Posts by Doctor Syntax

Come mobile users, gather round and learn how to add up

Re: Test/Error messages.

If you think this might be a problem just add some code at the beginning which says "See you when I get back from hols." and then exits.

Re: Patronised a customer?

Nice one. I prefer it to mine.

Re: Patronised a customer?

I wrote an idiots guide for my then

Dunce level manager, Ken.

It wasn't too subtle;

Oh no, but I'll

Take liberties whenever I can.

Re: Patronised a customer?

Must stop myself spending the rest of the day tweaking this into a limerick.

What a cheep shot: Bird sorry after legal eagles fire DMCA takedown at scooter unlock blog

They really should be teaching the Streisand effect in law schools these days.

Both Google & Bing have this all over their news clusters as 3rd hit if you search for bird scooter. A lot more people will have heard of this now than those who only read it in Boing Boing. If Bird were depending on buying impounded scooters cheap from auctions (cheaper than paying storage fees and maybe also cheaper than running their own recovery operation) they'll find they're facing more competitive bids now.

Royal Bank of Scotland, Natwest fling new bank cards at folks after Ticketmaster hack

Six months. It gives a whole new meaning to "proactive".

Computing boffins strip the fun out of satirical headlines

Their examples remind me of the saying that a German joke is a very serious affair.

Brit hacker hired by Liberian telco to nobble rival now behind bars

Re: He was hiring the attack net OUT

The two are not incompatible. This article says that he rented infected devices from others to bulk out his net. That's a detail not in the Beeb's report (which, BTW, isn't even by one of the their tech reporters). It wouldn't be the first time that a report by el Reg has more information on technical matters than the BBC.

Hubble 'scope camera breaks down amid US govt shutdown, forcing boffins to fix it for free

Re: RE: Doctor Syntax

"The difference is in this case that the wall is actually a deliverable policy."

So far it isn't.

And remember the policy was not only to build it but also have Mexico pay. That makes the whole a lot less deliverable.

"he's the democratically elected president and the border wall was his signature promise in the election. It should be built on this premise"

So what happens if a president is democratically elected on a promise to abolish gravity and make pi equal to 3?

Re: Easily solved

"the current state of democratic derangement"

I've often wondered about the arrangement whereby the head of state is also the head of government and the leader of the majority in the legislature is neither. It seems guaranteed to produce this sort of instability. I understand about checks and balances but those need some element of goodwill to make it work. As that joint head role is a pretty good definition of a dictator it's largely goodwill on the part of that head that's needed to make it work.

It has all the makings of a constitutional crisis. I wonder if the US will just sit it out and then carry on once there's a change of president or whether they'll recognise a need to rebalance in some way. That one piece written constitution they're so proud of is going to make the latter more difficult.

By way of comparison we also have something of a constitutional crisis in the UK and it seems as if Bercow is handling it by helping the Commons rebalance itself against Government.

NHS England's chief digital officer goes full digital, ditches health service for GP app biz

"many appointments are ... prescription renewal that can be done over Skype, clearly not all."

Skype just to renew a prescription? Why?

This is a prime example of the "must use an app" mentality. These have been done by old-fashioned phone to a receptionist for years or, if you really want to go digital, by filling in a request on the web-site. It's possible, however, that periodically the doctor might wish to review by seeing and examining the patient rather than blindly renewing a dosage for years.

"has overseen work on the NHS 111 online service"

I tried that last week.

It was along the lines of "Do you have symptom A, symptom B or symptom C.

OK, A and B.

Oh, it works on radio buttons and can only accept one option.

Have they never heard of check boxes or haven't they got rules (or maybe a rules engine) that works on two?

It finally dropped through to "Gall your GP" which is what I'd have done without its "help".

Bauer said in a canned statement that she was "delighted to be joining Livi at such an exciting time for digital health because it pays better"

Having moved from a Civil Service job into commercial IT for that reason $GODDNESS_IS_IT_THAT_MANY years ago I can't say I blame her.

If I could turn back time, I'd tell you to keep that old Radarange at home

Re: Pesky microwaves

"The sea is as flat as the flat earth we live on!"

The distance between Scotland and the Antrim coast is ideal for seeing that the Earth isn't flat. Looking from either one to the other you can see the other side but from near sea level you can't see the other coastline, just the tops of the hills. The big bump of sea gets in the way. In fact anyone living near the sea will be familiar with vessels disappearing hull down as they sail away.

A belief in a flat Earth is only sustainable by someone who's never seen the sea or even a sufficiently large inland body of water.

Re: Pesky microwaves

"50 years"

Sir, you underestimate.

"We are about to land at Belfast Airport. Please set your watches to 1690."

Re: Pesky microwaves

"We used to have that problem getting TV across a sea path between NI and Scotland"

ISTR that back in the '60s Divis was relaying a signal from the IoM which was relaying a signal from Holme Moss. Presumably you were in a location where you couldn't get Divis direct.

Re: Pesky microwaves

"Why doesn't the high-tide dish work at all states of the tide?"

Multipath interference effect of some sort. Probably.

An under shielded microwave oven? What a heart-warming story.

Germany has a problem with the entire point of Amazon's daft Dash buttons – and bans them

Re: A 'proper' use for the buttons

"Tried booking a seat at a Cineworld recently?"

Not likely to happen here but I wonder if there's a business opportunity here.

Re-skin annoying sites with a no muss, no fuss, no up-sell interface adding a small commission for the convenience. We annoyed old gits might be prepared to pay a little extra. It might fail in the long run if the main sites realised their antics could be costing them sales. OTOH they'd be getting the sales anyway and as the marketing twerps that run them would still be convinced their annoying tactics make them money they might well carry on as before.

Re: Drawer full of buttons

"how is this subscribe and save feature OK?"

It doesn't seem to be but it would need to be a different case. Maybe TPTB in Germany think it best to tackle each one separately to avoid Amazon miring the whole case with complicating one aspect of it. Or maybe they'll be able to use one as a precedent for the rest.

"but they mostly seem to sell rabbit food."

Too many little bones.

Oh, I see what you mean.

Re: Who needs a delivery driver?

"To get the cargo from the aircraft to the fleet of drones that aren't allowed anywhere near an airport."

Cut out the drones. Parachute drop.

Re: A 'proper' use for the buttons

From that link: "Now we’ve got a smart button that we can stick to any wall, table, desk or bookcase to turn on our smart lights."

Oddly enough I've already got a switch stuck to the wall to turn on my dumb lights.

Also, having read the explanation there it turns out that you have to be a Prime subscriber.

One of my dislikes about Amazon is their persistent efforts to push Prime in my face. I don't want it. I will never want it. And yet each time I order something before I get through to complete the order I'm presented with a page full of Prime guff with a conspicuous button to click to sign up with Prime and an inconspicuous link to continue without. Along with their crap search engine and habit of failing to deliver to lockers - followed up by a complete lack of idea what to do next when that happens - it's one of the things which makes me less likely to use them if there are alternatives.

Re: A simple idea

"find the milk is out,... wait a couple of days for delivery."

Out of milk? Wait a couple of days? I'd go be sent to the shop to get it today.

*taps on glass* Hellooo, IRS? Anyone in? Anyone guarding taxpayers' data from crooks? Hellooo?

How did this guy get into Congress? He seems too sane to be a politician.

What's the fate of our Solar System? Boffins peer into giant crystal ball – ah, no, wait, that's our Sun in 10bn years

Re: Boom!

"is it diamond or Buckyballs?"

If it's diamond de Beers are going to be very upset. They depend on controlling supply.

Re: Duh!

Twinkle, twinkle little LED

How I wonder if you're dead.

Begone, Demon Internet: Vodafone to shutter old-school pioneer ISP

Re: And another old name is discarded...

"PlusNet is owned by BT by the way, but runs as a separate division."

I here reports of poor customer support but I've never needed to use that very much as they haven't contrived to do anything to piss me off. Unlike TT when they bought Tiscali who'd bought....

Re: And another old name is discarded...

"Nildram - ditto"

Yup bought up by Pipex and then followed that route downlhill. Went to Be (who faffed around but never quite got round to supporting FTTC) until that was bought by Sky.

Dozens of .gov HTTPS certs expire, webpages offline, FBI on ice, IT security slows... Yup, it's day 20 of Trump's govt shutdown

Re: About this new wall

"And that's also why the Democrats are opposing it so much, even though when you come to it, it's a relatively small amount of money."

It's probably to their long term advantage to cave in. They can then call it the Trump Folly and point and laugh at it, rinse and repeat for every successive Republican candidates' wilder promises.

Re: Comparison

"the government would just keep on going, using the same budget from last year."

Not unless things have changed since the '80s. One of the principles then was that if you don't spend your budget this year you don't get it keep it till next year and when you put in next year's estimates they're likely to be chopped back because clearly you didn't spend this year's money. So as the end of the financial year approaches you spend up on stuff you'll need for next year (microscope slides and cover-slips were two of my stand-bys along with methylumbelliferyl phosphate).

One variable factor was the over-winter spending on road clearance so if there was a mild winter there was a lot left over to spend. In the Northern Ireland Office this was known as the Spring Sales.

Re: Comparison

"Our budgets are not about parliament authorising spending by government"

Actually the authority of Parliament stems from its having wrung from one of the medieval kings (CBA to look it up) the right to block expenditure by blocking taxation. The two are directly connected. I'm fascinated by the fact that Parliament is finally facing up to its responsibilities and one way it's just demonstrated that is by an amendment to the Finance Bill.

Re: Another wall?

"by tradition named after Emperors - and there aren't many of those left"

There are a few wannabes. Let them sort it out between them.

Re: Comparison

"All I'm trying to saying is that if the Executive in a democracy gets voted in after campaigning / about a certain policy, then is it not rather undemocratic for the House to block / prevent / refuse funding for the policy?"

The individuals we (including the US electorate) elect have their own responsibilities and that includes holding the executive to account. That includes preventing them from undertaking something wildly impractical or harmful and maintaining a control on the purse strings. In fact, it's the latter which is one of the main tools they have to do that.

They have their own democratic mandate to do this.

Re: Comparison

"Saying that, if my understanding is right then surely Congress should allow the money for his ridiculous wall to be released as it was a campaign promise."

What if his promise was to saw through the continent at the order to cut Mexico adrift; should Congress allow him the money for that?

And remember his campaign promise also included the claim that it would be Mexico, not the US that paid. It's up to him to make good on that part if he wants his wall.

I can, however, see one argument for letting him have his way. In future it could be pointed out as part of mocking future candidates' wilder promises.

Re: Operational Incompetence

"imagine that conversation with the audit team at the end of the month."

I'd have welcomed it.

Amazon Mime: We train (badly) an AI love bot using divorce bombshell Bezos' alleged sexts to his new girlfriend

"but it is Friday"

Any special not-Black Friday offers?

Cyber-insurance shock: Zurich refuses to foot NotPetya ransomware clean-up bill – and claims it's 'an act of war'

Re: Oh yeah

IANAL, however in civil court you don't have to 'prove' something to the same standard as criminal courts .... All they would have to show is "on the balance of probabilities"

There's also scope for lots of legal argument about what constitutes an act of war in terms of what befalls an innocent bystander.

Peak Apple: This time it's SERIOUS, Tim

Re: Recession ???

"INNOVATE with the next lines."

Why? If the product does what the user needs what are the results of innovations? Quite possibly a product that does it worse. Or a product that's actively anti-user by continually spying, something that seems to be most of what innovation means these days.

"But the [stock] market also attempts to price in long-term risks"

It seems to fail at pricing in something that's more of a certainty than a reality: that the product market will mature. It's all very well setting a stock price at $SILLY P/E in the early stages because it anticipates what future earnings are anticipated. As the market approaches maturity maintaining that is just foolishness as the future earnings will stabilise at a lower level.

There's nothing wrong with a product settling down to be a steady earner. There's a lot wrong with thinking that it won't and everything wrong with failing to accept that it has.

The D in SystemD stands for Dammmit... Security holes found in much-adored Linux toolkit

Re: I use FreeBSD, and for good reason.

"standardising startup scripts to make them easier to manage"

Easier to manage by whom? WIndows admins? SysV scripts are shell scripts. Anyone setting up a startup script on a Unix box will be familiar with the shell. Anyone who wants to treat it as if it was another OS really shouldn't be doing that.

Wanted – have you seen this MAC address: f8:e0:79:af:57:eb? German cops appeal for logs in bomb probe

Re: GDPR says no

"So, a general appeal for data relating to a MAC address is in breach of GDPR of which the police should be aware."

One thing the police will be aware of is the extent of the exceptions granted to them under GDPR.

Who cracked El Chapo's encrypted chats and brought down the Mexican drug kingpin? Er, his IT manager

Re: Collateral damage

"it'll only make the job of law enforcement harder."

It'll make the cartels' job of recruiting techies harder, especially given that they'd need to recruit more of them.

Re: The FBI paid him back in return for his services

"Can't they bother to keep his identity private?"

If they've revealed who did it in terms of function I think the cartels can work out the rest. It's a bit like all those people who post here saying "Anon cause otherwise they'll know it was me". Well they knew at the time and even if they forgot since they've just been reminded.

The time to use a false identity is when you're working for the bad guys.

Ministry of Justice abandons key plank of £280m IT project

Re: Parts of CPP have been successful

"I think you'll find that lawyers and judges also only work sometimes"

That's probably due to the fact that scheduling courts is so difficult.

"I feel dirty for saying this but you mean like Exchange can? Or dirty in a different way Google Calendar?...cant see the calendar itself being that tricky."

I rather suspect it's this sort of thinking that lead them into the whole minefield in the first place. It's a really complex resource optimisation.

It probably doesn't actually have to allocate every trial, judge, barrister and witness in the country but it does have to cope with substantial subsets. What's worse nobody can tell you with any certainty how long a trial will last - that's in terms of days or weeks not hours.

You might think you've got the calendar for the Bristol area sorted and then an expert witness calls in to say they can't make the court when you've got them down because they've already got a summons for Carlisle that day. If you try to reschedule that case you find you've got it down for a date when the prosecution leader is due to start a three day case in Northampton. Then an accused changes his plea in mid-trial and you're left trying to see if anything can be brought forward.

There really has to be a better way than what happened in the past. I've spent two or three days, or at least several hours of each, hanging around a courthouse waiting for half an hour in the witness box. I've also been called from the other end of the country to the other to go to a court that wasn't, as far as I knew, going on that day.

Zuck's 2019 tech talk tour should tackle the questions Facebook spent 2018 dodging

Re: Muppet

"comparing British politicians handling of Brexit to clowns was an insult to professional clowns"

It's amateurs outdoing professionals.

Real-time OS: Ordnance Survey gets snuggly with Intel's Mobileye

"Utilities are intended to be a primary customer. They should know where things are, but often don't. Mobileye will provide this data"

What they often don't know about is the stuff that's underground. Good luck with that if you rely on Mobileye.

Amazon exec tells UK peers: No, we don't want to be dominant. Also, we don't fancy being taxed on revenues

Re: HIgh streets

"So we'd have to put up income taxes and tax on dividends"

If you have a company selling in country A and sending its profits to country B no matter what level you set for dividend taxes in A they won't collect a penny tax because the dividends are paid in B. You can tax the company's employees in A or you can tax their customers. Once the money's moved to B A can't touch it.