Posts by reubs007

Millions of age checks performed as UK Online Safey Act gets rolling

Re: Reform will get in and abolish this leakfest.

"That's been true for UK politics ever since Harold Wilson left office."

This is a lazy view of history. If you aren't Michael Foot or Jeremy Corbyn, you're a Tory?

The reality is that Blair and Brown poured vast sums of money into shattered public services and looked to address inequality with programmes like Sure Start. The NHS was in a terrible state in 1997 and when New Labour left office, waiting lists had been abolished. The UK got very close to full employment. There was so little homelessness that street teams were scratching around to find homeless people to help. Tax credits were a cleverly disguised expansion of the benefits system that helped the working poor. New Labour introduced the minimum wage despite bitter opposition from business and the Tories. Prior to that people could legally be paid £40 for a week's work. I could go on but you get the gist.

Are these all characteristic Tory policies?

Banning VPNs to protect kids? Good luck with that

Re: Private or Work?

Wouldn't this require global services like Reddit to restrict access to everyone using a VPN worldwide, in order to comply with UK legislation? By definition it's difficult to identify the geographic location of VPN users. Other jurisdictions aren't too keen on such extra-territorial reach, not least our American friends. Netflix is in a different boat because it's enforcing its own content licensing agreements.

Millions of smart meters will brick it when 2G and 3G turns off

Re: 2G or not 2G?

Good to hear that a piece of critical infrastructure is connected to networks with little or no security. A notable selling point of mechanical meters is they are 100% hacker proof.

Imagine if...

...this money had been spent on something simple and effective like a national home insulation scheme. That would also have avoided the government forking over billions to Shell etc to prevent people freezing to death due to extravagant gas prices.

Brexit border-line issues: Would you want to still be 'testing' software designed to stop Kent becoming a massive lorry park come 31 December?

Yes, apparently Cummings also has a brilliant plan to use state aid to bolster the UK’s tech industry. We used to call that picking winners. I wonder how many of the winners will be his mates?

Re: @Cederic - Stockpile your popcorn

Agreed. I mean the entire logistics and haulage industry is terrified about what will happen on the 1st January, but what do they know about moving food from A to B?

Re: Stockpile your popcorn

30% of the UK’s food supply comes from the EU. 11% comes from non-EU countries. Is your plan to quadruple the supply of food from non-EU countries overnight?

None of this food could travel through EU countries without reams of paperwork, checks and delays. Shipping food from places like Argentina obviously takes a while.

I assume therefore we are talking about a constant stream of planes bringing millions of tons of food into the UK from non-EU countries? Who is going to pay for all this?

We have literally just seen supermarket shelves emptied by panic buying and this was when there were no supply constraints.

Re: Stockpile your popcorn

Yawn. I still cling to the vague hope that we can have a debate based on facts and reason, especially since this is an IT publication. More fool me. Blah, blah, blah, £350mn a week for the NHS, Take Back Control, Get Brexit Done. Moronic slogans are no substitute for the complex, detailed work involved in moving to new trading arrangements.

Re: Stockpile your popcorn

The trading arrangements do not change until 1st January. The trading arrangements do not change until 1st January. The trading arrangements do not change until 1st January. Am I getting through to yet?

Of course they will be helpful! Yes, the UK has been telling EU member states to go **** themselves for four years, and comparing them to Nazis, but it was just classic British pub banter!

Blitz spirit!

My grandparents went through rationing and they loved it. I mean, we have far too much choice at the moment! Think how quickly you'll get round the supermarket when the only items available are turnips, potatoes and powdered eggs. And do people really need foreign medicines?! Cod liver oil made from British cods will do the trick!

China slams President Trump's TikTok banned-or-be-bought plan in the US

Re: Right

You have a point, but the US is accusing TikTok of funnelling valuable data to the Chinese Communist Party rather than justifying this ban on trade grounds. This seems a bit thin to me. How useful is a database of publicly available cat videos and paramedics doing dance routines?

One might speculate that bashing China is a convenient campaign strategy. Handily there is very little crossover between the TikTok and Fox News audiences.

Re: Fate of UK TikTok?

This is where my confusion lies. Huawei saga shows that the UK ultimately does what it's told by US (as has always been the case e.g. with the Iraq war). Given this, why isn't the UK kicking out TikTok's Chinese owners as well?

Fate of UK TikTok?

Apparently Microsoft intends to buy TikTok's operations in the US, Canada, NZ and Australia. What happens to the UK in this scenario? Will UK users be able to access US TikTok or will they be cut off? It will be a pretty thin experience with most English-language content removed. I'm not clear why MS wouldn't buy the UK operations too, not least given UK is the fifth Eye. Can anyone explain?

Analogue radio given 10-year stay of execution as the UK U-turns on DAB digital future

They have priming the pump for 20 years. The airtime the BBC used for DAB propaganda would have cost millions on commercial stations. Funny the BBC never mentions it these days. They relentlessly promote BBC Sounds instead, which is actually good and lives up to its promises.

Re: Crazy UK idiots...

TIL RealPlayer is still available!!

Re: Crazy UK idiots...

DAB was initially pitched as CD quality in the UK. What a joke! The BBC also hobbled its online streams for many years by sticking with RealPlayer, so that DAB sounded better by comparison.

Will someone please shoot this poor, dying horse?

My God, vast sums have been spent by successive governments and the BBC pushing this ancient, crappy tech. 25 years after the UK launch, and FM/AM *still* accounts for a greater share of radio listening. I imagine by 2030 this will be largely a moot point thanks to ubiquitous access to Spotify, podcasts, apps etc via 5G. Radio listening via online/apps is up from 11% to 14% of all radio listening just in the last year according to RAJAR.

Latest NHS IT revolution is failing to learn lessons from the last £10bn car crash

There are simpler ways to transfer public money to private companies

Rather than going through the rigmarole of creating yet another disastrous IT project, why not just give suppliers the money directly? I mean it's not like the NHS needs the money for more doctors, nurses or kit like ventilators. FFS.

The iMac at 22: How the computer 'too odd to succeed' changed everything ... for Apple, at least

Apple's saviour

It's important to remember what a mess Apple was in before Jobs' return. I had one of the last beige Power Macs. Indistinguishable from every other piece of beige kit out there. This was also the era of licensed Mac clones. Dreadful. Love or hate Apple, the iMac was a consumer product everyone wanted and you saw it everywhere. Gotta love Steve lauding the 33.6kbps built-in modem.

UK snubs Apple-Google coronavirus app API, insists on British control of data, promises to protect privacy

Re: Let's take our own, bespoke route.

Not to be naïve but I do think Apple is more trustworthy than Google. It’s business is built on hardware sales rather than flogging targeted advertising. A matter of degrees admittedly.

Following the science!

I’m surprised they didn’t trot out the usual BS about this app ‘following the science’. That’s the blanket excuse for screwing up every other aspect of our CV19 response. Next time can we follow another country’s science?

Microsoft attempts to up its Teams game with new features while locked-down folk flock to rival Zoom... warts and all

MS to buy Zoom?

I can't wait for MS to buy Zoom and make it tons better just like it did with Skype. Oh hang on...

Ofcom waves DAB radio licences under local broadcasters' noses as FM switchoff debate smoulders again

Tech equivalent of fracking

DAB reminds me of fracking. The state keeps trying to force it on people despite nobody actually wanting it. 53% of listenership after TWENTY FIVE YEARS of high pressure sales tactics. Give it up.

Autonomy paid its own customers to pump up revenues, claims HPE

I've lost the thread of this case. Did HP successfully sue its accountants/lawyers who did the due diligence on Autonomy and/or Autonomy's own auditors?

Click here to see the New Zealand livestream mass-murder vid! This is the internet Facebook, YouTube, Twitter built!

Re: Responsibility

I totally agree with this. I'd love to know how much the big tech companies spend on developing software for matching advertisers with users and content versus how much they spend on developing software for filtering out vile content such as this. I suspect the ratio is pretty appalling.

Windows XP point-of-sale machine gets nasty sniffle. Luckily there's a pharmacy nearby

Re: Yawn?

I sent in the pic because I thought it was mildly interesting to see an XP logo in the wild in 2019. I didn’t make any assumptions about anything. Why have a dig at me?