Posts by Danny 2

Florida man won't be compelled to reveal iPhone passcode, yet

Re: Point phone at face - job done.

"If you can't change it, it's not a password!"

I can't keep my face the same. If I had locked a device using my face as a teenager, then my current face would not unlock it.

Watchdog sceptical UK.gov's Universal Credit can handle 8.5m benefits claimants

Re: Outsourcing

There are "alternative methods" which don't involve crime. Well, not the type of crime you are mentioning.

The skills I learned breaking into military nuclear plants translate well into domestic burglary but the motives don't.

I do get your point, I can't recall the lauded thinker who condemned any man who would no steal to feed his family.

Your laws are wrong. It is a crime to take food from a waste skip behind a shop destined for landfill. Why? It makes you wonder what crime means when you can't legally eat a discarded scone.

I heard one government minister just recommended the poor eat out of skips, I suspect he is missing the point.

I dunno if any one here has skipped recently, but there is far less there, far more people relying on it, far more people having to use 'food banks'.

5th richest country in the world? My hairy behind.

Re: Jury 'duty' moral quandary

I've never had a jury trial before, never even seen one and I've seen and faced serious prison time in various wee courts.

I love living in the centre of Edinburgh because my local library is the National Library of Scotland, and my local art class is the Scottish National Gallery. Bragging rights, my flat is appalling but I get to bump shoulders with our elite. I never realised the downside is my local court is The High Court.

I am crossing my fingers for some sort of financial malfeasance, or better yet a techie crime. I just know it will be some sort of baby mass murder.

Being rational, they will likely dismiss me when they question me. This sort of responsible function is what I expect of you other posters, not me. I'm here to mock and joke, not moderate or judge.

Re: Jury 'duty' moral quandary

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. But apparently some fruit flies have genetics that mean they should be eating passion fruit instead. Some thrive on the protein of a passion fruit, some thrive on the carbohydrates of a banana. A banana will go straight to the hips of some fruit flies which is awful if you have six hips.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/uons-ffs102418.php

I returned to my flat after an infestation of fruit flies once due to an old banana, effing thousands of them, a swarming cloud of them. They don't bite but they are annoying in your face and divebombing into your drink, so I left my fly riddled drink and flat for the night. Not a single living fruit fly when I returned, they'd all drowned themselves in my abandoned glass of Islay malt. Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies would die for a good whisky.

Most people share 75% of their genes with fruit flies, Scots like me seem to share more and are the evolutionary missing link. Campbeltown Loch, I wish ye were whisky.

Some people here will be employers, interviewers. I was only once made to hire an underling and I refused to, but many of you will have done that often. I ask you to give extra credit for any candidate that has survived being 'helped' by the DWP, and instead sift out anyone who has worked for the DWP. The doleys will be grateful for work, and conscientious. The DWP workers will assume they've been hired to be malicious. It's in their DNA.

The Fast and the Furious 8 is being filmed in Glasgow just now, streets are closed down for filming. Of course there the franchise is called The Fat and the Furious.

I got two upvotes on my juror poll comment. I am going to court in Decemeber, for the first time not as the defendant. 11 angry men, and one deaf, contrarian anarchist. To the two people who voted, if my family get killed, or I help send an innocent person to prison, or I help free an awful person, this is on you.

"Oh judge! Your damn laws! The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them."

~ Ammon Hennacy

Jury 'duty' moral quandary

I am avoiding claiming Universal Credit by a variety of methods, such as selling possessions, doing other contractors work, customising Raspberry PIs for non techie folk who need them, fixing laptops, skipping food out of bins, growing my own food, stuff like that. Scraping by, or 'The Good Life' with soldering iron.

For the third time in three years I've just been 'randomly' called up for jury duty, and yet for the previous thirty years I hadn't been, and none of my peers have been called up more than once.

First time I was disqualified because I was on trial. Second time I ignored it without consequences because it was just after my trial and I couldn't pay the £1000 fine anyway, there was no way I stepping back in court even if they had paid me more than my lunch money and bus ticket.

This time though they have given me a reasonable amount of notice, I could sign on the day before and pocket £70 a week plus lunch and buses. It's a high court, not a sheriff court so it would be a serious crime. And I am far smarter and moral than yer average Scot, plus I know that the police lie and the judiciary is biased and incompetent.

I'm considering doing it this time, instead of ignoring it. I will try to talk myself out of it by being fully honest. I damaged my hearing as a teenager at anarchist punk gigs so I can't hear anything in court. I am an atheist but I have seen a benign ghost, and a benign UFO for that matter.

My brother is a QC who will soon be a judge in England. He cheats at chess with my nephew(not his son), can't beat me at Trivial Pursuits, and believe his praying to Saint Andrew found my sisters lost necklace. For all my faults, I know I am saner and more rational than him.

I am utterly unsure whether to become a juror though and and throwing that out here for upvotes or downvotes. Don't vote on the quality of my comment, vote according to whether you would want me on a jury if you were on trial.

I kind of need your advice. I got slated here previously for saying I ignored jury duty last time, but I had good reasons. If you were on trial then would you prefer me or a random stranger?

I feel I'd prefer someone like me on the jury, but I am not convinced it is worth it for me.

Californian chap sets his folks' home on fire by successfully taking out spiders with blowtorch

Re: Newspaper?

"I've always said that physics beats chemistry for pest control."

Test that in a cloud of Scottish midges. Anything you try to hit them with simply pushes them aside. You have to rely on chemicals, and not DDT. Avon's 'Skin So Soft' repels the wee buggers.

"The astronomers were shining laser pointers on the wall to tease random jumping spiders they found. The arachnids were mildly curious about red laser light but unleashed eight legs of fury trying to catch the moving green dot.

Morehouse tweeted how green could be more triggering to spiders because of their acute color vision in this spectrum. And when pressed about the astronomers' celestial interests, Morehouse calculated that jumping spiders, indeed, have the visual acuity to see the distant moon, if they were so inclined."

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/uoc-nsf102618.php

Belgium: Oi, Brits, explain why Belgacom hack IPs pointed at you and your GCHQ

Re: @Cavehomme- A McEnroe moment? "You cannot be serious!"

The gas [sic] was made in Russia? No, the incompetent murderous agents who applied the nerve poison were made in Russia. Their synchronous passport numbers with false IDs, their taxi ride from the GRU HQ to the airport, their military photographs online and their leisurely passage around Salisbury, not to mention their mocking Moscow TV interview.

That's how we know it was your boss what did it.

Linguists, update your resumes because Baidu thinks it has cracked fast AI translation

Re: Aye, right

Ken, they put up a sandstone statue of Mel Gibson at the Wallace Monument, with the word 'Freedom' chiselled in. Everyone loathed it and vandalised it. So they put up a plinth stating that the sculptor was disabled and we should tolerate the obscenity. Everyone kept on vandalising it. So they put a twelve foot high black steel cage around the statue - there are photos on the internet - which kind of make a mockery of the word 'freedom'.

I went under the cage and hacked Gibson's nose with a chisel. Then they finally removed it.

We were also planning on stealing the Wallace sword, again it wouldn't be the first time it was stolen, but we couldn't agree who would store it. It is still there, but have a look at it sometime. It is taller than Gibson.

Aye, right

I've been teaching Scottish idioms to a Spanish translator in Edinburgh for the past year. She just emailed me from Spain saying that compared to her family she is all peely-wally. I doubt Baidu will ever crack Lowland Scots to Spanish.

Microsoft Azure looks to make cloud-native payments SWIFTer

It's not immediately apparent what SWIFT are getting from this. Their existing system is more reliable and secure than Azure. Arnaud Boulnois says it will "eliminate operational inefficiencies" and improve "back-office operational efficiency", so I'm guessing that is Belgian for cutting staff.

Microsoft first got a foot in the door two decades ago on a non-financial project, and a second-line support nobody I had a direct line to a MS VP because they were that keen. I'd always search TechNet first to avoid annoying the poor millionaire.

London flatmate (Julian Assange) sues landlord (government of Ecuador) in human rights spat

He can come and live at my flat

The cat, I mean. I'll change his litter, buy him treats, and I even seem to have a visiting mouse he can play with.

Chinese biz baron wants to shove his artificial moon where the sun doesn't shine – literally

Re: How can you live without the sun?

I'm friends with a Spanish translator here, who I've been teaching Scottish idioms and slang. I knew my work was complete when she emailed me from Spain to complain about how peely-wally she was compared to her family.

Any day the sun shines on Scotland should be a national holiday.

"They'll never reach the moon

At least not the one we are after

It's floating broken on the open sea

And it carries no survivors"

~ L. Cohen, 1971

I asked a refugee what they thought of Scotland, and normally foreigners are very polite and spout platitudes. She wasn't.

"I hate it, I hate Scotland. The people are very rude, it is very cold, and THERE IS NO SUN. How can you live without the sun?"

I burst out laughing and told her she'd fit right in and deserved to live here.

UK.gov to press ahead with online smut checks (but expects £10m in legals in year 1)

One sure cure for porn

DEVIL DOG Haddington man who had genitals ‘ripped off and eaten’ seen walking with bulldog just days earlier

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/3335902/first-pictures-genitals-chewed-off-man-dog/

"There were fears today the dog may have eaten the organs — making it impossible for them to be reattached."

It seems cruel to kill the dog over this when people who know it describe it as a little angel. I know plenty of women who would be happy to rehome it.

US may have by far the world's biggest military budget but it's not showing in security

You'll have to answer to the Coca-Cola company

This is where the quarters come from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUAK7t3Lf8s

Re: They're not much good at communication either

69 - we are fucking each other

49 - down a deep mine shaft

13 - and it's sinister

What could be more embarrassing for a Russian spy: Their info splashed online – or that they drive a Lada?

Electric Trabant acid test

I got on the wrong train and ended up behind the Iron Curtain by mistake.

It was just after the Berlin Wall fell, and some West Germans were being allowed into East Germany, but no Brits were. We were allowed into Czechoslovakia, and not speaking German I boarded a train labelled Praag. An entrepreneurial ticket inspector demanded money for a handwritten note, which presumably read, "This lad is an idiot and he has money".

It dawdled all through East Germany, and by the time it got to Dresden I realised this was worse than the time I accidentally got a train to Falkirk. Karl Marx Staadt at night was an industrial dystopia.

The road traffic was a political metaphor - BMWs speeding past Trabants. Trabants were like Ladas, but coal-powered judging from their exhaust emissions.

I got to the Czech border and was marched off the train by two burly Czech soldiers with furry hats and AK-47s. They ignored me telling them in English and French that I was allowed there and waved me back to the East Germany station 100m back. A pretty female East German border guard drew her pistol and waved me back towards Czechoslovakia. I pointed at her, then at her pistol, then at the two Czech soldiers and at their rifles and then threw up my hands in the universal sign of befuddled idiocy.

She told me through irate German and pointing at maps that I could remain but I had to go straight to Berlin. I ignored her and got on the same train I'd just been on it's return journey to Munich.

Two days without eating or sleeping and I was beginning to hallucinate, and when I finally got to Munich I met the first English speaking East German on my journey.

I heard a while back the Trabant was going to be revived as an electric car which kind of makes sense because it was so small and light it'd probably run off AAA batteries.

On the seventh anniversary of Steve Jobs' death, we give you 7 times he served humanity and acted as an example to others

The thinnest and lightest CEO

https://xkcd.com/527/

Dutch cheesed off with Russians, expel four suspects over chemical weapons Wi-Fi spying

Just guessing but maybe passport control had already cottoned on to two male Russians travelling together on synchronously numbered passports.

Re: Why go public?

"And for being diplomat (or more correct in the possession of a diplomatic passport) there is no risk, besides to be trown out of the country."

Although the Dutch did just throw them out, they could have arrested them. Merely possessing a diplomatic passport does not confer diplomatic immunity until it is registered with a host nation.

As for the publicity, that is a clear rebuke to Russia and clear support to the UK.

Twenty years ago I worked for a private organisation that had it's own security division and an intranet that listed global security threats. When I searched on the Netherlands it claimed that 800 Russian crime gangs had set up bases there in the previous two years.

I asked my Dutch friends about that and they said that was credible, and to stay away from the plethora of Russian tea rooms ("there is never anyone in there").

Coffeeshops good, tearooms bad.

Resident evil: Inside a UEFI rootkit used to spy on govts, made by you-know-who (hi, Russia)

Re: How do I

These evils will be loaded before Windows looks at the registry.

Flash/fdisk/format/reinstall.

Re: Hardware button?

I don't trust my Roomba, I think the Russians may have dirt on it.

('Maniac' is not great TV but it's worth it for the street Roombas clearing up dog poo)

Fuzzy logic makes a comeback – in picking where Earth sticks its probes into alien worlds

"The software uses fuzzy logic algorithms, which were introduced in the 1960s and were rather trendy in the 1990s."

Like me, ska, and platform shoes.

I recall how proud our developers were using fuzzy logic in handwriting recognition, realising it would look good on their CVs when exploring Mars a quarter of a century later.

Working Apple-1 retro fossil auctioned off to mystery bidder for $375,000

Sodder

Ever wondered why the Yanks pronounce solder as sodder? Apparently they are arguably correct, for once.

solder (n.)

early 14c., soudur, from Old French soldure, soudeure, from souder, originally solder, "to consolidate, close, fasten together, join with solder" (13c.), from Latin solidare "to make solid," from solidus "solid" (see solid (adj.)).

Modern form in English is a re-Latinization from early 15c. The loss of Latin -l- in that position on the way to Old French is regular, as poudre from pulverem, cou from collum, chaud from calidus. The -l- typically is sounded in British English but not in American, according to OED, but Fowler wrote that solder without the "l" was "The only pronunciation I have ever heard, except from the half-educated to whom spelling is a final court of appeal ..." and was baffled by the OED's statement that it was American. Related: Soldered; soldering. The noun is first attested late 14c.

A story of M, a failed retailer: We'll give you a clue – it rhymes with Charlie Chaplin

off line

On the pro side, Maplin encouraged a lot of non-techies to play around with electronics. Plus they had a wide range of components I could get instantly when I'd mucked up some urgent project.

Their prices were so prohibitive though. I felt sorry for their staff desperate to sell you batteries or take your home address, like shoe shop staff trying to sell shoe polish.

Most of the staff were unsympathetic and annoying, but there was one young geeky engineering student at my local branch that I hope is in a better place now. She'd always come up to me asking if I needed help. One time I told her the prices were just too inflated she sighed sadly, looked at her feet and said, "I know".

While the UN laughed at Trump, hackers chortled at the UN's lousy web application security

4,000 nuclear warheads

"Meanwhile, at last estimate, Trump was custodian to some 4,000 nuclear warheads."

That is scary, but recent reports suggest he hasn't been given the nuclear football. He has been given a regular football.

DWP CIO and chief digi officer Mayank Prakash quits

Sickie Selfie

I had to sign off sick for a couple of weeks at the start of the year. I had to before but this time I was allowed to just email a photo of my doctor's sicknote rather than post it, which was a godsend since I couldn't walk to a postbox.

I have a comprehensive paper trail that proves the head of the DWP ten years ago and many of his staff were blatant liars, and their department seemed designed to abuse and deceive, but I guess some things change slowly behind the scenes.

That being said Universal Credit is such a dogmatic disaster that I would beg on the streets rather than claim it. But that's a political disaster, not an IT disaster.

Cisco sneaks hardcoded secret root backdoor into vid surveillance kit

Faint praise

I worked for the company that developed the Cisco NMS, and we used to test the hell out of their routers. The best minds of my generation, plus me and one or two other duffers, never found one backdoor or deliberate security issue. That was two decades ago though, I'm a bit dismayed Cisco have lowered themselves to making crap like this.

Facebook sued for exposing content moderators to Facebook

Dead bairns

I was told to scan in and ICR some medical records while 3rd line at an imaging company that was going for an NHS contract.

It was a regular part of the job for various potential clients but the subject matter was different from the normal catalogue companies/ police/ TV companies etc.

It was a large file of X-Rays and medical records of young children who had all died. I couldn't just scan it in, I had to proof-read it all and correct the images.

I couldn't understand why an NHS 'trust' allowed such personal data to be outsourced for a potential contractor, and the choice of material seemed deliberately sadistic/horrific. At the same time it made me realise how insulated from real life my job was, and how such visceral and brutal experience is commonplace and expected for lowly paid staff within the NHS.

I was being paid less than doctors but a lot more than nurses so I never considered suing my employer. It was truly traumatic though, the worst week in my career.

Developer goes rogue, shoots four colleagues at ERP code maker

Re: scumbag?

Suicidal and homicidal are two very different things that merit different responses.

You could kill yourself angry at your colleagues, and you would merit our sympathy. If you murder your workmates, then we condemn you and your later suicide merits nothing but contempt.

16 US citizens shot dead yesterday

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/last-72-hours

Only two injuries today so far but the day is young.

Got any ecsta-sea? Boffins get octopuses high on MDMA – for science, duh

A rally of octopus

The term of venery for a multitude of octopus is a rally. A rally of octopus, like a murder of crows.

A streak of tigers (London Zoo has a charity naked human streak each year for tiger charities). A sleuth of bears. A charm of goldfinches. A wisdom of wombats. A parliament of rooks. A business of flies. A bellowing of bullfinches. A bed of eels. A stud of mares. A gaze of raccoons. A crash of rhinoceroses.

A convocation of us.

Re: Ha Ha!

"It's more difficult legally and ethically to do these experiments in humans."

That might be true for some studies but up a sign reading "Free MDMA Science Study" and there would be teenage volunteers queuing around the block.

Never mind Brexit. UK must fling more £billions at nuke subs, say MPs

Nuke Florida

In 2016 the UK RN fired a test unarmed Trident II D5 missile off the coast of Florida towards the coast of Africa. Except it went the other way though, towards Florida and so had to be detonated.

The UK government kept this quiet to parliament during the votes on renewing the subs and missiles, a fact which both democrats and anti-nuclear campaigners took as deception.

To give the British government the benefit of doubt, I came up with a third theory - it wasn't a failure and was a deliberate warning shot aimed at Mar-a-Lago.

Re: Scotland?

"We'd have free tuition in England too if only we could get a sugardaddy to pay for it."

Aye, and Scotland would have a US$1 trillion oil fund just like Norway does if our pimp hadn't stolen it from us.

England had free education just like Scotland, BEFORE the oil flowed and spluttered, so I guess England just don't prioritise free education.

This is a wee bit off topic so I'll bring it back to the article. I am so grateful that the UK (Westminster) government forces Trident to HMNB Clyde against the wishes of Scots simply because England doesn't have a deep water port.

I hate to make predictions because I am not a conjurer, but suspend disbelief for a moment and indulge me.

Let's say England votes to leave the EU, Scotland votes to stay in, and Westminster mucks up the negotiations.

Maybe Scotland will leave the UK (and maybe even rejoin the EU).

Where does Trident go when an independent Scotland rejects it? It goes to France, maybe, or more likely the USA, Georgia probably. And England pays for it.

X Berth safety consultation

I was at the 2002 X Berth safety consultation for Broadford Bay in Skye, where the Royal Navy informed a packed hall of locals about the navies plans for a nuclear emergency there. It did not instil confidence to say the least.

An exclusion and evacuation zone was shown on a large map, and a senior officer told us that any casualties would be taken to a nearby hospital. An old man chipped in, "But son, that's the hospital near the centre of the danger zone" - a fact the Royal Navy had missed. Maybe they can't read land maps, given that two of their subs including one nuclear armed Vanguard had crashed into the Isle of Skye.

Re: Scotland?

3 of the top 100 universities globally are Scottish, and even the many lesser ones attract hordes of foreign students. Especially from the EU nations who don't also have to pay but also from nationals that do have to pay - your Chinese, Americans, - and English.

They are so many foreign students that it's causing a bit of a problem in Edinburgh with great venues being closed to redevelop into student accommodation.

Feel free to make a jibe about deep-fried Mars bars but truthfully I've only seen foreign students buying them.

No, that Sunspot Solar Observatory didn't see aliens. It's far more grim

Re: What the hell is going on in that state?

Alien Paedo? A.P. befriends a young boy and his even younger siblings by mirroring his movements, convinces him the share a psychic connection, leaves him to wake up alone in a field with vague memories of a glowing finger while A.P fled from the FBI. Spielberg made a documentary of it in the '80s.

The internet – not as great as we all thought it was going to be, eh?

Re: Confusion

I wrote an angry old man post about the decline in internet users manners and intelligence since it was made easy to access, and mentioned I'd first used it in 1985.

A youngster here agreed and upvoted me, but corrected my memory, "you must have meant 1995".

I let that slide to avoid accentuating my elderliness.

First it was hashtags – now Amber Rudd gives us Brits knowledge on national ID cards

Re: "people already hand over masses of info to private firms"...

I opted in for Home Office porn when Rudd was Home Secretary, but I want to opt out now it is Javid. Not being racist or sexist, he just doesn't have the legs to pull off a short black skirt and white blouse.

Boffins bash Google Translate for sexism

Yes, I hope we can all agree that the gender macho 'Romance' languages are all inferior and unfit for purpose. Including these daft languages in the dataset is probably what confuses AI or machine learning algorithms.

You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. We speak English.

Re: Correct translation

>"He said, she said" does not translate directly into Finnish.

Aye, but it translates in real life. I dated a Finnish girl once and would still be if it wasn't for your awful language that adds suffixes to proper names.

Even Hungarian is distancing itself from 'Suomen'.

Even the Sami disown you, that's why they play football in ConIFA not UEFA.

Raspberry Pi supremo Eben Upton talks to The Reg about Pi PoE woes

Re: not skookum

@ James Hughes 1

The Pi was meant as an educational computer and it is historically educational about how electronics were in the late eighties when I did my apprenticeships and many of the same problems, solutions and techniques were common.

I'm not being sarcastic, I mourned when 'fault find to component level' changed to scrapping the apprenticeships and having the operators throw the board away and replace it, so it is heartening to read the skill set of your users. One difference is our VMEbus boards were being sold for many thousands of pounds in their thousands back when a pound could buy you a packet of cigarettes and a dram of whisky (and back when dram implied whisky not memory), so you have nothing to be defensive about.

I, for one, welcome our new Pi over-hats. I have a Fluke 187 and I am not afraid to use it!

Sextortion scum armed with leaked credentials are persistent pests

Re: Meanwhile, in Scotland...

Only 2.5 million female Scots but six million ewes - you do the maaaths.

NSFW (Not Suitable For Wool)

https://must-see-scotland.com/sheep-in-scotland/

I have never been extorted

Which proves they must have access to my financial details.

Revealed: British Airways was in talks with IBM on outsourcing security just before hack

"You don't outsource something that is working well."

Oh, I get a hernia if I laugh too much. Shouldn't, not don't.

US military chucks $2bn at AI, Google touts machine-learning data search, and more

Technology Favors Tyranny

This guy is getting a lot of hype and I've not read his books yet, but I agree, mostly, with this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/568330/

I speak as one part of his "useless class" who can't even beat a normal chess program on my crappy computer.

A flash of inspiration sees techie get dirty to fix hospital's woes

Hey! I earned a badge again for posting too much. Sorry!

The badges should really be linked to upvotes to stop spraffers like me being rewarded for spraffing.

I was contracting for an English insurance company doing some fairly technical jobs but also filling in for mundane roles like swapping out a better VDU for user who happened to be totally blind.

I don't know why a totally blind guy needed a better display, but he was the first blind person I'd ever met to this day. I was under his desk beside his seeing eye Labrador connecting the cable.

He thanked me for the upgrade and I held out my hand to shake his hand. He couldn't see my hand of course. All of his co-workers saw that stupid error, but all of them turned a blind eye.

I like to think of myself as an informed, rational adult, but I am obviously not, expecting a handshake from a blind person is an unforced admission of stupidity.

Official: Google Chrome 69 kills off the World Wide Web (in URLs)

Re: I detest that

"Also, no need to get personal and start name calling."

We are a flock of loving lambs here until the first drop of blood and then we become a frenzy of sharks.