online orders because of the public's worry about this very issue.

US government grounds drone fleet (no, not the military ones with Hellfire missiles) over Chinese espionage fears

Re: Easy easy espionage

Not sure why Kevin got the downvotes, you're both saying the same thing... I would imagine no "obvious" backdoor would ever be engineered into a device, but an intentional bug could be left in along the lines of: Buffer overflow here gets remote execution there... Then they can legitimately claim bug if it's discovered.

The whole "lets give exploits cool nicknames" thing is another matter, I'm not sure if techno / sci-fi thriller films are copying reality or vice versa.

German scientists, Black Knights and the birthplace of British rocketry

Regularly run/walk/ride up the downs around the Needles Battery and there are loads of interesting structures. Of course most of them just look like lumps of concrete or fixings poking out of the earth so some historical context from the article is great. There's also tunnels etc. in the cliff facing Alum Bay which are worth an explore if you're adventurous :)

Hospital hacker spared prison after plod find almost 9,000 cardiac images at his home

Re: hahahahah

This is one of those cases where the meaning of a word is evolving over time and usage. Hacker to me means someone with technical skills, whether compromising a computer system or picking an electronic lock. To some people, hacker could mean they simply used their easy-to-guess password.

Image-rec startup for cops, Feds can probably identify you from 3 billion pics it's scraped from Facebook, YouTube etc

Re: Cat memes will save the day!

Forget the Feds! Eventually, cats will be able to identify everyone who isn't a cat lover, then we're REALLY in trouble :)

APEX predator? Chinese phone-flinger Vivo teases upcoming concept phone

Re: Except for the fragility issue...

Pop-up selfie camera could also help with privacy concerns of cameras being activated silently without the user's knowledge. Hard to miss if it appears unexpectedly. (I assume it's motorised?)

Selfie camera occasionally gets used as an ad-hoc mirror, or for checking injuries from falling off the MTB... :)

Dell slathers on factor XPS 13 to reveal new shiny with... ooh... a 0.1 inch bigger screen

Re: That price..?

In these modern times you don't think Dell actually PAY Microsoft for Windows licenses do you? More likely MS are paying Dell...

Fuming French monopoly watchdog is so incensed by Google's 'random' web ad rules, it's fining the US giant, er, <1% annual profit

Re: Deceptive units.

"per 100 sht".

No way a single roll lasts 100 shits.

Brother, can you spare a dime: Flickr owner sends mass-email begging for subscriptions

Flickr can fuck right off... that is all.

You had one job, Cupertino: Apple's Intelligent Tracking Protection actually gets tracking protection

It's a double edged sword....

Well done Dave, you've made our competitors look foolish and incompetent... muhahahaha

Oh wait, that was contributing to our billions of dollar advertising revenues! You're fired Dave...

Beware the trainee with time on his hands and an Acorn manual on his desk

Re: Ah the good old days

God, the Econet * commands were so much (dangerous) fun..

I played Elite soooo much but only made it to `Deadly` on the school computers. Countless hours wasted outside the station blasting endless Vipers.

Bad news: 'Unblockable' web trackers emerge. Good news: Firefox with uBlock Origin can stop it. Chrome, not so much

Re: Grrr....

"The lowest-level of penalty is applied if you are found guilty of gaining access to a computer without permission (or officially known as “unauthorised access to a computer”). This crime holds a penalty of up to two years in prison and a £5,000 fine"

Applying £5k PER infringement should force even the largest corporation take note. Of course, sending the CEO down for a couple of years wouldn't hurt too :)

Grrr....

Software methods that circumvent browser security measures should be considered hacking. ie. Unauthorized computer access and prosecuted as such.

Enjoy a tipple or five? You might need this AI system to tell you when it's time for a new liver

This is so full of holes.... off the top of my head maybe people predisposed to heavy drinking (a widely acknowledged unhealthy behaviour) are linked to lower education levels, thus reduced eloquence...

Hubble grabs first snap of interstellar comet... or at least that's what we hope this smudge is

Re: "based on its trajectory and speed, the comet had to originate from outside the Solar System"

Would you like to know more?

Welcome to the World Of Tomorrow, where fridges suffer certificate errors. Just like everything else

Re: Luddites

Hey, I still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea!

2001 fiction set to be science fact? NASA boffin mulls artificial intelligence to watch over the lunar Gateway

"Oh wait, of course! Buzzword bingo on the funding application."

Akin to boffins using suitable stimuli to elicit the desired response from rats (ie. politicians) in the maze...

Don't see the problem with it myself....

EU's top court says tracking cookies require actual consent before scarfing down user data

Re: Well that ruling has a timespan of about 30 days in the UK

Sounds like a massive trade deficit to me, which means that cessation of trade (which wouldn't happen) would cost the EU £56 billion of exports more than it'll cost the UK.

I suggest you go and learn the difference between percentages and values.

HMRC 'disciplined' almost 100 employees for computer misuse over 24 months

Re: It's not clear from the article what the offences were.

I would hope intentionally mis-handling the public's data would be grounds for instant dismissal rather than just a warning...

Re: Hammy The Hamster Lives!

Posted using my work laptop in work time.

Indeed, like the majority of traffic here I suspect. I wonder if The Reg could produce a nice chart of day & time of week compared to traffic & post levels...

Chinese sleazeball's 17-year game of hide-and-seek ends after drone finds him on mountain

I saw the drone pic of his cave and his major error was a bright blue plastic rain shelter above the cave entrance. Stuck out like a sore thumb from above. If he'd used even a bit of camouflage it would have been much harder to spot.

Time to check in again on the Atari retro console… dear God, it’s actually got worse

Re: There's an obvious way to deal with these customers....

"Atari needs to go dig up those unwanted copies of "E.T.--the Video Game"

There was a documentary "Atari: Game Over" that already did that. Check out the story, very interesting :)

Gearheads get their spudgers into an iPhone 11 Pro Max: Bi-lateral charging, anyone?

Re: Glass Back? Why?

I can only assume it's for the initial "ooh, it looks & feels lovely" before you stick it in a protective case...

Considering mobile phones are intended to be carried around all the time, they should be designed to take a bang or two. When you inevitably drop it you could try claiming a free replacement on the basis they're not fit for purpose. Good luck with that though :)

Outlook turned eBay into DD-Bay: Topless busty babe mysteriously fronts souk's emails

Re: If the avatar is still in your email client...

"Of course, the Reg journos should have dug up all this information themselves."

They asked one of the team to investigate 2 days ago but haven't heard from him since.

OK, let's try that again: Vulture rakes a talon on Samsung's fresh attempt at the Galaxy Fold 5G

Re: Why?

"Its just something for people to boast "Look at me and how well I am doing!"

If they do that LITERALLY then you're absolutely right, wankers.

If they have the money to buy shiny stuff and you get bitter and annoyed every time someone pulls one out of their pocket then unfortunately the wanker is you....

Allowlist, not whitelist. Blocklist, not blacklist. Goodbye, wtf. Microsoft scans Chromium code, lops off offensive words

Re: This is stupid

"What's next, changing the color names themselves?"

Well technically you guys over in freedomland have already changed the spelling of colour.

"But I identify as an integer"

Shut it $userloggedin, you're boolean and always will be.

Re: Devoting one's time to petty issues when there is so much to do

"Such a shame to see people at m$ raising such petty issues"

Don't blame companies for this, the only reason large corps dedicate time to this sort of thing is because there are too many "I'm offended" professionals out there. eg. The Tourettes charity complaining about the recent Fringe Festival joke.

Consider this: Person tweets about some innocuous reference in the code - Celeb notices and re-tweets it to billions - Massive publicity & calls to boycott - Billions wiped off share values - Shareholders lose money. <--- This is why.

No it's not Russell Brand's new cult, it's Microsoft's Office crew rolling out their Save Experience

Re: Consistency

Yep this is exactly why Win 10 is such a pain... Some configuration options have multiple ways of accomplishing broadly the same but with varying UI choices, wording and functionality.

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

Re: Eh?

What the hell is an ableist insult?

Read the list of them on the wiki page and I dare you not to giggle like an immature schoolchild. ;)

Pokemon Go becomes Pokemon No as games biz Niantic agrees to curb trespassing addicts

Re: They had to go and ruin it

"If Niantic can't make the game in a way the eliminates that, then the game shouldn't exist."

Try applying that rationale to other areas and you'll realize just how dumb it is:

If roads can't be made in a way that eliminates speeding, nobody should be able to drive.

If knives can't be made in a way that eliminates murder, nobody should own knives.

etc.. etc..

We're surrounded by hundreds of situations that can be abused, but the vast majority of people don't. You only have to read some of the crazy things people have wanted outlawed just because it personally pissed them off.

Don't trust Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, boffins warn: Zuck & Co know that hash is king

Re: "could lead to biased decision-making"

"I have a suspicion you might be lonely amongst Reg reading facebook users. "

Doubtful, but they certainly know better than to admit it on here.

TalkTalk's voice-over is writing speeds that its text can't match: Ad pulled from broadcast

"Our marketing strategy is hoping people don't pay CLOSE attention to our adverts"

FTFY

Photo 'memories' storage biz Ever uses family snaps to train facial recognition AI

There's only 1 rule for personal information: If you upload it to the internet it's not personal anymore.

It will be monetized if possible.

It will be compromised at some point in the future.

It will be used for purposes you never envisaged.

It will be no longer available at some point in the future.

World recoils in horror as smartphone maker accused of helping government snoops read encrypted texts, track device whereabouts

Re: Nope I'm lost

The Reg article was fairly convoluted but my Sarcasm Spidey Senses started tingling within the first few lines....

Oh chute. Doubts cast on ExoMars lander's 2020 red planet jaunt after another failed test

Re: Isn’t the air density and gravity different

You plug all the numbers into a big supercomputer and hope that your mathematical model is close enough to reality....

When the chips are down, buy a software biz: Broadcom snaffles Symantec for $10.7bn

I wouldn't give $10 for Symantec, never mind $10bn. Bloody shysters.

WTF is Boeing on? Not just customer databases lying around on the web. 787 jetliner code, too, security bugs and all

"You could get that information from a simple GPS box attached to the entertainment system network. No need to tap into avionics networks for that data."

Oh sure: Add extra hardware at additional cost, or just tap into the avionics data with a couple of lines of code and a filter/firewall exception....

He's coming for your floppy: Linus Torvalds is killing off support for legacy disk drive tech

The upgrade to disk was incredible, same as when I got a disk drive for my Apple //e (clone)

US sanctions fail to get in Huawei as embattled Chinese vendor reports 23% revenue growth

Re: Huawei revenue bump

"develop products and services that are compatible with both ecosystems!"

In the crazy world that is developing, making your product or service cross-compatible will attract sanctions from both sides!

You have to pick a side...

Braking bad? Van with £112m worth of crystal meth in back hits cop car at police station

Found the pro drug trafficker!

Pair programming? That's so 2017. Try out this deep-learning AI bot that autocompletes lines of source code for you

Re: An interesting proposition

"It might for instance learn your coding style."

I tried it out and got this:

I recommend you give up coding immediately and go back to being a barista...

Bulb smart meters in England wake up from comas miraculously speaking fluent Welsh

Ok... so I copied that into Google Translate because I don't understand Welsh and it suggested you had misspelt `ddiffodd`. Who's right?

It would be a bit harsh pointing out typos since it all looks like it was typed by someone with Parkinsons....

Niche languages just need to disappear. They are just a form of tribalism and the world would be a better place with fewer languages.

Bracing for the wrath of all the Welsh commentards ;)

Brilliant Boston boffins blow big borehole in Bluetooth's ballyhooed barricades: MAC addy randomization broken

Re: Isn't the real flaw...

Exactly... We need a unique identifier to allow 2 way communications. But, we need to stop tracking so we'll occasionally send another unique identifier to randomise the original unique identifier. Repeat ad infinitum..

The e-mpire strikes back: Google appeals that $1.7bn EU fine for choking web ad rivals

Re: Too big to fine?

Any company that appeals and loses should have their fine at least doubled. Not only have they been found guilty of whatever bad behaviour in the first place, they have then willfully tried to avoid the punishment.

Chinese government has got it 'spot on' when it comes to face-recog tech says, er, London's Met cops' top rep

Re: No racism but...

It's a great example of the pitfalls of biased / limited training data using AI*.

*In this care we're the AI - Alleged Intelligence

Years late to the SMB1-killing party, Samba finally dumps the unsafe file-sharing protocol version by default

Re: "Off by default"

I think what he means is that it's another security exploit vector. Find ANY exploit that silently switches smb1 back on and then use the copious amounts of ready made exploit code for smb1.

Better to just nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure...