Posts by Boothy 867 posts • joined 17 Jun 2011
WSL2 is the one thing I'd really like 2004 for, but my main PC current states that I can't update from 1909 to 2004 [*] atm, and other test updates on other boxes, haven't exactly got smoothly! So I'm going to wait a while.
* It just says the update is not ready for my device yet, they'll let me know once it is!
Fresh install also worked for me, although I've only done this successfully on a single test box so far (real hardware).
The one test VM I updated to 2004, (from 1909), has been glitchy, odd stability issues, video flickers, NAS drive dropouts etc. Could be partly an incompatibility with Virtual Box, lots of people complaining about the video issue. A fresh install of 2004 in a VM still had video issues (very very slow), but other things like NAS drives seem to work okay, so far anyway.
Won't be letting 2004 anywhere near any of my 'real' PCs any time soon.
Quote: "...image with all updates included like Linux community."
Huh? Is this a specific distro?
I've installed a few Linux installs over the last few months, desktop and server, VMs and real hardware, different distros, and always from a freshly downloaded ISO. The ISO only usually changes if the release number changes, and they always need an update/upgrade once installed [*]. i.e. the ISO for Ubuntu 20.04 is still the same now, as it was months back, so needs even more downloads to bring up to date.
* Not a complaint, just an observation, I expect to have to update any fresh install, and at least with Linux, it's usually quick and painless (especially server editions).
Glances at the shelves above my desk.
ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, long since retired, still in it's original box.
A collection of phones, an S3, HTC Hero, T-Mobile MDA (aka HTC Hermes keyboard slider phone), and a box for my OnePlus 3 (still my current phone). Nearby a Nexus 7 tablet original box, tablet not inside as it's still in occasional use (custom ROM) from its Dock (which I also still have the original box for).
A few PCs from the 2000s, although don't think I've got one earlier that my 2002 Athlon.
I have an early gen Intel NUC, which has Ubuntu server running on it, for those times when I really need low level hardware access rather than a VM. I've also got a couple of working Amiga's as well, a A1200 (in it's original box, had since new) and an A4000, although these haven't been used for a while. I haven't even mentioned anything that's in the loft yet!
Me a hoarder, nah ;-)
My general view point is if it still works, I might find a use for it at some point. It only tends to go to recycling if its just no longer of use, simply doesn't work at all, and can't even be used as an ornament or for demo purposes.
As an example, behind me on a table, my previous PC (an Intel i7 system built in 2012, which was only replaced last summer by a Ryzen 3800X) is currently being used as a test bench, and is at this moment running a full system restore test (from a drive image backup from my current main desktop PC). You can't call it a backup, if you haven't tested the restore process!
(Going to be interesting to see how Windows 10 copes with booting up on a completely different motherboard, CPU, GFX card etc!).
Quote: “We believe the entirety of the enforcement of this law ought to be delayed given the Covid-19 crisis...
I don't buy that, the changes should have been made to web sites in time for when the new law came into force (1st Jan), or even before then, not when it was due to start being enforced.
The law was passed back in June 2018, so people knew what was needed, and when it was needed, two years ago. Since then, they've had a full year and a half to plan, design and implement the changes in time for the 1st of January 'go-live' date, and were then given an extra 6 months grace period on top of that before enforcement started, so two full years of available time, where only the last 6 months would have had any Covid-19 impact, and they still blew it!
Just realised my own statement "The two companies have nothing whatsoever to do with each other." isn't strictly accurate, as they do obviously have a business relationship, i.e. you can use RM services in a PO etc. I just meant the two companies themselves are independent entities.
Just to be clear: Post Office =/= Royal Mail
The two companies have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. (although before the 90s they were both part of the GPO).
Currently we have:
Post Office Ltd: A UK state owned private company, founded in 1986.
Royal Mail: This is a brand/trading name under Royal Mail Group plc, which is itself a public limited company as of ~2014.
(ps: RMG also own the Parcelforce Worldwide brand).
Regarding Post Codes... You're correct, here's a few more details..
UK Post Codes are managed by Royal Mails PAF service (Postcode Address File).
PAF is the single mast.. erm, single official source of all UK Post Codes.
Anyone else selling or using Post Code related services (such as entering a postcode on a web site, that then allows you to pick your specific address), either gets the list directly from PAF themselves, or via a 3rd party supplier that in turn gets it from PAF. Any organisation who doesn't get it ultimately from PAF (such as crowd sourced datasets), is unlikely to be 100% accurate, or they'll at least be a bit behind on their info compared to PAF itself.
One of the main issues with subscribers to PAF services (or also 3rd party providers), is this is usually a subscription based service, and unless things have changed recently, how much you pay RM, changes how often you can update your local PAF db. Some organisations might only update once a year, so it can take new addresses quite a while to show up in an application/service. Some places might decide to cut costs, and cancel their sub, so end up getting out-of-date quite quickly.
Disclaimer: I used to work for RMG in the late 90s and early 2000s, and had quite a few dealings with PAF related services both internally, and with 3rd parties.
Quite: "I-Phones are encrypted by default, with Android you normally have to enable it manually."
Not true, at least not since late 2015 (for new devices).
Android has had full disk encryption on by default since Android 6 (late 2015). Google tried doing this (on by default) with Android 5 in 2014, but there were performance issues (mainly missing drivers for doing AES encryption/decryption in hardware, which meant many devices had to do this in software, which was very slow!).
By Android 6 Google tried this again, but this time made full device encryption a mandatory requirement of getting certified (needed if you wanted to pre-install Google apps like Maps and the Play Store etc).
So any Android 6+ device (so late 2015 onwards), that has Google Apps pre-installed has to be using full disk encryption by default. (The encryption is enforced on first boot, so even a factory reset won't remove it).
Looking at my Android 9 phone, there isn't even an option to turn encryption off.
We also get together on a Wednesday nights, but we are doing retro titles at the moment, so playing CTF in both Quake 2 and the original Unreal Tournament (not the remake on Epic store).
Reminds me of when I used to go to LAN parties back in ~1999 to 2005, just without having to lug about a PC!
i
Got used to vi on AIX boxes back in the late 90s.
I'm on Linux boxes regularly, so still use it to this day.
I don't even use vim!
Not really an expert with it, but i, /keyword, dd, L-Shift+a seem to get me through.
Other editors seemed to come and go, but as you say, vi is always there (Thankfully!).
:wq
Well, that is their Business model after all.
1. Run at a loss, in order to unfairly undercut local taxi services, gradually forcing them out of business.
2. Use investor money to keep the company going, and when the balance is looking low, ask for more.
3. Gain a near monopoly in a given area, due to the competition going bust, at which point increase prices, so you start making a profit in those locations.
6. Profit.
If any taxi firm manages to start gaining traction, just drop the price again in that area for a while, and the taxi firm goes under.
Ultimately this is bad for everyone (customers, drivers etc) except for the investors and shareholders, and even they are playing a long game here.
Fortunately a lot of local bodies, groups, politicians etc understand this, and so are tying to rain them in before it's too late.
Still got an old Onkyo TX-SR606 sat in the living room.
Was handy being able to basically throw any video signal into it, and get a single HDMI out of it for the TV, with the audio going to the 5.1 speakers, rather than to the TV.
Stripped it down to replace the caps on the HDMI board about 8 years ago (at ~4 years old I think), as it would no longer sync the HDMI video signals. Lasted a good few years longer after that.
I don't actually use the HDMI now, as the HDMI is so old on the Onkyo, my newer devices won't work through it anyway, but my TV has four HDMI inputs and a pass through optical, so I just use the TV as the switcher and the Onkyo basically acts as a plain 5.1 audio amp.
Also got the Sony WH-1000XM3 headset here.
Wore them flying from Australia to the UK in January, using the included flight adaptor, and they still had around 30% charge left on landing in the UK, despite using them almost constantly (I rarely sleep on flights). So basically a full day of use, and charge to spare.
They also work well with Windows, both for things like Zoom/Skype using the built in mic, but also for music playback (gaming I guess as well, but I use 5.1 speakers for that).
I noticed they show up as both a Headset, and Headphones in Windows Sound Settings (mmsys.cpl). Use Skype/Zoom etc and it uses the Headset mode (mono, with a mic), but use something like Media Player, and it uses the Headphone profile instead (stereo and higher bit rate, but no mic).
Current plan seems to be...
Perseverance takes samples, puts these in a sealed tube, and drops them on the ground, moving off to the next sample area (around 20 to 30 samples in total).
Another mission in a few years sends an orbiter, which includes an Earth return entry vehicle.
A 3rd mission has a collection rover and an ascent vehicle. The rover drives around and picks all the samples, loads them into the ascent vehicle, which then docks with the orbiter, which transfers the samples to the Earth return vehicle, and sends them on their way.
Everything past Perseverance still seems to be in concept and/or design, nothing actually being built yet. So may not happen at all, or may get changed around.
OnePlus are fairly good at updating phones.
I still use a OnePlus 3, which I bought in July 2016 (it was released in June 2016), which cost me £309 at the time, including delivery, and came with Android 6.
This was updated to Android 7 and 8, and the last update was expected to be 8.1, but even though a beta had been around for 8.1, they skipped it and went directly to Android 9 instead. (Apparently something along the lines of, "We were doing the work for rolling out Android 9 to the 3T anyway, and there wasn't much hardware difference between the 3 and 3T, so might as well roll out for the 3 while we are at it")
Last update was in November 2019, to security patch 2019.10, still on Android 9. So basically 3 major OS updates over its life, plus security patches for about 3.5 years. Not too bad really.
Main issue now is the price, with their cheapest phone being the 7T at £470 (current discounted price), but that's also last years September release. The 8 and 8 Pro came out in April this year (cheapest of those is £599).
But, all that being said, there are rumours about a OnePlus Z phone coming out soon™, aimed at the mid range. For comparison they did a mid range 'X' model back in 2015 for $249, so they have form here.
It was apparently due for launch in April, along with the 8 and 8 Pro, but it's been delayed till later in the summer, dates and details yet to be confirmed. But might be worth keeping an eye out for.
Stick a dot/period in the middle (other characters are available), and most web sites would consider this a strong password!
As a bit of fun, I did a quick duckduckgo search for password strength checkers, and went through the first few with that password, and then added a dot in the middle. The first two checkers I used all went from weak/instant discovery, to strong/discovery in years after adding a single dot/period!
Only the third one I tried (@ my1login) actually noticed the character sequences, stating medium strength (with the dot), but also said only 2 days to crack, rather than years (it was ~3 seconds to crack for the original no dot version on the same site).
But that same site also considered correcthorsebatterystaple Very strong, and 65 years to crack, but with the first two sites stating weak and instant, with one even quoting xkcd, so go figure :-)
The robots did have a projectile type weapon as well, as they end up sniping one of the French soldiers when the soldiers first encountered them (ep 2 or 3 I think), ending up in a full fire fight.
The bolt was only used against already incapacitated or trapped people. The robots (or more accurately their bosses), had an agenda, they were taking some people away alive, so they seemed to first try to incapacitate them, then scan them, then either took them away or they killed them. Makes sense to use the bolt in this case, rather than using up ammo. No ammo would leave them vulnerable (they could be destroyed by regular weapons), and would mean having to go back to resupply.
Also the Spot resemblance was due to Boston Dynamics being involved in the design of the robots, although the ones in the show were 3D printed full sized models for the close-ups, and CGI versions for the walking ones. No real robot dogs were harmed in the making of the show!
It also matches what the last client I worked for, used as their main git branch names...
dev, beta, release
Where...
release is the current release, and the only changes allowed here are to merge in the next beta once confirmed it's ready for release (or the occasional hot fix if really really needed).
beta the main next build, basically a pre-release of the next release.
dev the latest code.
New functionality, bugs etc would all have separate branches.
Also all three main branches must be buildable at all times (automated build and testing of course).
I've updated one VM at home as a test, it didn't go well (gfx corruption issues), and one of my colleagues updated a work laptop, also had issues.
My main PC (home built last summer, all current tech, no legacy device), is currently blocking the 2004 update, stating on Windows Update "... your device isn't quite ready yet.".
What they actually mean of course is that "Windows 2004 isn't quite ready yet".
I've no idea why it's blocked, there doesn't seem to be any details, but personally, I'm in no rush for the update.
For any old instructions that told you to do a cold boot, i.e. Shut down, then start up again, if on a default Win 10, you need to do a restart instead now.
As others have mentioned, Win 10 shutdown is actually a hybrid hibernation by default (it logs you out, then hibernates), which can lead to odd issues. (For example my network drives always show as disconnected, with a warning icon in the tray, despite actually working fine when opened).
Whereas a restart in Win 10, seems to close everything down before starting up again. So if using Fastboot, do a restart instead of a shutdown to clear up issues.
Personally I don't see the point in Fastboot mode on a modern machine. my personal machine has a fast SSD (M.2 NVMe), and for me there is no perceptible difference in boot time with our without Fastboot. Plus wiithout it, it also fixes the occasional odd app behaviour, and also resolved the network drives disconnected issue I had).
That being said, Fastboot might be useful for people on a slow HDD. My company provided laptop is an old 4 core, 4 thread thing, on a slow HDD, and boot times are noticeable faster with Fastboot on, but I do a restart about once a week, otherwise it starts to get testy (apps crashing etc).
For ref, the Fastboot setting is under:
Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\System Settings
Alternately, type Power into the search bar (i.e. Windows key, then type), then click 'Additional power settings' on the right, then click 'Choose what the power buttons do', which takes you to 'System Settings'. (Don't you just love Win 10s mixed approach to settings!).
Steam showed the way on PC years ago, and in a very short time basically destroyed the boxed PC game industry, with any publishes not going via Steam, having to provide their own downloads, or create their own platform.
Big publishers like Ubisoft and EA have been trying to do the same to the console market for years, the PC versions of Origin and Uplay basically being practice for them.
The only reason I have any disks for my PS4 (first PlayStation I've owned) was that they were usually cheaper to buy than the online store versions (especially the legacy games, like early Uncharted games etc).
Personally, I don't miss having to use a CD/DVD to install stuff on PC.
Mark Cerny (lead designer at Sony) has already stated that an external drive can be used for legacy PS4 games, and those PS4 games can be run from that drive, or moved to the internal SSD for a speed boost if wanted. Can't be used for PS5 games though, but...
PS5 also has an NVMe M.2 slot...
Quote from Mark Cerny : "We will be supporting certain M2 SSDs," Cerny confirmed. "These are internal drives that you can get on the open market and install in a bay on the PS5. They connect through the custom IO unit just like our SSD does, so they can take full advantage of the decompression, IO co-processors, and all the other features I was talking about. Here's the catch though: that commercial drive has to be at least as fast as ours. Games that rely on the speed of our SSD need to work flawlessly with any M2 drive."
Original article here: https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/ps5-ssd/
One tip for anyone that does need to install Windows 10 for some reason, always disconnect from the Internet before starting the setup process. i.e. No active WiFi or LAN cable plugged in to the device.
Because if Windows 10 can't get to the Internet it automatically defaults to creating a standard Local Account instead.
I've done this many times now, from early pre-release Win 10 builds, to the latest 2004 release, and this trick still works.
With 2004, and no Internet, the installer eventually gets to the 'Network' part, and you just click 'I don't have Internet' (small print bottom left) and then 'Continue with limited setup', you then get prompted to create a local account.
Note: You could at one point skip this MS Account process during Install, even with an Internet connection, but MS seemed to hide this away under convoluted menus, and then behind a 'Something went wrong' message (after forcing an account login error), and I believe they have now removed this option completely (since 1903 I think). So no Internet is as far as I know now, the only way to do this.
One other benefit of no network during install, is I stick a copy of O&O Shutup 10 on a USB stick before hand, and run that on the fresh install to switch all the Cortana, telemetry and other rubbish off. You can also remove some of the bloat before it gets a chance to update its self.
Once you do connect to the Internet, and run all the updates, make sure you run O&O Shutup 10 again, as some MS updates re-enable things again!
Edit: Just to mention, the above was always with Windows 10 USB or ISO images from MS themseves, not custom installs from 3rd parties, such as Laptop makers.
Had this issue with some mice, if plugged in on boot, it just jumps around all over the place when I move it. Unplug and boot without, then plug in, and it's perfectly fine.
This was mostly with Ubuntu, but I also saw the same issue with Mint (i.e. Ubuntu under the hood). Also this was for different releases over something like a 5 year period, and on different hardware over that time, with different mice. i.e. nothing hardware actually in common!
Last time I tried a native install of Ubuntu, about 2 years ago on a company laptop (older LST version as well), and it still had the same issue! So just got into the habit of not plugging the mouse till I'd got to the desktop.
Just seemed odd to me that they couldn't get something as common as a USB mouse to work reliably on boot!
Still love Linux though, and this was only minor issue with an easy workaround, in an otherwise stable environment.
I still use Linux regularly, but it's either through a VM, or WSL currently, although I do have a spare machine now, so I might set that up as a dual-boot with Mint...
Ah, yes, true enough, I was just thinking along the lines of direct cell damage, rather than imparting energy. Plus hopefully you'd notice if you were being cooked!
Also worth mentioning that some studies do show things like cell DNA damage from radio, but this was basically being strapped directly to a transmitter 24/7 at full power, and even then the conclusion was it still wouldn't be enough to cause any health issues in people. Plus using a headset, or using the phone hands-free negated this completely anyway.
Troll or for real?
1. The type of radiation being emitted
There is no 'real' type, it's all electromagnetic radiation (EMR). Unless you simply mean things like radio, infrared, visible light, which could be seen as sub-categories of EMR.
specifically its wavelength or frequency
All this changes is the sub-categories the EM radiation falls into, e.g. radio, visible light, x-rays etc. Or if looking specifically at radio, the bands it falls into, but in those cases, that's just an agreed convention (i.e. long wave etc).
The only other major differentiation related to frequency is if the EMR is Ionising or not, i.e. contains enough energy to actually harm biological cells in plants and animals. You need to be at ultraviolet or above for that to be the case, anything from visible light or below, which includes all radio frequencies, just doesn't contain enough energy to do any direct cell damage.
...This is variable with 5G as there is no single standard wavelength used.
Nope, fixed and well defined frequencies that are part of the standard. There are many frequencies in use, but they are all defined and agreed. This has to be the case, as the phones and masts have to be using the same frequencies otherwise they wouldn't work.
2. The amplitude of the radiation, akin to the volume or amount of radiation that reaches the subject of concern.
Which is absolutely tiny for 5G, or any modern phone related radio signals (and just radio in general). Major breakthroughs here over the years has been improving the sensitivity in the receivers, thus allowing signal strengths to be reduced. Plus dynamically changing the strength of the transmissions, to be just enough to work for that connection.
3. The length of time of exposure.
True, but irrelevant for 5G or any radio signals, as there isn't enough energy to cause cell damage in the first place.
4. The sensitifity [sic] of the subject tissue to a specific type of radiation.
All well researched, documented and understood. i.e. Radio/5G is not harmful.
It may turn out that 5G radiation is as innocuous as the radio waves we've had traveling around and through us for over a century
There is no such thing as 5G radiation!
5G is just a new standard covering how we modulate a signal on a radio carrying frequency, and defining what frequencies to use for that standard. The same thing we've been doing since we discovered radio in the first place, just more advanced.
Just to be clear, all radio frequencies already exist, we can't create new ones, all we can do is use the ones nature provided, and use them more efficiently.
Whether that frequency is carrying 5G, 4G or some other radio standard, is irrelevant, it's still the same radio frequency, irrespective of the modulation standard being followed. (For frequency modulation, this would actually be a small band, with an upper and lower frequency limit around a defined central frequency).
Much of the spectrum (i.e. frequency) being used by 5G has been in use for many years, some of it currently in use by 4G for example, some of it was used for old analogue TV transmissions, which were far stronger signals than 5G.
Also 5G has many updates to improve things like power usage, for example 5G can focus the signal on a specific device (think of it like shining a torch from a tower to one spot where the phone is), this can be done for hundreds (or thousands depending on tower size) of devices connected to each cell tower, this means less radio just being blasted out in any direction, reducing overall power needs etc.
If EM sensitivity was a real thing (which it isn't imho) then 5G, and the overall migration to modern more efficient digital transmissions, would most likely help those people, as 5G is much less wasteful than older techs that use some of the same frequencies, like 4G and and analogue TV transmissions, etc.
Is there a valid reason for a driver to ever look at VerifierCodeCheckFlagOn()?
If not, then I'd suggest MS update their certification requirements to include a statement along the lines of "Your drive must not access VerifierCodeCheckFlagOn() at any time", and then update the testing to include a scan of the code for any references to VerifierCodeCheckFlagOn() and automatically fail the driver if found.
I always suspected, after first seeing the updated TM in Win 10, and knowing that MS now owned Sysinternals (which I'd used for years) that they'd basically borrowed some of the functionality from Process Explorer to put into the new TM. Like the tree view on the Process tab.
I still install Sysinternals suite on every machine I use though, and often have Process Explorer run on startup, with tray icons for CPU and IO, as it's so much better than TM, imho anyway.
Also glad that so far at least, MS don't seem to have messed with Sysinternals.
This post has been deleted by a moderator
Replying to my own post here, but just in case anyone reads this now, things have changed (and despite the downvote, what I wrote was true and confirmed by AMD at time of the original posting).
The new news is that AMD have now backed down on the no Zen 3 support for X400 based boards, such as the B450 Max etc. (Although 300 boards are still unsupported).
But they have said this will only be available in a beta BIOS from the board manufacturer, at their (the board manufacturers) discretion. The user has to confirm they have a Zen 3 CPU before they can get or apply the beta BIOS (as this BIOS removes older CPU support for some boards, due to ROM size limitations, and so could effectively brick your board if applied without a Zen 3 chip to put in).
Why do I notice auto-correct typo's after the edit time window is up!
architecture coming at
=
architecture coming out
many thing next year, but something they might try for a Nov/Dec launch for Christmas sales
=
many think next year, but some think they might try for a Nov/Dec launch for Christmas sales.
The price was based on competing with Intel, who were at least 2 (and sometimes many) more times more expensive for a similar (and often lower spec) machine.
Intel did drop their prices in order to compete with AMD, but they are still far more expensive than an AMD equivalent. Plus of course Intel can't compete directly with the high end Zen 2 parts, as they have nothing to pair against the 64 core, 128 thread part.
AMD are competitive in the mid range GFX front, with their 5700XT being on average somewhere between a 2060 Super and a 2070 Super (which itself isn't far behind the 2080 non super). Although their drivers have been a bit meh for the last year or so (black screen issues etc), but they seem to be working to fix those problems.
Hopefully RDNA2 (current 5700s use RDND 1) which is due out towards the end of the year, will help AMD in the GFX front. So far RDNA2 in the new XBox and PS consoles seems to be comparable, at least on paper, to the RTX 2080. Silicon has already been demonstrated for the PS5 (look up 'unreal engine 5 tech demo'). The expectation that in a PC GFX card, this should be even better than the console versions, as you don't have the same power or heat limitations. So who know, maybe AMD will beat the 2080Ti at that point!
Although also worth noting, nVidia isn't sitting idle, they have their new 7nm Ampere architecture coming at, with some speculating that the new 3000 chips being quite a bit faster than the 2000 range, so will be interesting to see what the new 3080 Ti looks like. All just rumours currently though on release dates, many thing next year, but something they might try for a Nov/Dec launch for Christmas sales. Who knows!
I imagine turning up for a chat with RPI, and explaining that they'd engaged Shearman & Sterling, a near $1B revenue law firm, that's been around since 1873, and who has clients like Sony & Bank of America on their books, likely focused their mind a bit on the prospect of being able to win.
Oh yes, and Shearman & Sterling are doing the work for free, how much is your legal team costing you?
Also seems the patent itself is bogus, looks like a generic method of sorting images based on criteria such as a topic. I suspect the patent is too broad, and should never have been granted in the first place. (Fails the Alice test).
I think RPI here have basically decided they can't risk court, as the patent would likely be revoked, thus automatically loosing the case, and of course risking their portfolio.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation did a write up on the patent side here.
If this does change the status quo with regards to many more people WFH, and especially if it becomes the new norm, at least in some sectors, then I'd expect landlords will change their offerings to accommodate. e.g. A small office space (i.e. a desk and chair) per person, could become a requirement for many apartments.
Landlords would do this, as they'd assume 'professional' person, therefore we can bump the price up for the same floor space (space for desk, gained by a smaller bed/wardrobe/less other furniture) etc.
Many years ago I worked for a company that had two distinct versions of WFH.
Working From Home : Was basically someone who did it occasionally, i.e. office based most of the time, had a desk, and just the occasional, perhaps a day every week or two, working at home.
Then there was Home Workers: These were officially based at home, so no allocated desk in an office, and only expected to go into an office on rare occasions (like annual appraisals, that always had to be done in person, client workshops, group training sessions etc).
The key difference was, if you were just WFH, there was no special treatment.
But if you were a 'Home Worker', someone from HR came to inspect your house, check that you had a proper desk and chair, a working heating system, a phone line (late 90s, so before tin'ternet took off).
If you were missing anything, such as a proper H&S compliant chair, one would be provided. You were also paid a monthly allowance to cover things like the increased heating bill, and phone line usage etc.
HR would visit each year or two to make sure you were still H&S compliant, i.e. correctly set desk and chair etc.
Quote: "I guess I wont be updating my phone then"
You don't mention what phone OS you have.
If it's Android, then the update is via Google Play Services, so is automatic on Android 5.0+ (with Googles' stuff installed of course), Google Play Services also does silent auto-updates, so ignores the Play Stores setting for automatic app updates.
You'd have to disable data for Google Play Services (which may well break other things), or never use data or WiFi on that phone again, or do something else to block the silent updates.
Plus of course you'd have to never buy a new Android or Apple phone again, as any new ones will have this new API baked in anyway eventually.
Shame in a way it's a closed API (although I very much understand why that's the case).
As someone, or more likely a team, could knock up a UK Open Sourced version, using the API, and with none of the centralised crap. Fully peer reviewed etc.
This could then get promoted by all the various privacy groups etc that are currently lambasting the NHS version.
Won't happen though, as they'd need access to the API, and cooperation from the NHS for the testing positive side of things.
Apparently part of the issue with location services and Bluetooth BLE, is the increasing use of Bluetooth beacons. If BLE could be enabled without location services being on, it would still mean some apps could find your location via the beacons. Therefore Google pushed BLE into location services, so turn location off, you also turn BLE off.
Not saying this was the right choice, but I can sort of understand the rational.
Personally I'd much rather have more granular control of a device, and be able to explicitly switch on/off regular Bluetooth, BLE, GPS etc all separately, and also deny, by default, any apps from accessing those services, and only enable it on a per app, per function basis. But I suspect this goes directly against what Google are trying to do with Android!
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