Posts by Wellyboot

Here we go again: US govt tells Facebook to kill end-to-end encryption for the sake of the children

Re: Idiot politicians

and if that doesn't work - you don't want 'those' pictures to be seen do you?

Re: "Outside the digital world, none of us would accept the proposition that"

Militaries get the kit that they need to overcome/deter another nation state, Plod gets the kit they need to overcome/deter the public from stepping too far out of line.

You've just described a bunker - One simple law gets passed and plod can turn up with an laser guided inert 1 tonne 'door knocker' dropped from a great height without prior notice.

Tetraplegic patient can now move his four limbs with the help of a badass neuroprosthetic suit

Re: Truly Amazing

Because that's just the way nature works, we've only developed ethics and morals to counterbalance the immediate self interest motive.

The path that this technology will take is fairly straightforward, tetraplegics can now walk, more complex nerve functions will follow. The end position will be that as long as the brain itself can be sustained we will be able to build hardware or grow body parts to replace everything else.

How long can we sustain a brain, will we find a way to replace neurons & their links insitu?

£99,999, what's your emergency? Paramedics rush to OAP's aid after shock meter reading

Fingers crossed that Eon don't phone you every month asking to arrange the smart meter installation like they did to me a couple of years ago. (no mention of meters before joining)

£3bn Google sueball over Safari Workaround bounces through UK Court of Appeal

The board members would just give themselves contracts that have a 3 years worth of salary+bonus termination clause. 3 strikes and the company gets broken up would be a much bigger incentive to be nice.

UK ads watchdog bans Burger King Twitter jibe for condoning chucking milkshakes at politicians

There were a few battery acid incidents before cheap bleach was identified as easier to find and it allows for a bigger typeface. Not many journos in the general media remember even this basic level of science from school.

But (for obvious reasons) not in a container that will burst on contact.

Safety tip: Don't throw anything you're not willing to try and catch.

Nominet continues milking .uk registry cash cow with 4 per cent price rise for... what exactly?

Resurrect .GB

Competition from an actual NfP organisation should only help the situation

The mod firing squad: Stack Exchange embroiled in 'he said, she said, they said' row

Re: Madness

Master - direct the working of subordinates > Slave - perform the tasks assigned.

Client - create requests for service > Server - fulfils the request

These terms were coined (long ago) by engineers to explain the subtle difference in system relationships to the non IT-literate, just as Male plugs & Female sockets were identifed thus for the actual illiterate a few centuries ago.

Re: Good riddance!

And here's me thinking you were the Philomena from the Feeny branch of O'Sophicals

8o)

yet again.

>>>we are committed to creating communities that are welcoming and inclusive<<< Except for anyone not using the latest edition of newspeak who should be shunned without delay.

I gave up on stack exchange when the advice I posted was edited to remove the actual recommendations (about a specific piece of hardware) because they were 'promoting a vendor'

In 21st-century tech dystopia, smart TV watches you, warns Princeton privacy prof

Re: re: Pi_hole

Indeed and they were only >>>Simulating Pi-hole's blocking<<< Wouldn't it be cheaper/easier to actually use a real one?

Ever own a Galaxy S4? Congrats, you're $10 richer as Samsung agrees payout over dodgy speed tests

Except that there are no legal requirements to be met for benchmarking phones unlike VW who intentionally broke laws and lied about it.

If the S4 had been pushing out a 2.4Ghz signal at 100w then this would be in Dieselgate territory.

Brighton perv cops community service for 'hacking' women's Facebook accounts

Re: Misread title

It's the truncheons that attract them

Careful now, UK court ruling says email signature blocks can sign binding contracts

Re: We have signed emails

That contract can stay on my desk ..for reference purposes obviously :o)

Re: Signature versus signature block

There are almost certainly grounds for appeal here,but the 'small' amount involved would make it a pyrrhic victory after paying the legal bills.

Pupil mental health monitor promises app rewrite after hardcoded login creds discovered

spouting the obvious here

>>>we started an investigation together with our third-party developers.<<<

Said third party being the cheapest they could find?

Hinkley Point nuclear power station will be late and £2bn over budget

Interesting...

£95 for future nuke elec & >>>currently in the region of £40 per megawatt-hour<<< so we're really paying through the nose at the consumer level.

lots of ofgem charts here > https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/all-charts

This one shows just how far off carbon neutral & renewables are from being the primary electricity source even with the slowly declining demand due to more efficient systems.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/electricity-generation-mix-quarter-and-fuel-source-gb

Time to start the next 2 or 3 base load nuke plants?

Every dog has its day – and this one belongs to Boston Dynamic's four-legged good boy Spot

Re: 14 Kg

That would be a Minimi and its 200 round box plus a spare barrel for the handler to swap over.

UK Supreme Court unprorogues Parliament

Re: Regardless of which side of the fence you are on.

There are also laws that apply only to the monarch which restrict their ability to perform actions such as turning up in the commons without an invite. Everyone else can just walk into the visitors gallery (the queue can be long, booking tickets is very much advised).

Re: Regardless of which side of the fence you are on.

If the court had pointed to the ballot box as a solution it would have been agreeing with the PM in the face of a parliamentary vote to the opposite - basically picking a side in the political debate.

Re: Regardless of which side of the fence you are on.

we can only hope..

Compulsory 'Political BS Doublespeak' spotting classes would be useful, as would actually learning to rationally debate issues without throwing insults.

Re: Damning...

We're back to parliament as it was in the 16^th C. with fluid alliances being formed around individual bills as they are tabled for debate. We're lucky the ancient laws & precedents brought into play through these court cases exist as I don't believe the current shower could come up with anything remotely similar.

The supreme courts judgement boils down to "You can close down parliament but not for this long"

If BoJo now steps down, the clock starts ticking for a forced election because I can't see anyone getting a majority in the house in the time allowed.

Re: Ignorantia juris non excusat

This level of p-taking is why I frequent the Reg :)

Boffins build a tiny nanolaser that can be inserted inside our cells

Re: Enquiring minds want to know:

IN their heads firing OUT from their eyes, crank the power up (it's all water cooled) and your laser sharks are now stealth laser sharks!

Alarmingly, Facebook needs more first-person shooter footage, US Energy dept buys AI-training chips, and more

Re: 46,000mm2 silicon die

Indeed, it requires a wafer slightly over 300mm across to fit. I'd suspect the chip (not really a 'chip', it's more like a slab) have been designed so failed sections can be bypassed up to a point.

Emergency button saves gamers from sudden death... of starvation

That could be a money spinner at these events.

There's never an empty bottle when you need one.

Those furious gun-toting Aussies were just a glitch. Let's try US drone deliveries, says Wing

Re: Soon-

Cheaper and cleaner to use hunter killer drones, fly above the delivery drone and drop something to tangle up the lift fans. no evidence of foul play at the crash site.

BOFH: What's the Gnasher? Why, it's our heavy-duty macerator sewage pump

Re: Colour me shocked...

I think in many places you'll still find that "A PC with a very custom board, ie. one that did does all the work, was is way more esoteric and completely unfixable"

Re: The Arch-BOFH?

Thats how Craggy Island does IT support!

Gasp! Google Chrome kills uBlock, Adblock ad filters – grab the pitchfo- no wait, it's OK: They were evil fraud clones

Currently there's no easy way to prevent these with the average user.

The name looks like what I was told to install - yes

Millions of downloads - yes

Appears to work - yes

Off the top of my head a unique ref. generated by the store and sitting above the name would help, we could then tell people to download the extension with ref xxxx - or is that too easy?

If Syria pioneered grain processing by watermill in 350BC, the UK in 2019 can do better... right?

Yes, humans have to work like that. but the machines can work flat out for far longer before crashing and then an identical one wheeled in as a replacement.

most business models > profit now = good / profit long term = meh

This image-recognition roulette is all fun and games... until it labels you a rape suspect, divorcee, or a racial slur

Garbage In - Garbage Out

As it has ever been.

But it will take this sort of exercise to get the point across to most people.

You can trust us to run a digital currency – we're Facebook: Exec begs Europe not to ban Libra

Backed by real money 1:1

Facebook taking real money deposits and then using its own made up currency for transactions, an excellent way for the proles to pay directly for more snooping.

That sounds like a bank to me and US banking regulators are not a group to annoy.

As a balance point a major credit card company (rhymes with Harclays) now pass customer details to social media sites so they can improve their service offerings push adverts to the customers who have opted out from direct marketing. I'll make a running guess they aren't alone.

Merchant Bankers - cockney slang for....

HP printer small print says kit phones home data on whatever you print – and then some

Par for the course?

I've always blocked my printers and anything else I didn't explicitly want to talk to the world.

Boffins build AI that can detect cyber-abuse – and if you don't believe us, YOU CAN *%**#* *&**%* #** OFF

Will this work with Euphemisms?

If not they might as well place the AI where the sun don't shine .

Icon for curry lovers.

Google age discrimination case: Supervisor called me 'grandpa', engineer claims

Re: Ahh...

With the bulk discount for quicklime and earnings from running a carpet disposal business the BOFH guide costs me only time to implement.

icon because this it the interwebs and too many people believe what they read.

Re: "Mendez boasted of his criminal connections"

one quick search > Ignacio Mendez legolabs > pops up his linkedin

I agree with Pascal on this sounding personal, sometimes people just don't get along with each other.

TBH. If someone tried to annoy/belittle me by calling me grandpa I'd be tempted to throw back a NSFW reference about their grandma.

First they came for 'face' and I did not speak out because I... have no face? Then they came for 'book'

The application is being considered

by the European Union Intellectual Property Office

I await their reply after they pick themselves off the floor and put dry pants on .

Au my bog: Bloke, 66, on bail after 'solid-gold' crapper called 'America' stolen from stately home

Re: Is it really art?

oh yes, defo still art and an excellent allegory for much modern art.

If one can afford such a device, one has a minion to read the news and another to wipe.

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google told: If you could cough up a decade of your internal emails, that'd be great

Harvesters harvested.

I do hope the email checking is done by the FBI with a little cross checking of phone records.

It'd be a shame to miss anything that should involve a judge.

UK Home Office primes Brexit spam cannon for a million texts reminding folk to check passports

Re: Everything under control

>>>demonstrated the competence to file a fraudulent expenses claim<<<

but dumb enough to get caught doing it?

COBOL: Five little letters that if put on a CV would ensure stable income for many a greybeard coder

CBM64 - COBOL compiler

Was I the only person who bought the Cobol compiler for the C64?

It was diabolical to use, even compared to the ancient data-general system at college.

Editor - Poor editing ability, I'm sure it turned off basic and inplemented a bare minimum entry system, strict columns were easy compared to trying to insert a line

Debug - code xx at line yyy

Compile - Just barfed at the first error (delete compiler output file, reload editor, save, reload compiler, repeat)

Link - max out the mem during the link process and its toast.

It really did push the 'plan first - in detail' approach.

Micro-fucus on a PC at Uni was a breeze after that.

700km on a single charge: Mercedes says it's in it for the long run

Re: 350kW!!!!

As current generating capacity, transmission networks & homes are built around the historical usage pattern that has been known for decades there is no way electric cars can be added to the mix without something major changing. Millions of kettles/toasters/cookers/showers will be used at both ends of the working day and cars will just have to avoid being charged at the same time.

Overnight charging (for those with off road parking) will have to be restricted to off peak hours for decades to come.

So there's no quick fix for a 1^st world middle class urban lifestyle with abundant available facilities for the current requirements without a total infrastructure overhaul.

Can anyone please give a realistic appraisal of how cities like Mumbai, Dhaka, Kinshasa & Lagos (about 50M people) could even begin to go electric in the next 50 years when they can't even manage sewage processing now?

There are 2 basic issues - (1) We have to remove 'fossil carbon' (coal & oil) as the planets primary power source. - (2) We can't stop 75% of the planet wanting (& trying very hard) to catch up with the lifestyle we've developed by using exactly that same 'fossil carbon'.

The only way I see these two being remotely reconciled by the 'balanced 2050 goal' is by building nuclear power plants (and that means western economies ponying up to build/run them in the 3^rd world) & producing synthetic oil & coal from the CO₂ we've been pushing out for centuries.

Once the planet CO₂ is stabilised we can then move onto replacing the carbon based fuels with clean alternatives.

Re: Reminds me of Henry Ford

and his other quote about the exhaust smoke & smell - ' They'll just blow away in the wind'

MIT boffins turn black up to 11 with carbon nanotubes that absorb 99.995% of light

Do the nanotubes wash off

Or have they turned A $2M Diamond into a very chique piece of coal?

Charmin'. Garmin admits customers' full credit card data nicked from South African web store

Assume the worst.

That the rest of their world stores (same actual backend system?) are all just as shoddy.

A statement announcing otherwise would be nice.

Just what we all needed, lactose-free 'beer' from northern hipsters – it's the Vegan Sorbet Sour

Re: Thick as a smoothie & sour?

with any luck.

France says 'non merci' to Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency

Re: Vive la france!!!

I trust me and er....