Posts by ChrisElvidge

Amazon sets the date for televised return to Middle Earth: September 2022

Not more fucking elves.

India ponders why just three per cent of its broadband services are wired

Re: Take care of the poverty first.

"However, given that 2020 saw millions of laptops sold in India, there are quite a few people that do have the means to use a wired connection."

How does that even compute?

I use a laptop (and wifi) and a wireless hotspot. No wired connection in sight.

'Biggest data grab' in NHS history stuffs GP records in a central store for 'research' – and the time to opt out is now

Re: link for online opt out.

Page last reviewed 10 July 2019; Next review date 10 July 2022.

Are they keeping up to date?

Home office setup with built-in boiling water tap for tea and coffee without getting up is a monument to deskcess

Re: misread title

I fancied it was just another way for the Home Office to waste more taxpayer's money.

Pigeon fanciers in a flap over Brexit quarantine flock-up, seek exemption from EU laws

Dastardly

Just one of the muttley restrictions brought about by Brexit

How to ensure your tech predictions catch on in a flash? Do the mash

Re: in the year 2525

Zager and Evans didn't think so.

UBports community delivers 'second-largest release of Ubuntu Touch ever'

Re: Yes.

"Windows phone was really easy and welcoming and great to use (and that's coming from a Linux user)."

And it still is!

California bans website 'dark patterns', confusing language when opting out of having your personal info sold

Appeals

Possibly the appeals process could/should be changed too. Instead of being able to continue with a practice that has been deemed illegal by a "lower" court until the appeals process has been completed, the practice could be banned until/unless the appeal process deems it legal.

Stop us if you've heard this one before: Microsoft to lure users with industry-specific solutions in the cloud

Re: Hmm

Like SAP is fully customisable?

Recovery time objective missed by four weeks, but Parler is back online

Re: Tea Party Patriots

The word "Patriot" is one of those words that should set off some alarm bells. It's almost 250 years ago since Samuel Johnson said that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" and its use has not improved since then.

As I remember it, it was a comment on scoundrels not on patriotism. (Scoundrels like Pitt the Elder.)

Linus Torvalds labels Super Bowl 'violent version of egg-and-spoon race'

Owdham Edge - site of Oldhams RL "scraps"

But now the game has changed, you see

You can't play dirty on TV

Google, Apple sued for failing to give Telegram chat app the Parler put-down treatment

Re: @Overunder Am I bad for not...

I may disagree with what you're saying, but I'm willing to fight for your right to say it.

but also:

you're not using my megaphone to say it.

you can't force anyone to listen to you

Did anyone tell Logitech about lockdown? Biz launches pricey video chat kit for office conference rooms and 'huddle spaces'

Re: Depressed...

Would that be a mount of Venus?

The CIA's 'entire' collection of UFO records has been made available for you to sigh at

Re: If there is nothing there ...

There's nothing there NOW!

Developers! These 3 weird tricks will make you a global hero

Menu standardisation

Does no-one remember the early days of the menu system when company A (could have been Microsoft or Lotus) sued company B (could have been Lotus or Microsoft) for copying their menus system into a competing product?

Mysterious metal monolith found in 'very remote' part of Utah

Clever sheep?

Lets call him Shaun

It may date back to 1994 but there's no end in sight for the UK's Chief customs system as Brexit rules beckon

Check an HGV is Ready to Cross the Border?

'Another IT system supposed to ensure the smooth departure from EU border arrangements is the "Check an HGV is Ready to Cross the Border" system, formerly known as Smart Freight, also set to go live in December.

'It is designed to ensure HGVs carrying exports from the UK to the EU have the necessary paperwork before they get to port.'

Wouldn't it be better to ensure HGVs carrying exports have the necessary paperwork _before they leave the warehouse?_

After all, planes don't take off if there is no landing slot booked (AFAIK).

I work therefore I ache: Logitech aims to ease WFH pains with Ergo M575 trackball mouse

Bluetooth mice

I used to use BT but found, when dual-booting Linux/Windows, I was constantly re-pairing said mouse whenever I changed OS. Now, using a mouse+dongle combo, I just switch OS and mouse follows.

Linux Foundation, IBM, Cisco and others back ‘Inclusive Naming Initiative’ to change nasty tech terms

Re: What about that special house?

You mean the one that rhymes with 'toilet'?

Hey, over here, I'm talking... Academics help computers figure out which way you're facing when you speak

Directional?

I thought the idea (I don't have any) was that "Hey, Alexa" or "Hey, Google" was designed to tell the device who was talking to what.

Shouting from another room. Will that work?

Windows Server robocopy to gain auto-compression ahead of big file moves

Windows not-Server

I hope that the robocopy in Desktop gets the same treatment.

Japan testing sandwiches that discount themselves as they age

Crustless bread is common in Spain - and perhaps elsewhere. Not seen it commonly in UK.

Palo Alto Networks threatens to sue security startup for comparison review, says it breaks software EULA

EULA

Perhaps the EULA terms should be contested - it might help to make EULAs unenforceable (hopes). Then NDAs could/should be on the block, too.

Microsoft builds image-to-caption AI so that your visually impaired coworkers can truly comprehend your boss's PowerPoint abominations

Re: Dick Pics

Like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cressida_Dick

A decades-old lesson on not inserting Excel where it doesn't belong

Try these two

Planmaker gets this right: =-28.96+25+5-1+0.02-0.06

None I've tried gets this right: =111111111*111111111

bc and mysql do the maths correctly, though.

Please stop hard-wiring AWS credentials in your code. Looking at you, uni COVID-19 track-and-test app makers

Perfidious Albion?

As title.

How do you solve a problem like Privacy Shield? US and EU policymakers kick off discussions

EU data

If an EU company owns the hardware and site - even though it uses US software. Who owns the data?

I was screwed over by Cisco managers who enforced India's caste hierarchy on me in US HQ, claims engineer

Re: General concern

Frost Report 1966 - Cleese, Barker, Corbett

Never knowingly under-digitally transformed: Retailer John Lewis outsources tech function to Wipro

Oh Sharon

She noted in the memo that John Lewis's sales had shifted to 100 per cent online at the height of the pandemic from 40 per cent prior to the crisis

Yes, well you closed all the shops because of the pandemic.

CompSci student bitten by fox after feeding it McNuggets

Serious bites?

Being bitten by an unknown animal should always be treated as possible tetanus / rabies transmission. (I know rabies is not endemic (yet)).

Honeypot behind sold-off IP subnet shows Cyberbunker biz hosted all kinds of filth, says SANS Institute

IPv4 subnets should not be sold

They should be returned to (in Europe/Middle East) RIPE

Laws on police facial recognition aren't tough enough, UK data watchdog barrister tells Court of Appeal

Re: There's several issues with sitting judges today

It's perhaps not that they don't understand, they want the definitions written into the court records so no-one can say later "I didn't mean it that way."

Only true boffins will be able to grasp Blighty's new legal definitions of the humble metre and kilogram

Re: Candela

It's the caesium in the ur-kilo (see article) that's decaying.

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

the plan was in danger of being voted down in Parliament by his own MPs

If using Huawei is a good idea, why can't Labour vote with the Gov't to stuff the "no huawei here" MPs?

Fancy some post-weekend reading? How's this for a potboiler: The source code for UK, Australia's coronavirus contact-tracing apps

Re: Schneier posted a thorough takedown of contact tracing apps

Govt: "We have a problem and something must be done"

AppCoder: "This is something"

Govt: "OK. Lets do it. Problem solved"

It is becoming more and more obvious that (sorry Clemenceau) pandemics are far too important to be left to politicians.

Brit magistrates' courts turn to video conferencing to keep wheels of justice turning

Could be onions in the 'swag bag' and the jemmy is just to help him fix his bike.

India launches e-government platform for 125,000 villages and drone land surveys to put them on the map

Re: For the sake of pointing out the obvious

The reference should not then have the (common) misspelling; it is: The Domesday Book

Delivery drones: Where are they when we really need them?

Last scene in Midsomer Murders' Death By Persuasion?

Thunderbird is go: Mozilla's email client lands in a new nest

Re: Oh God No

Totally +100. I'm still using 52.2, anything later stops Thunderbrowse and Element Hiding from working. It's amazing what you can get rid of with Element Hiding Helper.

From WordPad to WordAds: Microsoft caught sneaking nagging Office promos into venerable text editor beta

Re: Where did it all go wrong?

NT version of 3D pinball here.

El Reg presents: Your one-step guide on where not to store electronic mail

Always work on a copy!

Shut down outlook, copy the .PST file, restart outlook then do the "always in this order".

Apple's latest keyboard travels back in time to when they weren't crap

"In 2018 Apple added a rubber prophylactic layer to keep out the gremlins, although publicly it insisted the move was to reduce noise."

Was this a Jony addition?

You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals, so let's watch for tech sales VAT weirdness through the channel

UK fault?

"It works by using the legislation that allows cross-border trade to be VAT-free, with VAT only applying to each country's domestic sales."

AFAIR the UK is/was instrumental in making sure this rule was not changed by the EU.

Not to over-hype this storage chip tech, but if I could get away with calling my first-born '3D NAND', I totally would

Low Fluorine Tungsten?

"There are a couple of options here: one is to use a particular kind of tungsten, a low-fluorine version"

WTF is Low Fluorine Tungsten? (Asking for a friend).

Israel's NSO Group: Our malware? Slurp your cloud backups plus phone data? They've misunderstood

The Pink 'Un

I always thought The Pink 'Un was The Sporting Times

The Eldritch Horror of Date Formatting is visited upon Tesco

Re: Dates? Don't talk to me about dates...

Standard output from YAD forms, too.

Those darn users don't know what they're doing (not like us, of course)

Re: Scoff not

Yeah, 'civilians!'

Help the Macless: Apple’s iPadOS is a huge update that will enable more people to do without a Mac... or a PC

Re: iPadOS?

I've got an old 10" NOOK HD+ that I updated to Android Nougat (search: android on nook hd+). Works really well, full HD screen.

A reasonably cheap option.

Crime doesn't pay? Crime doesn't do secure coding, either: Akamai bug-hunters find hijack hole in bank phishing kit

Re: Good hackers aren't always good coders ...

"Breaking things is a fundamentally different skill from making things."

Viz: Uber, Facebook, Google etc.

Swedish court declines to detain Belmarsh prison resident Julian Assange

Re: Why?

In their opinion, he's already detained - for at least another few months.