Posts by Doctor Syntax

If Syria pioneered grain processing by watermill in 350BC, the UK in 2019 can do better... right?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that the UK has been under an economic cloud for years? Firstly we had the economic crash and more recently UK industry - what's left of it - has been under threat of losing most of its home market. Why would anyone resort to capital expenditure when cheap labour needs no long term commitment.

HP printer small print says kit phones home data on whatever you print – and then some

Re: Not me!

Same thing applies. Dumbos are willing to pay. They get data. What actual use is it? At the end of the line it has to either get written off or has a false valuation attached. I suspect the entire data trading economy is an example of making a precarious living by taking in each other's washing.

Re: Competition and Award Suggestion

If it ain't broke don't replace it.

Re: Not me!

"in order to boost the bottom line."

I wonder if this, ultimately, is any more than fool's gold. Does HP actually make anything out of this data (as opposed to the sign-up for ink)? Do they just accumulate it and put a valuation on it in the accounts irrespective of that?

Re: Competition and Award Suggestion

My HP printer is one of the old-school all-in-one mono single-sided jobs that depends on an external Jetdirect box for an Ethernet connection. It's unlikely to be able to send anything back. OTOH it looks solid enough to last until the heat death of the Universe. When I decided to get a colour duplex printer as well I remembered the quality of the more modern HP all-in-ones my daughter's employers had provided for her home office - and bought a Brother.

Re: polluting the well.

I'd just have left all the stuff at the till and walked out although I might have returned after looking up the address of their registered office I might have found it a tad difficult, however as I haven't frequented a clothes shop in years.

UK.gov's smart meter cost-benefit analysis for 2019 goes big on cost, easy on the benefits

Re: Ha

"My 'phone number is evidently linked to my account number, so 'phone back - system knows it's me (well, my house/gas account), select a couple of push button options, key in the meter reading. sorted."

Mine obviously was, that's why they called - either that or they were calling the wrong number. And maybe now they could make the link if I called back, something they should have had in place from the start. But I gave up on them and have no intention of wasting time to see if they've debugged their system (if they were paying me to debug it for them it would be different).

So I ignore them and they send somebody out to read it. Sorted.

That would suit me. The meter is inside the house. The feed is underground. Their documentation is bad enough that they probably wouldn't be able to work out where it comes from and f they did they'd need the live jointing crew to do the work for them.

Re: Ha

"Now I get an automated 'phone call from British Gas asking me to read the meter and supply the result online or by automated 'phone line."

I keep getting that. The first few tries they'd rung off by the time I got to the meter which is on the opposite gable to the front door. Then I tried the ring back and it assumed I had my account number to hand (no attempt to match CLI with the number they called on). So now I've given up and just ignore their calls. They might have improved things since then but how would I know - I ignore them? Moral: get it right first time.

They keep writing letters to get us to set a date. We keep ignoring them.

Re: SMETS2?

"the largest pump storage is in Wales"

There's also quite a tidal race that could be utilised in the Menai Straight.

Re: SMETS2?

"Capitalism at its very finest."

So long as it keeps this intrusion in check, definitely the finest.

Stallman's final interview as FSF president: Last week we quizzed him over Microsoft visit. Now he quits top roles amid rape remarks outcry

"just had a huge chuckle at his rider."

I could at least sympathise with "Some hosts even feel that they ought to try to fill up my time as a matter of good hospitality. Alas, it's not that way for me."

I had a day taken out of a very crowded week that way.

Re: Tracking

"How does he think a pager works?"

One directionally.

OTOH calling back from a land line, which is how I read it? The phone company knows exactly where that is.

Re: A product of his time

Some of us are older than that.

Re: He should have stuck to what he knows

I suspect that these days such policies would fold under a human rights challenge.

Re: Please don't call them hackers. That's offensive to us hackers.

I think that's a lost battle.

Re: He should have stuck to what he knows

There's a very odd passage in the linked article: "the [MIT] administration created a very specific and well thought out policy, which basically says that any relationship where two people are in different positions of power (professor*-student, director-staff, etc.) cannot coexist with a sexual/romantic relationship or any type of sexual activity."

My own marriage was, I suppose, technically a staff (research assistant)/(research) student relationship although there's not much, if any, difference in power there. But in my undergrad days the wife of the acting head of department had previously been his research student. Later, n the department where I met SWMBO, one of the lecturers was married to a technician. It's not uncommon for people to meet their partners at university and not entirely unusual for those to be in different roles.

This rule seems to be harking back to the very bad old days when a married woman had to resign or the nearly as bad days when a married couple couldn't work in the same department. AFAICR even in our case we had to check that that wouldn't be an issue.

My advice to the people drawing up this sort of policy would be to be very careful what you wish for.

* AFAICS in the US any tenured member of staff seems to be termed a professor. In the UK this is not so. For comparative purposes a university lecturer would have to be regarded as a professor in these terms.

US government sues ex-IT guy for breaking his NDA (Yes, we mean Edward Snowden)

The defendants are in Russia and Germany but then US justice spans the world.

Google age discrimination case: Supervisor called me 'grandpa', engineer claims

"A performant is an actor."

A very small actor.

UK Home Office primes Brexit spam cannon for a million texts reminding folk to check passports

Re: Middle aged Golfers

"Oh, and a lot of working class areas voted to leave. eg Scunthorpe."

The consequences for steel workers there might not have been what they thought they were voting for. There'll be seasonal vacancies for Ag Labs, however.

"The invocation of Article 50 was very much in line with the country's constitutional processes."

If BoJo goes ahead on the lines he was suggesting earlier (he seems to have been back-pedalling on that) the overall process wouldn't have been. If a new HMG and the EU were looking for a basis to unwind the whole thing I'm sure they'd deem it a breach of the Art 50 terms.

Re: Motorways

Maybe not a bad idea.

In the distant days when I was a teenager I went to Paris with a group of schoolf riends. It involved a long coach ride to Lydd, being catapulted taking a very short air trip to the nearest air strip across the channel and another long coach ride to Paris. And then the same in reverse to get home. On the coach ride back from Lydd we had an extra passenger. He'd come down by coach for the next week's trip and didn't realise he needed a passport.

Re: To get back to the issue

So what you're saying is that the UK and France, whilst both are still in the EU can have different rules about this; there isn't an overarching EU law telling us all what to do?

Re: What's your excuse?

Pro-establishment leftists?

Does not compute.

Re: Citation needed

"Reality will be somewhere in between."

Therefore less than peachy.

"so that the enthusiasm for Brexit is effectively buried."

Did you miss that bit?

I keep saying that when reality strikes it will turn out that the referendum result will turn out to have been an odd statistical quirk as there'll be surprisingly few people who said they'd voted leave.

Post Brexit there'll be good money to be made selling bumper stickers that say "Don't blame me, I voted Remain".

Re: Passport Renewal

"t's a bit of a dick move"

You've got to credit them with being consistent.

What's your excuse?

You're not even new here.

Re: Credit where credit is due.

"But, but, that is against EU-rules."

Boris, is that you?

One scenario I can envisage is BoJo carrying out his threat to leave with no deal despite the recent legislation followed sufficient of those who will learn by no other teacher than experience* finally learning so that the enthusiasm for Brexit is effectively buried. BoJo is hastily replaced by a temporary govt. of national unity which goes to the EU to revoke Art 50 on the grounds that it requires the invocation to be in line with the country's constitutional processes and, thanks to BoJo, it wasn't.

*Experience is a dear teacher etc.

Re: First problem, right here ...

"It's our government that either rejected that or failed to confirm they would allow it"

Or haven't got round to thinking about it yet. This is detail stuff. They only want to deal with big ideas, who needs details?

First they came for 'face' and I did not speak out because I... have no face? Then they came for 'book'

Stupidity in trademark applications should be an offence punishable by a fine of 50% of turnover for the next 5 years.

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google told: If you could cough up a decade of your internal emails, that'd be great

"surely nothing worse than an SQL query"

But SQL databases are so last millennium It'll need AI to sort it all out these days.

If it actually comes to pass it'll sort out those who went to the Sir Humphrey school of memo writing and those who didn't.

Just as Ecuador thought it had seen the back of leaks, over 20m citizen records are exposed

"And Julian Assange is among them"

That answers the first question that came to mind.

He'll not be pleased. The nerve of it! Somebody leaking information about him! Who do they think they are? Wikileaks?

As he and possibly others are resident in the EU it's also a breach of GDPR.

Justice served: There is no escape from the long server log of the law

Re: Surely...

"Yes, it is quite usual to people like this to loose hands or fingers. Darwin at work and all."

For Darwin to have an effect it would take loss of more than hands or fingers.

Re: ... very few people would notice...

"you can distribute whatever crap you like"

The story of the "music" industry for decades.

Re: Surely...

"When you're working with equipment that can potentially rip someone's arm off"...

...it might be a good idea to redesign to at least reduce the probability if not eliminate it.

COBOL: Five little letters that if put on a CV would ensure stable income for many a greybeard coder

Re: Untitled photo of Grace Hopper

Or, depending on how you look at it, commanding more vessels than anyone else.

Re: And with Freedos and Dosbox around...

Until you discover that the COBOL program is the spec. for the re-write.

Re: "That some today reckon the event was a bit of a damp squib"

The difference is that one was taken seriously.

Re: My first programs were in COBOL

That's what sequence numbers and the card sorter are were for.

Re: IF Year > 50

"I'd type in the code, hit compile, lock the terminal and toddle off to the refectory and grab a coffee and sandwich and chat with friends"

Kids today! Never realise what it was like handing in a stack of cards to be run through when the operator got round to it.

Has outsourcing public-sector IT worked? The Institute for Government seems to think so, kinda

"then Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude "

Who are you and what have you done with el Reg?

Mad Frankie!!

Pushing Verify in Brexit plans more about saving troubled project

"I would ask you all to engage in that work urgently."

This from a man who thinks that the UK will be ready to exit the EU on Oct 31st*. It tells you a great deal about his ability to do anything other than play politics.

* In this or any other year.

Two years ago, 123-Reg and NamesCo decided to register millions of .uk domains for customers without asking them. They just got the renewal reminders...

Re: Network Solutions

"Now they e-mail every 10 days "

And you're still with them for the other domains? If I were feeling very generous I'd have given them 1 chance to stop. Otherwise I'd just have transferred the domains and deleted the email address I'd given them (as a matter routine I'd have given them a unique email address to I could do just that if needed).

Re: they have simply stuck those domains on auto-renew

Endorse Mythic.

Re: Network Solutions is better

Mythic Beasts didn't even try to pull the stunt in the first place AFAIK. Certainly they haven't with my .org.uk domains.

Re: It's a stupid thing to pull a con trick on your own customers.

"Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008"

This would apply to people who have registered personal domains. Domains for commercial purposes wouldn't be covered as consumers. Probably the best approach would be to tell the registrar you didn't want it, didn't ask for it and, if they've taken the money, tell them to refund it or you'll go to the small claims court. And, f they don't pony up, do just that. Then move the domains to a better registrar.