I've just trademarked the term
Hobots
Posts by Red Bren
1649 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Oct 2007
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BAN the ROBOT WHORES, says robot whore expert: 'These AREN'T BARBIES'
The future of IT is – to deliver automation. Discuss
Tuesday 1st September 2015 11:48 GMT 
Automation is the history of IT
In a world run by accountants and lawyers, outsourcing is the future. All your company's existing processes get set in concrete. Enhancements require variations to the contract which cost more than the benefits. So the business ends up creating a shadow IT system using collections of excel spreadsheets that no one supports or understands because the people who wrote them have all left.
HAM IN SPAAAAAACE! ISS astronaut contacted by Gloucestershire bloke in garden shed
Buffoon in 999 call: 'Cat ate my bacon and I want to press charges'
Friday 31st July 2015 22:36 GMT
@ launcap Re: Too polite
"Can't decide whether this is satire, trolling or dumbness.."
Maybe a bit of all three? I did google before posting and found opinion to be divided* on the subject. Some results suggested cats can eat pork while others claimed it would cause them problems such as irritable bowel syndrome. My favourite theory was that pork tastes too much like human flesh and the manufacturers don't want cats to get a taste for it...
* A bit like global warming. So I stuck to my original preconceptions...
UK.gov wants to stop teenagers looking at tits online. No, really
A third of workers admit they'd leak sensitive biz data for peanuts
US State of Georgia sues 'terrorist' for publishing its own laws ... on the internet
SPLAT! STAR THWACKED, GUTS flung into space at 15 per cent of LIGHTSPEED
Beaten blokes hate the women who frag them in online games
High Court smacks down 'emergency' UK spy bill as UNLAWFUL
Friday 17th July 2015 11:37 GMT 
Rinse and repeat
"Emergency" legislation to legitimise illegal state surveillance has been deemed illegal. So we can expect more "emergency" legislation just before the deadline to try and legitimise it again. Rinse and repeat, but in the meantime the state continues to spy on you.
The court should have demanded immediate compliance until proper legislation was in place, with Home Secretary Theresa May and Chief Constables facing jail time for contempt of court in the event of non-compliance.
Google robo-car in rear-end smash – but cack-handed human blamed
Friday 17th July 2015 21:34 GMT 
As this is Google...
Are the Google cars recording every interaction they have with other vehicles? Every failure to indicate, every red light jumped, etc? How long before you can google the registration of the arsehole who cut you up this morning, find out where they tend to be a given time and go offer them some helpful driving advice? How long before Google cars will adapt their driving style based on the history they have collected for the registration plates of the surrounding vehicles? How long before they start taking revenge...
The Great Barrier Relief – Inside London's heavy metal and concrete defence act
On yer bike: Hammerhead satnav for cyclists – just don't look down
Sunday 12th July 2015 14:37 GMT
Re: Rules are for you too.
In my neck of the woods you get 2 or 3 motorist jumping the red light with every change. That's pretty much 100% offending rate. I've even had impatient arseholes behind me sounding their horns when I've stopped at the red that they were planning to jump after me!
So, one anecdote all.
Oxford Uni unearths 800-year-old document to seize domain names
Smart Meter biz case still there, insists tragically optimistic UK govt
Wednesday 8th July 2015 12:05 GMT
@Ledswinger: Smart meters in "dumb"
British Gas recently replaced my mechanical meter with a digital one. I repeatedly refused to accept a smart meter so they fitted a "dumb" one; it even described it as such in the work sheet they left me. Is there any way of telling if I've been duped with a dormant smart meter that could get reanimated at a later date?
Mars rover Opportunity shuns dodgy flash chips, relies on RAM
iPhone case uses phone's OWN SIGNAL to charge it (forever, presumably)
Boffin: Will I soon be able to CLONE a WOOLLY MAMMOTH? YES. Should I? Hell NO
Sky bangs on Ofcom's door – demands BT competition probe
Monday 29th June 2015 21:30 GMT 
Breaking up is never easy
When the wholesale arm of a company sells a service that is consumed by the retail arm and its competitors, there's a disincentive to price the service competitively, because the losses of the retail arm are recouped by the wholesale arm, while the competition (and new entrants in particular) are priced out.
So BT should be broken up. Without the disincentive, Openreach will push its service to as many takers as it can, to maximise its ROI, while BT Retail will have to compete on price and customer service, instead of having relying on holding a virtual monopoly.
And Sky should be broken up for the same reason. It has a long track record of using exclusive content to attract punters to its platform, or overcharging other platform operators to show its channels. Split Sky into a content arm and a platform arm, and the content will be pushed to the widest possible audience, while the platform arm will have to innovate to differentiate itself from BT and VM.
Chair legs it from UK govt smart meter installation programme
Thursday 2nd July 2015 20:42 GMT
Re: The benefit is to the electricity company
"There will be some 'green' types who will assiduously study their smart meter and end up doing the laundry at 3am"
They will be wasting their time if they do. When my supplier tried to push a smart meter on me, I asked if there would be a price difference between peak and non-peak periods (like a more fine-grained Economy 7) but was told no, the unit price was the same no matter what time of day you were using it.
Thursday 2nd July 2015 20:33 GMT
Re: Correction
Or to look at it another way, "As we know from bitter experience, big businesses are not good at big projects, but CEOs know how to hide bad news just long enough for their share options and huge pension entitlements to mature. Then they disappear into the (tax haven) sunset before the truth is uncovered and the company collapses, or gets a state bailout.
MILLIONS of broadband punters aren't getting it fast enough – Which?
Thursday 18th June 2015 22:37 GMT
> And herein lies the problem. The speed you see on the headline is UP TO - that's UP TO, not "You'll get this speed". When people begin to understand what "up to" means, then people will quit moaning.
No herein lies the problem. The amount you see on the bill is the headline price - not UP TO this price. When BT et al start billing customers for the service actually delivered, rather than headline price for a fraction of the headline speed, then people will quit moaning.
Climate change alarmism is a religious belief – it's official
Thursday 18th June 2015 22:06 GMT
Re: Read the whole thing
> Having made the whole planet reformatting a bit of it isn't much of an ask is it.
Didn't he do some kind of wipe and refresh using 40 days and nights of rain, with a couple of backup copies of his favourite things in a waterproof container?
I'm going to start quoting Eddie Izzard again...
Config file wipe blunder caused deadly Airbus A400M crash – claim
Swordfish fatally stabs man after man stabs, fatally, swordfish
The 'echo chamber' effect misleading people on climate change
Creationist: The Flintstones was an accurate portrayal of Dino-human coexistence
Wednesday 27th May 2015 22:01 GMT
Re: Hmm...
"There’s a huge hole in the whole Flood drama, because anything that could float or swim got away scot-free, and it was the idea to wipe out everything, He didn’t say, “I will kill everything, except the floating ones and the swimming ones, who will get out due to a loophole." - Eddie Izzard, Glorious.
Heroic German rozzers rescue innocent lamb from sordid brothel
Massive police 'heavy equipment' robot drags out suspect who hid inside television
Scot Nationalists' march on Westminster may be GOOD for UK IT
Tuesday 12th May 2015 13:34 GMT
Re: Leaving the EU
"all those in a position to influence the decision, from the EU President downwards, agree that a newly independent Scotland would have to reapply to join the EU"
But that was on the basis of Scotland seceding from the UK and its treaty obligations. In the event of the English voting "out" in an EU referendum and the Scots, Welsh and Irish voting "in", England could effectively have to secede from the UK while Scotland, Wales and NI would inherit the EU membership?
Lies, damn lies and election polls: Why GE2015 pundits fluffed the numbers so badly
Monday 11th May 2015 17:49 GMT
Re: a 48 year-old writes
"the UK has a tendency towards Conservative government"
Is this just a reflection of human selfishness, or getting more right wing as you get older? You start off young and poor so you vote Labour, but once you start climbing the economic ladder, you don't want to pay to support the less fortunate below you so you vote Tory?
Mildly successful flying car crashes - in mildly successful test flight
Monday 11th May 2015 12:11 GMT
@Shaun 2
"Combined with some explosive blots to rid the weight of the wings/engine/luggage, then maybe?"
Who would be in charge of jettisoning the wings/engines/luggage? The pilot and copilot may agree that the aircraft is doomed and press the emergency button, but what about the orphanage/kitten sanctuary/financial services hub* in the path of the flaming debris? Will the button refuse to operate over populated areas? A doomed pilot may still have enough control to heroically ditch the aircraft where it will minimize ground casualties, but given an escape route, may decide to save themselves! (Apologies, I'm doing pilots an incredible dis-service to make my point)
* People have different priorities for completing "Won't someone think of the...?"
Round Two in Sky vs Skype trademark scrap goes to Murdoch's men
Good luck displacing Windows 7, Microsoft, it's still growing
Sunday 3rd May 2015 23:39 GMT
Re: You listening Microsoft?
New PCs will come with some hardware that old versions of Windows won't support. Or the latest version of your business critical app will only work with the latest version of Windows. Or the fix for some newly discovered exploit that's been a ticking timebomb in the code base since 3.11 is not going to get back-ported to XP.
You're on the upgrade treadmill and you're going to get milked.
Tesla reveals Powerwall battery packs for homes, Powerpacks for cities
Apple Watch HATES tattoos: Inky pink sinks rinky-dink sensor
MAYHEM in ORBIT: Russian cargo pod spins OUT OF CONTROL
Surveillance, broadband, zero hours: Tech policy in a UK hung Parliament
Friday 24th April 2015 21:53 GMT
Re: Zero-hour is an arbitrary limit
There's no need to ban zero-hours contracts, just enact a law that all overtime (the hours worked over your contracted hours) must be paid at double the hourly rate. If you're on a zero hours contract, you're going to be earning at least double the minimum wage rate.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
