Posts by kiwimuso

Death to one-time text codes: Passkeys are the new hotness in MFA

Re: One dot login

"email address as the unique key - FFS"

Arrgh! The bane of my fucking life. Companies and government departments that insist that I create accounts using an email address.

I had an email address with an ISP that got closed down so I had to have new one at my new ISP - until I forgot the password for some random account that I had created at some distant past date.

OK, fine, they'll send a temporary password to the email associated with my account. Great, 'cause I no longer have any access to it

Then we have the case of an email address shared with my wife, so to sign in to my health records they will only allow one email per person.

Security! I told them if I want to share stuff with my wife that's MY business, not yours. If I didn't want to share then I would already have a separate email address.

Do the f*wits who dream up these schemes have absolutely no idea how other people organise their lives..

Shove your office mandates, people still prefer working from home

Re: The pay is why.

@Dave_A

"The US pays more than pretty much everywhere else, at least for white collar work."

Until your job gets outsourced to some low paying country!!

Is it really the plan to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal? It's been a weird week

Re: The unipolar world is officially dead

@AC

WTF has Joe Biden got to do with Trump's mental state?

And you have met Trump, to be able to gainsay with such confidence, an expert??

Honda upgrades robot brain into OS for future electric cars

Re: Hum

“deliver a personalized ownership experience that will enhance the joy of driving.”

Well I doubt it would enhance anything for me.

The "pleasure" I get from driving is just that - actually driving a vehicle. I have been driving for over 65 years with few accidents.

That's because the experience I have gained over the years enables me to actually see large objects in front of me, increasing in size which may be getting closer, therefore slowing or even stopped.

I also manage to keep within the bounds of a lane, not to mention use my indicators in plenty of time so that others are aware of my intentions, and also use my mirrors, and even turn my head to double check that there is no one in my blind spot.

You know, just like we were taught in the 60s

The number of people that, assuming they signal at all, quite often do so immediately after braking for no apparent reason, and after they have begun their maneuver. What is the point of informing me, following behind that you are ACTUALLY turning rather than about to. Oh good, I see you are turning off the motorway, and NOW you signal.

My current vehicle has as much electronics as I will tolerate, and fortunately, will probably last me the rest of my (driving) life, and that is engine management only. Even the auto engine stop turn off, as it is of no use to me. When come to a halt, I use my hand/parking brake so my feet are nowhere near the pedals, so avoiding any accidental slipping. Again, as I was taught.

The engine doesn't turn off when using the handbrake, only if one keeps their foot on the foot brake, therefore pointless for me. I still had to pay megabucks for a replacement battery which powers the system of course.

Microsoft decides it's a good time for bad UI to die

Optional Title

@GeekyOldFart

"....and making built-in assumptions about what the end-user wants....."

No, no, no, NO! You are completely wrong!

"....and making built-in assumptions about what the end-user 'should be using'....."

As decreed by MS of course.

/s

Signed

Another Geeky Old Fart

Waymo robotaxi drives down wrong side of street after being alarmed by unicyclists

Re: Licensing may be desireable

@CowHorseFrog

"....please tell me which is more deadly CARS or SCOOTERS ?....."

On my reading, I don't believe Alan mentioned cars, only motorbikes versus scooter injuries.

Not sure why your invention of cars in the comment makes the claim bogus.

Judge slaps down law firm using ChatGPT to justify six-figure trial fee

@Code For Broke

Perhaps you should read this, and then rethink your version of "consulting" ChatGPT

https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/02/chatgpt_considered_harmful/

Researchers confirm what we already knew: Google results really are getting worse

Re: Wot, no comparison between search engines?

@RedGreen925

"half ass reporting by morons who know nothing about what they do for a living"

Jeez! Where did that come from!

FCC plans to restore net neutrality rules tossed out under Trump

Re: Counterproductive

@Eric Kimminau TREG

"You have 5G on that phone in your hand? Thank Trump for getting rid of Net Neutrality in the US. Has your broadband speed increased in the last 7 years?"

@casaloco

"The problem is "net neutrality" discourages investment in new capacity, as there is no way to monetise it."

What utter fucking bollocking bullshit!!

Here in NZ we have had net neutrality ever since "the government" forced net neutrality by causinging the break-up of Telecom NZ into two, since they were playing the same sort of games. Charging more for other ISPs to use their networks.

Now we have Chorus, who have been charged by "the government" to provide nationwide coverage of fibre to all homes and businesses without fear or favour. It's ONLY task is to supply the network to ALL ISPs equally. We now have a near nationwide network of fibre to the home, obviously the main centres got it first, but gradually building out into country areas.

Telecom itself, now renamed for some unknown marketing reason, to Spark, is an ISP only.

Funnily enough,the country is in the midst of rolling out 5G plus other innovations.

So much for government regulation holding back innovation garbage. We have competition, you know the be all and end all of so-called American free marketeering, of the ISPs, NOT the network supplier. No throttling, no special pricing for their buddies, or whoever paid them the most.

The USA might be capable of joining the real world of fast fibre and decently priced ISPs, if they allowed net neutrality, and instead of allowing private enterprise to control the whole shit show. Like the roading system, one agency provides the roads/network and allow the content suppliers to have at it.

From an outsider looking in, and one who has worked and lived in the U.S, Trump brought out the very worst in U.S. politics, and [deity] knows most countries' politicians have a lot to answer for sometimes.

Tesla faked self-driving demo, Autopilot engineer testifies

Re: Autopilot?

"Now that the radars & lidars have been removed from the latest models delivered, Autopilot doesn't beep anymore..."

It goes 'BANG!" instead.

Icon for what may happen when it does.

US accident investigators want alcohol breathalyzers in all new vehicles

Re: Sounds like it could be

"adding that one in three traffic fatalities on US roads involve alcohol and that impaired driving crashes have increased in the past few years."

So one third of fatal road accidents have alcohol involved.

Similar figures, I believe, are quoted in most countries, but I think I would be more worried about the two thirds which did NOT involve alcohol.

What caused them? Bad driving? Seems to me that they could fix 2/3 of road fatalities if they addressed that first.

Pull jet fuel from thin air? We can do that, say scientists

Re: The plan for the combustion fleet isn't to ban them from the roads

@John Robson

FFS you really live in your own little dream world don't you.

Because you can see a solution that works for you, you make the HUUUGE assumption that it must work for everyone.

Here's news. It just doesn't OK, and the more you bang on about it, the more down votes you will continue getting.

I really would like to see your solution for an army in the wilds of Afghanistan or wherever dealing with electric vehicles, not to mention farmers in remote(ish) areas. There may be a solution for them in the future, but it certainly isn't here yet.

Ambulances are fine for getting to hospital, but not so good when they release you at 4 a.m. (which happened to me) with public transport non-existent at those hours of the night. I was fortunate that I lived in an area where taxis were available.

Ok, you've made a/your point, now just leave it alone will you. Not all places in the world fulfill your ideal conditions.

P.S. and yes, I know this is late to the party, but just reading the comments and you repeating the same old, same old gets tedious.

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

Re: Too early.

@tip pc

"Lane keeping and auto braking are brilliant safety aids and have already saved lives, "

Seriously!

Dear [deity] you think that someone should be driving when they seem to be incapable of keeping themselves in a lane, and not see the large object ahead of them that is getting slower by the second?

My personal opinion is that the more so-called "safety" features on a car leads to even lower driving standards.

South Yorkshire to test fiber broadband through water pipes

Re: Great idea...

@DS999

This is a bit late, but I would just add that all of New Zealand's fibre (to my knowledge) is laid this way.

It's called "horizontal drilling" and at our previous property we had gas laid on with the same method.

They drilled down between 2 driveways for about 20 metres, then "steered" the drill to emerge at right angles, down a slope, a further 10 metres on.

When fibre was run in our current street, they had pre-drilled a pipe through the verges, then when they came to actually lay the cable, they simply ran it down the existing pipe, digging a hole at each property, cracking open the pipe to make the local connection to the premises.

They had the whole street of 18 or so houses done and connected in days.

'Please download in Microsoft Excel': Meet the tech set to monitor IT performance across central UK government

@AndrueC

"....in line with agile delivery best practice,"

Yes, but is "agile delivery" the best practice?

Tonga takes to radio, satellite, motorboat comms to restore communications after massive volcano blast and tsunami

@Timbo

"Surely Mr Musk can step in here...?"

Already been asked by a NZ government minister.

I believe he responded positively, but may take some time getting a satellite in position.

Car makers lock in long-term deals with chip giants for future autonomous vehicles

Don't care!!!

Don't want any (more) of your electronic shit in my cars.

I want a car of which I, and I alone control.

I was taught to drive properly, and over the myriad years have picked up even more clues, such as concentrating on my driving, rather than all the flim-flam crap they keep putting in to distract us.

My current car has the maximum electronics with which I will tolerate and even that is too much at times.

Really, why would I trust a car that when one depresses the accelerator, hesitates before giving me the power I asked for. Great when merging or pulling out into traffic with few gaps.

Fortunately, I am of sufficiently advanced age to understand that my current vehicle is probably going to be my last.

I would go for an EV (purely for the economics) if all the electronics did was control the drive train and battery usage. No "touch screen" controls for me, or so-called advanced features such as "lane assist" or "automatic braking". If I am paying attention WTF would I need that.

The year ahead in technology fail: You knew they were bad, now they're going to prove it

Re: Splitting up...

@Stork

"I think our new washing machine is smart.'

Ditto, We knew it was supposedly "smart" but that certainly wasn't the reason we bought it.

In fact we bought it despite it being smart.

I attempted to connect with my phone just to see what it could do, but for some reason I was unable to get it to connect, so I haven't bothered since.

Funnily enough, it does exactly what we want without all that.

Sheesh!

Re: Splitting up...

@Electronics'R'Us

Many years ago I bought a supposed "smart" TV from Panasonic.

Great TV, the smarts not so much. I have NEVER had any updates from Panasonic, nor have I been able to download any further, updated, apps.

Sadly, the only app I am likely to use is YT, but I can achieve that from my device streaming through Chromecast.

I look at all the newer TVs, which look great and supposedly offer so many more smarts, but sadly, they have all done away with any analogue interfaces.

As I have an older devices which will only talk via analogue, (we still watch DVDs occasionally) I have to ask myself, what was the point of buying it. It certainly was not capable of doing what they claimed to do.

Who you gonna call? Premium numbers, but a not-so-premium service

Re: Phone number formats

@swm

When I grew up in a small town in New Zealand, the local exchange was all operator driven. Think 60's.

However we were on a party line shared with 2 or 3 neighbours.

This was in the days of a hand-cranked "dial", pre-actual dials. If you wanted to call the neighbour we had to use the handle to do Morse code with. So if the suffix was an S we had to attempt 3 short rings.

Finally my father managed to wangle a single number for ourselves to cater for home and business, which also was a 2 premises party line. It was easy to remember too as it was a 1/4 mile in yards (pre-decimal) so, 440.

I can't remember the suffixes but I think "home" was 440-S and his office was 440-S thus we could answer either phone from home or office.

Oh, and when I worked in Texas for a couple of years, I got used to the U.S. method of numbering, so all my phone numbers are stored in my phone with the international prefix (+) and country code.

And it still pisses me off when websites will not accept formatted phone numbers and insist on no spaces or special characters. I ask them why their web developers were not capable of parsing a simple phone number which I used to do in IBM Assembler fer chrissakes!!

Wifinity hands customers bills for Wi-Fi services they didn't want but used by accident after software 'glitch' let 'fixed term' subs continue

Re: Telecomms Costs

@Joseba4242

"Then there is customer service and repair which takes up a significant proportion of the fees."

Including of course those poor sods working for the ISP wanting an increase in pay this year as they haven't had one for, oooh, at least 12 months.

Usually a lot longer.

And that's without all the investors, bosses, MP's etc expecting their cut, and expecting it to increase each year as well.

And speaking of "fine print" I got caught when I was living in the U.K. with something that looked like a "news" article, which sounded intriguing, so clicked on the link (never again!) and found I had just signed up for a monthly subscription for something or other from a U.S. company who seem particularly prone to this sort of underhanded thing.

I thought it was a "one off" so when I realised that it was a subscription, I immediately (it took me all of about 5 minutes) rang and cancelled my credit card and asked for a replacement. Told them why as well.

I now take the precaution of not clicking on links that I know nothing about, especially labelled "Ad" and if I am in the slightest bit interested, I find their actual website and go in through that. I find there is less chance of signing up to something by accident.

Google advises Android users to be careful of Microsoft Teams if they want to call 911

Re: Does this issue impact all emergency phone numbers?

111 fun fact.

Now here's a thing. In New Zealand the emergency number is, in fact, 111.

I was told that this came about because when NZ went to switch to "dial" phones as opposed to operator gets your number, they decided that as it was a big investment, they would follow the international standard, hence all the dial phones were reversed with 0 being the first position, as normal but then going 1-9 around the dial.

So I was informed, all the other countries decided to ignore the supposed "international" standard and thus you guys are wrong. LOL.

This of course, meant that when tapping out the number to avoid payment in a phone box, one had to tap out the number subtracted from 10, so for, say, 483, you would tap 6, 2, and 7 times to get the correct number of pulses. Worked wonders for your arithmetic skills.

When 111 was brought in here, people, having watched British TV programs where 999 was used as an emergency number, they asked of NZ Post Office which ran the telephone system at the time, why 111, as 999 was obviously easier.

Refer above to the explanation why 999 was chosen as opposed to 000 or 111. Also not helped by the fact that in their wisdom, NZ Post decided that area codes would only be a single digit, and chose 9 as the access to the Auckland region numbers. A preceding 0 was used to access "long distance" numbers of other areas. e.g. 07, 04 etc.

I haven't tried it, but I believe that to cater for tourists panicking in an emergency and automatically "dialling" their own country's number, our the system will now also recognise 999, 911 and presumably any other emergency number used around the world.

If anyone thinks they know differently, please comment (politely) as I was told this by someone working in the communications area of a large NZ company in the 1970s.

Australia will force social networks to identify trolls, so they can be sued for defamation

Re: Down with anonymous cowards!

"....live-streaming of a mass murder committed by a racist attacker in New Zealand."

And rather ironically, that racist attacker was an Australian national.

I'm not casting any nasturtiums at other lovely Aussie people, some of whom I am even friends with.

I wasn't sure what icon to use. I was going to use the Joke Alert but it certainly was not a joke.

Just to complete the picture, Oz is now deporting so-called criminals back to NZ even if they have spent their whole life in Oz. I say so-called because some of them had not even been convicted of anything, but were deemed to be "keeping undesirable company". Mostly "bikies" and/or gang members.

A number of them have absolutely no ties with NZ other than being born here, (anything up to 50 or 60 years ago) so torn apart from their whole family.

Whilst I don't condone what they may or may not have done, deportation sounds like "cruel and unusual" punishment to me.

So the upshot is, that we have the cost of keeping the "racist attacker" in jail for the duration, while they manage to palm off their own crims on us.

I think they though that the deportation from England which started off the Oz colonies was a blueprint.

BOFH: You say goodbye and I say halon

Re: Royal Institution lecture

@R Boyce

"There's a very interesting clip from an RI lecture on the use of 15% oxygen. Largely fire-proof but safe to breath."

Ah, that explains what happened to me when I was working in Mexico City and for a weekend side trip I did a Gray Line trip to climb Popacatapetl. (Yes, what could possibly go wrong!)

We drove up the mountain on Friday night, where we were to spend the night at a lodge at 12,000 feet.

As we were due to wake up for the climb at some ungodly hour of the morning like 4.30, I went outside for a last cigarette (as I was still smoking then) but was denied the pleasure as my cigarette lighter would not ignite.

I think I was aware at the time that it was probably reduced oxygen at that height, but this explains it much better.

It also explained the effect we felt when testing our then new CO2 fire suppressant system in our new computer room, where the gas was discharged and the testing engineer allowed us into the room after it had mostly cleared. I remember it was a weird feeling as it it felt like I had run a marathon, as in shortness of breath without doing any actual exercise. Exactly the same feeling I got at 15,000 feet on Popacatapetl, although at that point I had been exercising rather a lot, but the shortness of breath feeling was exactly the same.

Icon, 'cause that's NOT what happened.

Yes, another channel to watch.

The lights go off, broadband drops out, the TV freezes … and nobody knows why (spooky music)

Re: Bundled TV over internet "service".

@Alistair Dabbs

".....all sorts of mental equipment."

Mental equipment? Like a brain, perhaps????

This always-on culture we're in is awful. How do we stop it? Oh, sorry, hold on – just had another notification

Re: Not office hours? No contact

@MachDiamond

.....90 day sales figures at 4:50pm the evening before a 9am presentation they are planning to make....

As I used to quote, "lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

Or words to that effect.

US Air Force announces plan to assassinate molluscs with hypersonic missile

@WolfFan

It is - if it's your harbour/waters!!!!

Lessons have not been learned: Microsoft's Modern Comments leave users reaching for the rollback button

Re: "Modern Commenting"

""not because they were necessary or fulfilled specific needs but just for the sake of change."

Well how else are these companies supposed to sell more products if they didn't keep up the changes!

"Change for change's sake" should read, "change for profit's sake".

Preliminary report on Texas Tesla crash finds Autosteer was 'not available' along road where both passengers died

Re: I'm looking forward to seeing them sold in India

Further to the above post, when I briefly worked for 6 months in Mexico City, driving there was a whole new ball game.

The city is made up (mostly) of alternative streets operating in a one system in opposite directions. These roads seemed to be up to about 6 lanes wide which posed rather a problem if you were in one of the centre lanes and realised you had to make a turn.

If the cross street was going right to left and you wished to turn left from somewhere in the right hand lanes, one attempted to get to the right and positioned one's car in front of the others already waiting at the lights, thus being first away when the lights changed in your favour.

It was even more exciting when trying to turn right and didn't happen to be in the right most lane, in which case, again, one followed local custom, and simply signalled to the right, and started to make your turn from whichever lane you happened to be in. Fortunately, the locals seemed to realise that it was going to happen from time to time, and kindly let one turn without much ado.

I once had the situation, where 3 cars, all in adjacent lanes were turning into the side street all at the same time. Me? I was the sucker out in the 3rd lane.

All 3 cars successfully made the turn.

P.S. that was in 1992, so my memory may be a bit astray about the number of lanes on those roads, but it was lots. It may of course, have changed completely by now, but I fear it is probably worse these days.

Re: I'm looking forward to seeing them sold in India

@Mishak

"....you push the nose out until there is only enough road left for n-1 streams."

Exactly how I learned to negotiate the roundabout at Hyde Park Corner in London in the early '70s when I first got to London.

I was dutifully waiting, giving way to traffic already on the roundabout, as proscribed, then realised after a while that if I continued to do that, I would never get out, because the traffic was unending.

I also adopted the 'black cab' method as described above, which is just slowly edge out until some kind soul let's one in.

My first lesson in driving in London's heavy traffic.

End-to-end encryption? In Android's default messaging app? Don't worry, nobody else noticed either

Re: Just another Google project

Really? Who told you that?

Incidentally, I use SMS all the time for brief messages, as do 100% of my friends.

I tried to remove myself from a family group on Messenger, which could be used as an alternative except for the reason I removed myself. My phone was constantly pinging because someone had put something on Messenger which was nothing to do with me, and then lots of people started adding their 2 cents worth. Bloody drove me mad.

I was then reinstated by one of the family because I was "one of the family" so I turned off notifications, so now I have peace and quiet. The downside is I miss out on some of the news, but as we use SMS or an actual phone call to communicate one-on-one, it's not a great loss.

Samsung to introduce automatic call blocking on Android 11-capable flagships

@ac

"...only accept calls from people who are in my address book? If it's anybody else I don't want to speak to them"

So you don't want to talk to someone who is trying to reach you to inform you that your wife/child/other has been involved in a nasty accident, or has been arrested etc,etc.

Nice to (not) know you sir or madam.

BTW, I (nearly) always answer the phone, but if there is dead silence on the other end I hang up as it is almost certainly a computer generated call prior to handing over to a real person.

If it was a real person who is a bit slow in responding, then they will/can phone back. Or not. Up to them. I'm not bothered either way.

Simple, and doesn't get me wound up, nor do I have to chase numbers to block. Cost me, oooh, all of 10 seconds.

TomTom bill bomb: Why am I being charged for infotainment? I sold my car last year, rages Reg reader

Re: As I read that

Dear werdsmith.

You really do have a comprehension problem with the English language, don't you.

BoJo buckles: UK govt to cut Huawei 5G kit use 'to zero by 2023' after pressure from Tory MPs, Uncle Sam

@JetSetJim

"Build from scratch high availability platforms to host a myriad of s/w that will scale up to millions of subscribers without falling over? Good luck with that..."

It's quite simple. You buy Huawei products, as they are acknowledged to be the leaders, analyse the shit out of them (i.e. pinch the IP) improve of the sloppy coding, and voila! Success!!

If you can't learn off successful companies, what else are you gonna do?

Academics: We hate to ask, but could governments kindly refrain from building giant data-slurping, contact-tracing coronavirus monsters?

Re: In the Antipodean version... @Magani

" this is just as believable as the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa et al."

Oi! You leave our Jacinda out of this.

A paper clip, a spool of phone wire and a recalcitrant RS-232 line: Going MacGyver in the wonderful world of hotel IT

Re: Proper lash up

The church at Hever Castle where Queen Elizabeth I's father Thomas Boleyn is buried is called the new church.

It was built in 950!!!

US prez Donald Trump declares America closed to those flying in from Schengen zone over coronavirus woes

Re: Green card holders and the immediate family of US citizens get a pass.

Arrange the following words into a suitable sentence.

door. horse. stable. bolted. locking

Un-fucking-believable!! That is all.

US Homeland Security mistakenly seizes British ad agency's website in prostitution probe gone wrong

@One does not drive on the wrong side of the road when visiting a foreign country by accident...

Oh yes, one does.

When I was working in the U.S. I had occasion to find myself driving on the wrong side of the road for several hundred yards until I realised.

I won't bore you with the details of how it happened, but it involved dual carriageways and single lane roads. Fortunately, the single lane road (2-way normal road) was a very quiet street, so no harm done but it focused my attention I can tell you.

T'was the only time so it worked.

I also know of several other expats working there at the time, who had similar experiences. Usually only happened once, though, fortunately.

Welcome to cultured meat – not pigs reading Proust but a viable alternative to slaughter

Re: ""What was a wistful daydream just five years ago is now an inevitability,""

@ICL1900-G3

"And sod the poor animals, eh?"

Poor animals, eh!

So, what are you intending to grow for the predators of this world, such as the cats, crocs, sharks etc.

Hell even birds and insects prey on other species. Not to mention whales!! Damned inconsiderate of them eating all that krill!! There oughta be a law against it.

Grow up!

It always amazes me that for some reason, humans eating other animals or beings is apparently immoral, but it's perfectly OK for the rest of the world's creatures to indulge themselves on their feathered and furry, not to mention exoskeletoned (and others) friends.

Traffic lights worldwide set to change after Swedish engineer saw red over getting a ticket

@Kiwi

Hey mate, you obviously haven't driven in Auckland recently. More red light runners here than anywhere I've been - apart from Amsterdam.

And more and more red light cameras because of it. Doesn't seem to stop the stupid arses though.

Amsterdam as far as I could tell, you don't stop crossing the intersection until the cars coming from the other direction actually start entering the intersection. Even worse when bikes are involved. They go anywhere, anytime, presumably until somebody hits them.

Oh, and I would love it id they brought in flashing aamber (or red) lights when there is little traffic around. When arriving on Vipond Rd at the junction with and Whangaparaoa Rd, in Whangaparaoa

at 11 p.m., it is possible to sit there on a red light for several minutes with nary another vehicle in sight. Then of course, naturally, Whangaparaoa Rd goes amber/yellow precisely when the only car for several miles/kilometers approaches it. Thus pissing off unnecessarily both sets of drivers. This has happened even after several cars have stacked up at the lights in Vipond, all of whom, I would assume have triggered the in road loop sensor.

Bugger, maybe that's whats wrong. Someone forgot to install the loop, or forgot to wire it up.

Consumer campaign to keep receiving printed till receipts looks like a good move – on paper

Security

Does no one ever use them to reconcile with bank/credit card statements?

That's the only reason we keep them, then unless needed for warranty purposes are shredded once a month.

And if you DON'T reconcile your bank/credit card statements, you have a naive trust in other people.

It doesn't happen often but we have found mistakes in both types of statement, not to mention small amounts charged to the credit card without authorisation. Small amounts may not matter to me personally, but if it's done by a single perpetrator against >100s people, it's a nice little earner for them.

Au my bog: Bloke, 66, on bail after 'solid-gold' crapper called 'America' stolen from stately home

Re: There's cheap crap, and there is expensive crap.

I cannot believe that El Reg's headline does not say something like:

Valuable art work (loo)ted from Blenheim Palace.

Or alternatively: Gold-plated crapper (loo)ted from Churchill's blingheim palace.

Icon, cause this happens sometimes in these places.

COBOL: Five little letters that if put on a CV would ensure stable income for many a greybeard coder

Re: IF Year > 50

Ha! First language I learnt (1966) was RPG, a bloody awful language which I detested as I found it completely illogical. Then on to BAL (IBM assembler) with which I have written most of my code at various places. My first shop was a savings bank which ran an online banking system on an IBM 360/30 which had a grand total of 32Kb (yes, "K" of "core" storage memory. Oh, and 2311 disk drives which from memory had around 7 or 8 Mb. ( 7.25 Mb according to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM_magnetic_disk_drives#IBM_2311 )

I went to the UK at the end of the 60's and worked for a company making small model cars. (No, not Austin or Morris!) I was employed as a BAL "expert" but was sent on a COBOL course as I was supposed to write Assembler subroutines which could be called form COBOL programs to handle unit record functions. E.g. card reader, printer etc as the built in COBOL functions were apparently not up to par. Other than the course, I never wrote another COBOL program until many years later (1980's I think) back in Kiwiland I was doing a contract which involved taking Assembler programs written for an !CL something or other. I had to read through, understand what the program was trying to achieve then write specs so a COBOL programmer could re-write the programs, this time for an ICL 1900 series machine, which incidentally was a lovely machine to work on.

At the end of several weeks trying to sort through myriad spaghetti code, the high-ups decided that they couldn't spare anyone to do it, especially as they were all effectively junior programmers, so asked whether I could re-write them.

I said I would give it a go, and wrote the programs with my rather, by then, limited memory for COBOL by simply typing in the way I thought that the language should be, then ran it through the compiler. I seem to remember that it only took me a couple of compiles to get the syntax right (all the error codes were available online) and I think it took maybe a week of testing with corrections to actually replicate the assembler programs.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as it was a nice challenge and it amused me that the so-called high level language programmers were astounded that a mere assembler programmer could actually write structured code. I told them it matters not what language you used, structured code is still structured code. Most of the spaghetti code, i.e. unstructured code, usually came about because of management's insistence that any mods should be done as quickly as possible, rather than properly.

Bane of my life that was. I got to the stage, that when asked for a job estimate for how long a job would take, I never, ever gave them the quick, and nasty estimate. It usually didn't take much longer to do properly so that's what I quoted for. It was always accepted, as they didn't have much option.

Thank [deity] I've finished with all that corporate bullshit.

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

Re: Eh?

Insult?????

Not according to this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimp

Electric cars can't cut UK carbon emissions while only the wealthy can afford to own one

Re: Cool but mostly hype

(Like India's compressed air vehicle, the AirPod).

No, like France's compressed air vehicle, AirPod, which despite the country designator apparently being in Luxembourg, is actually located close to Nice, France

https://www.mdi.lu/home

Crunch time: It's all fun and video games until you're being pressured into working for free

Re: How do people with children do it?

.....and as I heard someone say many years ago, and I have since used myself a few times: "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part

It got a laugh, if nothing else, but made the point.

City-obliterating asteroid screamed past Earth the other night – and boffins only clocked it just 26 hours beforehand

Re: What about auto-updates?

"Kiwi - I'm starting to think you are actually me! :-)"

And me!!!

White House mulls just banning strong end-to-end crypto. Plus: More bad stuff in infosec land

Re: Governments don't like to think of themselves as repressive

@bazza

"The legislature sets the laws, reflecting the majority view of the people according to the mandate they stood for election on...."

Ah, there's your big mistake. They SAY they're representing their electorate, but, but, but, do they always!

It's the curious case of the vanishing iPhone sales as Huawei grabs second place off Apple in smartmobe stakes

Re: Marketing

@Rainer

"Would you buy a phone that can't do any of the Chat and Social Media Apps, no Netflix or just about any app that needs some sort of API key to work?"

Bloody oath, mate!!!

Tesla driver killed after smashing into truck had just enabled Autopilot – US crash watchdog

Re: What's the point?

@Kiwi

apropos your comment re reaction time, surely, if you are relying on someone's brake lights to tell whether they are slowing or not, then in my opinion, you are driving far too close.

What happened to the "being able to stop in 1/2 the clear distance".

I hope that you are not following me if you are relying on my brake lights.

My first reaction to something (well) ahead of the car in front is simply take my foot off the accelerator. My second reaction is change down sufficient gears that if I have to accelerate suddenly to avoid anything, then I am always (well, mostly) in the right gear to do so. Brakes are the last thing I resort to unless of course it is an emergency due to some f***wit changing lanes suddenly without either a) signalling, or b) doing so so late that it becomes an emergency. Or even not bothering to signal at all.

You know, the sort of idiots you get driving on our roads daily, and all done at around 100 kph!

I get the feeling that the more so-called safety gizmos that they put in cars the worse the driving becomes. How about those people that rely entirely on those they are cutting in front of, to be alert and have good brakes, you know, like large articulated lorries. Darwin will out, no matter how many safety assist, or laws are in place.

As I have often said for many years now, "You can not legislate for idiots or the ignorant."