Posts by Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese

BT boss: Yeah, making a business case for 5G is hard

5G versus better existing services

I don't like the idea of networks investing in 5G until they've got better coverage for other Gs.

Like an earlier commenter said, I've never really found myself in a situation where I've been using 4G and really had a compelling argument that I should be able to get faster data rates.

Coverage for 4G is definitely getting better - even in fairly rural areas. However, I've recently returned from a few days in central Scotland and there were times when I was in reasonably-sized population centres and struggled to get even GPRS - more web page requests timed out than actually completed...and forget about trying to upload anything anywhere.

If the networks have money to invest, they should be improving availability of existing technologies. Finish one job before embarking on another.

How about that time Russian military used a video game pic as proof of US aiding ISIS?

I was a bit suspicious when I saw some footage of two moustachioed Italians helping to fix their plumbing

Pastry in a manger: We're soz, Greggs man said

Re: Everybody knows

//he's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!

he's not the Messiah, he's a fatty meaty pie!

FTFY

Howay in a manger

I think the real scandal here is that a sausage roll got to play the Baby Jesus - as any fule no, the truly devine comestible from Greggs is the Steak Bake

Crap London broadband gets the sewer treatment

Is there a security issue here about physical access to the data cables being easier?

For a regular underground cable, the potential point of physical access for a miscreant is at the (locked) green cabinet. Although conditions in a sewer are less than pleasant, it's not all that hard to pop open a manhole cover and go into the sewer to do something naughty to the cable.

Sure, Face ID is neat, but it cannot replace a good old fashioned passcode

Biometrics are always at risk of copying because they're not secret

Exactly - so when are the manufacturers going to realise that it's a blind alley as an authentication mechanism? As facial recognition mechanisms get more sophisticated they will demand more battery power for extra sensors and computation - battery power which is in short supply on a device like a smartphone, and could be better conserved for other tasks.

Mm, sacrilicious: Greggs advent calendar features sausage roll in a manger

I said to my wife "That sausage roll was good enough for Jehovah."

Audio spy Alexa now has a little pal called Dox

Not much use

the thing failed to wake up to its wake word, refused to set calendar invites, and, worst of all, broadcast Dire Straits whenever asked to play a song.

"Money for nothing"?

Irish priests told to stop bashing bishops

Re: Hic!

Did they ever solve the drink driving problem?

Would you rather just have a cup of tea? Ah...go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on.....

American upstart seeks hotshot guinea pig for Concorde-a-like airliner

There are a couple of excellent documentaries on BBC iPlayer at the moment about Concord(e), one of which includes some material about the Ruskie version. I can't dig out the exact links to share here, because I'm posting from work, where the Fun Police dwell.

We're not saying Uncle Sam has lost control on Twitter, but US Embassy in Riyadh just did a shout out for oatmeal

New spin on an old issue

I don't think this is too different from someone being able to buy an expired domain name and then set up a new website of their own.

No, Samsung, you really do owe Apple $120m for patent infringement

Slide to unlock

I still don't get this one - I had that feature on a Nokia that I owned before the iPhone ever came to market

Official Secrets Act alert went off after embassy hired local tech support

Re: Curious...

The Red Army did not provide its soldiers with toilet paper during the Cold War. In contrast the British army has packets of bog paper in with the rations.

There was a story that eastern bloc personnel took to using old one-time pads as bogroll, because it was better than anything else they had at their disposal. Poor western agents then had the job of retrieving these used items so that they could be used for decrypting historic radio intercepts.

Phone mast maker Arqiva: Oh, the £6bn float? Yeah, about that...

Re: Please Clarify...

Can you please explain how you can claim the firm began in 1922?

My money is on it coming from a very half-arsed reading of the Wikipedia page for Arquiva.

Donald, YOU'RE FIRED: Rogue Twitter worker quits, deletes President Trump's account

"I have just launched a Nuclear Weapon against North Korea, THE TIME FOR TALK IS OVER"?

I remember an incident years ago, when Reagan was POTUS. He was getting ready to for an interview, and said something along the lines of "We have just agreed to outlaw Russia - we begin bombing in 20 minutes". He thought he was just saying something to let the sound tech set the mic level, but the statement was actually broadcast live to 'x' million viewers/listeners.

Landlubber northern council shores up against boat-tipping

"In boat heaven"

Did it keel over?

(sorry, that was a hull of a bad joke)

Argh, my loafer just fell down the rope ladder! Yes, I'm in the Microsoft treehouse

Re: Close...

There yew go

FTFY

Future of Misco UK hangs in the balance – sources

Re: I wonder....

I think the only company worse than Misco when it came to sending out catalogues was Inmac. Hardly ever bought anything from either company, but I got more mail from them than from anyone else.

Uber begins appeals process to claw back taxi licence in London

We have contacted TfL for comment

It's on its way now - be with you in a couple of minutes....

Beware the GDPR 'no win, no fee ambulance chasers' – experts

Re: At least we know now

What all the PPI firms will be doing next.......

I wonder how well they'll be securing their database of potential clients...

Software update turned my display and mouse upside-down, says user

Re: Now it can be told...

I remember a good-natured feud between a couple of developers here many years ago. It culminated on one of them hijacking the others machine and...

...hiding all the desktop icons

...switching the wallpaper to an image with the desktop icons on it

...swapping the left and right mouse buttons over

...changing mouse orientation so that moving it upwards on the desk moved the pointer roughly south-west on the desktop

...removing the ball from the mouse (yes, this was many years ago)

...and, IIRC, removing Control Panel

Look! Over there! Intel's cooked a 17-qubit chip quantum package

the device has to operate at 20 millikelvin, a snip above absolute zero and “250 times colder than deep space"

So the target market is Geordies with reasonably thick t-shirts?

Sniffing substations will solve 'leccy car charging woes, reckons upstart

Re: Access to the Open LV dataset...

Ohm my god, these puns are terrible

Punners gonna pun - resistance is futile

Re: Access to the Open LV dataset...

Potentially (at least that's the current situation)

BAE confirms it is slashing 2,000 jobs

Re: Forward Planning

Reality is that the RAF and similar need a simpler air defence aircraft to tackle Russian heavy bombers and something simple, cheaper and robust for ground strike -preferably with a decent range

It sounds like you're describing the Tornado

RE: "aeroplane company"

"I dont know why an aeroplane company is running a cyber security business, "

BAE aren't an aeroplane company - they are a many-tentacled defence contractor, e.g. they also do a nice line in nuclear submarines. Given the odds of the next world war being fought in cyberspace to a greater or lesser degree, then having a cyber security sector of the business makes sense.

Foiled again! Brit military minds splash cash on killing satellites with... food wrapping?

Re: Currently...

Currently, space junk is destroyed by firing rockets at it

Currently, more space junk is deployed by firing rockets at it

TFTFY

NASA tests supersonic parachute, to help us land on Mars

Nominative determinism

Given how often nominative determinism comes true, I do wonder about the logic of having a facility called Wallops

Computers4Christians miraculously appears on Ubuntu wiki

If the Christian OS ever crashes, does it just restart itself three days later?

BBC Telly Tax petition given new Parliament debate date

Re: If you have issues with the Telly Tax...

Worth the licence fee for Radio 4 alone

Re: "back catalogue of programs"

Netflix would have paid handsomely for the material they licenced from the BBC back catalogue. However, that revenue stream goes into BBC Worldwide, and not Aunty Beeb, hence we still have to pay a licence fee.

It could be interesting to see how the numbers stacked up if income from selling shows overseas was used to offset not having a licence fee.

Brit prosecutors fling almost a million quid at anti-drone'n'phone ideas

Incarceration means the prisoners have plenty of time on their hands in which to think about ways to overcome whatever obstacles the Powers That Be put in their way.

Over here in the comments section we offer up come ideas based on a few minutes thought while reading the article while drinking a cup of tea.

Contrast that with someone who's banged up in a cell for hours every day with nothing better to do than think about how to improvise a phone charger out of whatever material they can get their hands on.

Re: Easy answer

If you're going to select prison locations based on how rubbish the mobile phone reception, then I'm worried that someone's going to put in a planning application for a prison next door to my house.

RE: BtB Phone

Presumably such phones have a ringtone that features bum notes?

Dildon'ts of Bluetooth: Pen test boffins sniff out Berlin's smart butt plugs

Re: Something's wrong!

What's happened to El Reg? Have their normal staff been kidnapped?

This article mentions "penetration testing" and "master/slave" relationships - and there's not a singlepun, snigger or innuendo!

Sounds like some sort of cock-up...I expect the powers that be will come down hard on whoever is responsible

WTF do a buttplug need bluetooth for?

Quite...for what use it is, you might as well shove it up your a**e

Nokia updates classic comeback mobe 3310

Plenty of phones from Nokia (and other manufacturers) had web and email capabilities, and small screens. Not so much of a problem back in the day, but now web design has moved on (I'll leave it for you to decide if it's moved on for the better or worse) shoehorning all the content from modern websites into such a small screen could be a painful experience.

Microsoft gives all staff a marked-up 'Employee Edition' of Satya Nadella's new book

Cloudless logo

Microsoft said the new logo " [...] doesn’t include a cloud in it anymore"

Is this meant to be symbolic of downtime and unavailability?

The Register understands the book is going down quite well inside Microsoft

To steal a line from Blackadder...the paper it's written on is soft, strong and incredibly absorbent

EasyJet: We'll have electric airliners within the next decade

Re: Well....

I was thinking exactly the same thing - I wonder if they could back in more passengers if everyone was on an exercise bike style contraption rather than a regular seat?

And I'm sure that Ryanair would find a money-making opportunity, like an extra £10 if you want a saddle.

Kebab and pizza shop owner jailed for hiding £179k from the taxman

Sounds like he was cooking the books...and based on my experience of kebabs, the books probably had more nutritional value.

Quebec takes mature approach to 'grilled cheese' ban

Re: Comfort food!

But, just to confuse us right-pondians, a US grill is also a sort of flat, hotplate where things like eggs and bacon are fried.

That sounds like what I'd call a griddle.

Re: Comfort food!

I think this may be a depends-what-side-of-The-Pond-you're-on thing, but if you're cooking it in a pan with butter, that's fried and not grilled. A grilled cheese sandwich would be a cheese sandwich that's been cooked under a grill.

Manchester plod still running 1,500 Windows XP machines

Just hire someone to outfit the entire thing with Linux and port over the applications. It may cost but in the long run it'll be cheaper since no MS licenses anymore.

Noble sentiments, but have you given any thought to how much that would cost? Have you any idea how many machines would need to be swapped from one OS to another, how many applications would need to be ported, how many of those applications are proprietary/closed-source? The obstacles and costs for "just" doing that would be eye-watering, and way beyond the budget of any cash-strapped public sector organisation.

RE: Freecell

Is that what the custody staff look for when they want to put someone in solitaire confinement?

Ofcom to crack down on telcos' handling of nuisance callers

Re: Doesn't go far enough on nuisance calls

All those crappy "I am phoning from Microsoft Windows..." call centres should be wiped from the face of the planet

FTFY

Black screen of death after Win10 update? Microsoft blames HP

Re: The registry that should never have happened

I think you remember correctly. I saw an MS Channel 9 video years ago where the guy behind the Registry was asked about his creation. His reply was (and I think I'm quoting verbatim here) "Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry...."

Microsoft Office 365 Exchange issues for users across Europe

We've contacted Microsoft for comment

By email?

Noise-canceling headphones with a DO NOT DISTURB light can't silence your critics

Re: "the low-flying aircraft that keep my neighbourhood affordable"

I find this kind of noise is "blankable"

It depends on the type of aircraft. When I'm in the office, we get some aircraft noise from jets flying over to/from the nearby airport, but that's something I seem to have got used to.

At home, on the other hand, I'm quite close to a military training range. A Typhoon screaming overhead at 200' (or the occasional Hercules or Atlas flying low and tactical) is far from blankable...but they look cool, so I don't mind so much.

New HMRC IT boss to 'recuse' herself over Microsoft decisions

£180,000 per annum role

I assume that this salary will be reduced pro rata to take account of the work that she can't do because it involves Microsoft in some way?