* Posts by Davey1000

22 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Nov 2010

BBC detector vans are back to spy on your home Wi-Fi – if you can believe it

Davey1000

Wi-Fi Intercepts

The difficulties that wi-fi detector vans will have is quite considerable as in a city there will be wi-fi sources everywhere. Tower blocks will of course be another problem. As to the data-packets, how will they be able to tell the difference between YouTube video and BBC video data packets? Presumably they would need to crack the wi-fi password to do that? The vans will of course be "frighteners" intended to make the gullible cough-up.

Decades ago in the days of CRT televisions, detection was easier as the wood and plastic TV cabinets gave no screening whatsoever against electromagnetic radiation. One chap that I heard about didn't like this so he took his telly to bits and lined the cabinet with two layers of very fine chicken wire. The chicken-wire is also superb for supressing ignition noise on fibreglass cars (Leyland Minis with fibreglass fronts used to be very naughty with severe radio interference until doctored)

There needs to be another way to finance public service broadcasting as the present method is worse than the Poll Tax.

Hear that sound? It's the Windows XP PC bubble popping

Davey1000

Anti virus support for XP will still be available so why worry? The trouble of course with upgrading is that paid-for software products which were a LOT of money will often no longer work. Office 97 for example. The last time that I used Office 97 was to print some business cards for a man who tries to make a living from mowing lawns. My newer computer would not do it because the OS was a cut-down Windows HOME version but presumably they think that printing a dozen business cards for free for a friend is business?

There is of course Abiword which can be used in place of a Microsoft WP package and Mozilla Thunderbird is a good alternative to Outlook Express. After all what is the point of getting mugged every few years? A few years ago I bought Red Hat but never got around to using it. I also bought a Chromebook but was never really impressed with it. In short being lazy and sticking with Windows costs money a lot of money. Take the case of a used Netbook that I bought that was running Windows 7. This had got an upgrade on it to Premium which is a £70 upgrade. Owing to a faux-pas that I made in using "restore my computer to an earlier time" the computer locked-up. A message appeared "Enter password, hint Woof" Several names of dogs were entered but none worked but I then discovered a menu with "Restore my computer to its out of the box condition." This did get the machine running again but the £70 Premium Upgrade was lost as was my data. Later I was prompted to pay the £70 to upgrade to what I had before but hell will freeze over before I do that as I am a Senior Citizen on a small pension. Of course now we are living in these Play-Station times robbing pensioners is the new big thing.

Skin colour's irrelevant. Just hire competent folk on their merits, FFS

Davey1000

Re: Trace components of society?

For some their key to success is the golf club. Having a mentor at Head Office can also work wonders. Best of all as far as I know is the funny handshake club.

As one guide to employment book states, the worst bar to getting a job is having a country seat.

Davey1000

Re: Question for you, Tim...

Hmm its not just talent that candidates need, they also need diplomacy (the ability to tell white lies) A colleague told me years ago that he had tried to join the Royal Air Force. He had passed the medical OK and the reaction test (a joystick which enables one to drive an errant white spot back to the centre of a CRT) The interview went well too until near the end. "Do you like cricket?" the interviewer asked. "No" replied the candidate "I think its a boring game." Unfortunately that reply meant that it was Game Over for his chances of becoming a pilot. Take care!

Davey1000

The Term "People of Color" is Incorrect

Many years ago the writer was sent on a "Colour Course" as part of his training in Broadcast Engineering. (The early televisions were monochrome AKA black & white) Colour Television transmissions in the UK started in about 1969 and it was considered that engineering staff needed to be updated. It was an excellent course with excellent equipment one item of which was a Colorimeter (a device which measures colour in terms of its Red, Green and Blue content, the so-called colour vectors. Towards the end of the course, people decided to measure the colour of their own skin and the results were quite astonishing. There was a dark skinned person on the course and to everyone's amazement the ratios of Red, Green and Blue in his skin tones were identical to those of a white man! The ONLY difference was in the Luminance. This indicates that referring to a person as "coloured" is scientifically incorrect because they are merely dark.

Note that quite a few white people have the ability to tan incredibly well and in some jurisdictions this can cause problems. I heard about a white English engineer who had to do some work in South Africa but with the strong sunshine he turned brown. Allegedly the man went ballistic when the bus driver told him to sit at the back of the bus but as the old saying goes "Travel broadens the mind."

Ballmer: 'We made more money than almost anybody on the PLANET'

Davey1000

How do they make money? Well we all know that. Take the example of a very slightly used Netbook that I bought. The attraction was its SIM slot as no no pesky dongle would be needed? Actually NO as the slot was a dummy! The machine was cast aside in disgust for about a year. False memory then caused me to think it was an XP machine so it was unearthed and powered-up. It was in fact running Win7 Home Premium. Maybe it had upgraded itself I thought so I started rolling it back. This was a BAD mistake as a message eventually appeared "Enter Password, hint Woof" so the machine was locked-up. Days later I had another dabble and found a menu which had "Restore your machine to its out of the box condition". "Great" I thought lets gave it a try. After the restore the OS was Windows 7 HOME BASIC and there was a tick box to go online and upgrade to Home Premium AT A COST OF SEVENTY POUNDS! Absolutely disgusting. HOME PREMIUM was originally supplied so I feel that I've been scammed out of seventy quid. The machine was cast aside again. IMHO all Netbooks need throwing in a skip as they are simply a load of cr#p.

What one needs is an ULTRABOOK but don't bother as they are too expensive. Just stick with a laptop as this way you get the most bang for your buck. A netbook is the computer equivalent of a bubble car.

Screw you, Brits, says Google: We are ABOVE UK privacy law

Davey1000
Unhappy

Re: Nuts

Starbucks

Feeling poor? WHO took all your money? NOT capitalist bastards?

Davey1000
Boffin

Re: BBC

Please note that one does not need a Television Licence to own a television. Nor does one need a Television Licence to view time-delayed programmes on the iPlayer. Saves about £140 per annum!

Davey1000
Unhappy

Re: Hmmm...no

Disagree with "Random" it should be targeted onto those who fucked-up the most. What could be unfair about that?

Davey1000
Stop

Re: Less disposable income

You are so lucky to have a train! Try living over fifty miles from a main-line railway station. As to the bus that gets you to the train station and the super-slab, they are badly sprung and badly driven as a rule with "digital drivers" as I call them. To avoid vomiting it is better to ignore ones bus pass and travel by car.

Davey1000
Alien

Asymmetric Warfare

B0ll0cks!

The people who have drained off my money are Cornwall Council and Colombian drug cartels! How? Simple - the council get money for rehousing "problem people". Many of these "problem people" are drug addicts, allegedly Heroin, not just "Wacky Baccy". Now Dole money doesn't run to Heroin does it? As a consequence these "problem people" that the council has imported are persistent burglars. I have been burgled repeatedly and some people that I know slightly have been assaulted and stabbed. One was in Intensive Care for a fortnight after his abdomen was slashed open; another suffered a broken jawbone as a result of being punched. Exactly what these disagreements were over one can only speculate but one case I know of was very naughty. One bedsit dweller allegedly bummed a lift to the Co-op on another bedsit dwellers motorbike. Allegedly he said "Wait here while I get my shopping". Minutes later the bloke came running out of the shop with the shop staff chasing him. He jumped on the pillion and shouted "GO GO GO!" Phew that was a close call as later the motorcyclist had the Police doing a door-to-door looking for a shoplifter on a motorbike! The bike had been parked elsewhere "just in case" but he was lucky to get away with that even though in reality he was an innocent party who had been duped. Thanks to Cornwall Council this town has become a Gulag. Don't you just LURV councils? After all apart from importing burglars and drug addicts they put speed humps everywhere to ruin your cars suspension, they also paint wall-to-wall double yellow lines and employ traffic wardens.

Would I get all this horse-sh1t in Florida I wonder? Nooooooooo! Over there when scumbags get locked-up they are Senior Citizens when they get released and that's if they are lucky!

Apple axed Brit retail boss for doing his job well - TOO well, perhaps

Davey1000
Boffin

Working Hours in the UK and finances.

The #1 dodge in the UK when faced with low pay is to claim Working Tax Credits (this is by the way perfectly legal). The catch so I'm told is that to claim WTC one has to work 30 hours per week, 29 hours is no good. OK it could be argued that the government is subsidising bad employers who rely on paying National Minimum Wage or a few pennies more than NMW just to say they are not an NMW employer!

Incidentally even if ones Contracted Hours are only 29 per week one can still claim WTC if the boss will give you one hour of overtime. Allegedly some firms are now hiring (not quite the right word) - obtaining -interns who work for nothing except their Dole money. From what I've heard they cannot do the job so for the time being the experienced persons overtime and WTC are safe. It sure is different from the boom years of the 1970s when workers would change jobs for half a crown extra per week!

Thankfully I'm retired!

Gov: We want cheap police tablets and by God we'll get them

Davey1000

Racism or Not Racism?

I knew someone who used to be a police constable when he was young. He worked in Brixton and he knew his patch. He reminisced that he could spot the druggies very easily and yes they were West Indians. At the time white people weren't "in" to smoking ganja as it was very much a West Indian thing. "Hey man its part of my culture" was the usual excuse when they were found to have a pocketful of weed and they would accuse him of being racist for not stopping whites who didn't have a pocketful of weed! The fact of the matter is that smoking dope is illegal in the UK but somehow the West Indians deemed this to be state sponsored attack on them personally. A policeman's lot is not a happy one, happy one, a policeman's lot is not a happy one!

Davey1000

Re: it's NOT the HW costs, stupid

A good many years ago I had the brainwave of using a cameraphone to translate road signs and suchlike when in foreign countries such as China or Arabia. The snag of course is computing power and battery life. Instead why not send the images to an Engine similar to Google, get the Engine to do the processing then send the data back? By doing this one does not have to be walking around carrying a miniaturised mainframe. Could not the police do the same? One other point is that no GCEs are required to become a police officer and without wishing to be rude some of them are not the brightest light on the block. For example a Motor Patrol Constable couldn't even tell whether my car was front wheel drive or rear wheel drive even though there were no wheel trims fitted. If the MPC couldn't suss that one out what chance is there of working a tablet? The mind boggles as how some people get their jobs.

Davey1000

Old Analogue Policing

An old colleague (now sadly deceased) told me about the gold wristwatch that his aunt bought him for his 21st birthday. He was wearing the watch at the Cup Final at Wembley. During the first half his wrist kept feeling itchy and he assumed that perhaps he was allergic to the new watch. When Reg looked to see if it was nearly half time the watch was gone! The police were called and a large black police car arrived; it would have been an old Wolseley and it had a chrome bell on the front. A detective wearing a trilby hat and a pinstripe suit listened to the tale then said "Get in son". They zoomed across London to some old tenement flats and the detective said "Wait here son". Shortly afterwards there was a great commotion that sounded as if someone was being roughed-up. The detective then re-appeared and said "Here's your watch son". Absolutely amazing as the stolen property was recovered within the hour! It wasn't any old watch either, it was Reg's watch engraved with a memorable inscription on the rear. Now all this was done without any computers, tablets or other high-tech gizmos, it was done by studying form. IMHO that detective deserved a gong but the powers that be decided that the old Scotland Yard was inefficient and pulled it down. Inefficient? I don't think so as the villains used to crap their trousers with fear. The present day police couldn't do what that detective did even with all the computers in England. Allegedly the Japanese Police still study "form" and for some reason the crime rate in Japan is much lower than it is in the UK. Studying form is now of no interest unfortunately. I know this because I heard a car pull up near my secluded property then drive away with tyres squealing and engine revving a few minutes later. Later when I tried to drive my car the brake pedal went to the floor. The brake hose nearest to the filler cap had been cut by someone trying to steal petrol. The metal fuel line had also been gnawed-at but the thief failed to get any petrol. It just so happened that a prolific petrol thief who had been evicted from the village where he lived had been rehoused in B&B not very far away. My informant stated "He's always revving the engine and squealing his tyres, then he moans that he's got no petrol". The police were not interested, "Did you see him do it?" they said. Using this modern day philosophy the theft of Reg's watch would have never been investigated which is why crime FIGURES are falling.

Cameron's attempt to cram a robot arm wearing a Rolex into his pristine bottom

Davey1000

Waterproof watches

I've not done much sub-aqua at all as after seeing what's down there its pretty boring and its a tremendous anticlimax compared to what one sees on television. As to the watches that have depth ratings, take it all with a large grain of salt. Hydrodynamic forces can come into play if one goes water-skiing.

New anti-corruption offences come into force today

Davey1000
Joke

Anti-Corruption Laws

Surely all that the companies need to do is create a sister company in Bongo-Bongo land where bribe-taking is regarded as standard practice. Presumably because the dodgy deals are now done within Bongo-Bongo land the feds will be stuffed.

Even within the UK people who place big orders will sometimes receive Christmas hampers for the next few years. The hampers were never asked for so how can this be corruption? In the British Civil Service any gift more valuable than a beer mat or a ball-pen is supposed to be declared but with private companies these rules do not apply. Level playing fields are a rare commodity.

Antique Nimrod subhunters scrapped – THANK GOODNESS!

Davey1000

Nimrod Capability

Years ago I heard through the grapevine of just how good the Nimrods were. They were very good indeed at detecting submarines but exactly how it was done is probably still an Official Secret so I'll keep stumm. One thing that is for sure is that a cheap plane and a spotter with a pair of binoculars just won't do it. OK shed-loads of money was invested on an AWAC radar that didn't quite work at first. Instead of flying what was basically an airport radar on top of a jumbo jet (the American proven technology brute force and ignorance approach) several radars were supposed to be married together to give all round visibility like a flies eyes. As one can imagine this was a difficult technical challenge but someone's got to do it! Perhaps future aircraft should be built with a "temporary electronics rack" as gadgets go out of date so fast that they really are temporary. After all the average laptop has more computing power than the "iron" that put man on the moon.

Davey1000
Unhappy

737 Reliability?

How can a 737 be reliable? (it only has two engines) Having said that I have actually flown the Atlantic in one although the travel agent had faithfully promised that the plane would be a 747. The flight was only a few weeks after the Kegworth air disaster so I almost went back home. This particular 737 had Rolls-Royce stickers on the engine pods so I decided to chance it as it was the Snecma CFM engines that had been giving trouble. Allegedly the fire alarm plugs have now been modified to prevent accidental cross-plugging (allegedly the downfall of the Kegworth plane as allegedly the good engine was shut down and the bad engine set to full power). Oh by the way it was a horrible plane with seats made for dwarves and it was right on its safe range limit. The flight was Gatwick to Orlando stopping at Bangor Maine for refuelling. Never trust a travel agent.

Davey1000

Boeing and the VC10s

I have flown in VC10s several times and IMHO they are a superb aircraft noted for the quietness inside the cabin. Many years ago British Airways auctioned-off their VC10s because they were trading up to bigger planes. To everyone's amazement the high bidder for the VC10s was Boeing! This was a great shame because there were third world airlines still running piston engined planes however these airlines had been outbid. The VC10s were then broken up for scrap as Boeing did not want them in the market place. The double whammy of course was the loss of maintenance contracts and profits from the supply of spares for the planes. A case of Britain being stabbed in the back AGAIN. Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Davey1000

Antique Machinery

Don't forget that the then new all-singing all-dancing Bismarck battleship was crippled by obsolete Fairey Swordfish torpedo planes and that in many cases "obsolete" things work better and last longer than their modern replacements. As to the alleged cost savings obtained by scrapping military hardware, I fear that we are once again seeing an outbreak of grocers shop economics. In my own lifetime I have seen the railways cut to the bone, the cotton industry destroyed and also heavy industries such as coal-mining, steel-making and ship building smashed. Even railway rails now come from France! Does the government really think that all the people thrown onto the scrapheap can become hamburger flippers? Perhaps the new philosophy is to let redundant people become burglars and to just give them a caution if they are caught. This method avoids the cost of prisons and transfers the cost of support onto Joe Public instead of central government.

Sex abuse fax leak costs council £100k

Davey1000

Fining Bungling Councils

Fining councils seems fairly pointless to me as at the end of the day it is the Council Tax payers who have to pay. I used to work for an organisation that took a very dim view of bunglers. In particular one had to be careful not to end up getting the dreaded Black Edged Memo. Two Black Edged Memos and one would be getting the sack. Along with the BEM came loss of annual increment. Why not apply these sanctions to council officials who bungle? Fining the council makes no sense at all.