Posts by Dan Wilkie

Lawyers hail 'superb result' in Facebook biometric privacy battle: They'll get 25% of $550m, Illinois gets the rest

Re: Fucking lawyers...

It's a civil matter, not a criminal one. And if the State of Illinois went after them for the offence, I'm guessing they'd probably send lawyers rather than the sandwich lady to argue the case in court still ;)

Help! I'm trapped on Schrodinger's runaway train! Or am I..?

It sounds very reminiscent of a hotel chain who sound a bit like Tigris Budget...

I pretty much lived in one of those while I was up in London and always appreciated the fact it was convenient, cheap, and had everything i needed!

Den Automation raised millions to 'reinvent' the light switch. Now it's lights out for startup

Re: What?

I'd imagine that they didn't stop working per se - it's probably the same as the Hue lights I have at home. If I want to turn them off with the switch, it's all gravy. If i want to turn them off from elsewhere over the internet, then it needs some way to be accessible. If Philips suddenly went bust tomorrow, I could still control my lights in house, or via the switch. But I would lose the location awareness or the ability to turn them off from Sweden when my parents phone to tell me I'd left them on.

Sure I guess you could have a direct connection all the way back with portforwarding or a VPN, but that relies on a level of consumer knowledge which isn't generally present.

TLDR; The remote accessibility will have stopped working, but they'll still work as a light switch or a socket. Unless I'm wrong, in which case I agree with you 100%

HP printer small print says kit phones home data on whatever you print – and then some

I seem to be one of the few that doesn't have issue with this - all the information they're collecting seems useful for QA and R&D. In the same way though I took out their Instant Ink subscription too, because I don't think I've ever had an inkjet that's played nice with third party cartridges - either the colours are off or they clog the heads. My last epson I used to have about 1 cartridge out of every 5 that just wouldn't work at all.

Lights, camera, camera, camera, action: iPhone, iPad, Watch, chip biz in new iPhone, iPad, Watch, chip shocker

Re: Why does 'See' sound ...

Wasn't he one of James Bonds Nemeses - I think he had a golden gun?

Facebook political data probe: £2.5m. Powers for the ICO: Priceless

My brief experience of dealing with FoI requests involved helping with roughly a dozen that were IT related. And by IT related, after a quick bit of googling turned out to be from sales people at software companies hence the questions about "What suppliers do you use for x", "What is your average spend on y", "How many printers of model z do you have" - pages and pages of it.

Followed by polite reminders that it had to be processed within a certain window. Call me old fashioned, but I don't think that the law was intended to make salesdroids life easier and avoid them having to do work, I'm surprised that there didn't seem to be any kind of penalty for making pointless frivilous FOI requests that took ages to find information so they could then try and talk their way into selling me a bunch of 20 year old printers that are "proven technology mate".

Funnily enough, certainly whilst I was there all those vendors went on my blacklist.

Of course now I'm in presales, at least I know that kind of tactic is a bad idea I guess!

Musk's popstar girlfriend Grimes croons about next-gen AI, plus more machine-learning news

Re: AI representation

I'm going to be kind and say it's to humanise them. The more it looks like a human being, the more likely people are to accept it.

The more it looks like a giant robotic spider, the more houses are going to get burnt to the ground to make sure it's dead.

We're funny old sorts.

Turns out download speed isn't everything when streaming video on your smartphone

Living in rural Devon, I'd happily accept anything without having to walk to the end of the road where it's slightly elevated.

They're always campaigning locally to get us better mobile signal.

And then they always campaign against plans to build a new mobile mast.

It's like the two are somehow linked...

New MeX-Files: The curious case of an evacuated US solar lab, the FBI – and bananas conspiracy theories

Re: I can reveal

I knew it, all hail our feline saviours, for they alone know the truth!

Funnily enough, no, infosec bods aren't mad keen on W. Virginia's vote-by-phone-app plan

You have to take a photo that matches the scanned copy of your ID? Presumably it's been rigorously tested to make sure you can't just look someone up on Facebook and take a photo of their most official looking photo? Like used to happen to me a lot with old style face unlock systems on my phone down the pub and caused numerous embarrassing Facebook posts...

Top Euro court: No, you can't steal images from other websites (too bad a school had to be sued to confirm this little fact)

This is one of those things that I'm on the fence about. I get the issue of ownership, that's fine. But damages imply to me that he missed out on a rights fee or whatever. Which would imply that he was deprived of something he would have received if not for the infringement. Which clearly if the child had realised that she would have to pay 400 euros to use the picture would have just used a different one.

I dunno, I'm not a lawyer - it seems that common sense should have a place in deciding whether somebody should be awarded damages or just told to stop their infringing behaviour. If there's clearly no intention to profit from the infringement I'd have suggested a CaD would have made more sense.

Instead, he'll always be the person who, to all intents and purposes, sued a kid for using his photo that she cribbed from the net for a school project - in the unlikely situation that I ever needed to pay anybody 400 euros for a photo of a town rather than driving there and taking the photo myself for less than half that, then I won't be buying his.

So I guess I'm the counterweight of justice by balancing it out. If I ever need a photo of Cordoba. Which I won't.

Dear alt-right morons and other miscreants: Disrupt DEF CON, and the goons will 'ave you

Never cross the Goons

TBF, as a former Eve player - that rule of thumb can be applied outside of DefCon too

Mamma Mia! UK film fans forced to Q as Vue's website craps itself

I don’t know about the rest of their team, but from those twitter messages they seem to be getting their money’s worth out of “Dani”

British Airways' latest Total Inability To Support Upwardness of Planes* caused by Amadeus system outage

Re: weight calculation

Probably need to preface it with "should" - as otherwise everybody wouldn't have been sat in the plane for 3 hours ;)

The centre of gravity will change in flight as fuels burned etc, but that's predictable. From some further digging I think this is to establish that the CoG and weight is within a safe threshold (around which the aircraft can be trimmed). So some kind of dynamic system on the gear probably would work, but by the time you build in all the redundancy and duplicate it across an entire fleet of aircraft as someone else pointed it the cost would probably be prohibitive. Especially since everything will need to withstand extremes of temperature and pressure since the gear wells aren't pressurised.

If you can calculate it once by plugging in some numbers to tell you if it's within safe limits with a margin or not then it's probably not worth fiddling with it.

There's a few free flight planners aimed at flight sims that replicate a lot of the functions, it's pretty cool to fiddle with if you're a huge nerd like, um, my friend...Dave.

Fair point, I suppose doing it off the wheels alone would give you the weight and a the CoG while it's on its wheels, but not where that loads distributed through the plane, just the end result. Still, throw in mention of blockchain somewhere in the process and you've got a tech startup right there, I'm going to be rich!

Depends how fast I drive I guess,

But by definition as they're calculating these figures before the plane has taken off, neither is this - it's a static calculation. If they already have some way of feeding that data into whatever system they're using ground side, then it could just as easily feed into a.n. other system shirley?

My understanding is this is just for calculating the weight distribution and CoG to make sure it's within static limits and to give the pilots the right figures to punch into the FMS.

I've always wondered this, so I'm hoping someone can explain...

The plain sits on it's gear, and all it's weight is supported by it. Surely it would make more sense for the plane to calculate it's own weight and weight distribution from that? Then it's based on something measured rather than calculated too.

I'm guessing it's not that simple or that's how it would be done, but if my seat can weight how much I am so it knows how hard to blow the airbag up in my face, then surely it can scale up to weighing how much load is on the suspension of the plane?

Techie sues ex-bosses, claims their AI avatar tech was faked – and he was allegedly beaten up after crying foul

Those avatars they submitted are so lifelike. I particularly like the way the Ryan Gosling one looks like a giant freakish skull boss from a mid 90s video game, just less pixely

Timehop admits to more data leakage, details GDPR danger

I'll be honest on this one, it's surprising me how transparent they're being considering the potential penalties It makes it hard for me to hate them. Which is probably the idea. What utter bastards!

Ticketmaster breach 'part of massive bank card slurping campaign'

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, even I wouldn't start a business that put all its money into security. How do I get paid, and how do I advertise to get customers?

I know that is taking it more literally than you mean, but remember where you are, there's people that will take it that literally ;)

'Coding' cockup blamed for NHS cough-up of confidential info against patients' wishes

What the hell kind of audit log doesn't log user id's?

Chinese web giant finds Windows zero-day, stays schtum on specifics

I must admit, my old fashioned non-bluetooth wireless MS mouse (the black one with the dongle) has outlasted pretty much all my peripherals (bar a LaserJet 4050 collecting dust in the garage), and is still one of my favourites.

Microsoft Lean's in: Slimmed-down Windows 10 OS option spotted

At a guess - I'd say its for VDI's in Azure perhaps?

Cosmic prang probe: Euro space boffins to smash sats, virtually

Re: Serious question.

I think the tutorial covered that, but you explained it way better than Werner von Kerman ever did, so thankyou!

Windows 10 to force you to use Edge, even if it isn't default browser

At the risk of starting a flame war, how is this any different to Apple doing the exact same thing with Safari on my iPad, or indeed my iPhone?

I know, I know, Microsoft shill etc etc.

MH370 final report: Aussies still don’t know where it crashed or why

Re: planet is surrounded by spy satellites

Not that straightforward - satellites don't just hover over one spot staring at featureless ocean... And changing their trajectory is not trivial as they only have a finite amount of fuel.

Also worth bearing in mind that a passenger aircraft is small and fast moving, under a satellite that's travelling around 8km/s....

I'm not saying that nobodies satellites would have seen it, maybe someone did have something staring at an empty spot of ocean for some reason, but the liklihood seems slim, and the liklihood that anyone was paying attention to it seems even slimmer!

Computers4Christians miraculously appears on Ubuntu wiki

Re: Direct link to Deity

Arguably it was a human who was driven to their course of action by their belief in a deity that shaped their moral values.

Disclosure: I'm not a Christian so I have no vested interest. However I also have no issue with people believing what they want to believe and think Militant Atheists are the worst thing since Militant Missionaries - at least they invented a practical sex-move...

Apple: Our stores are your 'town square' and a $1,000 iPhone is your 'future'

Re: These "new" iPhones

On my iphone 7 I hold it at bottom and my thumb sits near the home button on the bezel, rather than the screen, same on my 6, the 4S I had years ago, and the android phones I've had inbetween.

I would guess what he means is that on the iPhoneX, your thumb would be on the screen.

VMware wants security industry to shrink so its ambitions fit into market

Great Metaphor...

What kind of wierdo starts putting on warm sweaters when they're getting chased by bad guys. And who the fuck would keep putting them on until he was wearing 75?

Are Asimov's laws enough to stop AI stomping humanity?

Anybody who's ever played Space Station 13 knows that the Asimov lawset can't protect humanity from AI's.

Londoners will be trialling driverless cars in pedestrianised area

Re: Glad I'm not a pedestrian in London

I don't know, it's not an uncommon site to be sat at 20-25mph in traffic, seeing a group of cyclists pass you on the cycle path weaving in and out of the kids on the way to school.

Doesn't happen when I go back to Gosport though, I'd imagine after the first few cyclists were clotheslined by the schoolkids and had their bikes nicked, word probably spread fast...

Whilst it sounds negative, I'm always happier to see cyclists using the paths rather than riding next to them which was frequently the reason for the 10mph tailbacks that seem to be less frequent these days...

Oi, you, no flirting, no touching in the back of our rides, sniffs Uber

Sounds like a standard night out to me :\

Speaking in Tech: 'You idiot - you could've done that in 3 clicks'

Jesus you lot whine. I don't think anybody who knows me would accuse me of being even slightly left leaning (though I admit my views have mellowed a lot since I've gotten older) - but I really don't find it offensive to hear other peoples opinions, even in a tech podcast.

All I have to say to you is that may the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon your souls, you've got to accept Christ into your lives, brah.

Sysadmin told to spend 20+ hours changing user names, for no reason

What happens if you have a John Barton Smythe, a John Barry Smith and a Josephy Barry Smithson?

Give BAE a kicking and flog off new UK warships, says review

Re: USA Ships

I think that the Scylla was my old man's favourite out of all the ships he served on, everybody seemed to like the Leanders!

SQL Server on Linux: Runs well in spite of internal quirks. Why?

Re: Interesting

I'm not sure on the Mac office model as I know it's different...

But if you'd bought the above on PC, compared to O365 then to get from Office 2010 to Office 2016 you'd have had to have bought another license for Office 2013, and another one for Office 2016.

So if you like running the latest versions (I'll be honest, I tend to find a lot of the quality of life improvements in the newer versions worthwhile) then it might make sense.

Equally you get exchange etc etc with it as well.

Disclaimer: I have an O365 subscription. I like it. I particularly like being able to edit all my documents and collaborate on them from my Galaxy and my iPad. Oh and OneNote, I like that too. That said, I have no strong pro/anti MS feelings - I like some of their stuff, I dislike others, and I have 1 Linux PC to my 2 Windows PC's (a gaming rig and an old Lenovo X230). I don't have a Mac, but I don't mind them, they're just more money than I want to spend.

Someone said earlier about statistics - so the above will hopefully deflect some of the flames that will inevitably come in my direction for refusing to acknowledge Bill Gates as Warmaster Horus.

Three to appear in court over TalkTalk hack

Re: Three to appear in court over TalkTalk hack

Me Seven!

Elon Musk wants to launch 4,000 satellites and smother globe with net connectivity

Re: haters gonna hate

I think Iridium is heavily used by the shipping industry as well, not really that niche

Shhh! Shazam is always listening – even when it's been switched 'off'

I mean I get their point - and I can see the technical reasoning behind it. But then I did leave my tinfoil hat behind this morning next to my phone so it might be the mind control...

The Reg seeks online community manager

Re: I wouldn't be recruiting today

I'll be honest, I don't think most people really cared about the emails. I'd tell you why things went the way they did, but I'm stumped. Unlike The Trump.

In fairness though, there was no good way to vote. $Deity knows how it got to the stage where they were the best two candidates.

Ah well, the world turns, FS17 still works fine, so I don't care.

Vodafone and Inmarsat hang satellites over potential Internet of Things customers

Re: Farm tech...

Australia is a good example, agriculture in Australia is pretty far along the tech curve. They're heavy users of big data and cloudy type stuff in order to optimise seeding patterns and the like

BT will HATE us for this one weird 5G trick

Come to Gosport in the sunny south, we have loads of cyclepaths and outside of the school run they're usually empty apart from me. Seemingly our cyclists prefer mixing with the cars and buses on the roads and inexplicably shun the cycle paths...

Queen Lizzie awarded good behaviour medal

Re: Ah yes. More confirmed kills than anyone else

Was going to say the exact same thing.

Also for the most part, Officers aren't known for their high number of confirmed kills. If they're going round slotting something they're not busy doing officer-y type things. Which I presume are cocktail parties, or Kayak-Flaregun-Duels or whatever it is that they do.

Cyanogen mods self away from full Android alternative

Re: There's a definite market ...

Remind me to introduce you to David Icke - I think the two of you would get along really well!

Facebook's 'Workplace' collaboration dogfood is now on your menu

To be fair, it doesn't sound like anything the standard Skype/Outlook/OneDrive/SharePoint solution that is pretty widespread doesn't already do? A quick look round Outlook and I can create groups, share crap with them, message all of them, video chat with them.

MS, if you're reading, you now owe me a tenner!

Facebook pays, er, nope, gets £11m credit from UK taxman HMRC...

Meanwhile my corporation tax bill for the last year as a contractor will come in round or about £6,500. At least I can tell everybody I'm so successful I pay more tax than Facebook :(

Moldovan Dridex millionaires to spend 12 years in jail

I'd never realised till that picture what a work of art a safe is...

Cloud will NOT eat the tech industry, Michael Dell declares

Re: Some Truth

I've worked for many places where all users who don't need to travel for their work only have thin clients, and those that do access 90% of their stuff through Citrix/VDS over the internet.

I feel like I've completely missed the point you're trying to make though :\

UK will build new nuclear bomb subs, says Defence Secretary

Um, I hate to say it. It's not a nuclear bomb submarine...

Planes drop bombs, submarines launch missiles.

One-way Martian ticket: Pick passengers for Musk's first Mars pioneer squad

That was tough... How the hell can you expect someone to choose between Donald Trump and Piers Morgan?