Posts by Ben1892

Wing launches drone deliveries in the US where people actually live

Re: This video was more what I was expecting

+1 for defining "urgent": beer, steaks, ammo, pizza

This video was more what I was expecting

Rather than a sales pitch video, the technology development is pretty interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdzU4Bws_4k although I still can't see a decent use case for urgent deliveries under 1.5Kg that would warrant the delivery charge - I don't think a chai soy latte counts. But, then again, I thought Twitter was stupid idea

Oh the humanity: McDonald's out of milkshakes across Great Britain

Re: A number of sound decisions?

We liked exploiting cheap labour from the poorer EU countries which is why we wanted to remain.

SpaceX Starship struts its stack to show it has the right stuff

Re: Astronaut wings

Scott Manley covers it very nicely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKx-QD5w9Ew

Full Stream ahead: Microsoft will end 'classic' method of recording Teams meetings despite transcription concerns

To the business users...

... yes, you wanted Teams

...no, we have no control over it ...stop calling us to fix it, the best we can do is choose the font and maybe company branding

Windows 11 comes bearing THAAS, Trojan Horse as a service

Re: Forgive me for saying this...

You would have got an upvote for sheer bravery - but you had to go AC on us :)

UK's National Cyber Security Centre recommends password generation idea suggested by El Reg commenter

Biometrics and FIDO U2F

To be fair the way that's not the way biometrics work - so they'd need access to your face and your device but why let that get in the way of a good gag about editing your visage.

But back to the point, I'm still not sure why something like the Yubikey / U2F isn't a thing - so many sites still won't support it - Paypal I'm looking at you!!

Facebook says dump of 533m accounts is old news. But my date of birth, name, etc haven't changed in years, Zuck

Re: Tittybong (Australia) and Dildo, Canada

That's funny, I live in Fucking, Austria too ( according to FB anyway) although they are about to change or already have changed the name because too many people steal the village sign :)

By emptying offices, coronavirus has hastened the paperless office

Bigger than 13.7%

Printing is down by over 75% where I work (~6500 users), seems to suggest it was non-essential printing if we can still function without it. It can't all have been passive-aggressive notes in the kitchens, bake sale adverts, and "humorous" retirement snapshots ... or could it?

Xiaomi Mi 9 owners furious after dodgy Vodafone software patch bricked their mobes

This is why I stopped buying Vodafone branded phones and use unlocked factory versions - they are really unreliable at pushing patches (you'll probably get one or two, about a year after the manufacturer releases their version if you're lucky) and when they do they are full of bloatware. Vodafone, take the coloured pencils away from the marketing team and tell them we don't need a special Vodafone SMS or phone call app - guess what, the phone already comes with one!

We maintained or increased IT spending, say seven-in-ten pros, execs polled mid-crisis. PS: We love Microsoft most

It amazing how many of our users have said things like "Company X got <insert cloud product here> up and running in 4 days, why is it taking you so long?" - yes, you can buy a cloud product and turn it on without any design or security work but that's where it'll come and bite them. If they don't even have a vanity domain, I wonder if the NHS has any kind of conditional access in place?

Star wreck: There's a 1 in 20 chance a NASA telescope and US military satellite will smash into each other today

Re: At those speeds...

So the way I read it, the 1 Jub payload will hit the 259.5 Jub telescope - which according to back of fag packet, if each object is travelling at 0.2435% of the maximum velocity of a sheep in vacuum works out about 1046149301 Norrises or about 7 tons of TNT

Hate speech row: Fine or jail anyone who calls people boffins, geeks or eggheads, psychology nerd demands

Re: Mensa...

I'm sure it used to be an IQ of 140 or above for MENSA .... just why would they lower the entry bar to allow more people to pay £59.95 a year to them?

Tough luck, Jupiter, you've lost your crown for now: Boffins show Saturn has more moons

How about, Asterix, Obelix and Vitalstatistix?

UK taxpayers funded Grand Theft Auto V maker to tune of £42m – while biz paid no corp tax and made billions

Re: Woo

...so are people that deliberately misquote headlines for dramatic effect, but hey there's no censorship here so you're free to think what you like

Will that old Vulcan's engines run? Bluebird jet boat team turn to Cold War bomber

Re: Looks knackered

Was one of the parts actually being used as an ash-tray in the officers mess - or it that a myth?

UK taxman spent six times more with AWS last year than cloud firm paid in corporation tax

Re: Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich

tbh I was expecting a reply along the lines of "but what about Jersey?" as I like a reasoned debate, but why is it Amazon EU S.a.r.L who bills me? Not sure that tax paid in Luxembourg will go to fixing the roads 1-Click deliveries use. Yes, I did read the reports and watch the video - the argument seems to be "we may as well give it to Ireland and Luxembourg because we won't get the tax benefits anyway"

Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich

Won't it be lovely when we leave the EU and companies that make money here have to pay tax here rather than licensing through tax havens

Pimp My PowerApp: Microsoft touts AI Builder and augmented reality tools for low-code apps maker

Not Hotdog

I think I know what my "hello world" AI app is going to be

New twist in underworld of alleged code, data theft: Two, er, boffins accused of trying to steal, uh, a river model

I've seen this one - I think it was the plot in MacGyver or something; Steal the model before it's made public, buy up the land that won't be flooded, sell the land that will be and .... ker-ching!

Microsoft Bing is 10: That thing you accidentally use to search for Chrome? Still alive and kicking

Yes, amazing use of AI but it still doesn't know where I am...

...or find what I'm looking for. I do come back to see if things have improved every 6 months or so and most recently tried Ecosia (powered by Bing, set to UK Search region) as it's nice to think that trees are being planted while I search, but it's such a frustrating experience not finding the results I know exist ( like an article on the MS knowledge base) that I end up back at Google.

Have Google got the patents sown up so much that nobody can make a decent search?

Bad news. Asteroid 1999 KW4 flew by, did not hit Earth killing us all. Good news: Another one, Didymos, is on the way

Re: That is damn close

Missed the "m" too - need more coffee....

Introducing 'freedom gas' – a bit like the 2003 deep-fried potato variety, only even worse for you

Re: Freedom gas needs big ships

Exactly, turns out all that liberty fracking has created a glut on their market and a re-brand is needed to differentiate from the communist gas from the east.

I'm sure we built the LNG terminal at Milford Haven for strategic reasons last time the Russians started talking about turning off the supply in winter - trouble is we've already got a cheap supply from the Middle East.

Seriously though, WTF with calling it freedom gas ??? I really had to check the date to make sure I wasn't being trolled and just shows how far out of reality the US is.

Where there's a will, there's Huawei: US govt already eases trade ban with 90-day reprieve

Re: Not smart

"I watched an episode of The Grand Tour where they showed how good the Chinese were at putting up roads/motorways, even over difficult terrain. In comparison the rest of the World ..."

Erm, easy when nobody owns the land apart from the Party and anyone in the way gets told to move - I'm sure that would work here just fine, no protests or riots or anything. Nothing to do with Health and Safety, everything to do with you plowing through my family semi that's in the way of HS2

Suddenly realises it will affect US supplier profits...

...if only that one had been thought through, erm soz; Qualcomm, Skyworks, Qorvo, Xilinx and Micron Technologies - profits are going to be down a bit but we'll give you a chance to oversell inventories for a while to make up for it.

Boeing admits 737 Max sims didn't accurately reproduce what flying without MCAS was like

Re: Boeing - would you buy an aircraft from them?

I've always wondered why they didn't just have a stall warning alarm and allow the pilot to pitch down / throttle as required

Long-distance dildo devotee deploys ding-dong over data deceit

Re: re: why a manufacturer thought it would be fine to store details of the use of its products

Google trawling your email content to sell you stuff is different how? People will gladly sign-up to T&Cs that share more personally sensitive info, via their email conversations, than intimate massage habits

Want a good Android smartphone without the $1,000+ price tag? Then buy Google's Pixel 3a

Re: Double standards

I think there are double standards the other way too;

Google = Evil data slurp merchants

Apple = Angelic personal data custodians

I still think £400 for the 3a phone is still expensive, but if I paid £700 for a phone it would need to be perfect in every way, for £1000 I'd expect to get laid every time I flashed it at the pub.

Full disclosure on the type of phone-owner I am: I'm still on my 3 year old, £150 Vodafone Smart Ultra 6, so I can accept compromises if it's only cost me an average of £4 per month over the life of the phone

Tangled in .NET: Will 5.0 really unify Microsoft's development stack?

Re: The most divisive issue remains...

Tabs

Banhammer Republic: Trump declares national emergency, starts ball rolling to boot Huawei out of ALL US networks

Do I want 5G?

I'm not sure I have a requirement for 5G, can someone enlighten me as to why I need it please? Once I get past that, I'll then start getting worried about johnny foreigner being able to send a kill switch to the core 5G network to stop me downloading porn while I'm driving my train.

IT bod who does a bit of everything: You might want to specialise if that pay rise proves elusive

Hold on, you want a back-end too?

A full stack developer seems to be what we used to call a developer before coding meant "hack a bit of HTML" - apparently it takes a few years of your sleeves rolled up and a bit of reading to actually learn how to do it well and that is just too hard - hence, it pays a bit better, go figure?

Portal to 'HELL' cracks open in street – oh sorry, it's just another pothole

Re: Warning - tory bashing.

Since when have actual facts stopped commentards having a good rant? - I'm surprised Brexit hasn't been blamed yet

Huawei, Huawei. Huawei, Huawei. Feeling hot, hot, hot: US threatens to cut UK from intel sharing over Chinese tech giant

So they SMS text message the intel from their mobile phones?

I would have though there was something better that could be used to transfer secret info - you know, with encryption and stuff. My point being; don't you have to treat any comms network as compromised? What could Wuahei do with the 5G radio stations? I suppose they could turn off/cripple the network using Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, X in a specially crafted packet, but still doesn't correlate with a security-based withdrawal of intelligence collaboration.

Sky customers moan: Our broadband hubs are bricking it

Re: DNS

Don't you just love the term; "new, exciting features" - if it bricks the routers, it suggests there's already a difference between using 3rd party DNS and Sky's "special" DNS.

Sounds like the start of a walled garden consisting only of "carefully chosen partners"

Self-taught Belgian bloke cracks crypto conundrum that was supposed to be uncrackable until 2034

I can't wait until 2012 when we will have 10GHz clock rates !! (sorry, mines the one with the liquid nitrogen in the pocket)

Windows 10 May 2019 Update thwarted by obscure tech known as 'external storage'

Re: Working fine for me

+1 up-vote and a pint for having the guts to post something pro-Windows on the Reg without going anon :)

Cheapskate Brits appear to love their Poundland MVNOs as UK's big four snubbed in survey again

"matching the ease of use of an Amazon or Apple store"

I find it less than straight-forward to find things on Amazon - it's always feted as the go-to aspiration for "ease of use" and service but I often struggle to find specifically what I'm looking for rather than what they want to cross-sell to me; "you searched for brand X, we'll give you a list of brand Y with a few brand X if you go a few pages into the search results"

A quick cup of coffee leaves production manager in fits and a cleaner in tears

To keep people out, use a sign that says "Gym" (see latest BOFH for details)

UK Ministry of Justice: Surprise! We tested out biometric tech in prisons and 'visitors' with drugs up their bums ran away

Re: Deterrent effect?

When knowing the difference between Retinal Scan and Rectal Scan is the deterrent

We're not throttling you, says Vodafone, claiming slow vid streaming is down to the 'cards'

As a VF customer experiencing this problem (and an IT professional who knows how difficult it is to track down issues like this) this seems the most realistic diagnosis, but getting them to analyse the problem in the correct way is very frustrating - no I don't want to unscrew my wall socket and plug directly in. I'm syncing fine at 63-odd mbps - but that's how they measure their commitment to the broadband guarantee - because they can't control "the internets" if you sync at 60-70 then not their problem guv...

You know the drill: SAP has asked Joe Public to name Munich arena so go forth and be very silly

We all know SAP have no imagination or creativity and that they'll end up calling it; "The SAP SE Arena" - of course it will have also been designed in the 70s, consist of various parts of other stadia acquired along the way, be extremely difficult to navigate and you won't be able to leave without paying for a health check.

Crypto crash leads to inventory pile-up at Nvidia, sales slaughtered

I suspect they'd rather send the excess stock to landfill to maintain demand rather than drop prices

Apple solemnly agrees to pay France $570m in back taxes, turns to camera, gives us a wink

Seems France wants to have their gâteau and mange it, happy to take the benefits of the EU but not play by the tax rules? What they are really saying is they want a Frexit too

Japanese astronomers find tiniest Kuiper Belt object yet – using cheap 'scopes and off-the-shelf CMOS cameras

I'm guessing the precise timing ( using meteors - very clever ! ) and separation of the scopes allows triangulation?

"...In addition, a precise time synchronization method needed for simultaneous occultation detection is developed using faint meteors..."

https://academic.oup.com/pasj/article/69/4/68/3952364

Why millions of Brits' mobile phones were knackered on Thursday: An expired Ericsson software certificate

Man in the middle

Seems a convenient time/place to insert some GCHQ monitoring if you ask me ...do you want to trust this cert chain? Sure I do!!, I want to get the services up and running asap

Total Inability To Support User Phones: O2 fries, burning data for 32 million Brits

Re: Backup?

I don't use any cloud infrastructure, I run my own mobile network on-prem. That way I know where the problem is and who I can shout at, rather than relying on someone else to fix it.

Microsoft polishes up Chromium as EdgeHTML peers into the abyss

Re: Take your browser and fuck off

Are you suuuuuuure you don't want to make Microsoft Edge your default browser? You sound like you're on the fence a bit here

OneDrive is broken: Microsoft's cloudy storage drops from the sky for EU users

Again, most of the posts coming from those that don't use O365. I'm in the same as above; OneDrive for Business has been working fine for me all day since I started work at 7:30, Email was fine all week (and last week too for that matter) maybe we're using a different cloud?

Microsoft suffers the Tuesday shakes as Exchange Online continues to be wobbly for UK users

Office 365 Exchange user here, no problems last week - no problems this week. I hate to spoil the "you only get problems in the cloud" narrative - in fact I've been using it all year and not had a single problem that wasn't caused by on-prem network issues (I could access my work email from a nearby coffee shop with WiFi though).

You get unplanned downtime/inaccessibility with on-prem solutions too, arguing that cloud is bad because; "look, Office 365 is having issues right now!!!" falls flat on it's face when you apply the same argument to an on-prem solution (it's just that you don't have to publish to the world that something went wrong)

Capita seeks new networking chief: Up for it?

Re: Fewer Things Better

You know you're in deep do-do when you are taking your new strategy pretty much verbatim from W1A;

“The fact is, this is about us identifying what we do best and finding more ways of doing less of it better,” Director of Better, Anna Rampton