Posts by DuncanLarge

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

Re: Stop operating?

> My nice new Pixel7 comes with a "free" VPN

VPN's wont save you, they will block Signal too

Shot in the foot.

I abandoned Signal since they dropped SMS support.

Sure SMS is insecure, but I preffered to have Signal as me default SMS client as it was more trustworthy. I preferred to have that upgrade path to a Signal chat that was useful for getting others onto the platform.

Alas after 10 years of using Signal, nobody joined me. They stayed on SMS or Whatsapp or any other number of esoteric options. They have no care to install yet another app, just to chat to me. Whatsapp is good enough for them and as it also uses the Signal protocol, well it will do for me too.

And now, to find that if the UK reduced the effectiveness of encryption, instead of working to make Signal work for me like they did in Iran etc when Iran cracked down on whatsapp, Signal will simply walk?

That new president of theirs is a piece of work I must say. Not only has she dropped one of the good features Signal had (SMS integration) but she also will just leave a whole country in the dust. A country of users who dont make anyone any money through the use of Signal. The Government probably wonders who the hell Signal are, what do they care if some tiny little group of developers walk away, thinking somehow they are big and mighty and that if they were to walk away MP's would shed tears!

The president of Signal is a maniac. Killed the project dead by dropping SMS, thinks her company is bigger than it is so that a whole Government will worry about them walking away and abandoning a minority of users.

I saw her profile photo on her blog, she looked half awake and she loves bed-hair. She is playing the hard line, but without the strong foundations behind her needed to actually mean it! It's like a wooden toy manufacturer making toys that are sold only at local craft fairs trying to hold the Government to ransom :D

I loved SIgnal a lot. Steve Gibson introduced me to it when it was still called TextSecure. I've been using it as a GPL'd SMS app with full encryption upgrade path for over 10 years and no sod has bothered to join me. I rejoiced as the Signal protocol was incorporated into Whatsapp and FB messenger, because it worked and was good! Signal may be small I thought but at least their protocol is gaining acceptance! Whoohoo.

Then they dropped SMS, leaving me with god knows what written by god knows who. They banned me from the message boards as I posted a nice and polite thankyou but farewell post, which was really polite and congratulatory and merely said I have to leave but maybe I will be back. And they bloody banned me as a troll because they were tired of getting angry messages about SMS. And now the bed-hair ridden pretentious president says that even if I were still a user, even a donating one, they will abandon me to my snooping government rather than find a way to let me keep being secure.

Well F**K you Signal. Enjoy your decline into irrelevance. Sorry you dont like to hear it but the ONLY reason many people used you was because of the SMS integration helping replace untrustworthy default apps and someone would have succeeded in getting a contact or two to install Signal too. You think you are bigger than you are.

It's just really sad.

Chipmakers threaten to defect to US, EU if UK doesn't get its semiconductor plans sorted

Re: >Where's the Brexit bonus?

> Oi! I didn't get what I voted for. I voted to stay in the EU

When I was 12 in 1993, nobody asked if I bloody wanted to be in it. I've been waiting all this time to finally get ujs out.

Just look at what the EU do, like with Ukraine and covid. You really want to be a part of that?

Back in the 70's they (the eupoeans looking to create this long term EU project) knew that we shouldnt be in it. They said NO!over and over, even after we saved their asses, again. They knew we were not compatible, cultures too different, legal system,s too different, roman vs saxon law. We persisted and they let us in to shut us up. We benefited greatly, we needed them after the dire state WW2 left us in, but we never fitted in, always the outlier, the complainer, the special case that needed opt-outs and vetoes. In 1993, we should have ditched pound sterling for the Euro, but we didnt. As a kid at the time I was pretty scared about that, I actually walked to school worried as the adults played with my future. "kill the pound?", even me at 12 knew that was mental, and we managed to keep the pound.

The EU was a long term political project to control warring eurpoean countries who had ONLY JUST switched away from communism, socialism and dictatorships. We on our little island were far ahead concerning this democracy thing, and we built it on saxon law. This means law COMES FROM THE PEOPLE, from below upwards. The people are able to affect law, via the courts. Its called a precedent, if I'm found not guilty due to certain circumstances or due to laws clearly not being fit for purpose anymore, that affects any other cases to follow mine. The EU however is built on Roman law, which is the direct opposite. Law is created from the top (from the emperor) and applied downwards onto the people. The people have no power to change it, it must be changed by the top and only the top (the unelected EU commission in this case). The courts can find me innocent yes, but no precedent is created to find those that follow innocent. Someone else who follows me in a similar case can be found guilty simply because the jury and judge were different that day.

Our cultures and systems were incompatible. BUT you ask, why not change it? Well thats what we did for several decades and, well we couldnt do a damn thing. Dont forget that for several decades this country elected UKIP to represent them in the EU, over and over again we voted UKIP. Now you could argue thats because the only people who bothered to vote were those trying to exit or change the EU. Possibly, turnout was low for EU elections, way lower than ours, so if tahtw as the case, taht Brexit came about because we had UKIP voted in for decades... who is to blame? I argue its yourselves. UKIP won each time and Brexit was the result.

So stop moaning.

Stop trying to rejoin (it wont be a comfortable process or membership, no vetoes next time and, no pound sterling, it will be the Euro).

Stop groaning about Breeeexiiiiiit cased this or that.

Elect a government that will take the benefits of brexit and actually do something with them.

Otherwise, rejoin, better save up those Euro's!

Re: >Where's the Brexit bonus?

> Part of the problem is that there was/is no clear consensus on what "Brexit" means

To leave the organisation known as the EU.

It wasnt hard. The problem was the EU wanted to use it as a way to make an example of a leaver, to make sure nobody dares leave again.

Thus all the commotion about borders in Ireland, fishing rights etc. All instigated by the EU and a conservative government headed by a PM who was a remainer with no negotiation skills. Once she was replaced we got a clown who cheered everyone up, who seemed to have the balls to do it (brexit) but turned out he just wanted the kudos for "getting it done". Of course he had many other sucesses and failures and did some great things, but once he got the brexit stamp he could show off his (and his parties) interest in actually making it work and doing stuff just, evaporated.

Covid helped massively as it halted Brexit in its tracks. Now after coming out of lockdowns and trying to pay off covid debt in the Sunak way, which is to pay it off FAST instead of slowly, well there is barely any money/time or effort to make Brexit actually work.

We need a brexit government. The current one and the typical alternative (labour) is looking to find a way to nullify it. The EU will have won.

Re: Clarksons Farm

> fisherpersons

Fishermen.

It simply sounds ridiculous the other way. Same with postmen, which can be male or female.

No more free love: Netflix expands account sharing restrictions

Re: Infinitely worth every penny. Division by zero error!!!

> National TV services are switched from broadcast to internet

God I hop not, that will be a whole load of fish released from kettles when they do that

Re: "woke crap" your definition is displaying your bias

Another Life was great, much better than Star Trek Discovery which only put people on the bridge to show off as tokens.

Another Life had 2 seasons and the second was much better once it was in full swing after the first.

Re: "woke crap" your definition is displaying your bias

> people complaining about the humans right act

The Human Rights Act needs to be repealed right now, it is a modern invention that added nothing to the existing human rights legislation besides the ability to have courts get in the way when we all know they really shouldnt have.

The UK constitution had everything already in place, this act sist on top and messes the whole lot up for legal reasons. Same with the ECHR, which the UK dodnt need as we alrteady had everything needed to guaratee all human rights, the EU needed it so the UK CREATED THE ECHR. Then we try to leav it, as its simply not needed here and here we go with "human rights violation" crap, spouted by people who have no idea what the UK constitution is all about.

We INVENTED THE ECHR because EU didnt have anything like it. It's messing with our needs right now, so lets be rid of it.

Re: "woke crap" your definition is displaying your bias

Ahem

Go woke, go broke.

I mean c'mon it keeps happening. The only way to do it is to stop trying to re-educate people to think a certain way. Just expect politeness and common sense and let it be.

> muchly non-PC by todays standards but still very entertaining.

Why would anyone find anything PC entertaining? (I assume we are talking comedy here)

> it is indeed very difficult to define what a household is

Its easy, it is in the name. HOUSEhold. Definition, those who live in the same HOUSE.

When you live at more than one house you are part of MULTIPLE households, thus one will have the netflix account, the other must have its own.

It really isnt that hard, seems like someone if trying to suggest that household is akin to a family group.

It was really clear in the UK pandemic lockdown. I lived by myself and that meant I was a separate household all by myself thus not able to visit anyone etc. However that was changed a few weeks later for singletons like myself allowing us to be considered a single household with another that we had to choose, which was in this case my parents.

Thus later when TWO households were allowed to meet outdoors I was able to go along with my parents as one household to my sisters for my nephews birthdays.

An EXCEPTION was made to allow my household to combine with my parents due to me living alone during lockdown, thus my household and my parents households were separate entities, temporarily joined together for mental health reasons. Thus the definition of a household is a house and those who live in it. The moment you leave the house to live somewhere else, well you are not in that household are you?

> All of his apartment furniture was placed in a storage container as he was seldom home

Why?

Wasnt the home a better place to store it or did he get rid of the flat too?

Torrents are blocked in the UK.

Use a VPN?

VPN's are blocked by my ISP and they want be to pay a monthly fee to enable them.

I buy the DVD/bluray instead.

Re: Make it even slightly difficult

> I live in multiple countries and travel, but I like my movies in English. That OK-ish, but as soon as you're abroad the subtitles no longer include English (I have a mild hearing defect, so this helps). Adding this 31 days BS will only made that worse,

Use a dvd or rip.

> 2) I still like the UK selection fo movies, but when I'm abroad that isn't really available. Unless I use a VPN, but I think it ought to be possible to choose the country, even if you're abroad - as long as you don't change it too often. Personally I am getting very, VERY fed up with the whole region bollocks.

Use a dvd or rip

> 4) .. they don't HAVE much of the older stuff that's worth seeing such as the original Thomas Crown Affair movie (i.e. the one before the Pierce Brosnan/Rene Russo one - also good, just different).

Use a DVD or rip

I was in France for a while doing stuff in our French pubs across France. I took all my entertainment with me on my laptop, ripped loads of DVD's which I left at home. Audio too.

Things were simpler in the days you were free to actually buy and own stuff. Even though they claimed it was still licensed to you, it was a bluff and they knew it.

Re: Still haven't flipped the switch in Canada

I find this all enlightening, this is why streaming is apparently killing physical.

Everyone just needs to "know a friend" and get it for free! Well now the free ride is over and everyone must pay the dues, I wonder if they will suddenly cut back on which services they use...

This will result in many feeling like they now have less options, less to watch.

Maybe some will even turn the TV back on like at the end of The Truman Show :D

OMG, faceplam.

"I'm cancelling netflix because every now and then I may have to burn some calories to log in again."

Talk about first world problems.

Re: Sooo

> Is she no longer part of my household?

You said she is in a boarding school, unless you live at the school then YES she is not part of your household.

> And what about my other daughter that shares time between my ex and myself?

Seriously, how hard is this? Other daughter can use YOUR account at YOUR place when she is at YOUR place. When she is at the other place, well that up to mum to sort out isnt it, if mum hates netflix then daughter watched amazon prime...

Re: I have 3 homes

Or get a bluray player ;)

Wait wha'?

Is this a problem?

I mean, isnt it common sense not to share account details with everyone?

All that guff about not copying stuff (piracy) and the plugging of the analogue hole that we all had to put up with plus the death of personal recording devices and et people still managed to share stuff :D

Apple complains UK watchdog wants to make iOS a 'clone' of Android

Go for a stock Android perhaps?

Re: But...

> web designers are designing and testing Chrome and don't care about testing or fixing for other browsers

If your browser is standards compliant then that is a non-issue.

The days of developing for a specific browser are supposed to be long gone.

<blink>Remember me?</blink>

Take the morning off because Outlook has already

Heh heh heh

> If you sat down to work this morning and attempted to do something as routine as check your emails with Outlook, you'd be bang out of luck.

Where I work we have to be on-prem. Cloud isnt an option.

Sometimes I like to be a bit of a jerk so...

Everythings working fine here :D

British government torched over lack of chips strategy

Re: Just wait for the new EU immigration system to be operational

> The one where everyone from the UK going to mainland Europe has to have their photo and fingerprints taken.

Thats AS IT SHOULD BE!

Re: You know what we should do?

> Form a trade alliance with our European neighbours, where goods can move freely without red tape, import and export duties, lengthy custom delays and the movement of labour to where it's needed.

> I just don't get why our government hasn't thought of this.

It's called a trade deal and the EU didnt want one as it wouldnt make an example of those who dared to leave their super-country.

They said it to the world on live TV. That they would make sure the Brexit process was used as a means to make an example out of Britain to warn against anyone else leaving. Junker said it LIVE on TV.

People have forgotten that, simply because they wanted to be in the Matrix and enjoy ignorance, rewarded by no roaming charges, spanish villas (even asked the locals what they think of that?) and cheap labour allowing UK businesses that cant handle world trade like the rest of the world to skirt around minimum wage laws while every UK citizen learns that every street is now called benefits street.

Oh the high life...

Re: Brexit

Certainly are, british potatoes for british chips.

Shame about the French moaning about fishing in our waters like they own them.

Also shame about the Russian maniac and he evil deeds.

Re: Brexit

Here we go

"it's breeeexit"

God help me

Re: Zzzzzzz

> helped by the British government turning a blind eye to their exploits, which included plundering the ships of other European countries...

You do realise we were at war with most of them at the time?

Plus most of them were happily transporting slaves.

Yes, we reserved the right to search their ships, especially after we defeated the lot of them, it was part of the peace conditions.

> Not sure about this - suggest you read about the real meaning of the words "Rule Britannia, Britannia, rule the waves"...

Which would be a song sung to inspire England to stand up and fight for liberty against the Europeans yet again set on conquest of blighty. A song written by a Scot in a London pub and used in a play about invasion.

A moment of silence for all the drives that died in the making of this Backblaze report

Re: 1% failure rate

How the hell did you fit XP into 10 megabits?

Three seconds of audio could end up costing Fox $500,000

Re: Coming to the UK soon (allegedly)

> so perhaps loud and screechy is an asset

No, I'f Im driving and my phone starts doing that I'm likely to kill someone. All you need is a constant beep beep that you cant turn off till you dismiss the message, no need for anything "screachy" this isnt the 1940's

Re: Coming to the UK soon (allegedly)

What the hell for?

Ok we pretend we have storms once in a while but its nothing compared to a real issue TM.

Also, no system targeting TV or radio? If im driving I'm not going to be looking at my phone to read the message am I? I take it this only works on smart phones. What about feature phones?

Re: ...Seismic Rock and Roll App

> aftershocks triggered the warning system and it would cut in on the live TV feed

I do wonder how that will work going forward as live TV and radio are no longer a thing. Mobile notifications obviously but can such a system cut in on streaming services I wonder?

McDonald's pulls plug on Wi-Fi, starts playing classical music to soothe yobs

Re: print car number plates on takeaway bags to discourage customers from littering

I have a defence:

"The wind blew it out of the bin g'vner"

Re: The smell from the one near me is enough

> I feel sorry for the teens as they have nowhere to go

I always have been confused by this.

No where to go? More like they cant be arsed to do anything worthwhile.

There are plenty of things to do. Sit at home and read a book, learn something. Take up a hobby. Go rambling and hiking. You know, fill up your time with interesting stuff.

Instead they just seem to be brain dead and wander about. Honestly, nowhere to go? Nah, its CBA to do anything.

Insert a gif of Kevin here.

Fresh version of Xfce, the oldest Linux desktop of them all, revealed in Xubuntu builds

Re: Use it here too

What the hell is a "proper" window manager?

Had they never heard of UDE?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UDE

Ooh

I use XFCE on most of my secondary systesm, but I use WindowMake on my main PC so I was going to challenge the "XFce, the oldest Linux desktop of them all" statement as I was sure there was something older.

WindowMaker came out in the same year, but as a window manager it cant compete.

Well, looks like XFCE does have the crown but by a very narrow margin, almost like a hourse race KDE and XFCE were neck and ncek in 1996 with their birth.

What an exciting time it was, when tech was new, edgy and old at the same time.

Bringing the first native OS for Arm back from the brink

Love me some RISC

All my Pi's run RISO OS Open ever since I discovered it was still about. As a 90's kid I was schooled on RISC OS machines, and own an Acorn A3020 and RISC PC today (got the RISC PC before the prices on ebay went crazy). I also have an Acorn Electron.

What I love about all of this is:

- RISC OS was designed specifically with the GUI in mind, although there is a commandline, the GUI is a well designed and consistent interface. It does take a little getting used to as there are a few concepts that RISC OS created that are slightly unique. The middle mouse button is the most important of all for example.

- Today we all talk about flatpack and appimage etc, a way to package an application in one file. Well not sure if it was done earluer but thats how RISC OS did it from the 80's onwards! It's dead simple, each application is actually, a normal folder pretending to be the apps icon. You can enter the folder itself and see the apps files using a modifier key when double clicking. Inside are all the apps resources and libraries. As a kid it felt so natural to copy an app to a floppy disc and simplyt have it work on other machines, well now I know I was copying the ENTIRE app and its supporting resources, in one icon. This however is NOT perfect, there are some resources that need to be installed system wide in the RISC OS system directory. Doing that is a simple case of drag and drop, but there is no method to manage those changes. If you want rid of the ap, just delete its icon, but that system stuff remains. Further development is all thats needed.

- BASIC - My ACorn Electron, like its bigger brother the BBC MICRO use BBC BASIC, so does RISC OS. Although a much later version, BASIC still is there and will run the old code. But being a MUCH later version its is so much more capable. It is fully integrated with the OS, meaing that anyone can write a full featured GUI app in BBC BASISC using RISC OS's text editor. Many games and applications for the system are just that. The BASIC interpreter also proviodes an ARM assembler, machine code can be entered directly into a BASIC routine, this can also be done on the BBC micro etc but of course that would be a 6502 assembler.

- And here is one of my faves. On a RPI, the GPIO pins are accessible in BBC BASIC in RISC OS. In fact, besides writing in assempler I have seen benchmarks that show that BBC BASIC on RISO OS on the Pi has the lowest latency access to the GPIO pins, behind assempler/machine code. Great id you want to do some bit banging.

Of course there is more to do. RISC OS runs fine on any Pi, even a Pi Zero, but it can only use a single core. USB device support handles the basics, mice, flash drives etc, evan a USB floppy if you want but wifi NIC's are not yet supported well. Ethernet is.

> Can it still run Zarch?

Yes, there is an emulation layer for 26 bit code

Time to study the classics: Vintage tech is the future of enterprise IT

Re: "All software has flaws"

> as well as programs disappearing from the start menu was quite horrifying

I never use the Start Menu anymore, I have found all too often programs just installed not showing up in the start menu for days.

Native Americans urge Apache Software Foundation to ditch name

I think we should all be named using symbols

Re: Bit ridiculous

What about the evil brit?

Why are we always the evil masterminds :D

Is it because we make it look good?

Re: Bit ridiculous

> being screwed over by the White Man

Ah if they want to have Apache change its name, maybe they can stop referring to "the white man"? We white people have many cultures and languages and simply lumping every white race in with every other is, a bit old fashioned and dare I say it, offensive?

I bet they wont do that will they. :D

Riding in Sidecar: How to get a Psion online in 2023

Re: Very interesting

Just use the RS232 "soap on a rope" to connect the PSION and transfer data.

Re: Very interesting

Buy a working amstrad PCW off ebay with two drive bays.

Fit a 3.5" drive into the second bay, or fit a gotek USB floppy emulator.

Transfer data from 3" disk to 3.5" disk or to the gotek. Then access on PC using any USB floppy drive.

Sell PCW on ebay.

Re: Very interesting

> Getting a working Amstrad PCW may be possible, but how to link it to more modern machines to transfer the data?

Working PCW's are on ebay and some still in active use so that will be ok.

As for the second point, get a PCW that can handle two floppies then just fit a gotec USB floppy emulator into the other bay. Or a PCW with two bays one with a 3" drive and the other a 3.5" drive which they moved to and of course 3.5" floppies are easily usable.

All you really need is the books/instructions etc on how to move data off the 3" amstrad discs onto the other drive in a DOS compatible way.

Forget the climate: Steep prices the biggest reason EV sales aren't higher

Re: FUD

> is trying to escape the inevitable collapse of the forecourt model of vehicle fuelling

This statement from EV fans and climate alarmists alays made me laugh. The idea that "big oil" is so stuck in the mud to be put at risk by a few people running off batteries is ridiculous.

OPEC, maybe, but not "big Oil".

Who provides the oil for the EV? Big Oil.

Who provides the oil to make the EV? Big Oil

Who provides the oil for the wind turbines? Big Oil

Who provides the oil for all the plastics to make the EV? Big OIl.

The whole idea that so called Big Oil has some kind of conspiracy in place to fight against the greens is barmy. Petrol is a by product and if they cant sell it it will be simply burned off or used by Big Oil themselves. Heck they even make all the synthetic oil as well!! All that conspiracy bull, I think it was only in the minds of so many because it was fun to think you were kicking someone where it hurts, only turns out you barely flicked them with a finger because guess what? You use so much essential big oil products, depend of so much of it its crazy to think you can escape them!

Also, they are BIG. They have plans and roadmaps for decades and guess what, they are not idiots. They are not suddenly going to brick their pants because Telsa came along... No, they will just sit back, relax, wait for Tesla and other little fish play about then swoop in and buy the lot of them up.

Who will be the producers of the EV's of the future? Big oil. Its bloody obvious.

Re: "a strong desire to reduce refueling costs"

> or some other creative mechanism

I have a feeling it will be a general tax on electricity regardless of if you are charging and EV or not.

It will probably only apply if you are > than a few KWh a day, thus requiring a smart meter, as the they can assume you are charging an EV

Re: "a strong desire to reduce refueling costs"

> All that works out at a cost per km of 5.3p for electric and 8.5p for petrol. 3.2p difference per km.

And from April?

Re: "a strong desire to reduce refueling costs"

And for those who dont have smartphones...

Re: "a strong desire to reduce refueling costs"

> early days of petrol vehicles with lack of garages and not knowing if they had fuel.

Sorry but I cant see going back to the 1920/30's as a positive, nor an excuse.

Re: "a strong desire to reduce refueling costs"

> For those of us who don't have access to free electricity, are EVs actually cheaper to run, mile for mile?

Not any more