* Posts by myhandler

334 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jan 2014

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Rancher faces prison for trying to breed absolute unit of a sheep

myhandler

Re: Ovine Park

Baa...rassic Park

(spent all his dosh hasn't he, he's brassic... but.. in his secret lab..)

[Boracic lint for those ignorant of the argot]

Water worries flood in as chip industry and AI models grow thirstier

myhandler

Re: We have the answer!

The perfect solution is to build them on the Antarctic.

The heat from the fab will melt the ice and all that pure water will work beautifully.

As the fab sinks slowly through the ice they can watch the ice strata going past.

London's famous BT Tower will become a hotel after £275M sale

myhandler

Re: Secret places and maps

Or put a commercial radio station in the lower floors and everyone will think that's the only occupant.

That'll be Capital Radio and denizens of MI5 /6

It's time we add friction to digital experiences and slow them down

myhandler

And adding a few minutes delay to any of the theft transactions would have made zero difference.

Fujitsu gets $1B market cap haircut after TV disaster drama airs

myhandler

Re: Its not Fujitsu, its ICL

Nope. Once you buy a company you take on *all* their responsibilities.

It's called due diligence.

That Fushitsu sat there 20 years ago and did not say "you know what, we need to fix this at our own expense" shows them to be in it up to their necks.

And WTF were the Japanese board doing when reviewing their foreign ops?

I wonder if Fushitisu have a 'Corporate social responsibility" statement on their websites.

Post Office boss unable to say when biz knew Horizon could be remotely altered

myhandler

Re: 700 As an ex-Sr. Director of a software company...I'm apalled!

There were far more than that. There were plenty of cases that never got to prosecution because the subpostmaster made up the shortfall with their own money and with it was smaller sums they would often choose to ignore after giving a warning.There were problems even with the test rollout scheme done in the late 1990s.

There is no excuse - and, dammit, the developer's job is to examine those edge cases and figure out where the hell they come from.

How governments become addicted to suppliers like Fujitsu

myhandler

The Reg should write a proper piece on the technical details of Horizon. There's plenty on www.postofficetrial.com

For the version in use till c2010 it seems the PO branches wrote to an xml file for each transaction - but a single free text field for date, time, amount, item detail - seemingly not node based.

At the end of each working day that lot of files got parsed and sent over to a central server - a system called Riposte was the intermediary, supplied by another company, Escher Group not Fushitsu.

Who needs experts.

Former Post Office boss returns CBE to sender over computer system scandal

myhandler

Re: So what was actually wrong?

There were some cases where it showed a gain. One PO submaster was able to demonstrate this to the visiting Horizon people.

Lots more here: https://www.postofficescandal.uk/

Everyone's suing AI over text and pics. But music? You ain't seen nothing yet

myhandler

Re: music copyright cases and rights are a pain

Have you listened to Zodiac by Spirit? LZ were a support band to Spirit at the early days. Randy C reportedly told Page "yeah man you can use that bit". Then Randy's descendants thought they deserved a bit. Love and peace, love and peace.

UK PM promises faster justice for Post Office Horizon victims

myhandler

Re: The possibilities are infinite

The vendor of a faulty product is only liable up to a point.

When the user carries on using it after learning it's faulty, dangerous and a potential killer the blame moves up the chain.

The PO is in fact owned by the Government trade and industry department. That's right, it's owned by the Government.

When the PO sacked the external forensic auditor - put there in the first place by a parliamentary committee - then the minister would have been informed.

He would then have told his boss of the potential shitshow - and they all looked the other way.

What if Microsoft had given us Windows XP 2024?

myhandler

My computer went tits up this week, weird errors and blue screens and then it lost the SSD, all in less than an hour.

I needed to get to the Macrium Reflect backup on my other HD but no SSD meant no Windows, so I had to reinstall from disk while realising the SSD was toast.

At least got the new install onto the SSD but I couldn't believe the flat screen monstrosity of W10 I was seeing, slidey this and that and big buttons everywhere. WTAF.

I must have made so many tweaks I have something that looks like W7 - classic shell of course - but then who knows what else I've switched off.

Realising something was still a bit iffy I opened the case and decided to wiggle all the wires and hey presto everything was working perfectly.

The Macrium Reflect back up worked and I only lost three days of email. I don't even need the spare SSD that's arrived.

I wish could get on with Linux.

Everyone wants better web search – is Perplexity's AI the answer?

myhandler

Even the Google 'verbatim' button shovels crap.

I end up with the 'verbatim' setting on, then sets of words in quotes and it still shovels crap.

If only I could lock verbatim to 'on' - and yes there used to be a plug in that did that.

Whenever I try DDG it's no better. I've even tried Bing, it's not so annoying but results are even vaguer.

Amazon already has a colossal ads business and will extend it to Prime Video in January

myhandler

You're thinking of intermissions. Film reels were about 40 minutes and change over is simply done by having two projectors and keeping an eye out for the dots in the top right corner. 8 in the gate and you're good to go.

England's village green hydrogen dream in tatters

myhandler

Re: Really?

There's two completely distinct types - ground source heat pumps and air source heat pumps.

Alien rock remains found not on but deep inside the Earth

myhandler

Re: Where these blobs are now :)

Great animation there. I wonder if the collision is what kicked off plate tectonics - without which I very much doubt we, or other complex life, would be here.

Privacy advocate challenges YouTube's ad blocking detection scripts under EU law

myhandler

UBlock is fine so far on Firefox but it does not work on Opera where I get the lovely little countdown timer.

The timer thing is rude and patronising and I don't watch at all when they pull this stunt.

They can FO and then FO some more.

Mozilla's midlife crisis has taken it from web pioneer to Google's weird neighbor

myhandler

There's a very good email client for Android called "Fair Email"

Handles multiple accounts, no ads - yes that's right no sodding ads - and it's free though I paid.

Setup is quirky but it's all there

I still use ThunderBird on the computer

The home Wi-Fi upgrade we never asked for is coming. The one we need is not

myhandler

Re: Modem Mode Manifestly More Manageable

I used to have the VM router in modem mode but when I moved house I left the new kit in standard mode thinking I'd change it when I had time, but it's been fine. There's still some port forwarding oddities but my work around of 'Sleep PC / Wake PC" kicks it back into life.

Google on trial: Feds challenge deals that set your web search defaults

myhandler

I hate infinite scroll on Google desktop search, I hate it with a vengeance.

There's an option to disable it but it doesn't bring back paginated results.

So I've been trying DDG and even Bing - but they aren't any better as they lack verbatim search.

Bing results are very odd too.

Done up like kippers by Google we are.

Getting to the bottom of BMW's pay-as-you-toast subscription failure

myhandler

Re: don't forget - 2CV spark-plugs and *proper* BMWs

Lol, wow I hadn't remembered the plug change routine on the 2CV for decades. The memory flash even came along with the blue plug spanner and its jointed arm.

With version 117, Firefox finally speaks Chrome's translation language

myhandler

I use Firefox everyday all the time on Windows, sometimes with lots of tabs. I don't recall it crashing - maybe it does once a year?

I also use Opera for some things and that's stable, if a bit quirky. I avoid Chrome.

On Android Firefox and Brave are good.

Computer graphics pioneer John Warnock dies at 82

myhandler

Nerdy comment: if you'd studied classic typography you'd know 80pt is not a regular size. After 72pt the next up would be 84pt.

I used to say it was the Mac that changed my life but really it was postscript.

Illustrator provided my revelatory moment when we needed evenly spaced lines for the background to a logo.

I thought she'd say "ok I can do that tomorrow" but she stopped what she was doing, hit some keys, and sixty seconds later a page rolled out of the printer.

(And about a year later all the photo typesetters started going out of business)

So much for CAPTCHA then – bots can complete them quicker than humans

myhandler

The article only refers to distorted text captchas being 'bottable', not the status of the ubiquitous image question things.

Haven't seen a distorted text captcha on a modern site for a long time.

Google, DeepMind accused of 'stealing the internet' to create Bard AI chatbot

myhandler

Yes but are you font of ALL knowledge?

Nope, you're an average human idiot like the rest of us.

(No insult intended, no one knows everything, not even Arse Musk)

NASA 'quiet' supersonic jet is nearly ready for flight

myhandler

Re: As much political as technical

It used to fly directly above my street in Twickenham on take off. Not sure how high by then but the whole damn house shook and car alarms would sometimes go off. Didn't stop me running out to see it, if I had time.

Ordinary jet noise is more annoying as there's never any quiet.

Startup that charged $1.20 a day for coworking space in nightclubs folds

myhandler

Shouldn't the head line have said "Startup that charged for co-working space in nightclubs is on it's knees"?

I've seen things you wouldn't believe, like an atom about to photosynthesize

myhandler

Fascinating. There's more of this, though a lot is conjecture, in Prof Nick Lane's book The Vital Question: Why is life the way it is? - which looks at how life might have started.

Microsoft pushes users to the Edge in Outlook, Teams

myhandler

Re: Probably time to have another look at Opera

Opera's ok but it's not great. What do you not like about Firefox?

The end of Microsoft-brand peripherals is only Surface deep

myhandler

Intellimouse, wired, got a spare too if it conks out.

Wired is lighter than wireless so less strain on the hand.

Scroll wheel for scrolling and left side button set to 'show desktop' - never found anything better.

Singapore tells its people: Go forth and block those ads

myhandler

Re: Vinegar.....

Ads? Does YouTube have ads? It's been so long UBlock Origin has done it's thing I forgot.

Medusa ransomware crew brags about spreading Bing, Cortana source code

myhandler

septics

Parts of UK booted offline as Virgin Media suffers massive broadband outage

myhandler

Yes down for me - I hadn't got up in time to notice this morning. Right now it's all over the place - some sites work, some don't, connections suddenly drop.

I should add VM has been reliable here in Surrey over the past year, and was for years at previous London address.

Student satellite demonstrates drag sail to de-orbit old hardware

myhandler

How about an explanation of how it works?

Also if it was 30cm cube how come it only weighed 225 grammes? That's half a tin of tomatoes.

Anyone want an International Space Station? Slightly used

myhandler

Re: Mir

"..so it can be controlled where it enters the atmosphere and intimately ends up."

How intimate are you hoping for?

Boffins find 'missing link' between interstellar ice and what comes out of the tap

myhandler

Re: Water, water everywhere....

Not sure where you get 5 hour days from - more like 20 hour days. And there's early earth and there's early life - they are not the same - but don't worry you're only out by nearly 4 billion years.

The second dust bowl cometh for America, supercomputer warns

myhandler

There's a paragraph in the article starting:

"Even still, the group has limited the long-term trajectory of these forecasts to 50 years...."

What does "Even still" add?

Do American journos not know how to speaka da language?

Financial authorities fine UK bank nearly $60m for platform migration disaster

myhandler

FFS - just show our local currency in the headline - sod the dollars

Too much septicisation going on.

BBC is still struggling with the digital switch, says watchdog

myhandler

Re: Slow moving

Yes, the same with printed newspapers. It was very easy to read the first few paragraphs before deciding if it was interesting to you - I'd then often read the whole piece. The web doesnt have that appeal. There's so much garbage that we learn to make instant judgements and reject stuff that doesn't appeal before gving it a try.

It's when you see or read stuff that you had no idea you might find interesting that you learn new things.

Sadly BBC documentaries have been pretty weak for years along with a reliance on the presenter. Not Mr Attenborough I might add, but Brian Cox says the same stuff, too slowly, over and over again.

I'd rather see more from Jim Al Khalili or Nick Lane - a whole grown up series on evolution could be quite something.

But the funding, the funding - and the role government plays to grind them into the ground.

Intel expects to regain market share by 2024, admits to 'inefficiency in the fab'

myhandler

Re: Hope for handouts is eternal in Murica

That you Elon?

Inadequate IT partly to blame for NHS doctors losing 13.5 million working hours

myhandler

I was with an NHS eye specialist recently, she moves from one hospital to another. She wanted to write a prescription for me and forward it on my GP for repeats. She had to call a colleague to help - who was rude and said "you should know this by now". So I looked over and the arcane set of clicks and buttons would confuse anyone not using it regularly.

It looked like it had stepped out of the 1980s. I was in at the dawn of the web and interface design and it looks like the NHS are still there. It doesn't need to be 'Appified' it just needs UX people to be involved.

Stack Overflow bans ChatGPT as 'substantially harmful' for coding issues

myhandler

Re: ChatGPT appears to getting glowing reviews

How long did it take you to specify *exactly* what you wanted?

A trivial exercise to prove it works is just that

Security firms hijack New York trees to monitor private workforce

myhandler

Pfft, just 3d print some new trees, nobody will notice.

ISS dodges space junk from satellite Russia blew up

myhandler

Re: Hello Garbage Scowl!

Most of it is tiny particles, like paint flecks. Can still punch a hole in a space station

Scanning phones to detect child abuse evidence is harmful, 'magical' thinking

myhandler

Re: If people in the 1960s knew what computers and the Internet did to our freedom

Thank you Number 6, reference noted.

Waxworm's spit shows promise in puncturing plastic pollution

myhandler

Any fast and bulbous squid involved?

Chinese researchers make car glide 35mm above ground in maglev test

myhandler

Re: No Dogs in this race

I remember a boy at school making one for some A level. I saw it working, track was only about 30 feet and 'train' was maybe 18" long. As you can tell it was long time ago - pre-metrication. Yes it was a school with exceptional facilites and teachers but I wonder what the guy did, spend 50 years watching as no one got it to the mass market?

Rest in peace, Queen Elizabeth II – Britain's first high-tech monarch

myhandler

Exactly, my mother never took a driving test as it was WWII. I think my Dad taught her when they were courting. She was a pretty good driver as it goes.

AI detects 20,000 hidden taxable swimming pools in France, netting €10m

myhandler

Re: If it steers boots on the ground to double check

Tax dodging has been the way of life for several hundred years in France. That's why the villages look so quaint, if you paint your house the taxman takes notice.

UK's largest water company investigates datacenters' use as drought hits

myhandler

Mine harnesses wind power *and* solar. I better get it to market pronto.

Google promises to adjust search algorithm to favor 'people-first content'

myhandler

I used to have a plug in for Firefox that forced "verbatim" on every bloody search.

But who knows why it got deactivated and no longer works.

So I have to carefully decide what phrases to put in quotes, or click Tools > All Results > Verbatim - drives me mad, what a lunatic waste of time.

The bastards don't give a flying fart for their users.

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