Posts by John Miles

22 million Brits suffer broadband outage blues and are paying a premium for it

Re: We have bigger things to worry about

I just have FTTP from Zen, the router* they supplied allows me to different VOIP's so I have an Andrews & Arnold VOIP which was cheaper than the Zen options.

* The router Zen sent is just acting as a ATA

Why these cloud-connected 3D printers started making junk all by themselves

Re: Cloud connected? FFS why?

Use something like a Creality CR 30

Things like the Spaghetti detection that can stop the printer before a huge blob builds up around the print head (can happen when print comes off bed during printing, layer shifts, model issues etc.) would biggest reason - The Spaghetti Detective AI

Bad software destroyed my doctor's memory

Re: Handwritten v typed

For a patient like myself who hasn't been to the Dr for 5 years, yes however those who have to go more frequently I'm not so sure and I suspect they may remember more about the problems than the name purely because what they talk/write about

Handwritten v typed

A couple of years ago there was a study suggesting students handwriting notes had better memory retention than those who typed notes - I wonder if we would see similar for the doctors and they are more likely remember more about a patient when they hand write it on paper than type it into a computer

Northern Ireland police may have endangered its own officers by posting details online in error

Re: Human error, poor policy or slack management?

I suspect even less know you can hide a sheet from the tabs

Three signs that Wayland is becoming the favored way to get a GUI on Linux

Mine too - I had to double check I'd got right name

Someone converted a Tesla to run on Wagon Wheels

Turning a computer off, then on again, never goes wrong. Right?

Re: PC Engineers...

When I started work - whenever there was a thunderstorm in area we'd shut the computers down, mind you this was in the 80s with HP computers probably 2 decades old, controlling test equipment, and no UPS so probably a good idea.

Microsoft puts profanity filter on %@!#ing Teams transcripts

and those dealing with connecting microwave waveguides or any similar pipe joins

US Air Force AI drone 'killed operator, attacked comms towers in simulation'

Re: Pulling the plug is still an option,

It may be made up and seem far fetched, but if the story update is to be believe so is the story.

However if that "AI" is flying a drone then pulling the plug is just a little hard. Then we only need to read some of the "On Calls"/"Who Me" on here to realise someone will make it hard to pull the plug, either deliberately thinking "AI" infallible or by wiring things wrong.

Re: Pulling the plug is still an option,

For now - but as I recall the M-5 Multitronic unit in Star Trek had other ideas

Techie called out to customer ASAP, then: Do nothing

Most can be browsed on archive.org

Microsoft and GM deal means your next car might talk, lie, gaslight and manipulate you

Re: Re - speedometer accuracy

Most GPS chip sets use Doppler shift to measure speed - so it can be pretty fast to calculate speed

Silicon Valley Bank seized by officials after imploding: How this happened and why

Re: Assets? What kind of assets?

Now add -

SVB CEO Greg Becker lobbied the government to relax some Dodd-Frank provisions on regional lenders in 2015. Trump did in 2018

Re: Assets? What kind of assets?

From another discussion - levels at which various rules applied were changed back in 2018 and various things changed if the bank had less than 250 billion in assets (up from 50 billion) - cadwalader.com link

Two tech-centric banks strike trouble, spooking markets

SVB now shut by regulators

cnbc.com link

NASA Geotail spacecraft's 30-year mission ends after last data recorder fails

Re: make something last exactly 6 months

I recall a prosecution in news where a burglar alarm installer managed to make the alarms last to just out of warranty and only got caught when someone else tried fixing an alarm and found a timer that would disable it after a about a year.

What is Google doing with its open source teams?

Re: their greatest asset are the people they have working for them

Dilbert has covered that - 3 March 1993

To make this computer work, users had to press a button. Why didn't it work? Guess

Re: Bad design

yes "corporate image" has very little HP rubbish - but it does come with corporate rubbish

Re: Bad design

On the latest HP Z-Book work provided me, I couldn't find the power button - why because it was one of the function buttons on top row of keyboard and sits between the "PrtScn" & "Del" buttons. I'm just glad I rarely use it open using built in keyboard

https://www.hp.com/gb-en/shop/Html/Merch/Images/2C9R7EA-ABU_8_1750x1285.jpg

Confirmed: Asteroid shoved by Earth crash probe DART

Re: DARTs and Pool?

That's the one with Talkie Toaster - the episode is White Hole (wiki link)

Software developer cracks Hyundai car security with Google search

Re: pay a monthly subscription fee, otherwise the whole thing stops functioning

I think some companies/developers haven't paid the subscription fee in a long time

The Raspberry Pi Pico goes wireless with the $6 W

Re: Pounds?

Google says £1 = $0.83 at the moment - so £4.98 + vat at £0.996

Toyota, Subaru recall EVs because tires might literally fall off

Reminds me of a guy I worked with

Many years ago, as he got a recall on his VW Polo because the front wheel may fall off, not through loose nuts but rotted out subframe - trouble is he got this a week after it fell off at a junction. Not the brightest spark as he only got it moved after the police prosecuted him for failing to move it for several days

Elon Musk flogs $8.4bn of Tesla shares amid Twitter offer drama

Re: Irony

It's like democracy - one man one vote and Elon is the man and he'll have the free speech

Oracle to release on-prem software usage tools to prep cloud switch

I'd say as long as break was similar to Robert Maxwell's all is good

Day 7 of the great Atlassian outage: IT giant still struggling to restore access

Could be 2 more weeks according to a Reddit comment

Seen a Reddit comment - Link

got email from the community manager, that some instances can be down for further two weeks.

This is not how a billion dollar company build the system or handles recovery, I am going to look for an alternative and dump Atlassian as soon as possible.

​

==== snip of the email I got ====

What this means for your company

We were unable to confirm a more firm ETA until now due to the complexity of the rebuild process for your site. While we are beginning to bring some customers back online, we estimate the rebuilding effort to last for up to 2 more weeks.

I know that this is not the news you were hoping for. We apologize for the length and severity of this incident and have taken steps to avoid a recurrence in the future.

Hackers remotely start, unlock Honda Civics with $300 tech

The Faraday cage is to stop a relay attack where a range extender is used to fool the car into thinking key is close to it. One person waves an aerial around the front door of house where lots of people keep their keys and another by the car door, then some electronics picks up the fob's/car's signals and relays them each way enabling them to open door and start car.

You Tube Link (at about 2 mins)

We had those back in 80s

Back then some manufacturers managed to make their keys less unique than they should have been especially after a couple of years of use, such that you could open them with any key. Keys didn't stop huge numbers of hot hatches going awol in UK during the 80s either

Tesla to disable 'self-driving' feature that allowed vehicles to roll past stop signs at junctions

And at level crossings

A recent twitter post - Watch a Tesla with FSD try to drive through a moving train.

Planning on buying a new motor? Chip shortages set to hit UK carmakers this year and next

Re: "planning to increase their inventory levels"

It is not a robust chain they need it is a beholden one and a reasonably steady demand. While the shutdown caused shortages, the problems they are seeing are a result of reducing their orders to their suppliers. The suppliers of key components weren't going to take the hit so started looking for other customers, now they want to ramp up their own production the key suppliers aren't just going switch back to supplying them as they have other orders on the book.

Just in time is not about reducing inventory - it is about pushing the risks onto the supplier and they are now dealing with the fallout when suppliers don't quietly take the hit

Re: "planning to increase their inventory levels"

give it a few years and they'll forget that.

In their drive to get the leanest possible company they forget you need a certain amount of "slack" in organisation to avoid being too fragile, but then that doesn't matter if you move on with nice bonuses before the brown stuff hits the fan.

A moment of tension as the James Webb Space Telescope stretches sunshield on way to L2 destination

Re: Webb scheduled to last a long time

It is likely to be an automated mission to refuel it so I think more of an engineering & economics issue than anything else

Re: Where is it? Check this...

There was a failure in switches to indicate the cover had rolled up - that delayed some things and meant some late work - most likely the delay were mainly a result of that and they didn't want to start the critical with people tired

Spar shops across northern England shut after cyber attack hits payment processing abilities

Re: Cash Is King

The replacement Visa Credit Card, for an expiring one, I received last month just has the numbers printed on the back - the front only has the chip and bank logo. Back still looks like it has magnetic strip

China plans to swipe a bunch of data soon so quantum computers can decrypt it later

Re: quantum computers

I wonder if quantum computers can decipher "amanfromMars 1" posts? ;)

Amazon tells folks it will stop accepting UK Visa credit cards via weird empty email

Re: There's a trend here ...

HSBC used to issue Mastercard Maestro debit cards and Mastercard credit cards, but they have mainly switched to Visa (I think their Premium accounts might still get Mastercard)

It appears we are just behind Australia

As - From November 1, Amazon will apply a 0.5% surcharge to purchases made using Visa credit cards on Amazon.com.au.

I've been using Amazon less and less over the last few years - mainly because they seem to go out of their way to promote cheap tat

Pulling down a partition or knocking through a door does not necessarily make for a properly connected workspace

Re: but I'm not allowed

It is worth checking the wiring Regs Part P as it was updated in April 2013 with less stringent requirements as to what was notifiable

Some FAQ

The return of the turbo button: New Intel hotness causes an old friend to reappear

Re: Useless idea

For a few games I played back then the turbo button allowed them to be playable - but I don't recall encountering any other software where it helped, though I am sure there were some

Reg reader returns Samsung TV after finding giant ads splattered everywhere

Re: Stargate DVD Box sets - No adverts

I'd disagree - SG Atlantis Box set I have has un-skippable adverts, including one for SG1 set (which is why it is still sealed on shelf). It irritated me so much that I never bothered finishing the series or buying any more box sets.

DDoSers take weekend off only to resume campaign against UK's Voipfone on Monday

Re: against a DDoS

That may just be because in past it costs lots of money or you have to be a big provider who'd rapidly be disconnected from world if you try it. There are been BGP Hijacks that may have impacted telecoms providers that likely ended up in phone lines unavailable

However at a smaller scale I believe there have been instances of companies dialling competitors and keeping their phone lines tied up back when everything was caller was only one who could disconnect

LAN traffic can be wirelessly sniffed from cables with $30 setup, says researcher

Re: I thought LAN cables were shielded

When you come to commission the link one of the things you don't want to hear is the guy wiring it up didn't understand twisted pair so didn't worry where to put the black wires from each pair, fortuantely the team lead got it sorted quickly - this was a single circuit site to site V11/RS-422 link so not large and sometime ago

BOFH: You'll find there's a company asset tag right here, underneath the monstrously heavy arcade machine

Re: Personal heaters

Back in late 90s we upgraded all our cad workstations from 80s Unix system with impressively large monitors at the time to latest PCs - then during winter heating broke down and the drawing office wanted their old systems back to sit in corner and act as space heaters

BT Wholesale wants the channel to give SMBs a nudge before copper sunset in 2025

RE: Discovering that the backup battery has died

You don't even get a backup battery now and the Nokia ONT I have installed doesn't have a Phone port, which I believe is main BT installs now and the Phone plugs into the SuperHub (or FritzBox used by Zen) so when the power goes you need a UPS covering two or more devices

Git 2.33 released with new optional merge process likely to become the default: It's 'over 9,000' times faster

Latest versions of TFS (or now called Azure DevOps on Premise or such) has GIT as the code repository

Before I agree to let your app track me everywhere, I want something 'special' in return (winks)…

Re: Outlook

Maybe it wants to check whether you need to leave for your appointment, it could check Bing Maps for traffic delays and tell you you better start if you want to make the 200 mile/320 km trip via ferry to the meeting room the other end of the building ;)