Posts by Doctor Syntax

That long-awaited Mark Zuckerberg response: Everything's fine! Mostly fixed! Facebook's great! All good in the hoodie!

Re: Who'd a thunk it?

"Nobody saw that coming."

Clearly nobody who has an account did.

Screw luxury fridges, you can now run webOS on your Raspberry Pi

"a fresh face on the smartphone market would be very welcome."

How soon we forget: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/21/planet_gemini_pda_production_hands_on/ It has a phone and can run Linux.

Re: Doesn't give an obvious reason

"Install it on a Raspberry Pi and turn your dumb TV into a smart TV?"

OSMC works fine for that.

Cambridge Analytica CEO suspended – and that's not even the worst news for them today

"My twitter feed is replete with promoted messages that are very much in favour of the EU, mass migration and Clintonite / Blairite politics."

It may, of course, be those opposed to such things who have had them promoted in order to wind you up. I suspect Unwarranted triumphalism of having a similar purpose.

Re: All is not how it seems !!!

"One way take take control would be to begin an official (police) investigation, thus blocking those pesky journos from digging up too much unwelcome revelations"

It would only block them if charges were made so it became sub judice.

Re: Help

"Jacob is an unbelievably nice bloke"

You mean you don't believe it?

Re: Media and Twittersphere outrage......

"So what changed this week?"

Publicity. It achieved critical mass.

Re: Let's all blame the developer

"For several years we ( me and the SO) have taken part in a longitudinal social survey organised by a UK university. Once a year a reseacher pops round with a laptop and questionnaire."

Does a Heisenberg principle apply to this sort of thing? Does being surveyed regularly influence the way you form views? And how would a researcher test that?

"Basically, volunteers get a list of people to call"

Either things work differently in the US or the best use of this would be to pretend to be the other side and call their supporters. From my PoV it would be "I was thinking of voting for you but as you've called a TPS-registered number I won't".

Re: $185.09 to $169.15, (about a 9% fall)

"He knows people have very short attention spans"

Legislators with a campaign to keep them in the public eye work on have rather longer attention spans.

"Mr Nix’s recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm"

I take it the values or operations not represented amount to "don't get caught".

FBI raids home of spy sat techie over leak of secret comms source code on Facebook

Re: Idiot.

"The fact he was doing stuff that was so easy to trace is mind boggling."

We keep seeing this. Those who are doing intelligence acquisition seem to be not very good at maintaining their own security at both an individual and corporate level. We should remember this when evaluating their notions of how to go about their business, especially their calls for back doors.

Addicts of Facebook and pals are easy prey for manipulative scumbags – thanks to tech giants' 'extraordinary reach'

Re: Censorship coming to a website near you?

The cherished concept of 'free speech" personal privacy is being eroded by various lawmakers 'champions' of free speech

Fixed that from a European point of view.

Re: NHS

"You could substitute 'NHS' for 'Facebook' in the article without risk of being error"

Could you elaborate on this rather brief statement?

Re: Yeah right...

"They don't mean that much to most of us."

They do if we have to replace an entire aspect of EU activity, say medicine approvals out of our own resources. Just because someone isn't directly involved in something EU funded it doesn't mean that they aren't the beneficiary of that activity.

Re: Yeah right...

@ShelLuser

The way it works out, some things, e.g. aviation licensing are done on an EU wide basis so from the EU's point of view, when the UK drops out of that their contribution has to be picked up by the rest of the EU - it won't really cost less to do if the UK isn't involved. So it costs them money. But the UK then has to take on the responsibility for itself and bear all the costs of that itself. It's one of the things that's caused some consternation (exaggerated along the lines of come Brexit all planes will be grounded in the UK) in that it's going to cost the UK tax payer more than it does at present.

Then there are situations such as the ESA which isn't strictly an EU organisation but when it was put together membership of the EU seems to have been assumed - what happens there? If the UK isn't a member they'll miss our financial contribution but if we're not part of it what happens to our space industry if it doesn't participate in ESA projects? Can it flourish to the same extent?

Re: Some Data Protection and other ideas

"a) opt-in only for the data collection; and

b) individuals must be able to view and edit their own info, in a meaningful form, as they see fit [including erasing all of it]"

That's just what GDPR says - but oops! that's gummint regulation.

Re: Some Data Protection and other ideas

"Just make it illegal for companies to sell, or otherwise provide access to user data to third parties. No more hiding behind skilfully crafted "terms and conditions" that have to be accepted."

The GDPR seems to have that covered, particularly in Articles 5 & 7

Personal data shall be:

(a) processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’);

(b)collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes shall, in accordance with Article 89(1), not be considered to be incompatible with the initial purposes (‘purpose limitation’);

(c)adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed (‘data minimisation’);

and

(1) Where processing is based on consent, the controller shall be able to demonstrate that the data subject has consented to processing of his or her personal data.

(2) If the data subject’s consent is given in the context of a written declaration which also concerns other matters, the request for consent shall be presented in a manner which is clearly distinguishable from the other matters, in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language. Any part of such a declaration which constitutes an infringement of this Regulation shall not be binding.

(3) The data subject shall have the right to withdraw his or her consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. Prior to giving consent, the data subject shall be informed thereof. It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent.

(4) When assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost account shall be taken of whether, inter alia, the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is conditional on consent to the processing of personal data that is not necessary for the performance of that contract.

Re: Trustable social networks?

"just the step of having to download a usenet client and enter a news server address was too much of a hurdle for most muggles"

Usenet client? It's the same as my email client (actually it's the same as my browser as well as I use Seamonkey rather than separate Firefox and Thunderbird) so it's nothing extra to download. Admittedly using a separate client seems to be too much for the muggles using webmail but apart from that, is entering the address of a news server harder than entering the address of Twitbook? In fact, history says it isn't - look up Eternal September.

Re: Regulation is badly needed - Steps: 1-3

"more gummint. that'll fix it. **NOT**"

Bob, back in Europe we do occasionally have the view that the government's job is to represent us so if we see the need for big, alien corporations to be brought to heel then not only is there nobody other than going to do it for us but government, it's the government's job to do that.

Re: Regulation is badly needed - Steps: 1-3 #4

Yup. 3 A/C posts all saying the same thing, all at similar times. Do I hear an axe being ground?

We need to talk, Brit Parliamentary committee tells Mark Zuckerberg

Given that this had lead to bad publicity on a such scale that even the Great British Public is starting to realise than FB might not be an unalloyed Good Thing it's possible that they might realise that Zuk not appearing is the sort of dickish move that they could do without.

Re: About time

"Zuck is an American citizen, meaning he can safely ignore any such summons. If a British or Commonwealth citizen, or someone living in the UK, did that, they would risk being jailed for committing contempt of Parliament."

Why not just prosecute him for non-attendance. After all, the US believes its laws apply everywhere so why shouldn't we do the same?

BOOM! Cambridge Analytica explodes following extraordinary TV expose

Re: FB vs CA

"For example, Tony Blair was supposedly on the 'left' but look at his record - hugely wasteful PFI schemes"

If you look at the record of the Blair government there's a consistent approach of taxing the future. PFI, student loans, Brown's stealth taxes. They look as if they're doing popular stuff but there were bills to become due in the future. We're now in that future.

As to whose side he was on, that's easy. His own.

Re: Collapse of Facebook

"people even call the police when FB goes down."

So what? Numpties have been known to call the police over all sorts of minor stuff. Just Google for call police trivial

Re: Collapse of Facebook

"I see FAR MORE Facebook adicts now than nicotine, let alone illegal drugs."

So? There'll be another one along any minute to take its place.

Re: Popcorn

"You can sue for libel, you can't sue for slander."

Citation needed. Libel maybe easier to prove if you have the piece of paper it was written on. Slander would need you to produce a witness unless a recording exists.

British Level 4 driverless pods are whizzing along ... er, a London path

"governed max speed of 9mph"

Combined with the absence of anything other than cyclists going faster it should keep down the injuries to the public collateral damage.

"the surface of Olympian Way is not maintained to the same standard as a proper road"

Do you mean it's better? It would be hard for it to be maintained worse than some of the roads round here.

BT: We're shuttering final salary pension scheme

Re: Why the shortfall...

"The actuary for the fund has determined that the fund is so over capitalised that their liabilities will never get to their reserves."

Australian regulation may be different but in the UK such determinations are made by HMG. HMG has always been a bit optimistic - or maybe pessimistic in terms of estimating life span. They instituted public and state pension schemes which are basically Ponzi schemes - pay now, get paid later except that the pay now part was actually paying existing beneficiaries an the get paid later bit would come from other people's payments. And just don't look at the fact that pay now and get paid later all goes via the general taxation pot. With reasonably pessimistic estimates of life span this was supportable - you'd pay now for your working life and get paid later for a few years if you were lucky.

In contrast because private or occupational pension schemes attracted tax relief (one of Gordon Brown's stealth taxes was to reduce this) they tend to get treated as tax scams. Schemes are rated as overfunded based on optimistic forecasts for annuity returns and these aren't going to return to the forecast levels until interest rates go up - if they ever do.

Re: Nobody has offered a Defined Benefit pension for years.

"Blame that nice Mr Gordon Brown for doing this."

Three times over, well, to be fair (to Gordon Brown? What am I writing?) maybe 2 1/2.

1. Taxing income from pension scheme investments.

2. Being in charge when his tax officials insisted on companies taking a contribution holiday on account of the scheme being at risk of being over-funded.

3. Running a hugely stupid economic policy that didn't see house prices as inflationary, resulting in stupidly low interest rates, huge debts, economic collapse and the imposition of even lower interest rates which continue because nobody will take the economic risk of hoiking them up again. I recall that at that before the collapse he was prancing on the world stage (Tone emulation?) berating those who wouldn't do likewise that they should join the UK & US in this wonderful economic policy.

1 lead to pension scheme incomes falling from investments and 2 from incomes falling from contributions. 2 was predicated on assumptions about the returns of annuities on which the valuations were based. 3 torpedoed those returns (which are based on interest rates) because it made the assumptions turn out to have been wildly optimistic. Add to this the positive feedback loops between pension scheme effects on share prices and share prices on pension schemes.

For which shenanigans Borwn is now paid a pension from the grateful British public and got a University teaching job and various economic advisory roles; fair enough providing he teaches "what I learned from my mistakes".

Meanwhile pension schemes in general, not just BT's, have been blighted for keeps.

Facebook confirms Cambridge Analytica harvested profile data

"I think CA have been given too much credit or US citizens are just gullible and easily manipulated."

Most elections tend to be driven by a relatively small number of voters changing allegiance or even making the decision to stay at home or go to vote. CA don't need to have been very effective to have made a difference.

Re: @AC Fake News!!

"That's the real question."

And in the EU the answer is "no".

Nest reveals the first truly connected home

Re: I've said it before and I'll say it again

"Like most of the IoT stuff, it's a solution waiting for a ..."

As PT Barnum said, there's one born every minute.

Re: The question is...

"What if putting one of these in makes your insurance invalid?"

I'm sure the vendors will be happy to sell you reassuringly expensive insurance. If you've bought the product and are already paying the subscription for that they know they can keep squeezing more out of you.

I couldn't give a Greek clock about your IoT fertility tracker

Re: Glamping?

Replying to my own post - as far as I can make out the inscription just says GOOGLE. Who'd have guessed!

Re: El. Reg. You complete and utter B*ast*ards!

"Having been tickled by the concept of the Antikythera Mechanism"

You've come to el Reg to effectively admit you've never heard of it before now?

Re: Glamping?

The Gaidhlig[1] word for database is "stor data".

And almost on that topic - does anyone here read ogham? See today's (Saturday) Google doodle.

Office junior had one job: Tearing perforated bits off tractor-feed dot matrix printer paper

Apart from decollators there are also collators. Client had one. The decollator was apt to deposit the sheets in exactly the wrong order for binding up into books. Plus two-up stationary might need to have the left and right leaves inter-collated. The mechanical collator was there to sort all these things out but was always busy on another job when it was needed. I ended up doing one in S/W which rearranged the print images before they went to the printers. It grew an increasing number of options as they found more things for it to do.

Re: Dot matrix refuses to die

"Quite interesting that US airlines still love their dot matrix printers."

Providing you don't tear it up at the folds one of the good things about fan-fold paper is that it keeps the entire document together. Can you imagine the cost of holding a flight while someone searches for a misplaced sheet from the passenger list?

Re: Grief, possibly death.

"he was about to become the first person strangled to death by a printer."

Probably not. Not the first, that is.

Re: spirit duplcator sensory memories

"pretty much anything to do with chemistry practicals."

Nothing in a decent school laboratory should be able to pass H&S.

Having said that, although in all my years working in a lab we never had anything but the old-style lab coats with a few buttons we did ban one of the peroxidase tests for blood. It was carcinogenic (one obstinate bloke kept using it and was in due course treated for its specific cancer, papilloma of the bladder). I wasn't pleased to discover that my daughter's lab was still using it years later.

Re: Lost count...

"In short. recruitment agencies, in the main, are only just above insurance salesmen in the ethics stakes."

In the sort of circumstance you describe I don't think they get as far as ethics stakes. They need to tackle competence first. Including the one who sent me someone else's contract. Same name, different skill set.

Re: Lost count...

"I'm trying to get hold of Hermen in the Berlin office but he's not answering - do you know if he is in today?"

It's been known to work the other way round.

UK to relative in Vancouver: "Our daughter's going to Quebec. Can you meet her"

Relative in Vancouver to UK. "You meet her. You're closer."

Re: Lost count...

"Seeing as you never quite know how far apart places really are unless you have experience of travelling there"

Being able to read maps is a big help.

Re: out of paper!

"university days (a quarter of a century ago"

What it is to be young - only a quarter of a century out of University.

"when some puppet tried to send a postscript image file directly to it, where for certain files rather than printing out an image on a nice single sheet, it tried to print out a few random characters per page on every page in the tray until it ran out."

Getting the printer control characters wrong on FORTRAN could and did do this with fan-fold.

Re: Speaking of carbon paper...

"They still use hand signatures to go across all three copies vs using a tablet for a signature."

Ah. Signatures that look like signatures. That's getting rare these days.

Re: Ah, the "good old days" ...

"Can't you just print it 3 times?"

There are these things called requirements and if the requirement calls for it to be printed in a single pass so there's no possibility of one "copy" being different/altered (regulators can be fussy about these things) then 3-part NCR it is.

Re: Ah, the "good old days" ...

"I think we were all startled at the amount of tape that reader had managed to cram into itself:"

ICL card duplicators had interesting ways of cramming cards into output hoppers. User standing nonchalantly beside the duplicator that was swallowing his stack of cards but not looking at the hoppers. One of them was somehow managing to crease the cards as they went into it. The hopper was filling up with a sort of random corrugated cardboard. Fortunately it was only one hopper.