Posts by tiggity 3906 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Oct 2015
It hardly ever applies proper penalties, the people behind security screwups carrying failing onwards & upwards (or sideways) in the carousel of C suite jobs for those in the appropriate circle (though, TBF, not just jobs for the boys, there are female incompetents getting massively rewarded too, e.g. Dido Harding didn't suffer any real career damage from the Talk Talk security fiasco)
No copyright issues in things like a SSID - but could potentially be trademark issues
Some people have Delta as a name e.g. Delta Goodrem (Aussie singer / actress). So if someone named Delta was creating their own hotspot with their name as part of it then could reasonably argue that was not a trademark violation either.
On the subject of airlines & trademarks, for anyone who missed the happy news a while ago, UK finally killed off the egregious abuse of everyday word "easy" to attack small businesses by slimy Stelios.
Inded.
Billy Bragg may be a bit of a twat but his law / justice last lines of this verse from Rotting on Remand are still relevant decades later
"I stood before the Judge that day
As he refused me bail
And I knew that I would spend my time
Awaiting trial in jail
I said there is no justice
As they led me out of the door
And the Judge said, "This isn't a court of justice, son
This is a court of law."
@Blazde
It is easy to do.
I have a very "Mickey Mouse" email system I threw together (very rough & ready but does the job, though it is tailored to a specific use case - for wider use it would have to include (spit) HTML email - by design it just uses plain text - anything exotic is added as an attachment).
Maintains mailing lists of recipients and no bcc or cc - for a message sent to a mailing list it processes the mailing list and sends one email per member, with that member as the "to" recipient.
The UI has no cc or bcc option, only to (& it behaves sensibly in parsing into separate email addresses if you try to have multiple email addresses in the to field, and sending to each separately)
It's for a couple of community groups I'm involved with and ensures no accidental leakage of data (all very pointless as most people have other group members contact details anyway as they are usually friends to some degree even if on opposing sport teams) just to be super GDPR compliant, emails only go to opted in members etc. Total overkill, but benefit is that I know I will not make a PII screwup (& it was a fun bit of code to write)
@AC
How old are you?
If you are near cataract age then a solution might await
When they deal with a cataract they destroy your lens and put in an artificial lens.
There are multi focal lenses available, that behave like human eye (though NHS only does basic single focus lenses so you would have to pay extra for them in UK)
.. I have only had vaguely OK vision in one eye for decades.
Even that one is now awful (too bad for me to drive, even with glasses)
Getting a cataract op soon (when you are extremely myopic cataracts tend to occur at an earlier age)
..Though with condition of my eye deemed too high risk to have multi focal lenses as an option so I will not have a chance to report on how good those lenses may be - I just get a basic single focus lens.
When you get your bacon from a pork butchers there are no instructions.
I cannot comment on bacon purchased from supermarkets etc as I go the good quality option of a decent butcher (or sometimes buy bacon & sausage direct from the local pig farmer down the road!)
@James Anderson
Strange - never had credit rating as a form of ID in UK - always needed passport, driving licence, utility bills at address type of thing.
I imagine I would struggle on credit rating as I currently have no credit card, no loans (including no mortgage*) etc.
* I was (with my partner) part of a mortgage but that was over 10 years ago now so an eternity in credit rating terms. Doubtless will have to get a mortgage at some point as current house far from ideal especially as we get older, so a move to somewhere less remote (& so less cheap) will be needed at some point but house is adequate & we enjoy not having mortgage outgoings to worry about.
@diadomraz
"for example I would never buy a SanDisk SD card or any product from a known brand there"
I think that applies to other well known places like Amazon, eBay etc. - would not trust them for SD cards.
As a camera user I tend to buy my SD cards from Argos, easy online experience, not the cheapest, but they do have a reputation to protect - cards from there have always been advertised storage size, data has persisted and data transfer has always kept up with camera (including video & RAW images at multiple FPS).. and bricks & mortar store with humans available if you do have any issues
A long time since I looked at UK Computer Misuse Act 1990
Any of that activity fall within that law?
I hate unwanted / unrequested adverts* sufficiently to argue that automatic install of something that throws ads at you it falls under "Unauthorised Acts Impairing the Operation of a Computer" due to the ads (IMO) impairing computer operation.
* I hate ads but will sometimes grudgingly watch them e.g. preceding / during a YouTube video I want to see. But that's a situation where I know I will be served an ad (similar if I install an app manually and app tells me it will display ads for its funding, I can choose in that case to install (or not)
I still have thunderbird configured to be in plain text mode (& also to just get headers first, not download the whole message until I ask it to).
Works for me (99.9% of teh time I am just interested in content of an email, not bothered about embedded images or hyperlinks - in rare case I might be I can always switch to HTML view after I have read the plain text version).
Though I'm of an age where I did a lot of hand crafted HTML in the early days of craeting web pages, so don't get distracted by markup when I read HTML mail in plain text mode
@anthonyhegedusSilver said:
"However, I don't agree with your point about payment apps. With payment apps, security is paramount. If a device is "rooted" or "jailbroken", it is compromised. Payment apps should rightly refuse to run on a non-standard device that could be running anything."
Most people root their phones to increase security as many phones come with a lot dubious applications installed & lack basic security features (last time I investigated no decent android firewall without rooting your phone first).
.. Rooted phone no issue for me as I do not do phone banking etc. - if my phone got stolen whilst unlocked no way to do any financial fraud (& the google account used is just a convenience account for android phone, has no usefulness, no linked financial details etc). It is ludicrous taht apps whinge about a rooted phone when it is the only way to get half decent security & remove pre-installed junk (some of which is arguably spyware & has far too much access to your phone data for my linking)
@MazeFrame
" then be scalped by Nvidia for graphics (AMD and Intel have 25-ish% share combined) "
.. that sounds odd.
Most laptops ./ PCs at the low end just have default intel graphics, so % of computer users just using Intel integrated graphics is substantial
Most users do not add a dedicated GPU - some of the market are gamers (or have GPU requirements due to e.g. a lot of graphic design / vide editing), but a huge swathe of users are not using anything beyond ultra basic integrated graphics
Are you talking about market share based on price (as a low % of expensive NVidia units would be a hefty amount of market share viewed in cash terms) or are you only referencing market share of GPUs?.
Depends how they get their statistics - do not trust it if it relies on user agent.
I change my user agent quite often (a Firefox user agent switcher extension makes it easy), as sometimes you need to blatantly lie (there are still some shoddy sights that automatically claim unsupported browser by user agent sniffing if you are not running a chrome derivative or "present" as a mac or iPhone). My OS in the spoofed user agent string is often something unrelated to my actual OS.
IMHO it's not just about the tokens. It's whether tokens are "wasted" or not.
It's about how good an outcome you get - i.e. how good the "AI" is at providing a solution..
If you give an "AI" a coding problem to solve and it manages it, then great. It was X tokens but did the job (you can tehn analyse if those X tokens were a saving compared to developer time & money)
However, issue starts when (as is often the case) the "AI" does not do a good job of providing a solution - iit may be totally useless, it may have some good stuff amongst the dross, but your X tokens have been wasted to some extent and you either now need to solve it by a human, or try "AI" again , burning more tokens.
I have used "AI" coding tools & a definite trade off - the more granular, well defined a task you gibe, then the higher the chance of "AI" doing a good job first time, but even then it often needs some fine tuning afterwards. However easy to stray into level of input being so well defined you may as well have just written the code yourself as you are essentially going to "code level" in describing the requirement.
Occasionally you get surprised by good results with a "loose" input query, but such instances are rare.
Bosses would be far happier if they only had to pay for tokens if result of those tokens was actually fit for purpose.
e.g. If I took car to a garage to have a new tyre fitted and tracking adjusted if needed & mechanic wasn't paying attention and they checked the tracking but added new spark plug instead of a tyre then, I would not be paying for the non required spark plug & the mechanic would be going back to install the new tyre & recheck the tracking.
Until "AI" billing is similar (i.e. you do not pay if it makes a mess of things) then there are (IMHO) issues.
I have seen improvements in "AI" output, but it is still a long way off getting it right every time on coding tasks.
Some places like that in UK.
I was in a pharmacist in Derby (UK) recently,, in one of the distinctly non upmarket parts of the town, nothing on display, you go through door, - interior mainly boarded up, just a "hole" on the counter big enough for staff to see you, and for passing through cash / card reader/ pour purchase. You told them what you wanted & they got it for you.
This was due to it being a high crime area (& obviously pharmacies have products attractive to certain criminals so are popular targets) - it is not that uncommon for certain shops in high crime areas to be counter service only in the UK.
On non crime related theme, there is still a traditional hardware store near me, a few things on display, but most stuff you have to ask at the counter, this is due to shop layout (shop has a small customer facing room with storage in an adjacent couple of rooms)
@ComicalEngineer
They are one of many supermarkets that have cut staffed tills and moved to self service tills.
They also have very few security staff.
Big surprise, that increases shoplifting - some deliberate, some people just exasperated with malfunctioning automated systems.
Increasing number of staffed tills & security staff would decrease shoplifting.
However, bean counters have calculated that a certain amount of increased shoplifting is OK, as outweighed by staff cost savings: Maybe increased camera rollout is an indication they got their sums badly wrong & is yet another way to avoid extra staffing "costs"*.
Know quite a few people who work in (variety of) supermarkets, so may have a bias - but from what they have told me, generally the shop floor staff are very under appreciated
* Big hint, having more staff has net positive effects that are often overlooked,.
e.g. with decent staffing levels a shopper can easily find staff on shop floor & ask where item X is located (something they have been hunting for unsuccessfully, finding target goods is not helped by supermarkets rearranging store layout every few months): This helps customer & increases chance of that shopper using the store again as they had a good experience.
e.g. for older single people talking to someone on a checkout may be their only person to person interaction / chat in the whole day.
Increased staffing helps catch shoplifters, more eyes to spot suspicious behaviour (more staff = workers not being totally overworked so can actually spend some time watching shoppers instead of race against time on shelf stacking) . It is not just spotting shopkeepers, allows the staff to spot shelving plans that work well (& more importantly, perform badly) .
"how its members were selected."
Oh, I can tell you that
It's a mix of
"think of the children" numpties
IT illiterates.
Authoritarian control freaks
Those getting / likely to get nice financial kickbacks from companies likely to jump on the digital ID gravy train.
Obviously individuals can fall into multiple categories
I have had a few add-ons to my insurance (e.g. hijack, mugging & piracy! coverage counselling after PTSD events, natural & political disaster coverage ) when visiting some of the more "interesting" areas of the world (wildlife watching in some out of the way areas that are often not exactly low crime or politically stable areas).
Though plenty of places where risk not worthwhile (e.g. after the US induced chaos Venezuela is currently off my S. America options list)
@User McUser
Indeed, when commute is horrendous in terms of duration (& if public transport then only certain leave times are viable) then office based overtime can be a huge problem. In one job I even got my official work day start & end times tweaked to fit in with public transport (train) timetables!
WFH I generally do quite a lot work time compared to when I was in an office as an extra 15 min - half an hour to get something finished off (instead of it needing completion next morning) is not much hassle when you are already home
@munnoch
Too many assumptions
Granted our car is getting towards 10 quite old but the hand brake has a mechanical link - some new cars available in UK still have proper handbrakes (though % falls year after year & so they are massively in the minority) - not sure about other countries, but in UK if you are determined then a limited range of mechanical hand brake cars are still available (not all manufactures give the option and not all models in range from manufacturers that do provide some cars with that feature ).
Do not assume everyone drives the latest new & shiny, some of us have old vehicles (& keep them going until reliability gets too poor / cost of repairs become too onerous)
We all make code mistakes & miss things on code review sometimes .
However if code is to be used for promoting a major scientific breakthrough then there should definitely be multiple eyes going through the code with a fine toothcomb. Including multiple experts in that language (as being great in one language does not mean you will be skilled in a different one & may be caught out by syntax quirks - e.g. python is not a heavily MS promoted language so I would expect less MS coders to have core competence in python in than in more heavily MS promoted languages e.g. C#, C++)
In a pharma related coding role I had to get to grips with R (essentially a free stats oriented programming language based on S) and MATLAB.
That was an odd experience as indexes in those start at 1 - so you always ground to a halt on index related code & made sure you were doing it appropriately (not on autopilot 0 based index mindset)
Trusted sources - getting big Pravda vibes here.
Maybe they need to address why so many young people get news on social media
It is not just social media addiction it is the groupthink of so much of the UK media
.. Yes, they all have their supposed political slot, but they can still be relied on to not ruffle too many feathers.
People of any age can see the difference between UK media reporting of the actions of Israel in Palestine (& more recently Lebanon) and social media relating to this - be they non Western news sources or, more pertinently, people living in those countries showing what their situation is like.
Then there are other areas such as individuals or small news sources who ignore the "gentleman's agreement" of D Notices which is e.g. used to heavily censor coverage of some UK armed forces activities
With social media use it is far harder for governments to control the narrative and so they instinctively hate it.
It wouldn't matter if Musk / Zuck etc were the most morally perfect people in existence (obviously they are not - I doubt they even scrape into the top 8 billion) - the existence of "free for all" news & views would still make governments outraged.
Let us not forget the class element - the working class are under represented in most UK media & the government quite like that.. If we look at parliament, when an MP does come in from a working class background it is not long before they are seduced by self advancement, self enrichment and group think. Someone like Dennis Skinner was notable precisely because he stayed true to his working class roots.
Social media gives a voice to working class people who so often feel disenfranchised rather than their voice getting swept under the carpet.
People may not like the message they are hearing from these people (but if they know their history it's no surprise, in times of economic hardship the population of many countries have historically tended to adopt a more right leaning ethos) - and times are hard at the moment (another thing most media glosses over is how many people in the UK are really struggling financially - plenty of coverage of "benefit cheats" but little on people living a life of despair in poverty )
That had to be written in the US.
In the UK, where our currency is the pound and we have pound as a weight*, # symbol is hardly ever referred to as a pound (generally called sharp or hash).
Though the £ symbol is referred to as a pound (and seen on UK currency).
.. not that US folk even have a £ on their US keyboard (though obviously can use alt codes etc.)
* I know in the US / Canada that # is often used to represent pound as a weight, but UK uses the (more common worldwide) lb.
@Doctor Syntax
In the UK you cannot be an MP if you have certain principles e.g. you have to swear allegiance to the king / crown.
.. and anyone who says, "oh it's just meaningless words" obviously does not have deep republican views
Ludicrous that there is no way to just declare your belief to do the best for the UK - supporting the crown is not equivalent to supporting the UK but the oath treats it as if it is..
Thus, we currently have a total sham of democracy in the UK, as by law any principled republican (i.e. one who refuses to swear the crown allegiance) cannot be an MP.
@Aladdin Sane
I don't understand the downvotes on that - as someone who was youngest in my year group at school (so e.g. doing GCSE exams aged 15, whilst most others were 16) there is an issue that school year group cohorts cover quite a range.
e.g. for many UK areas for staring in September 2026 the cohort is birthday 1 September 2021 to 31 August 2022, so the youngest child can be almost a year younger than the oldest child
Could be financial inducements at some point - I'm not going to speculate as that could possibly get the comment pulled.
However, given Rowley is gung ho on photo recog everywhere in London he might just be the sort of person who reads 1984 & gets a throbbing erection & treats that sort of oppressive police state as a goal to aspire to; and we know Palantir are big on hoovering up data on everyone (many would argue illegally - see NHS tie ins).
If you look at court proceedings week in and week out in the UK, people with lots of CSA* material (including some of the really nasty stuff) keep getting a slap on the wrist community service etc. rather than long jail sentences.
Also often see rapists of minors getting a wrist slap or ludicrously short sentences
e.g. FFS
If they really care about children, how about locking away some nonces.
* Child Sexual Abuse
"“Professional enablers” – rogue white-collar workers, such as lawyers"
Aren't rogue lawyers fairly common?
I know a few decent legal people - but they have some scary stories about some of their ex* colleagues
* generally ex for ethical reasons. Even though we are talking legal companies, they often just get rid of people, rather than getting them disbarred / struck off (depending on what category of law jobs they come under) as it a lot less hassle than time consuming formal proceedings (so loss making) & ut can reflect badly on the partnership (even though they were not at fault) if it becomes known they employed a "wrong un" (& that all gets revealed if disbarring / striking off action goes ahead) -
UK research pay is uninspiring for many post doc researchers (though varies by institution & how long a post doc has been working) and they are often on a treadmill of 3 year contracts (though terms vary) & never a guarantee of continuity of contract
They might dangle big cash in front of big names, but most research needs a team of people & it can be a grind (lots of grunt work, the "big cheese" (& often others) gets their name on a paper you slogged your guts out for & if you are very lucky you might be (last or nearly last) named author on the paper.
.. Before switching to IT my first career was in biological sciences research, still have friends who work in that area
@heyrick
Though also worth noting too many dismal websites that (usually needlessly) do not function with JS disabled. - plenty do not even render basic text without JS FFS.
So plenty of blame should also be hurled at the modern approach of JS being a necessity, instead of just used to add a few nice features whilst core functionality works WIITHOUT JS*.
* I'm aware a few sites will fail badly without JS e.g. Mapping Sites - but most websites are not Google Maps, Bing maps (a great example of a page that shows nothing if JS disabled, not even a you need JS to use this site message) etc.
@blu3b3rry
"Exams feel like an outdated method anyway. t could be argued that they are heavily biased in favour of persons with decent powers of recollection and the ability to regurgitate answers without needing to understand the topic."
Depends on the subject - for some topics then potentially that comment is correct to an extent.
However for e.g. sciences with strong mathematical context, then possible to craft an exam where you will crash and burn without understanding as a substantial chunk of the exam can involve the knowledge you have gained being "applied" i.e. solving problems via calculation (based on what your course should have covered) - coupled with "explaining your workings" (in case you screw up your maths, then at least get some credit for understanding the problem)
@Giles C
"if someone does not wish to receive messages"
Though, if the reason they do not want to receive them is due to privacy reasons (i.e. they do not trust MailChimp) then it might mean a disgruntled member i.e. a member who would actually like email - if the mails were not sent via MailChimp.
That's why, for club mails I do, although I have variety of email addresses (including some throwaway ones with US companies such as Google & Yahoo) I use a UK based email server (though with so many recipients using US company email addresses I do wonder if its a bit of an exercise in futility - still its all good practice making sure you have set up your mail server such that it passes SPF / DKIM tests by the "big boys" who love to reject mail from outside their cosy cartel using spurious security reasons)
I do the mailouts for a small club.
I avoid any cc / bcc issues completely.
I have written my own basic mail app*, that is used exclusively for the club.
I can select from "mailing lists" I have added.
Crucially, what my code does is process the mailing list and send out to each recipient as an individual mail.
No chance of cc / bcc errors.
I am not giving the mailing lists to third parties to handle, so I'm fully in control of the data (which is important to me as I am the data controller of the club)
* Trivial using a high level language as most have good libraries for mail functionality** (though TBF my day job is coding & have had to write email code in the past)
** I'm sure it's even more trivial these days as you can get "AI" to spit out the core code for such functionality & then fixing the "AI" errors is still probably faster than coding from scratch as it is a basic sort of task. Though a bit more hassle if you use email from some of the "big boys" as you will need to jump through the OAuth hoops (whereas if you run your own email server you can use the easier solution of basic authentication )
@IGotOut
If you have a good local news source then you are fortunate.
In the UK the vast majority of small local newspapers were bought out & destroyed / hollowed out by a small number of big media companies.
My "local" paper mainly features news from nearest big city (instead of proper local news) & an increasing amount of generic dross news unrelated in any way (i.e. not relevant to county I live or even adjacent counties)
So, I can sympathise with some of those comments by @elsergiovolador
I produce the results for a local pub league - years ago, local paper would publish the local pub league 5 a side, skittles, pool, darts etc (which were provided freely & enthusiastically by people associated with those leagues as local people not attending matches or on mailing lists often still like to know the results & it's valuable publicity for the leagues* & participating pubs)
I (& my counterparts involved with other leagues) have not provided results for years now (ages ago we all received identikit emails stating results / league standings data no longer required) - and it's not as if they scrape the results from the relevant web sites instead.
The paper just no longer publishes the results
A similar lack of local reportage on other areas e.g. parish council activities etc.
There are a few enthusiasts who produce summaries of "what's on" locally, (which are great) but sadly nobody with the time & resources to produce "proper" local news
* You need a stream of new recruits as people retire from teams & need "new blood" to replace them and so people being aware the leagues exist is very helpful.
@cyberdemon
"(offtopic El Reg gripe: This comment section took an hour to appear, and the article currently does NOT appear in https://www.theregister.com/week which I have bookmarked since the ghastly frontpage redesign)"
I do find the comments option taking an eternity to arrive is irritating. Certainly drives down engagement with El Reg.
I have used the week url for ages, pre-redesign
@AC
Though some rues & regs in UK around guns had loopholes for a long time.
Pre 2018 regs you could legally deactivate a gun just by plugging the barrel with lead* (not that difficult to get out without damaging a gun as lead melts at a far lower temperature than the far more heat resistant metals typically used in guns)
So, essentially pre 2018 guns trivial for a bad actor to reactivate (though now you cannot gift hem / sell the on unless they are "properly" deactivated to meet new specs)
* I know about this due to an inheritance** years ago, relative involved, like many people who lived in countryside back then, had a few shotguns guns (illegally as not licenced - vintage pieces) - also some shotgun cartridges (again illegal as he had no shotgun certificate, but lots of friends who did who would sell him some on the QT). I contacted police who ran me through the options / rules - we avoided having to deactivate them as it was possible to sell them via dealers to a collector with a shotgun licence (did need a holding permit until they were sold though ), cops handled the cartridge disposal. So at least with me involved we disposed of them "properly" (unlike if close relatives had done it!)
** I was not too close a relative, but as I was relatively diligent & competent (very diligent in comparison to feckless close relatives!) & he died intestate I ended up dealing with all the "executor type of stuff" that was too much hassle for the close relatives. Sadly all I got was a bit of cash from the estate for my time & mileage in dealing with thins (& a few beers from the relatives). Though guns were a doddle in comparison to getting contractors in to deal with the shed (it had some asbestos roofing and some of it in a sufficiently bad state that it needed proper "asbestos professionals" to deal with it - that cost teh estate a fair few quid!)
As someone who (for work purposes unfortunately has to occasionally use various "AI" tools (though long since stopped using GitHub copilot as it was not that great) I can say that performance on coding tasks is very variable - can be surprisingly good, can be awful. The problem is that, when pricing starts to get more "realistic" (i.e. companies want t start making money) that you can burn a lot of tokens (cash) for an awful "solution".
Until the "solution" an "AI" provides is consistently OK / good people will get very upset at burning cash for a dismal "solution".
With the relatively subsidised pricing then if "AI" crashes & burns in terms of a good solution then people will alter prompts and try again hoping for a better outcome based on what the "AI" got wrong last time.
With "realistic" pricing needs to be some way to credit users when "AI" just fails to do a good job as when more outlay is involved then people will demand consistently good results (what's the point of burning tokens for no useful code being produced?)
"AI" coding tools are getting better, but (obviously I have not used all of them, but based on what I have used ) are not yet at the level you can rely on. Though they are now a lot better at relatively small, very well defined tasks, which is (IMHO) best way to use them e.g. usually very good at writing your unit tests (including lots of edge cases if you prompt nicely) based on interface definition and expected behaviour specification for TDD.
