Posts by Oh Matron!

Engineers' Laurel and Hardy moment caused British Airways 787 to take an accidental knee

Where's Zod?

Because everyone knows that you kneel before Zod

Happy 'Freedom Day': Stats suggest many in England don't want it or think it's a terrible idea

Re: From Denmark

Is that the same Denmark that's well and truly into it's 3rd wave?

Microsoft, Google, Citizen Lab blow lid off zero-day bug-exploiting spyware sold to governments

Re: Targets

an ex governor did once say that, "if you want to live in utopia, you have yo give up freedoms"

Try placing a pot plant directly above your CRT monitor – it really ties the desk together

BOBSMEDS

Those that have worked for a certain fruity company will know about Bob's Meds, apertures, and the ability for a CRT to send you across the room

Richard Branson uses two planes to make 170km round trip

Go Read "How to build a spaceship"

It's a fascinating look at private spaceflight, and where it came from. NASAs days are numbered (from a [payload perspective)

Curvature of the earth: Check

Uses rocket to get there: check

Die very quickly when outside: Check

Weightlessness: Check

Can see the blackness of space, where no one can hear you giggle like a child: Check

That's space. 80KM / 100KM / 167.45 KM: All arbitrary

"A confident company would have just put out a quick congratulation."

Indeed

UK competition watchdog sniffing around Motorola profits after delay to replace company's Airwave service

To Quote S. R. Haddon

First rule in Government Spending: "Why have one when you can have two at twice the price"

UK's data watchdog probes use of private email to discuss government business at the Department of Health

Re: open goal I should imagine

I don't think hancock was that clever. I'm guessing it was [e-mail]

Kepler spots four rogue Earth-mass exoplanets floating in space, unbound to any star

Space 1999

Foreseen by Gerry Anderson too! Whilst the moon isn't a planet....

The wheels come off Formula 1's notification service as fans plied with attacker's messages

APNS

Have worked with APNS in the past, and sending a message is not trivial.

Apple, rightly, have a couple of barriers in place, to prevent miscreants from hijacking it. Knowing the unique (to that application) ID to send a message to is one thing. And there's rate limiting on that API

This looks like some internal testing, given the Foo. If it's not, then there's been a breach.

UK urged to choo-choo-choose hydrogen-powered trains in pursuit of carbon-neutral economic growth

Won't happen......

Until there's a Tory donor who has a company based on H2

Re: Oh great!

Yeah, that petrol doesn't burn so well, does it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summit_Tunnel_fire

UK health secretary Matt Hancock follows delay to GP data grab with campaign called 'Data saves lives'

From the man....

least likely to be able to program a microwave

The tories' grasp of technology is inversely proportional to the amount of money their chums can make off it.

'Lots of failed startups came out of Campus': Google axes London hub because startup scene 'doesn't need' another 7 floors of workspace

Re: These "offices" are surprisingly expensive...

Starbucks do NOT have decent coffee. Putrid cat filth, maybe

There's plenty of indy coffee shops in Nodnol, that will be much more happier for your business

And there's plenty of indie shared space places in London too, which get you a desk AND coffee

UK competition watchdog begins probe into Apple and Google's total domination of the mobile landscape

Is there a barrier to selling a handset with a different OS on it? No

Is there a 50/50 split in market share between apple and google? No

Can you launch an android device without Google's shiteware on it. Yes

Is this free market ecomonics at play. Yes

Can you launch your own app store for both OS.... Erm, not so much.

Mensa data spillage was due to 'unauthorised internal download'

Re: Just another exclusive society with a secret handshake

Using your argument, the following groups are also "exclusive societies"

The girl guides

Parents

People with brown hair

slugs

People who like marmite

Ridiculous? Yep, as was your "comment"

Blue passports, French service provider: Atos bags £21m UK Passport Office deal

Re: "become completely digital"

You sound like my old program manager

"oh there's this employee whose left leg is 1mm longer than his other, and he speaks welsh as a 2nd language and he has an aunt called Mathilde... We need to build the entire solution around him"

Facial recog firm Clearview hit with complaints in France, Austria, Italy, Greece and the UK

Re: Clearview provides search services to law enforcement agencies

You are Teresa May / Patel, and I claim my £5

Amazon puts an $8.5bn MGM in its shopping cart, clicks on checkout

SportsDirect.....

Am I the only one that thinks the Amazon Movies and TV app looks a bit Mike Ashley? The UI just looks, well, nasty, especially compared to the very spartan AppleTV+, Disney + and Netflix. Perhaps a lick of paint wouldn't go amiss?

iFixit publishes teardown of M1 iMac, shows that making a determination of repairability is still hard

Re: e-waste

What most peeps don't know is that any electrical seller is obliged to take your e-waste and recycle accordingly. ANY e-waste. You could waltz up to PCCurriesWorld with a chest freezer and expect them to take it off your hands

That Salesforce outage: Global DNS downfall started by one engineer trying a quick fix

"The engineer instead decided erroneously"

Not for one second do I believe this. If this is true, the processes around change control at SF must be non existent!

iFixit slams Samsung's phone 'upcycling' scheme for falling short of what was promised

But what about Apple?

Apple's recycling scheme is actually quite decent..... Last autumn, I got £560 towards my new iPhone for the previous year's iPhone 11 pro. I got £250 for my two year old Apple watch

Yes, throw all the insults you wish about me needlessly upgrading every year, but at least my device get's properly recycled / reused (which is the kicker)

Apple's supply chain is brilliant. That iPhone I took in gets dismantled, the case gets proper recycled, and the components go into a "refurbished" iPhone that you either get from apple's Refurb site, or as a replacement when you go and get your phone replaced at the genius bar

The problem is that Samsung is a "stack it high and sell it, erm, not so cheap". The depreciation is hideous. And once the phone is sold, Samsung don't give a rat's ass about what happens to it after that. Despite its faults, you have to admire Apple's supply chain and dedication to reuse / recycle

Italian monopoly watchdog asks Google to cough up a few euros for illegally blocking an Android Auto app

Re: Integrating payment systems?

You've obviously never used an OEM navigation system included with a car.

God awful, written by people that have both never used a mobile phone and never used a sat nav whilst driving.

Can you car sat nav understand, "Take me to the nearest chippie?"

On eve of national industrial ballot, BT, EE, Openreach agree to temporarily suspend compulsory redundancies

Which balls?

"Gavin Patterson, who was recently linked with the ill-fated European Super League. His successor, Philip Jansen, picked up the ball and ran with it. "

Last time I saw, there was no picking up of balls in Football.

Britain to spend £22m influencing Indo-Pacific nations' cybersecurity policies against 'authoritarian regimes'

Re: World beating coders ?

World-beating Cod. Not coders. Cod.

App Tracking: Apps plead for users to press allow, but 85% of Apple iOS consumers are not opting in

Jog On....

Had an app that didn't get me any options than "allow"

Got deleted immediately. Even the AppleTV apps have started asking.

Good ridence

Just one in 5 Googlers plan to swerve the office permanently after COVID-19

Re: Flexibility?

Come the revolution, you'll all be eating fillet steak

But what if I don't want fillet steak?

Come the revolution, you WILL be eating filet steak.

I'm fortunate to work for a company that has embraced the "Work from wherever so long as you don't take the pith"

But can it run Avid? The Reg hands shiny new M1 MacBook to video production pro, who beats it with Blender, Handbrake, and ... Hypercard?

Re: Incredible

I have a question: why is 32bit still a thing on windows? Is it purely because of legacy apps?

To have one floppy failure is unlucky. To have 20 implies evil magic or a very silly user

To be fair, this plagues other things too. Whenever I was on my jollies, I'd leave my camera outside on the balcony, as, if you left it in the AC'd room and then took it outside, hilarity would ensue

As an aside, I also learnt about condensation the hard way whilst contracting in Malaysia. Sitting outside and drinking an iced beverage would often result in condensation dropping into one's lap. Not great when wearing khaki slacks :-)

Ever wondered what it's like working for Microsoft? Leaked survey shines a light on how those at the code coalface feel

At my time in life, I'm more concerned about being recognised for the work that I do.

Apple's pending privacy clampdown drives desperate marketers to overwhelm domain database

Re: re: easier for advertisers if everyone just gave up on privacy

So tell me.... How do they track road side adverts, TV commercials, etc, etc? That seems to be a business in rude health...

'Imagine' if Virgin Galactic actually did sub-orbital tourism: Firm unveils new chrome job on SpaceShip III

If you've not read...

"how to build a spaceship" then I implore you to do so. It's a fascinating look at how Musk, Branson, Allen and Rutan got us to where private spaceflight is a reality

Seagate UK customer stung by VAT on replacement drive shipped via the Netherlands

Re: We live in a time when virtually every country in the world is in some kind of trading bloc

It's not that B(w)anker with the 1980's suit, is it? Brian? He's everywhere, like the smell of piss in a bus station. The Mayoral elections can't come quick enough, so his smug face vanishes from the ether. Although, the way things are going, it'll be a landslide from the guy with one suit.

Nurserycam horror show: 'Secure' daycare video monitoring product beamed DVR admin creds to all users

FootfallCam

Makes the antics of Travis Kalanick, author of "How to nearly drive (sic) a buisness into the ground" look tame

Soviet 'Enigma' cipher machine sells for $22k at collapsed museum's exhibits auction

Re: Spy museums

which is why the Uhar-hazy is much better- Being a big of a trek.... I mean, niot only does it have a space shuttle, F-4, concorde, enola gay, but also a de havilland chipmunk :-)

Apple iOS 14.5 will hide Safari users' IP addresses from Google's Safe Browsing

Re: Transfer of power

You've really not thought this through, have you?

Any website that you visit gets your IP address. It's just that, with Google's safe browsing, Google gets EVERY website and the originating IP address

Now, with Apple's change, Google don't get any of this. Apple don't get any of this... And last time I checked, Applewasn't in the business of targetted ads

Facebook and Google’s Australian pay-for-news nightmare finds a European admirer

Re: Trying To Make Websearches Useless?

Erm..... RSS?

You'd have told them they should have used Apple/Google app model, right? NHSX seeks willing humans to fill health tech and data roles

Re: Just close it

Raab. Does anyone else taste bile when his name is heard?

Salary would have to be 10x that to work with........ What am I saying: There's not enough money in the world.....

Web prank horror: Man shot dead while pretending to rob someone at knife-point for a YouTube video

Re: OMG

He was carrying a gun. Kinda makes you so wrong, pineapple on a pizza is right

Very little helps: Tesco serves up 3-for-1 borkage special to self-scanning Tesco shoppers

Symbol, from memory, almost exclusively use stock android, making the management of them relatively easy. If these things are running windows CE / Mobile, etc, then they were probably bought years ago, probably because some aspiring director presented a utopia of no check outs (and, therefore, no staff)

Disappointed I didn't see minesweeper on there....

Bothering to upgrade the iPhone 12 over older models has proven to be worth its weight in gold for Apple

Re: So what's going to follow?

So here's the thing: I traded in my iPhone 11 Pro to get the 12 Pro, directly with Apple, and got such a great price (£550), it works out the same as upgrading every TWO years

Difficult logic to follow, but I don't see how this is possible.

Obviously, this all falls apart if you upgrade every three years....

Intel wheels out new face authentication product that works a lot like Apple's FaceID

Re: FaceID and facemasks

Bleach. A good day's cleaning, along with brush cleaner will remove all finger prints, thus rendering it useless.

Slack serves up out-of-order messages, shaky comms as world goes back to work

<Bob Hoskins Voice> It's good to talk </Bob Hoskins>

Something we frequently forget.

Oh, no one knows what goes on behind locked doors... so don't leave your UPS in there

I dated an american back in the late 2000's and we stayed at the Hilton in Croydon (don't ask).

She thought she'd be sweet one day and proceeded to make me a milky coffee.... But pouring the water, coffee and milk into the kettle.... Which then proceeded to trip the floor's electric.... Whilst I was in the shower.

Fun times....

On the 11th day of Christmas TalkTalk took from me... the email address of my company

As much as I despise Google's anti privacy antics, getting my dad up and running with his own domain with GSuite literally took minutes

I cring when I still see buisnesses using @live, hotmail et al as their biuisness email

Calls for 'right to repair' electronics laws grow louder across Europe

Phillips....

I have an electric tooth brush. 1 charger.

My One blade. Another charger

My hair clippers. Yet another different charger. It's not just about personal computing

Boeing 737 Max will return to flight after software updates, says EU's aviation regulator

Re: Nonetheless...

Easily done: Just avoid Tui, RyanAir and the The World's least favourite airline, BA.

As described perfectly in https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-fi-boeing-max-design-20190315-story.html

TL;DR The 737 was design back in a time when Airbridges didn't exist and steps were used, mandating the aircraft door being very close to the ground.The world has moved on since then, the 737 hasn't

Social isolation creates craving in the same brain region as wanting food or addictive drugs, study finds

Re: Yeah, surprise me.

WFH since before Lockdown, as we have a leader who, you know, understands science and listens to experts.

Rant aside, we won't be back into the office till at least July next year. I'm thankful that my flat mate works from home for two days a week, but it's bloody lonely the rest of the time, even working for a company that fully embraced video conf'ing over a decade ago.

EU says Boeing 737 Max won't fly over the Continent just yet: The US can make its own choices over pilot training

https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-fi-boeing-max-design-20190315-story.html

It's a bodge of a bodge. the 737 design should have been retired many years ago