Posts by Bob Rocket

Driverless cars will make more traffic, say transport boffins

Re: Saving money not parking

Your AV will choose quiet roads to cruise up and down whilst it is waiting for your call :)

It is all about the money (and control) though.

AVs cannot break the speed limit - no more fixed penalties

AVs don't need car parking space away from home - no more parking charges or Parking Eye

AVs can't drive recklessly - no need for traffic cops

No need for DVLA (other than model approvals)

No need for DoT

No need for HoC Transport committee

The list goes on and on

The potential impact on political control of AVs is only just being realised by those whose very livelihoods currently depend on non AV forms of transport (including Professors of Institutes of Transport and Logistical Studies).

No they didn't consider any of that because that is not their aim,

“the real challenge is getting society to become more sharing either by allowing others to use their cars or through a third party mobility plan”

Their unstated aim is to erect a New Soviet, a land in which "fear of the state -- and its suffocating reach -- prevails" by introducing numerous laws that limit freedom of action and expression.

Done correctly, Autonomous Vehicles will free ordinary people from the twin tyrannies of traffic jams and public transport.

Well, whad'ya know? 'No evidence' that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower

Absence of Evidence

is not evidence of absence.

Big Tech slams Trump on plan to deport kids

1. 'his plan to remove legal protections from immigrant children born in the United States.'

and

2. 'that threaten the future of young undocumented immigrants brought to America as children'

are two different things.

Children born on US soil are US Nationals, depending on the country of origin of the parents, the child may have dual nationality, if the parents are deported the child may accompany them but is free to return to the US at any time.

Children brought to the US are not US Nationals.

There are legal methods for non-US Nationals to be allowed to live, work and be naturalised in the US, why would anybody use the legal methods if all you have to do is slip over the border and keep your head down for a while.

All illegal immigrants (whatever their age) should be deported on the day they are caught, to do otherwise encourages others to try their luck.

UK government's war on e-cigs is over

It's all very plain

It's about Mary Jane.

Having seen the drop in crime and increase in revenues in places like Colorado, governments are trying to work out how they can legitimise recreational drugs after decades of demonising them.

Assessing risks and reducing harms, perhaps they should bring back Nutt.

Fancy fixing your own mobile devices? Just take the display off carefu...CRUNCH !£$%!

Re: Green lobby failure

'Currently supply of Rare Earth Elements...'

Is that you TW ? (if so I claim my 5 shillings)

Re: It's the way things are going

'Time perhaps for a mandatory 5 year warranty...'

Just because you might want to have a stab at fixing an out of date bit of kit the rest of us will be forced to pay extra (that mandatory warranty isn't free and the consumer will pay).

Why don't you choose to buy some insurance for when your device breaks then you can get it professionally repaired and let me be free to choose not to.

I will save my money and when mine breaks I will just send it for recycling and spend that saved money on the latest model (or something else entirely).

Smart burglars will ride the surf of inter-connected hackability

Re: Who needs to hack?

My first thought on seeing the video was that I could just sit on it, wave a bit of paper in front of it and it will carry me home.

Tesco Online IT meltdown: Fails to deliver thousands of grocery orders

Mr Git

'that cost me cart to the tip'

that cost (of doing business) you include in the rent don't you ? The incidence of tax (from whatever source) falls on the consumer (and not the rentier).

Not everybody can save or raise (or have the foresight and risk capability) sufficient capital to gain from longer term economies of scale.

Sometimes frugality and austerity over time simply means starving to death.

When you look at your current net and your starting net worth, is the difference solely due to the amount of work you have put in over the years (if so then good on you) or is the largest part of that gain capital value accrual (speculative land/house price gain) ?

Here's a thing, reduce your rents to below the level that attracts a Government subsidy (which you pay for with your taxes), this will increase demand for your (now) low cost housing so you can select tenants who look after the place, pay on time, clear up after themselves and who may then accrue sufficient capital to salt their own pig.

In the 1950's

There were a lot of children about, now there are hardly any.

(I'm sure I read a sci-fi story about the last child to graduate)

Has riddle of the 1977 'Wow!' signal finally been cracked? Maybe...

There are holes

in the Universe where the Dark Matter gets in.

'the speed of light is quite the fulcrum of everything' if you go the long way round, the Dark takes a short cut.

DUP site crashes after UK general election

Fear of Immigrants drives ID card acceptance

'These days its "papers please" before anyone can be employed, rent a house, or get treatment on the NHS'

By hook or by crook everybody in the UK will carry Official ID that has to be produced on demand by an Authorised Person, failure to comply will result in the loss of rights.

Home Secretaries from both major parties have repeatedly attempted to overtly bring in ID cards whilst simultaneously covertly conditioning people into general acceptance.

Task 25 for young people, right to work, right to live, right to healthcare, right to education, right to benefits, having your bins emptied, opening a bank account etc.

Look at the number of people who have the right to demand or are compelled to demand ID these days.

And when old farts like me point out there was never any need for IDs in the days when we all paid in cash the security threat level is raised a notch.

I'll get me coat.

Record number of non-EU techies coming to Blighty

T.May - Net Migration less than 100,000 p/a

'Skill shortages can delay projects and push up costs for businesses'

The costs of importing someone should be pushed up above the cost of employing and training someone already here to do the task required,

She will get her majority when she delivers on her promise.

Boeing preps pilotless passenger flights – once it has solved the Sully problem, of course

The industry is also facing a severe shortage of pilots

The industry is facing a severe shortage of people willing to work at the sharp edge for the miserable pittance and shitty working conditions on offer, just like IT.

Human-free robo-cars on Washington streets after governor said the software is 'foolproof'

Re: Who really wants robo-cars??

I'll take six (but I'm keeping my two manual ones as well)

Life is... pushing all the right buttons on the wrong remote control

Proper Universal Remote

Collect all the remotes together with a pile of fresh batteries, bin any remotes that are no longer required, fit new batteries in the remotes you do need and epoxy the bloody things to the coffee table.

Job done.

No nudity please, we're killing ourselves: Advice to Facebook mods leaks

FB has the same editorial policy as

the Daily Express

http://johncooperclarke.com/poems/you-never-see-a-nipple-in-the-daily-express

Drugs, vodka, Volvo: The Scandinavian answer to Britain's future new border

Re: Brexit related costs - I agree with tiggity

Leave EU voters should pay more tax.

Non voters should be shipped to Scotland and be forced to build the wall.

Remain EU voters should be shipped across the Channel (to enjoy French taxation rates).

That way everybody is happy.

FBI boss James Comey was probing Trump's team for Russia links. You're fired, says Donald

The Russians are coming....

What's Trump got to do with the Russians, I thought it was Hillary that was Putins sock puppet

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0

Just so we're all clear on this: Russia hacked the French elections, US Republicans and Dems

Revolt

to renounce subjection to a government

I'll go with that

#Je Suis Revolting

Re: Landslide ?

I don't have a problem with Macron winning, they have their mad election method, we have ours. A wise person might be wary of the silent majority (our bunch can hide in collective responsibility, Le President is on his own)

Horses for courses.

Re: just getting started

What difference, at this point, does it make ?

Landslide ?

Just to be clear on the 66/34 Macron win.

25% of the electorate didn't turn up or turned up and spoiled their ballot

12% of the electorate turned up and wrote a version of NOTA on the paper

42% of the electorate voted Macron

21% of the electorate voted Le Pen

37% didn't care for either of them

An overwhelming majority of the electorate in a two horse race did not back the winner.

Mandate, pas tant

Majority of contractors distrust HMRC's IR35 calculator, survey finds

Re: Beatings will continue

1. There will be no jam for you laddie with that attitude

2. Whilst it would probably make Teresa* mildly moist to continually beat the ungrateful proles electorate for their own good, extortion is probably a better method, tell Uber to hand over £185 very big ones and they can have free rein during her reign.

*Try an image search on Google.com from a UK IP address for Teresa May (the glamour girl, not the third rate politician), the results are revealing (and not in a good way). Wasn't bias in search results Fake News ?

Beatings will continue

The rules will be changed until the targets are met.

£185 Meellion will be extracted from contractors by hook or by crook.

An individual exiting the UK will be counted as two and two people arriving will be counted as one until the promise of 99,000 is met.

Apparently we will be getting jam tomorrow.

Fixing your oven can cook your computer

Re: Firewall

It might be just the brushes on the motor, a quick trip to the tip will likely get you a whole bunch of only partly worn ones for the identical motor (usually free but no more than a pound or two).

If your machine was one that was sold in three variants of spin speed (800/1000/1200) you will probably find a jumper that you can uprate it to the fastest, jumpers were replaced with solder bridges (which you can also uprate) and in modern machines it is in the firmware (which might be difficult)

That apple.com link you clicked on? Yeah, it's actually Russian

Simple solution

'The limitations of this approach became apparent very soon after people in other countries started using the domain name system and there was no way to represent their language'

The Internet should be in (British)English only, it will do Johnny Foreigner no end of good to learn a proper language.

Leaked NSA point-and-pwn hack tools menace Win2k to Windows 8

Not Secret

Insider leak or insiders outside PC got hacked, none of these exploits were marked secret to avoid charges of exporting restricted technology so staffers/contractors were free to take their work home with them.

BT's spam blocker IDs accident claims as top nuisance call

Re: Seems you can't sign up

They are delivering the call as per the customer instructions, 'divert calls like this to junkbox'.

BT are missing a trick though, they should have various ELIZA machines answer the calls and keep the callers on the line as long as possible (running up the bill and occupying the time of the spammer)

.

Subpostmasters prepare to fight Post Office over wrongful theft and false accounting accusations

Horizon Errors

Oral evidence: Post Office Mediation, HC 935

Tuesday 3 February 2015

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/cy/request/horizon_errors

You would think that someone called 'George Thomson' with a title of 'general secretary, National Federation of SubPostmasters' would be an advocate for SubPostmasters.

Aviation regulator flies in face of UK.gov ban, says electronics should be stowed in cabin. Duh

Uber Tech.

Why are all you people carrying your tech. devices around the world now that all your data are (belong to us) in the cloud.

You should just rent a device at your destination, ownership of things is apparently so passe in the new age digital sharing economy.

You won't want to own an autonomous car so why do you want to own an iPhone, a house or a wife now when you could just rent one when you need it?

Forget robot overlords, humankind will get finished off by IoT

Re: "Car horns symphonise accompanied by" arrrghhh!

'symphonise' is fine, it's where the horns start as random beeps then morphs into a disjointed cacophony before evolving into a pseudo orchestral piece, the shouts of passing cyclists and screams of violated dustbins adding to the syncopative rhythm.

Why he was slicing pickles in the second paragraph is anybodies guess though

Robo-AI jobs doomsday may, er... not actually happen, say boffins

Re: The tail is wagging the dog

You can have the day off when all human demand has been satisfied, until then there will always be someone willing to pay someone else to do the bits they can't/won't do for themselves.

Re: Displaced not redundant

The percentage of people taking drugs for pleasure (except tobacco) has remained remarkably stable despite price/legality/other distraction fluctuations.

Re: Displaced not redundant

In the 1950's UK households spent around 40% of their income on food and only 8% owned a fridge. By the mid-80's housholds were spending only 20% of their income on food and by 2005 this had dropped to 10%

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/597666/FF75Timeline-09mar17.pdf

Re: Displaced not redundant

Charles 9,

that's not true though, most people have double glazing, central heating, kitchens full of gadgets they never use, 3 TVs, mobile phones for everyone, tablets, games consoles, fridge freezers, dishwashers even.

Food is cheaper now than it has ever been, more people eat out more of the time, even on minimum wage life has never been better in this (or any other non-war torn) country.

The number of cars on the road has doubled since the 1980's

In 1970 about 65% of households had a washing machine, now virtually every household has one.

The cost of housing hasn't fallen though, this is due to lack of permissions to build and the lack of automation in the building process (these together add up to restrictive practises and keep the price high).

Displaced not redundant

Robots will do the same tasks that a human used to do only cheaper and quicker, those humans are freed from that production line to work on either a new/different (as yet) non robot production line or do something different entirely.

The displaced humans may get the same or less pay than before the robots arrived but it doesn't matter because products produced by robots are cheaper for the end consumer.

The cost of a mini in 1960 was about 1/5th of a house

The cost of the equivalent today is about 1/22nd (and it is more reliable and cheaper to run)

Most people still have jobs and more people own cars and TVs than at any point in history despite both automation and negligible above inflation pay rises.

Samsung Galaxy S8: Slimmer bezels, a desktop mode – and yet another me-too AI pal

Mint

DeX looks good, if I could put Linux Mint on it (and ditch fingerprint and Bixby) I'd buy one today

Pure Silicon Valley: Medium asks $5 a month for absolutely nothing

There is some good stuff

on Medium.com but there is an awful lot of dross.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has some interesting posts

https://medium.com/@nntaleb

and this girl can be funny

https://medium.com/@ThunderPuff

at the end of the day it is just a collection of blogs, it appeals to people who read and I like it because I like to read but is it worth $5 a month, probably not.

(has anybody written a medium to wordpress app yet for when it goes tits up ?)

As for business models, The Reg uses articles but the readers stay around for the comments, Sara Bee in that context was worth her weight in gold in terms of clickbait.

It's happening! It's happening! W3C erects DRM as web standard

Re: Well you don't actually have to listen to anything W3C says

'Distributors create nothing and exist only to tax their consumers'

The distributors act as a hedge for the creators, the creators get a guaranteed sum for their work and the distributor takes the risk that not enough buyers will be found for that content for them to make a profit.

Increasingly I find most 'content' is designed to get me to watch adverts and is not worth the price.

DRM is a good thing, it is like an adblocker on steroids.

Norfolk County Council sent filing cabinet filled with kids' info to a second-hand shop

Izal - Government Property

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/1485107/does-anyone-remember-that-toilet-paper-that-was-like-tracing-paper

Thousands of NHS staff details nicked amid IT contractor server hack

Bandits

Has anybody noticed that Experian seem to make out like bandits whenever there is one of these (routinely common) data breaches ?

Anti-TV Licensing petition gets May date for Parliament debate

Re: Privatise It

'We've got plenty of broadcasters that use that model, and they tend to churn out shit.'

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and one mans meat is his alone and he should pay for it.

I choose commercial output because there is nothing on the BBC channels I like yet I am forced to subsidise the BBC output.

The truth is that the BBC would go broke in a week if it had to compete commercially and all those luvvies on massive salaries would be out of work.

Privatise It

Scrap the TV license and use a subscription, donation or advertising based model.

Sell the BBC and its kit off.

Make the licensing of TV/Radio broadcasting easier and cheaper so anyone can do it.

Only places like the DPRK need a monopoly State Broadcaster.

Help wanted: Uber boss Travis seeks babysitter for him and his execs

Lost Control

I get the impression that Travis is no longer in control of the business and this new COO position has been forced upon him by outsiders who are now running things. I imagine he will be kept on as the face of Uber until he has outlived his usefulness and then he will be sidelined.

The justifiable paranoia will do for him in the end (they really are out to get him).

Congratulations IBM for 'inventing' out-of-office email. You win Stupid Patent of the Month

Re: Spoilsport

'So in summary, it's a Pre-Out of Office notification.'

good, I was afraid it would prevent my patent application for a Post-Out of Office notification that sends everyone on my lists an "I'm Back" message.

Two-thirds of TV Licensing prosecutions at one London court targeted women

Re: Privatise it

'Thanks to the BBC we at least get a semblance of unbiased reporting'

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Crash...sorry fell off my chair then.

Privatise it

Get rid of the TV license and sell the BBC to the highest bidder, you could give every current license holder a share (like sid).

Only self-important states like the DPRK need a state broadcaster

Dyson backs Britain plc with $2.5bn AI and robotics investment

Bosch

Apparently not just cars and hoovers but ships as well.

Cisco Jasper IoT bod: Smart home? Nah. Farm pest control – that's a cool use case

Re: He has a point

I understand the automatic watering controller based on soil moisture content sensors part of the project but I fail to understand where the internet comes into the equation.

That is just Autonomous Things not Internet of Things

(unless it is a £1300 Rentokil one that phones a bloke who comes round with a watering can)