Posts by JohnG

How many times do we have to tell you? A Tesla isn't a self-driving car, say investigators after Apple man's fatal crash

Re: Who was responsible

Direct Line gives a 5% discount for Tesla cars that have Autopilot, which I guess they based on empirical evidence.

Re: Heretic!

"Just go look at the Tesla forums and you will see the vitriol that is spouted when anyone dares to criticise something (such as rust) on their Tesla."

Product fanbois brutally mob product critic in online product forum shock

From my experience, postings on product forums are people complaining that the product or customer service is useless, fanbois saying that the product and company are wonderful and other people asking a question asked every two weeks, the answer to which is in the product manual.

Re: I am grateful for all the testing that these idiots are doing for Tesla

"... disabling the vehicle by moving to the side of the road when the user has stopped monitoring the AI."

The system does do this - but after warning the driver a few times. The gap between warnings is based on distance travelled.

One problem has been that of stupid drivers using devices designed to defeat the detection of the driver holding the steering wheel, so that they can play video games, watch films or do other things that they have been told they should not do when driving.

Re: Tesla never said it's driverless

"About 2 minutes in he's talking about the various options on the car and says something like "...or pay an extra $7,000 for the full self-driving capability"."

FSD is an option which provides some features to Tesla cars now but promises to provide "Full Self Driving" at some future but as yet unknown date. Buying the option would cover any software or hardware upgrades needed to achieve FSD, if it ever becomes reality. But a fair proportion of Tesla owners consider FSD to be a unicorn that will never be seen.

Re: Tesla never said it's driverless

"All Teslas required large oil burning machines to pull the various battery metals out of the ground and ship it to the processing plant & then on to the factories. It can take a very long time for an electric car to become more 'green' overall than a petrol/diesel motor, (German Teslas run on about 30% coal & lignite)."

UCUSA reckon it takes from 6 to 16 months of driving for an EV to have offset the increased impact of it's manufacture, compared with an ICE vehicle.

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/cleaner-cars-cradle-grave

Re: Tesla never said it's driverless

"Autopilot" or similar systems in aircraft and ships do not provide autonomous flying/sailing and crew are required to be ready to take control at all times - just like Tesla's Autopilot.

Autopilot does not provide autonomous driving, flying, sailing, etc.

Vodafone: Yes, we slurp data on customers' network setups, but we do it for their own good

IANAL bit it seems extremely dodgy for a service provider (with whom you have a contract) to demand that you agree to having your personal data handed to some third party (with whom you have no contract,no legal relationship and no contact). It sounds like the sort of thing that should not happen by default and not without a customer's explicit permission.

Call us immediately if your child uses Kali Linux, squawks West Mids Police

Re: urging parents to call police if their child has installed

You can call 101 to have a chat with your local constabulary.

So kids, the solution here is to install a Kali VM but rename it to something like "Ubuntu UK Schools Edition". And all the other stuff - put that in a renamed VM too.

Beware, Tesla might take away your car's autopilot if you buy its vehicles from third party dealerships – plus more news

Re: bits of your car not working...

The car was owned by Tesla - it had not been sold or owned by anyone else, so it was not sold to someone, with a defined set of options. Maybe it was a demonstrator (hence all the options being enabled).

Tesla sold the car via an auction company to a third party dealer. The third party dealer sold the car (advertised with autopilot, etc,) to some guy. Tesla subsequently decided that the car should not have autopilot and disabled it. If Tesla sold that car at auction as not having autopilot, then I guess the third party dealer may have to pay up - but if Tesla sold the car to the third party dealer as having autopilot, they should probably reinstate autopilot and send the new owner some goodies as an apology.

"If the new owner bought a new Tesla could he transfer his licence to the new car? If he's not allowed to then is the licence for the car, for the owner or a car/owner combination?"

All the software options stay with the car, not the owner. One of the tricky issues is where an owner has paid for a future update, which was never delivered, because it was not yet available -- and his car is then written off. The Tesla rules say that he or his insurers would have to buy the undelivered software option again for any replacement car.

Re: re dealership

Barcelona is the same as every other Tesla outlet - it is wholly owned by Tesla and the employees are employed by Tesla. Traditional dealerships are independent from the manufacturers and not owned by them but dealerships have franchises with one or more manufacturers.

This AI is full of holes: Brit council fixes thousands of road cracks spotted by algorithm using sat snaps

Re: "saving more than £1m in taxpayer cash compared to more traditional methods"

"And what exactly are the traditional methods, waiting for somebody to phone about it ?"

My local council has a page on their website for reporting potholes. They have notes on how to report and you can even upload a photo.

It works: On a road I regularly use, a utility company had dug a hole, not made a good job of filling it and a pothole had developed as lorries drive over it. The council had repaired it within a few weeks of my report - and they addressed some other issues on the same road.

We should have a change in the law that requires utilities and others who dig up the roads to be made to fix their own errors or at least, pay for their errors to be fixed, instead of leaving it to local councils.

Artful prankster creates Google Maps traffic jams by walking a cartful of old phones around Berlin

Simulation

One could record the GPS track, WiFI SSIDs and MAC addresses, when moving along a certain route. Then play the data back in multiple VMs, with the GPS and WiFi interfaces spoofed. You could run the simulated route just before heading home, to help reduce traffic on your favourite route.

In your face short sellers! Tesla goes two quarters in a row without losing money

Whilst several traditional automotive manufacturers have entered the EV market, their offerings (with the exception of Hyundai and Kia) seem to have a problem matching the range and efficiency of Tesla cars - even those that cost more. It seems that, in their years of manufacturing EV batteries and battery management systems, Tesla has some secret sauce that others have yet to discover.

Then there's charging: Tesla has a global network of DC chargers, which are free at the point of use and easy to use - which makes long journeys viable and straightforward in a Tesla. While a number of manufacturers are involved with Ionity's rollout of DC chargers, they are years behind.

Significant competition for Tesla may come from Chinese EV manufacturers, some of whom have been quietly selling EVs in large numbers in China and elsewhere.

Not call, dude: UK govt says guaranteed surcharge-free EU roaming will end after Brexit transition period. Brits left at the mercy of networks

Re: TL; DR

It might also be worth remembering that Three and Vodafone started offering free roaming in various countries (some EU countries, some non-EU countries) some years before the related EU directive was conceived. I think Three currently has free roaming in 70 countries, so most of these are not in the EU and therefore, are not free because of the EU directive.

Canadian insurer paid for ransomware decryptor. Now it's hunting the scum down

"Whilst some of the Bitcoin was transferred into 'fiat currency' as it is known, a substantial proportion of the Bitcoin, namely, 96 Bitcoins, were transferred to a specified address."

Entities who facilitate "cashing out" are normally required to have records (e.g. copies of passports, etc.) unless they want to fall foul of the authorities where they operate.

New SAP co-CEO 'runs simple' to Davos in Mercedes hydrogen car

Re: Greenwashing

"The fact he did so in a non fossil fuelled vehicle is a minor detail."

Hydrogen is normally manufactured through steam reforming of oil refinery off gases - so not really "non fossil fuelled".

Re: BEV's are a dead-end; HEV's are the future. Discuss

The production, storage and distribution of hydrogen is incredibly energy intensive (as it is for petrol and diesel). This makes for very low "well-to-wheel" efficiency. If, as you suggest, local electrolysis could be used instead, that might change but safety concerns remain. However, BEVs and static battery energy storage seem to be winning, mainly because the Chinese have chosen this route.

Apple: EU can't make us use your stinking common charging standard

I think the EC is going to tell Apple to adopt the standard chosen by the EU or face having their products banned from sale anywhere in the EU and/or pay a big fine.

Stiff upper lip time, Brits: After bullying France to drop its digital tax on Silicon Valley, Trump's coming for you next

Digital tax not needed after Brexit

A substantial part of the reasoning for a digital tax in the UK has to do with the manner in which a number of multinationals exploit single market rules e.g. goods or services sold in the UK are invoiced from Ireland or Luxembourg, avoiding UK taxes. Once we leave the EU, that particular ruse will no longer be possible and the same businesses will be forced to invoice in the UK, with UK VAT, etc.

South American nations open fire on ICANN for 'illegal and unjust' sale of .amazon to zillionaire Jeff Bezos

ICANN should tell the Brazilian government that they have registered .burntamazonrainforest for them, as a consolation prize for missing out on .amazon

Alan Turing’s OBE medal, PhD cert, other missing items found in super-fan’s Colorado home by agents, says US govt

Re: The Way We Live Now

"Customs & Excise in reality."

"Her Majesty's Customs and Excise" merged with the "Inland Revenue" in 2005, to become "Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs"

Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly? It's about to be screwed for... reasons

Re: ACL Guarantee

The UK's consumer laws are probably the best in the EU, with a 6 year legal warranty (5 years in Scotland). It is in stark contrast to "Servicewüste Deutschland". One of my German colleagues returned a two month old notebook DVD drive under warranty and the shop had it "in repair" for nine months. When Walmart Germany offered a 30 day no quibble return, a group representing other German stores successfully sued Walmart for unfair competition, requiring them to pay compensation and stick to the legal requirement of 14 days.

It's always DNS, especially when you're on holiday with nothing but a phone on GPRS

I still have a Libretto 50 somewhere - probably in a box in the attic.

GCHQ: A cyber-what-now? Rumours of our probe into London Stock Exchange 'cyberattack' have been greatly exaggerated

I wonder if there is any correlation with redundancies at the LSE, announced in the same period.

Post Office faces potential criminal probe over Fujitsu IT system's accounting failures

My understanding is that some errors were individual transactions being logged as multiple transactions on the central database (following a connectivity break). Others were apparently phantom transactions (possibly allocated from a different post office or even fraudulent activities of people running the central database), appearing in the central database after the post office concerned had finished for the day and completed their sign off from Horizon.

GlaxoSmithKline ditches IR35 contractors: Go PAYE or go home

Re: Whats wrong with temporary staff?

It it possible to hire people as temporary workers, via an agency, which is then responsible for all the PAYE, etc. Client companies typically like to have a limited company between themselves and any temporary workers/contractors and will avoid hiring them directly. In IT and other fields, many contractors have chosen to provide the limited company isolation themselves, because of the tax benefits.

One potential downside for the government in pushing contractors from PSCs to agency work is that temporary workers can sign on as unemployed (to get their mortgage paid) after the end of every contract, which can't happen with contractors running PSCs.

I have had a few contracts where I was there longer than some of the so-called permanent staff. Just because an individual is salaried and has an employment contract, it doesn't mean they are any more loyal than a contractor.

Currently, I have been subcontracted for the same end client for ten years - albeit, in different divisions and countries and via different prime contractors.

Post Office coughs £57.75m to settle wonky Horizon IT system case

Re: Plea bargaining

This happened in a few cases, because those sub-postmasters who maintained that they were innocent were sentenced to longer terms in prison and lost their businesses, savings and homes.

Re: Another criminal fail for people who have to work for a living

"Not sure it was the computer system who made the decision to prosecute.

That would have been the CPS based on information provided by the Post Office and the police."

The Post Office have brought all these prosecutions themselves, without involving the CPS at any point. They inform the police that fraud has been committed and seize the post office concerned. They hold all the evidence, as their terms dictate that sub postmasters may not not secondary accounting systems. When they commissioned independent auditors to assess Horizon, they then tried to quash the report when they found out that it listed numerous failings. The whole thing is a complete travesty. The settlement is not nearly enough. At least one sub-postmaster committed suicide over the false accusations and seizure of his business.

Elon Musk gets thumbs up from jury for use of 'pedo guy' in cave diver defamation lawsuit

Musk's lawyers would likely sue anyone who persistently and publicly labels him with the term "pedo guy" and in all probability, the same court would take the opposite stance to their recent verdict and decide in Musk's favour (again).

RuneScape bloke was wrongly sacked after reading veep's salary details on office printer

Re: Personal Usage

I wonder if HMRC would consider the VP's personal use of company resources as taxable benefits?

Found on Mars: Alien insects... or whatever the hell this smudge is supposed to be, anyway

Spiders from Mars

So, that's what David Bowie was on about.

I know the icon is supposed to be a black helicopter but it could be an insect, if the professor was looking at it.

Huawei's first Google-free phone stripped and searched: Repair not too painful... once you're in

It is a pity that, on being ejected from Google's domain, Huawei didn't choose an open source alternative. It would have helped allay fears of Chinese spying and they could probably have enjoyed take up by users keen to experiment and have more control over their phones.

Physicists are rather giddy after creating a rare type of laser using laughing gas

Re: Penetration

That they were talking about applications in secure communications and radar suggests that they expect or already receive funding from the military.

I don't want a cyclotron in my car, I want a flux capacitor (I think it is known as a "flux capacitator" to some US journalists). I don't know what size EV battery will provide 1.21 GW though.

If it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is: Nobody can decrypt the Dharma ransomware

Re: Can someone explain.....

"Possibly its when they find out their backups havent been working for months as the person who changed the tapes was outsourced."

In the case of backup run at a manufacturing site of a very large pharmaceutical, operations were switched to office hours only and the cleaner was apparently supposed to swap tapes in the backup device. The operator had failed to check and change the tapes during the day, so the cleaner had been swapping the same two tapes for months, overwriting all the previous backups. A whole load of really important data was lost after a disk failure, so the company sacked the cleaner.

'Peregrine falcon'-style drone swarms could help defend UK against Gatwick copycat attacks

Peregrine falcons may be a bit small. Some eagles have territorial behaviour that could be exploited for anti-drone measures.

https://dronedj.com/2017/10/02/drones-ripped-out-of-sky-by-australian-wedge-tailed-eagles/

Socket to the energy bill: 5-bed home with stupid number of power outlets leaves us asking... why?

Consumer unit

Electrical Safety First "One would imagine it would overload the fusebox, ..."

.... and then it would not be possible to play gramophone records.

What a bunch of dopes! Fancy Bear hackers take aim at drug-testing orgs

Re: Doping - an irregular verb

The last time the Russians hacked the doping agencies, we learnt that one vocal opponent of drug use had been caught by more than one random drugs test but was then been awarded a number of retrospective TUEs. That is driving a coach and horses through the rules and blatant hypocrisy from the tennis player in question. And why is it, that when an athlete has some medical condition, all of the oral remedies given to the rest of us are apparently unsuitable and athletes are obliged to have injections, which have the greatest beneficial impact on their performance?

Also from the last Russian hack, we learnt that all members of the Norwegian cross country skiing team were apparently chronic asthmatics.

While the Russian hacking and Russian doping are bad, so is all this other "legalised doping". The whole thing should be done in the open.

Tesla has made a profit. Repeat, Tesla has made a profit – $143m in fact

Re: Smart Summon used "more than one million times"

The difference is that Tesla owners can turn off the telemetry sent to Tesla but Microsoft's customers cannot. Microsoft has a number of options to reduce the telemetry being sent (presumably intended to give users a false impression that their privacy has been respected) but other telemetry is still collected and can only be blocked using third party software.

HP to hike upfront price of printer hardware as ink biz growth runs dry

Yes - when I bought inkjet printers, I wasn't using them often enough to stop the ink drying up and blocking the print heads. I had a secondhand HP laser printer for about 10 years but have had a Xerox MFP for about 5 years now. As long as the printer prints, there isn't any point in changing it - I don't need any more resolution, speed or new functions.

We're all doooooomed: Gloomy Brit workforce really isn't coping well with impending Brexit

Re: Not coping well with Brexit

"....and if they come home, they aren't covered either."

Entitlement to free non-emergency NHS treatment is for all legal residents of the UK - any returning ex-pat would be entitled to free routine NHS care as soon as they establish residency e.g. register for council tax and inform HMRC and DWP of their return and UK address.

Re: Not coping well with Brexit

"Imagine the gloomy Brit workforce in the EU who haven't got a scooby doo what their future is going to be, because their residency, work, health, and pension rights are reciprocal to what gets dished out to EU citizens in the UK and are entirely dependent on the entitled schoolchild and his special psychopathic friend dream up today."

EU citizens resident in the UK before Brexit is implemented (currently, 31st October)are entitled to stay in the UK, even if they have not already qualified for permanent residence. This was announced under May's tenure. Many EU citizens have already established their situation but as usual, the Home Office is managing to screw up the fairly simple rules.

The EC/EU27 have not reciprocated, which is why many British citizens living on the continent don't know what will happen. However, some EU27 countries, like Germany, have announced something similar to the UK.

Boris Brexit bluff binds .eu domains to time-bending itinerary

Given that the people most likely to have a .eu domain are likely to be supportive of the EU, the EC's action in respect of these domains seem a bit of a shot in the foot.

About the government position/statements about the Benn law: The law requires the government to send a letter to the EC, requesting a Brexit extension - it does not require them to achieve a Brexit extension.

GPS cyberstalking of girlfriend brings surveillance and indictment for alleged American mobster

Re: Two questions

It would seem more likely that she attached the device to the outside of the oil pan- it would be easier to do, the device would probably still work and it would likely be found when the bus was next serviced.

600 armed German cops storm Cyberbunker hosting biz on illegal darknet market claims

I can understand that they would have found the cash but one would have thought that the whole point of the bunker would be to delay the ingress of the law, while all the servers, mobiles, etc. were wiped of incriminating content. But then, I am not a Crown Prince of anywhere.

Holy smokes! Ex-IT admin gets two years prison for trashing Army chaplains' servers

Considering the intent, the damage done and the period of time over which he carried out his plan, the sentence seems a bit light. Hackers have received worse sentences for less.

Chinese sleazeball's 17-year game of hide-and-seek ends after drone finds him on mountain

Life in that prison camp must be pretty grim if he preferred living unwashed in a 2m cave for 17 years.