Posts by Doctor Syntax

Now that's service: TalkTalk customers enjoy a Friday morning free of pesky emails

I wonder if it had a little snooze on Tuesday. I had an email bounced with a 550. A subsequent email to the same recipient went through OK.

User secures floppies to a filing cabinet with a magnet, but at least they backed up daily... right?

"to indicate where you push/pull"

Don't cover that up. It'll create no end of confusion, especially for people who stick disks to doors with magnets.

Re: Two true stories

Back in the late '90s I was minding a system which needed to receive data from bits of the NHS. Initially all this was on floppy although we got an address on NHS Net so eventually it moved over to email. I guess that office still had the kit from those days.

As the disks weren't returned I built up a nice supply of floppies.

Re: stop me if you've heard this one....

"or 'persuader' if you're talking to a former army man"

Army men have no monopoly on that.

Re: stop me if you've heard this one....

"send them back for a rubber hammer."

And a long stand.

Re: Don't underestimate users...

"this is the process we did use for senior management/executives, but we simply didn't have the time and the spare kit around to do this for absolutely everyone"

Putting the effort where it's most needed.

Re: Well if the US ships want the Chinese to keep out of the way

happened to me in support for DWP in the 90's

I'll believe anything of DWP in any of its incarnations at any time. I spent several days (I think it was only days) with one of their suppliers trying to sort out scads of data from their (DWP's) self-billing system which they (ditto) clearly didn't understand.

The classic was back in the days when, in Harold Wilson's self-exculpatory term, I'd been redeployed from one of my first jobs* and I had a job interview miles at the other end of the country on the day I was due to sign on. The erk in the Labour Exchange couldn't get his head round that going for a job interview was a more effective way of making oneself "available for employment" that turning up at his useless office. He finally conceded when asked to explain the steps by which he arrived at that conclusion.

*OK, probably one of the few that wasn't HW's fault at that time. Putting a big investment into new premises for one of your least profitable and maybe loss-making product lines isn't a good idea whoever's running the economy.

Re: Well if the US ships want the Chinese to keep out of the way

"here is one for the few surviving Tuttle/CentOS transcripts."

Thanks for that classic blast from the past.

Motion detectors: say hello, wave goodbye and… flushhhhhh

Re: The non delivery

"Royal Mail are the worst for collections. Their collection site is a 38 mile round trip taking about 1:20 hours."

Ours is only a couple of miles away but only open until midday. Fortunately our posties are aware of the us/daughter addresses (about a mile apart) so sometimes the problem's solved that way.

Re: Why it's important to specify units.

For every day purposes a flush at 37K would be a bit hard.

Re: "the smartphone will need to install and run a specific scanning app and media player"

"From past experience it's normally where the delivery drone has dumped it in the first place for safe keeping so it's dry and protected."

True. But not necessarily your own bin.

Re: "the smartphone will need to install and run a specific scanning app and media player"

left to their own devices to find out that the buffet is taking place in New York there are bears about and they are the buffet.

FTFY

open the window to let the "bad air" out

For the Jelly Roll Morton/Buddy Bolden reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgmZyImasvA

My HPE-funded lawyer wrote my witness statement, reseller boss tells High Court

Re: Handshake protocol

"But this is the first time the case hasn't looked like a walkover."

Courts like a contemporaneous account (police witnesses reading from their notebooks tend to be asked to confirm their notes made at the time). A written agreement vs an alleged verbal agreement committed to paper years later? Not so good.

I do wonder how Egan is going to emerge from all this.

Re: Did I read that right ?

"on the right side of the pond you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

The actuality is that you can only answer the questions counsel ask. If the question is along the lines of "tell us in your own words what happened" then fine. If counsel takes the approach of micro-managing (while avoiding leading) it's more tricky. Why would counsel do that? To limit the other side's scope for cross-examination.

"setup for a punchline in a Dilbert comic."

Setup? This was the punchline.

"How do I give the Reg a generic thumbs-up for its reporting of this case? It's become something of a gripping soap-opera!"

Seconded.

Always read the paper before you sign it.

I've had the experience of having had a witness statement retyped* and something significant left out. But having the whole thing written by someone else? Amazing.

* It happens occasionally for perfectly valid reasons.

So you've 'seen' the black hole. Now for the interesting bit – how all that raw data was stored

Re: He filled hard disks

"the backup disk money"

Tape?

It was probably a financial decision. The bigger risk would have been loss in transit rather than H/W failure during transcription. Anything from rough handling via over-zealous customs official to a crash, and not forgetting the packages that disappear into a warehouse and are never found again due to theft or incompetence.

Re: Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

And don't sneer at "spinning rust": Western Digital's HGST 8TB helium-filled drives were used, whereas capacity and cost limitations ruled out SSDs.

"what boggles me ...is the sheer scale of the organisation and admin needed to get all of this together and functional."

Try this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00042l4/how-to-see-a-black-hole-the-universes-greatest-mystery

As Alexa's secret human army is revealed, we ask: Who else has been listening in on you?

Re: Where do I start with this?

'we may share your data with third parties in order to enhance our product and improve your experience'

We, of course, may share their EULA with the local data protection regulator, at least on this side of the pond. I wonder if they'd argue in defence that the EULA for a consumer device isn't worth the paper it's not written so they can't be bound by it.

It would almost be worth buying one to play it Stanley Unwin recordings. Almost.

Client-attorney privilege? Not when you're accused of leaking Vault 7 CIA code

"The government responded ... saying that it had no way to speed up the process because the CIA officer in charge of reviewing the material is independent from its prosecutorial team."

I strongly suspect that if the court ordered that if the review wasn't completed in, say, 6 hours the material would be handed over anyway they'd suddenly find it possible to review it in 6 hours.

What, BTW, happens if the reviewer decides the material is classified?

Welcome your new ancestor to the Homo family tree; boffins have discovered a new tiny species of human

Re: Which is it?

"Or perhaps the classification of these bones is incorrect."

Having watched studies of human evolution develop over a number of years it seems very likely that proposed evolutionary trees will get revised. Or refined according to choice of words.

Ancestor?

Not very probable. Distant and long-lost cousin.

Uncle Sam charges Julian Assange with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion

Re: Good

"I personally hope they don't extradite him if he still holds UK citizenship"

Did he ever?

Re: Is this the best that the USA can come up with ?

The biological features of lettuce and chicken are very different. There are plenty of internal places for bacteria to hide in a chicken after it's been externally washed. If it needs to be washed externally it's a good indicator that the interior might have problems.

Not biased against you and not going anywhere, judge tells Post Office in Horizon IT system case

Re: Tough

"Having read the whole thing"

Did you notice the bit where it appears to have been a board-level decision to appeal? It explains a lot.

I'd have liked a fly-on-the-wall report on the meeting with their solicitors.

Re: Evidence?

"So has the software in use at the time, as verified by some decent code versioning system, been subject to a proper audit and found to be trustworthy or not?"

There are expert witnesses involved but there are also mentions of the original version, called Legacy Horizon no longer existing. I'm not sure exactly what this covers. There's a comment about relying on memory and original design documents. Given that the reliability seems contentions from the start you'd expect that original code should have been preserved for reference.

London's Metropolitan Police arrest Julian Assange

"Doctor Syntax, be honourable and admit that you got it completely wrong!"

In case you hadn't noticed, when he skipped bail the bail was from a warrant for extradition to Sweden. There was never any mention of a US extradition from the UK. There never any mention of a US warrant for extradition when he was in Sweden.

The report cited near the top of the comments was dated Nov last year and mentions prosecutors being told "over the summer" to go ahead. That's a long, long time after he holed himself up.

It's been complained about many times that the US/UK extradition treaty is extremely one-sided and that accordingly he stood much less chance of being extradited from Sweden. If he really was concerned about extradition to the US he was hardly likely to make the UK his first stop on leaving Sweden.

Oops!

Re: @JohnG

"In fact one of the ironies is that some of his fans argued that his time in the Embassy should count as jail time."

Indeed. When he was in the embassy he was being illegally detained there. Now he's out he's being illegally not detained there. Or something like that.

"I'm more interested in the Cat"

It wasn't there. It escaped last year.

Re: @Jellied Eel Kinda Sorta

"I'm thinking possession is kinda the law, but something of a political hot potato as well. And isn't he an Ecuadorian citizen now?"

I suppose it's up to the Home Office to decide how to handle the queue. I wonder how many people will get copied in on their emails. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47855428 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47888214

"they have to consider the risk you pose to other people"

And also the possibility that the complainant might have been threatened into withdrawing the complaint.

Re: final straw?

You know what they say about sarcasm on the Net....

Are you really trying to persuade us that he's worth $4.2m? After all, it's nearly as much as his own valuation of himself (probably).

"So, he was right that they were after him all along then?"

Not necessarily. They want him now. It's a long time ago since he skipped bail and a lot of other things have happened since then including a change in US government.

"He's not been convicted in a court of law...nor for that matter tried."

It's running away from being tried that's the immediate issue.

Re: International Law

The phrase "International Law" is routinely used to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean.

Until it gets to an actual court of law in which case the speaker needs to specify exactly what law they mean.

Re: You mean

"Those actors paid by the US gov"

Citation needed.

Re: final straw?

Misdirected whoosh? I think it was BeBopWeBop who was being sarcastic. But you know what they say about sarcasm on the Net...

Re: final straw?

I suggest you all do some more reading, unless you are offical typists just doing your job, in which case "well done men, now he can go and get Trumped!"

And in what way does any of this change my oft-expressed opinion (including an earlier comment below) that by acting thoughtlessly he's put himself into a corner he can't get out of? He ran from Sweden. He jumped bail. He had cases to answer in both Sweden and the US neither of which were political and there was no indication at that point of any proceedings planned in the US. My view was that the then current US government would be smart enough to punish him by refusing to stroke his ego by pursuing him. An evolution of that position was that the current bull-in-a-china-shop administration would lack such finesse and that he'd missed his opportunity long ago. I find the report which you link verifies that view.

Good try at shilling, A/C, but you really need more cogent arguments if you come to this forum.

Re: Does he yet have a ticket to the USA ?

"This is what he was afraid of: the USA, somehow or another, finding a way of getting him over the pond."

In that case he shouldn't have done a runner when he was (a) out of reach of the US in Sweden and (b) when the US had a government with enough wit to realise that treating him as not worth attention was the biggest punishment they could impose.

Re: Lesson learned

And keep the place clean and tidy.

You're forgetting that what St Julian says is law.

Apple disables iPad for 48 years after toddler runs amok

Re: But we all have something to learn from this..

"I learned Windows (was XP + 98 dual-boot then) when I was four years old."

The grown-up name for XP back then was "Windows for Teletubbies" in the UK and Fisher-Price was, I believe, the US epithet. So entirely appropriate.

Uncle Sam wants to tackle bias in algorithms by ordering tech corps to explain how their machines really work

Stand by for responses along the lines of "If I could understand your question you wouldn't understand my answer".

Re: The best way to stop this nonsense...

Not at all. All that has to be done is evaluate balance of campaign donations from various sides.