* Posts by Avatar of They

850 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Jun 2010

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Europe doesn't just pass laws on Big Tech algorithms, it sets up cop shops to police them

Avatar of They

to be fair

Microsoft already has a separate copy of windows 10 for Germany because of GDPR, and had one of windows 7 for the EU. (Version N?)

EU already showed the US with privacy shield and safe harbour arguments that it will stick to its guns.

There will be crying and lots of lawyers but if big tech wants access to the big trading bloc then things will need to be shared.

Elon Musk says Twitter buy 'cannot move forward' until spam stats spat settled

Avatar of They
Coat

Re: Less than 5%!!

Your coat is over here...

Fancy a remix? Ubuntu Unity and Ubuntu Cinnamon have also hit 22.04

Avatar of They
Unhappy

I disagree with the Author

A lot.

Unity was the worst desktop. Ever. 16 GB of RAM did nothing to help it along at any pace on a 4k touchscreen capable Dell laptop that had Linux as native (so you can't blame drivers).

I think it boiled down to the fact that it was designed by someone that assumed you were not using a track pad and had 3 buttons on a mouse.

Lag, lots of lag in scrolling up and down and general movement of windows around as you try and do something.

Missing scroll bars,

Touchscreen was not supported.

The tiniest icons to tell you how many windows you had open (I think they were little white triangles),

More lag.

And it was buggy, I remember things crashing and stopping because the desktop had to catch up.

I tried it on a desktop as well and that was marginally better as I had a mouse so scrolling in the file explorer became possible. (But still the bugs and the laaaaaaaaaaggggggggggg)

So I moved to Mint. I did have a happy grin when Unity was dropped. And its rebirth brings me no joy.

Russia acknowledges sanctions could hurt its tech companies

Avatar of They
Facepalm

So....

Russia is bracing itself for sanctions and to remove itself completely from the internet of the world, rather than admit they are at war and the world is sanctioning them because of it.

This is nuts.

Microsoft: Russia invasion of Ukraine ‘unlawful, unjustified’

Avatar of They
Thumb Up

Need to remember

Both Apple and MS need to think about how Russians get their internet and news.

Yes they could kill switch everything. But then no truth will come out of Russia and their people will not see the truth from the rest of the world.

But all credit to MS for taking a lead in defence on the internet.

Hauliers report problems with post-Brexit customs system but HMRC insists it is 'online and working as planned'

Avatar of They
Flame

This sentence alone sums up jut what a stupid idea it was.

"The Brexit transition, which saw the UK leave the world's largest economic trading bloc and free movement arrangements with its largest trading partner."

And in other news, my local co-op sells meat again 3 months after shortages started.

UK National Crime Agency finds 225 million previously unexposed passwords

Avatar of They
Pint

Hats off to Troy

Never knew who made the site, but a virtual pint to him for trying to make people aware.

Shocking: UK electricity tariffs are among world's most expensive

Avatar of They
Flame

Re: 70's electricty

What are you trolling about???

Climate scientist don't "probably think" about anything when it comes to weather as there is more than enough information from decades of old and more modern data collection. And thousands of sources across the world - since airlines also report it back that number is hundreds of thousands in real time.

And the way heat is dispersed and transferred is also basic physics and taught in schools at various levels. Basic science not 'skeptical science.'

Hurricanes have always existed, the cause and reason is well known and predictable. It is the frequency, magnitude and area (size and location) of where they occur that global warming is meddling with.

Government-favoured child safety app warned it could violate the UK's Investigatory Powers Act with message-scanning tech

Avatar of They
Thumb Up

Re: Roads

Who knew the Tories (and their voters) were excellent civil engineers and road builders. Eton should advertise that.

LoRa to the Moon and back: Messages bounced off lunar surface using off-the-shelf hardware

Avatar of They
Coat

I can hear.

Somewhere literally a few angry conspiracy nut jobs demanding that the moon was never visited and doesn't have mirrors on it. But they don't frequent this place.

NASA tests flying taxis made by biz dreaming of being the Uber of the sky

Avatar of They

Re: Stupid idea

I was commenting on some of the other comments around being autonomous, and any future direction it might take.

Things like the power loss with an engine that doesn't really autogyrate applies to driver or autopilot.

Avatar of They
Flame

Stupid idea

Hope it fails. As someone that has recently started learning to fly helicopters the thought of more of those in the sky and autonomous terrifies me.

Engine failure is terrifying, falling at 1800 feet a minute at 70 miles an hour. From a height of 1500 feet means things get ugly really quickly when training over a field. Revs go to low the blades fall off, go to high they explode. Imagine that for passengers with no pilot in a city. On something that can't auto-gyrate.

Checks done before flight are visual, checking fuel is one thing but fuel purity, visual checks on cracks, clutches, props, blades and a hundred other things isn't to be ignored as anyone of them can stop the flight.

And the CAA is very strict on how flight hours, medicals, exams, written and flying (including engine failure) before I can fly just me alone. Never mind being allowed near a paying passenger.

And how would it manage through all the different air control zones. I need to know radio frequencies for loads of them when flying over little airstrips. How would that work in a busy air zone like a city airport or restricted air zones like a prison / military etc?

But people believe Hollywood in how helicopters work, a few buttons and the you are up in the air.

More Boots on Moon delays: NASA stops work on SpaceX human landing system as Blue Origin lawsuit rolls on

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Thumb Down

Re: LMWakipediaTFY

Still not really an argument though is it. Just looking at test flights.

16 so called test flights versus how many for space X and on which platform, the ferry to the ISS or the next gen spaceX starship? Space X has 126 flights of the Falcon with 124 successful over 11 years (according to google)

However this is about actual useful flights that NASA need. Such as ferrying cargo and crew to the ISS. Space X a clear leader. Those are the flights I would consider worthy when considering stuff for the next gen.

Afterall if your current gen (to the ISS) is still in test phase how can you then state the next gen which is to get to the moon is anywhere near ready for a deadline of 2025.

LibreOffice 7.2 brings improved but still imperfect Microsoft Office compatibility

Avatar of They
Linux

Re: Does "compatibility" mean having the same issues?

I have compatibility issues with Microsoft Office, does that count?

Magna Carta mayhem: Protesters lay siege to Edinburgh Castle, citing obscure Latin text that has never applied in Scotland

Avatar of They
Thumb Up

Re: As a Scot, I say...

Obviously read the situation and summed up exactly what he was dealing with and went for "Mental health issues." So changed to a calming and caring approach instead of riot shields and tear gas.

Brilliant.

China warns game devs not to mess with history

Avatar of They

Another option.

I was thinking Total War - Tibet myself.

Engineers work to open Boeing Starliner's valves as schedule pressures mount

Avatar of They
Happy

Re: crazy

At this stage, bearing in mind embarrassment for Boeing as SpaceX have perfected being a space taxi and NASA's white van man.

I would expect the capsule to be on bricks with everything not welded on to have been removed for access to fix this. And an army of engineers all over it 24/7.

Not just staring through an inspection panel now and then.

USA's efforts to stop relying on Russian-built rocket engines derailed by issues with Blue Origin's BE-4

Avatar of They
Mushroom

Swap out

'Rocket engines'

With say 'missile systems' and you suddenly find a heck of a lot more engineering job positions as the US does seem to build and replace missiles and weapon systems at a frightening rate to feed their military.

Symbol because the military have really big rockets

BT 'welcomes' whopping £2bn investment by French telco Altice

Avatar of They
Devil

But what about Brexit?

It is a slippery slope. All our infrastructure owned by the French.

I can hear the idiot brigade' pitchforks being sharpened and their rose tinted glasses already steaming up with rage at them foreigners coming over here spending their money.

If only someone could think of the chil- "oh, what is an FTTP roll out anyway deary?"

Tesla owners win legal fight after software update crippled older Model S batteries

Avatar of They
Thumb Up

Re: Carbon neutral

I would agree except you don't want your already 3+ ton pick up truck weighing more and all that cargo space being used for batteries just to move the thing along the road.

I have a pick up and would love it to be electric or even hybrid but it just isn't available and still practical at the same time.

UK data regulator fines American Express up to 0.021p per email after opted-out folk spammed 4.1 million times

Avatar of They
Mushroom

Our ICO

is Sh*t.

Nvidia nerfs RTX 3080, 3070, 3060 Ti GPUs to shoo away Ethereum miners

Avatar of They
WTF?

Re: nVlidia is not a government agency

Wow, socialism now being used as argument against a company trying to stop an international shortage in GPU's and trying to spin it as a bad thing. You either vote Tory or Trump???

Anything that means people can get a decent gaming rig has to be worth a try. If it wasn't for the greed that capitalism has generated and the ease crypto currencies can be used to create that (supposed) wealth. We wouldn't be in the this mess and I could get a nice 3080 GFX card.

(Think I spun that round quite well.)

Water's wet, the Pope's Catholic, and iOS is designed to stop folk switching to Android, Epic trial judge told

Avatar of They
WTF?

Re: Epic Fail

Epic is a digital sales platform. They don't sell disks. Same way Steam, Origin or Uplay don't sell disks.

However a quick dip into the playstations store and there is Epic's Fortnite all over it. I have the Epic launcher on my PC and a quite a few games from them installed.

Whats stopping them selling disks is technology and how the world works now - Digital downloads and no one has optical drives anymore.

Not sure what your post is regarding.

You can listen right here to the whir of a robot helicopter flying on an alien world

Avatar of They
FAIL

Erm.

"Looks like none of the definitions fit a barren lifeless rock with nothing on it."

We don't know what is on the barren lifeless rock, or if indeed it is barren or lifeless - beneath the surface or was in the past.

Hence the curiosity and perseverance robot probes and all the history making achievements you seem to not care about.

Thankfully there are people wanting to find out and dare to look above their own horizon (literally to another horizon)

Prince Philip, inadvertent father of the Computer Misuse Act, dies aged 99

Avatar of They
WTF?

Re: Things are never quite that simple

This isn't the US. British budget spends don't need to pass anything. They don't come back to parliament and ask again for it to be approved. Just look at Tory defence reviews ruining everything and how little anyone can do to stop it.

Now that half of Nominet's board has been ejected, what happens next? Let us walk you through the possibilities

Avatar of They

Re: And further down the line - #DissolveTheUnion

GB is the name of the island itself and isn't actually a country, so is a bit weird as I don't think we have any other domain levels named just after islands containing more than one country? It also shouldn't include Northern Ireland under the GB domain.

It's wild the lengths Facebook engineers will go to find new ways to show you inane ads about tat: This time, AR...

Avatar of They
Mushroom

Zuckerberg

Really is trying to be Sorrento CEO of IOI from Ready player one, shovelling so much into our lives in every way, milking all he can, before inducing a seizure.

Twitter sues Texas AG to halt 'retaliatory' demand for internal content-moderation rulebook in wake of Trump ban

Avatar of They
Meh

Re: the far-right Twitter-a-like Parler

Wasn't the reason cited by AWS for cancelling them linked to their far-right bias and use in the coup attempt? In which case it is fair to say that in the article. Blame AWS for their actions (you probably are) as people just call it like they saw it.

Given Parler couldn't find alternates to host them for a while, it is obvious that quite a few other companies consider them far right and didn't want to touch them either. So you could also argue, the common view is that they are far-right and another good reason the Reg can call them that.

Would you let users vouch for unknown software's safety with an upvote? Google does

Avatar of They
WTF?

Can you imagine

An ExCo meeting following a breach.

CEO

"So the breech has cost is millions in pay outs, legal fees and our customer base is rapidly shrinking because no one trusts we can deliver anything safely."

CRO

"Well Mr CEO, the software that brought the malware into the company had a lot of upvotes... So we thought we would go with that one."

Seagate UK customer stung by VAT on replacement drive shipped via the Netherlands

Avatar of They

Re: Should not have Netherlands VAT ...

Refund what VAT though?

If he bought it before Brexit there is no import VAT to repay from Seageates point of view. You can't refund a tax that wasn't there. This is one of those massive obvious things that people who voted Brexit should have known was coming.

Fujitsu scrapping fuel card benefit to cut costs, threatens dissenters with fire and rehire

Avatar of They

Re: Go Electric

But don't they run a lottery in cities to see who they hand out car licences to. A few a year because basically the roads can't actually take any more cars.

Google Beijing licence lottery

They might have a huge number of electric cars, but per head of population I bet it is tiny scraps compared to the number of people who don't have cars at all.

British owners of .eu domains given an extra three months to find a European address

Avatar of They

Re: EU level bureaucrats

Sorry, the house of lords are the only thing keeping Tories in check, with amendments to selling the NHS in a trade deal and many other laws and reality checks.

How embarrassing: Xiaomi and Motorola show up to high school prom both wearing remote-charging tech

Avatar of They
Joke

Re: Why?

Yeah at the bad efficiency being talked about it would have to be real close.

Perhaps as close as a short cable length, maybe it will need some kind of matt to rest on as well as it charges?

Synology to enforce use of validated disks in enterprise NAS boxes. And guess what? Only its own disks exceed 4TB

Avatar of They
Meh

Re: very unfortunate move,

Er what? I have 2 Synology (a 4 bay and 2 bay backup) and you can lock down everything quite easily. From access rights through users and groups, permission controls to folders and the various tick boxes to permit access for services, DNS. The firewall for the usual ports, and even which apps to allow.

There are tons of online videos (SpaceRex comes to mind) that helped me.

Europe considers making it law that your boss can’t bug you outside of office hours

Avatar of They
WTF?

Re: AZ tells EU to F-Off

The title reads like a Brexit voter rant, not sure what this has to do with the current topic of EU protecting workers rights for those still in the EU.

Screw you, gadget-menders! No really, you'll need loads of screwdrivers to fix Apple's AirPods Max headphones

Avatar of They

Question

How many types of screwdriver though? I have no intention of ever buying Apple so won't be repairing it, just genuinely curious to how many types?

Backers of Planet Computers' Astro Slide 5G phone furious after shock specs downgrade

Avatar of They

I am keeping my order.

I don't care for the lack of a Verizon frequency thingy (I am UK and no plans at all to go to the US.)

A smaller chip, would I really bother with high end anything as I gave up chasing the best a few years ago when I grew up. Who actually needs a high end chip that runs AAA class games on a phone, the controls are still awful. I certainly don't need a high end chip with freecell, soduku and polytopia. Neither do you need a high end spec when running Android apps like getting an Uber or booking hotels / trains, spotify or facebook.

WIFI 6, not sure my googling and shopping on amazon needs ultra fast wifi to be honest.

The battery is a bit sad, that is an issue but compared to the other benefits is it a deal killer?

It is still better and cheaper than most of the offerings from Samsung and Apple. And I don't have to put up with all their crud that gets forced onto me. My mothers Samsung S20 (or whatever shiny shiny latest Samsung peddles) has 485 apps on it by default, according to the "optimising apps" state when updating security. (she only uses 6 of them)

And I get a keyboard, which is good because I hate typing on glass.

Parler games: Social network for internet rejects sues Amazon Web Services for pulling plug on hosting

Avatar of They

Seems an obvious answer to me, but.

Well they fall foul of plenty of other laws, selling counterfeit goods is a contravention of the trade descriptions act (or similar formal wording) in the UK. Selling unlicenced medication I am fairly sure breaks FDA and UK law (assuming same for Canada, France etc)

But there are laws like possessing indecent images, doing things with minors. inciting riots, hate speech, associating with known terrorist group, spreading terrorist propaganda. Depending on your country, there are versions of those laws just worded differently.

The limits are already well covered, just nothing to do with free speech if you break other laws doing it.

ESA signs on the dotted line for ESPRIT, Europe's Lunar Gateway module

Avatar of They
Pint

Re: Nothing there...

Know it well.

United States Congress stormed by violent followers of defeated president, Biden win confirmation halted

Avatar of They
WTF?

Re: ...and where exactly do you live in the US?

Don't forget the famous photo of the one carrying a pitch fork. Coz, you know Washington DC has a heavy farming community.

"And the shot shocked him so much he raised his gun in defence?"

So he illegally breaks into the capital building, during the most important moment in that buildings function. Trying to stop the legal process of the election, against law and order because he knows full well he is doing wrong as he had to go through the police, barricades and smashed doors to get there. He then sees someone shot from the legal defenders of the building who are obviously armed and raises his gun????

Why was he carrying a gun, why else was he there and why did he willingly break the law to do it? You can't argue defence when he broke a lot of laws getting into that situation in the first place. Simply put it is villainy,

That is like me getting on a train to London, going into parliament, forcing my into parliamentary chambers, fighting passed all the guards (who would have shot me by now because we have guards) and then punching Boris in the face. But as a defence I then say, "but he was stood next to me."

Dutch officials say Donald Trump really did protect his Twitter account with MAGA2020! password

Avatar of They
Thumb Up

Assuming he wants it, he can deny it because if he accepts it they have some control on his life and routine.

Not that anyone would want to come looking for him after he isn't president for all the nice things he did.

Tim Cook 'killed' TV project about the one website Apple hates more than The Register

Avatar of They

Re: If they used Windows, they were suspect

NCIS LA and Hawaii 50 are the same, but it does state "sponsored partly by Microsoft" in the credits. So all good guys have MS. NCIS LA must have the dreaded (introduce new MS kit) clause which states they have to slow down and over dramatise any new Windows tech. Like the guy slowly taking out and clipping the surface keyboard when at a crime scene and following the question "Where is your computer?"

You know who the bad guys is by not seeing them using tech. :)

'Unmute' named one of Oxford Dictionary's words of the year

Avatar of They
Pint

Beautiful

One of the best words to describe the government yet.

UK, French, Belgian blanket spying systems ruled illegal by Europe’s top court

Avatar of They
Thumb Up

Re: Not for much longer

Very true.

And then GDPR kicks in, and like Privacy shield we can't trade with the EU. Then it gets real for everyone and we all suffer because of power made tools in parliament. (well okay suffer more... not like the pain isn't already being felt)

Since the EU won't share all its toys, UK Space Agency fires up fund to support more international collaboration

Avatar of They
Facepalm

Re: £5M

I don't deserve them, I didn't vote for them and I don't feel a member of the same species as the current people in parliament with their arrogance, ignorance, lies and or bumbling stupidity.

I just felt it needed to be said.

Braking point: Tesla has had quite enough of Trump's 'unlawful' tariffs on Chinese-made parts, sues Uncle Sam

Avatar of They
WTF?

Which madman created these lists?

List 3 is LED's to food. 4A is things from display screens to Nuclear fuel?

We're not getting back with Galileo, UK govt tells The Reg, as question marks sprout above its BS*

Avatar of They
Mushroom

Oh Hello

A Brexiteer, not many of them left that are willing to try and fight a lost cause.

The London School of economics recently said the UK economy has lost around 200 billion, more than the ISS (155 billion) and as much as all our grocery purchases in a year. (200 billion) we could eat free as a country for a year on the money lost by Brexit so far.

We still have sod all trade deals with our largest trading bloc. So any chance of actually having out own GPS is a pipe dream as we won't be able to afford petrol in the buses soon.

And Brexiteers still try and blame everyone but themselves for the fall out.

Microsoft to charge $200 for 32 GPU cores, sliver of CPU clockspeed, 6GB RAM, 512GB SSD... and a Blu-Ray player

Avatar of They
Mushroom

M$

And MS don't refund digital purchases. Winning!!!!!

GCHQ's cyber arm report on Huawei said to be burning hole through UK.gov desks

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Thumb Up

Re: No doubt

Nah, for the daily fail it has to include immigrant in the title.

UK space firms forced to adjust their models of how the universe works as they lose out on Copernicus contracts

Avatar of They
WTF?

Re: Answer is simple

Lets follow your logic?

A quick google shows we pay into the ESA 374 million a year.

So in your make believe world where does the funding come from for a purely UK space agency? If we do it on our own, where does it come from in a cash starved UK economy that is a shadow of its former self.

The ESA budget per year is around 6 billion (remember we pay in 374 million). https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Corporate_news/Funding

Do we cut Health, Defence, Benefits, what about the pensions? Education? Bearing in mind we need to buy the rockets or build them, find a space port near the equator, pay the country to let us launch rockets from their land like the ESA does, open a technology centre, recruit the scientists and all the other expensive stuff that the ESA currently do.

Lets look at JUST the Galileo GPS system which apparently was 10 Billion?

So in your world lets cut defence to pay for it. Our defence budget is 39 billion, from 2019 numbers. So we take 25% off defence to pay for your UK GPS system. What do we lose? Both aircraft carriers or a couple of submarines? All of the RAF?

Benefits? The largest state benefit is the pension which was 96 billion in 2019. So every pensioner takes 10% pay cut for your space GPS system (lets not count all the other required stuff like rockets and staff).

Education, how many school and teachers take up 10 billion from the education budget of 89 billion?

No amount of bravery and happy clapping will cover the fact that doing it on our own is too expensive and budgets need to be cut somewhere to pay for it.

Brexit supporters really don't get it. All bluster with no real look at the finances involved when 28 countries pay in together versus doing it alone.

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