* Posts by JimmyPage

3213 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Mar 2010

Users sound off as new Google Workspace for Education storage limits near

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Mushroom

What the difference between drug dealers and google ?

Fuck all, would appear to be the answer/ Neither gives a shit about the law, and both business models rely on getting users hooked.

Happy birthday, Windows Vista: Troubled teen hits 15

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Linux

And where was Linux on the desktop ?

Given I was running a pretty solid version of Ubuntu (I can't remember if it was Dapper or Edgy) at the time I had Vista foisted on me at work, it should have been the easiest sell ever.

And still they blew it.

Even now with Win11 creating schisms, where is Mint ?

Silk could tie up all-but-unbreakable encryption, say South Korean boffins

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Re: But how can they do this in the West?

Spider silk ?

I own that $4.5bn of digi-dosh so rewrite your blockchain and give it to me, Craig Wright tells Bitcoin SV devs

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How hard is it to keep 128k safe if you needed to ?

just that

Wifinity hands customers bills for Wi-Fi services they didn't want but used by accident after software 'glitch' let 'fixed term' subs continue

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Re: Why are soldiers being monetised for profit like this?

If a small company of 100 people can roll out a Meraki MR36 install across 7 sites with an IT department of 2, the I do judge - and judge harshly - examples of pisspoor provision in the face of significantly more resources.

Web3: The next generation of the web is here… apparently

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FAIL

Web 1.0 -> Web 2.0 was NOT a technical development

it was social. The idea of non-tech people using the web to communicate with each other.

If there is a Web 3.0 step change it would be IoT in my opinion. But notice I said "if" ....

Shocking: UK electricity tariffs are among world's most expensive

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We still have candles in ...

along with some handy PIR-when-dark lamps that cut in when there is a power cut.

If you have stairs, they may be a life saver.

Pretend starship captain to take trip in real space capsule

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Re: NS18

ITYM NCC 1701

One-size-fits-all chargers? What a great idea! Of course Apple would hate it

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China ?

THe real question is if China agree with the EU. Then it's game over for Apple.

LA cops told to harvest social media handles from people they stop, suspect or not

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Re: Fake names

I have a few FB accounts I created back in the day that are still active. Hell they get more friend requests than I do.

I wonder if they are saleable ?

The only fake accounts I have that are more active are with LinkedIn. Apparently these people who have never existed have a shed load of colleagues and ex-colleagues.

One reason why I remain sceptical about a lot of SM ...

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Permission to use a fictitious online persona ....

So basically there will be a circle jerk of cops chasing each other around the internet.

Fucking marvellous.

Council culture: Software test leads to absurd local planning SNAFU

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Re: Not absolutely no means.

Landlord lightning.

NSA: We 'don't know when or even if' a quantum computer will ever be able to break today's public-key encryption

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Stop

How much encryption is REALLY cracked by brute force ?

And how much - like the WW2 Nazi Enigma messages - are cracked by pisspoor implementation and usage ?

My view has always been if you are encrypting you have halfway lost. The trick is to transfer data in plain sight.

Leaked Guntrader firearms data file shared. Worst case scenario? Criminals plot UK gun owners' home addresses in Google Earth

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Now this is a blight on house prices the Mail should be reporting ...

if they weren't rammed up the Tories back passage, that is.

UK promises big data law shake-up... while also keeping the EU happy, of course. What could go wrong?

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Alert

Seems to be a recurring theme here ...

of the UK telling the EU what it's job is. Apparently the UK has decided that it's OK for the UK to (re)join the Lugano Convention although the EC don't quite see it that way.

Now the UK is telling the EU that the UKs data laws are OK with the EU. Surely that's for the EU to decide ?

Faster .NET? Monster post by Microsoft software engineer shows serious improvements

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Whats going on with .Net Core ?

That I seem to recall was going to be the future of .NET ?

China starts testing tech to harvest solar energy from orbiting panels

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This must be the feudal landowning classes wet dream ...

Imagine claiming the land under the area of reflected energy and kicking all the peasants off it ?

Google staff who work from home might see pay cut under corporate policy – reports

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Re: Childcare

""London Weighting" was a thing".

BT had inner-London weighting in the 80s. They used this to offer jobs as £13,000 and then turn it into £11,500 when you started.

Google says Pixel 6, 6 Pro coming this year with custom AI acceleration

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Stop

Phablet ?

Isn't 6.7" - whilst welcomed by my partially sighted wife - straying closer to the phablet form ?

Verified: UK.gov launching plans for yet another digital identity scheme

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Digital ID is embarrassingly easy ...

... it's crowbarring all that 1984 goodness into it that's the problem.

Cyberlaw experts: Take back control. No, we're not talking about Brexit. It's Automated Lane Keeping Systems

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Most useful gadget on my car ?

The speed limiter. Job done.

No one has ever managed to explain to me why breaking the law should be some inalienable right without coming across as a complete cockwomble.

Microsoft, Google, Citizen Lab blow lid off zero-day bug-exploiting spyware sold to governments

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Devils tongue

Now why can't they write useful programs that well ?

UK gets glowing salute from Bezos-backed General Fusion: Nuclear energy company to build plant in Oxfordshire

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Let me guess ...

it's "10 years away"

like it was in 1950 .... and 1960 ... and 1970 ... and 1980 ...

Boffins show sleight-of-hand tricks to Corvids, find they are smarter than people

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Bird brain ?

Are avian brain cells different to mammalian ones ? Looks like they are more efficient ...

Insurance startup backtracks on running videos of claimants through AI lie detector

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I have to drive a fucking pile o' shite Aurelis as an insurance courtesy car atm ...

And without exception it's "smart" speed recognition system manages to see the "5mph" signs that are in the roadworks lane next to the 30mph stretch I am driving.

Which pretty much does it for anything "artificial" about trying to imitate (not simulate) intelligence.

"Is a wookie a bear ?" should be the acid test for anything purporting to be self aware.

Snowden was right, rules human rights court as it declares UK spy laws broke ECHR

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And ...

no one will see any recompense.

The government won't change what it's doing.

What was the point ?

China announces ‘crackdown’ on Bitcoin mining and trading

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Stop

BitCoin != "all crypo currencies"

#justsayin'

Train operator phlunks phishing test by teasing employees with non-existent COVID bonus

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Stop

More a test of critical thinking skills

I leave it to other commentards as to what it proved.

Mayday! Mayday! Microsoft has settled on a build and Windows 10 21H1 is inbound

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So that's Mays holidays pulled then.

... or you're just putting off the pain ....

Billions in data protection lawsuits rides on Google's last-ditch UK Supreme Court defence for Safari Workaround sueball

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Quantum of loss ?

As far as English law is concerned, I don't think anyone has ever actually sued on the basis they have quantifiable loss anyway.

Certainly in every story about peoples data being lost, I have never read of anyone being able to claim damages.

Maybe I don't read the right sort of newspapers ?

UK government gives Automated Lane Keeping Systems the green light for use on motorways

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paradigm shift

About 18 months ago, I was suggesting that autonomous cars would herald the end of private car ownership as a complex mix of factors started to align.

The immediate rebuttal from most was how much they needed to drive to get to the office and that it was impossible for them to avoid that.

Then 2020 happened and proved (what I knew all along) that office working is mainly by convention, not necessity.

The current shit state of electric cars could be fixed at a stroke if they were able to slope off autonomously at night to recharge somewhere sensible, and be back by dawn.

Court snubs Microsoft, US govt's request to throw out Amazon's complaint against JEDI cloud contract decision

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Stop

Maybe Amazon were just too honest

The trick to pork barrel contracts is to bid low, get the gig, and then when you've completely queered the pitch for anyone else suddenly double, treble, quadruple your fee.

So, if you want to make (say) £10 billion from a contract, you bid £3 billion. Get the gig (and politicians will love you as you allow them to appear as if they are saving taxpayers money). Run it for a couple of years and then turn around and go "oh dear, unless you pay us another £7billion, this project will fail".

Rinse and repeat.

I invite commentards to reply with UK government contracts in this vein, starting with Universal Credit.

Terror of the adtech industry iOS 14.5 has landed, and Siri can answer your calls ... though she/he can't hang up

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Not quite related ... but fucking irritating

Was (because I haven't tried since) how once summoned, the Google assistant needed a fucking keypress to go away again.

No big deal unless you are using your phone as a sat nav, someone says "OK google" and you lose your screen until an illegal keypress.

Where meetings go to die: Microsoft Teams outage lets customers skip that collaboration call they've been dreading

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Looks like I picked the wrong week

To get to grips with Teams in my new role

Origami... in spaaaaace: Inflatable folded objects discovery brings new meaning to blowing up buildings

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Stop

Mythbusters - lead balloon

Adam Savage had to devise a way to create a structure that could be made flat and then inflated (with helium) to shape.

About 10 years ago.

Exactly the same principle as this. Only it was lead foil.

'Unhealthy' Azure Portal instances in UK West take a little lie-down over lunchtime

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Windows

Looks like I picked the wrong week

to have to get to grips with PIM in my new role ...

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Stop

The phrase my dear late Mum would have used is that they're all much of a muchness

How not to apply for a new job: Apply for it on a job site

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Thumb Up

Indeed

With LinkedIn and Indeed being so easy to use directly by HR depts, there's almost no need for agencies nowadays.

Just finishing my first month having been contacted via my CV on LinkedIn directly. Registered with a shed load of agencies who managed between them the square root of fuck all. Turns out the CEO of my new gig doesn't trust them either. They have become yet another example of a layer that wants to extract wealth without adding value (see also: mobile phone resellers).

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FAIL

Totally useless since recruiters learned about "keywords"

I lost count of the number of "project manager" jobs - certainly on LinkedIn - that were simply sucker bait for MLM type nonsense/

"Earn up to £100,000 from home as a project manager" being an example.

I actually posted about it on Linked in. Ironically.

UK reseller sues Microsoft for £270m in damages claiming prohibitive contracts choke off surplus Office licence supplies

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Whiff of hypocrisy here ?

If MS were NOT the dominant supplier of Operating Systems and Office software, then this outfit would have no business at all.

Good luck using generative adversarial networks in real life – they're difficult to train and finicky to fix

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Stop

You can't have artifical *anything*

until you understand the natural version first.

Pretty much does for "AI" then.

Health Sec Hancock says UK will use Apple-Google API for virus contact-tracing app after all (even though Apple were right rotters)

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Facepalm

Now Apple denying all knowledge too ...

Tsk tsk tsk

BT reopens £90m UK High Court case over 1970s VAT 'overpayments'

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Flame

Hang on ... *who* paid the VAT ?

VAT is paid from the end consumer, not the company.

So any refund should go to the poor saps who had no choice when BT(or GPO) charged them VAT ?????

I never saw a penny of that VAT HMRC was made to "give back" on Jaffa cakes either.

Hope it doesn't torpedo BTs case, but they really need to learn about "unjust enrichment" .....

Appareils électroniques: Right to repair gets European Commission backing

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Flame

This jumped out:

While the UK, once actual Brexit happens, won't be covered by the rules it is unlikely that most large manufacturers will want to make separate UK-only Farrage-phones or tablets.

So the UK will have to just accept something made to rules that once it could help draft, but now can't ?

Remind me how "taking back control" works ?

Again ?

Want to own a bit of Concorde? Got £750k burning a hole in your pocket? We have just the thing

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Pint

Which was the bigger engineering challenge ? Concorde. Or Apollo ?

Bearing in mind some Apollo engineers said they were astounded by the air intake alone for Concorde.

And it flew regularly with civilian passengers unlike the rather showy one-shot Apollo with it's highly trained crew.

Although I'd be happy if we all put our handbags down and celebrated great engineering of the 20th century, whilst simultaneously weeping for the lack of development since then.

These all round ->

EU court tells prudish IP office to fack off for balking at 'fack ju' trademark application

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Re: Grand Tour - Wank, Kissing, Petting, Fucking, Wedding

Officers in the Met used to refer to one of their divisions as the "Dirty division", because it covered Hampton, Feltham, and Staines ....

'That's here. That's home. That's us': It's 30 years since Voyager 1 looked back and squinted at a 'Pale Blue Dot'

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Thumb Up

Re: Crows are SMART.

Was amazed on a recent "Monkey Cage" to hear about Australian Eagles that deliberately take burning branches from bushfires, carry them across natural barriers (like rivers) drop them into the trees and wait for the food to start running out from shelter.

There's got to be Huawei we can defeat Chinese tech giant, thinks US attorney-general. Aha, let's buy stake in Ericsson and Nokia

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Mushroom

Hardly the US way, is it ? State subsidies and all that.

I hope this gets shot down as the socialist - if not commie - nonsense it is.

Artful prankster creates Google Maps traffic jams by walking a cartful of old phones around Berlin

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FAIL

So much for "AI" eh ?

that's all really.