Posts by RobDog

Facebook accused of trying to bypass GDPR, slurp domain owners' personal Whois info via an obscure process

Re: What do you think it is about

Back in 2011 I visited an expo by a large eel know storage company in Las Vegas and it was the first they were bandying around the term Big Data and where it lives.

In one of the keynotes, the guy told of a project where HR depts had started trawling your socials to get a flavour of what kind of person you were, and then also of a project where vending machines in Japan called out to you by name, offering you tempting treats, based on your purchasing history and the fact it had recognised your device details as you strolled by.

Sky customers moan: Our broadband hubs are bricking it

Re: I have a PLEX server at home

I use Serviiio and a bunch of mains network connectors with a couple of hubs for things like CCTV and printer in the summer house/office. When I got my Sky Q equipment (multiroom including new hub/router) my network went haywire. Stuff just stopped being seen; printer, Serviio, XBOX problems. Also, Q multiroom as standard is all about WiFi which caused a massive pain for the numerous mobile devices here. I reverted back to my pretty TP-Link and found the Sky network access credentials easy enough online. Now everything works again, and my own router meant I could tweak access controls etc which I couldn’t get to in the Sky router. Also, with a bit of googling was able to make the Q stuff work over cabled Ethernet not WiFi which made a big difference.

The short version is, the Sky supplied (customised TP-Link) equipment disrupted what my own environment so much it was with the time and effort to deploy kit I could manage completely myself. Their box is in the loft, in its box.

Apple's revamped iPad beams a workhorse in from Planet Ludicrous

2017 pencil charging

Just for clarification, it doesn’t only charge by plugging in to the iPad lightning socket, which does make it bizarrely stick out. You get a little dongle (free!) with the pencil with female both sides, so you can charge from a standard lightning cable. Looks like a large paracetamol or mint and easily loseable.

UK.gov plans £2,500 fines for kids flying toy drones within 3 MILES of airports

Re: Droning on

I absolutely agree, there never was/were any drone/s, it was a false flag event concocted as an excuse to state that multi-million pound anti-drone equipment was being installed. Got to to counter good news with bad - in this instance, feed us the fear and hysteria (so what if a few thousand people missed their flights, they only saved hard for their holidays).

Slightly related, I believe that all these high-profile IT ‘failures’ by Big Corp are no coincidence either. There’s something going on but I can’t put my finger on it. Some sort of agenda or plan or something. I’m not being specific because I can’t be. Just suspicious.

Windows XP? Pfff! Parts of the Royal Navy are running Win ME

Re: Few comments

I had something similar. The tills in the restaurant were DOS machines, all worked ok even had touch screens. The provider came in and told the managers a costly upgrade to Windows 2000 was required, many improvements, including supporting two card readers etc. I did my bit and watched them install the kit, then came the testing where they promptly fired up the SAME DOS application just running in a DOS-emulating window.

The best part though was the two card readers part - ‘twice as many customers!’ they puffed - ‘still only one till operator!’ I retorted - as experience went on to show, nothing improved but the frequency of windows crashes and patching accelerated.

Which scientist should be on the new £50 note? El Reg weighs in – and you should vote, too

Notable by their absence

John Harrison - as a maritime nation it’s shameful that he hasn’t had a mention as the man who solved the longitudinal navigation problem.

And where is Isambard Kingdom Brunel ferchrissakes?

Life's a beach – then you're the comms nexus of the British Empire and Marconi-baiting hax0rs

More on FLAG and undersea cable history here

http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html

It’s quite a read

Reg reader turns Geek's Guides to Britain into Geek's Map of Britain

For more on Porthcurno

This is an excellent read

https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

Bloke, 22, in knockoff Microsoft Xbox ring gets 18 months in the cooler

"Protovision...

...I have you now!"

Grandmaster FLUSH: Chess champ booted for allegedly cheating with iPod app in the loo

Re: Sub-optimal

I visited a chess tournament & convention at a hotel once

but I left soon after I got through the door, I couldn't stand the bragging.

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's...chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.

Marconi: The West of England's very own Italian wireless pioneer

Worth a read, on a different site

OK so on the subject of telegraphy, since this topic veered that way a little - this (link below) is WELL worth a read, from Wired:

http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html

Takes a while to get through but is very interesting

Hollywood vs hackers: Vulture cracks Tinseltown keyboard cornballs

You've missed one - The Italian Job (1969)

Yes - the scene where they creep into the computer room bridge (note: NOT server room!) and swap out a loaded tape with one containing 'deez new program'. To do it, Benny Hill (Professor Peach, looking after the technical end) is offered a screwdriver??! And when the tape is mounted, it's clearly twisted....and making some sort of bup bup bupbupbupbup noise..now, in all my years as an op, no 3420 made that sound...

Scoff ye not: Chap carves crunchy carrot-copter

Drone/quad/UAV - please use in context

This isn't a UAV, as most quads aren't. I am a quad enthusiast, not a UAV builder, and not everyone who builds quads wants to strap an Arduino & GPS to it and have it fly away to A then B then C under it's own control...most of us build a quadcopter then fly it ourselves...at which point it is just another hoverable RC aircraft.

So please - don't get all Daily Fail and mix up your terms and frighten people...

Brits: Wanna know how late your train is? Now you can slurp straight from the source for free

Branch line woes

Agree with all Tom 38 points, and as a commuter at the end of a branch line, will add this - that when there is a problem on the main line, the branch line services suffer first; invariably services are cancelled and a bus laid on...and it descends into an uncomfortable, overheated, crowded pukey nightmare.

But - because the mainline soldiered on and a bus replacement provided, there's no recompense for the inconvenience. Carry on paying. At least, reduce my annual fare pro-rata but no; I still pay the same per-mile cost as the travellers on the mainline whose service is disrupted less or kept going because they represent the bulk of the travelling public.

Lastly, one train an hour?? Look - just lay on a branch shuttle to the nearest mainline connection, would you please, Abellio Greater Anglia? And make it one every half an hour. I would accept a change of train for a more regular service to get home after a long day!

Google adds a sense of history to Street View with archive footage

I think what I would like to see

as a logical extension to this, would be the (eg) Francis Frith collections of photos of yesteryear slurped and cleverly integrated into StreetView. So rolling back the years, but much much further, and checking out how things have changed since Ye Olden Days

Returning a laptop to PC World ruined this bloke's credit score. Today the Supreme Court ended his 15-year nightmare

I know his pain, partly

Here it is in easy slices

Went into PC World, purchased HP notebook attached to 3 contract because I was specifically told it had a SIM slot and 3G hardware built in, by a HP 'specialist' in-store.

Only it didn't; all it had was the slot but not the mini PCI hardware on board.

Took it back 2 days later, was told the 'specialist' had been removed.

Explained my woes and was told it would be too difficult to undo the 3 contract, and I could have virtually any other notebook as I had clearly been mis-sold.

After hours of standing and waiting, whilst their guys went through every other model, it transpired none of the models offered had the 3G hardware.

I walked out with what I hadn't asked for, a Samsung N310 with a compensatory RAM upgrade and some money shaved off. They wore me down, I should have stood my ground, I can see that now, and I am reminded every time I look at the N310.

What a joke they are, and nowadays even worse based on the crap they shift. You can't buy pc upgrade parts or 'bits' any more. I long for stores like Fry's in the US.

What the world really needs: A telescopic SELFIE STICK

Old hat

Bought one of these from 7day**** about 5 years ago for about a fiver

Reports pump fuel into iCar gossip: Apple in 'talks' with Tesla

Two words. (One abbreviation and one word then)

Mr. Fusion

Roads? Where we're going, we won't need roads...

LIVE, my beauty, LIVE! Nokia revives dead phone with LIGHTNING powered Frankencharger

BTTF2

A lightning bolt sent the Doc back from 1955 to 1885, at the end of Back to the Future II