Posts by The Nazz

Nominet shakes up system for expiring .uk domains, just happens to choose one that will make it £millions. Again

By eck

£1.50?

You go to some posh charity shops dont'cha?

Collabera hacked: IT staffing'n'services giant hit by ransomware, employee personal data stolen

Cynical, moi?

I may be cynical, and joking, but are we sure it's not an Experian backed squad of hackers doing this?

They seem to get a lot of business pushed their way.

Dutch national broadcaster saw ad revenue rise when it stopped tracking users. It's meant to work like that, right?

Old fashioned?

Speaking of old fashioned adverts, i'm currently rereading my stash of National Geographic magazines, some going back to the 1960's.

Quite interesting to see ads for such as Sabeena and yes, i do read them. If only to see how "bad" the good times were.

Beijing's tightening grip on Hong Kong could put region's future as an up-and-coming tech hub in jeopardy

Re: Welcome....

And a far worse, shockingly bad record of creating refugees around the middle east.

Re: "we need clarity on what the laws will involve before we can decide anything"

It's all relative but i don't think of 1997 as being "recently".

Travel-sick Windows needing a Systemwiederherstellung would be in Germany, right? Austria? Not necessarily

Re: You ain't seen nothing yet...

It'a not that rare, it was in yesterday's general knowledge crossword puzzle.

1,4,8,12,16, 20,22,24,27 and 31 across.

Or learn simple words from a complicated language.

Romanian word = english translation.

Precum = such as.

Cum = How

The former i learned from my new cycle instruction manual, these days a CD with some 50 languages installed. Fat load of use that's gonna be when i have a problem 40 miles from home.

Publishers sue to shut down books-for-all Internet Archive for 'willful digital piracy on an industrial scale'

Re: But what about...

Or alternatively, the estate of the late great Shel Silverstein appear to take the enlightened view that he created his works to be seen, to be heard and most of all to be enjoyed, such that they allow much of his work to be freely available on the Internet.

Uber, Lyft struck by sue-ball, no, sue-meteorite in California after insisting their apps' drivers aren't employees

Re: Contracting...

I don't know the details, but i'd gladly wager that such as IT contractors, on the whole, pay a considerable amount of tax to HMRC ( even if that is less than they would as employees) whereas the poor Uber and Lyft drivers most likely can pay no contributions to the IRS out of their minimal income, net of car costs etc.

Re: AB5 hurts more than just UBER...

Out on a limb here, but in and amongst all that CAPS and ranting, Bob does make the odd valid point ie musicians.

It's just too painful to sort out which is which.

Find your wallet, Apple: Ex-engineer adds eight more patents to lawsuit seeking credit for his developer work

Re: Agreed - software patents, like business process patents, should not be allowed

Didn't the article state that Apple did, as one of three reasons why the guy couldn't be credited, say precisely that the work wasn't novel?

So maybe the Judge should simply declare "Patents Invalid - End of Case" and order the USPO to deal with their invalidation?

Edit : posted when i got this far, didn't see Tromos' post lower down until later.

Colombian tech minister quits, heads off to overseas job as aborted .co contract sale triggers in-depth probe

Just out of curiousity .....

Does Columbia have an extradition treaty with the USA?

Not saying one is needed but you never know.

Uber trials fixed-price hourly rentals for visits to the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker

Re: The urban transport solution for coronavirus and afterwards

"Think seriously about the issue. Public transport is HORRIBLE during a plague. If you have to get around, say, for food, exactly what is a person to do? Somehow, you need a ride."

Err, walk? May even have the side effect of reducing Obesity which seems to be a major factor whether coronavirus is fatal to the individual or not.

Cycle? With or without paniers. Same effect as above.

Backpack and balance one carrier bag on each handlebar can carry a surprising amount of food per trip. Multiple trips per day allowed, even during UK lockdown.

Tip : If only balancing one carrier bag on the handlebars place it to the kerbside.

Why should the UK pensions watchdog be able to spy on your internet activities? Same reason as the Environment Agency and many more

Re: And yet

At a lower, but still electable level:

One Mayor of a northern working class town Middlesboro, whose town is assessed as having the greatest propensity for locals to catch Covid-19, in his infinite wisdom and powers, totally shuts off all lawful access to great big wide open spaces (oft known as parks). Wow, that'll help.

Liverpool's Mayor is now reportedly castigating the Government for allowing the Liverpool v Athletico Madrid footie match to go ahead, allegedly being the cause of a lot of cases and deaths. Yeah great hindsight.

But what did he do to stop it occurring?

Beware the individual politician with all that power. Misused or neglected. And yes, the locals voted them in.

Star's rosette orbit around our supermassive black hole proves Einstein's Theory of General Relativity correct

Re: really fast

My head gasket blew at the mention of 20 billions kilometres being described as "close".

Re: Theory?

Best stick with calling it a Theory.

The rate at which the local populace break the Laws around these parts, absolute chaos would quickly follow.

Cloudflare dumps Google's reCAPTCHA, moves to hCaptcha as free ride ends (and something about privacy)

Re: Audio versions

Neil Young : " I was walking down Main Street, not the sidewalk but Main Street......that's how good i felt"

Dixons Carphone top brass take 20% pay cut as swathes of Brit workforce furloughed

Too hasty.

Ok, ok, uniquely difficult times (in my lifetime) but i was amazed how generous this new Chancellor was with his massive giveaway in his rush to appear POPULAR with the masses. The precedent is set.

Mulit-millionaire bosses ( billionaires if you take top tier football clubs), indeed multi-millionaire footballers, struggling to get by on 20% less, while ordinary workers are dumped on the Govt tab.

Maybe the scheme should have required that ALL of its staff, board room down are to be furloughed at £2500 a month max, no exceptions, if any are?

Re: The Wetherspoons Troughing Method

"as a way to persuade senior employees not to leave, and to commit to making things work."

Or, as frequently happened in the early to mid 80's when these share incentive schemes really took off, you knew precisely when senior staff would leave. Three years and one month from the granting of the options. The moment the Share Option purchase was enacted and processed. And onto the next firm offering such inducements.

I personally was sat next to my boss as he signed his Option form, garnering circa 5 years of Salary tax free, and then calmly signed his Resignation letter. No surprise to the Board either.

Ofcom waves DAB radio licences under local broadcasters' noses as FM switchoff debate smoulders again

Re: But........

Time moves on, and maybe i'm getting old, but sod FM and DAB

I can remember a time when you had to sing to yourself to hear music in a car.

NASA reveals the new wavy Martian wheels it thinks can crush the red planet

The spaces between the 48 fins look uniform across the width. I'm certainly no wheel designer but i would have thought some variability in the gaps would've helped. Sometimes a 10mm gap, other times a 20mm gap etc. At worst, it would make more abstract patterns in the dust.

From Amanda Holden to petrol-filled water guns: It has been a weird week for 5G

Calm down, it'll soon pass.

Once upon a time, there came this beguiling (of some) political entity with the catchy slogan "Education, Education, Education."

And once, where children had learned to play together in nurseries, occasionally sociably, was then foisted upon them the "National Curriculum".

Together with £100's bns in welfare payments. And student loans.

This policy will be bearing fruit massively any day now, so surely such moronic behaviour will soon be a thing of the past?

ps Miss A. Holden may be the typical dumb blonde bimbo but i wouldn't say no to a session, or more, with her.

Not only is Zoom's strong end-to-end encryption not actually end-to-end, its encryption isn't even that strong

Re: People don't buy encryption

It's only like 2016 with Clinton and Trump, 2019 Johnson v Corbyn

People clearly knew what they DIDN'T want. **

What proportion of Labour members (circa a third?) couldn't even be arsed to vote for one of Starmer, Long-Bailey nor Nandy. Wow.

ahem

"Not always reliable with more than two people."

A bit like sex and marriages then?

Poltiicians' advisers too.

You know, those CMO who say do this, don't do that

and erm excuse me while i just go and do what i wish, regardless of what i've just told you.

It ought to be an automatic loss of office for being caught. Simply saying "Sorry" isn't good enough.

Do you want to be an astronaut when you grow up? Yeah, you and 12,000 others: NASA flooded with folks hoping to visit Moon, Mars

Re: Ah ...

I take it you weren't ever around Scouseland in the 80's?

Well

I'd laugh my socks off if the first (of the next) astronauts to the moon were actually called Eve and Adam.

Internet Archive justifies its vast 'copyright infringing' National Emergency Library of 1.4 million books by pointing out that libraries are closed

Re: Disengenious

They'd have a little more of my sympathy if they had, at the same time as increasing copyright periods, also legislated that the original creator retained a minimum of 50% of their copyrights, and revenues therefrom whatever commercialism took place afterwards.

Welcome to the telco, we've got fun and games: BT inks 5-year deal to outsource mainframe management to IBM

Re: Well, IT certainly is different with such Convivial Communions

Out of curiosity, are you like this down the pub?

BT reopens £90m UK High Court case over 1970s VAT 'overpayments'

Keep it simple, keep it quick

Dear Govt, HMRC

Give the greedy b*stards their £90m. End the cases.

Then, do NOT give BT a further penny over the full length of this coronavirus crisis.

Let the Govt pick up the assets from the administrators.

Drones intone 'you must stay home,' eliciting moans from those in the zone: Flying gizmos corral Brits amid coronavirus lockdown

re One form of exercise

So it's perfectly fine for me to go out on 20 seperate cycle trips in the day, being just the one form of exercise.

Besides, where are all these enforcement cops going to appear from?

Aside from a major event with crowd control, when did you last see a Police Officer in person? I rotate my shopping round 3 town centres and cant recall ever seeing one, for years.

Brit housing association blabs 3,500 folks' sexual orientation, ethnicity in email blunder

Really?

This morning there was an article on the main BBC news website page*, detailing the precise opposite.

Gay people, who because of the virus "had no choice"** but to live at home with their "homophobic" parents. Is "heterophobia" a thing, and how it seems acceptable to abuse their parents.

* Not apparent 30 mins ago, don't know if its been moved or deleted.

** Everyone has a choice, could they not move in with their friends, even if platonically? It's a bit sad when they don't even have a friends couch to turn to.

Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft speech-to-text AI systems can't understand black people as well as whites

Racist , really (part ii)

And what were the scores for other groups, dare i say the Browns, the Yellows, The Reds etc? NOT the Greens, they oft speak with plummy accents.

Asians, Latinos, Hispanics, real Africans etc.

Omitted completely.

Whoa, someone actually texted you in 2020? Oh, nvm, it's just Boris Johnson, telling you to stay the f**k at home

Re: This wasn't the problem message

That bit about being vulnerable reminded me of this :

A few years back, a fair few, Terry Wogan told the story on air of the time they were playing golf, he was just about to play a shot when a rare butterfly landed on his ball.

Couple seconds later "ooooh look, it's even rarer now."

Your Agile-built IT platform was 'terrible', Co-Op Insurance chief complained to High Court

The process needs to be hugely streamlined.

KISS

Square 1 :

Is there any evidence that the Def. sought an OOTB solution.

Yes/No

Square 2 :

Is there any evidence that the Clm. offered to deliver an OOTB solution.

Yes/No

Square 3

is there any evidence that such a contract was agreed?

Yes/No

Square 4

is there any evidence that an OOTB solution, any solution was delivered in an operable state, anywhere near within 9 months, if at all?

No/No

Judge :

Right, i judge for the Def. I'm off down the pub for beer and sandwiches, anyone wish to join me. Oh, and the Clm is buying.

Thought you'd go online to buy better laptop for home working? Too bad, UK. So did everyone. Laptops, monitors and WLANs fly off shelves

Re: For furniture...

Dell 21" Monitor 5:4 ratio.

Local computer supplier £210

Local charity shop : £9 including a four mile lift home, or

£5 cash and carry.

NO contest.

NASA to launch 247 petabytes of data into AWS – but forgot about eye-watering cloudy egress costs before lift-off

Re: Just wondering

It's alright everyone quoting Joni Mitchel but won't someone spare a thought for Carly Simon whilst she's drinking the caffeinated brew of her choice?

Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, surely has no frozen water, right? Guess again: Solar winds form ice

Re: Temperatures can soar over 400C

"always double figures in Kelvin?"

Except when it's triple figures? Which is quite often.

Also, -10deg C is double figures. No coat yet here in tough West Yorkshire.

BT CEO tests positive for coronavirus, goes into self-isolation after meeting fellow bosses from Vodafone UK, Three, O2 plus govt officials

Re uptick in Italy cases.

From this BBC "news" article : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51858987

Notice how up until 15 February, thereabouts, the UK had 10 x the amount of cases that Italy had?

Then a load of Brits buggered off abroad for half-term, skiing trips and other holidays?

European electric vehicle sales surged in Q4 2019 but only accounted for wafer-thin slice of total car purchases

Look on the bright side, you never know the old fashioned "Walking" could make a comeback.

"You know, i'm so poor i can't even walk anywhere." Oh really?

A win/win?

Re: "would help to kick-start the market"

Re Increase in "company cars"

IIRC, or near enough, there was a surge of company bought cars in the early to mid 70's when Labour brought in it's £6 a week pay rise limit. To get around this arbitrary and tight restriction, many companies significantly increased the numbers of, and levels of, managers to whom they provided fully expensed cars. Also IIRC there was no tax payable as a benefit in kind. Of course, three years later, they were replaced with new and the "old" cars released to the public at very reasonable prices.

Apple reopens stores in China as Middle Kingdom regains control of COVID-19 – after closing all its outlets in Italy

Re: reasons not to close schools...

"because they don't want to catch it"

I'd rather catch it now, get it over with. AFAIK i have no underlying health issues so i'll take my chances.

Nothing to do with me visiting the M-I-L next week, no sirree.

Rocket Lab wants to break free, hopes next mission is more 'A Kind Of Magic' than 'Another One Bites The Dust'

Here's the deal, NASA

Look, i've been a Death-Row prisoner now for 17 years, looks like i'll be one for several more.

For the sake of something different, i'll sit atop the next big rocket and travel to the ISS, behave myself, and IF and when i return to Earth, i'm a free man?

All for free board and lodgings during the trip.

Re: Ring any bells?

Sport too it seems. Though why anyone bothers to make a distinction these days between top level sport and business escapes me.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-51803164

The actual cost to Exeter of allowing a handful of people in? Nil, plus they'd probably make something on food and drink sales.

"Wow, we've been turned away, but for the generously small sum of £10 we can buy tickets for the reserves."

Amazon launches itself into retail IT with 'all the necessary technologies'. Not saying which, but you know...

Re: Pickpockets paradise

"You register YOUR credit card when you enter the store, instead"

FTA : consumers will be charged to a credit card which they swipe as they enter the shop.

Pick a card, any card. Available at many fuel stations nearby.

Additionally, NO THANK YOU.

Amazon : "Congratulations, dear Customer, that is your 50th successful purchase from our store. And having noticed you have not bought a single dental product on any visit may we interest you in our dating App? Here's a selection from our 80+ year old GILF's who too no longer need dental products."

The secret of tightrope walking and having blowjobs from 80 yo GILF's?

Don't Look Down.

Don't be fooled, experts warn, America's anti-child-abuse EARN IT Act could burn encryption to the ground

Re: I don't have a problem with this

This coming November, the contest is gonna be :

Trump v Biden or Sanders.

What a f*cking damp squib shit show that's gonna be.

At least last time around we got to see Clinton throw a few wobblies.

FYI: When Virgin Media said it leaked 'limited contact info', it meant p0rno filter requests, IP addresses, IMEIs as well as names, addresses and more

Re: Only 1,100 Users

Look, when i requested "Breeder" websites, i really did, honest guv, want to find suppliers of puppies with good kennel club lineage.

And jesus, did i get inundated with "puppies" and how come, none of those folks' eyes ever water? Mine would be pouring.

Sadly, the web has brought a whole new meaning to the phrase 'nothing is true; everything is permitted'

Real men use both hands!

Re: "...could I borrow $60 (US) via PayPal..."

Ha ha, now i know it's a scam.

It was Antigua and we, and others, had the goats for dinner the following evenings dinner. Remember?

Brexit Britain changes its mind, says non, nein, no to Europe's unified patent court – potentially sealing its fate

Re: The lawyers will be fine.

Does Gordon Brown hold the patent for turning Gold into hot air?