Posts by Andy E

Freed from the office, home workers roam sunlit uplands of IPv6... 2 metres apart

Virgin Media?

Their Hub 3 has no knowledge of IPv6. I don't think they do either.

Yes, true, fusion reactors don't work quite yet, but, er, maybe AI can help us stop our experiments from imploding

Kaboom!

The AI got it right 80% of the time. In real life that other 20% where it gets it wrong could end things very quickly.

If you're wondering how Brit cops' live suspect-hunting facial-recog is going, it's cruising at 88% false positives

Re: Lies, damned lies and The Guardian's view of statistics.

The figures don't add up unless you know how many of the wanted people were in the group of faces surveyed. If they were all in that group then its a spectacular failure rate. If none of them were in the group then you have the false positive rate which seems reasonable.

Incidentally they don't say that the person the apprehended was in the group of people they were watching out for. They might have just got lucky and nabbed a different villain.

Asteroid Bennu is flinging particles of dust and rock from its surface – and scientists can't work out why

Its having a....

Its having a PEE (Particle Ejection Event). Please give it some privacy.

Google goes full Anti-Flash-ist, boots Adobe's insecure monstrosity out of web search index

Beat me to it

I don't understand why Channel 4 are sticking with Flash. Seems stupid to restrict your potential audience to only those that can view a legacy platform. A potential audience that is getting smaller and smaller.

Kiss my ASCII, Microsoft – we've got one million fewer daily active users than you, boasts Slack

Don't call it Teams!

A tenant can have 500,000 teams.

1 user can be in 1,000 different teams (i.e. per project, per department, per office, ...)

Each team can have 5,000 members.

Each of those teams can have 200 channels, so you just need to have multiple teams to have more than 200.

But you can only have 1 bloody team open at a time FFS!!!! Lets just call it TEAM

I can't believe Microsoft Management let this product out of the door. I use it every day and it is just awful.

Quantum goes open and passwords must die in a week of Microsoft fun

Re: "Also borked for a few users is the display driver"

Another good example of "no quality control and absolutely no checking that everything is all right" is Microsoft Teams

Its hard to imagine how they could release something so spectacularly poor.

UK transport's 'ludicrous' robocar code may 'put lives at risk'

Department of stupidity

This is the same department that couldn't get its head around Segways and they have a human driver! They are still illegal on roads or pavements.

LG's beer-making bot singlehandedly sucks all fun, boffinry from home brewing

Not worth the money

Home-brew is one of my hobbies and its remarkably easy and cheap to make good beer. It doesn't matter wether you bottle or keg the beer after fermentation, it will still need time to condition. This is usually one or two weeks in a warm place and the same in a cold place. Some of my brews spend 6 months conditioning before they are at their best.

This contraption is likely to give you a mildly alcoholic drink that tastes awful. Mind you it can do it a lot quicker than I can. Save your money and buy a home brew setup or go down the pub.

Microsoft lobs Windows 10, Server Oct 2018 update at world (minus file-nuking 'feature') after actually doing some testing

Build number?

How does this build number malarky work then? My PC which is running Windows 10 Pro 64bit says it is running 10.0.17134 build 17134. 17134 is a bigger number than 1809 or am I understanding this wrong? Perhaps its 17-134 v 18-09?

Confused.

Clock blocker: Woman sues bosses over fingerprint clock-in tech

Re: Stupidity

The thing about a badge is that anyone can carry it and clock-in for you. It's a bit harder to do that with someone else's finger.

Hip hop-eration: Hopless Franken-beer will bring you hoppiness

Hang on....

Hops have a number of roles in brewing beer. Firstly they are used to bitter the beer as it is very sweet in its raw state. A second role is to add flavour and aroma. Thats why they are added at various stages of the brewing process. They also help protect the beer from infection.

If you aren't using hops where does the bitterness come from?

Another day, another meeting, another £191bn down the pan

Perhaps we should have a meeting to discuss his performance?

Inviting nearby exoplanet revealed as radiation-baked hell

As Terry Pratchet once said, million to one chances have a habit of coming in nine times out of ten.

Might be time to buy some sunscreen....

Careful with the 'virtual hugs' says new FreeBSD Code of Conduct

Crikey!

"The project therefore sought outside help with outside help to draft the new document"

They needed outside help with the outside help. Was the second group Code of Conduct specialists and the first group Stress Councillors ?

I'm deeply offended by the whole thing.

:-)

This is why we can't have nice things, BT tells Global Services after 3% sales droop

Constant reorganisation

I used to know some people in BT's GS and they were being reorganised about every six months. They were always having to reapply for their jobs or were doing competency matching exercises.

This clearly takes time and money and would distract managements attention away from the important things like delivery. It didn't seem to do much for staff morale either.

Amount of pixels needed to make VR less crap may set your PC on fire

Glasses anyone?

What if you normally wear glasses? Can the VR headsets be adjusted for this or do you have to wear contact lenses?

Just wondering....

Brit transport pundit Christian Wolmar on why the driverless car is on a 'road to nowhere'

One of the benefits of the 20mph limits is the increase in survivability. Your chances of surviving are lot higher than being hit by something traveling at 30mph.

FCC Commissioner blasts new TV standard as a 'household tax'

Re: Adblocker time...

...and what are you going to be watching in the ad break when the ads are blocked?

Just wondering.

Sole Equifax security worker at fault for failed patch, says former CEO

Double failure

If you take Smith's words at face value then there was a double failure here. One guy failed to notify others to apply the patch and their vulnerability scanning software failed to pick it up. While the human element is fairly easy to fix I'm at a loss to see why their vulnerability scans didn't pick up on the known issue in the months following the release of the patch. Perhaps they aren't updating this software either? Would that make it a triple failure.

If someone did mess up as Smith says then kudos to him for telling the truth about what happened without naming the individual and taking personal responsibility for it.

Microsoft gives all staff a marked-up 'Employee Edition' of Satya Nadella's new book

Has anyone actually read the book?

Just wondering if anyone who has commented here on El Reg has actually read the book...

Its not on my list of things I want to read.

Unable to give up on life on Mars, bio-boffins now thrilled to find boron

Re: The chances of anything coming from Mars...

Who was it who said the thing with million to one chances is that nine times out of ten they come in?

Terry Pratchet? Douglas Adams?

Gov digitisation plans happening too slowly, say IfG policy wonks. Hear that, GDS?

I'm confused...

How does this comparison work then?

"The success rate in verifying individuals is just 43 per cent. In contrast, the current online identity Government Gateway portal has 50 million accounts."

One has a success rate of 43% and the other has 50 million accounts. What are the comparable success rates in verifying individuals and how many accounts does the Verify ID portal have?

You're comparing apples to oranges.

Sources: Misco sold to Hilco Capital, care home for the distressed

Paper catalogues

I used to look forward to receiving the Misco paper catalogues. Never knew there was so much stuff I didn't want or need.

TRAPPIST-1's planets are quiet. Quiet as the grave, in fact

Re: We won't be living on alien planets.

While I don't disagree with you, I do wonder how orbital colonies shield the colonists from the suns radiation. Here on earth we have the earths magnetic field which does a nice job of shielding us most of the time. How do you envisage we replicate the magnetic field or do we use something else?

Just wondering.....

Favored Swift hits the charts: Now in top 10 programming languages

iOS Only

Swift is the perfect choice if you are developing for iOS. There's bugger all help if you are trying to develop swift apps for macOS. God help you if you are trying to develop swift applications for outside of the Apple eco-system.

Nest Cam: A compelling piece of hardware-software

You mean like this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/17/hackers_mac_pwning_expedition_help_ive_got_too_many_shells/ ?

The hacker got into the chaps Mac and then had access to his Nest CCTV amongst other things. It's actually a frightening article if you have heavily invested into the IoT stuff for your home. The more you have the more they can mess with.

Personaly I have an electric door bell that rings a chime when someone presses the buzzer. I'm in to minds over whether to revert to the good old physical door knocker.

Microsoft flips Google the bird after Windows kernel bug blurt

But why?

Can someone explain to me why Google employs engineers to find security bugs in another company's software?

Is it so they can make the world a better place or so they can inflict reputational damage?

Just wondering......

Linus Torvalds says ARM just doesn't look like beating Intel

My view (which is probably wrong)

I generaly think of ARM as dedicated systems for a specific purpose and in the case of mobiles a relativatly short operational life. Once the ARM device has been built and shipped there is very little reason or incentive to upgrade the software. It has (hopefully) all the features it needs to do its job.

Linux on the other hand as a general purpose platform is constantly evolving to add new features or to re-engineer for security or optimisation. I would have thought it would be easier to do that with a large eco system that promotes compatability.

Just my view...

Apple puts on its grey suit: Firm, 40, keen to meet corporate types

Re: As much as I despise apple,

I honestly can't see this happening with Apple. All of thier focus seems to be on iOS devices and the desktop systems are the unwanted step child. Try finding anything about programming Swift on MacOS for example. (I prefer the name OS X). Apple seems to think the only role for the desktop is to host iOS development environments.

Epic Games forums breached, salted passwords nabbed

It is probably a comment on thier own sysadmins.

Password managers are good but only if they support all the platforms you are going to use to login to all those web sites/applications. The days of just using the one PC at home are long gone.

Oracle Java copyright war latest: Why Google's luck is about to run out

Re: If Oracle win... what then?

I have to admit I'm struggling to understand what - other than a cash payout - Oracle are hoping to achieve here. Does Oracle see Android as a threat to Java? Are they trying to protect thier Java related revenue stream? Or are they looking for a cash injection to hide poor financial results?

I'm confused by the whole thing to be honest. It would seem to be in everyones interest for Google and Oracle to reach a settlement even if the terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Of course there are at least two teams of lawyers who are doing very well out of this who might not agree with me.

NASA to begin first asteroid sample mission: Seeks 'pristine' specimen

Re: Take me along

When it says 5 football pitches I presume they mean what the US folk call Soccer pitches. These can be anything from 90 to 120 meters in length. Five pitches could be 450 to 600 meters. The margin of error could be more than a football pitch. Oh....

Can't we have something a bit more precise?

Some Windows 10 Anniversary Update: SSD freeze

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

I wholeheartedly agree with you on this. I want the OS & applications on the SSD and the users data on a HDD. That is how I have three home PC's setup but its a pain to do it.

Incidentaly all three systems are running Windows 10 Aniversary Edition with no problems. Am I just being lucky ?

Reactive? Serverless? Put to bed? What's next for Java. Speak up, Oracle

Re: Gartner nonsense

There's probably a Gartner report on the types of opinions people have of Gartner. It might help you place yourself in the right quadrant.

Londoner jailed after refusing to unlock his mobile phones

Re: Petty crime

I don't understand why sentences are allowed to be served concurrently. How is this a punishment when you are already serving time for something else?

Reg - that last paragraph isn't really warranted. You have covered it multiple times in other articles.

Windows 10: Happy with Anniversary Update?

Contana app search

I have a windows 10 PC mostly used for web and games. I saw the idiocy of Contana web search when I entered "Calculator". All I wanted to do was use the default calculator that comes with Windows. It was the only one not listed in the returned search resultes.

Having said that, there's quite a bit about Windows 10 I do like.

Not enough competition in payment processing tech, thunders regulator

Cost to business

I have worked in the processing side and the one thing that struck me was how much they were stiffing small businesses. Upto 20% of a transaction could be the processing fee. Outragous.

Ex-Citibank IT bloke wiped bank's core routers, will now spend 21 months in the clink

Re: Amateur hour, makes all of IT look bad

I can see where your coming from but the rate of change in the IT Profession would mean any standards would be out of date the day after they were published.

Microsoft dangles code candy in front of iOS devs

Missed the boat

There's a big switch away from Objective-C to Swift for iOS development.

The only hold out for Objective-C is OS X on the Mac and thats because the only training materials you can get for Swift are iOS centric.

If there were more OS X based training materials available for Swift I think it would quickly replace Objective-C on that platform to.

Andy

Apple Watch craze over before it started: Wrist-puter drags market screaming off a cliff

Re: I do wear watches but...

My experience is similar to your. After a number of Timex watches (almost as cheap to replace the watch as the battery) I opted for a Citizen eco-drive solar powered watch. It nicely does the job of telling the time. I also have an expensive (to me) dress watch for formal occasions.

I can see a use case for smart watches for people with medical conditions or those sporty people who want to monitor some bodily function. They could also be a replacement for pagers I suppose.

I've no experience of smart watches but I'd be interested to see how it works with e-mails. My personal e-mail addresses have lots of rules to filter out the spam and junk. But these run on the PC. My work e-mail on quiet days has about 100 e-mails a day. How you makke sense of this on a small screen of a smart watch with no filtering capability is something I would like to see.

I guess the use case to compell me to buy a smart watch just isn't there yet.

Space station to get shiny new ringpiece for automatic penetration

Testing?

How do you test that your allegedly IDA compliant craft is actualy IDA compliant?

Just wondering...

Holy kittens! YouTube screens go blank

Re: Why is it

Perhaps its the "trained" bit they are objecting to....

You lucky creatures! Mammals only JUUUST survived asteroid that killed dinosaurs

Re: Researchers from the Milner Centre for Evolution of the University of Bath

Is the University of Bath being evolved then?

Microsoft buys LinkedIn for the price of 36 Instagrams

Reserved for optional title

I must admit that after reading the various Sat Nad quotes I too got the impression that they are just buying a resource they can use to data mine to target sales activities. Seems a bit on the expensive side.

I'm going to update my CV to include Age of Empires. It might just be the trigger Microsoft's automated data mining needs to reboot the series.

Mars satellites show remains of massive tsunamis that ravaged Red Planet

Re: Isn't it time to start thinking in terms of Human Mission Support?

I think we would need to equip and prepare the proposed landing site with supplies before the crewed mission got there. There should be a couple of missions just to test out the robotics and feasibility before we send astronauts. Any failure resulting in deaths would set the program back years if not decades.

NASA's stadium-sized sandwich bag overflies Oz

Presumably there's a choice of sandwich filling; cat or kangaroo.

I'll get my coat.

NASA 'Kilo-Kitty' Super Pressure Balloon goes aloft at last

Would that be the metric or imperial Goodyear Blimp?

Node.js releases version 6.0. Yes, yes, LTS

Version?

I'm not familiar with node.js but does "Version 6 also debuts equipped with the V8 JavaScript engine 5.0", mean that to run v6 node.js requires release 5.0 of the V8 JavaScript engine?

I like to know what is being used to infect my PC.