Posts by Triggerfish

Watch six tiny robo-ants weighing 100g in total pull a 1,769-kg family car

Re: All very well getting it rolling

....and so the robot revolution was literally crushed by a brake failure.

Cops hacked the Police National Computer to unlawfully retain suspects' biometric data

@Unwarranted

Actually I think you will find it's a reflection of the trust in the police, along with a belief that the law should be followed.

Re: Just treat them the same

No stay quiet and don't accept a caution if you know you are innocent, it's a criminal record, it goes on the police stats as a crime cleared and you get fucked while making their life easier. I know a few people who the police have tried get to accept a caution and as soon as they realise it's not going to be taken by them or their lawyer, all charges dropped.

Re: Just treat them the same

I don't think all police are guilty, also I do not think distrust is neccassarily a sign of criminality, some of its cultural.

My family grew up in the East End, and lets be honest coppers didn't have a great reputation being more a better gang than the others, things like the SPG etc don't help. My mum once told me not to let the police know my name when I phoned up after finding a drunk guy laying down in the park for no other reason than if he was injured they might try and fit me up, I was only about 15 at the time. My mum has never been a criminal as far as I know, but plenty experience of policing in the East End post WWII.

Generally speaking I'd say the police have got better, but if you are a generally law abiding citizen the decent coppers do not pull you over and give you grief, the twats and the bullies do, so you get a skewed statistical perception that all coppers are bastards.

Once you have had an encounter with said bastard, or once they have done something else wrong like abuse the system, casually club newspaper sellers across the back of the head, stuff like that, ranks close.

Its like they have to be better than other people in the eyes of the law which is fair enough but are so scared of not looking like they are they will deny everything even when its completely obvious. I'd rather a police chief stood up and went yeah we have a lot of police working here and odds are you will get some that are bad apples, we don't like it either lets prosecute them fully for being so untrustworthy in a position of trust.

TLDR: I can live with the police not being perfect as long as they try and do something about it, rather than deny it.

Only 12% of UK thinks Snoopers' Charter is 'adequately explained'

Sorry I meant upgrade your threat level.

Please do moan and complain, it makes it easier to know whom to add to the database.

Computer says: Stop using MacWrite II, human!

Re: VAX

Oh god and email. Outlook express may be horrible but the uptake versus Vax...

VAX

I remeber spending the first couple of years at uni emailing on Vax and computers just being the things you used for Wordperfect to type up some work. After one summer holiday I came back and it was all MS and outlook express, ask jeeves and netscape, literally felt like we had taken a tech jump over the space of a few weeks.

Polite, helpful? Stop it at once in the name of security

Re: Security helpful...?

Surely breaking down the door depends on who is actually on the other side.

Microsoft adds 'non-security updates' to security patches

Re: Its all Hype the histeria is hilarious @mswin10

Yes but people are using social media by choice for free and have some control over what goes on there, versus having your pc with software you bought upgrading to something that sends all your info to MS.

You say I mustn’t write down my password? Let me make a note of that

Re: Clear Desk

Our work has a clean desk policy. I stop work ten to five now and tidy my desk, its great I am out exactly the time work finishes, also I get a nice few minutes in the morning digging out all the important stuff that was nicely laid out on my desk and arranging it into the "mess" it was the day before.

LG builds a DAB+ digital radio radio into a smartmobe

Well radio 6 is OK play some good stuff on there, Chill FM is great also but only works around London and Essex. As for the rest yeah, I dunno why but radio adverts are just the worst.

Re: Radio iPlayer

I could think of a few places you might have reception issues, that would argue with that claim.

Re: Not everyeone has Spotify

"how then will the latest Justin Bieber has to offer reach you"

Never a better justification for air gapping I have seen, also known to prevent U2.

I beg you, please don't back up that secret directory full of photos!

Friends of friends

So years ago, an old Uni friend I ended up going out for a drink with him and his friends, lovely married couple gorgeous wife, both work in IT...also turns out they were swingers. Quite disconcerting to go into their computer room and find two PC's with Huge CAD CRT monitors both with umm home photo screensavers going.

It's quite weird holding a conversation about the computer set up and discussing hardware porn when there's hardcore porn showing me quite a lot more of the wife than I expected to see.

David Cameron hints at Budget law change to end mobile not-spots

Re: cue the Anti Mast campaigns

I worked for a company that acquired sites for cellnet, orange and the other players who I have forgotten about 20 years ago. It was very rare a farmer turned down having a field used for a site, they lost about 10 sq metres of land, where we built a mast and plonked a large electrical phase supply and put a fence round it, and then used to negotiate a yearly rent and a wad of cash for the trouble in incurred while building it. I don't remember many farmers turning it down.

UN rapporteur: 'Bad example' UK should bin the Snoopers' Charter

Wi-Fi

I'd like to point out that good ol Boris has done a deal with a company to use the same Wi-Fi tracking shops use, to track everyone throughout the whole of London, full rollout is set for 2017.

I did email the Reg as thought it might be an interesting story, mebbe I will write a freelance piece.

Is there anything left to ask Bill Gates? (Other than gissus a million?)

Re: When will he stop his genocidal and other dark practices...?

I think you need to go to the site where they think all your magic thought bubbles appear on the ghost screen magically to be shared with everyone, if you think that opnion is correct.

Cos y'know science & tech happens here.

Re: I've Got A Question For Him

Milk first if one brews the tea in a pot, however for teabag and mug tea hot water first always to draw the flavour from the leaves, anyone who does otherwise is a filthy savage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtK_vfp8po8

Flying blind: F-35's radar software fails in the air

Yeah wait till the fake windows support guy teamviewers in.

Re: Failure is not an option @ BlackDuke07

You may want to proof read that mate.

Or maybe not, not judging like, just saying.....

"It looks like you are trying to do a low level incursion at 700mph, would you like some help with that?"

# "Yes, please switch the bloody radar back on"

# "No it's fine I can hit the mountain on my own."

Californian tycoons stole my sharing economy, says Lily Cole

@Tiggity

This.

The amount of privileged people who stand there saying we should give up stuff as long as it's not their stuff. Or telling us from one of their many million pound mansions, how we should be helping the homeless or giving them our money to help with the latest charity they have decided to promote in the hope of appearing on the queens honours list or something, all the while having more cash than they actually ever really need to live comfortably.

Well they can all fuck off.

No more Nookie for Blighty as Barnes & Noble pulls out

Re: Paper books

Yeah I have spent months abroad and had half a rucksack full of books, just because every second hand bookshop abroad is full of Dan Brown and John Grisham.

Re: Paper books

Have just given away a load of books to charity, tried giving them to the library and they are not allowed to accept them, so 6 crates of quality sci-fi and some other stuff, mostly in good nick went to the charity, and they reached in the crates and just lugged the books into a pile it was sort of wince inducing.

Ebook readers definitely win on travels though, my luggage weight has dropped considerably.

Yelp-for-people app Peeple is back – so we rated Julia, its cofounder

Re: The real reason Peeple is back:

That picture looks like it is of two wmen with the smile that says we are of the beautiful people and bitchiness about us, and bad things to us would never happen.

Usually its the smile of someone who causes all those things to happen to others.

Re: Maybe an opportunity for creative criticism...?

The Register. - It keeps the commentards away from other forums.

Good description btw AC

Feel old? You will now: Blighty's mobile network Three is a teenager

Re: Not impressed with Three

Orange continued to charge me for the initial number you get for a brief hour or so while you wait for your current one to be moved across. Didn't tell me of course, just sent a baliff round to my door 3 years later, with a bill for two years worth of rental charges.

Re: Not impressed with Three

3 have been refreshingly good at customer service for me, then again I was on Orange before...

Bruce Schneier: We're sleepwalking towards digital disaster and are too dumb to stop

Re: It's gonna be difficult... 315Mhz

Hi just curious what is 315Mhz used for? Did have a google but could not see anything quickly that explained it.

Did find an interesting thread though about cheap firing systems for fireworks on a UK forum from ebay that also use 315Mhz. Does that mean there are going to be some surprised* people in November.

*possibly briefly

More and more Brits are using ad-blockers, says survey

Re: Very different from magazines

No the advert to content ratio in them has actually grown so much I rarely buy magazines anywmore, why pay £6-8 for a glossy magazine of adverts, postman drops the same shit through my door everyday as free junk mail.

Re: Turn it off? Not no way, no chance, no how.

There's a couple of sites I do, they are however not only useful sites to me but also do not have stupid flashing adverts, self playing videos, and the content/advert ratio means I still feel like I am reading a site rather than a glossy spread.

I do not really mind advertising, I have learnt to ignore it to some degree and so can live with it when its OK. However tracking me, commercialising me and my data, epilepsy inducing flashing things, fecking pop up windows that wander across the screen (el reg..seriously considering the site, considering it's readership, how? I mean really how did you think it was going to end up?), and all the other things advertisers think we actually want as part of our advertisig experience. Have caused me to go for the software option of nuke every ad on every site I can out of habit.

It was the advertising companies fault they are the ones who wanted to play the big boys and be twats about it.

SEC: Qualcomm hired relatives of Chinese officials to seal biz deals

Yep do some business in parts of the world, have money aside for the possibility of bribes and protection as part of it.

Photographer hassled by Port of Tyne for filming a sign on a wall

Re: Not all security is like that, I'm not @Dan

If I wanted to take pictures of a sensitive site for use in any nefarious deeds, the absolute last thing I would is walk up to the outside of the place and start taking pictures of it in full view of rent-a-plod inside.

Oh I dunno, you get some idea of their response, you get to gauge the level of security they have from meathead to pro, you find out if there are any cameras watching you when the security gaurds turn up when you weren't in sight etc.

However in this instance, hostile recon is probably not likely unless the port has come under some extrodinary threat recently, and is a laughable excuse from someone wanting to feel more important than their badge justifies.

Re: guard @ nigel11

That's a good idea, plus it will help UK industry, considering the UK population thats about 128 million bricks we need to manufacture.

ICO fined cold-call firm £350k – so directors put it into liquidation

I think you should look up Alan Ralsky AC, for a touch of schadenfreude.

Edit: Bugger notice the commentard above beat me to it.

Re: "lay down a marker"

I say! That's a tad extreme, don't you think.

I dunno weren't these the people doing the nuisance calls in the early am betwen 1 and 6.

Speaking as an insomnaic who really likes sleep when he can get it.

I think hunted down eviscerated and left as a blood eagle on the company doorsteps would have been a suitable response and warning.

My devil-possessed smartphone tried to emasculate me

Re: best 4 weeks ever

It's always a good idea to let people know when oyou move in a new house reception can be terrible, gives you an excuse to ignore the phone. :)

Downside to always being available is some people assume that means you should always respond instantly, I came from a generation where as a teen I still wrote letters in the first couple of uni years before email became popular, don't know how some would cope with that now. I have genuinely worked with people who told me if they do not get responses to texts within a few minutes (not work ones private how you doing sort of texts) they will be pissed off with that person.

Re: As for the RAZR..

The Razr was great, got it when it first came out due to our company mobile bills being on the high side, (many international calls to Asia), so our network gave it free.

Damn it was so groovy, first phone that truly reached the shiny status (Iphone you really do not compare), remember walking round SEA and people dribbling over it. It looked like it should have been in star trek with those metal keys, and the blue backlight and clamshell design.

It was also ridiculously tough for what it was, mine fell from my pocket when riding dirt tracks, had sand in all the joints, dents in the casing, it only died about a two years ago which is a ten yearish lifespan. I was properly sad about that.

Toaster cooks network and burns 'expert' user's credibility to a crisp

Re: Love it!

Once spent a whole night, adding anti virus and clearing spyware from a network of about thirty PC's (the prev cough IT guy had said its fine for all users to have admin rights on their desktop - cue crazy frog downsloads etc).

Go to bed, get a call a couple of hours later, everythings tits ups you have killed the network etc etc get your arse in here.

Turn's out the head of sales had heard me complaining about the spyware issue, had a chat with his mate who knew about computers and come in early and installed some anti spyware and anti virus stuff of his own on every computer.

Secretary took one look and led him from the office, later she told me it was because I was looking like I was planning to throw him out of the window and we were on the second floor.

Yelp minimum wage row shines spotlight on … broke, fired employee

Re: Life lesson learned.

Re: your last link, have you heard that term about correlation and causation?

Re: @Trebor

So if they refuse to work because the rate is to poor to live on, whats the other option? C'mon give us a solution.

Re: No one forced her to take the job

Apologies some terrible grammar and English in that email, not enough coffee.

Re: No one forced her to take the job

Well actually what I proposed was a double bind, there's a lot on here saying don't take the job then.

I was not discussing the other options I was pointing out many who would say well say fuck you and don't get the job then also complain about people not taking any job they can rather than be unemployed. The duality of that makes it a double bind.

Adding in the other options and not knowing America enough.

1. Whats the vacancies for employment rate in the SF area I am guessing 10% more jobs available than the total population so that people can walk out of one job and into another in an hour or so from what I seem to be reading here.

2. How much cheaper in her article it says she live's quite far away and part of it seems to be for family reasons, OK so that may have dictated to some degree were she lives and rent likewise. But how far away is OK for people to live, should the BAY area be exclusive how far away should people be before travel time becomes to far. NB I used to have to travel 2-3 hrs to work each way, it was shit.

I have to say there is a couple of things about her article that make me think a bit of a kick up the bum would not be bad, but the reaction a lot of people have of well might (money) is right is gobsmacking. If you get mugged tonight will you report it? Your attacker was stronger maybe he deserved your wallet because you didn't get your arse to the gym or learn how to fight.

I mean if thats the case, I can understand the love of guns and the apparent paranioa about home invasions. But I prefer my future civilisation to be working more towards the Culture model than the William Gibson one.

Standing desks have no effect on productivity, boffins find

“little is known about the impact of sit-stand desks on actual worker productivity in a real-world setting.”

“This is an evidence gap which needs to be addressed before organizations invest in sit-stand desks as a measure for preventing chronic disease and promoting wellness in their workforce.”

I am guessing it's the way it's written and a comprehension fail on my part but otherwise, they do realise that those things do not exactly correlate don't they?

Anyway I think moving around helps somewhat as well, I was told its movement that tends to persaude your joints to pump/move synovial fluid about, likewise it helps your kidneys stop producing stones. (plumbers have told me that there's lots of sludge in call centre and office toilets, the start of kidney stones that come around from sitting all day).

Oh TechNation. Britain's got tech talent. Just not like this

Re: Tool users vs tool makers

The day the politicians need to show a rise in the steel industry, then it will be. Currently though it's being used to show sales in the construction industry and that affordable homebuilding is on the rise, honest.

Google human-like robot brushes off beating by puny human – this is how Skynet starts

Re: We created Shakespeare, the Sistine Chapel, beer and chocolate chip cookies

I sort of took it as we were doing so well, then created our own doom.

'Kalamazoo killer' gave Uber rides in between shooting six dead

Re: @Triggerfish

PS whats a progtard?