Posts by tiggity

UK politico proposes site for prototype nuclear fusion plant

Dame Sue Ion, former chair of the UK Nuclear Innovation Research Advisory Board

"I think there's a difference between confidence that it will work and confidence that it will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year and satisfy an economic environment in which it's got to live. And my answer to that is, I honestly don't know,"

.. She does know, the answer to 24/7 running with any decent level of uptime is zero.

Likelihood of 7 minutes continual NET positive energy generation (never mind 7 days) is very low... I will be massively optimistic and not say zero

Plenty of teams have managed a few seconds of fusion, the difficulty is sustaining long enough bursts to create more power than the (large amount) that was used starting it in the first place, and then the lesser amounts to maintain it

By all means do some research, research is (nearly) always a good thing, but don't pretend you will end up with a viable power plant at the end of it.. but being honest & upfront is not the way of the haunted pencil.

Rather than take the L, Amazon sues state that dared criticize warehouse safety

Re: Who are their lawyers?

There will be general health and safety rules violated, as these are typically (not a USian so cannot speak in detail on their laws, especially at state level) loosely worded in the UK, precisely because the nature of work changes & its impossible to describe every possible bad practice and keep it up to date, so its left to (extremely rare) inspections to flag up issues, unions bringing legal action etc..

Amazon are just pathetically trying to say there is no specific set of ultra specific rules that are being quoted & they might still be risking employees health when they try and make the bare minimum improvements they think they can get away with.

Hint - do a proper job of improving the workplace environment, might be an alien concept to profit obsessed companies but employee safety matters more than adding a miniscule productivity increase at the expense of worker health.

Vodafone and Three's UK arms locked in merger talks

Re: Size matters

@AC

You obviously don't live in the sticks or visit remote areas of the country e.g. large swathes of Scotland.

I only have to travel about 3 miles to have signal strength so poor a voice call usually fails, and travel a bit further and get no signal.

The fun of a very hilly region just makes things even worse re reception.

Size matters

In the UK mobile market

I'm with 3, purely because my partner is not ...*

That way, when we go somewhere else in the UK then a better chance at least one of us will get a signal (though have been occasions when both of us have had a not spot) to keep in touch with friends and family (as unfortunately finding a working phone box to use is quite difficult now).

It's pathetic in a country the size of the UK that coverage everywhere was not mandated, reception should not be a mobile provider lottery.

With EE getting the airwave replacement contract they are essentially getting a huge market advantage in tax payer funded coverage in less economically viable areas, consolidation of some of the other providers is about the only way to stop EE becoming a de facto monopoly.

* Neither of us with EE, tempting as it is with our liking of hiking in remote parts

Samsung’s Smart Monitor tries too hard to be clever

No

Need an actual TV Tuner for it to be worthwhile.

If my internet goes down, or high contention so bit rate is pathetic, I can still watch a normal freeview signal TV channel.

Just know the apps will soon be unsupported.

I have an oldish non smart TV, though it does have Freeview and has some app support for that (so you can play programmes from previous days via the relevant "player").

Though some of the apps gradually unsupported - got an email from ITVHub recently saying no longer supported for "copyright reasons"

Not that it affects me, have an old Humax connected that I use to record TV & a Chromecast attached if I want to stream stuff using an app of some sort.

So, a non smart TV works fine for me as I'm unaffected by gradual loss of support.

Tetchy trainee turned the lights down low to teach turgid lecturer a lesson

Re: Maxwell

Demonic skills?

Soaring costs, inflation nurturing generation of 'quiet quitters' among under-30s

Crap phrase

Quiet quitting as a phrase can die.

It's just doing your job, based on the situation, the thing people on the production line have been doing forever.

When I had casual factory jobs, the experienced workers would tell you what speed you should go - not based on the posted targets and ignoring the extra pay you got for hitting certain rates - as the miniscule rewards were not worth the drawbacks such as getting excessively tired, no time to nip off for a toilet break etc. Certainly not sustainable long term.

So people would miss the over the top targets, losing a tiny amount of cash, but would not be mentally & physically burnt out.

Its all about balance

Consolidation looms for UK broadband providers

no chance for me

Living in the arse end of nowhere, low population density, no chance of fibre in the foreseeable future (not even the halfway house of to the cabinet).

I'll be dead of old age before fibre ever arrives here.

Rust is eating into our systems, and it's a good thing

Re: I'm getting rusty

And garbage collection still is a PITA in C#

.. Just today, to deal with some exceptions that would otherwise occur later in the code I had to follow myObj.Dispose(); with myObj = null; (alternatively I could have forced garbage collection, but the code convention we use is set to null after dispose just to make clear its one of those weird C# disposal bugs

Serious surfer? How to browse like a pro on Firefox

Re: Not for me, I'm afraid.

I'm surprised a user agent switcher add on was not mentioned as being vital in that article, for exactly the reasons you describe. A lot of "exclusionary" websites take the idle approach of only doing lazy pattern match on user agent string to decide if something is supported (the proper way, if you must use non standard / not widely supported features, is test if browser implements those not just look at what it claims it is).

With user agent switcher addon, you can have a "trans" browser (i.e. my FireFox can identify as Chrome when required).

Scientists overjoyed after DART smashes into asteroid Dimorphos, contact lost

Re: 170!

Best checkout I had against me was a 3 bull 150 from John Lowe. This was in an exhibition match where he was only scoring on bull / inner bull (with exception of one non bull dart allowed to count in scoring to allow setting up score to allow a finish). Us general public allowed to score on any number obv.

This was when he was one of the top handful of players in the world - just so impressive seeing 3 darts squeezed in the bull & room for more (especially as he used quite chunky darts) -but visually it was great. Something you would be unlikely to see in a "real" match due to high deflection / bounce out risk. I have had many higher out shots against me (and made higher outs, sadly my max a 164, numbers never dropped for a 170 attempt when I used to play, though did some in practice) - .

It was a pressure shot for him, us amateurs were allowed to go first and I was averaging in the 80s and so got a chance at a high 3 dart out (but missed the "out shot" at double 18).

Seeing the effortless skills close up made me realise I would never be more than an OK amateur player (though I think "real" match pressure affected him a fair bit as his exhibition play quality was notably better than any tournament play I ever saw from him)

Is it a bird? Is it Microsoft Office? No, it's Onlyoffice: Version 7.2 released

Ribbon

The touted Ribbon interface is not necessarily a selling point for many users

You've heard of the cost-of-living crisis, now get ready for the cost-of-working crisis

Re: Cost to *who* exactly?

I WFH (very occasional "socialize centric" office visits) - accepted role on basis it was remote working.

Extra costs are minimal (electricity consumption of PC / monitor, extra coffee maker or kettle use on drinks, light on towards the end of the day in late Autumn / Winter when it gets dark early). I live with (retired) partner & infirm OAP relative, so heating is on anyway.

Big saving on commute costs & wasted time (& environmental benefits), especially as office nowhere near a train station so only option is drive there only (approx 50 miles away so cycling not really an option - I live out in the sticks & not near London so any IT job is a commute - nearest locations with any decent amount of IT jobs probably at least 20 miles away ).

If the office was quick & easy to get to I would be there quite often to interact "face to face" with colleagues, but with my circumstances minimal office visits suit me best. 3/2 with 300+ miles driving each week would see me hand in my notice.

Tesla Megapack battery ignites at substation after less than 6 months

Re: Look to Dinorwig

Re Sizewell C

I stayed in the Sizewell area as my holiday this year (not to see Sizewell, for the nature reserves nearby).

I would be quite concerned about proximity of Sizewell plant to the sea, and how few m above sea level it is.

Given we will already be seeing some sea level rise in future years (guaranteed just from ongoing thermal expansion and from some already irreversible ice sheet melts even if (spoiler, we won't) restrict climate warning soon) then I would be concerned, especially with the combination of a "spring" tide and strong winds blowing onshore.

Just down the coast, at Aldeburgh museum you get a sense of the "fun" ahead, when you see the displays on how the surrounding Suffolk coastline has radically changed over the years, and the periodic catastrophic floods that have occurred. A nice take home point is that the museum is now a few metres from the beach - it was in the centre of town not that long ago (when it was built in the late Sixteenth century - yes a few hundred years, but physical forces are relentless and its not always gradual change, some major coastal reshaping occurs suddenly when tides & winds align nastily)

Meta, Google learn the art of the quiet layoff

Too many staff?

Not sure about meta as zero to do with them, but its notoriously difficult to actually contact support and get contact with a real person at Google. If they are overstaffed, strange their support is a total nightmare

... by an amazing coincidence (not) , when I worked for a company that had big money subscription to various Google APIs that were used intensively, in that scenario we could easily make contact, even had a few different people we could deal with (to cover main contact being on holiday etc). Seems that money talks on the customer support side of things.

Malwarebytes blocks Google, YouTube as malware

Maybe

There might be a link between recent staff dismissals & this monumental cock up?

BT CEO orders staff: Back to the office or risk 'disciplinary action'

Re: Agreed

"Onboarding" failures when new starters are remote can sometimes be linked to lack of proper documentation / learning resources.

In IT, documentation is, unfortunately, often the last thing to be done (if at all!) and so is often lacking detail or outdated - remote "onboarding" shines a great massive spotlight on that area of failure

'Last man standing in the floppy disk business' reckons his company has 4 years left

Floppy disks still used in our house

We have a Yamaha electric piano.

Still make use of floppies with it.

Inbuilt floppy drive, you can easily record yourself playing and then play it back - good for practice*.

Importantly the controls for record, playback are easy too use and easily accessible when sitting at the piano, which makes it the simplest and easiest option.

Not worried if the floppy drive dies as plenty of outputs on the piano (partner has iPad connected to one output, lets her run an app where she plays along against a score and app marks accuracy of her playing, so would be easy enough to record and playback to the iPad if needed) - but due to its great convenience it will be used until it breaks

*e.g. a piece of music where you are struggling on the right hand play - record yourself playing just the left hand on the piece and then play it back & practice your right hand notes. Means you can focus fully on just the one "struggling" hand, playing against recording of yourself means you are playing with the piece at your natural rhythm (lets face it, most amateurs do not get the pace of a piece 100% correct, especially on harder pieces, so using your own recording is easier to accompany)

Now's your chance, AI, to do good. Protect endangered eagles from wind turbines

Unconvinced

As mentioned by others, that's a lot of heavy braking to slow the turbines in time.

Having seen an eagle (short toed) hit a turbine*, its not a good sight

* Spain, near Gibraltar straits, a big bird migration area. The turbines did get "turned off" at certain "peak" migratory times to avoid fatalities, unfortunately this is a decision based on number of birds passing through the area - and in this case, numbers were below the "critical amount" so turbines were on.

Demand for software experts pushes tech salaries higher in UK

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

@J.G.Harston

As someone who grew up in a mining area & saw the industry wiped out for political reasons I will note that I had friends & family in mining.

There was still plenty of deep coal that needed people to obtain (machinery used at the time used people to control it - a lot of the UK seams relatively small and not really suitable for the automated kit that was available then, plus human skill to excavate in the correct places - a cave in by extracting in an unsafe area is not a good idea).

At the time of UK deep mine closures, lots of human mineable coal remained.. but it was expensive coal (hence a problem to some) e.g. at the time, even with shipping cost imported Australian open cast mined coal (as an e.g.) would be cheaper (as open cast is a cheap type of mining compared to deep mining)

All irrelevant, as the mines were left to flood and water will have caused structural integrity issues & be phenomenally difficult and expensive to extract so not a chance economically of ever reviving the old pits so a new modern max automation approach would be the only deep mine approach possible.

.... not that we would want to encourage such non green activity though

To preserve Earth's treasures, digital silence is golden

Maybe read this

Flash Crowd - Larry Niven

In this SF, with mass teleportation available, some tourist "hotspots" e.g. Easter Island, keep themselves quiet by not being on the teleportation network

As title suggests, all about big crowds gathering at random places

https://zigstedimension.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/larry-niven-flash-crowd/

Chemical plant taken offline by the best one of all: C₈H₁₀N₄O₂

Re: Better yet...

Good thinking on her part re the battery.

Sadly in "modern" laptops and the mania for "slim" the era of easily accessed & removed laptop batteries seems to be almost over, making a spillage potentially a lot worse than it used to be when battery was easily removed.

Dump these small-biz routers, says Cisco, because we won't patch their flawed VPN

Re: I was all set to be mad

Last sold in 2017. 5 years ago. More relevant than when first sold

And not that throwaway / cheap.

People get irked by the manufactures choice to stop upgrades and so ensure short lifetimes of hardware

For home use I buy "prosumer" kit (as the basic aimed at home users stuff is really dire in functionality & security) and my wallet does not enjoy the hit of periodic EOL enforced upgrades AKA new purchases.

Microsoft: The deadline to get off Basic Auth is approaching

@Khaptain

Looks like a fuck the users approach

Also assumes a user has a smartphone on which to run an authenticator.

Some people have feature phones, not smart phones (or no mobile at all).

Some may not use iPhones / Android (e.g. someone runs Sailfish, that tries to be compatible with android apps, but chance a given app e.g. the authenticator might not work)

.. If authenticator for company use I can see why employees were grumpy and wanted a company provided bit of kit.

And as most of the authenticators want a phone number, also assumes employer should have access to your mobile number .... personal data which you may want to keep private*

Also as most MFA boil down to either a text or authenticator app on a phone, too often nicking a phone (quite easy) is a good help in a "keys to the kingdom" attack. With the victims phone in your hand, a bad actor is a big step closer to being able to wreak havoc.

* My employer has my landline, they do not have my mobile number, very few people do (just close family & friends (does include a work colleague but I know she will not pass the number on**) )

** not a workplace relationship, just a colleague who has elevated themselves into "proper" friends circle rather than just acquaintances)

How this Mars rover used its MOXIE to convert CO2 into precious oxygen

Though pure O2 is fatal (not to mention fire hazard)

Too much CO2 in the mix causes lots of nastily unwanted effects that can be fatal too.

So, a filler of some sort is needed

Former Microsoft UX boss doesn't like the Windows 11 Start menu either

Company enforced 10 to 11 upgrade on my work machine.

... though I'm part of a trial group, most still on 10.

I preferred 10 - lots of my "automatic" / "muscle memory" actions now do not work, which grates.

Braking news: Cops slammed for spamming Waze to slow drivers down

Re: Fishing Expeditions & Dreams of FOSS Alternatives to Privacy-Violator Waze

.. and especially if you are not "white"

The suss laws still (sadly) going strong

A very old sketch but sums up the attitudes of some officers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teSPN8sVbFU

.. also very misogynist, but that's a whole different story (heard horrible tales from some (both ex & serving) WPC friends)

Re: I have no problem with this.

@Oddlegs

I would also note that some areas are very hilly & so quite easy for a driver to go from within speed limit up hill to exceeding it by a small amount downhill.

Plenty of speed cameras near me are on hilly areas and also very close to where speed limit changes - I'm sure its a great revenue generator.

Notorious accident blackspots near me are conspicuous by lack of cameras (as the danger is not so much speed but awful junction layout / obscured visibility of other road users. One junction visibility is so bad your only safe options to get across without a collision are

a) totally floor it across the junction and then brake once through

b) creep across very slowly (until you reach spot where cam see traffic well) and hope other drivers are slowly creeping across

.. in both cases, windows down to hear other cars and use of horn to alert others is fairly vital

as visibility is horrendous due to combination of curving and hilly roads (junction at top of 4 uphill roads) and hedges / trees hiding other road users until they are extremely close.

Its an area that really screams out for very low speed limits on junction approach, but sadly will never happen.

Cloudflare tries to explain why it protects far-right forums that stalk and harass victims

Nuanced

Seems to me that Cloudflare have a stricter set of rules for hosting and more lax for other services (with their common carrier argument on those)

A quick web search shows me Discord use Cloudflare as a DDN

Doxing is against Discord T&Cs ... but it happens.

Doxing occurs on all sorts of platforms e.g. Twitter, FB etc, again against their T&Cs, but happens.

I have zero clue what kiwi farms is like, but it appears from web searches that it claims to be legal (though it encourages unpleasant behaviour) and does not ban doxing.

https://kiwifarms.net/help/how-is-the-kiwi-farms-legal/

IANAL so no clue!

However, if the legality thing is true then I can see why Cloudflare provide them their product.

I don't like what I have read about Kiwi Farms, I don't like lots of web sites, but if they're legal I'm not going to clamour for them to be closed down as free speech is a thing (I know lots of people would dislike many of my views such as being pro choice, pro gun control etc.* & would love to close down sites in favour of such things)

* I'm not US but giving those as examples as we are talking about US rules typically.

Attacker snags account details from streaming service Plex

What subset?

I registered years ago, tried it and it was not for me (ironically had various security concerns)

The notify all users thing is irritating as no idea if my old, inactive account was included.

.. though it does smell like they are not sure what data has been lost and are thus notifying everyone

Chips still down for Toyota: Low semiconductor supplies dampen output

As expected with Just In Time

A lot of automotive industry (Toyota a classic example) are into JIT.

JIT is great ... when everything works well.

But the minimal inventory approach bites back in a nasty way when there are significant supply chain problems.

Similar has happened before (though smaller scale & far less complex than all the COVID / lockdown related issues that gave chips drought) e.g. in Japan a while back with the earthquake and related tsunami and nuclear disaster screwing JIT car production

https://www.npr.org/2011/03/23/134784726/Japan-Business?t=1661867063870

But, as a big inventory is very expensive, there probably wont be much incentive for bean counters to scrap JIT due to the great benefits when everything goes well

AI detects 20,000 hidden taxable swimming pools in France, netting €10m

Re: 30% error rate!

Unsurprising

Currently I have a few bright blue tarpaulins (overall area more than 10m2 French pool min size) spread in my garden (to kill off some grass, ready to sew wildflower seeds next year).

I'm sure it would look like a pool to an AI - rectangular and blue

And lets not even get into the fun of shadows - anyone who has taken lots of outdoor photos will have encountered occasional odd blue or purple shadows.

I'm guessing AI could well have issues with a blue shadow of reasonable size (10m2 is not that large)

Also worth noting that the "Moroccan style" garden look comes in and out of fashion and when a garden styled in that way often involves blue tiles / paint, could potentially look like a pool.

A koi pond* would be above minimum pool size, but if used for fish, would not count as a swimming pool.

Even a simple task can be difficult (and consider potential dismal resolution of the imagery - in the area I live Google satellite view images are so poor you would struggle to ID a house in some situations never mind the verandas / extensions etc. they dream of finding in future)

Yes, you can get koi pools below 10m2, but the koi enthusiasts I know have ponds larger than that

PanWriter: Cross-platform writing tool runs on anything and outputs to anything

HTML works for me

Manually in any text editor (or plenty of basic HTML editors around)

Although my personal email default view is plain text, HTML is generally a good format to email to (most) people (and obviously viewable in any web browser)

If you want it exporting to non HTML format then XSL transform to xsl-fo and from that standardised point can create various output types using various freebie tools that are publicly available (Apache fop is a common choice of tool)

Could also use XSL transform HTML directly to OOXML if you wanted a word docx style output (though could also do taht from xsl-fo intermediary)

Plenty of stylesheets out there to convert HTML to xsl-fo, OOXML etc.

Once everything is in place a few lines of parameter driven script calling xsl transform(s) and chaining to 3rd party tools if necessary makes it a trivially simple task in future.

Did have a similar thing in place I once used a lot (though in that case it was XML* straight to xsl-fo, as was using it to create PDF invoices)

*XML from queries against financial "billing" data stored in SQL Server (using FOR XML construct to get XML output)

W3C's planned transition to HTTPS stymied by legacy laggards

schemas

Not sure how many people have worked with HTML

HTML doc may reference various schemas, namespaces that define properties of the document

They can be full of these sort of references e.g.

xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"

xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.somedomain.com/SomeSchema.xsd"

Note they are specifying a http url and it can be remote (most XML docs will by default have a few references to w3 urls as one of my examples does above)

Issues come if you do validation of the XML...

Then s/w will attempt to open various defined http urls and validate parts* of the document against them.

.. which is where the fun starts

If it's old software then quite possible the read of http doc may fail if its then redirected to https - especially if code is such that url is inspected and then http or https connection called depending on that (was often the case in old s/w)

If it copes with redirect may be other fun where it validates url it ends up at against the expected url and match fails due to http / https differences.

.. and you really want to validate your doc as a doc may be well formed XML but not match the referenced schemas e.g. doc has 2 instances of element <widget> but schema specifies this as max of one occurrence, without

* may be validating whole doc, may be validating just those of a certain namespace, depends what's defined)

In a time before calculators, going the extra mile at work sometimes didn't add up

Re: Bank Accounts

@TRT

Plenty of "Black Boy" & similar named pubs still around.

Main difference is the signs have (generally) been changed to have a young Caucasian boy covered in soot, rather than a highly offensive caricature "piccininny" style sign.

Though near me it took a depressingly long time for some of the offensive signs to go.

Google's bug bounty boss: Finding and patching vulns? 'Totally useless'

No pay for a vuln without finding an exploit?

In that case if I find a vulnerability that I cant exploit I may as well just publish & be damned (no cash so no incentive to be nice & wait for a fix) & then its a race between a patch being developed vs bad actors finding an exploit.

How readily people forget, e.g. years ago I remember many windows exploits that chained together several seemingly minor bugs to pwn a machine.

Facebook hands over chats to cops in post-Roe abortion case

@Philippides

Your 67% chance is very much on the extreme high end of survival possibility

In the UK abortions can occur up to 23 weeks (ignoring edge case issues such as foetus removal at a later stage to save the mothers life)

Reason for this is 24 weeks is regarded as threshold for *reasonable* survival chance... Some premature babies at 22 / 23 weeks do survive, but not many.

.. But survival chance varies a lot on where a premature birth happens - huge difference in survival rate between home birth and hospital birth where hospital has a good neo natal facility (in the UK not all hospitals do)

And premature birth survival is not necessarily equivalent to child surviving in good health: Many premature babies have long term health issues of varying degrees of severity

Disclosure: Had a daughter that had to spend many weeks in a neo natal unit, its not a fun experience.

Remember the humanoid Tesla robot? It's ready for September reveal, says Musk

Pointless robot

The 125-pound 5'8" robot will allegedly be able to walk at 5 MPH, carry 45 pounds and deadlift 150 pounds, using visual sensors in its head and "human-level" hands.

That's not even a 25kg lift (UK bag of cement weight & also UK male Health & Safety safe lifting weight for men (16 for women, though nobody told the woman at our local merchants who nonchalant carries heavy bags of around as if they are full of feathers ))

... and obviously lots of places flout the minimum weight rules as any parcel delivery driver will tell you - over 25kg packages occur quite often (and packages exceeding 16kg female limit, very often)

So, not going to be a person replacement in many manual handling roles.

UK wants criminal migrants to scan their faces up to five times a day using a watch

Re: Collapse

Though given the abuse and outright lies (e.g. the antisemitism slurs) a principled, not in it for themselves politician got* (notably from the media and from the labour organisation and many labour MPs) there's a reason you do not get many principled politicians in the UK. As soon as it looks like they might have a chance of making a difference they are targeted from all sides.

* Corbyn was too nice a guy to succeed in the backstabbing world of politics & should have lawyered up hard to kill all the AS (and other **) lies at their inception

** the most absurd, given Corbyns long standing criticism of Putin were all the tool of the Russian slurs, when the Tories are awash in Russian money.

Disclosure - not a labour party member, I generally vote green (when its on the ballot paper as where I live stick a blue rosette on anything and it will win (so long as its stuck on something white) & this a vote that counts for zero in FPTP) but did think Corbyn principled (also liked his green new deal policies)

Be careful where you install software, and who installs it

Re: Linux Bros'

@RockBurner

"The one that is part of the Ubuntu 22 libraries sucks donkey balls."

So, same as the Windows Teams then.

Have to use Teams on work machine (Windows mandated) and it is horrendous software (and a massive resource hog, and given that resource abuse is far too common with windows apps, its an impressive feat to be the worst (best?) of the lot)

Enough with the notifications! Focus Assist will shut them u… 'But I'm too important!'

Re: The mysterious beep in the night....

Some of the Scops owl calls can sound quite electronic too

UK Parliament bins its TikTok account over China surveillance fears

I'm guessing there equivalent FB, twitter accounts?

(I CBA with social media so not on them to check)

Which is sending data to the US & potentially available for US govt to spy on.

So can we have those cancelled via the same logic of data accessible via a foreign power?

I doubt there's anything useful being sent out on this tiktok- you would hope its not done on personal or govt phone of anyone high up in civil service.

You would hope social media dross done via internet connected machines that are air-gapped from any important networks / machines and are tightly locked down.

As for data of various UK tiktok users, they will be on there anyway if they are into such a thing, I cannot imagine presence of a UK parliament tiktok account would have attracted millions of new users to tiktok

.. meanwhile lots of high profile MPs have social media accounts - wonder if any of those go the Trump approach and use their own phone to send out data - that sort of thing is of far more concern to me.

Strike days should serve as 'wake-up call' to BT's top brass, says union

Re: Maths

@elsergiovoladorSilver badge

Actually high earners unlikely to be on "super tax" as highest UK tax rate maxes out at 45%

And theres the fun of national insurance, which hammers the middle ground earners.

13.25% between approx 1k and 4k earnings a month

3.25% above the just over 4k a month earnings zone.

So the overall NI % hit is far less for really big earners and if regarding NI as part of tax burden (which it effectively is) then quite possible for big earner to have lower overall combined NI & tax % outgoing than someone who just scrapes into the 40% bracket (bracket before 45% tax)

Also ignoring the fact they will be quite possibly be using dubious tax dodging accountancy loopholes that are unavailable to us PAYE plebs

Ex-T-Mobile US store owner phished staff, raked in $25m from unlocking phones

@AC - I always buy unlocked phones, far less hassle and no more expensive

Equifax software bug messed up credit score calculations for weeks

computer says no

for UK readers above a certain age

Boffins put supercomputer on the scent of a perfect landfill deodorizer

toluene

I don't want the smell of that (or anything) hiding

If its around I want to be aware of it so I can keep away from it (as much as possible) as its not the healthiest thing to inhale at high concentration.

I walk in the UK countryside a lot, if slurry has been sprayed on fields I want to be able to smell it (then I can avoid walking there - don't want to be walking on "masked" slurry and potentially bringing a host of microbial nasties back on my boots to spread around the house as I live with old, unwell relative so try & take precautions)

... Theres a reason SOME smells trigger a big response in people, its because they are potentially nasty.

.. obv some smells also elicit a big response at low concentrations but are not potentially dangerous - human body not perfect in scent threat detection (or anything)

Anti-piracy messaging may just encourage more piracy

Re: Piracy is a service problem...

@theOtherJT

Fully agree with issue of content now split over a huge number of streaming services & people cannot afford them all (& DRM issues / unskippable crap with DVD & BluRay a total pain, coupled with optical drives not being "standard" on PCs / laptops these days so only watch disk content on dedicated player connected to TV as all household computers optical drive free. Do have an external drive for if I do need to read a disk from PC stashed in the loft).

Another nasty trick (I think Dabbsy referred to these practices recently on El Reg) that housebound relative we look after encountered was changing a series* she was watching from free to paid for content (this was on Prime). No way was she going to pay (as an ill, retired person on a pension) when she was already forking out for Prime.

* She was quite a few episodes in at this point so far more irritated than if she had just watched a "pilot" episode

David Holz, founder of AI art generator Midjourney, on the future of imaging

Re: Not quite there yet

@Ben 56

Try Craiyon

Tried that just now with prompt "Boris Johnson waving a British flag leaning out of a Delorean" & got OK results

Maybe also look at Wombo - results tend to be poor for complex queries like yours though but last time I tried it gave Johnson images on a simple query

.. both a bit more basic however in training data and output quality

Bot army risk as 3,000+ apps found spilling Twitter API keys

I wonder how much blame can be attributed to poor code examples

Cannot comment on the twitter APIs as never played with them (..obviously..)

But often when looking at code samples provided for demonstrating API use, the samples are usually focused on easy to read, quick to get up and running and try out and so often the very opposite of good security practice.

.. Consider that awareness of secure coding varies a lot across devs, and the often high pressure imposed by managers to churn code out as fast as possible I wouldn't be surprised if lots of "live" code incorporates some of the bad code patterns used in the example.

e.g. most Google maps API examples have the "key" just as part of the HTML page.

If I go to

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/map-simple

and then click on the stackblitz link

https://stackblitz.com/github/googlemaps/js-samples/tree/sample-map-simple?file=README.md

In the index.html of that code sample I find this

<script

src="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?key=AIzaSyB41DRUbKWJHPxaFjMAwdrzWzbVKartNGg&callback=initMap&v=weekly"

defer

></script>

i.e. sample having key plainly visible in HTML.

API providers really ought to be coerced into providing best security practice examples - may be more difficult / slower for users to get up and running but would mean better security practices likely to be used.

WhatsApp boss says no to AI filters policing encrypted chat

Re: Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse

@Captain Hogwash

They might be disorganised if they sample their products excessively