Posts by Phones Sheridan

Australia to force Google and Facebook to pay for news and reveal algorithm changes before they whack web traffic

Re: If you don’t want your site indexed

Robots.txt is about as useful as a sign that says “Beware of the leopard”

Microsoft runs a data centre on hydrogen for 48 whole hours, reckons it could kick hydrocarbon habit by 2030

Hold on, the tanks on the left have a fence behind them, and bollards in front. I want to see how they the trailer there!

Only EU can help us, pleads Slack as it slings competition complaint against Microsoft Teams

Re: Slackbot is the worst

"doesn't force people to use it."

I wasn't asked to install it, nor did I set it to auto start, but one day it suddenly appeared, and opened itself up on everyone's machines as they started their PC in the morning.

Apple was the only Fortune 50 company to foresee COVID-19 pandemic risk and properly insure against it – Forrester

I remember an interview with Eddie Izzard where he said mankind was incapable of processing calamitous tragedy. His quote went something like "100 thousand people died, er...... well done". Basically if something is so high on the scale of tragedy, we can't process or plan for it, or even believe it will happen, because it's so bad.

I remember for the last decade reading about doctors saying there is going to be a respiratory epidemic or flu soon that will kill hundreds of thousands, to millions. And now here it is.

I also remember for the past decade hearing how Yellowstone Park is over due for it's every-600,000-years-like-clockwork eruption which will kill millions, or that Tenerife is overdue with it's every-10,000-years landslide, which causes a tidal wave travelling at supersonic speeds washing over most of europe with a 1000 foot deep wave.

We're just going to keep ignoring warnings, because we'd probably turn into quivering wrecks if we realise just how fragile society and life actually is.

Or maybe Michael Gove was correct, "I think the people of this country have had enough of experts"

After six months of stonewalling by Apple, app dev goes public with macOS privacy protection bypass

“he doesn't intend to participate in the future”

He’s just answered the question of why are Apple not responding. If bug reporters give up and go away, then there must be no bugs to report. Look at our highly secure program. No one is finding any bugs in it!

You wait ages for a mid-air collision spoofing attack and along come two at once: More boffins take a crack at hoodwinking TCAS

So all a miscreant needs is a hacked DJI Phantom with a max flying height of 19000 feet, an FCPGA powered transponder on board or possibly one powered by a PI running a C++ app, and if they get it close enough to a jet they could con it into taking a dive to avoid a crash. Wonderful.

I wonder how eager the aeroplane manufacturers were to let these guys at the system, of if the security testers had to gain access via other means.

Detroit cops cuffed, threw a dad misidentified by facial recognition in jail. Now the ACLU's demanding action

Re: The problem is not the AI, it's the police

Exactly the same thing kept happening to Hilton McRae after appearing in the The execution of Gary Glitter fake documentary. He kept facing attacks in the street from enraged lynch-mob TV viewers unable to distinguish his acting performance from reality.

One year ago, Apple promised breakthrough features to help iPhone, iPad, Mac owners with disabilities. It failed them

I think the lack of progress can be down to disabled people not being the target demographic of Apple. Apple shiny’s are a lifestyle statement. “Look at me, everything is beautiful, and so am I and my Apple, were perfect!”.

To develop tools for the disabled is a passive admission that not everyone is perfect, and that some people need additional functionality to perform tasks. Apple on the other hand like to brag how they specialise in reducing tasks to a minimum compared to other platforms, they use it as a selling point.

If they start to offer additional functionality for disabled users, and it works, then you can bet that it will work just as well for the non-disabled and they will start to use it. Then suddenly apples minimalistuc UI is no longer it’s selling point. Better to do nothing and hope disabled customers go somewhere else and stop making the brand appear ugly.

Me cynical? I’ve found that with Apple I’ve never managed to run out of it. The cynicism just keeps flowing.

Apple says if developers are unhappy with its App Store decisions, it will entertain appeals against its rulings – and even its own rules

My cousin Vinney.

“That is a lucid, intelligent, well thought out objection..... Overruled!”

The above will be the template all appeals will follow.

https://youtu.be/7DpMwDgxC-I

Ex-barrister reckons he has a privacy-preserving solution to Britain's smut ban plans

Playground swapping

This would just force kids to go back to the playground disk-swapping of the 90s, or even a resurgence of the skin-mags. Kids that want porn will find a way even if it's searching through the bins of news-agents for the coverless throw-aways. I know I did!

NASA scientists mull sending a spacecraft on a 13-year mission to visit Neptune's 'bizarre' moon, Triton

"How could an ancient moon six times farther from the Sun than Jupiter still be active?,"

The answer’s simple....

That’s no moon!

https://youtu.be/8Nho44lGVV8

58 Starlinks scattered across sky, Rocket Lab aims for back-to-back launches, and Skyrora hops 6km above Shetland

A quick google answers my question. They were using 301, which has less corrosion resistance than 304, a higher tensile strength, but less ductility. It's also a lot cheaper. So they've solved the problem by spending a bit more money :)

It would be interesting to know what material they have made the switch from. If it was 316ti, then they have sacrificed corrosion resistance and a bit of tensile strength for increased ductility and weldability, i.e. it can be deformed more before failure and the welds are more likely to hold. Not to sure about making their own alloys though. We pretty much know how all the various grades of steel perform in pretty much all circumstances now and it's been a long time since anyone came up with a new steel alloys. We've had improvements in Armox, Hardox Strenx and the third party compatibles, but they tend to be incremental improvements after a 10 year development cycle, i.e. the last Armox improvement reduced the thickness of 9mm material down to 6mm over 10 years while maintaining the same ballistic resistance and relative weight. Then again some bright spark might have had the idea to solve a problem with a new material, and patent the results to block out all the other Thunderbird 3 wannabes.

You know Facebook has an image problem when major nonprofits start turning down donations over political lies

"What to do if there's a second lockdown"

I was thinking create a library of photographs of beauty spots and beaches, then posting them every couple of days onto social media to give the impression that I'm in the middle of a world trip. The curtain twitching daily mail readers would be frothing at the mouth, spamming their report buttons and dialling 999 repeatedly if the current lockdown is anything to go by.

Microsoft tweaks its 'New Outlook' for Mac – but no support for Exchange on-premises yet

Re: Is screen real estate really so unimportant to these UI designers?

Yes but these are Mac users. They don't do "actual" work. The boxes just sit there on or around a desk looking pretty while their owners drool over pictures of the next upcoming iphone.

What could possibly make a cranky crocodylomorph more terrifying? How about one that chases you on its hind legs?

Re: "consistent with terrestrial or semi-terrestrial adaptation"

I for one welcome our new 140 million year old reptilian overlords!

Micros~1? ClippyZilla? BSOD Bob? There can be only one winner. Or maybe two

Missed "Crash Gordon" in the original comments

Might be showing my age, but maybe Crash Corrigan!

Micros~1 for some reason reminds me of when Lindows renamed itself Lin---s (pronounced Lindash) after being sued by MS, and MS sued again anyway because Lin was 66% similar to Win, or some other such stupidity.

You can't have it both ways: Anti-coronavirus masks may thwart our creepy face-recog cameras, London cops admit

Lookie likey

This co-incides with a thought I had yesterday about a business selling facemasks that had a picture of a celebrity from the top of the nose down printed on it. If you had a similar hairstyle, or wore sunglasses and a cap then at first glance you would appear like the celebrity of your choice to passersby as they passed you at 2 meters whilst exercising. A few hundred Ariana Grande's and David Beckhams walking round town during the day would really screw up their database.

That icon cos it looks like a facemask. Hmm I might just print one out!

Surge in Zoom support requests was 'unexpected', says tool team as it turns taps down

Re: Modify your audio settings when not in a meeting...

Up on the top right, click on the little grey cog, then "Audio" then you can select your microphone.

If you say "click on settings" when dealing with non-technical types, 99.9% of the time the person you are trying to help, is looking for the word "settings".

Go on, hit Reply All. We dare you. We double dare you. Because Office 365 will defeat your server-slamming ways

Re: One company I worked at found a different solution

You must have worked at the same place as me, cos I removed the button from everyone's Outlooks the day an email that should never have left the 4 walls of the company I worked for, ended up in the inbox of a supplier. Luckily the sender of the email belonged to the C department, so it really was his fault he didn't look who had ended up included into this email-storm that had been brewing over the best part of a day.

What do you call megabucks Microsoft? No really, it's not a joke. El Reg needs you

Almost 365

I'd call it Almost 365. Because it's never quite achieved it!