Posts by Anon the mouse

UK's smaller broadband operators face tough road ahead, consolidation possible

Re: Smaller networks don't really help themselves

I took Toobs headline rate, which is half the price that VM wanted for me as an existing customer. If I needed a fixed IP then even that doesn't suddenly double it to VM money.

Call centres are onshore, and speaking about technical issues with them gets a technical response rather than sticking rigidly to a script. I had an IPv6 issue and took a couple of days to get to the bottom of, and even saying traceroute was enough to get them to drop the have you reset the router, etc nonsense and ask proper technical questions about the network, device, tests I'd ran, etc.

UK's first permanent facial recognition cameras installed in South London

Re: Wrong question

Would love to see criminals arrested... but that involves police actually turning up to deal with crime. Once that starts happening in significant numbers across the UK, then we can move on to methods for detecting crime.

Just detecting crime and doing nothing about it means that it's really for selective policing, either for oppression of the poorer members of society or as is the target de jour protesters protesting things.

AI pothole patrol to snap flaws in Britain's crumbling roads

Find the right council

"We imagine, though, that the diffusion of responsibility kicks in here, with the net result being that motorists think someone else will already have reported the gaping chasm in the road, thus it doesn't actually get reported."

The main problem I've found is getting a report to the right council, if you report to borough and it's county they tell you to report it to county and vice versa. Each road and path can be either (or even parish), so it gets exhausting trying to report. Even using something like Love Clean Streets to make things quicker results in lots of "not us mate" replies from councils.

That is if the council will even entertain fixing or sorting the issue, I have a rather lengthy "get lost" email from county stating they don't care enough to deal with a problem because residents won't let them and that would mean they'd have to put in effort.

Fining Big Tech isn't working. Make them give away illegally trained LLMs as public domain

Re: Delete them

Very little value is not zero value. I don't care if my work is worth 0.003p per use (same as Spotify) to an AI company, I want paying. And if it's illegally acquired then it is the licencing fee for each infringement, which is at least £1k.

When AI companies have to pay for what they've taken they'll soon change their tune to it our creativity being worthless.

UK energy watchdog slaps down Capita's £130M smart meter splurge

Re: Meter expiry

>What you can ask for is for a smart meter to be placed into dumb mode. This has to be done if you request it (although you may have to get Ofgem involved), but the problem here is that once the meter is in, there are probably ways to remotely convert it into either smart mode, or even to pre-pay mode without anybody having to enter the property.

There is no such thing as "Dumb mode" for smart meters at present (https://smartenergycodecompany.co.uk/modifications/managing-sec-obligations-and-the-consumer-s-right-to-refuse-a-smart-meter/). Any supplier or fitter that says there is, is lying to get you to accept a smart meter.

They are planning on 2026 for a proper dumb mode for meters, but until at least then you are legally allowed to refuse a smart meter.

Want advice from UK government website about tax 'n' stuff? Talk to the chatbot

Experimental forever

I wonder if the chatbot will remain forever experimental, like Universal Credit still being in Beta after 14 years.

UK electronics firms want government to stop taxing trash and let them fix it instead

Paying the recycling centre a few quid per broken PC and putting the working parts together to sell a refurb unit paid for my first car when I was at college. They usually had the windows licence key on them still so I had a large surplus for people.

UK government's bank data sharing plan slammed as 'financial snoopers' charter'

Except it's in the welfare budget. 42% (£111b) of the welfare budget to be exact. UC is 1% (£2b) yet that's where all the fury gets directed.*

You have paid for the pension of other people while you worked, and when you retire they will pay your pension. That's the system, you will draw a benefit on retirement that is labelled State Pension. Just because you are upset about benefits claimants doesn't mean you'll not be one at that point.

And this is the real issue, people refuse to admit they draw a benefit from the state and instead get angry about it. Think yourself lucky, state pension is the only benefit that the government gives any sort of (half decent) rise to yearly. The rest are left with the scraps and any rise is incidental.

*ONS stats for How the welfare budget is spent. Though it's slightly outdated so will be more on pensions now.

Apple is coming to take 30% cut of new Patreon subs on iOS

Re: That is an absolute dick move

If you haven't already check out Spiffing Brits vids on gaming the youtube algorithm and how little youtube cares to fix what he finds.

Second patient receives the Neuralink implant

Re: the technology could vastly increase the bandwidth of human-to-human communication

ND to ND communication at high speed will make those turns in conversation so rapid that the NTs won't have a chance of understanding what's going on after a few seconds.

I'd love to see them struggle to comprehend what's happening when the bandwidth increase allows effective info dumping in seconds instead of 20+ minutes. They'll think matrix "I know kung fu", when in reality it's more like "I know the mating habits of Atlantic deep sea creatures that live near volcanoes"

Amazon, you will do a total recall of bad stuff sold through your site, watchdog barks

Not even then

Ridge Wallet founder posted something on social media in the past couple of days that even with a patent and valid court order for all counterfeit goods to be stopped Amazon does nothing. Amazon even went as far as to demand he stop contacting them regarding illegal products. The kicker is that his patented Ridge Wallet is in a category on Amazon called "Ridge Wallet for Men", so Amazon knows what's happening and just doesn't care as long as they get paid.

Re: Faulty Fuse

He even went as far as reporting them to Amazon... and in a later video showed they were still for sale.

Firms skip security reviews of major app updates about half the time

Perfectly aged articles

One day before Crowdstrike crashed computers from a hastily developed/applied update and they are telling us that people just blindly apply updates.

Europe accuses Apple of preventing devs from telling users about world outside

Prepare for the next stall by apple

They treat laws as optional as they are one of the biggest companies on the planet by capital. First the USB-C requirement, then message interoperability, development for EU apps being ringfenced, now this, amongst many others on that road of minimal compliance that has to be dragged out of them.

I expect apple to back down (again), but in a barely complying kind of way. They'll announce that only the most expensive of the iphone, ipad and mac lines can install apps outside of the store as they have to run extra checks on the device to make sure it's safe and anything but the most expensive can't handle it.

Windows 11's Recall feature is on by default on Copilot+ PCs

Re: It begs the question

There's proof of concepts already showing that you can drop malware on a machine and exfiltrate the recall DB before the antivirus kicks in a few seconds later and removes the malware. The recall DB isn't that large so it only takes a second to upload to a remote server.

Microsoft have a patent on detecting the number of people in front of a device and stopping that device from working/showing content if it's over the licence limit for that content. Streaming services with a per person limit coming soon.

It's make your mind up time as Atos sets deadline to pick rescue package

Atos, the same company that has blood on it's hands from the PIP system they were administering by denying as many claims as possible, where most were overturned on appeal. The company that uses the "you'll get it on the 3rd attempt" system to keep disabled people in distress and unable to continue... that application system is Apply(denied), Mandatory reconsideration(denied), Appeal(accepted) usually over a 2+ year period so that the claimant has a chance to die and therefore not count as successful.

UniSuper Google Cloud outage caused by an unfortunate series of events

Re: An "inadvertent misconfiguration"?

They have a $125billion fund (not sure if AUS or USD), so enough money for Google to be willing to share in the blame.

OpenAI slapped with GDPR complaint: How do you correct your work?

Re: Good luck with that

What does an LLM bring to the table now? Not in the future, but now. At present they steal as much data as possible and then produce erroneous results.

Oh and you cannot correct the erroneous results, just suppress them for specific prompts. They are in violation of data protection, copyright and other laws in their collection and output of data.

LLMs offer nothing, they are worse than the worst employee because even they can be replaced if they continually make mistakes instead of improve. Yet "AI" brings out the what ifs, and coulds and maybes... there is nothing concrete that they bring to businesses now, other than problems.

Plex plucks media cloud service, sends users scurrying to exit

So what is plex pass for?

I used to use Plex until shortly after they introduced the pass system....

Why do I need to login to their system to stream my local files to my local devices? Other than to give them usage data,

Morrisons launches bizarre Yorkshire Pudding pizza thing

The best accompaniment.

Everything is better with chilli...

Trifle with chilli flakes is particularly tasty. The milk in the trifle helps to offset the burning so you can taste the chilli properly.

BBC detector vans are back to spy on your home Wi-Fi – if you can believe it

Re: Spy on the screen and loudspeakers

Same here. They never stop sending letters. I'm looking forward to their "visit", I've even changed my wifi to "No_TV_Licence" so they can tell where I am.

Netflix scores new Trek tellie

Netflix has got overly harsh in locking down everything that isn't a home ip address. Everything from data centres down to hotels has been locked out.

A shame really as the smart DNS or VPN solution was what made netflix good. I'd rather watch Netflix France or Netherlands than UK

Is this the last ever Lumia?

at least the 1020 tried something

This is just mid-range as ever. I loved my 1020, until it got progressively slower. The camera while no DSLR was a great standout feature. If this was higher/equal res and not sluggish like the 1020, I'd probably be heading back to the Lumia fold.

Right, opt out everybody! Hated Care.data paused again

Re: NHS IT projects

My practice has opt out forms all around the waiting area for patients to fill in while they wait. They really don't like care.data.

Samsung offers $90,000 if you can fix California's epic drought with tech

So attach the artik to an amount of c4 or similar, attach to Nestlé bottling plant and retreat to a safe distance. Then trigger remotely via the Internet. Problem solved

Microsoft just saved Windows Phone... Now stop whining

Re: Microsoft's handling of Windows Phone has been inept

Same here, my upgrade is due in November and it looks like there is no high end phone like the 1020 on the market, with that fantastic camera.

Elite:Dangerous goes TITSUP

Re: "...this one's got a way to run"

Ah yes, my reading comprehension and ability to understand how a server works must have evaporated when my refund came through. I still have an interest in the game, at the moment it seems to be more morbid curiosity as problems pile up. But I still hope that one day it'll come good for those that DO enjoy it.

In this case the database problem was one of those things you find out in the live version, however not leaving any support staff to help customers for 2 weeks just after release. That was poor planning from Frontier, Leaving no updates or anything for customers tends to spiral things out of control, again look at the refund situation that is still ongoing for most two months later.

Re: "...this one's got a way to run"

You are comparing a DDoS of servers to mismanaged servers. Completely different

You would have thought people would've realised what the support was going to be like after the refund problems. Though writing refund quest was very cathartic.

Frontier, seem very, very overwhelmed as usual. But then release a game and announce a two week holiday for a week later was always going to be a clusterf*ck.

New Doctor Who episode leaks online as proper trailer debuts

The wanted a worldwide release

Well the BBC were reportedly trying to do a simultaneous worldwide release of each episode. Maybe this was their plan

Friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer – advice from US, UK, EU

What's the difference between this and heartbleed?

Both are out of memory area bugs.

Reg hack hacked off by iPhone 5 repair notice

Lol, I used to work in a bar back before the reality star explosion of 2000ish.... Had no end of "famous" people going "Do you know who I am?". "Sure, you're the guy* that has to wait like everyone else".

I'd love to work in that Apple store, just to throw the "do you know who I am" card back at you.

*Usually footballers of the local premiership club, trying to impress their dates/partners.

Techies CAN sue Google, Apple, Intel et al accused of wage-strangling pact

Re: That's the beauty of this

20k for the first year, then that 10k(the rise only)+20k, for the second, and so on, surely. They would have had each of those payrises permanently.

'Daddy, can I use the BLACK iPAD?': Life with the Surface Pro 2

Surface Pro 1 owner here, Civ works fine and has a touchscreen mode too. Not tried FM but I'd expect it to take a bit of time between turns.

O2 tries something completely new: Honesty

Separating the phone and line rental costs is a side effect of the main purpose of these style contracts.

At present a "subsidised" contract is line rental only and the phone is a "free gift" that forms no part of the contract.

By doing the parts separately you don't actually own the phone until it's fully paid for, it's separate from the service, and therefore stops people from getting a contract which they only pay 6 months of and then selling the phone.

Windows Phone 8 reboot woe causes outpouring of forum misery

Re: Anyone flashed one of these with Android?

The bright yellow one, is just a yellow QI cover. WP8 devices seem to have brought back changable covers in a big way.

No-one has got Android running on a WP8 device yet, or even sideloading of apps.

Author of '80s classic The Hobbit didn't know game was a hit

Re: An inspiration

GAC, I spent hours, weeks and months playing with that making various elaborate quests.

With frequent confusing of E and W on my part leading to added complexity and accidental dead-ends.

I would kill for a PC version.

20 years of GSM digital mobile phones

Re: 20 years?

But Apple made the smartphone.... and Nokia started it...honest..... HTC weren't even a blip on the radar.....even though they produced phones with lots more features years before the competition (when they worked right. SPV c500 replaced 4 times to get a useable one).

I still have my HTC Universal somewhere..... such a great phone, the only phone where I wish they would just update the internals (and software) and re-release it.

Looking at this list http://www.windowsfordevices.com/c/a/Windows-For-Devices-Articles/Guide-to-HTCs-Windows-Mobile-smartphones/

there are a few phones there I would love to see updated.....oh and maybe the tytn II for another :D

Virgin launches TV Anywhere streaming

Loading anywhere!!!

On demand - no problem.

Anything streaming related..... Loading.........loading.............loading........

I'll leave it in another tab and see what happens in the next day or so.

4G: Bad coverage, crap battery life - but at least it's really expensive

Re: What's the point of 4G...

Well that map explains a lot about my signal around the country, thank you for the link.

The fake H is very infuriating though. Here's a great data signal until you try and use it, then welcome to 2G.

Brighton marathon munchers banned from all-you-can-eat diner

Re: Anybody posting a message supporting the porkers...

28"

33 yrs

8st 12lb

And they'd lose money on me too....

All you can eat.... the clue is in the offer.

Barclays Online Offline again

one up one down

On-line seems to be back up and stable....for now.

Mobile banking has been broken for a couple of days now.

Cabinet Office moves step closer to killing Directgov

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Directgov is in need of tidy up and a prune. But it works well enough.

This smells of desperation to spend money on something/anything for the sake of it.

Orange contract price hike angers subscribers

Which network? I'm sure there are lots of disgruntled Orange Customers.

Best Buy fires parting shot at Dixons with closing down sale

Still expensive

Had a nose around on Monday when the "sale" started. Prices are still expensive. Another 20% and they would be in line with Dixons/PCWorld.

Maybe if they had stacked em high and solld em cheap (like they said they would) they wouldn't be running back to where there are no national competitors for them.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

spot on review

PC interface is clunky and randomly decides wether you need to use mouse or keys......plugging in a 360 pad solved it for me :)

Still lots of fun to play, and apart from that one bug early on no major problems.

Dragons are fun to kill, and make for the most memorable moments in the game. Nighttime tracking through a forest suddenly the music changes and up ahead an orange glow appears in the distance through the trees..... a dragon is attacking a giant and they are locked in battle......Low level means I run leaving them to fight it out, I haven't saved for a while so don't want to reload into that battle :)

Ten... best Blu-ray movies of 2011

Was this list limited to the easily available blu-rays or exclusives (read lockedin)as well. Megamind is the far superior Bluray to despicable me. Better plot/story/graphics and 3D :)

Steve Jobs' last words: 'OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.'

@dssf

"If we're more rationally earlier in life trained to EXPECT death, how EVER it comes, part of the excessive preoccupation with transformation of some sort is nixed."

Sorry to break it to you but that's utter bollocks.

I lost a child a few years ago (at a few months old), and my older children KNOW what death is because of that. Everything was explained to them at an appropriate level for their ages, and any questions over the years have been answered truthfully. At the time they weren't too bother, now they do worry more over death and dying than other children of comparable age (6-9). They worry more when people are ill that they will die.

I would never have withheld the information from them, but it does change their outlook on life......

Linehan turns IT Crowd off but NOT on again

and 2 pints,

When will that show die