SELECT winner FROM candidates;
Simples.
Posts by AndrueC
5086 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Aug 2009
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London Mayor election day bug forced staff to query vote DB by hand
Password reset: 45 million creds leak from popular .com forums
Boffins decipher manual for 2,000-year-old Ancient Greek computer
TalkTalk scam-scammers still scam-scamming
Would YOU start a fire? TRAPPED in a new-build server farm
Friday 3rd June 2016 13:54 GMT 
Re: I trust that
Some things that sound funny really aren't. Being trapped in a cupboard at home while doing some cleaning sounds funny. But it isn't.
As I live alone I'm now very concious of the need to always have a telephone handy.
King Tut's iron dagger of extraterrestrial origin
Thursday 2nd June 2016 15:05 GMT 
It probably belonged to his father, like a lot of his treasure is assumed to. Tut wasn't around long enough to acquire much personal wealth. 'Luckily' for him his father seems to have been universally despised after his death so Tut's treasure probably comes from there (and/or his mother's tomb).
It's always struck me as amusing that one of Egypt's least important and possibly least powerful rulers is the one everyone knows today. So much of his treasure probably survived because his tomb was forgotten along with him. If the Egyptian afterlife exists he'll be laughing his arse off since being remembered is how they achieved immortality.
Smartwatches: I hate to say ‘I told you so’. But I told you so.
Intel's new plan: A circle that starts in your hand and ends in the cloud
Tuesday 31st May 2016 14:15 GMT 
The phrase 'Jack of all trades' springs to mind for some reason.
And of course the gateway itself becomes far more easily upgradable, a nice change from the mostly dumb broadband boxes sold today.
So they can guarantee that the box will have the CPU and storage resources required to meet forthcoming protocols? Let's look at this through the filter of IT history.
Are they really suggesting that such a generic box that was originally used to process ADSL 1 and to distribute IPv4 packets around could be upgraded to support G.FAST and IPv6?
Or that a box that originally rendered SD video in the early 00s by offloading decoding to the cloud would still be capable of rendering 4k video this year? Would they have had the foresight to fit it with an HDMI socket? Would it have enough grunt to throw that many more pixels around?
These would have been either a miracle of engineering or an expensively over engineered solutions. I'd be very interested to know how they implement a DAC in a way that can be upgraded.
Surface Book nightmare: Microsoft won't fix 'Sleep of Death' bug
Saturday 28th May 2016 12:37 GMT 
Eventually I contacted Microsoft again by online chat
Did you buy it from Microsoft? In the UK at least your contract is with the retailer and they should be the people you contact. Also at less than six months since purchase the assumption is that it's a manufacturing defect. Not sure how it works in the US but over here I'd just take the item back to the shop and demand a refund. It's not a slam dunk after more than 30 days but with something like a laptop it's unlikely they could refuse. They'd find it difficult to prove otherwise and most would just cave in and pay you to go away.
Dropbox gets all up in your kernel with Project Infinite. Cue uproar
Friday 27th May 2016 17:45 GMT
Reminds of many (many, many) years ago when there was a series of letters published in Amstrad User I think it was asking what 'CPC' stood for as in 'CPC464' and 'CPC6128'. It took three more publications (three months I guess) before someone wrote in to say that in one corner of the main unit/keyboard were the words 'Colour Personal Computer'.
Sad to say I'd missed that as well despite being a proud owner of a CPC6128 nearly two years.
Thursday 26th May 2016 13:39 GMT
Sounds like a lot of risk for too little gain. And..surely they mean they are now using IFS not Copy Hook handlers? Did they try CHH then fall back to IFS? I struggle to see how anything going on on the local machine can be a performance bottleneck if you are getting data over the internet.
Edit: Ah! I get it. With Windows they can use COM, but under Linux they have to hook into the kernel.
Anyway it all sounds too hairy for my tastes. I'd rather they not do it.
In-flight movies via BYOD? Just what I always wan... argh no we’re all going to die!
Friday 27th May 2016 09:49 GMT
Pre-flight checks?
Back in January I and a few other people sat on the apron at Birmingham for an hour and a half while engineers tried to fix a fault in the cockpit. Eventually they left and we were told that although they hadn't been able to fix the problem it wasn't an important instrument so they'd cleared us to take off.
So..important enough to spend an hour and a half trying to fix but not important enough to cancel the flight.
I see :-/
German boffins smash records with 37km wireless spurt at 6Gbps
Shakes on a plane: How dangerous is turbulence?
Monday 23rd May 2016 09:50 GMT
I find it a bit unnerving but not usually hugely so. But there was one time when it scared me. We were just leaving Manchester and entering the cloud layer. It felt like a significant drop and the engines that had been throttled back a little ramped back up again. Definitely a bit sphincter tightening for a moment :-/
But the worst turbulence was in the approach to Chicago back in '04. The flight out of San Jose had already been delayed because of storms in the area so I think we might have been amongst the first going in. That was up, down, left, right. Engines up, engines back for almost the entire approach. That didn't bother me as much presumably because I was expecting it.
Google Chrome deletes Backspace
Friday 20th May 2016 07:59 GMT 
Thank you Google! This has affected me a fair few times. On some sites it's just an annoyance because you can go forward again but on some sites you lose the information entered. El Reg seems particularly irritating because when you go forward again your comment text is still in the edit box. But as soon as you click on it the text is taken away.
You guys once never got to see an excellent response I tried to post because of this problem. I just couldn't face having to type that fifty line response a second time. Your loss, I guess :D
Mads Torgersen and Dustin Campbell on the future of C#
Thursday 19th May 2016 15:04 GMT
Re: Null pointers
And (as with so many of these simplifications) you end up with code that is less readable to someone not expert in C#
Yup, what goes around comes around. I've been programming since the 80s and when I started brevity was key because of scarce resources. Then verbosity gained the upper hand because resources were relatively plentiful and it made maintenance easier. Now it seems we're going back to brevity apparently in order to hide complexity from people (at least I assume that's what's behind it).
But obv. YMMV, what is "readable" is a very different matter if a big C# only dev team
Very true. LINQ can produce code that's only readable if you understand LINQ (or possible SQL). But a C# programmer who isn't familiar with LINQ is arguably not a very good C# programmer.
Plus some shorts bypass useful control. I still don't like the use of {}s for class construction in C#. I'd rather have multiple ctors are ctors with optional parameters.
Thursday 19th May 2016 11:43 GMT
Re: Null pointers
without having to test whether dictionary exists, then whether helper exists, then whether getAdaptor returns non-null, then whether getProperty returns non-null.
That already exists. It's called the null propagator. It's quite handy actually but feels a little lazy :)
Thursday 19th May 2016 11:38 GMT
Re: Null pointers
Actually, yes, similar to references. It's been a few years so they'd slipped my mind. But C# pointers are not quite the same because it's a garbage collecting language. They are more akin to smart pointers. We do instantiate a class via new:
var fred=new Person();
but when we pass an object to a method:
kill(fred);
We don't think of it as passing a pointer to fred, we just think of it as passing fred.
And if Kill() wants to take its own copy:
void kill(Person aPerson)
{
_myListOfKilledPeople.Add(aPerson);
...do the actual killing.
}
It's not a problem. Dear old fred will hang around for at least as long as he's needed. The only downside is that we won't know exactly when he finally pops his clogs. On the occasions where that matters using() is the closest we have to RAII, though most people seem to use try/finally instead :(
Pointers generally only crop up in unsafe code eg; talking to the Windows API. But even there p/invoke does a pretty good job of hiding pointers as well:
// C++ (NativeLib.dll)
void print_line(const char* str);
// C#
[DllImport("NativeLib.dll")]
private static extern void print_line(string str);
Thursday 19th May 2016 10:33 GMT
Re: Null pointers
This isn't about the underlying value. In C# NULL (actually 'null') is a keyword. It has a very specific meaning of 'doesn't point to anything'. It's underlying numeric value is already irrelevant. A C# pointer isn't just an integer that the compiler lets you dereference. A pointer is a specific thing and has dedicated semantics. This means it can be tracked through the code using analysis. In
C#/.NET allows for better analysis so the compiler (and the IDE thanks to Roslyn) can understand the concept. What they seem to be suggesting is allowing a variable to have a '?' suffix to indicate that NULL values are permissable. So with this change any code that currently issues the warning 'Possible System.NulReference Exception' wouldn't compile unless the variable had a '?' suffix. That coupled with static analysis would ensure that pointers which should never be null will, in fact, never be null.
World goes SIM-free, leaving Sony and HTC trailing behind
Thursday 19th May 2016 13:53 GMT
Re: IPhone Redesign
You could definitely add better battery life to smartphones...
Back when it was normal to be able to replace the battery that was easy. My S3 Neo now has a 4.3AH battery and I only need to charge it once a week normally (admittedly aside from streaming music over bluetooth for an hour every lunch time it has a fairly quiet life).
5% of drivers want Nigel Farage to be their in-car robo butler
Vodafone posts uptick in Europe but UK still a challenge
UK needs comp sci grads, so why isn't it hiring them?
Walmart sues Visa for being too lax with protecting chip cards
Thursday 12th May 2016 07:46 GMT
Re: Zip code for non-US cards
Lol. It appears that I may have accidentally entered a valid zip code. I mean, obviously not valid for me but I'm guessing it was enough to pass the UI validation to let the transaction proceed. Deeper into the system the code was presumably ignored because it had no way to check against a foreign issuer.
The advantage of being a software developer I reckon. I assumed that all zeros wouldn't be valid :)
Thursday 12th May 2016 07:32 GMT
Re: Zip code for non-US cards
And that means that they do not accept foreign credit cards.
I've never had any problems when I've visited the US. I only ever keep $50 in my wallet for emergencies and never needed it. I've paid for taxis, food, car rentals and some general purchases with my card. I was asked for a zip code at a couple of petrol stations in California but I just typed '111111' and the transaction went ahead.
But it is odd how the US does sometimes lags behind in certain areas. Chip & PIN has been standard in the UK for a decade now. And of course there's still a lot of check (sic) transactions over there. I wonder if it's related to the fragmented nature of their banking system?
Label your cables: A cautionary tale from the server room
Wednesday 11th May 2016 15:27 GMT
Labelling everything is a good idea. Including command line prompts for multi-user systems.
I remember many years back when I was working with Sco Xenix. We had several servers (386 PCs) and from time to time they'd get a bit sluggish then fall over. So us admins were expected to shut them them down cleanly at the first sign of trouble rather than having to rely on fsck. One of the problems though was actually getting logged in because sometimes they didn't even have the resources left to do that.
So this one time we all noticed a problem with one of the servers so I shot off my chair, and dived into the server room. As luck would have it I discovered that the offending machine already had a root prompt sat waiting. So I quickly typed the shutdown command and breathed a sigh of relief. It was short lived though because the next thing I saw was a message 'Connection terminated by remote host' and from the machine behind me came the unmistakable sounds of a a server winding down..
After that day we made sure that every root user included the machine name in its prompt.
A UK-wide fibre broadband investment plan? Don't ask awkward questions
Wednesday 11th May 2016 13:44 GMT
Re: it amazes me..
Most people don't. Most people barely get 5Mb over copper.
Not true.
Almost everyone living in a town or city in the UK has access to FTTC and double-digit speeds. The number of people with nothing better than 5Mb/s available to them is going to be small. Probably less than 10% by now. Maybe less than 5%.
You might also want to read this.
A more accurate statement would be: 'A small number of people continue to struggle with single digit speeds'. Note the change from 'most' to 'a small number'. It's still an issue but we're more likely to get a resolution if we approach it from the right direction and don't completely ignore the progress that has been made over the last few years.
London NHS trust fined £180,000 after second bcc fail on HIV email list
Tuesday 10th May 2016 09:08 GMT
Whilst I wouldn't say that Outlook is awful - I'd actually agree that it's one of the better clients - it does have a few annoying foibles.
The searching is poor. It starts off badly by not using the de-facto standard Ctrl+F as the shortcut for search and goes downhill after that.
The difficulty of changing the font size on the folder pane is also a nuisance to those of us with ageing eyes.
As for CC - I hate it with a passion. I rely on DEA for my spam protection and I do not want my custom addresses sent to everyone.
Sic transit Mercury Monday
Small broadband firms aren't fussed about getting access to BT's ducts and poles
Monday 9th May 2016 14:20 GMT
Re: "Former" is a slightly misleading description
we were actually much better off when the network we paid (and are still paying) for lay entirely under our control
The hell we were.
Nice R&D department, naff all chance of funding from government to actually deploy anything. Party lines abounded. You could have any telephone you wanted as long as you rented it from the GPO and didn't mind the limited range of choice. You could get an engaged tone as soon as you finished dialling the area code. Call costs were painful. Calls were unreliable. Call quality was often poor.
I don't want to be accused of being a BT 'fanboi' but I don't see how anyone old enough to remember the network before BT took over could possibly advocate going back to that way of running things.
And even if you aren't old enough to remember the GPO shambles - why would anyone think that handing control of the UK's telecommunications network to a government organisation would be a good idea? Is there any large IT project that they have managed successfully? And do we really want Theresa May and her ilk getting their hands even more firmly stuck into things?
Google, Honeywell put away Nest patent knives
Sunday 8th May 2016 08:43 GMT
Re: Nah
there's an option for remote access, but it's just that - an option.
Lol, according to the original brochure the CM67 has:
Telephone Interface (optional) can be fitted to the CM67 to allow switching between programmed mode (slider position) and fixed set-point of 21 oC.
Whatever the hell that means. The mind boggles :D
Edit: Even more LOL - you can still buy them!
Saturday 7th May 2016 20:26 GMT
Re: Nah
I have a Honeywell CM67. It does almost everything the 'smart' ones do (including optimum start) but is not a security risk, hasn't ever missed a leap year and thanks to its RC module the clock never needs adjusting.
Learning ability is not necessary because like most people my life is fairly predictable and it's easy enough to program times into the unit.
It cost me about £50 ten years ago plus two replaced AA batteries two or three years ago.
Windows 10 free upgrade offer ends on July 29th
You can always rely on the Ancient Ones to cock things up
Friday 6th May 2016 12:58 GMT
Re: Oh so true (the water feature)
whilst asking how the heck the cable got so tangled when you installed the setup all so neatly last time.
It's cos of Entropy, apparently.
Disclaimer: I am not a scientist.
Friday 6th May 2016 08:41 GMT 
They are simply doing it on purpose to piss us off.
I defy any reader to tell me they don’t experience this on a regular basis at work
Oh, yes. A month ago I needed to communicate with HMRC. So right from the off you can guess that I wasn't starting from a 'happy place'. So I follow my normal procedure of grabbing my credentials from the fire safe (I can't remember the random numbers and letters they gave me for my password and user name). Click login and..whut?..passport number? FFS. Is this really the HMRC site? Yes. Bah. Go back to fire safe. Get passport. Type bloody number. Click.
Bloody mobile bloody phone bloody number?
Typitty type. Click.
<five minutes later>. This is pathetic. HMRC can't even send a 2FA SMS. Pick mobile phone up to share a whinge with friend.
'Not registered on network'.
Eh? Bloody worked half an hour ago. Reboot phone 'cos sometimes it does this.
'No signal'.
Stomp over to Vodafone Sure Signal. Note slow paced disco simulation from second LED.
Stomp out into garden then do the 'how high can I hold the phone' dance. Text arrives from HMRC. Go back inside expecting round of applause from neighbours.
Turns out the important message from HMRC was that they hadn't managed to progress my query yet. Vodafone eventually fixed the problem with Sure Signal five days later.
BT to splash £550m integrating EE. Firm shrugs: Cheap!
Skygazers: Brace yourselves for a kick in the Aquarids
Flinging Slack at them won't get team talking – senior Etsy engineer
Wednesday 4th May 2016 14:09 GMT
Slack certainly doesn't help me. For some unfathomable reason the Windows client just will not display alerts for me. My colleagues get them but despite our best efforts I seem to be in some kind of 'alert black spot'. It's a bit annoying sometimes when the CI server bleats but to be honest when it's an operational issue it's quite handy :)
Revealed: HMS Endeavour's ignominious fate
UK's Universal Credit IT may go downhill soon, warns think tank report
UK's 'superfast' broadband is still complete dog toffee, even in London
Thursday 28th April 2016 08:18 GMT
Were these wireless or wired tests? I wouldn't trust a wireless test in an urban environment. I live in a small rural town but I can see 14 wifi access points from my living room. Most people's wifi isn't configured to support high-speed broadband even if it was operating without interference from neighbours.
As for what people want - I think the market is pretty clear there. VM have to keep closing old slower packages and upgrading customers for free. FTTC take-up is running at about 30% (and I suspect the recent rises there are more due to BDUK finally getting it to the people who had poor ADSL). Even those who do take up FTTC are often going for the 40/10 packages rather than 80/20. BT just introduced 55/10 in the hope of encouraging take up of higher speeds.
Some people want faster broadband and by pushing for it they help the rest by making it available when the rest finally do want it. But you have to be careful pushing for the investment because market data struggles to support the claim that everyone wants it.
Jenkins 2.0, where the devil have you been?
Good enough IT really is good enough. You don't need new hardware
Tuesday 26th April 2016 13:14 GMT
Re: take the time to think for yourself and don't be led by marketing – nor the baying – of fools.
The Space Merchants should be required reading in school. I read it when I was a young teenager and I've never forgotten the message.
How IT are you? Find out now in our HILARIOUS quiz!
Snafu! BT funnels all customers' sent email into one poor sod's inbox
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
