Posts by Tron

Mozilla is recruiting beta testers for a free, baked-in Firefox VPN

Nope.

Opera implemented one ages ago. They weren't banned. Mozilla is just trying to catch up.

Brit AI boffins making bank with £560K average pay packet at Anthropic

Yeah, but not for long.

Nobody wants this stuff, it doesn't work, and nobody is willing to pay for it. Once the bubble bursts, P45s all round.

And don't expect to be welcome anywhere else. If your last job was working for AI scammers at that rate of pay and you applied to me, I would write a four letter world ending in 'unt' over it and instruct HR to politely decline your application.

British govt agents demand action after UK mega-cyberattacks surge 50%

BBC's tech failure.

Tech has been fundamental to modern life for decades, but BBC TV has had piss-all coverage of technology since the 1980s. Cookery, antiques, furnishing your home, gardening, fishing, sports. They are happy to devote hours to everything else, but have studiously avoided explaining tech to their viewers, despite their public service remit. Their failure here has been an absolute disgrace for decades. All they do is run moral panic scare stories on the news. Much of the lack of knowledge of basic tech in the UK stems from this. Ditto ITV, but they don't have the public service remit of the BBC.

Oh FFS El Reg, don't start putting those wretched ****ing adverts that crawl up from the base of the screen on here as well.

They are doing it wrong.

Your IT security does not depend upon patching software or paying IT consultants more.

The solution is cheaper and architectural. The threat comes from allowing your primary networks/data stores have access to the public internet. Your primary systems should never connect to the public internet. Internet facing systems should contain data transiently, and just hold light and fluffy stuff - no problem if it is hacked and easily replaced after a ransomware attack.

So that means having the bulk of your stuff on prem and secure. No SaaS, no Cloud, no AI and two screens per desk, one for your secure intranet, one for internet connected. Air gapped by a member of staff.

The stuff that the tech industry want to sell you, makes you inherently insecure.

You should hold the minimum data, preferably offline, on physical media (feasibly paper). Because data is a risk not an asset, and 'big data' was a scam.

No accessible honey pot of data, no reason to hack you.

And you should use much simpler, non-networked systems where you can, hybrid with paper, forms and phones, if you are a smaller entity like a school. If something works on paper, it is rank idiocy to digitise it and then connect it to the internet.

The suggestions above make you securer by design. Because anything connected to the net is vulnerable.

The only thing the NCSC do that actually makes a difference is take so long to fix ransomware attacks that the potential cost to any business hit by them should make them reconsider their infosec.

EU biometric border system launch hits inevitable teething problems

GDPR improves your privacy demanding only fair and appropriate data grabs.

Yet they demand all of your information for a weekend trip and hold it for three years when you arrive?

One rule for the state, another for everyone else.

I recall LHR having a system that required you to remove your glasses, at which point you wouldn't be able to see the next instruction on the distant screen. Genius.

Microsoft's OneDrive spots your mates, remembers their faces, and won't forget easily

The joys of juxtaposition.

On one story today:

'Microsoft is clear that it won't use facial scans or biometric data in the training of its AI models'

Another:

'Microsoft 'illegally' tracked students via 365 Education, says data watchdog'

Bose kills SoundTouch: Smart speakers go dumb in Feb

Re: I have like $3k invested in these.

If something requires a service to work - an app, cloud storage, maintained server, subscription service or LLM - then you are not buying it, you are renting it. At the end of the rental period you will have a free paperweight and the thanks of the CEO for contributing to his yacht. Plus you learned a lesson.

Just buy cheap, generic, standalone stuff and it will work until it dies. You might be able to fix it, but if you can't, it wasn't expensive. Get another one.

If it isn't standalone, just avoid it. That includes software (SaaS) and storage (cloud services). Because those providing services do not consider you as valued customers but as sheep to farm. And you know what happens to the sheep in the end.

Vodafone keels over, cutting off millions of mobile and broadband customers

My connection was hit.

It connected to the net but no data was forthcoming, the system reporting a DNS resolution failure. As it wasn't my end, I did the sensible thing and made a cup of tea.

Tech is less resilient because it is complicated. A single component failure/unwise tweak can take anything down. This stuff will happen.

Datacenter water use? California governor says don't ask, don't tell

Typical politician. Just like all the others.

The only difference between a democracy and a dictatorship, is that in a dictatorship, you don't get to choose who will screw you over.

Do everything you can at home and at work to avoid the use of AI and to advocate against it. Together, we may be able to shorten the time until the bubble bursts.

Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for pretending UK's Online Safety Act doesn't exist

The Online Safety Act is not just law, It's state censorship.

They will just add an endless number of sites that do not cough up cash to ISP block lists.

The UK is like China now. You do not want to develop tech here, base tech here or allow your tech to be used or accessed from here.

On the plus side, I now hate Labour for passing this when we had optional ISP blocks as much as I hate the Tories for Brexit and cooking it up. I will not vote for either party for the rest of my life. As much as I think Reform will be a disaster, I would like to see both Labour and Tory get wiped out at the next election. The UK is over. Broken beyond fixing by its politicians. So no reason to care what happens next.

Managers are throwing entry-level workers under the bus in race to adopt AI

Quote: That sounds like fiddling the books

Yes, but fiddling the books is legal in government. Government functions above the law/reality and is funded with unlimited amounts of other peoples money. Whenever it fails they just draw a line under it, state that lessons will be learned, and start doing it again.

Microsoft lets bosses spot teams that are dodging Copilot

Re: Viva Blocked

Dear user. We understand from the feedback your system has been sending us that you are a regular user of our discounted CoPilot trial. Excellent. You won't mind if we now increase your subscription costs by 1000% to pay for it. You don't need to do anything to accommodate this change. It will be seamless. Alternatively you can stop using all of our products next Thursday.

Brilliant.

This allows companies to easily sack competent people who work hard and retain the lazy slackers who use third rate AI to do their job.

That will end so well.

Who gets a Mac at work? Here's how companies decide

Re: Installation Image Fiddling

quote: company fight song.

Seriously? He must have a mental age of 12. Commiserations.

Yes and No.

low fan noise etc?

Well the LC pizza boxes were always quite quiet but one of my retro machines is a 7200 Power Mac, purchased because having a machine with an internal CD-ROM drive and internal slots is handy. It sounds like a bloody helicopter when you turn it on. Apparently this model always did. Maybe it is the exception that proves the rule. In general, Macs have always been so much less fuss than PCs because they are so locked down [Geek = 'dull']. That was the point. And when I used to buy Macs, they came with a printed manual. Youngsters reading this can google the word 'manual' for an explanation.

FWIW, whenever building my PCs, I'd buy the cheapest, most basic components that I could, but would choose a reliable HDD and spend as much as I had to for a quiet fan. Fan noise may not matter so much in the workplace - more ambient noise, PC stashed away - but you should always spec a reliable, quiet PSU for a PC. They are almost always the first component to fail. And in the home, a loud fan will drive you nuts.

Re: My nerdy formner CEO offered me a choice ...

>Once you go Mac, you never go back...

Nope. More complex than that.

I kicked off building my own PCs from OEM bits and buying old Macs that I could pimp up with used parts. Anything involving writing or DTP the Mac was better. Software compatibility and geek stuff, Windows. At Uni, I was happy to beggar myself for the first Mac Classic they had in, with Stylewriter, for doing my PhD on. For general use, later, I was still using homebuilt PCs and pimping Macs, including the lovely pizzabox LCs and a maxxed out IIfx. I went off Macs because they ditched the floppy (which was still viable then) and because I was sick of Apple treating its developers and customers like dirt and massively overcharging. I still used my LCIII for writing. Eventually I settled on one PC as I didn't have enough desk space, splitter boxes and power sockets for two. By now Windows was OK for writing.

I've used Windows since, but W11 with AI is just dog poop, so Linux or Mac or a tablet with a keyboard and an offline retro system are now the road ahead. W11 is too crappy to be an option.

It's interesting that some employers don't give a toss about employee preference, when a couple of grand is nothing in business terms. Placing such a low value on employee happiness would just see me walk. If you are good, there is always somewhere that will take you for the price of a Mac, or some other personal requirement. And good quality staff are really hard to find and keep. They are what keeps your business going. Treat your staff as disposable and switch to AI chatbots, and your QoS and customer satisfaction will plummet. It is quite easy nowadays for employees and customers to walk away from a crap company. As they roll out AI, the worst companies will discover this.

Weird ideas welcome: VC fund looking to make science fiction factual

How about an implant that gives politicians terrible migraines when they lie.

There is a fair bit of Heath-Robinson stuff we could do, but as mentioned in the article, there simply isn't the economic justification to do it.

Honestly, they may be better off using this cash to fund stuff that needs to be done but isn't being done, because our political system is broken.

We need more social housing. We need better climate change resilience - reservoirs, flood mitigation, fire breaks, lagoons, desalination plants. We need better healthcare funding so that 10% of the country isn't waiting in pain for an operation. None of this stuff requires the bending of laws of physics or is a VC-style gamble. It just needs a bit of funding. So stop throwing money at stuff that will never work and help people now, today, doing basic stuff that our governments will never do because they are incompetent, corrupt and don't give a toss.

Oh, and if you worked at HP and wanted to make a better printer, axe the ink subscription BS, remove the chips and create a free market in ink.

UK slaps 'strategic market status' on Google, unlocking power to pry open search

Re: Starmer's Reich's censorship of the net gathers pace.

Not liking Google is not a valid or sensible reason to allow your government more power and control over your internet.

Starmer's Reich's censorship of the net gathers pace.

What next? Age verification for search and govt. controlled censorship of results in the UK?

Climate goals go up in smoke as US datacenters turn to coal

Let's hasten the demise of AI.

As there is no ROI, it is a security risk and damages your credibility amongst your customers, there is no reason why corporates cannot include 'Not using AI' as part of their basic ethics package, alongside avoiding what they call 'modern slavery', recycling, paying minimum wage and not discriminating.

You want to stand out, come out and ban the use of AI in your company. Good for your reputation, reduces your costs and risks, and helps save the planet.

Anything that bursts the AI bubble sooner has got to be a good thing.

UK techies' union warns members after breach exposes sensitive personal details

They really don't need most of that info.

You should store the minimum amount of information that you need. If you need one-off information for a survey, isolate it from the rest of your data and flush it when you have used it.

Discord says 70,000 photo IDs compromised in customer service breach

Starmer Reich Fail.

Govt demand you use age verification. And your details get leaked.

Would be nice if at least one politician was forced to take responsibility for this and resign, but that never happens. We are just cannon fodder for their political theatre.

So how many leaks before they cancel the whole idiot scheme and go back to the optional ISP blocks and mobile blocks that actually worked, without feeding your ID to hackers.

Space Shuttle war of words takes off as senator blasts 'woke Smithsonian'

El Reg crowdfunding perhaps.

People love big numbers.

I wonder how much it would actually cost to build an exact copy of a shuttle. Not to design one from scratch or the manufacturing plant, and no fuel tanks, but crafting one, piece by piece, as per the plans. As they are in the museums they are basically reinforced gliders, so it could only really trundle about. It would be interesting to build a replica (flyable) Concorde, with the original electronics (pre-IC I think - I have a board from one), or with modern control systems.

Intel's open source future in question as exec says he's done carrying the competition

Intel is now 10% Trump regime owned.

And this article is the FOSS cummunities red flag to start giving it a wider berth in future.

Bank of England smells hint of dotcom bubble 2.0 in AI froth

Re: Quite

Bubbles and Ponzi schemes have an inherent cap. The tech sector have changed tactics several times to keep inflating the bubble, but the numbers are now so silly and the tech so clearly unfit for purpose. They can't be far away from being rumbled.

I'm sure the people behind this have covered themselves so they don't lose their shirts when this scams fails. You have to wonder who will get taken down by it.

We need some sort of guide to companies and sectors that have put money in and will lose it, those that have exit strategies, and those that might escape with something.

The 'promises' to build data centres and the like will have cancel clauses. Some places will get some giant warehouses coming on to the real estate market.

This is why you never gamble/invest money you cannot afford to lose, and why you do your own due diligence.

The bubble bursting would cover up a lot of damage that Trump has done to the US economy, so it would be convenient for him.

McKinsey wonders how to sell AI apps with no measurable benefits

AI remains a major security issue.

You do not want to be using it with anything that you want to keep private. Once you tick the box, you allow it access to everything, and everything it hoovers up can be searched and monitored back at the mothership.

If your SaaS intends to force AI on you, with no 'off button' or opt out, you need to take back control of your servers and storage to maintain the security of your systems. And your intranet should never connect to the public internet, to keep it secure. Leave that for the light and fluffy stuff, with minimal/transient personal information or data storage - systems that can be replaced overnight after a ransomware attack.

Your security is not down to the promises of SaaS/software vendors, your purchase of infosec products or even the quality of your IT staff. At core, it depends on the architecture of your network. If your intranet connects to the public internet, it is not secure.

Germany slams brakes on EU's Chat Control device-scanning snoopfest

Well done everyone who worked to oppose this.

Already game over in Starmer's surveillance state, but nice to see some common sense elsewhere.

China is building a thriving semi industry off US leftovers, export controls be damned

Re: The world's bully speaks up again

Someone needs to do some sums and find out whether a global pivot to China, away from the US would make economic sense. America can then build a wall around itself, nothing in, nothing out.

Employees regularly paste company secrets into ChatGPT

Not new.

We've been pointing out that AI is a massive security risk on here for ages. El Reg has carried stories of AI queries being searched and monitored. It is one thing for them to know the sites you surf to via your browser - your ISP knows that. Another if they are scanning images on your device. But AI gets considerably more access to your system when you tick the box to use it. Nobody in Govt., the military, or commerce should be touching this stuff, and individual users should realise how much access they are offering. AI and Windows 11 (which has it built in) are too great a security risk to use for this reason.

UK Home Office opens wallet for £60M automated number plate project

Starmer's surveillance state.

All Labour have done since getting into power is find new ways to spy on and censor their own citizens. We could have elected the Chinese government to run the UK and had all this for half the expense. The money we saved could have gone into a People's Chocolate Fund. At least then we'd get something out of it.

No account? No Windows 11, Microsoft says as another loophole snaps shut

Microsoft have won.

It's now not worth the effort, and 11 is so toxic, that my Windows use will end at 10. I would rather eat dirt/go to the dentist/use a Chromebook than use W11.

So MS can relax. Their decades long battle to put me off their products for life has finally succeeded.

Lowercase leaving you cold? Introducing Retrocide

Or You could Just tYPe like this.

You would still be usinG fewer caPs than Donald.

With tYPefaces, theY work if theY catch on, and theY catch on if theY work. SomethinG to Ponder on there.

Kicked from RubyGems, maintainers forge new home at Gem Cooperative

Why should people care about this guy's political opinions?

They are using software, not marrying him.

I don't care if people wander round at the weekend dressed as Hitler, believe the world is flat or even support Man City. Each to their own. Doesn't stop me buying things from them or selling things to them.

It's a diverse world out there. If you want to entirely isolate yourself from people who don't think the way you do, you are going to have a weird life.

ICE plans to scour Facebook, TikTok, X, and even defunct Google+ for illegal immigration leads

Re: Digital ID

I'm sure Labour activists would appreciate the irony when Reform get it, should they use it to identify and locate them.

Big money is nervous about AI hype, but not ready to call it a bubble

Keep calm and carry on.

The bubble will burst, the promises of billions being spent will simply evaporate, idiots who went all in will lose their cash, the con artists at GAFA will go back to the drawing board to work on their next big scam, the media will find a new moral panic to push to the proles, any niche uses for AI will be quietly rolled out rebranded as ML, and nobody will mention 'AI' for a bit, like the Metaverse, NFTs and Brexit.

Moral: Do your own due diligence. Don't follow the herd to the abattoir.

Re: just makes the pop bigger

I have a 'Smart' TV that is not connected to the internet. It works fine as a standard TV. If it had to connect to the internet to work, I'd have bought a second hand one that didn't instead.

Tulips. Railway mania. Sub Prime mortgages. Dot com 2.0 etc.

Someone needs to work out the consequences when the bubble pops, AI goes TU, and this becomes an extinction event for those who were all in on it.

AI has no ROI and is a major security risk. In use, it is generally unreliable, needs as much human oversight as a 2 year old toddler, and is consequently no great benefit in the workplace.

Trump is squeezing investment out of his allies ($500bn from Japan) which would outsource much of the damage to other countries, if they pay up/underwrite investments before it goes pop.

The capitalist economy is not based upon people being forced to pay for things they don't want and have no use for. And there are enough of us pointing out that the emperor has no clothes on.

Some aspects of AI will find niche use amongst the wreckage, but a hypothetical crash model would be an interesting read.

India's tech talent pipeline is sputtering

Re: Hang on

q: Who's lying?

The people trying to flog you 'AI' software/courses etc are the ones who are lying.

Trump has torpedoed the global economy and governments are cracking down on the net/access to labour/supply chains. Everyone is cutting back. The tech sector are pretending to shift to AI because it looks good in the PR. Telling everyone that the US is now a dictatorship, AI is a massive con and the global economic future is going to be crappy doesn't suit the narrative.

How the ONS data-sharing dream ended in budget cuts and three rival platforms

Govt x Tech = Fail.

Always interesting to see how these idiots have pissed away hundreds of millions of pounds that could have been better spent on education, healthcare and infrastructural resilience.

Big data is a lie. That is when used to direct policies or advertising. It doesn't give you magical insights into how to fix everything for a fiver, or triple your profits.

AI is a lie. It isn't really intelligent. It is an expensive security risk, resource hog and environmental nightmare. Implement it and you will just spend time checking it and correcting it.

Going digital is a lie. It doesn't save money or work well. It exposes everything to hackers, reducing the resilience of things best managed on paper. It creates a surveillance state, and makes it impossible for society to function without paying sacks of cash to foreign tech companies.

Can you see a pattern here?

Struggling to heat your home? How about 500 Raspberry Pi units?

It's going to have to be a slot in replacement for a boiler.

In terms of size and power. It's going to have to cope with the heatwaves we get, and not require any new pipe runs (which is why we are keeping our 25 year old boiler - builders regs would require new pipes for a new one, which would mean ripping out a fitted kitchen).

The problem with small alternative energy projects in the UK, is that the companies often go bust, leaving the homeowner screwed. They bag a load of VC, crack on, and then the govt. change the rules/subsidies, and they just fade away. In this case, that would leave you with an oily Pi cemetery that your boiler guy wouldn't touch.

UK government says digital ID won't be compulsory – honest

Built on lies.

quote: Digitally checkable digital credentials are more secure than physical documents.

A photocopy of a passport in a locked cupboard is far safer than a scan of one, such as those which are regularly lifted in malware attacks.

And we already have National Insurance numbers.

A digital society is an Orwellian society. We need to use tech more sparingly and more securely. If something is safer on paper, leave it on paper.

My response to Starmer, whose increasingly unpopular regime has just censored the internet with the OSA, despite having ISP blocks and mobile blocks that worked fine, is short and ends in 'off'.

All these policies do, is lose votes for Labour and push Reform into power. That means Farage running the UK. Or, if it looks like too much work, I'm sure Boris Johnson or Liz Truss could be enticed to return.

New Zealand’s Institute of IT Professionals collapses

This is rather weird.

I'm a member of a professional association and I get a copy of its accounts every year (on paper, not digital). Detailed figures with an explanation of its fiscal health.

Should they have been allowed to do the stuff that they did, if they didn't even bother to sort out their own finances? What sort of oversight was there?

Hundreds of orgs urge Microsoft: don’t kill off free Windows 10 updates

Re: Nothing In The UK News About This

The BBC haven't run regular mainstream coverage of computing since the 80s. They have a tiny programme called 'Click' which appears sporadically at odd times - it's like spotting peacocks mating on your bird table.

All BBC factual programmes have to be dumbed down to chav level and they fear that you cannot do that with tech. But then why would they bother? Tech is just a guy hobby and of no real interest to the general population. You only see tech on news items as a moral panic that is dragging kids into suicide, rape, murder and drug dealing, and will wipe out human civilisation if the government don't step in and take control of it. They run those stories quite a lot.

AI has had zero effect on jobs so far, says Yale study

AI needs a human to check everything it does.

So no savings or ROI. It just inconveniences people.

And you have to pay for it to do that.

Explain digital ID or watch it fizzle out, UK PM Starmer told

It won't work.

When you have treatment in a hospital, there isn't someone monitoring your case. Your GP is too busy to do that. You may well see a different doctor or consultant for each outpatient appointment (most consultants seem to be hired on a day-basis). They will check the screen, see what you had done last, and refer you to whatever is next. Departments don't talk to each other much and tend to offload (say urology to bladder and bowel) if they are busy, without checks. You can stay in the system for months without getting anything done. Plus local services are frequently shut down and moved to other hospitals as they are low on staff.

The staff are really good at what they do, particularly at consultant level, but the admin/co-ordination is bollocks. Each party comes into power, plans a massive reform, and it fails.

The majority of people who need the most care are those who are unlikely to use tech or ever be able to use tech.

New online/in person triage rules will see people dying in their homes of things that could have been fixed, for want of paying staff at GP surgeries to answer phones. Sick people who can't access online triage will be too sick to go to a doctor just to fill out and hand in a form, and then totter home.

The latest reforms will lead to most people getting sick at home until they qualify for A&E care, overloading A&E. My last trip to A&E had me sitting on a seat for four and a half hours, until they could drag a consultant out of another part of the hospital.

The system is so badly managed that a hospital doctor, a nurse sitting next to him, once handed me a form to take to my GP to get a blood test. There must have been several hundred people in the hospital capable of doing it. I contacted the GP and they said they couldn't do it for three weeks. I had to go to a testing centre.

If you can get treatment, it will usually be top class treatment, but you need to research your illness online and convince any consultant you see to treat you or refer you to some one who does it. Then you have to hope for a cancellation. And you may have to travel some distance for it.

The likelihood is that everything will get worse, especially if Reform get it. The NHS is heavily dependent on migrant labour, got pushed to the edge of the abyss by Brexit and will not survive whatever anti-migrant stuff Reform brings in.

Private care in the UK is simply too expensive for ordinary Brits - it is priced for the corporate insurance market, not individuals. If the waiting list is really long, you might be able to get it done in somewhere like Poland for a third of UK prices. Check out the facilitators online.

If you are not rich, try to stay healthy, because life will get unpleasant for you as you age if you get obese, drink too much, smoke, or do stuff that has a high risk of injury. If you are male, older and your pee flow decreases, get to your GP asap for a referral. Alphablockers may save you from a worse fate.

Any attempt to insert a parallel digital procedure into this will be a disaster.

That stuff about retirement was all BS. Once you get old, you are unlikely to be well enough to enjoy yourself, and it only gets worse.

Imgur yanks Brit access to memes as parent company faces fine

Re: The ICO 'court'

The difference is that the UK sites blocking the EU are typically US local news sites that few outside the US visit. The services that are being and will be blocked from the UK are major sites. Basically, the UK is now China. If you were considering a job or Uni place in the UK, ask yourself if you would be happy working in China, with all its internet blocks. If not, don't get a job or Uni place in the UK.

Microsoft moves to the uncanny valley with creepy Copilot avatars that stare at you and say your name

Licence Hatsune Miku for Japan.

...and uptake will rocket. The key is to pick the right avatar. Given MS's cash stash, you would think they could afford the licence fees to do this properly. Is anyone at MS competent?

Oracle will have to borrow at least $25B a year to fund AI fantasy, says analyst

Surprisingly, Glorious Orange Leader may actually have a solution to this.

He has been demanding money with menaces from his 'allies'. Proper money in return for reduced taxiffs. $550 billion from Japan. In some cases, investment, in others underwriting borrowing. So when the AI bubble bursts, the damage could be offshored. The taxpayers of the UK, EU, Japan, South Korea etc, would be America's financial air bags for the AI crash.

And politicians (can't wire a plug/consider AI to be magic etc) would happily invest in US tech.

ServiceNow thinks you're doing AI fast and wrong

'people are not thinking about agentic AI the right way'

The AI version of 'you're holding it wrong'.

There are some niche cases where AI could be used, for example as a natural language interface to a locally created or imported reservoir of core data, distributing the source and/or the processing.

Beyond that, it helps kids cheat in exams and allows morons to pass themselves off as being less thick in e-mails. Not exactly a new dawn for humanity.

EU member states pile pressure on Brussels for Chips Act rethink

Ah, politicians.

They could demand that any nation buying anything from a list of EU-origin products (think ASML + anyone else making chips in the EU, if there is anyone) must, in return allow sanction-free access to their chip/tech products in return. You can buy our stuff if we can buy yours. Once signed, this would be set in stone, with US sanctions not able to dent it. Even if the orange toddler throws his toys out the pram.

What they will do, is bung ASML a sack of cash taken from a fund that is supposed to keep starving or vulnerable people alive, give some money to the French government to train a few sans-culottes to parcel up circuit boards, spend an absolute tonne of money to corner the global market in the production of 555 timers, and then head off for a meal at a 5-star restaurant to celebrate.