Posts by MarkTriumphant

Signals are grim for Jodrell Bank Observatory after UK science funding decision

Re: criminal

And if they did push back, you would complain about policy being set by the unelected civil service.

Google meets the neighbors and gets both barrels over its new UK datacenter

Re: actual physical footprint

What is the name of the place in Farnborough - I can only see BMW as I go past.

Law firm insisted on one password to rule them all

Re: Not just law firms, auditors and accountants too

When I used cheques, I would have the balance of my account written in the chequebook, and keep it updated. It meant I always knew how much I had available. There are much easier ways now, but back then it was the simplest way.

Datacenter MacGyver saved the biggest football match of the year

Re: "The Register's home nation – England"

Including this article. "After some quick napkin math..."

Microsoft accidentally kills epic Outlook email threads

Re: Testing, testing 1..2..3?

Been there, done that - in a company with 40,000 staff. I definitely learned no to do that again.

England's exam watchdog frets over smart specs turning GCSEs into Google searches

Re: Nothing new

> And teachers know which of their kids has a hearing disability. No requirement for them to remove it.

My hearing aids (age-related, but basically the same as disability-related versions) connect by Bluetooth to my phone. I certainly didn't know that before I had them.

Fewer than 3 in 10 register for HMRC's Making Tax Digital shake-up

Re: Rude

Nor is it a legal requirement to run a business.

Users fume at Outlook.com email 'carnage'

Re: Re : Car salesdroids get commission on the loan contract as well as on the sale

>> And look where that has ended up in the UK: a new round of ambulance chasers offering to chase compensation for mis-sold loans.

What is even more frustrating is that the loan companies in this one MUST contact people who they see as being owed money, so the ambulance chasers are less than necessary.

House of Lords votes to ban social media for Brits under 16

That does not square with comments I have seen elsewhere saying that VPN use has gone up, and kids are faking their age. Do you have a source for your information?

The Roomba failed because it just kind of sucked

Robotic lawn mowers also work well on our home lawn. Not needed 24x7, though.

Another open source project dies of neglect, leaving thousands scrambling

Re: Yeah, right

I saw the ellipsis at the end as indicating a joke, which is why I upvoted OP. However, in a medium a wide-ranging as ElReg, a joke indicator is probably needed.

'Fax virus' panicked a manager and sparked job-killing Reply-All incident

Re: Reply-all

As one of those who replied with the second option, the real thing to avoid is having read receipts requested. As it was a large company, 40,000 receipts later...

Marc Andreessen wades into the UK's Online Safety Act furor

I have a suspicion that we had such during WW2 (I honestly am not sure of that), but otherwise I think you are correct.

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

Re: Reform will get in and abolish this leakfest.

>> The covid vaccine procurement is still the undefeated argument

How so. Hungary did a similar thing from within the EU.

Banning VPNs to protect kids? Good luck with that

Re: 423K e-signatures - government response has already stated it has no plans to repeal the Act

Of course not, but he's still said it, and enough will believe him.

UK students flock to AI to help them cheat

When I type stuff in Word, it usually "autocorrects" my hyphens to em dash.

German court parks four Volkswagen execs in jail over Dieselgate scandal

Re: Now can we get these cars off the road?

Creating a new car to replace it would almost certainly be worse. Let them run to End of Life.

Official abuse of state security has always been bad, now it's horrifying

Re: @Doctor Syntax

I appreciate the comment. For clarity, the "Triumphant" bit is a reference to my motorcycle, not my capabilities :)

Re: @Doctor Syntax

They opted out of the EU vaccination arrangements.

See: https://dailynewshungary.com/hungary-opts-out-of-new-eu-vaccine-deal-with-pfizer/

It is also in the Financial Times, but paywalled, so I wasn't able to read it.

Re: @Doctor Syntax

Given that Hungary did something similar from within the EU, I cannot see how membership or not made any difference.

Re: @Doctor Syntax

From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit, it says 31 January 2020.

The same is said here: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7960/

Although there was the rest of the year as a "transition period", but we were not members.

Re: @Doctor Syntax

Not that I tend to support codemonkey, I do prefer stuff to be true. I was under the impression that we left the EU January 2020, which is before COVID was seen as a monster problem. Is this not so?

At no point did anyone say that it *only* appealed to xenophobic halfwits, merely that they were one of the targets. Your comment is very telling.

EU gives staff 'burner phones, laptops' for US visits

Re: RE: "backed a Sieg-Heil'ing Elon Musk"

Well if it wasn't that, what the fuck was it!?

EU lands 25% counter tariff punch on US, Trump pauses broad import levy hike – China excepted

Re: "Canada will become a US state"

This would seem to disagree with you:

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

Why users still couldn't care less about Windows 11

Re: Why change?

> Now they are also nobbling M365 subscription by forcing a huge price hike to include unwanted AI features I can see less and less reason to keep people on the system.

Apparently it is possible to go back to the original non-CoPilot subscription, but they keep it hidden. I'm still trying to work it out so that my renewal will still be at the old price.

Memories fade. Archives burn. All signal eventually becomes noise

I disagree about the grandchildren not caring. I have so many questions for my grandparents, but I can't as they've been dead for between 25 and 50 years.

The rest seems about right.

British Museum says ex-contractor 'shut down' IT systems, wreaked havoc

That is the reason that I have remained an employee for all of my working life. I know I could earn more, but mentally I could not do it. Fortunately for me, my wife has the right "head" for contract working, so we have the best of both worlds.

Shove your office mandates, people still prefer working from home

Re: English Law

I would like to see a source on that. Many comments in the LegalAdviceUK subreddit say the opposite.

Fear of Foxconn reportedly driving possible Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi merger

Re: computers on wheels

For some tasks, that is true. For several that I have tried on my car, it requires me to physically use the screen.

Ryanair faces GDPR turbulence over customer ID checks

Re: I never fly Ryanair

We have just holidayed in Japan, and were lucky enough to be able to fly business class with BA. Even that wanted us to pay extra to choose our seats.

UK's 'electricity superhighway' gets green light just in time for AI to gobble it all up

Re: Hmm

His LLB was from Leeds as well, and that one is "real".

Tesla that killed motorcyclist was in Full Self-Driving mode

Re: Heck; I can't even trust my Volvo

It was one of two things that I disagreed with when I did my Advanced Motorcycling. I see no reason why indicating should not be a reflex action. It does no harm to indicate unnecessarily, and it caters for the times that you do not realise that there was someone there to see it. It also means that it is one fewer thing to think about when driving, as it is automatic. Surely that is a sensible idea?

Here we go again. And again. Musk threatens to pull Twitter, SpaceX out of California

Re: "I've made many overtures...but she doesn't want to spend time with me."

My children are still my children, even though they have both been adults for more than a decade.

Speed limiters arrive for all new cars in the European Union

Re: Good

It was also mentioned when I did my advanced motorcycling course (although I have just realised that it was about 20 years ago, so it may have changed). The police rider who tested me said that I was not to look at my speedo when overtaking - that would obviously be more dangerous than just finishing the overtake.

Techie installed 'user attitude readjustment tool' after getting hammered in a Police station

Re: User attitude readjustment tool

Surely it is an ETLA?

Ten years ago Microsoft bought Nokia's phone unit – then killed it as a tax write-off

Re: "The... Maemo operating system failed to take off"

I loved my N9, and still miss its brilliant usability.

Tesla asks shareholders to reinstate Musk's voided $56B pay package

Re: Fuck that!

Surely bribery would make it illegal, and the law should be more important than the contract.

Simulation reveals all Japanese will have the same surname by 2531

Re: Don’t Call Them “Surnames”

I like and agree with your suggestion that family names could be written all caps. However, I do not see a problem with using "Surname". It does not mean last name, as you imply. It means family name, and has done so for several centuries. It may not be used in other cultures, but they are not generally speaking English, so use different words anyway.

Your pacemaker should be running open source software

Re: Certifications for Medical Devices

That would very much depend on being in the US. In the UK we say "Imperial" or "avoirdupois".

Need to plug in an EV? BT Group kicks off cabinet update pilot

Re: From what I can recall ....

To counter that, I have an EV, and I have only once in 15 months needed to use anything more powerful than 7kW. Even when travelling from Hampshire to Leeds, charging at the hotel was "slow". It worked fine.

Apple might have to pay that €13B EU tax bill after all

Re: Simple

That doesn't help at all. The company that I work for is headquartered in Liechtenstein, purely for tax reasons. It's shit.

UK throws millions at scheme to heat homes with waste energy from datacenters

Re: Assumptions

I upvoted you for the first part, but I don't think the second part is true - I think it is a good way to get money to their friends, so any side of government might do it.

Apple jacks prices to juice profits because $19.3B a quarter isn't enough

> One think I will give Apple is the upgrades. You change phone, it all comes across. Doing that with Android is no fun, even if the phone is from the same supplier

This has definitely improved. My last change, from a Samsung S8 to a Pixel 6a was painless. Everything just transferred across.

IBM Software tells workers: Get back to the office three days a week

Do you not have a timed on/off cycle as part of your heating controls? That seems fairly standard here.

But instead of the environmental cost of travelling, there is the cost of heating each workers home, so it is not a simple calculation.

Power grids tremble as electric vehicle growth set to accelerate 19% next year

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

The company that I work for provide chargers, although they are managed by an external company. I pay that company directly, so nothing on my payslip.

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I get about 3.6 miles/kwh from my i4, which is hardly a tiny car.

BMW deems drivers worthy of warmth, ends heated car seat subscription

The subscription items that don't have an ongoing cost to the supplier can usually be bought at a one-off cost. This is certainly the case for BMW. It is still a morally appalling way to "sell" stuff without mentioning it when selling the car.

I was under the impression that it is only hand-held devices that are illegal. The site you linked seems not well written, but it says "It is illegal to *hold* and use...".