* Posts by Stevie

7282 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2008

Post-Brexit five-year UK work visas planned – report

Stevie

Bah!

Difficult to see how any Bright Young Thing could resist such attractive terms. I guess the government is hoping that the rest of Europe will take a leaf from Britain's Big Book of How To Do It and zone up in like manner, removing other options from the talent pool's visual field.

Hmm. Special talents in the digital tech sector will have other options, eh?

Here's a thought: What happens if the next big tech revolution isn't digital in nature? What if the Next Big Thing is, say, some sort of game-changing biological or bio-mechanical thing? Targetable smart nanobots for just-in-time tissue repair (where that isn't already done by nature), or neural tissue regeneration say? Or new materials science? Or any of the bajillion other non-computer-related advances one cares to notice happening in the world?

This whole JuJuFlop stinks of the 1970s approach to encouraging electronics industry investment in the country.

Softbank gros fromage: ARM will knock out a trillion IoT chips by 2040

Stevie

Bah!

Soon all your chip fab machine tool are belong to lightbulb.

Licence-fee outsourcer Capita caught wringing BBC tax from vulnerable

Stevie

Bah!

Coo! Who could have predicted that putting a fixed bounty on the heads of potential offenders could ever result in gross abuses by the headhunters?

That's never happened before.

The last time El Reg covered IBM Domino we used a chisel

Stevie

Re: I feel the same way about the ribbon bar

Me too.

Stevie

Re: It's still good, but died because no one understood it

I found the plethora of teenytiny iconized buttons that confronted me on every screen to be confusing and annoying.

And no Y2K problem? You are aware it is 32 bit architecture aren't you? In another 21 years you're gonna see all sorts of argh! thanks to the libraries of stuff still floating around in spite of all the hardware upscaling and en-niftifying.

And before you say "not possible" I'd like to point out (again) that I was roundly mocked and laughed at when, as a trainee, I asked whether we should be sticking the century into our database back in 1978, because "everyone knew" the programs wouldn't still be running 22 years later ...

I want it hot and wet – preferably with Wi-Fi

Stevie

Re :So - that'll be all of Coventry then?

Nah, sounds like the town end of the Foleshill Road, or maybe Hillfields near the canal, but then I haven't been back since 1990. I tried "driving" around West Orchard and New Union Street using Google Earth, but they'd changed so much of the place I got well lost.

I rather miss the old place to be honest. Tons better than any of the many places I did contracts in in the early eighties, and I hear they now have one more Cathedral than Liverpool does.

Then again, I'd have been happy to stay in Norwich, where I did my degree, if I'd been able to find a paying job. The apple blossom around their cathedral in spring was nothing short of amazing and they were proud of having a pub for every day of the year.

These days I'm stuck in New York which used to be out-and-out amazing but isn't any more. Lots of WiFi. Pseud Coffee shops anywhere you care to notice. But less "Oomph" than twenty years ago.

I must be looking for different things than you lot. Large world.

Stevie

"I don't think I've been in a café like that since about 1968."

Mac's Caf on the Yarmouth Road just outside Norwich, late at night, for a chip buttie in 1977.

1/3 of a French loaf, buttered properly, filled with dripping-fried hand cut chips like wot mum used to make and all the local color you could want.

Anna mugga proppa builder's tea.

How to nuke websites you don't like: Slam Google with millions of bogus DMCA takedowns

Stevie

Re: There may be an easier way...

Trudat.

Repeatedly crashed my safari browser on my iPad and locked up my Raspberry Pi for ages on every page load.

Analytics or adverts uckfup?

(And yes I know there's an app but it is manifestly not fit for purpose, unconfigurable for handedness, infected with screaming flasho-banners and just all-round annoying. I deleted it months ago after finding no route to get feedback to the "coders" responsible for it.

Boffins exfiltrate data by blinking hard drives' LEDs

Stevie

Bah!

Now they're just taking the piss, right?

LOST IN SPAAAAAACE! SpaceX aborts Space Station podule berthing

Stevie

Bah!

Prediction: arithmetic error due to poor choice of intermediate data type or lack of acumen when it comes to figuring out where to put the decimal point, to be covered up and reported as "transient firmware issue due to cosmic rays".

That, or someone used the wrong editor to open the python.spaceranger module and screwed up all the leading whitespace.

Thrrrrp! 8op 8ob 8op

Ah, the Raspberry Pi 3. So much love. So much power ... So turn it into a Windows thin client

Stevie

Bah!

S'one way to break a perfectly good computer I s'pose.

HP Ink says ink sales are down but PC sales are up, up, up!

Stevie

Re: Brother Lasers

Agree. I have refilled my "starter" cartridge three times, and converted it to standard use with a kit too.

Once I added in the "disbelieve out of toner claims" configuration change I started getting upwards of 400 extra double sided B&W documents per filling.

I used to be able to zap C-80 Epson carts too, and could get as much as 1/3 more use out of them as a result, but my later generation Artisan 810 model uses carts whose countdown-to-whine-time chip actually self destructs when it hits the magic number to defeat customer zappage and ekeage.

More brilliant Internet of Things gadgetry: A £1,300 mousetrap

Stevie

Bah!

Trap consists of mouse-sized xbox hooked up to the web, and a big plate of hot dogs, pizza and choccy bars. Mouse dead of cholesterol poisoning in three hours.

If you are baiting a trad trap, peanut butter works much better than cheese and if you deploy glue traps the caught rodents are easiest put out of their misery by drowning them in a water-filled baggie.

Death to mice in the house. Filthy animals. Will sit in a bucket of birdseed pissing on the stuff as they eat it (so much for *that* myth about animals being better than people).

Ex-employees sued for £15m over data slurpage ordered to pay up just £2

Stevie

Bah!

You should never retain the services of Sir Joshua Hoot when trying a case against Mr Albert Haddock under the watchful eye of Mr Justice Swallow.

BBC admits iPlayer downloads are broken

Stevie

Bah!

Turns out there was a loose valve that needed re-seating and the cat's whisker was broken.

Blundering Boeing bod blabbed spreadsheet of 36,000 coworkers' personal details in email

Stevie

Bah!

Wouldn't care to be a salesdrone trying to shift that software afer this own goal.

'Hey, Homeland Security. Don't you dare demand Twitter, Facebook passwords at the border'

Stevie

Re: Name _ONE_ country where non-citizens

Non citizens of the US do not have "the same rights" as citizens.

But insofar as they do have rights, Canada springs to mind as a country with a more enlightened policy and laws when it comes to "undocumented" aliens.

The term "illegal immigrant" can cover many bases you are seemingly not aware of. For example, under current draconian interpretations, an I-95 that takes too long to undergo a change of status* INSIDE THE GOVERNMENT MACHINE can stick a former legal immigrant in a very dodgy place.

Ask me how I know this.

* needed to rectify a situation created by a pissy Immigration Official who was having a bad day when the holder came through the gate, otherwise unencumbered with issues, and therefore decided that the holder of a brand new six month H1 Visa should only have a ONE month stay despite clear proof of employment beyond that date and an embassy-issued document "covering" the actual requirement

L'Internet des objets: French firm Sigfox inks deal with Telefonica

Stevie

Le Bah!

Nom d'une pipe!

Gulp! Drones dodge spray from California's gaping moist glory hole

Stevie

Bah!

Video ruined as per Yootoob standard with choice of music. Drone use appears to go with Tin Ear.

The close-up of the vortex begged for the original Dr Who theme as accompaniment.

'At least I can walk away with my dignity' – Streetmap founder after Google lawsuit loss

Stevie

Bah!

Arguing that Google Maps aren't OS maps sort of misses the point: Google recognized that in the Smartphone Era, traditional map-reading was going to be increasingly irrelevant to the average user, since the ability to read the map would take second place to a GPS app and a street view enabling one to see what the place looked like before actually going.

One could argue that Google Maps and Streetmap were designed for different audiences and perhaps different purposes altogether.

Stevie

The journalist who went down to the High Court

But did you get there by using Google Maps or Streetmaps, "gazthejourno"?

NASA extends trial of steerable robo-stunt kite parachute

Stevie

Bah!

According to the notes in the little book that came in my Revel Mercury/Gemini 1/48 scale kit set back in 1969, this idea dates back to Project Gemini.

It would have been deployed there and used to land capsules on a runway had Project Apollo not been prioritized in the face of aggressive rooskie space-posturings thereby sucking up all the dollars. Apollo was based around earlier Project Mercury ideas on landing, involving round parachutes and landing ass-backwards into an ocean.

Hacking group RTM able to divert bulk financial transfers with malware

Stevie

Re: TEXT files!!

No, it's okay, because all the Russian files are encoded in a scheme called Cyrillic, which has gibberish plaintext with backwards letters and stuff.

Oracle teases 'easy-to-absorb' platform updates, wants 'all' your infrastructure biz

Stevie

Re: The worlds fastest cpu

Yah, I sat through a Sun presentation with marketers drooling about "Eight Ex" performance gains over IBM Power Series.

Everyone else oohed and ahed. I was watching the slides and saw the actual metrics. "EX" wasn't equivalent to "times" by any stretch of the imagination (though it was fast).

Did Oracle just sign tape's death warrant? Depends what 'no comment' means

Stevie

Re: Obituary

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck full of tapes barrelling down the freeway".

Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 3rd Ed, 1996

Dead cockroaches make excellent magnets – now what are we supposed to do with this info?

Stevie

Bah!

In other news, still no Rocketboots with an altimiter in the heel, no Universal Sniffle-Disease Beater, no flying car.

Stupid "scientists".

Zuckerberg thinks he's cyber-Jesus – and publishes a 6,000-word world-saving manifesto

Stevie

Bah!

I was with you right up to the point where you started mocking the 15 million.

Remind me: how much did the Register raise for the same relief effort?

A webcam is not so much a leering eye as the barrel of a gun

Stevie

Bah!

When my computer is idle I like to point the webcam at a detail from the Meddle album cover and run an mpg of a tinny mix of Hey Mickey on infinite loop. Anyone trying to catch a glimpse of the Steviebod will pay for the privilege.

FAKE BREWS: America rocked by 'craft beer' scandal allegations

Stevie

Re: Fake beer?

I was weaned on Carling Black Label. Tasted of nasty.

You know IoT security is bad when libertarians call for strict regulation

Stevie

Bah!

Whereas I am coming to the opinion that what is needed is a small team of government funded hackers to bork all consumer products that fail to secure their nettyness, along with shills to talk up those brands on teh intarwebs making a serious commitment to proper IoTat securage.

Reasoning: If someone buys a baby alarm and babycam that is insecure, they will most likely not know and not care when told. If the said device breaks down they will buy another. After the third breakdown they will buy a better brand and one-star the offender on Amazon. When they come to buying a better brand, there will be an undercurrent of opinion planted out there to guide their uneducated selection.

Yes it is sinister and has serious flaws. But we already lost DNS to the lightbulb and babycam army once. How about we get fucking serious about changing the cheap-and-careless culture before something extremely inconvenient is perpetrated.

GitLab invokes the startup defence to explain data loss woes

Stevie

4 Wolftone

"They offer an offline version"

Isn't that just git?

Vinyl, filofaxes – why not us too, pleads Nokia

Stevie

Bah!

I hated that phone.

Great reception, possibly the best I ever had, but the interface was complete bollocks, especially for the in-car user. Took forever to find my own phone number in the damn thing too (I'm one of those people who cannot remember their own cell phone number to save my life).

Nokia should have made the screen a "press to pick up/hang up" button - with mechanical movement, not touch sensitive - too.

On mine the screen started to grow digital moss before the phone was out of contract, so I treat the "indestructible" label with a pinch of salt.

Motorola always had he easiest user interface in my experience, but the reception was terrible.

Now of course the perceived wisdom is that people don't care about actual phone call quality so it is pants no matter which brand you go for or how many hundreds of dollars you are willing to fling at the vendor.

Republicans send anti-Signal signal to US EPA

Stevie

4 Platypus

When it comes to the Signal/Confide question I was originally on the Signal side, but now I'm looking at Confide. I'm for the solution both sides want.

UK credit broker fined £120k for spamming folk with five million texts

Stevie

Bah!

"“We are sorry that a reported 0.03 per cent of recipients found the SMS marketing messages from our appointed affiliate management company last year unwelcome enough to complain to the proper authorities, despite us having conducted appropriate due diligence before they proceeded with their marketing. We remain determined to operate at all times within both the spirit and the letter of the law and best practice.”"

Fixed it for you, you spamming bastards.

Global IPv4 address drought: Seriously, we're done now. We're done

Stevie

Re:It's the Esperanto of the Interwebs!

If only ...

Esperanto actually makes life simpler.

But you have to overcome a century of FUD (large amounts of it French in origin for reasons having to do with Charlemagne and the diplomatic service) to discover that. Stalin was reportedly terrified of it. A language that could be picked up to fluency in a matter of weeks? Ban this filth now!

If IPV6 had had the same basic blueprint it would probably have a decent user base by now - like Esperanto, which the last time I looked was one of the 200 most spoken languages in the world. I'd bet more people are on X25 than IPV6 today (said grinning).

Certainly the story of Esperanto versus Volapuk in the early 1900s is the sort of story the IPV6 architects wish they could claim with respect to IPV4.

Nope, I'm not an active Esperantist. I see the point, can speak a few measly words, but I have no real interest. It's much easier to just speak English loudly and slowly.

And I'm not using IPV6 either. I'm waiting for IPXP.

Reg tours submarine cable survey ship
'Geo Resolution'

Stevie

Bah!

I've said it before and I'll say it again; connecting submarines to ships by cable so they can get internet is a foolish thing. The ship is a dead giveaway, negating all that taxpayer-funded stealth-tech in the quest for cat videos and tweets.

Why can't these submariners make do with books, films and cold showers like they did in Ice Station Zebra?

Google claims ‘massive’ Stagefright Android bug had 'sod all effect'

Stevie

Re: I installed an app from play

Confucius say: Smart-ass one-liner work best when only one line, grasshopper.

Pwnd Android conference phone exposes risk of spies in the boardroom

Stevie

Bah!

Easier to subvert the microphone and camera functions in the conference room IoT lightbulbs if you ask me.

What's the biggest danger to the power grid? Hackers? Terrorists? Er, squirrels

Stevie

Re: Bah!

No, the 2004 northeast blackout started because the people running a power company in Ohio didn't know how to do that, having had all their actual power grid expertise fired and replaced by ... IT.

That is why they took down their only reactive power generation facility for maintenance at the height of reactive load season, ignored field reports of shorts and fires on the now overloaded lines (because the - stalled - computer instrumentation said "nothing wrong here") and when they finally got a clue started running their playbook (not a euphemism, they had an actual book) from the wrong page because no-one considered that the downed reactive power facility had already put them in a "class one" failover.

The cascade blackout was entirely unnecessary and could have been avoided had anyone in the Ohio control room understood the business they were in charge of and taken some simple, widely known, industry standard mitigation steps at some point in the hours of warning signs they had.

2004 pretty much informed my original post, and the official report on what, when and why is clear and interesting reading if you care to look it up.

Substations fail all the time. Cascades do not happen when they do. Yes the aging grid is vulnerable. It is not, however, that fragile.

Apologies for late response. Vacation, illness, work etc.

Microsoft offers drone lovers a simulator

Stevie

Bah!

If I get beaned by some fucker's virtual drone, I'm still gonna sue the bastard into the nearest dumpster.

Stevie

Re: Ah, Nostalga...

And if you network them, can you drone-buzz someone else's virtual airliner as it lines up for landing?

'We need a new Geneva Convention to protect all citizens from snoops'

Stevie

Bah!

A Geneva Convention?

Would that be the sort of convention that results in a bunch of reasonable operating practices that everyone and his dog then ignores every time it becomes inconvenient?

Finally, a use for your mobile phone: Snapping ALIEN signal blurts

Stevie

Bah!

Presumably these advanced civilizations would be the sort that spontaneously explode for no adequately explored reason.

Bruce Schneier: The US government is coming for YOUR code, techies

Stevie

Bah!

Oh yes, time to get serious.

And yet, all your everything are still belong to lightbulb.

The Register's guide to protecting your data when visiting the US

Stevie

Bah!

I used to immigrate at JFK twice a year in the 1980s, usually around 9pm on a Sunday, and could pretty much write the script from memory.

"So you are a computer programmer?"

"Database Administrator, but close enough."

"What sort of computers do you program?"

"Univacs. Mainframes. Room fillers."

"So, should I sell my IBM stock?"

"How should I know? I'm a computer programmer, not a stockbroker."

Then there was the guy at customs who would be in a sour mood and ready to bust balls. One night as I was getting ready for the case search a planeload of Iranians came through. I've never been cleared so quickly before or since. He all but threw me through the gate so he could get his fair share of people in pointy slippers and kaftans.

Apple joins one wireless power group, the other one responds with so-happy forced grin

Stevie

Re: Betamax...

Sorry, Lost, but if you are suggesting that the successful despite being vastly inferior technically VHS players were *more* bulky than their Betamax competitors I have to take serious issue with you.

My family owned multiple recorders of both these formats and the Betamax ones were universally heftier in both cubic footage and slipped discage owing to the vast amounts of electronics and works placed inside to assure the greatness.

A VHS recorder could be hefted in one hand even in he earlier days. A Betamax took two arms and if you were trying to get it onto a shelf in a tight space you really needed two people to ensure droppage was not going to be a factor.

But Betamax tapes made of The Young Ones in the day still look like a TV picture whereas a VHS copy of House of Cards taken from PBS are unwatchable.

Of course, both Betamax and VHS pale into insignificance next to a UMATIC transport unit. Those buggers are built to survive "the big one".

University DDoS'd by its own seafood-curious malware-infected vending machines

Stevie

Re: Internet of Tat

Your "w" key isn't working, AC.

Stevie

Re: Lesson Learned

All your Mars Bar are belong to lightbulb.

Stevie

Bah!

Makes you wonder how they sold machine-vended chocolate bars before the IoT doesn't it?

GRAPHENE: £120m down, UK.gov finds it's still a long way from commercial potential

Stevie

Bah!

Once a feasible method for leeching the persickertine from the reaction and chelating it, the manufacturing should settle down to the point that every sheet of graphene does what it says on the box the same way and with the same number of in-pocket fires.