* Posts by MutantAlgorithm

22 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Oct 2020

Why should I pay for that security option? Hijacking only happens to planes

MutantAlgorithm

Re: Ah, yes. The dreaded "fix it NOW!" call ...

Don't know if it still works but, back in the day wrapping the phone in tinfoil (a good use for any scraps leftover from hat making) while switched on would mean anyone calling got the message 'it has not been possible to connect' instead of 'this mobile is switched off' so there was a plausible excuse that the signal had just dropped out.

Ceefax replica goes TITSUP* as folk pine for simpler times

MutantAlgorithm

Me too, long before the internet was a thing the live Test match scores were on page 341 and you'd wait for the page to tick over and the batsman's name to change colour to show a wicket had fallen.

Used to happen far to often when England were batting so, I suppose you could say, at least some things haven't changed!

Informatica UKI veep was rightfully sacked over Highways England $5k golf jolly, says tribunal

MutantAlgorithm

Gift value

In the Local Authority I worked in until recently the value was £20, anything above that had to be reported and was very rarely allowed.

Give us your biometric data to get your lunch in 5 seconds, UK schools tell children

MutantAlgorithm

Re: Nutshell

The problem with cards is that they'll get lost, likely multiple times a week if my teenagers are anything to go by! Carrying cash is a never going to be ideal so what are the other options...

I've covered IT for several schools that have used the Cunninghams fingerprint system and it's always seemed to work pretty well, as far as I can remember it didn't store the actual fingerprint, just encrypted info derived from it.

Who are shortages good for? The channel! World's biggest distributor forecasts tech price hikes from January

MutantAlgorithm

No margin increase matters if no sales!

"With supply shortages, you change the conversation with your customer."

All well and good but when the customers budget has also been squeezed then you just end up with them not being able to buy anything, an increased margin on no sale is still zero!

US Surgeon General doubles down on Facebook-bashing amid vaccination information blame game

MutantAlgorithm

Plus the more people who are infected the more chances it give for new variants to arise, possibly with the ability to bypass current vaccine immunity.

The lights go off, broadband drops out, the TV freezes … and nobody knows why (spooky music)

MutantAlgorithm

Re: Supply pipe location

Very similar thing happened to us with the gas supply in a rented flat back at the start of the millennium. We'd been "happily" paying British Gas for a year when we got a letter saying that they were sorry we were leaving them, when called they refused to say who were were supposed to have been moving to and queries to the National Grid gas people to find out which supplier claimed the pipes were ignored so in the end we gave up. We were in that flat for 7 more years and never received or paid a bill. When we moved I left a note for the new tenants explaining the situation and suggesting they just keep quiet so for all I know it's still happening!

The coming of Wi-Fi 6 does not mean it's time to ditch your cabled LAN. Here's why

MutantAlgorithm

Re: This months of work from home showed too....

I did the same to get a decent connection to my works machine at the other end of the house to the router.

My mistake was to buy a cheap pair (£30ish) at the beginning of lockdown which worked beautifully for a week and then started having sync issues almost every day. Junked those and spent £100ish on a TP-Link set later last year and they've been bullet proof ever since.

You'll never Guess whose data has been nicked as US fashion firm confirms systems breach

MutantAlgorithm

Why!

Forgive me if I'm missing something but they're a clothing company, what on earth are they doing collecting SSNs and driving licence details!?

Paper Tiger Lake? El Reg gets its talons on the first Intel Core i7 Honor MagicBook 14

MutantAlgorithm

Re: Civ XI !!!!

Too true, I got VI cheap from Steam a year or two back but very quickly got frustrated and have gone back to the comforting arms of IV.

Doggy DNA database adopted by Gloucestershire cops to bring crims to heel

MutantAlgorithm

Bonus

As a bonus it might help catch the buggers who don't pick up after their furry friends!

Hungover Brits declare full English breakfast the solution to all their ills

MutantAlgorithm

Don't get old!

The best way to avoid hangovers is to stay young! More years ago than I care (or can) remember a hangover used to last an hour or two tops, some tea, aspirin and a bacon sandwich and all was well with the world. These days a really good one can last easily 48hrs, filled with pain and self-loathing. Doesn't stop me though, which probably says something...

Space Force turtle expert uncovers $1.2m Cape Canaveral cocaine haul

MutantAlgorithm

Think it might have been Simon Drew

https://www.simondrew.co.uk/index.html

Linus Torvalds tells kernel list poster to 'SHUT THE HELL UP' for saying COVID-19 vaccines create 'new humanoid race'

MutantAlgorithm

Re: A new human race indeed

Don't forget it'll also make you magnetic! If nothing else it means we can stick ourselves to the 'fridge :-)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/hot-new-conspiracy-theory-vaccines-turns-you-into-a-magnet.html

UK Special Forces soldiers' personal data was floating around WhatsApp in a leaked Army spreadsheet

MutantAlgorithm

Re: "Who is General Fskup" ?

He's waiting for a report from Major Incident

UK data watchdog fines 'pandemic partner' biz £8k: It sent 84,000 marketing emails to people who'd given info for track and trace

MutantAlgorithm

Re: All marketing people are scum.

Nice! I'll give you that one :-)

MutantAlgorithm

Re: All marketing people are scum.

Obligatory Bill Hicks link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0

Bank of England ponders minting 'Britcoin' to sit alongside the Pound

MutantAlgorithm

The very next story on the Radio 4 news this morning was about the govt setting CO2 reduction targets! Although I suppose if we cover the entire country in windmills we might generate enough to cover our delightful Britcoins! At least we'll all be able to recycle all the copper we have lying about...

Microsoft announces a new Office for offline fans, slashes support, hikes the price

MutantAlgorithm

Re: I think. although maybe harsh

The free A1 education licence schools get gives all pupils access to the web versions of Word, Excel, Outlook etc, the A3 and A5 versions allow for download and install onto home machines. My older home PC is still running Office 2016 on a licence from when my daughter was at secondary school (she left 2 yrs ago) with no complaints!

Looking for the perfect Valentine's gift? How about a week of retro gaming BBC Microlympics?

MutantAlgorithm

Ah Chuckie Egg, still pretty much the only game I have ever completed. Given that it was about 35 years ago I don't think the muscle memory will remain enough to make it worthwhile entering the competition now!

As for the months and years I spent playing Elite and still never managed to make it to Elite level :-(

Much like the British on holiday, NHS COVID-19 app refuses to work with phones using unsupported languages

MutantAlgorithm

Re: What about multiple languages?

> Maybe they repurposed the summer school grades algorithm to try and get some actual use out of it after seeing the invoice.

There's still far too much work to do messing up next year's grades to have anything to do with this!

When you tell Chrome to wipe private data about you, it spares two websites from the purge: Google.com, YouTube

MutantAlgorithm

Re: "We asked Google for an explanation."

This was the premise of an excellent book by Daniel Pennac called 'The Scapegoat', well worth a read :-)