* Posts by NorthernMonkey

16 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Dec 2009

Geneticists throw hands in the air, change gene naming rules to finally stop Microsoft Excel eating their data

NorthernMonkey

Re: Happens in Google sheets as well.

There was 24:00 up until 2019!

NorthernMonkey

Re: Happens in Google sheets as well.

And up until 2019 your argument would have been wrong - however TIL since ISO 8601-1:2019, both the term "midnight" and "24" as an hour value have been deprecated. You're now meant to say "beginning of the day" (as opposed to the end of the day, which is presumably "00:00"). Retrograde meddling.

Newsflash: Twitter still toxic place for women, particular those of color, Amnesty study finds

NorthernMonkey

Re: If ...

<discussion>

Is there any functional difference between a shit that eats a pile of crap, vs a pile of crap that is shit-eating?

</discussion>

Think tank calls for post-Brexit national ID cards: The kids have phones so what's the difference?

NorthernMonkey

Re: No Excuses!

@LeeD

Not sure that’s correct. Last week I changed the address on my DL, had to use my PPT number to verify and because I was so close to my renewal date, the application form connected to HMPO and passed my photo and signature to DVLA - it now appears on my photocard.

Cryptxxx shipwrecked: Laughing white hats shred latest ransomware

NorthernMonkey

Re: Try harder.

Well, no, it shouldn't say that, should it?

I think we all know why.

As iPhone 4S battery suckage spreads, fixes appear

NorthernMonkey
Go

Are they ePubs? Bang them into a Dropbox and download (free) BlueFire from the App Store. Open them from Dropbox into BlueFire (admittedly one at a time, which is a palaver) and you won't need iTunes. Worked ok for me when I found out Stanza was borked; which in fairness is Amazon's fault for buying it out and then letting it die so it didn't compete with Kindle.

Not sure what other formats BlueFire supports, so YMMV.

PM promises change as police interview ex-spokesman

NorthernMonkey
Thumb Down

Not the media's job...

...to supervise the Police, thank Christ.

Google battles Derby cops over access to Street View data

NorthernMonkey
Thumb Up

The bicycle is required, and must contain lettuce and/or midgets.

Good post.

The theme of some of the commenters here appears to be that the Police are doing somehting underhanded or inefficient in requesting the data from Google without resorting to an Order. This is simply not true. It's far more efficient to ask Google to provide the image (which could either be done voluntarily or under the protection of the DPA exemption) than to spend more time than is necessary going to court.

Shame on Google for not supplying the information. If it was an image where there would be a reasonable expectation of privacy then I'd have a bit more sympathy for their argument (notwithstanding the fact that they shouldn't really be invading privacy) but that's just not the case here.

Seems the Police are a bit damned if they do and damned if they don't. As a general question, do readers think that the Reg comments shows a certain anti-Police bias these days?

Worthless iPhone 'Wikileaks App' removed from Apple Store

NorthernMonkey
Black Helicopters

A turtle is required and must contain lettuce and cucumbers

I tend to agree.

It seems eminiently sensible that Apple would remove an App that just duplicates something that Safari can do. It doesn't seem to add value. I'm aware that not all value-less apps in the store have been removed, I don't think anyone has disagreed that the policy is applied inconsistently. I just doubt there is any other motivation for the removal.

UK.gov slams Facebook over Moat fan clubs

NorthernMonkey

Google is your friend.

Incorrectly. It was Evelyn Beatrice Hall writing under a pseudonym about Voltaire.

Home Office publishes draft reform plan

NorthernMonkey
WTF?

Drowned along with who now?

Do you actually mean CEOP - the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre?

You want to drown the Competent Authority (yes it is, it's part of SOCA) in charge of tackling the exploitation of children?

Just do me a favour, read their remit (http://www.ceop.gov.uk/about/) again and confirm you want to drown them before I judge you to be an idiot.

Time to kill the zombie health records

NorthernMonkey
WTF?

@AC 0907

I'm not a fanboi. That implies I'm blindly devoted to a concept because of who espouses it.

I simply have a carefully considered opinion about the relative merits of the SCR scheme that doesn't rely on the standard straw-men ("the data will be wrong becasue it's input by minimum wages trained baboons", "it means I'll be forced to carry ID wherever I go", "insurance companies will steal my medicalz!").

I find most of that type of reasoning spurious. I don't think the implementation of SCR is perfect by a long shot, but it's better than whhatever my GP must use currently, which presumably involves random number generation.

So yes, I downvote posts where I don't think the issue is considered in a balanced way when held up against reasoning like the above, or where someone attacks a poster for the manner in which they post, or where they are just wrong. That's the point, and you are free to do the same.

NorthernMonkey
Happy

My doctors...

...has been known to cut bits off me and inject me with things purely on my verbally-declared name and DoB.

If I am out driving, I will almost always have my wallet on me, which contains my driving licence, which has sufficient information to identify me. In fact, I almost always have my driving licence on me whereever I am. Now, at risk of inciting any "in our facist police state" or "papers, citizen" comments, I think there should be a requirement to carry ID when you drive like most EU states and (I believe) the USA. Mind you, I'm not averse to having to carry ID all the time.

However, I digress. Given the (relatively) low threshold for ID verification I have seen in the past, I would imagine that any ID you might be carrying, the registration details of your car (I assume some sort of accident scenario here, where the police would be present), or the PNC insurance database would probably be sufficient to locate my SCR.

NorthernMonkey
Unhappy

@Skizz

Yes, I agree. I think your solution is reasonable. However, I think it would become unmanagable and might require some sort of roving regional IT team, or maybe someone in each surgery with some responsibility for this (for standardisation, compliance, performance issues maybe?) and that could be a problem on its own.

I guess if I were the hypothetical patient here I wouldn't care whether the point the system failed was central or local to me, and the central model seems more robust to me.

NorthernMonkey
Thumb Up

@AC 0847

Blimey, what a refreshingly sensible opinion!

Durham police demonstrate DNA will stuff you

NorthernMonkey

Homeland Security...

...they're not really the fault of Durham Police!