* Posts by gbru2606

85 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jan 2011

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Come kneel with us at UK's Cathedral, er, Oil Rig of the Canal: Engineering masterpiece Anderton Boat Lift

gbru2606

Almost accidentally went down this once...

I took my partner on a trip on the Trent and Mersey for her 40th 10 years ago. It was a first on a narrow boat for us, the lovely Ruby Tuesday from Preston Dock. A beautiful boat with a lovely double bed, kitchen, lounge and log fire. After navigating the various tunnels over the first day or so, we came to Anderton. We couldn't actually see the lift at first. I (wrongly) decided that this was a right turn towards Chester and started heaving our 80ft narrow boat sharply right akin to attempting a hairpin bend. The lift access designed for boats coming the opposite direction. Attempting this ridiculous manouver, the lift came into full view while I also started to noticed the queue of other boaters with mouths agape who had moored up to plan their descent. As the massive construction loomed above and below us, the prospect of entering the lift loosened my sphincter dramatically. And my better half finally convinced me of my madness; that we needed to reverse, do a 360 and Moor up before I thrashed us and the boat together on a River that we had no maps for and knew absolutely nothing about. Apart from that moment of heart-thumping madness and the odd challenging lock, I'd highly recommend a week on the water. I remember once, on our return from another 4-day trip towards Manchester, we rounded a bend to suddenly see see and hear the M6 descent of the bridge over the Ship Canal. It appeared to me as if the World had suddenly gone to war or some other full-blown emergency such was the speed, racket, and number of vehicles pelting in both directions across the 6 lanes.

Ah, this should totally reassure Euro workers: They'll get Brexit EU settled status app on iPhones from October

gbru2606

Re: Priceless ...

"OMG planes WONT fall out of the sky as their EU made parts suddenly die and disintegrate. Funny how remain tried to get plane fliers to pee their pants with crap like that."

Lets not forget that 'project fear' is yet another shitty Tory invention delivered by Cameron and Osborne who'd spent the previous 6 years bitching about EU reform and couldn't very well start claiming they were, and always had been, ardent Remainers. Zero credibility - as per usual. No wonder they were mugged. But Sterling is down and will be long term - Brexiteers need to own that, and the UK's border in NI needs the UK to get the finger out and legislate to keep it open. The rest of us aren't too bothered that you're going to make day-to-day trading with your nearest neighbours more costly. By all means fly foodstuffs in from South Korea. It's your call if you want.

Finally in the UK: Apollo 11 lands... in a cinema near you

gbru2606

Re: So???? not dwelling on the societal ills of the time, is a niggle?

As if the mission, and science took place in a vacuum... ; D

Google's Fuchsia OS Flutters into view: We're just trying out some new concepts, claims exec

gbru2606

Re: Accurate Ads

Look up shoes online and in shop. Buy shoes in shop. Don't wear shoes. Wait for targeted ads and discount offers from shop's webstore. Buy discounted online shoes. Return original bought pair. Return difference to bank account/wallet.

Want a good Android smartphone without the $1,000+ price tag? Then buy Google's Pixel 3a

gbru2606

New Pixel 2XL with 128GB, visual core and Corning 5 glass is still cheaper...for now

In the UK Argos are flogging off the last of the Pixel 2 & 2XL's new. Some of them are even listed as £30-£50 cheaper than their refurb exact matches. Still like my 6P though. Production is so streamlined now, that high-end cameras and SOC's are mass market. There'll always be people who want the latest and most expensive - and then there's people who don't like being mugged. It's still £400 for only an excellent phone/camera/GPS/SatNav/HiFi/Internet/wallet/Library/gaming system...meh.

Samsung's tricksy midrange teasers want your flagship catch

gbru2606

Oh dear. It's a good phone for pensioners. Cheap bright OLED screens. They're everywhere in the UK though. I don't know if that says anything broad about the declining spending power of Briton's - or not.

Brexit text-it wrecks it: Vote Leave fined £40k for spamming 200k msgs ahead of EU referendum

gbru2606

Re: Vote Leave fined for promoting Brexit

It is Leavers within the Brexit Government who are preventing the WA from being passed FFS!!!

And yet you're on here spouting all sorts of ridiculous conspiracy theory garbage and blaming all and sundry for your absurd 3 year shitfest. The Leave movement is utterly split and can't agree on a damn thing, which means that Remainers now form a united majority. You blew it because you were too lazy and feckless to ask anyone what future relationship they wanted with Europe in the years leading up to the promised vote. Instead you relied on a drip, drip, drip feed of media and political lies over decades to create momentum for your cause (and some MPs who engaged in this were rewarded with senior Cabinet positions to see Brexit through) - see below. You reap what you sow - as they say. Grow a spine. Take some responsibility.

https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

What made a super high-tech home in Victorian England? Hydroelectric witchery, for starters

gbru2606

Managed to make it there as much of the NE countryside was closed with the national Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak. The horizon was just a series of evenly spaced out smoke-trails from the pyres of burning livestock. 2001 I think. It felt positively futuristic and idealistic compared to the morbid dystopian reality going on outside the grounds. It was rumored at the time that the F&M outbreak was just a ruse to eradicate Mad Cow Disease from the National Herd, and that the MOD had been calling lumber merchants about wood stocks in advance of the outbreak. I don't believe any proof ever emerged. Irish special forces were employed along the border with NI after an outbreak in Country Louth, to snipe wild animals such as deer that could carry the disease across, with their national herd counting for a much more significant proportion of their GDP. We were all walking across disinfectant mats at railways and airports for most of the year.

Roses are red, we've received about fifty. Google's next trick? Pixels for the thrifty

gbru2606

HDR+

Google's HDR+ default setting undoubtedly handles natural lighting very beautifully and naturally compared to Samsung's efforts which eliminate shadow and contrast for a bland sameness to photographs if you use the default settings. You can still get it cheaply on a Google Nexus 5X or 6P, but the jump in price for the Pixel range can't be justified by this software feature alone.

Took comparison pics with a friend in the pub one evening. He with the newly released S9 at about £700. Me with a brand new £250 Nexus 5X from Argos - a model initially released a year and a half earlier. His face was a picture when he could clearly see that HDR+ made all the difference and that the 5X had captured the deep contrasts far better than the S9. He was gutted.

Chinese rover pootles about... on the far side of the friggin' MOON

gbru2606

It was all handed over to the US to prevent the tech ever getting into the hand of the Belgians...of course.

Does Google make hardware just so nobody buys it?

gbru2606

Old Acer C720

I have an old Acer C720 which I picked up for £179 about 5 years ago. It's still working really well and I've run Linux on it from time to time after upgrading the m.2 ssd to 128GB - which was very easy to do.

If it dies, I can't really see myself buying another as they've all got soldered in EMMC's these days, unless you fork out an absurd sum for a high-end Chromebook - which I really don't see the point of unless money is no object.

For all its open source origins, it's all getting a bit locked down on the hardware side, and I wonder if the security chips on the new pixels will kill off rooting devices completely?

Facebook sued for exposing content moderators to Facebook

gbru2606

Re: I'm sorry, but snowflakes....

That's not really how trauma works. I knew a London Tube driver who went back to work after the first suicide and again after the second. After the third, something snapped, and he couldn't go back. No one can predict when or if that is going to happen to anyone, no matter what your training nor disposition is.

Brexit campaigner AggregateIQ challenges UK's first GDPR notice

gbru2606

Labour Party breach

My partner recently received a letter from the Labour Party inviting her to register for a postal vote. She phoned the local office and asked where they got her details - to which they replied the Open Register. She stated that she wasn't on the Open Register but contacted the Council anyway to check and they concurred that she's not on the public register. She's deliberating what to do next. I'm a Party member, but this really gets on my nerves. A key Labour strategy is to push up the numbers of people to vote by post because the higher the turnout - the better Labour do. Why they're not using an up-to-date Open Register is utterly beyond me.

White House calls its own China tech cash-inject ban 'fake news'

gbru2606

Shorting stock (your industries, currency and your country) based on an inside track to the White House? Smells like easy money, for those with plenty of spare cash.

Google says Pixel 2's narcoleptic display is being fixed in June update

gbru2606

Didn't LG balls up the motherboard of the Nexus 5x, and some of their own devices? I think they're still replacing them all these years later. They replaced mine under warranty.

I see a satellite of a man ... Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, that's now 4 sats fit to go

gbru2606

Enough of this undermocratic 'standards harmonisation' talk. Cutting 'unnecessary red tape' was the fundamental building block to restore democracy; enforce the will of the people of every single piece of Westminster legislation; proclaim British values as seperate and distinct to European values; strengthen Europe as a whole and European countries large and small by breaking them back into a collection of isolated nation states with seperate currencies and closed borders; end the wrongful freedom of the world's 50 poorest nations to export to the EU tariff free; end the 'protectionist' global reach of the EU's existing trade deals; reintroduce isolationism, protectionism and tariffs as political weapons where large countries once again get to bully enemies and smaller nations economically, blah, blah, blah...

gbru2606

'Patrick' could be renamed 'Patrick gets to have his cake and eat it as he's entitled to dual citizenship-whilst George won't'

You know that silly fear about Alexa recording everything and leaking it online? It just happened

gbru2606

Re: And that....

"I'm hoping that the self-driving cars will be cross between (and priced between) taxis and efficient public transport."

...and not prone to racist rants.

HMRC opens consultation to crack down on off-payroll working in private sector

gbru2606

Re: taxation is slavery

You're talking about being an employee, which is exactly not what this article is about.

US Congress finally emits all 3,000 Russian 'troll' Facebook ads. Let's take a look at some

gbru2606

Re: I fail to understand

I didn't say I agreed with their methods. My point is that Antifa don't even register in the electoral process in the US. In terms of militancy and the alt-right vs. Antifa/hard left, it was in the UK that an MP was assassinated by the far-right Britain First during the Brexit referendum. Farage declared victory 'without a shot being fired' before Cox had even been buried. THAT is registering yourself as a violent political opposition. Antifa are angry and violent protestors. They're not terrorists in the same way that Trump deliberately validates gun rights and white male right-wing extremism, which is a very real threat to the lives of Americans: A far bigger threat that has cost many more lives than Jihadists or Antifa activists.

gbru2606

Re: I fail to understand

There's a 16 year old in our school in the North West UK who honestly believes that Antifa is a viable and direct threat to free speech and democracy in the US - and that Trump is doing a brilliant job facing down that threat - and defeating Isis - and generally being a global superhero that does no wrong. Seeing these kinds of posts online would confirm this kids prejudice. Didn't gun sales increase under Obama because people were told their rights were being threatened?

There will be blood: BT to axe 13,000 employees

gbru2606

Re: 106,000??

Not to forget that many of their engineers were trained for "free" (taxpayer funded) by the army.

'Dear Mr F*ckingjoking': UK PM Theresa May's mass marketing missive misses mark

gbru2606

The whole point of leaflets through the door is to help you decide who NOT to vote for surely?

Cambridge Analytica CEO suspended – and that's not even the worst news for them today

gbru2606

Re: Media and Twittersphere outrage......

"So what changed this week? Nothing....absolutely nothing at all!"

Is it possible that the news might ultimately fail to reveal that a Referendum in the UK and the US election were both won as an arms-length black-ops operation by GCHQ and NSA? Unthinkable?

WannaCry kill-switch hero Marcus Hutchins collared by FBI on way home from DEF CON

gbru2606

Undisclosed location??

Why an undisclosed location? Why the sinister denial to reveal his whereabouts? Isn't that what evil regimes do?

Decapitating Rockall: How a 1970s Navy expedition blasted the top off the Atlantic islet

gbru2606

Here's a map of the agreed EEZ's. The UK doesn't have an awful lot considering her population density.Should Scotland claim the Northern part of the UK's EEZ, England and Wales would have very little to play with.

https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=cf9a73170fcd41ceb320e1292f5f9035

gbru2606

I think the Scottish can have it. Ireland has a very nice chunk of clean Atlantic continental shelf in her EEZ. Certainly relative to her size and population density.

Germany to roll out €100bn gigabit internet network

gbru2606

Re: The €100bn project

Spread that out over 10 years and it's an extra months payment on your existing service. I presume they get to recoup it through successful German Business contributing taxes and rates.

LOST IN SPAAAAAACE! SpaceX aborts Space Station podule berthing

gbru2606

Just like buses...

...you wait around for ages and then two arrive at the same time.

Plusnet broadband outage: Customers fume as TITSUP* continues

gbru2606

Gone

When they upped their price a few months ago, it allowed me to exit the contract without a penalty. Didn't stop them attempting to bill us an exit fee over and over again. But we're finally rid of them. They used to be OK before BT took over imo.

Between you, EE and the lamppost ... this UK cell network is knackered

gbru2606

MIlk cows?

BT? They milk cows don't they? Very good at it too I believe.

The next Cuban gristle crisis: US Navy warship powered by beef fat

gbru2606

Purely propaganda

All sounds a bit psychological to me. My undertsanding is the Cubans are not allowed to kill cattle for food, at least that was the case the last time I visited - Castro was still in power mind you. Sounds like a little story to undermine you nearest 'old enemy'.

Trident test-shot startles West Coast Americans

gbru2606

Gee Whiz

The American public don't know what a cruise missile launch looks like, even though their elected & military leaders have rained down over thousands on the Middle east, Libya and Afghanistan.

Terror in the Chernobyl dead zone: Life - of a wild kind - burgeons

gbru2606

You might want to leave the comments section open here for a few hundred years Reg.

At 3 billion dollars for the current Chernobyl upgrade, surely this has to be the most heavily funded wildlife park on the planet? The cleanup costs of Sellafield could have paid a massive workforce to externally insulate every 100 year old property in the UK and cut the need for future energy by some significant stretch, not to mention helping to lift people out of fuel poverty.

As for Fukushima, the ongoing pollution and forced collection of groundwater by the destroyed reactor cores presents a problem that has never been dealt with by Engineers, ever.

Looks like cleaning up nuclear has got massive growth potential as an industry, and it sounds like Reg readers are investing.

KARMA POLICE: GCHQ spooks spied on every web user ever

gbru2606

If that was 2009...

If that was done in 2009, I think it's fairly safe to assume the record button has been on since about 2011 for everyone.

Wileyfox Swift: Brit startup budget 'droid is the mutt's nuts

gbru2606

Re: Nexus 5 audio

Have you tried rooting it to adjust volume control? The Faux sound app, with the right supporting kernel, means I can double the loudest volume on my Nexus 4. Made a huge difference for me. I never miss a call and can listen to the radio while riding my moped into a 70 mile an hour gale. Its my number one reason for rooting the device.

Back to school: Six of the smartest cheap 'n' cheerful laptops

gbru2606

Re: Ubuntu boot results?

You've to be a little careful about battery life with Ubuntu installed on a laptop, no? It's much more hungry than you'd imagine.

Your security is just dandy, Apple Pay, but here comes Android

gbru2606

Paying with an iPad

I can't imagine anyone ever paying for anything with an iPad in Blackpool....Round here the police wouldn't be too sympathetic if you were mugged for it afterwards either.

Mozilla's ‘Great or Dead’ philosophy may save bloated blimp Firefox

gbru2606

I like Firefox

Firefox Synced across PCs with the Roomy Bookmarks extension is ideal for work/bookmark folders and multiple RSS feeds. But I agree that it's footprint gets big at times and I'm not a fan of the Android version. But I don't know any mobile browser that handles bookmarks folders or rss feeds well.

Citizenfour director Laura Poitras sues US for years of border security harassment

gbru2606

Re: Thou shalt not...

"Poitras has been subject to monitoring by the U.S. Government, which she speculates is because of a wire transfer she sent in 2006 to Iraqi doctor Riyadh al-Adhadh, a suspected Sunni insurgent.[22] After completing My Country, My Country, Poitras claims, "I've been placed on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) watch list" and have been notified by airport security "that my 'threat rating' was the highest the Department of Homeland Security assigns".[23]"

She's been singled out to make an example of by a Western world that sets no limits on it's military industrial complex. Thankfully, the Russian and Chinese Governments are in control of their military, unlike here in the West, where the rather fat, overstuffed military tail very definitely wags the dog.

PLUTO: The FINAL FRONTIER – best image yet of remote, icy dwarf planet REVEALED

gbru2606

It's already looking very interesting. Fascinating.

Smart meters set to cost Blighty as much as replacing Trident

gbru2606

Or you could just...

Or you could just train up a few thousand plasterers to externally insulate half-a-million cold, damp, redbrick properties in Northern England (with heat-recovery units added) to slash their energy consumption by a third.

But then you couldn't threaten to switch off a rioting populations heating remotely, could you?

Why did Snowden swipe 900k+ US DoD files? (Or so Uncle Sam claims)

gbru2606

Re: Sir

Surely by far and away the vast majority of people who have died are innocent Muslims, perpetually on the receiving end of the same spying military/state apparatuses used against you and I, with the addition of a series of multi-trillion dollar unilateral foreign invasions, divide-and-rule political interference and arms sales, that have laid waste to international communities.

Android M's Now on Tap cyber-secretary is like Clippy on Class A drugs

gbru2606

Android pet-hate: Google Play Music...for example

There are plenty of downsides with Android, My pet hate: It can easily take 4-7 steps to get to your graphic equalizer from WITHIN the Play Music app on Lollipop. It was easier for me to adjust my music experience 40 years ago. That's some feat with $90 invested in your company, it really is.

Russia will fork Sailfish OS to shut out pesky Western spooks

gbru2606

Re: @ Ledswinger

"He hates our military people and disdains our veterans"

Only the many Generals and troops that believe they've been doing God's work for the past two decades I'm sure, and who can blame him?

BT boss in shock 'bigger is better' claim as £12.5bn EE bid heats up

gbru2606

When the land-line literally fell off our outside wall, BT tried to charge us £150 to get someone to reattach it! I was gobsmacked by the brass neck of it all thinkling how much they'd earned in rental over the years.

Chancers. Utter chancers.

The fibre-broadband we all paid for with our taxes is sitting in a nice new shiny box down the road. I can't afford to connect to it.

'One day, YOU won't be able to SENSE the INTERNET,' vows Schmidt

gbru2606

Re: "Imagine you walk into a room..."

...and that Google will of course share all this information with the NSA...as it happens.

'Turn to nuclear power to save planetary ecology from renewable BLIGHT'

gbru2606

Re: How convenient...

The cost of nuclear (per MWh) never includes the massive expense of cleaning up the mass afterwards though, does it?

Sellafield is going to cost way more than the current £70 Billion alloted by the Government and taxpayers.

The true cost of energy can't be calculated unless you include ALL future cleanup and waste storage operations. Renewables could then start to look a lot more cost effecvtive. Countries that never went down the nuclear road don't have the stored up problems that the UK and other countries face. £70 Billion would have fully retrofitted every single pre-1930's home in the North of England to tackle the main problem: energy consumption to heat cold, old housing stock.

Netflix bullish after six-country European INVASION

gbru2606

Enjoyed the 4 Battlestar Galactica (remake) series which start at about £18 each on the Google Play Store. First month free, now £5.99 a month. I can cancel it now and take a break until we decide to get into another box set. I've used a Chromecast (£30) to smarten up the TV and think it works a treat.

EU to accuse Ireland of giving Apple an overly peachy tax deal – report

gbru2606

Re: Harmonisation

The City of London might be a little worried by your remarks. The UK hosts the global headquarters for many multinational companies that have minimal operations, or sales, inside of the UK. Likewise, what will happen to the UK's offshore banking system?

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