* Posts by Tony Humphreys

111 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2007

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Ofcom blesses Linux-powered, open source DIY radio ‘revolution’

Tony Humphreys

Re: Potato

Don't even bother with things like DAB, or batteries.

Get yourself a nice germanium diode, a toilet role core, a reel of wire, a variable capacitor and a crystal earpiece. Put it all together, with the help of Google, and you have a nice AM radio receiver - batteries not required.

NEW ERA for HUMANITY? NASA says something 'major' FOUND ON MARS

Tony Humphreys

Spaceballs are alive and well and living on Mars, and have been stealing our oxygen and replacing it with carbon dioxide.

Contractors who used Employee Beneficiary Trusts are in HMRC's sights

Tony Humphreys

Woudn't it just be easier for all to abolish IR35 and let contractors just be contractors. IR35 has caused all this mess in the first place. PAYE is not appropriate for many in IT as their contracts are not a full year. It was only brought in because of a spiteful government taking aim at workers whose contracts are not from the dinosaur ages like their union paymasters.

Just remove IR35, and all will be well (or better anyway).

Cambridge boffins: STOP the rush to 5G. We just don't need it

Tony Humphreys

Whats the point of ever faster internet if the backhaul means it is limited. If we go faster, all we will do is hit the limit sooner.

I still cant see the point of a 4G connection limited to 5GB - especially as they advertise watching movies etc (that would be gone in the first 3 hours)

UK urged to stop bigging up startups, feed 'growing' firms

Tony Humphreys

The government support for startups is part of the problem. Last company I worked for would only employ people on government subsidies for the last few years. They have not yet kept staff past the subsidised period since these schemes came in 3 years ago. The flow of inexperienced staff means they cannot move on, and eventually pushed out slaried employees that were a 'cost' to the business.

If companies cannot move past the startup phase, perhaps its because they are being paid to stay there!

UK WhatsApp duo convicted of possessing extreme porn

Tony Humphreys

I read a few days ago that anyone involved in a car accident would have their phones seized to look for evidence that it was in use. I would be incredibly surprised if they didn't also run similar scans on the phone as a catchall.

Tony Humphreys

Re: That's just plain wrong...

It makes me wonder if a good solicitor would have got these charges thrown out.

UK.gov's e-Borders zombie still lurks under the English Channel

Tony Humphreys

Re: Just join Shengen and get over with it

There is one reason overriding all as to why we wont join shengen - money.

Fewer passports will be shifted, and a huge drop in income. Its as simple as that!

Wait, don't ditch that IT career just yet: UK vacancies hit 5-year high

Tony Humphreys

Re: Maybe they'll start reading CVs, too ...

This really gets on my nerves. Just because their system matched c# or java they are intent on wasting 15 minutes of my time to find out 'where I am at', when all I want to know is location, key skills and salary.

C# and Java could just be listed as exposure, but because they are either incapable of reading, or too idle to they think they can waste my time.

My stock response when asked question is "its all detailed in my CV"

Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid: Eco, economy and diesel power

Tony Humphreys
Thumb Up

Re: If I don't need ...

I believe this model is advertised as being a tower (1800k). Whether its a caravan, boat or anything.

All I need now is 43K.

Moneybags pour shower of gold on new mega-precise GPS system

Tony Humphreys
Paris Hilton

Re: this sounds a lot like Differential GPS..

Ahh, but to some people 4 inches is a lot!

Ofcom anoints broadcaster: Local TV is nearly here

Tony Humphreys
Paris Hilton

Re: Bring back topless darts !

and Italian Stripping Housewives!

Google sinks millions into plush new £1bn London HQ

Tony Humphreys
Paris Hilton

It just looks like a swingers club.

Where do I apply?

A tweet too far: UK contempt law reform push begins

Tony Humphreys
Stop

Careful now ...

If there is to be different rules for tweets (micro publishing), then how will be know who has different rules to follow. This is dangerous as this situation shouts accreditation for the press (one set of rules for professional publishers), and another set of rules for amateur publishers. Who awards accreditation? The state?

I think we need a sense of proportion here and resist the temptation to separate the press from the rest of us - that is a much greater evil than the amateur mistakes by a few with very little reach. We need fewer laws and more discretion by the police, judges etc.

Ms Bercow, being the Speaker of the House of Commons wife, living in the House of Commons, and constantly in the press, should have known better though.

Curiosity clears things up

Tony Humphreys

Johnny 5

Is Alive (on Mars with one eye)

Windows 8 tablets unwrapped in Berlin: Dell goes keyless for ARM

Tony Humphreys
Stop

The problem

Windows 8. Not a PC, not yet a tablet.

Relegating the desktop to an 'app' is why I will not be going down the windows 8 route (apart from the preview in a VM). I just can't really see netbeans running on a tablet system such as 8.

Windows ME was just slow. Vista was buggy but they were still familiar. Windows 8 is just awkward for no user gain. Even Unity is better, and thats saying a lot.

Met Office cuts off Linux users with new weather widgets

Tony Humphreys
Stop

I use windows to find out the weather. It takes no mouse clicks, and I dont even need to use the command line. I just look out of it.

American search team fails to find women's G-spot

Tony Humphreys
Thumb Up

Found it

Its in the wallet!

BT fibre rollout reaches Scotland, Wales

Tony Humphreys
Megaphone

Great, but a bit like a drag race

My exchange is being upgraded - great, but what use is a billion gig connection with a 1gb cap. Its a bit like a drag race - full speed ahead, for a quarter mile anyway.

We need higher caps, or truly unlimited - and a clamp down on fair use policies that are just caps.

I would rather a 2mb unlimited to a 40mb capped at 1gb or even 10, 20, 50gb

New account of Flight 447 disaster published

Tony Humphreys
Stop

or the captail who got a knobbled 777 inside the Heathrow boundries, and actually onto the airfield. He was rewarded for his skill in saving a couple of hundred onboard, and countless on the busy London streets by being turned down from jobs because of an accident on his record.

Thats the state of pilot training these days.

ICO smacks Welsh council with record £130k fine

Tony Humphreys
FAIL

A little correction. The POWYS TAXPAYER has been fined £130,000 because of a serious breach of the law by an employee of the Powys Taxpayer.

The Taxpayer should not be peanalised, but the employee should be sacked, and fined personally.

There is no good in fining a public body.

SeeSaw shut down

Tony Humphreys
Stop

No wonder!

No one should pay for TV they have already paid for. All the BBC's output was paid for with the TV license.

Although what really bugs me is that stuff like Father Ted (I know, not BBC and supported by adverts) was only available paid for, where this is available for free on Hulu (supported by adverts) in the USA.

I would rather pay for HMA than SeeSaw as there is more on Hulu than on SeeSaw.

Rip of Britain again.

Google adds default end-to-end encryption to search

Tony Humphreys
Black Helicopters

Why eavesdrop?

Why break in when you have a back door key?

O2 to trial VoIP over Wi-Fi

Tony Humphreys
Thumb Up

Logging onto our mobile accounts from Voip, to make and receive calls is a great idea for those of us stuck in big metal buildings all day. Mainly it means we could pick up mobile calls when the signal is poor over wifi on smartphones without having to divert calls.

I am surprised they have not thought of it sooner.

Royal Navy halts Highlands GPS jamming

Tony Humphreys
Stop

How on earth did Cook, Columbus etc manage without GPS? I suppose fishing has only been possible since GPS became available?

Fools - how on earth did we manage to last thousands of years.

Smut oglers told to opt in to keep web filth flowing

Tony Humphreys
Black Helicopters

Thin end of the wedge

On BBC news this morning this was being discussed (along with all the 'wont someone think of the children'). An example was given to the adverse concequences 'If you type in Al Qaeda into wikipedia that would be blocked'.

As far as I am aware, Al Qaeda is not into porn - terrorism yes, but thats not porn - its a different problem altogether.

So is it to block other sites too, Al Qaeda today, Sinn Fein and BNP tomorrow, UKIP the weekend.

Not acceptable in a free country.

BT trying for fibre 'monopoly', claims TalkTalk chief

Tony Humphreys
Mushroom

Ones own medicine

Interesting article, a side point that stands out is the Irish bitching about jobs being taken by other countries luring companies with low tax?

Good plan, worked a treat for Ireland in the 90's - look how well they are getting on.

End of UK local dialling in sight as numbers run out

Tony Humphreys

I still hesitate when 01 is mentioned and think the next 7 digits are 811 8055

New UK 'leccy meters remotely run via Voda 2G

Tony Humphreys
Black Helicopters

At what cost?

We are all being told to unplug chargers when not in use, so at what cost are these devices to run. I assume the power is drawn prior to metering - nope, didnt think so (just a wild guess).

What are they needed for anyway - we all know where our electric goes, and unless we are billed and charged daily, whats the point. For those of us on annual direct debits, just one read a year is all thats really needed (and I can do that - and enter the details into a website)

Perhaps the tin foil brigade was right, this is just another way to monitor us all!

BBC crowdsourced mobile map: A bit quirky, but useful

Tony Humphreys
Stop

Postcode - agree

It has always bemused me why operators always want to know the postcode when you call them about a problem. The idea of a mobile phone is you can use it away from a base, so you may not have any idea what the postcode is.

I called once whilst away because I had a problem with data - and three could not help without the postcode, even though I had no idea, and no reason to know it.

Perhaps mobiles should be limited to known postcodes, perhaps Rabit was not such a bad idea!

Educating Verity the OU way

Tony Humphreys
Thumb Up

Well, sort of

I have just completed the pop quiz (sorry Designing applications with VB MT264) to get that degree everyone else has, but does not hold me back one jot. I expected to use MS, as one would, but instead they decided to use some hand writted 'design code' that resembled the syntax of VB - and then claimed it would be useful with proper languages like Java and C (somehow the syntax similarities ended there).

So even when MS is part of the course, they choose something else.

Easy course though, even if it is just an introduction to .net - Google can fill in the conversion to C#.

M&S whips out carbon-neutral bra

Tony Humphreys
FAIL

Really?

So they are shipped here by sail boat then?

This is M&S just jumping on a bandwagon (an overpriced one at that).

Air NZ safety vid provokes terror in the skies

Tony Humphreys
Stop

and boarding

Its still going to go at the same time however much you push to get on.

MySQL.com hacked via... SQL injection vuln

Tony Humphreys
Thumb Up

President Skroob

I use the same combination on my luggage!

Fuel foolery, merger warnings and Budgetary boons

Tony Humphreys
Stop

Supply and Demand

I dont think the problem is supply and demad at all. If there was a demand issue then people would be living in overcrowded accomodation. This is not the case generally.

The problem is that Buy to Let has mopped up property, and distorted the market. Instead of ones housing costs going to provide accomodation (and eventually buy a house) it is now doing that, and supply a pension for someone else.

There is a demand for renting because people move around a lot more, and dont want to commit, so rent - fuelling buy to let. Then the government comes along and throws petrol onto the fire to pay for the feckless and workshy - bumping up the income for buy to let landlords enabling them to go and get another mortgage, inflate the market that little more - and the cycle continues.

The finance industry were just supplying a service. What should have happened is that they felt the concequences of their folly, and yes, some should have gone bust.

We are all living in a parallel universe, where the recession has been papered over (with free money). Sense will return eventially, and those that stoked the fire will, should, get very badly burnt. Including those that take up all these schemes in an attempt to maintain artiicially high house prices.

UK tech retailers are rubbish

Tony Humphreys
Thumb Up

Warranty - great!

No, no, no. Always haggle down as far as you can, then say cheaper on the net. When they wont match say that you were thinking about the warranty, and cant get that online. The price will come down much more if you buy the warranty.

The best bit is that by law you can cancel the warranty within 60 (I think) days, and receive a full refund for it. So you get the tat for a lot less, and no warranty.

Its just a haggling toy - and if you play it too then you can beat them at their own game.

Beeb ordered to release TV licensing contract sweeteners

Tony Humphreys
Paris Hilton

Batteries

I believe that you can legally use your one TV license in another property if that reciever is powered soley by its own internal batteries (ie it is not an installation - plugged in).

It really is that stupid!

Regional accent read-outs coming to satnavs

Tony Humphreys
Stop

Um

"At de end of de f*****g road turn right, dene go 300 f*****g yards and the f*****g dolie is on de left ye t**t"

Sarah Palin calls for US to stand by North Korea

Tony Humphreys
Stop

Puppet!

In a way isn't that what any politician should be. Politicians are not there to do their thing, they are there do do everybody elses thing.

An intelligent President has been tried, and look how popular he is!

Car wrecks rise after texting bans imposed

Tony Humphreys
Go

Damn straight

I, for one, demand that the French enforce this law.

Tony Humphreys
Stop

Why?

Perhaps people dont care about thedanger, and accept that risk when they go on the roads.

If you dont accept the risk, there is always the train!

People want to lead risky lives, its what adds excitement, and the more we ban / limit / educate (patronise) against risk, the more people want to break free from this crap.

I dont think we should do anything!

Crowds greet A380 at Manchester Airport

Tony Humphreys
Coat

Ringway

Ha ha, "Ringway" - it tickled me

Tony Humphreys

Dubai

... and such a solvent, debt free country.

UK ICT classes killing kids' interest in tech

Tony Humphreys
Go

What about their phones

It may take a long time and a dvd full of api's for a ps3 game, but not for a simple hangman game for a mobile phone - in Java.

That would not be too much for a term of 10 hours.

Although it may be way beyond the teacher, as it cant be done in Word. Shame, the kids would love it and it would really energise their thirst for development with something they can really achieve.

BT hikes call charges

Tony Humphreys
Stop

Of course

Where did the unions think that the 3% pay rise each year for the next 3 for BT staff was coming from - especially in a recession as bad as this one?

Well - I've switched this morning (and saved £40 too boot) - so not me, and if you are not happy paying for someone else's payrise - do the same.

The Register comment guidelines 2010

Tony Humphreys
Stop

"Be first to post a comment"

I don't even dare to!

Wales joins supercomputer club

Tony Humphreys
Thumb Up

Will somebody PLEASE think of the sheep

As another Welshman, please.

You can knock me, and say what you like, I am strong, but please think of the sheep. There are more of them than us.

All gov jobs to go online

Tony Humphreys
Go

I want that job

Where can I apply for the 'cheerleading' development officer post please.

I watch Glee, so I am amply qualified for the job.

Do you supply the black mac, or do I need to bring my own?

The 3G coverage picture that can't be published

Tony Humphreys
Thumb Up

Great

Thats why I got my wife one - keeps her quiet, and the bills down.

BBC grabs stock photo of own building

Tony Humphreys
Stop

Health and Safety

In addition, the tea-boy-armed-with-camera would need a 3 week course in digital photography or the unions would walk out, then he would need a press pass, full kit of dayglow gimpware and for insurance purposes the road closing, airspace temporarily halted and protective eyeware, becuase the sun is a killer.

Plus, a database would need to be created by anyone that may stray into the shot, to store their image releases, and a lawyer a week to draw ud such document.

This is the BBC, after all.

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