Posts by Gruezi

Microsoft to move some Teams features to more costly 'Premium' edition

First they came...

First they came for the live translate

And I did not speak out

Because I do not use live translate

What, Uber charges disabled people fees for taking a while to get into their ride? Doesn't seem fair, says Uncle Sam

I for one would love an option to say I am disabled

I have a visual disability, and love Uber because I dont have to faff with credit cards or cash in the back of a dark taxi. But I have lost count of the number of times I have had to text an Uber driver and say "hey I probably wont be able to see approach, so look for the dude with the short white stick and that will be me". I would love and option where I can tell Uber I am disabled and the driver would know and it would make pickups a hell of a lot easier.

Batteries are so heavy, said user. If I take it out, will this thing work?

Hmmm :(

Okay I am going to get downvoted for this but someone has to say it.

While I dont doubt that the event with the phone happened. I am not convinced the "cute little door" words were used. And even it it was (let's assume positive intent here), I don't think it needs to be added to this story to make the story any better.

Why?

Because it turns this delightful story of user incompetence into something which smells a little sexist.

Now you may say I am being over sensitive, or you may even accuse me of some kind of projection, but I just dont feel the way in which this story was told is appropriate, especially with all the efforts of trying to get more women into technology.

Go ahead now, downvote me...

Facebook let advertisers target 'Jew-haters'

Move along. There is no story here.

I fail to see how this is even a story?

Before I explain, let me say first. All hate, of race, religion, colour or creed is wrong wrong wrong!

But this story isn't really about this.

Facebook allows you to put any free text in your job title. Some idiots put Jew Hater in there. Okay, so maybe we can blame facebook for not banning people from entering that term. But its a strange arms race to police free text fields. We may soon get outraged stories about a Speech Therapist who was banned form facebook because the job title contained the word "rapist".

The second thing that happened was that you can create an ad that targets people with a certain job title. So they put in the word Jew Hater as a job title and got some hits. Okay. The story is maybe that some idiotic haters publish their hate on facebook under the entry Job Title.

Or is the story that facebook should have had better mechanisms in place to filter out people trying to target ads that contain blacklisted words? Yes they probably should. And when they find out about it they try to fix it.

But turning this into a racism story is absurd. How's about we do an outraged article about facebook allowing us to advertise DIY brewing kits to people who have identified themselves as "recovering alcoholics", because I bet that would be possible too.

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

Re: @Gruezi

Wow, sorry for the delayed response! Havent been on here for a while.

So I run Windows 7. Windows High Contrast is pretty useless because web pages dont respect it. So what I have found though that you can defeat pastels by running your screen in inverse colour mode!

So I run Windows Magnifier, set the zoom to 100% (no zoom), set it to full screen, and set colour inverse to true. I pin it to my taskbar and then click on it when I need to switch colours to see if any given UI works better in its inverse colour mode. So far it has been reasonably useful.

Re: A serious question.

I am in the process of going blind, so I feel qualified to answer at least part of the question.

There are two trends in web design that is making my life very hard.

1. The pastel and low contrast movement. People are moving away from high contrast in web and other UI design and using muted colours with very little contrast. Flat UIs are particularly guilty here. Often Buttons, or other actionable parts like links etc, are not obviously high contrast like they used to be, but looks like all other text on the screen. (Sometimes the lines surrounding button is so thin and low contrast compared to the rest of the colour scheme that I just cannot see it)

2. Flat controls - buttons dont have hard shaded areas, and are sometimes just thin lines surrounding some text. So, very subtle, and the screen looks more like something printed on paper, than an obvious computer UI. Again, for someone with low vision like me, it is sometimes impossible, without moving my mouse over every part of the screen until the pointer changes to know if I have hit a UI control.

Not sure this helps answering your question, but I least I got to rant a little. :)

HBO slaps takedown demand on 13-year-old girl's painting because it used 'Winter is coming'

Cold Outside

On my walk to work this morning, there were several ice patches on the ground. It really looks like winter is coming. DO YOU HEAR THAT HBO? I SAID: WINTER. IS. COMING.

Vegans furious as Bank of England admits ‘trace’ of animal fat in £5 notes

No, what they thought was: "That needs some more cowbell!"

(Unfortunately the cow was still attached)

Six car-makers team to build European 'leccy car charge bar network

Re: 4 car makers not 6.

You should probably add SEAT, Skoda, Bentley and Lamborghini to the VAG list too...

British banks chuck smartphone apps out of Windows

Wasted opportunity...

...to not use the word defenestrate in this article

Twitterstorm erupts over suspected murder of record-breaking earthworm

lumbricoid lovers the length of the land

That is going to be my favourite phrase of 2016. And the year isnt over yet!

Accountant falls for sexy Nigerian email scammer, gives her £150k he cheated out of pal

Long and thorough

"...It was a long and thorough investigation which involved trawling through thousands of emails..."

[containing explicit pictures of a lady]

Yes. I bet it was. ;-)

OK Google, Alexa, why can't I choose my own safe, er, wake word?

Not only 3 syllables

Our Amazon Echo happily wakes up to the word "Echo" too. Its right there in the settings...

Google's AI finds its voice ... and it's surprisingly human

Re: The computer is your friend...

So it wasnt just me then...

IT consultant gets 4 years' porridge for tax fraud

huh?

" two years for the tax fraud and two years for the child support offences."

What child support offences? *reread story* Did I miss the bit where they talk about the child support offences? Or should someone remove the "the" before "child support offences"?

Bloke flogs $40 B&W printer on Craigslist, gets $12,000 legal bill

Godwin!!

"Yeah, we're all just a big bunch of jerks on this side of the pond. So maybe we ought to call in all our loans to UK going back to WW II."

Does this count as a Godwin? If so, is this possibly the fastest Godwin on El Reg ever?

Icon, because even a grammar Nazi is a Nazi, right?

Neo4j bolts on binary protocol to up its graph database game

Re: Typos

No, the editorial staff was just totally resigned... :P

Clucking hell! Farcical free-range egg standard pecked apart by app

Re: omitted

Okay I admit I googled it briefly AND i just took what Google told me, but according to EU regs (and I think UK is still in the EU) there are regulations for the roosting space and state, and then also:

"...

In addition to these requirements, free-range systems must also provide the following:

One hectare of outdoor range for every 2,500 hens (equivalent to 4 m2 per hen; at least 2.5 m2 per hen must be available at any one time if rotation of the outdoor range is practiced)

Continuous access during the day to this open-air range, which must be “mainly covered with vegetation”

Several popholes extending along the entire length of the building, providing at least 2 m of opening for every 1,000 hens.[6]

..."

Prof Hawking to mail postage-stamp space craft to Alpha Centauri using frickin' lasers

Not if you fire them at 3 month intervals and use the string of craft as a relay back to earth

Would you let cops give your phone a textalyzer scan after a road crash?

Re: They don't actually need this

Yeah I am not sure I get this logic. There is a law in place to stop people using phones while driving because it causes more accidents. Just like there is a law in place that says you cannot be under the influence of alcohol or drugs while driving because it too causes more accidents.

They have a blood/breath test to see if you were breaking the drink/drug law. Now they are proposing a phone test to see if you were breaking the phone law. Simple.

Why does herbal cough syrup work so well? It may be full of morphine

Re: They may wish to reword and correct the notice...

Does that include asking to correct the spelling of "an herb" to the correct UK "a herb"? ;)

http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/herb

Brit boffins brew nanotech self-cleaning glass

Re: Cleaing Costs for Skyscapers?

Some windows on some skyscrapers have this central pivot you talk of. However above a certain altitude, the relative air pressures and wind blowing high vs no wind at the bottom would cause a rush of air out the window if you open it. (Imagine papers etc flying out!)

Another factor is having someone flip open the window inside some exec's office to clean it may be a tad disruptive...

Behold, the fantasy of infinite cloud compute elasticity

Let's reword those bad analogies

"Hey Avis. I need a 1000 cars tomorrow."

"No problem sir, I can give you 2 from JFK, 3 from SFO, 11 from LHR..."

Daredevil Brit lifts off in 54-prop quinquaquadcopter

Oh please please pleeeeeease El Reg Special Projects Bureau

Can you take this idea and make this your next special project?

More blades. Better/lighter tubes. Assisted piloting control. The whole nine yards. Fire up a Kickstarter, I'll donate some cash!

Enjoy vaping while you still can, warns Public Health England

Re: Does anyone know...

Okay firstly I am an ex smoker. Smoked for 17 years, and quit when my wife became pregant with first child about 6 years ago. Wasnt easy. And I still miss it. Daily.

However I would wholeheartedly support airlines allowing smokers to vape on flights. I well remember how crap it felt to fly long haul and not being able to smoke. Will probably reduce the amount of air rage we see [citation needed].

However I dont buy the "it stinks" argument. The guy sitting next to me letting off beer farts it infinitely less preferable a smell as someone vaping next to me. And I dont see the airlines doing anything about that!

Does anyone know...

...why e-cigs are banned on flights? On a recent Delta flight I noticed that they announced "smoking, including the use of e-cigarettes is banned on all Delta flights"

Curious.

Veedub flub hubbub stubs car-jack hack flap

Beware the porch stealers!

"...and Porches that use Megamos Crypto transponders can be stolen."

Thankfully our Porch has a screen door with a latch so I guess we are safe.

*phew*

;-)

Police use RIFLE AND TASER to relieve man of iPhone case

Re: stupid Canadian volunteers to give away rights

Oh I'd say the downvote had nothing to do with gun control. It was probably due to the fact that the comment was badly formed XML.

Here, have a:

</Rant alert and in no way do I count the whole of the US populace in this, but excuse me while I rail against>

;)

Indiana Jones whips Bond in greatest movie character poll

Re: Limited

This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man.

Woman caught on CCTV performing drunken BJ blew right to privacy

Re: Pregnant women + very drunk

"TV programmes can be transmitted many months after the material is filmed. And being "very drunk" is occasionally how pregnancies start."

You are almost certainly right. However I could not resist the Daily Mail style outrage opportunity this gave me...

(Plus I would be genuinely sad if you are wrong)

Pregnant women + very drunk

WTF?!?!?!

'Hi, I'm from Microsoft and I am GOING TO KILL YOU'

Getting closer...

I live in Switzerland and I have had 3 of these in English!! On the last call, I asked the guy if this is the job he always dreamed of. If, when he wakes up in the morning, does he feel that he has achieved all he wanted in life, and if not, I work for a large company who employ many many people in India and doesn't he want a real job? Almost got him to send me his CV, and once one of them does, maybe we can get El Reg to post the (probably fake) CV of a scammer... :)

Anyone else up for the challenge?

BOT AN ABOMINATION: Mechanical DRONE VAMPIRE spreads wings

That mondegreen made me chuckle :)

Well done on the "misheard" Transformers song lyrics in the sub-heading. My 4 year old who is Transformers obsessed has been singing his version of the song all weekend and when I read it in the sub-heading it really made me laugh.

Wetsuits, sunshine, bikini babes and a competitive streak: Epyx California Games

Also in this genre and a firm favourite of mine...

"Caveman Ugh-lympics" anyone?

Beer in SPAAAACE! London Pride soars to 28,000m

Hardware failure? I think not.

"both (yes both) cameras seem to have corrupted the folders containing the video and still photos"

Or maybe the HAB team sampled too many beers pre-launch and forgot to press the record buttons.

I smell a cover up!

What the world needs now is... a Bluetooth-enabled baby's dummy

Re: Guessing game:

They are. It does. :)