Posts by $till$kint

Mirror mirror on the wall, why will my mouse not work at all?

Re: Mice

Read the...... instructions?

You're not from around here, are you

UK COVID-19 contact-tracing app data may be kept for 'research' after crisis ends, MPs told

Re: It can go

When this outbreak was but a babe in arms, a chap stopping off for a skiing holiday in the French Alps happened to bring an unexpected gift back with him from Singapore.

He was staying with an ex-pat family, their children being pupils at the local school. One 9-year-old member of the British family was infected.

The response of the French authorities in closing schools and isolating families was swift. It took them 2 months to complete their review of the efficacy of this. In a small and tight-knit community at the top of a closed valley (I'm a frequent visitor to the village and in regular contact with a number of the locals and they *really* took the isolation thing seriously).

End result, no other children were infected, despite the 9-year-old having attended both the village school and two trips out to other schools in the next town down the mountain.

Further studies suggest children aren't passing it on, which is..... hard to fathom.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-no-child-known-to-have-passed-covid-19-to-adults-global-study-finds-11981111

What's inside a tech freelancer's backpack? That's right, EVERYTHING

Small company exemption. They would get to self-determine

Re: Power Blocks

Not forgetting that you need it to be surge-protected. Current "shared workspace" on a vaguely Gov programme has some rather moody wiring that occasionally goes single-phase 400V on some sockets, which makes your laptop go all warm.

I've supplied a bunch of decent 24" monitors, keyboards, mice etc (you try using MS Project on a 13" laptop), a Draytek 4g router (and appropriate data package), cabling and christ knows what else on my latest gig. If HMRC so much as whisper "IR35" at me I shall get Mr Beretta out, scatter a selection of 12G cartridges on the desk and have a rather brief and pointed conversation with them.

HMRC claims victory in another IR35 dispute to sting Nationwide contractor for nearly £75k in back taxes

You just described Accenture

First MWC, then GDC, now Nvidia's GPU conference is online-only as coronavirus spreads in Silicon Valley

Re: "But we’ll do this all online"

100% this. And while we're at it, how many times do we actually *need* to be on site for work, vs times clients or bosses demand/expect it despite it adding no value.

But we must consume....

Hopefully a few folk will pick up on this theme and maybe we'll see less pointless travel. I live in hope.

Sure, check through my background records… but why are you looking at my record collection?

Re: Contractor Testing

Ah, but how would you plan for your plan? And where are the workshops?

Researchers trick Tesla into massively breaking the speed limit by sticking a 2-inch piece of electrical tape on a sign

Re: Adversarial attacks

Oooh, crossed a line there. A blue one.

UK contractors planning 'mass exodus' ahead of IR35 tax clampdown – survey

Re: re: contractors are not prepared to be unfairly treated

I'm Spartacus! Sorry, I'm a contractor! And you have my upvote. As you say, the fake ones will not survive, while the genuine will flourish. Looking like a good year to expand my business as things go.

UK political parties fall over themselves to win tech contractor vote by pledging to review IR35

Re: So why'd you do it then?

I think you meant "Left hand" and "Lefter hand"

Re: Smoke And Mirrors @DontFeedTheTrolls

Perfectly summed up.

HMRC have created a test where the person answering the question has absolutely no incentive to agree the Contractor is outside IR35. The only possibly beneficiary of determining outside IR35 is the contractor, but the risk if you get that wrong sits with the client.

Granted that is a simplistic take on it, as there are other risks to saying "everyone is inside IR35", like not getting the right resource at the right price, but from a very binary cash/risk perspective, it's a no-brainer for the client.

I'm trying to think of a non-employment scenario as an example that mirrors this mendacity, but am struggling as it's so fundamentally obtuse!

Bose customers beg for firmware ceasefire after headphones fall victim to another crap update

Re: Well...

New SHARK2.0 with added laser, coming soon!

Fed up with folk jumping your shark while listening to their favourite music? Pre-order our new, improved SHARK2.0 and we guarantee* any attempts at jumping will end in sizzly death. First 50 to order get a free pirate!**

(*not actually guaranteed).

(** delivery charges of 6 doubloons payable, plus weekly maintenance fee)

'Technical error' threatens Vodafone customers with four-figure roaming fees

Hey look! I can do the Vlookups! = Promotion

TfL inks £6.5m deal with Sopra Steria to build traffic data-munching and control system

This *is* Steria we're talking about?

Ah, yes it must be.

"TfL will own the system once the work is complete, with no set delivery date for the project"

Plot twist: Google's not spying on King's Cross with facial recognition tech, but its landlord is

Hi Martin.

Current model Volvo XC60. I'm told it's in part down to Volvo sticking with a single camera system, when the next generation of kit is using 2 or more. See also 737 Max

Similar issue in my car, made worse when you turn on the adaptive speed limiter that *does* reduce your speed to match the limit as you pass a sign.

Unfortunately it chose to read a 50 marker on the back of a lorry on the motorway, causing the car to brake unexpectedly from the 70 I had been doing.

It also dislikes large, light coloured vehicles parked on the near-side on gentle right hand bends, although only on bright, sunny days.

In these situations it likes slamming the brakes on to avoid the collision that wasn't going to happen.

First "feature" now turned off. It still gets stuff wrong, but just flashes annoyingly rather than attempting to insert my tailgate into the bonnet of the following vehicle. Second feature dialed back to least sensitive, notionally reducing the protection offered as the car will brake later and harder if I miss something going on in front of me, but actually increasing my safety by not activating erroneously.

Autonomous vehicles may be coming, but they're a way off yet.

Loose tongues and oily seamen: Lost in machine translation yet again

Re: Ah, French, that's easy

Alien Weaponry were awesome in Bristol. Sadly I missed The Hu as I was off a-gallivanting in Alps, speaking French badly.

London cop illegally used police database to monitor investigation into himself

Re: ESB

See you in the Atlas around 16:01 then

Apollo at 50? How about 40 years since Skylab smacked into Australia

Re: Exciting time

It's even harder to fit "Uxbridge" into that poem. But worth the effort I feel

The two towers: Met Police to consolidate £500m worth of tech outsourcing deals

ESB is a tower

And pretty much everything that happens in there is nuts.....

As HMRC's quarterly deadline for online VAT filing looms, biz dogged by 'technical difficulties'

It's almost as if HMRC don't test anything they release

::cough cough:: CEST and IR35 spring to mind

Bad news from science land: Fast-charging li-ion batteries may be quick to top up, but they're also quick to die

Re: Duh!

"What if he wasn't a native English speaker, meaning NONE of his days ended in y (or even had ANY y in it)?"

Then they probably didn't have the lemming-like patriotic urge to own a BL product

6 days to go, no sweat, just more than a million UK firms still to sign up to Making Tax Digital

Re: perhaps HMRC are the issue

You're not. Similar story here.

Prodigy dancer and vocalist Keith Flint found dead aged 49

He made it ok for a generation of blokes to dance

Keith's antics made it acceptable for a whole generation of guys to unleash the bendy bits ( I think they're called "knees" and "elbows" ) in what can loosely be described as dancing. For allowing us to express ourselves and communicate in this way, we thank you. Although my wife has never quite forgiven the number of times I've managed to stand on her feet in the process.

Keith, if only you could have spoken to someone last night. Us blokes are a bit rubbish like that. So to anyone out there feeling a bit lost right now, if you feel the need to talk to someone, know that there's always someone who will listen:

Calm - https://www.thecalmzone.net

Mind - https://www.mind.org.uk

Samaritans - https://www.samaritans.org

Bad news for WannaCry slayer Marcus Hutchins: Judge rules being young, hungover, and in a strange land doesn't obviate evidence

Re: It woz the drink wot did it. Oh, and all that neon, too.

Worth noting that he's been out on bail, albeit with some pretty debilitating conditions, since August 2017. Adding this to correct the assumption that he's still banged up. To all intents he's still being denied his liberty, as he is unable to leave the US and has had restrictions placed on his use of technology and the internet that effectively prevent him working or even helping build his defence case.

He's worth a follow on Twitter, if you're into the twitterings. @malwaretechblog

Memo to Mark Sedwill: Here's how to reboot government IT

Re: Simple solution.

I think you must have written the Outline Business Case that's just been put in front of me...

Have a pint and an upvote.

Huge ice blades on Jupiter’s Europa will make it a right pain in the ASCII to land on

Re: Does nobody ever read Larry Niven?

Ah, the moon's a balloon. A most entertaining read.

Oracle? On my server? I must have been hacked! *Penny drops* Oh sh-

Re: Hacker installed Oracle and then dobbed you in for the reward money

I had similar thoughts of the licence audit team rubbing their hands....

A boss pinching pennies may have cost his firm many, many pounds

Re: Developer PC

If it helps, I'm a Programme Manager (Project Manager squared) and I'd fund that.

The amount of deliveries that have fallen on their arse because of this kind of thinking.... Perhaps that's how I got demoted and now actually have to deal with the PHBs as the Developers' Champion?

Nah, it won't install: The return of the ad-blocker-blocker

Re: Not Ads, but chuggers

If it's amnesty international (a regular crowd around Holborn Circus) I tell them I work for an arms manufacturer.

Crooks swipe plutonium, cesium from US govt nuke wranglers' car. And yes, it's still missing

Re: Plutonium left in SUV in Marriot Hotel

Oh. You used the term "fools" on teh interwebz.

This is usually a solid indicator for sensationalist claptrap and suchlike. You'd do well to avoid it.

Also stop with the posting sensationalist claptrap.

UK.gov IT projects that are failing: Verify. Border control. 4G for blue-light services. We can go on

Please no, not octarine!

Described as a kind of greenish purple. Greenish. Green.

"It's ok everybody, there's a hint of green in there. We're on track! Now, about that early retirement package with matching knighthood....."

Ticketmaster gatecrash: Gig revelers' personal, payment info glimpsed by support site malware

Re: Clear as mud

@Tom. Fair one. Have an upvote

Re: Clear as mud

Not great practice to share what you know and how you know it when it comes to fraud detection. Word tends to get back to the fraudsters and they modify their MO to further obfuscate detection.

Barclaycard also on the ball here

About 3 weeks ago I was notified of two suspicious transactions by BarclayCard; one for close on £1000 for events through another ticket sales company and one for car insurance (yes, really!)

The last transaction prior to these? Ticketmaster on 23rd February.

Smoking gun anyone?

It rather looks like the bad actors gathered data for at least 3 months before they swung into action and started selling the details. On the plus side, both the merchants in this case were keen to take action to cancel the purchases (invalidating tickets and insurance) and were proactive in referring the matter to their internal fraud teams and local police. Barclays had already put chargeback in place, but was nice to see the merchants taking an active stance.

Not often I say this, but beers for Barclays.

Blame everything on 'computer error' – no one will contradict you

Those kind of two-finger typos could get you into teouble if your name is Alan....

Scissors cut paper. Paper wraps rock. Lab-made enzyme eats plastic

Re: It is just me that's noticed.....

I think some readers may see that as inferring this is a problem of Chinese origin. It's not; their action has simply highlighted the scale of the issue. When China says "too big a problem for us to manage" we had all better sit up and pay attention.

BBC presenter loses appeal, must pay £420k in IR35 crackdown

A good, straight accountant is like a decent mattress; both help me sleep at night.

Dinosaurs gathered at NASA Goddard site for fatal feeding frenzy

Don't worry, someone in an NCIS lab* will be able to zoom in on that rock, rotate the image, extrapolate a full body view and reveal a reflection on the dinosaurs' eyeballs of a fast-approaching meteorite.

(*there'll be a dead marine somewhere in the story to establish jurisdiction. Probably crushed in the stampede.)

£60m, five years late... Tag criminal tagging as a 'catastrophic waste' of taxpayers' cash

Re: Radical Suggestion...

of?

Why did I buy a gadget I know I'll never use?

I was grinning along as I read this until I got to the bit about the drum of telephone cable. Too close to the truth for comfort....

Tech Hoarders Anonymous anyone?

Guy Glitchy: Villagers torch Openreach effigy

Re: Tradition

"I'll wager that a nice part of Dorset, with mainline access to London has more than a few well connected bigwigs, and that's why Openreach are doing it, nothing whatsoever to do with any "cluster of properties". "

You'd lose your bet. Mostly agricultural workers, families on benefits and retired folk with the remaining 1/3rd working in jobs ranging from school teacher to Project Manager. A number are able to work from home by nature of their work but unable due to.... Elastic band. What we do have is a sense of community and a determination to ensure the kids in our village aren't left behind with their homework, the tried can Skype their families and the rest of us can stop blasting carbon into the air with our unnecessary travel footprint

Re: Tradition

Narp. Oi be where the wildlings be, nestling on the Dorset Frome 'twixt Wool and Dorchvegas

Re: I regularly communicate with openreach

OpenReach actually correspond with you?!?! What super powers (or incriminating photos) do you possess?

Re: That's the price you pay...

H is for Horace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFU9HYyMVxQ

Re: Tradition

@ AC

BT are now rolling out FTTP using overhead in some areas. We're one of those locations in rural Dorset - 5km from the cabinet but a reasonably well concentrated cluster of properties and we have a mainline station for that there London, so the demand for service is pretty high.

OverReich have been stringing fibre through the trees for the last 5 weeks, with a few sections where foliage density requires a return to underground conduit. We're hoping for a switch-on later this month and it will be full FTTP.

I shan't be getting rid of my Draytek Vigo 2860LN any time soon as I suspect I will be making full use of the LTE fallback capability at some point...... Trees being prone to fall over and tractors having an unerring ability to knock over telegraph poles in this neck of the woods.

Icon? Because we drink scrumpy in Dorset too (see tractor driving capability)