Posts by John Brown (no body)

BT plots to slash pension benefits for 32,000 staff

"If BT are undervaluing their staff, then this may come as quite a shock to them if a significant percentage ups and leaves....!"

And go where?

Apple succeeds in failing wearables

"It very accurately monitors my calorie burn throughout the day,"

And that's important because you're in training for the next Olympics^tm?

Your next laptop will feature 'CMF' technology

Re: Sopmething pretty for the ladies?

"The worry is that externals become everything and internals don't matter. "

For most consumers, that's true. Good enough, which covers most models internals, is all that matters. After all, we all know people who buy a new laptop because the old one is "slow", ie full of crapware and toolbars.

Re: 'HP Inc is not alone in this thinking.'

I think they've run out of ideas. There's not been much movement in the technology over recent years and they really, really, really want you to buy this years laptop model rather than carry on using that 3-5 year old one that still does the job it's always done.

WikiLeaks is wiki-leaked. And it's still not even a proper wiki anyway

Re: Twitter DM

"Some folks don't seem to know that Twitter has a Direct Messaging facility as well as a public one."

<raises hand> I didn't! Actually I came here to ask what a DM was. It got two or three mentions in the article and not once was DM defined. Considering the nature of the readership, I hear you cry, surely all readers know everything about the entirety of the IT world? But wait, there's more. It seems most commentards disdain "social media" so an explanation might actually be required :-)

Amazon to make multiple Lord of the Rings prequel TV series

"So will Sauron be a gender fluid necromincer?"

Very possibly. Likewise, Orcs will be cast as hobbits and elves cast as Dwarves etc in the spirit of equality and political correctness.

Re: second highest-selling fantasy series

""...Harry scratching his back with his wand..."

That's just showing off..."

Hows that? Can't you do it like everyone else?

Re: Running up stairways of falling rocks

"The Peter Jackson series of movies were popular because they were entertainingly terrible on an epic level never seen before."

I enjoyed it. Maybe it's because it's over 40 years since I read LOTR or maybe I just accept you can't always do book to film 100% accurately for many, many reasons.

Boffins on alert: Brace yourselves for huge gravitational wave coming within a decade

Re: Huge ripple (Mmm! chocolate)

"They're not ripples - they're bow waves from the plancs."

Beeeeelions of very tiny surfers?

Re: The 100% certainty is certainly mathematically uncertain.

"The bistromathics of it all eludes me."

You need a nice hot cup of tea.

Re: Surf's up!

"he only thrill you get is when you wipe out at infinity and try and work out how to get home."

What's the problem? Did you forget to make your reservation at the The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe?

80-year-old cyclist killed in prang with Tesla Model S

Re: RE: unwanted infantilism

"As recorded by the ONS on the number of pedestrian deaths caused by bicycles are between 2-3 a year, however the number of pedestrian deaths caused by cars are around 400 a year"

The comment related to on the pavement, which is where the vast majority of incidents involving cyclist killing pedestrians happen. The vast majority of pedestrians and cyclist killed by motor vehicles happen on the roads.

Re: RE: unwanted infantilism

"Might be worth checking your stats, in UK 2 pedestrians die a year from cycles but 6 a day from cars.

Evidence based approach please!"

On the pavement? Really?

"Betting the driver was watching a dvd while driving like the last publicised Tesla incident...but i eagerly await the results of the investigation."

Unlikely on that road at that location. It may well be "predominantly straight" but it's narrow enough with plenty of obstructed view places where traffic can join that only a total moron would entrust the very simplified Tesla "auto pilot" features to maintain itself safely on the road. I've driven it many times and it's covered by Streeview if you want to have a look and virtually drive that stretch for yourself.

"Doesn't Tesla own the data for this and doesn't necessarily hand out the raw data?"

I think it has front facing cameras and if the Police demand the evidence required to investigate a road death, I'm sure Tesla will be forced, if necessary, to hand it over.

Mm, sacrilicious: Greggs advent calendar features sausage roll in a manger

Re: Freya is comparable to Venus or Aphrodite.

"The Norse and Celtic mythic figures have a complex relationship to the idea of Worship."

Didn't they retire and move to New Zealand? I saw a documentary about it.

Shiver me timbers! 67cm Playmobil pirate ship sets sail for Caribbean

Re: Weather forecast

hard tack needed.

"Avast behind"

...but still well ahead of Norton!

Bristol AI chip designer bags $50m from Valley VC

Re: Bristol

...but such a shame no UK investors seem to be interested. Are British investors risk averse or is it something to do with tax laws or something? We seem to be quite good at inventing but pretty crap at investment, production and growth, selling up to the highest foreign bidder at the drop of a hat. (with a few exceptions)

Munich council: To hell with Linux, we're going full Windows in 2020

Re: "When it's political, technology cannot do anything."

"I agree, 800 programmes is absolutely ridiculous."

They may be including all the various learning packages used in the cities schools too, but even then, 800 still seems a tad high.

Stop your moaning, says maker of buggy Bluetooth sex toy

Re: "We used it at a bar while playing pool"

"Also, wouldn't your Significant Other masturbating away while you are trying to get your balls in line ever so slightly put your off your stroke?"

Maybe it's handicap pool? They control each others vibrators.

User asked help desk to debug a Post-it Note that survived a reboot

Re: passthrough PSUs

"Somehow, it does not compute that stuff around the earth is the reason we lost the passthrough sockets."

Me neither. I bet it's primarily cost cutting. Some Chinese factory pumping out millions of units a year can make significant savings buy cutting a pennies here and there per unit. And then there's the trend for smaller boxes and hence smaller PSUs and hence lack of space to put the pass through connector.

Re: Xerox photcopiers

"That was the day I realised that photocopiers had become too complex to copy a page of paper! 23 years ago that was"

I wonder how many of a certain age know the relevance of 1.414 and 0.707?

Re: Incompetent users

"It was only an major IT systems integration and out-sourcing company. No real reason to expect internal competence."

Our company is an IT company too. But we still have clerical, sales, HR etc type people who have little clue about the business, the technology or the tools on their desks. (yes, yes, the tools are on the seats)

Re: Dilbert?

"And "screenshot" isn't the most self-explanatory phrase either really, even if it seems to be to those of us who've been around it for 20 years.."

Probably from the photography community, ie taking a photo, colloquially known as taking a snapshot and later just taking a shot, mainly on the US end of the English language spectrum where many of the IT terms also come from.

Re: Dilbert?

send us a screen shot of her screen."

When doing IT support for the military, never, NEVER, refer to that as "take a screen shot". Some daft twat WILL take it literally!

Re: PBKAC

"Once I call it the helpdesk, only for the lazy git to inform me that a helpdesk only logs calls. A service desk resolves them - yeah right"

You should've pointed out that loading paper is not a service call, but explaining to the user how to load paper is giving help.

Re: PBKAC

"Even your multi-component stereo has a single on button that switches all the components on, yes?"

No. Each component has it's own on/off button. The integrated , all-in-one stereo only has one on/off button, but that's because it's a single unit. My cable box and BluRay play also have separate on/off switch which are in turn septate from the TV which also has it's own on/off switch. It's not rocket science.

I wonder if the Sky and VirginMedia support desks have the problem of users not knowing the difference between the STB and TV and operating the wrong switch when asked to power off the box?

The day I almost pinned my tushie as a Google Maps landmark

Yeah, I think Dabbsy is having a mid-life crisis. He seems to obsessed with his arse these last few weeks.

Re: This is why I keep reading Something for the Weekend, Sir?

"What has a hazelnut in every bite?"

You sir, are off-Topic for these august commentardery columns.

Brace yourselves, fanboys. Winter is coming. And the iPhone X can't handle the cold

Re: Diversity figures are meaningless without context

"Yes, there are issues with defining the recruitment area, and that might even vary by job (senior management and technical staff recruited worldwide, and cleaners more locally),"

And in terms of "world wide" recruitment, all those primarily "white" senior managers and Cxx are the racial minority.

Greenhouse gas-sniffing satellite to be built and tested in Britain

Re: The results will be meaningless

"Algae will produce molecular oxygen."

So long as the ocean doesn't become more CO₂ saturated and more acidic.

Computing in schools improved, but still needs major patching – report

Ronan Harris, UK MD of Google,

Microsoft UK CEO Cindy Rose

Do either of these people have any sort of qualification to have an opinion on the subject? I very much doubt they even get involved in HR and job interviews so don't even have real world experience of the job applicants abilities other than at the very top levels of management.

As for teaching "computing" skills at school, no, don't dump every kid into "coding". Do as you do with all other subjects, teach the required basics/core skills so they can then choose the GCSE courses they most want to do. Those who stay on can then further specialise at A level and some can go onto university. Juas as with every other subject.

Someone commented earlier about kids knowing more than the teachers in terms of IT. Why would that be? Primary school teachers in particular and man secondary school teachers, in my experience, (limited, admittedly, but wider than many others) are generally quite young. A 25 year old teacher probably grew up using computers, a 35 year teacher will have been using that at university and during their teacher training.

We really need to get beyond this trope of kids knowing more than adults about IT. It's nowhere near as true as it once was,

UK Home Sec thinks a Minority Report-style AI will prevent people posting bad things

It does make me wonder if people who become Home Secretary are chosen for this level of stupidity or if the job causes it. We do seem to have a had a constant stream of these people over the last few decades, from both parties.

It's quite obvious a lot of the "ideas" are coming from the incumbent civil servants in the department, but not one single Home Secretary seems able to resist the Borg.

Re: Eeek

Back when we first heard rumours of Echelon and the like, it was relatively common for people to pepper their online posts with words such as C4, dynamite, bomb, assassinate, president, gun, shoot etc. There was very little comment from people saying they would be more careful with what they posted.

Re: Count me unimpressed

"In what, fifteen years of buying from Amazon, I've never, ever bought anything that Amazon has recommended to me"

I once bought something in the "Others bought this with that item". But that's just data, not AI, or even algorithm,

US government seizes Texas gun mass murder to demand backdoors

Re: Oh dear

"How about insisting on a back door on guns?"

Or just finding out why this person, who was on record as being unable to legally get a firearms license, was able to pass the basic background check and buy a gun in the first place. This isn't about changing gun control or access to encrypted devices. It's about why the existing system failed in the first place.

Self-driving bus in crash just 2 hours after entering public service

"All it means is the bus got to the point of impact first and stopped there."

I have to agree with all of the comments on this point (so far). I also wonder what other options a human bus driver might have tried other then simply stopping/staying in place while the impact was impending. I also would certainly have tried something to avoid it, eg sounding horn, flashing lights, taking evasive action.

Of course, we don't have the full details of what precisely happened and probably won't unless the complete accident report is published.

NASA reconfirms 2019 will see first launch of Space Launch System

Re: Orion Spacecraft

Good, it's not just me then!

Mythbuster seeks cash for roller skates to wear in virtual reality

"Surely though some restraint of the torso is needed still, to react against, or people are going to fall over?"

Yes, that, plus a decent amount of rolling resistance. Free running trackballs would be like the frozen beach mentioned above. This probably the reason this initial design spec. is a half-track design. Ideally the rolling resistance would be adjustable under the games control to help simulate going up or down hill.

Re: Yeah... No....

"Running jumping strafing sliding crawling FPS - I think I'll stick to the keyboard and mouse"

Yeah, the last thing we nerds need is for our games, which we can excel at, be converted into a physical experience that only the jocks can excel at!

Re: There's already a solution

"I think that most gamers don't have that kind of fitness."

Unless, of course, the force exerted could be magically and virtually magnified by, oh I dunno, some sort of computer?

Don't worry about those 40 Linux USB security holes. That's not a typo

Re: Wasn't that the primadonna maintainer project

"Linus has stated in public that he does not consider security vulnerabilities any different from other bugs. That's a pretty apathetic attitude to security concerns in my book..."

Only if you assume that all bugs are treated apathetically.

Maybe he was just saying that, by definition, a security vuln is a bug, ie something is not behaving as expected and since bugs are usually treated with varying degrees of urgency, it kinda makes your claim look a bit silly.

American upstart seeks hotshot guinea pig for Concorde-a-like airliner

Re: Concorde vs Tupolev "rip-off"

"Ergo, engineers trying to strive for the same (difficult) goal will often tend to converge on similar designs even when working in isolation."

Do Apple and Samsung know that?

Would insurance firms pay out if your driverless car got hacked?

Re: A one-way street

"There is no need for data to travel in the other direction, once the vehicle's unique identifier has been received by the software dispatcher."

The experience of people with Freeview boxes demonstrates that multiple manufacture/model updates can be broadcast over the air and only the relevant boxes will update with no data, or even a data connection, back to the mothership. Although for the sake of safety, I would be happy for the car to confirm it's VIN and success status of the update back to base.

Paradise Papers reveal Apple moved bits of biz offshore

Re: Shirley...

"... there can't be anywhere to hide in an organisation with rounded corners?"

At the bottom of the barrel?

This could be our favorite gadget of 2017: A portable projector

Re: Interesting

"Also, not really fussed about having the apps on the device, so long as it dnla's then the netflix/youtube/etc can stay on my phone."

Yes, considering that anyone buying this device will also have a phone, and the phone app to control it almost a requirement, it seems odd to load up the device with apps which may or may not still be supported in year or twos time. Just look at the abandoned and derelict apps on smart TVs of any sort of age.

Having said that, what are the odds of having a goof enough data signal while camping to stream video at any sort of decent resolution?

Re: Good lord. @AC

"You'd be quite happy to bring it home in the back of the car part full - apart from the sloshing sound when you go round corners / over bumps you'd forget it was there"

Is there something special about human shit'n'piss that you need to bring it home with you to dispose of it instead of burying it in the woods with all the other animal shit'n'piss?

"I thought glamping was invented by the generation before the millennials, the ones who used to rough it at festivals but now in their forties and fifties whose aging bodies appreciate a comfy beds and other creature comforts."

I thought it was just a new buzzword for the sort of posh camp sites found in the south of France for at least the last three decades, ie pre-assembled multi-room, fully furnished tents.

US judge orders Sci-Hub be excised from the internet

Re: Having a free access to Science and Education?

"Gummint schools are highly overrated anyway. It's why "the rich" (and many not-so-rich) still send their kids to a "pay for it" school. And _STILL_ get taxed to pay for the gummint one."

Yeah, damned communismsocialism! Only the people who use the services should pay for them. Bugger the social good of the country as a whole. Pay as you go roads too!