Posts by tel2016

Capita scores £239M contract to manage mega public sector pension scheme

Who signed off on this?

And how long before that person takes up a very lucrative role as a non-executive director at Capita?

What's really going on with Chrome's June crackdown on extensions – and why your ad blocker may or may not work

Re: Adverts are ok... but the quantity and quality is not

I'm not sure whether I agree with you.

During the YT recent adblocker blitz, I was repeatedly exposed to an ad for a revolutionary electric heater that using the Joule-Thomson effect, reduces energy usage by OVER 95% !!!!!

The inventer (Martin), who was a student at either the University of Ediburgh or a US University (can't remember which - it varies from ad to ad), decided to take matters into his own hands when the university heating system broke down, and the students' pleas to get it fixed fell on deaf ears.

So, somehow redefining the laws of physics, Martin invented his own heater (Martin is a genius by the way).

Then, to make matters worse, Martin was offered MILLIONS from a large heating company for his design, which he refused, and as a result, was EXPELLED from the university (the scoundrels).

Not wanting to miss out on this revolutionary product, I googled the name and found lots of other identical designs on eBay, most of which were much cheaper.

But I'm no fool. Those cheaper versions on eBay are obviously fake copies, and probably wouldn't reduce energy usage by the same amount (probably just 80% or something), so I bought one of the genuine ones by following the link in the advert. The website was in Chinese, but the picture was the same, so it must be OK.

I'll follow up this post with the results when I get the heater. It's currently stuck in shipping, but once I've paid the unexpected import fees I should have it in time for Christmas. Or maybe New Year. They didn't specify.

$17k solid gold Apple Watch goes from Beyoncé's wrist to the obsolete list

It's not a watch

It's a wrist-mounted gadget that can also tell you the time.

Right to repair advocates have a new opponent: Scientologists

Re: Expose

You CAN get rich writing science fiction, However LRH was terrible at writing science fiction, so using his ability to get people to believe his incredibly tall tails, started a 'religion' instead.

EU boss Breton: There's no Huawei that Chinese comms kit is safe to use in Europe

Re: Chinese law requires it

Your point being...?

Chinese law requires it

Company Law of the People's Republic of China (2018 Revision) - Article 19 says:

The Chinese Communist Party may, according to the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party, establish its branches in companies to carry out activities of the Chinese Communist Party. The company shall provide necessary conditions to facilitate the activities of the Party.

Also, consider reading the book 'Unrestricted Warfare', and take note of who the authors are.

Errors logged as 'nut loose on the keyboard' were – ahem – not a hardware problem

The Nut

This story remind me of a 'Letter to the Editor' in the magazine Viz, which went something like this:

"Someone once told me that the most dangerous part of a car is 'the nut behind the steering wheel'. So in the interest of safety, I removed this nut. Later, whilst driving at high speed along a motorway, the steering wheel became detached, resulting in a severe crash. So it goes to show that you cannot believe everything you're told."

Eufy security cams 'ignore cloud opt-out, store unique IDs' of anyone who walks by

Re: Hello!

"...There are even internet connected ovens FFS! It is getting ridiculous"

I have always been confused as to why remote controls for VHS & DVD players have an eject button. You're going to have to get up anyway.

Can we interest you in a $10 pocket calculator powered by Android 9?

No thanks

I'll stick to my trusty Casio CA-53W-1CR, although nowadays I need to carry a magnifying glass with me to see the buttons.

Signal says it'll shut down in UK if Online Safety Bill approved

If it's 'for the sake of the children', what's to stop pedos compressing images in a password-protected zip and sending that as a file attachment? Signal allows this, so any onboard scanning is circumvented by pre-zipping on another device and uploading to phone before sending.

Halfords slapped on wrist for breaching email marketing laws

Re: One of those places

"What's the best email for your electronic receipt?"

That's how the cashiers are trained to obtain it. I just reply with:

"A paper receipt will be fine"

UK opens national security probe into 2021 sale of local wafer fab to Chinese company

Is it too late?

I don't know what stage the takeover is currently at, but assuming that Nexperia just wants access to the IP, wouldn't that mean that they already had time to copy it to chinese servers?

If so, reversing the takeover would be meaningless, except that Nexperia would get their money back, and the IP for free.

It's time to kick China off social media, says tech governance expert

Western social media is blocked in China, unless a VPN is used to get around the Great Chinese Firewall (use of a VPN is illegal under Chinese law). So where are all these Chinese social media accounts coming from? Could the vast majority be coming from the CCP itself by any chance?

Big shock: Guy who fled political violence and became rich in tech now struggles to care about political violence

I think people DO care

But they feel that demonstrations/petitions do little to change anything, so why bother?

One thing everyone can easily do if they buy things on Amazon, is to install either 'Cultivate' or 'Cellar'. These add-ons show which country the vendor is from.

Aiming to avoid buying products from Chinese vendors could make a difference. Buying something from your own country is even better, although even then, there's no guarantee it won't have 'Made in China' printed on it.

Trust Facebook to find a way to make video conferencing more miserable and tedious

Zuckerberg had a reasonably good idea once

and that was to create a simple website where people could chat with each other. Every idea he's had since then has been bad (for anybody who's not him).

Even Facebook struggles: Zuck's titanic database upgrade hits numerous legacy software bergs

Re: DVLA Database 'update'

To be on the safe side, maybe you should hurry up and reply. You wouldn't want to lose your driving licence... :P

Roger Waters tells Facebook CEO to Zuck off after 'huge' song rights request

I wonder...

what FB wanted to use the song for? Maybe part of their next advert, where they'll continue to cry over the fate of small businesses everywhere, who, as a result of the FB's reducing ability to datamine everyone, face financial disaster. Just Another Brick in the Wall (of data-mining)?

Nominet ignores advice, rejects serious change despite losing CEO, chair, half its board in membership vote

Re: Hand me the crisps and beer please.

Would you like popcorn with that?

Is this an April Fool?

I sincerely hope so. Otherwise, time for the Nominet members that want change to contact their MPs, as I previously suggested here:

https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2021/03/18/nominet_voting_fears/

'Imagine' if Virgin Galactic actually did sub-orbital tourism: Firm unveils new chrome job on SpaceShip III

Could this be used for point-to-point travel?

If so, then its use could be extended beyond space tourism for rich folk.

It could also be used by rich folk that want to get somewhere else fast.

Now that half of Nominet's board has been ejected, what happens next? Let us walk you through the possibilities

Re: GoDaddy, but that will be changed at the next opportunity.

Interesting question. I see Namesco are still in the undecided category on the website. Is it public knowledge which providers voted for and against (or abstained)?

I think I'll be changing to a UK company too.

Re: Agree

It will also increase the number of votes allocated to those providers that want Nominet to return to its roots as a non-profit, and reduce the votes of those who don't, as well as impacting their bottom-line.

Something else that anyone with a website can do

is to change our host from those that voted against the EGM to those that voted for it. I use GoDaddy (after a recommendation from someone), but that will be changed at the next opportunity.

Chairman, CEO of Nominet ousted as member rebellion drives .uk registry back to non-commercial roots

The next move

is to carry out an audit of Nominet's books. Just to be on the safe side.

Ministry of Defence tells contractors not to answer certain UK census questions over security fears

Re: Census data

Or Native American

Big problem: Nominet members won't know how many votes they're casting in decision to oust CEO, chair

If the vote fails

then can't the Nominet members arrange to visit (virtually probably) their respective local MPs when they hold their surgeries.

Do the visits simultaneously (within a period of a week or two), telling the MPs it's being done countrywide, so they'll know this isn't an isolated case and will talk to other MPs about it, with the aim of getting it raised in Parliament. Surely a large proportion of MPs can be covered this way?

This is not a party-political matter, so it's one of those rare occasions when politicians can come together and actually do something useful, rather than the usual squabbling amongst themselves.

It's wild the lengths Facebook engineers will go to find new ways to show you inane ads about tat: This time, AR...

It's all coming true

"use the information you choose to share, to infer what you want to do, when you want to do it"

Reminds me of QualityLand:

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Qualityland-Visit-Tomorrow-Marc-Uwe-Kling/dp/140919115X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=qualityland&qid=1615448994&sr=8-1

Facebook finally finds something it thinks is truly objectionable and needs to be taken offline: Apple

Re: Yeah Zuck, what's your point?

Small businesses that want to buy advertising from Facebook?

Lay down your souls to the gods of rock 'n' roll: Conspiracy theorists' 5G 'vaccine' chip schematic is actually for a guitar pedal

Another quote

The Internet was a mistake. In bygone days, village idiots were isolated in their respective villages, and the relative normalcy of their neighbors kept them in check. Today, the village idiots are one giant network of millions of village idiots, who can now mobilize as a united front, the result of which is that we're all pretty much screwed.

'Best tech employer of the year' threatened trainee with £15k penalty fee for quitting to look after his sick mum

Re: I'm sure these Best awards are paid for

Dave Gorman did a piece about the 'Product of the Year' awards on 'Modern Life is Goodish':

https://youtu.be/3wa9SpmLJUE?t=1816

S3 Ep8 @ 30m16s if the link doesn't work

SpaceX Starship blows up on landing, Elon Musk says it's the data that matters and that landed just fine

I've heard...

people (not SpaceX unfortunately) refer to the fins as 'Elonerons', which is as good a name as any, so that's what I'm going to call them from now on.

Now the wait for SN9 launch... but even if it doesn't stick the landing, then parts up to SN16 have been spotted onsite.

There's a way to go yet. How Starship holds up when descending from orbit is one question that's yet to be answered, but I'm optimistic.

Re: Minor correction

Scott Manley put it best when he said the problem was "an engine-rich exhaust"

SN8 flight was to test multiple concepts in one go

The flight was a success because SpaceX proved almost all of the concepts. Even the landing technique. The reason it blew up was because it was still going a bit too fast on touchdown. It was still going too fast because of a fuel problem in the oxygen header tank (which is only used for landing) resulting in insufficent thrust.

What was achieved:

Use of three of the brand-new Raptor engines to launch the craft

Engine cut-off and manoevre into bellyflop position

Skydiving back down under control without RUD

Engine relight and landing flip

SN8 blew up on the LANDING pad. If it had blown up on the LAUNCH pad, the test wouldn't have been considered as successful :)

Fancy building to-spec PCs for the Bank of England, and more? A £46m end user support contract is up for grabs

Re: Peanuts are for Monkeys.... Crown Jewels are for SMARTR Enabling of Systems ....

"And were you to be advised it is not, tel2016, what then would you think?"

I would think that you are talking nonsense.

Re: Peanuts are for Monkeys.... Crown Jewels are for SMARTR Enabling of Systems ....

Er... what?

I think this is a bot

Can we stop megacorps from using and abusing our data? That ship has sailed, ex-NSA lawyer argues in new book

Cookies

I've noticed more and more websites lumping their tracking/data mining cookies under the 'essential' category, which cannot be switched off. I thought this category was for essential cookies that are essential for the site to work. Essentially.

You'd think 1.8bn users a day would be enough for Zuck. But no. Oculus fans must sign up for Facebook

I have an old Oculus DK2. At some point after FB bought Oculus, I updated the runtime (to 1.3 I think), and it installed a boot time service that ran even when the DK2 wasn't being used. A check using Wireshark showed me it was sending data to FB servers about every 5 seconds, so the FB data mining started long ago.

PC owners borg into the most powerful computer the world has ever known – all in the search for coronavirus cure

Re: Still ticking along - 415th as of today

The No1 folder is not a specific person, but anyone who hasn't set up a username, so is folding as the catch-all 'Anonymous'.

However, some of those have chosen to fold as part of team 'Folding Vultures' (team 250966).

Have a virtual beer on me though, because as I write, the team is ranked 379 out of 253,437.

Re: Academics

The results are public domain

Installed and joined Team El_Reg

Team number 250966

My laptop is measly, but every little helps

BT's Wi-Fi Disc ads banned because there's no evidence the things work

BT TV boxes

This is not surprising coming from the company that still doesn't include WiFi on their TV boxes - just an ethernet port. So the end-user has the choice of running a cable from the box to the router, or using their 'Wifi Kit',which are just those plug-in boxes the use the mains as a data conduit (and don't work if there's a consumer unit in the way - ie, between floors of a building). Lots of extra unnecessary/unsightly cables too.

What if everyone just said 'Nah' to tracking?

Re: tip jar

Consider the 'Brave' browser:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/15/brave_web_browser_hits_version_1/

I'm gradually transferring over to it, and yes, el_reg has joined up

Guess who's still in charge of your gas safety, Brits? Capita

I misread:

“expertise in harnessing digital technologies”

as

“expertise in hamstringing digital technologies”

'Facebook takes data from my phone – but I don't have an account!'

Re: host file?

NoRoot Firewall?

Naughty Zuck: Facebook fudged its video ad numbers

Who is the audience for Facebook's statement?

"This error has been fixed, it did not impact billing"

This seems to be a message targeted at Facebook investors, rather than the advertising customers (who haven't been getting the value they thought).

Oculus backtracks on open software promise

Users are the Product

I have a DK2, and once the 1.3 runtime was released I installed it. I found it slightly annoying to need to log into Occults Home everyone I wanted to use the HMD, so out of curiosity, I fired up Wireshark to see exactly what was being connected to.

I was surprised to see the service connecting to Facebook servers every few seconds. Apparently this is 'checking for updates', but can someone tell me why the runtime needs an always running service that checks for updates so frequently.

Facebook wanting to get on as many desktops as possible, regardless of whether the user has a FB account seems the most likely reason to me.

After all, I doubt Mark Zuckerberg expects to recoup his $2 billion investment via hardware/software sales

I know that Oculus have said that they don't share information with FB, but have they promised that they will NEVER start doing that?

This locking of games to the hardware seems to me to be another way of insuring that the runtime stays on the PC.