Posts by myhandler

Cambridge Analytica seeks data protection assistant

Well if you've read any of the GDPR stuff, then yes, you need a degree.

Suspected drug dealer who refused to poo for 46 DAYS released... on bail

So how were they going to get the incriminating evidence?

Do all cells have filter trough outlets on the WCs?

Who gets to go though it - PC Stool Pigeon?

Mobile phone dealer boss faces 12 years in director limbo

Not personally liable for the debt, no, but if he broke the law he could go to prison

Who wants dynamic dancing animations and code in their emails? Everyone! says Google

Re: some people may find this appealing

Grow up - if you exclude style formatting you can't view tabular data nicely for one - design and layout are there to make things easier to read and comprehend.

Though I agree that's all that HMTL email should allow.

Anyway Microsoft Outlook won't adopt any of this for at least 20 years.

Web searching died the day they invented SEO

Don't you lot use Google's "verbatim" option?

Hidden under tools > 'all results' dropdown> verbatim

I used to have a plug in that got Firefox to always do that, but sodding Quantum scuppered that

Verbatim is good .. but can you combine it with date range filter .?. No.

It's pathetic that the evil bastard Google shits on us from on high, just to prove they are the fuckers who don't give a shit about end users.

Software that predicts whether crims will break the law again is no better than you or me

So is The Register now US centric?

The article implies "all" courts till you get down to paragraph 4.

Even if it is US centric the Reg writers should remember the US is not the only country in the world.

Amount of pixels needed to make VR less crap may set your PC on fire

Re: Glasses anyone?

Um - not going to work until they can project the image directly onto the retina.

Hold on to your aaSes: Yup, Windows 10 'as a service' is incoming

Re: Innovation is what's needed...

Yes but Apple tend to tie in their software with OS updates - so if the OS is updated you *have* to update Logic Pro to run the latest version and that's not free.

Proposed Brit law to ban b**tards brandishing bots to bulk-buy tickets

Doesn't work for tickets as gifts or for parents buying tickets for their kids.

Do you want your teenage progeny taking your credit card to a gig where they will no doubt lose it?

Kids will also optimistically buy tickets but then find their friends can't go (or their parents won't let them) and have to sell them all. I speak from experience. (But easily sold via Gumtree not the bastard agents)

Microsoft Surface Book 2: Electric Boogaloo. Bigger, badder, better

Re: Real alternatives?

CAD/CGI calls for a desktop machine, loads of RAM, high power graphics, a normal Wacom and ideally two monitors.

If you need portable with touch screen as well this seems a bargain.

Microsoft's 'Surface Phone' is the ghost of Courier laughing mockingly at fanbois

Re: Mechanical hinge

Well there's the nylon hinge made of a bendy piece of nylon - no moving parts anyway.

Why dont they make one out of a zip.. that should work. Let me call my patent lawyer.

Hackers' delight: Mobile bank app security flaw could have smacked millions

Banks will usually push blame back onto users - see recent reports of students getting scammed out of their funds.

London mayor: Self-driving cars? Not without jacked-up taxes, you don't!

The problem with Singapore's car tax model is that it relies on having poor neighbours where cars past their use by date can be dumped. It's a very eco-unfriendly use of resources.

Anyway there's no opposition in Singapore so government can do whatever the hell it likes. (The opposition is a symbolic pantomime.)

Here it would be political suicide, not that they need much help on that score...

I think Khan has been wilfully misrepresented here.

Lord of the Rings TV show shopped around Hollywood

Re: @DougS Wait, the dragons are dead?

Pussy Willow surely?

If your websites use WordPress, put down that coffee and upgrade to 4.8.3. Thank us later

Only just spotted this - upgraded the personal WP site I maintain.

Looking at Mr Ferrara's post it seems that WP still uses the mysql database driver, not PDO (or mysqli).

How long has it been deprecated ? Six years? That's inexcusable.

But I still don't see why fixing it properly should break plugins?

39 episodes of 'CSI' used to build AI's natural language model

Re: visuals?

It's essential it knows that humans take their sunglasses off to think.

Can you get from 'dog' to 'car' with one pixel? Japanese AI boffins can

So is the general rule that AI pattern recognition works off perceptual hashing?

There must be more to it - that seems fundamentally not AI but just massive statistical guesswork.

They should be converting to vectors, like SVG etc, then looking for patterns.

AI bot rips off human eyes, easily cracks web CAPTCHA codes. Ouch

Re: Tell the website authors

If you cc the message back to the sender you deserve to be penalised.

Email verify and then allow posting.

In forum posts filter out all html, or just the links, until user is marked as genuine.

Tories spared fine after being told off by ICO for election telemarketing

I live in a marginal lib/con area. Got phoned by a Lib Dem canvasser the day before the vote, but he was in Canada - FFS if they can't use local companies they won't get my vote.

OTOH the young conservatives at my front door, accompanied by an obnoxious Aussie bastard who said a vote for the lib dems was a vote for Corbyn, made the choice very simple.

How to make your HTML apps suck less, actually make some money

Can't they use SVGs for 90% of the use cases?

The case of the disappearing insect. Boffin tells Reg: We don't know why... but we must act

On the Guardian page on this report someone linked to a study suggesting electro magnetic radiation disrupts insects bio mechanics - I have no idea how valid the study is but :

https://ehtrust.org/science/bees-butterflies-wildlife-research-electromagnetic-fields-environment/

(one of the reports cited there is by a certain Cucurachi, C - he's hopping mad about it)

- joking aside if this has some truth to it it should be front page news

Hollywood has savaged enough sci-fi classics – let's hope Dick would dig Blade Runner 2049

Re: Electric Dreams

Yup they're pretty good I think, they get the essence of the man's stories.

Last week's probably the best. mostly down to Timothy Spall's acting.

No idea if I ever read the originals

Angst in her pants: Alleged US govt leaker Reality Winner stashed docs in her pantyhose

I bet that's a name she gave herself, by deed poll or however they do it in the US

.. and when she didn't win she did something silly to find fame

Welcome to the future: Bluetooth jackets you can only wash 10 times. Gee, thanks, Google

"...said Mark Hung ..."

We all know which garment he'll be sporting.

Want to keep in contact with friends and family without having to sell your personal data?

Re: Well I'm sold

That was on BBC Business Live last week - early morning business items on the news channel.

You forgot that you hired me and now you're saying it's my fault?

I used to train small groups of six or so who would travel miles to a training centre for the day.

Some wanted to lap up what I had to say, some couldn't be bothered at all.

Worse were the ones who simply saw it as a day to get out of the office and a nice place to chat to their buddies.

One group went to the pub at lunchtime after scoffing the complimentary luxury sandwiches, and came back pissed two hours later. I so wanted to tell them to FO home.

Shoddily-set-up Elastisearch hosting point-of-sale malware

You can't blame MongoDb for lack of HTTPS.

It HAS to be the cusotmer's choice. The problem is everyone and everything is going 'click click click' and nobody knows what the hell they're doing.

London Tube tracking trial may make commuting less miserable

Re: Local Knowledge?

Why does she use the Americanism "folk", if she's a Brit?

It's official: Users navigate flat UI designs 22 per cent slower

That's comapred to developers and their latest JS framework gizmo methodology?

Fewer than half GCSE computing students got a B or higher this year

Is it really so bad in schools? My daughter did a bit of Python programming in year 9 ICT.

Virgin Media mulls ditching 1 in 3 UK facilities, starts £20m spend audit

Re: I don't understand...

>>Why people fail to grasp that at the end of the day, a business is not there for the good of it's workers, it's there to make money.

See Anonymous coward.. that's just a line put about by libertarian capitalists.

It wasn't always that way - not by a long chalk.

Be carfeul what you read - a lot of it is propaganda horseshit.

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

I read there was a Colossus in Bedfont, now BP labs, just west of London.. must be an article in that.

(The guy who saw it there in his youth is on a forum I frequent - slip me a fiver Mr /Ms Reg Journo and I can put you in touch)

Jodie Who-ttaker? The Doctor is in

Species diversity.. maybe they can get a cyberman to play the Doctor next?

Let's go to work: How bots took over business

Re: I feel left out

>>>Sorry, I'm real.

You would say that, wouldn't you?

Hey, remember that monkey selfie copyright drama a few years ago? Get this – It's just hit the US appeals courts

Re: Devil's Advocate

No they don't - many will be unaware they made any decision to trigger a picture.

So no decision was made.

NASA flies plane through Earthly shadow of Kuiper Belt object

Thanks for the clarification on 'a sun' v 'the sun.'

Was Simon Sharwood being bloody-minded or is he just crap at explaining?

It's called disambiguation, me old china.

DIY music veteran SoundCloud flounders, lays off 40% of staff

Bandcamp seems much better for us little guys and less anonymous as you can add pictures.

And none of the stupid cross linking where you get random crap in someone's listing.

European MPs push for right to repair rules

Re: A smartphone should be as fixable as a refrigerator

I had a Bosch fridge that was faulty and a local fridge tech said it was an intermittent thermostat, that was inaccessibly buried in the insulation at top of the fridge.

Bosch refused to accept this and said that part never fails. They insisted on their own guy checking - he said it was fine.

I had to go back to them and scream at them saying it wasn't OK - bloody fridge was then left with a 24 hour monitor attached.

In the end they accepted it was faulty and a dumb design, refunded the costs, and I got a new fridge.

But why did the idiots bury that part inaccessibly ?

Way OTT but everything is unfixable now.

Concorde without the cacophony: NASA thinks it's cracked quiet supersonic flight

Yep live not that far from filthy, noisy Heathrow .. but Concorde would take off and do a sharp right and went directly over my street, one end to the other, engines roaring like rockets.

The house would shake, the windows rattle and every time I'd rush to try and see it.

Properly awesome.

'OK, everyone. Stop typing, this software is DONE,' said no one ever

It also happens on VPS.

Namesco did exactly this recently. It came with their generous free bonus offer of "We couldn't give a monkeys about forewarning you of any possible snafus that may arise."

Tesla death smash probe: Neither driver nor autopilot saw the truck

So let me get this straight - Tesla uses AI hooked up to a camera to recognise obstacles?

There's no fall back with a proximity detection system like radar?

Google to give 6 months' warning for 2018 Chrome adblockalypse – report

Any one read Philip K Dick's Ubik?

They have mini drones, not much bigger then bumble bees, that follow people around spouting adverts.

If I recall correctly they also have built in AI so if you to try to swat them, they plead for their life.

In another of his books your front door lock is connected to the powers that be - so if you fall behind on your bills you can't get into your apartment.

Samsung Galaxy S8+: Seriously. What were they thinking?

I hope Bigsby are going to sue - they may have been planning a Bigsby add on for smart phones. I can see it now...

(joke for guitar nerds)

UK hospital meltdown after ransomware worm uses NSA vuln to raid IT

Maybe it's the wake up call the government needs - doesn't matter what colour govt.

OTOH it gives them more ammunition to lock down access for everyone.

Mozilla to Thunderbird: You can stay here and we may give you cash, but as a couple, it's over

Search is abysmal - if they improve that I will be happy - right now I get thousands of results for a simple word - you cannot turn off the stupid whatever it's called auto sense.

Example: if you search for 'Weds' hoping for days of the week, it will also return anything with the word 'wedding'

iPhone lawyers literally compare Apples with Pears in trademark war

Eh, they've forgotten to sue this lot:

PEAR - PHP Extension and Application Repository

https://pear.php.net/

And then Coco de Mer had a bum shaped logo based on a suggestive looking fruit.

Hard-pressed Juicero boss defends $400 IoT juicer after squeezing $120m from investors

All I care about is they raised $ 120 million. I mean really? Who are these investors?

Can I sell them my IoT poo machine.. you get ready made poop in a pack and you print it to designer dung shapes using a 3d printer - end result iStools.

No need to eat - comes complete with selfie stick.

Alert: Using a web ad blocker may identify you – to advertisers

I'm unidenitfiable on my old Vista machine, but not on my W7 - I think it's the fonts.

Firefox user and don't do social waste of time.

For plugins I have Adblock Edge, BetterPrivacy and SelectiveCookieDelete - that deletes every cookie when I close the browser, apart from any I've nominated to keep. How long before ISPs let them slurp IP to address..?

Firefox 52 kills plugins – except Flash – and runs up a red flag for HTTP

UX is now driven by mobile and the "desktop can go to hell" attitude. That's the problem.

Facebook shopped BBC hacks to National Crime Agency over child abuse images probe

Re: For all we know...

Troll