Posts by rjsmall

UK must give more to ESA to get benefits of space industry boom, says Brian Cox

Re: Um....

Although the ESA may have European in it's name it isn't an EU department / organisation - it exists outside of the EU. https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Corporate_news/ESA_and_the_EU#:~:text=ESA%20is%20an%20intergovernmental%20organisation%2C%20whereas%20the%20EU,aim%3A%20to%20strengthen%20Europe%20and%20benefit%20its%20citizens.

It makes sense to co-operate with them on scientific missions but it seems like commercial space is going to be dominated by private companies such as SpaceX or Blue Origin.

40 years ago, classified Shuttle mission foreshadowed Challenger's fatal flaw

Ellison Onizuka

Ellison Onizuka then had the misfortune to be on the Challenger mission that was lost. These stories demonstrate how what was portraited as a routine and safe launch vehicle was anything but.

Into the Black by Rowland White covers this and is a good read.

Public sector cyber break-ins: Our money, our lives, our right to know

Re: Contactless still down

As the contactless card section of their site is still down it is also not possible to claim back incorrect fares where you have been overcharged (usually a "failed to touch out" reason) many of which will probably be forgotten about by the time it is back.

I am amazed how long this has been out considered TfL isn't exactly a small transport operator. Wonder if their CTO and Business Continuity chiefs will get nice bonuses this year for good work in eventually restoring the service.

Watchdog reluctantly blesses Vodafone-Three merger – with strings attached

A bit two faced for BT/EE to be complaining about other operators merging when it was the result of BT and EE merging after Orange and T-Mobile had merged to form EE.

It might be more useful if the CMA applied some of the proposed merger conditions to all three of the resultant operators.

Crack coder wasn't allowed to meet clients due to his other talent: Blisteringly inappropriate insults

Re: What the ever-loving **** ?

Doesn't disappearing mid job defeat the purpose of the pair?

The Windows Control Panel joins the ranks of the undead

Never!

They'll have to pry the .cpl filenames from my cold, dead hands (or my rapidly fading memory).

San Francisco set to ban rent-hiking algorithms used by landlords

Re: I suppose...

In London the clean water system was privately built - the New River Company built the first clean water supply back in the 1600s. Water supply wasn't taken into public ownership until the early 1900s.

I think military / defence backing rather than government backing might be more accurate when it comes to backing.

XenServer is back, with a rebranded Citrix Hypervisor and a tasty three-host freebie

I've been using Citrix since Metaframe 1.8 and I always found Citrix licensing to be at least if not more complex than their products.

The end of classic Outlook for Windows is coming. Are you ready?

I'd actually say PST files are a must not for enterprises. From their introduction nearly 30 years ago they have been a dumping ground for messages that people "might need later" but in most cases were never looked at again. I dread to think how much storage space is wasted with these files.

With modern e-mail storage capacity, archiving and records management PST files don't really have a place in the enterprise.

Titanic mass grave site to be pillaged for NFTs

Nothing more than grave robbers

Simply trying to make profit out of misery. Shame we cannot send these people to have a close up look at the wreck without the aid of a submersible.

Infusion of $3.5bn not enough to revive Terra's 'stablecoin'

Re: The only downside

I think it was Warren Buffett who said that only when the tide goes out do you see who has been swimming naked. It is easy to cover things up when the market is buoyant and going up.

Lost your mouse cursor? Microsoft's PowerToys 0.55 has you covered – with a massive crosshair

IntelliPoint

I have the Ctrl option enabled in the mouse settings to help me find a missing cursor - I think that dates back over 20 years to the IntelliPoint software that came with the Microsoft branded mice. Still useful for multiple monitor set-ups.

Who you gonna call? Premium numbers, but a not-so-premium service

Wrong number

After the change from 0171 and 0181 to 020 there was no longer a differentiation between inner and outer London for the purposes of area codes. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Number_Change#Geographic_number_changes) There was also the addition of the 3 prefix for London phone numbers.

One of my very sad bugbears is companies still displaying their number as starting 0207, 0208 or 0203.

Europe completes first phase of silicon independence project

Re: Is this an EU or Europe thing ?

Wouldn't be the first time images have been etched on to silicon https://uk.pcmag.com/components/83424/cool-images-hidden-on-silicon-chips

Ooh, an update. Let's install it. What could possibly go wro-

Re: Windows NT 4 SP2

I still remember that NT4 SP2 bug as I was just starting my life as an IT professional circa late 1996. Luckily my senior IT bod and I only installed SP2 on our devices initially and I think it bluescreened when you tried to access the floppy drive. (which was quite important back then)

Fortunately Microsoft quickly released a hotfix (which was the first one I can recall) but a good lesson on ensuring you always deploy to test devices first.

Nextcloud and cloud chums fire off competition complaint to the EU over Microsoft bundling OneDrive with Windows

Wrong angle?

Not sure they are on the right track with accusing Microsoft of copying a competitors product and then bundling it. OneDrive grew out of Live Mesh which was released about a decade (or more) ago and then gradually morphed into a cloud based product once cloud storage became more accessible and home internet links faster and more reliable. Looking at Nextcloud's webpage they were established in 2016 so a little bold to be suggesting others were copying an existing product.

Possibly the bundling could be an issue but then again that could be said for Google Drive with Chromebooks and Apple devices with iCloud.

EU readies 'antitrust charges' against Apple Pay for locking rivals out of iPhone NFC chip

Re: While this is a real concern, it is only half the problem

That is correct - PSD2 mandates this. There is an exemption that allows you to make contactless payments without PIN but the maximum single transaction is £100. (just went up) If you make five contactless transactions in a row or a specific total is reached (not sure what it is now) then you need to enter your PIN.

With a Lidl bit of luck, this Windows installation will make it through the night

I recall that TV show

The was a UK version of The Mole on Channel 5 back in about 2001 and was a good concept. Unfortunately I think it got swamped by the mindless drivel that was Big Brother.

It's time to decentralize the internet, again: What was distributed is now centralized by Google, Facebook, etc

Re: Bullshit article premise

You may think you don't use any of these services but if you take a read through this article (https://gizmodo.com/i-cut-the-big-five-tech-giants-from-my-life-it-was-hel-1831304194) you'll find that they are hard to escape from.

Russia spoofed AIS data to fake British warship's course days before Crimea guns showdown

Re: To sadly turn this political

Unfortunately I think the US "pivot" towards the Pacific emboldened Russia whilst pissing off China. Although Russia might not have the latest military hardware they do have numbers and if you look at WWII they don't hesitate to use them.

Bye bye, said Trump admin to Huawei: You give a cheque-ie to our techies, but there's no licence to ply

I think in that case the US will probably just point to the Chinese disregard / theft of intellectual property and shrug.

Two wrongs don't make a right: They make a successful project sign-off

Talking of getting it wrong

Track and trace is what Royal Mail does with your post. Test and trace is the one the NHS does.

Hydrogen-powered train tested on Britain's railway tracks as diesel alternative

Tunnel in the bootnote

Not sure where the tunnel referred to is but the trains use a bridge at Blackfriars to cross the Thames. The city part of the route goes through some tunnels so I guess it could be one of the many subterranean London rivers but these are mostly in pipes now.

Apple, Google begin to spread pro-privacy, batt-friendly coronavirus contact-tracing API for phone apps

Has no-one thought of the children?

I am curious as to how any of these tracking / tracing apps are meant to account for primary school (or lower) aged children. Most of these children probably won't have their own device so isn't this a rather large chunk of the population (who are potentially very good at spreading the virus) that are going to be missed?

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

Re: "Only we guarantee Wi-Fi in every room"

"WFi extenders have existed since the Internet came into our home"

This makes me feel old as the internet first came into my home via a 14.4k modem. WiFi would have sounded like black magic back then.

HP to hike upfront price of printer hardware as ink biz growth runs dry

In fairness to HP if you use their InstantInk subscription service they provide a postage paid reply envelope to send the used ink cartridges back to them where they are presumably refilled or disposed of in an appropriate manner.