Posts by Andy The Hat

Nationwide banking suffers its own Black Wednesday

Re: Strangely

"They might then get asked awkward questions such as "what local branch?""

or, in my case, "You mean the local branch that I joined because it usefully closes after I get back from work at 5.30pm ... oops 5pm ... sorry 4.30 ... no no, 4pm now. So, the branch that is no longer accessible to me ...?"

It's obvious that branches are being closed earlier and earlier to limit their usage and generate a good reason to close them. Which makes it (a) impossible to the oldies to use them and (b) all the more important the the main front end is incredibly resilient. Having said that, I've had very few problems with the system.

Boffins' five eyes surprise: Bees correct colour for ambient light

Of course, they can't sting other creatures without generally dying. So they're not perfect.

That's where you're wrong - not all bees have barbed stings so can give more than one wallop.

Just another step closer to perfection and ruling the Earth!

Brit prosecutors ask IT suppliers to fight over £3 USB cable tender

You miss the point.

The bureaucracy droid has to generate the tender, audit the tender documents when returned and issue the final tender. He could have ordered the part from Amazon or Joe Bloggs Computer sales down the road but that's not his job.

When no tender documents are returned due to it being a "bloody stupid thing to tender for", the bureaucracy droid asks their preferred Megacorp to bid and supply an approved part which they do at a single price of £25. A follow up order can then follow for 30000 of the items at a generously discounted rate of only £15 per item. It's a win-win for bureaucracy jobs, Megacorp profits and of course us, the great unwashed people, as they've got such a good deal by bulk purchasing ...

European Commission chucks cash at UR – the universal language of mind your own biz

Privacy

Given the mootings of May, the Frenchies and Mt Jerry about restricting an individual's online privacy, I find it somewhat ironic that the EU are funding a project explicitly designed to extend it.

UK Parliament hack: Really, a brute-force attack? Really?

not necessarily stupid ...

generally while you're brute forcing the passwords in an obvious way and giving the techs the runaround to sort that out, they're too busy to notice you discretely dropping trojans or hacking the system somewhere else ...

More likely to be an idiot script-kiddie though and, as a terrorist act involving a computer, we'll need to ban encryption obviously ...

Researchers solve screen glare nightmare with 'moth-eye' antireflective film

But ...

anyone who moth traps will tell you that a lot of moth eyes reflect brightly ... They have a compound structure that channels the light striking each "optical window" to the optic receptor and I can't really see where the light scattering off the surface comes into it or would be evolutionarily advantageous. The only differences between the compound eye and a conventional single aperture variety is that light striking the eye is absorbed differently (there's no lens surfaces for instance) and. due to the roughly spherical surface positioned on the side of the head, light rays striking outside a defined and limited angle would not produce the expected reflection back to the observer from the retina. Perhaps it's the internal absorption structure they are mimicking, not the external surface?

UK parliamentary email compromised after 'sustained and determined cyber attack'

Re: If it did not have 2FA or certs it was asking to be hacked

"If he were only allowed three tries he'd send Nanny around."

Nanny, Nanny? How did you know that was his password? And it's got a capital and everything to make it hard for Mater to guess ...

Homeland Security: Putin’s hackers tried to crack electoral networks in 21 US states

propaganda?

"the use of Russia's English-language state media as a strategic messaging platform"

However true that may be, how many US voters watch RT (or have even heard of it) and thus how much influence would it have in the real world?

Months late, unaudited: ZX Spectrum reboot firm files accounts

Accounts?

Do Companies House actually accept accounts like that as official filings?

If so I'm going to start writing some ... I've got an old fag packet somewhere ...

LIGO physicists eyeball a new gravitational wave

Re: Two solar masses (in energy) escaped

The gravitational field of the black holes obviously extends beyond the event horizon. The gravity of two multi-stellar masses will indeed "whip the space time around" as they try to accelerate each other, liberating energy as they produce gravity waves. This obviously reduces the energy of the local black hole system. Because the energy of the system is proportional to its mass (E=MC^2), that liberation of energy will effectively reduce the mass of the black hole pair ... by a mechanism known as "magic stuff". :-)

BT considers scrapping 'gold-plated' pensions in bid to plug £14bn deficit

Re: Much like my pension, which I'll likely never get.

I work in education and, despite the local pension scheme being well managed and profitable, have had my pension "renegotiated" downwards twice in the last ten years as "public sector pensions are in major problems".

That's cobblers.

It's a myth that the *average* public sector pension scheme is underfunded or badly run. I've paid in for thirty years so far at a regular (slightly increasing) percentage of my salary and can look forward to a £15k (yes, FIFTEEN) pension in 15+ years time but public sector employer contributions have varied widely, including taking pension holidays ... oh, hasn't any Prime Minister or Chancellor mentioned that?

It's only the top brass, civil servants, MPs, judges etc that get non-contributory or low-contribution civil service type pensions *and* can retire early on full pensions. Yet, during renegotiation, the civil service unions were screaming as some of their members would have to actually make a contribution to their pensions!

"Public sector" pensions are *not* all equal - do not tar us all with the same brush.

Seminal game 'Colossal Cave Adventure' released onto GitLab

This is proper gaming.

I played this extensively on the school RM 380Z under CP/M in about 1979/80.

Two years later my brother then played it during his time there too - despite there being options like Galaxians on the few Speccys they had.

How many games have actually stood the test of time?

How many people were sad enough to watch the entire video walk through in the article and note the differences in his version?

Intel gives the world a Core i9 desktop CPU to play with

I'm too old ...

My first PC had 1/13 the DRAM of the L3 cache on that mother ... and it was about £50/Mb stick.

Best I go service my Zimmer frame ...

Juno's first data causing boffins to rewrite the text books on Jupiter

Re: "as well as knuckleballs and sliders"

I tried combining a quick knuckleball with the Duckworth-Lewis method once and my double-entendre bone took weeks to recover ... :-)

T-Mobile USA sued by parents after their baby dies amid 911 meltdown

You're obviously not as cynical about the US legal system as some of us here ...

A modern trend

The last time I had anything to do with the emergency services they confirmed the location they had on their screens as that of the incident (the phone may not be the location of the incident). In the case of panic or whatever you then have two possible location data streams. What happened to that most basic of questions?

Perhaps this is simply a case of over-reliance on technology?

Just so we're all clear on this: Russia hacked the French elections, US Republicans and Dems

Proof of hacking

The challenge:

Prove that Russia can really influence an election - get the Lib Dems a majority in June ...

DSL inventor's latest science project: terabit speeds over copper

Magic ...

It's all smoke and mirrors I tell you. When I were a lad, you needed waveguide for a 1GHz signal, and then they made computery things that ran at 100MHz and didn't swamp Radio 1 with noise - though I admit it was hard to tell the difference ...

Comet 67P's oxygen could be a breath of fresh air

Re: Sceptical ...

"UV that breaks H2O up? ok ... but hydrogen gas that "combines" with solids on the surface, you need quite some energy for that and, if you have the energy, you have to keep oxygen away ... "

As I said, there has to be a mechanism which doesn't result in significant quanities of free hydrogen...

Sceptical ...

If this was the mechanism there would be twice the amount of molecular hydrogen produced. Whilst this wouldn't be as gravitationally bound as the oxygen I would have expected significant detection of it in the 'atmosphere' and especially in the comet's plume but I can find no report of either. There is the possibility of chemical reaction with CO, CN etc to form some of the larger molecules they did find but a plausible mechanism for that reaction cycle would then be needed ...

Months after it ordered a review into allegations of mismanagement, how's that ICANN accountability drive?

What's the problem Sir?

Well Doctor, every time I try to speak nothing meaningful comes out. I think it's because of disspain causing issues ...

Leaked: The UK's secret blueprint with telcos for mass spying on internet, phones – and backdoors

What is a 'communications provider'? The wires of the transport network or the establisher of the communications protocol?

What if banks for instance could be regarded as "communications providers" because they implement 'secure' e2e comms protocols for financial transactions directly between their server and a client over the internet? What about Paypal, Amazon, your doctor or dentist or anyone else initiating something as simple as an https connection? The entire eBusiness system could fall on it's knees as an insecure (backdoored by law) system.

That would be scary.

UK patent troll protections tweaked – lawyers exempted

Will this new law protect my registered design and trademark if, for instance, someone was using a completely different logo with a completely different trading name but decided, if a consumer was completely blind, then it was similarly fruity to mine and would take me to court ... ?

China launches aircraft carrier the length of 13.6 brontosauruses

Chinese bikes don't leak oil ...

Chinese bikes don't last long enough to need oil ...

FTP becoming Forgotten Transfer Protocol as Debian turns it off

Re: All this nostalgia ...

FTP, Kermit, Zmodem? It'll be memories of SCSI cables or VGA next ... I need really to retire on the grounds of having too much old crap in my brain ...

Kremlin-backed DNC hackers going after French presidential hopeful Macron

Is this a story?

There's no actual credit to this story or source of it's 'news' so I have read it with a full bucket du sale.

Trend Micro are quoted as 'the APT28 crew have also targeted ...' but the article specifically does not state "Tend Micro report that ..." or similar accreditation in relation to the first paragraph.

Is it not possible that this is a "Je suis paniking. J'ai le possibilite de losing to Le Pen <spit!>. Je must get mon media connections substantiale to releaser les stories horrible about les Ruskies nastyeux hacking moi."? (Ludicrous French accent optional!)

Bets on the next story being 'Le Pen was responsible" (available from dodgystories.fr and other good fake news outlets...)?

Nikon snaps at Dutch, German rivals: You stole our chip etch lens tech!

Is this simply a litigation-fest? Nikon decided it couldn't make enough money from the technology license agreement. So it refuses to renew the license then, when the time is right, they sue the companies that can make a profit from it for far more than the license would have cost ... I would imagine (hope!) if Nikon were found to have refused to even discuss a continuation of a license agreement then the court would take a dim view of a subsequent claim ... that's close to monopolistic interference in the third party's business.

Samsung's Shixby: Reviewers unimpressed with S8 digital assistant

The number 1 question.

What's the number 1 question asked of a 'voice assistant'?

My guess would be 'Shitephone, how do I turn off the voice assistant?'

BT's spam blocker IDs accident claims as top nuisance call

How do you block invalid numbers?

I can't understand why spam calls using numbers with a valid STD code but without enough valid digits are routed at all - why aren't they just dropped by the system? If they are foreign numbers there seems to be some numbers that report the international dialing code prefix, others that don't. How can the system route the number 0000000000 - a simple "if calling number valid then route" test would wipe out 50% or more of my spam calls ...

Payday lender Wonga admits to data breach

Watching for fraudulent activity ...

Are there any corporate instructions from the company on how an average Wonga customer can tell the difference between official Wonga money grabbing and fraudulent activity? My suggestion would be "if you spot a transaction which is not unreasonable then report it immediately as criminal activity, otherwise it's just a law-abiding loan shark obviously not ripping you off ..."

We know what you're thinking: Where the hell is all the antimatter?

Neutrino and antineutrino

If the neutrino is its own antiparticle, wouldn't this be more easily be detected by studying neutrino/neutrino decay directly?

What we seem to have is the study of a theoretical decay chain which in itself requires a theoretical decay mechanism ... To me that smacks of Nobel Prize or little hope of success ...

Confidence in £70m customs system has 'collapsed', warns Treasury Committee

Re: Anything new?

Yep, the code base is now 57,000 lines ...

Europe to push new laws to access encrypted apps data

If apps are intrinsicly insecure ...

then why should I be using an 'internet banking app' or a secure sharedealing service or a bitcoin service, shopping app or GP's online app when they have a known backdoor?

Perhaps my mum, who couldn't spot the difference between "those W W dots" and VHS, has actually got it right ... start opening those High Street bank branches again please, and all is forgiven bring back Woolies.

Boffins reveal how to pour a perfect glass of wine with no drips. First step, take a diamond...

Re: High Tech

Does that work with over-dunked biscuits too? I just had to sit by my excessively stained tea mug for several seconds before I considered my Jaffa Cake to be drip-free.

Not a lip!

Can't be a lip as that has been around since the Grecians were Urning. This is a fully patentable 'non drip, diamond-cut groove' which has no relation to a lip or capillary groove of any type ... even those already molded into some plastic bottles which are not designed to purvey Oddbins' best plonk.

UK.gov confirms it won't be buying V-22 Ospreys for new aircraft carriers

But Sir, as Admiral of the Fleet I can categorically state that I think I believe we are the Navy and we sail ships. Why would we have any need to spend money on noisy, magic, flying machines? Hoist the mainbrace and shiver-me-timbers, pass the '57 port Captain. And where's Roger ... my cabin's in need of a thorough seeing-to?

GCHQ dismisses Trump wiretap rumours as tosh

Look at the obvious ...

Who would be stupid enough to risk ordering spying on a presidential candidate? Either way the election went, the result of someone crawling to a media outlet would be catastrophic. Whatever you thought of Obahma he was anything but stupid.

Since GCHQ are supposed to be working with the NSA as part of the Indeterminate-Number-of Eyes programme, I reckon GCHQ are as pissed off with Trump as the US security services are, and that's why they declared their position so quickly and strongly.

Quite obviously another Trumpet - a load of air and noise to distract the world from the rest of the crap he's dealing on the world.

National Insurance tax U-turn: Philip Hammond nixes NIC uptick

What does this mean?

The budget has to be presented at the Chancellor's Budget Speech and accepted by the House, that has to mean that the budget as presented is no longer that as delivered by the Chancellor ... Does there have to be another Chancellor's speech to explaining how the £2bn shortfall is being accounted for or is the material delivered during the Budget Speech totally worthless?

On the subject of worthless, anyone know why, according to the official Budget document, the Petroleum Revenue Tax - charged on oil extracted from pre-1993 oilfields - actually *cost* the Treasury £600m this year and £500m thereon? It's the only tax on the list that doesn't raise revenue ... but where does the money go? Surely it would be economic to not collect it any more and save half a billion quid per year?

Headphone batteries flame out mid-flight, ignite new Li-Ion fears

Re: Recall?

"Be wary of cheap tat."

... or Boeing ... or Samsung ... or Apple ... or ...

Isn't the problem that it's not 'the Ford Focus' that's the potential issue, it's the fuel that most people are using. There are alternative, safer variants of Li-ion which could be used but they are either a bit more expensive, heavier, lower capacity or support fewer recharge cycles. Surely it's in peoples' interest to cut battery life by 20%, which TBH is generally a convenience factor, to make things safer?

Recall?

Not the film ...

If cars or tumble driers or fridges had fires as often as lithium batteries there'd be a massive recall ... How come there have been so many issues, recalls of a few whole products but so few attempts to solve the *actual* problem, the Li-ion cell itself being unstable unless it's environment is very tightly controlled? Even under relatively unstable external environments of temperature, pressure or impact a "normal" device would cope but common Li-ion cells are just too unstable for the tasks they are expected to perform - delivering current in warm, humid devices whilst being sat on by a 20st bloke from Basingstoke ...

We had a laptop go up in a classroom full of kids, it's damn scary ...

BT agrees to legal separation of Openreach

Spin it off ...

Spin it off completely, let the Germans buy it, asset strip then sell it to a Chinese 'investment company' then you'll see what crap really is ...

I'm with the proper Communists ... nationalise the infrastructure.

ZTE-gads! Chinese giant fined $900m by Uncle Sam for Iran trade deals

"ZTE acknowledges the mistakes it made..."

Deliberate cover-ups, passing equipment via multiple subsidiaries and actively passing materials to more than one banned state ... sound like the only "mistake" ZTE acknowledges is getting caught ...

Scammers hired hundreds of 'staff' to defraud TalkTalk customers

Easy way to stop this ...

If you get a call from a Talk Talk 'representative' redirect it to the bar steward of a 'representative' from Microsoft and let them have a nice conversation with each other ... At some point I'll probably hire out my mother as a call-divert number as she can talk at anyone for an hour too ...

Mars orbiter FLOORS IT to avoid hitting MOON

8?

There are 21000 significant objects in Earth orbit - I'll ignore the untrackables - with no roundabouts or traffic lights, and we don't have major problems with satellite collisions. How come under 20 "vehicles" around Mars appears so much more difficult to manage?

There's going to be some obscure orbital mechanics answer isn't there ...?

User rats out IT team for playing games at work, gets them all fired

That was unexpected ...

Sorry for not being a 'young hip dude' but I mis-read the tag line as "Frak fest" and have just suffered a severe nostalgia trip! :-)

Two million recordings of families imperiled by cloud-connected toys' crappy MongoDB

What if I was a naughty person?

This would this make a great comms medium for 'gangster' types.

"Yes, I do love teddy bears officer, Bye ..."

"Now Fingers Bear, go check out the doll's house ... and Cuddles can you help please?"

Time passes ... Boss prods bear's paw ...

"I'm stuffed Boss ..."

Cue Starsky and Hutch type music and tyre squealing ...

"No Officer, I don't know where that message came from or what it means. The bears must be on an insecure communications channel discussing toy houses and cuddly toy interiors ..."

Oh UK. You won't switch mobile providers. And now look at you! £5.8bn you've lost

Re: Reasons to stick

What's a PAC? I've stuck with Tesco through thick and thin ... my Nokia phone and its PAYG top up of about £20 per *year* suits me fine ... I just love the reaction of the 'switching' cold call droids that can save me at least £10 a month ... :-)

Gulp! Drones dodge spray from California's gaping moist glory hole

conversion let down?

I don't understand 48000 cubic feet blah de blah ... what's that in blue whales or (as noted on the BBC website the other day) bull Giraffes?

Dead cockroaches make excellent magnets – now what are we supposed to do with this info?

An experiment ...

Something serious comes of a silly story for a change -

take two grapes and a cocktail stick (toothpick for the English impaired) and make a dumbbell. Suspend the dumbbell from its center with a fine thread so it's balanced and there are no twists in the thread. Now put a neodymium magnet near one 'weight' and see what happens. Then try marshmallows, satsumas, dried fruit, blu-tak, play-dough and anything else that's not "magnetic" you can find ... Hours of fun for the kids or anyone geeky in the physics department ...

Safety Warning:- you need a mighty big and potentially dangerous magnet to do this with watermelons but it's fun!

NORKS fires missile that India reckons it could shoot down in flight

Re: Testing?

"Pretty soon we've run out of intercept missiles and the enemy has only had to launch once."

But in this case, the Norks probably only have one!