* Posts by David Nash

1434 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jul 2008

10 years of the Kindle and the curious incident of a dog in the day-time

David Nash Silver badge

It would be very handy if Amazon provided a copy of the Kindle version when you bought a proper book, in a similar way to their "AutoRip" where they provide MP3 versions of CDs you buy.

Wait, did Oracle tip off world to Google's creepy always-on location tracking in Android?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Oracle tipped off the world ...

@I ain't Spartacus

Well 90% of the time that I "use maps" I have location turned off. That's because I normally use it to find a place, look at roads, or a route. You only need location turned on if you want it to show you where you are, or use it as sat nav. Since I normally know where I am and normally use my car's sat nav, I don't need Maps to do so.

So you don't need location turned on to "use Maps properly"...unless you have defined "properly" to mean "with location turned on".

I'm happy to accept that for some users, they need Maps to tell them where they are and hence would have to turn on location services.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Oracle tipped off the world ...

I ain't Spartacus: There should be no choice. Satnav data should always be availble in maps - location services only needs to be optionally available in order to stop apps (and Google) from slurping your data.

I agree. I was just responding to the suggestion that you need location services enabled to use Maps.

Unfortunately Google have not given us the option.

Actually I don't know whether it's possible for an app to get GPS location data without turning on Google Location Services. I get the impression it's one switch, all or nothing, but I haven't considered it before.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Google: "It is not "location services" so it's not reporting on you. So you can't turn it off.

"how would you know where the tower you sense is...?"

That's what I thought. I assumed that the tower has a way to tell the phone where it is.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Oracle tipped off the world ...

"All of those services were on if you enabled location services. Which you couldn't use maps without"

It's perfectly possible to use Maps without location services. I do it all the time. Maps prompts me to turn it on, and I say No, Thank You.

Of course if I want Maps to pinpoint my current location then I have to enable location services, but that's obvious.

Abolish the Telly Tax? Fat chance, say MPs at non-binding debate

David Nash Silver badge

"And all of it total crap. I don't watch anything on the BBC"

You don't want to watch it therefore it's crap? All of radio 4, all of 6 Music, every episode of Eastenders (you might have a point there), every programme you don't watch?

Do you also think the government should stop funding roads to places you don't want to go, close schools when your kids (if you have any) have grown up, etc. etc?

Mythical broadband speeds to plummet in crackdown on ISP ads

David Nash Silver badge

Re: About time....

"have shared storage"

Genuine question...what's that got to do with a router?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Up to?

They could use "maximum" instead of "up to".

But that still doesn't tell you what you will get.

Phone fatigue takes hold: SIM-onlys now top UK market

David Nash Silver badge

Unreliable and slower?

Does it make the media stored on it play slower? Of course not.

OK if a phone has sufficient built-in storage to compete, maybe you have a point. But so-called cloud storage is never a viable alternative. What was that you were saying about slower?

London mayor: Self-driving cars? Not without jacked-up taxes, you don't!

David Nash Silver badge

Re: I've never understood...

"how much income must one have to be classed as:....."

It's all relative, and very interesting to see the discussion. Generally people who earn plenty still don't think they are rich, because as long as multi-billionaires exist, there is always someone richer than you, so you never think of yourself as "rich".

Whereas a "comfortably-off" middle-class person would be thought of as rich by many at the low-or-non-existent income scale.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: I've never understood...

I agree, small increase in Income Tax would be fairer, however Income Tax is the "headline tax" so would be seen as "increasing tax" even if it was entirely offset by reductions in fuel or other taxes.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Khan being an idiot on this one

"We don't like electric vehicles because we would get less tax under our current system"

I thought it said Self Driving cars (which happen to be Electric) not EVs generally.

Anyway it doesn't say "we don't like them", it says "if we have them, we need to change taxation to compensate".

Uber: Hackers stole 57m passengers, drivers' info. We also bribed the thieves $100k to STFU

David Nash Silver badge
Facepalm

"I wonder if all those in London moaning about TfL's decision to not award Uber a license are still moaning about it?"

They probably are, because with Uber they can use an app and it's cheaper than a taxi. What's not to like?

In fact they are probably saying "this happened last year and nothing bad happened, get over it"

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Some points I'd like to make

2. Of course it was part of the joke. It's a story about Uber (no umlaut).

'Gimme Gimme Gimme' Easter egg in man breaks automated tests at 00:30

David Nash Silver badge
Facepalm

su - per $true | per

Well done. In a groaning kind of way, anyway.

It was El Reg wot won it: Bing banishes bogus Brit bank banner ad

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Tip of the iceberg

"A simple solution would be for search engines to detect when you have searched for a URL and give you that URL link at the very top as the first result."

Or the ONLY result. At least if you put https(s) on it.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: What worries me

Because they don't know what a URL or an "address bar" is.

And allowing people to search via the address bar only blurs the distinction.

I do find autocomplete of URLs handy but only from previous sites visited, I don't want it going and searching for it.

National Cyber Security Centre boss: For the love of $DEITY, use 2FA on your emails, peeps

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Absolutely missing the point

"if. you. have. actually. a. clue. what. you. are. doing."

Well of course Joe average email user doesn't. They just want things to work.

Twitter's blue tick rule changes may lower the sueball barrier

David Nash Silver badge

I wasn't aware that the blue tick had this other meaning, at least to some (many?) users. What even makes people think this kind of nonsense?

But if Twitter want to be sure that people understand what it means, why not just change it to text that says "verified account" (in the local language) rather than use a tick, which clearly has been misinterpreted.

Inside Internet Archive: 10PB+ of storage in a church... oh, and a little fight to preserve truth

David Nash Silver badge

Re: 35PB ? What about the Internet?

It's better than nothing though. I don't think they claim otherwise.

It's artificial! It's intelligent! It's in my home! And it's gone bonkers!

David Nash Silver badge

Life As A Service

The latest Red Dwarf had a good take on that concept recently.

https://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/red-dwarf/watch-online/?video=5620968498001

Car tax evasion has soared since paper discs scrapped

David Nash Silver badge

would it work?

It used to work...so of course they had to change it.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: No car tax?

"How hard would it be for DVLA to generate a PDF with a tax disk in it that the car owner could download & print ? "

Good idea. When the change first came in I photoshopped a scan of the old disk to make a new reminder.

However they do send letters reminding me to pay. So it's not that hard to remember.

Prosecute driverless car devs for software snafus, say Brit cyclists

David Nash Silver badge

Re: They also want to geofence motorways

btw, "they" also don't pay "road tax", lol...

Assuming you are aware (from your scare quotes) that there is actually no such thing as "road tax" in the UK, I will also mention that "they" do pay it if they own a car, which many (most?) cyclists on the road do.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Why stop at prosecuting Dev's? andy why just the car manufacturer?

" don't expect the mad max brigade of automate cars to stop and let you pull out either.."

This is a good point and not just relating to cyclists.

There are often times when it's right to slow or stop so that someone can cross or pull into your lane. eg. I have to cross the A1 from a side road when going to work in the morning, and if there is congestion people will just stop short and let me through, otherwise I would be there for hours.

Will AVs have the programming for this? Or for similar cases (merging in turn when a lane ends, letting people pull out, moving to another lane to let people join the motorway etc.)?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: First, find the problem

From the cyclists point of view...I would be worried only if I did something wrong.

And I am a cyclist, and I try not to do anything wrong, as I do when I drive my car.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: ICE's blocking EV Charging points

"Seriously, it's no one's concern..."

Nice attitude, I suppose you park in the family and disabled spaces in the supermarket too, do you?

It's common courtesy to leave such spaces for those for whom they are intended. Including charge points, especially since there are so few of them.

Thousand-dollar iPhone X's Face ID wrecked by '$150 3D-printed mask'

David Nash Silver badge

Re: From experience though.....

"...being a £1000 phone, true enough, but a Samsung S8 is not much further behind (price-wise)..."

"Um, £515 says you're wrong."

And also, just because another expensive phone exists doesn't mean the iPhone is suddenly worth the money. Maybe they are both overpriced.

Teensy weensy space shuttle flies and lands

David Nash Silver badge

Re: encountering just 1.5 times Earth gravity

It is rather unclear and smacks of someone just repeating a number they've heard rather than trying to describe exactly what it means.

I interpreted it as the force of impact on landing. Perhaps I was wrong.

Brace yourselves, fanboys. Winter is coming. And the iPhone X can't handle the cold

David Nash Silver badge

Re: There's an agenda afoot and it's a failure...

Yeah ask that Uni Student why she chose that job eh?

Seriously, your first point "Most women don't want to work in tech" may be correct, although I'd prefer to see some stats before stating it categorically, but your second "They largely go for hairdressing and beauty, reception and book keeping work, nursing, teaching, etc." is just a stereotype based on your limited experience.

The real situation is more complex than simply "employ more women" as the positive action people would like, but it's also not as simple as you seem to think.

Brit moron tried buying a car bomb on dark web, posted it to his address. Now he's screwed

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Erm...

It does say they were arrested. So they were clearly suspects initially but I guess pretty soon eliminated as such.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Just goes to show...

If by "secularist" you mean those who don't believe in a religion, well not having a belief in something doesn't count as a doctrine, which is in fact a belief.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: er...

That's the definition of terror, yes, but the modern definition of terrorISM normally requires association with some group, normally international, with political or religious motives.

Self-driving bus in crash just 2 hours after entering public service

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Why is this news?

"Last time I was in Vegas we streamed it live. That was till the hotel complained about the band with usage."

What was wrong with the band?

Logitech: We're gonna brick your Harmony Link gizmos next year

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Difference in terminology

"What they ought to do before switching it off is update the firmware to allow it to save settings locally. Perhaps allow you to set a different 'Cloud'."

Or just say "no more cloud, sorry". But why cease working?

That awkward moment when AWS charges you BEELLIONS for Lightsail

David Nash Silver badge

Re: I'd feel a whole lot better

The article said it was the estimated usage, not the final bill. So no anecdotes of paying or not paying at the moment.

El Reg assesses crypto of UK banks: Who gets to wear the dunce cap?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Dunce Cap tip

"And I'm sure minimum wage phone drone #87676 gives you a thoroughly reasoned and well thought out reply, making the entire venture entirely worth your time."

Actually First Direct customer service staff are excellent and always give a good service. Dates back from when they were telephone only I guess.

No connection except as a longstanding satisfied customer. Which is annoying because we are always being exhorted by consumer groups to change our bank accounts, and other banks are pushing inducements to do so...but FD always win the awards and top the charts for good service.

Donald, YOU'RE FIRED: Rogue Twitter worker quits, deletes President Trump's account

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Liberals' level of hate just got upped a notch

Because nobody on the right has any political hate, right?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Good luck

Yes because that would be proportionate, wouldn't it?

David Nash Silver badge

Re: "Suppression of free speech!!!!"

The "freedom" to post whatever you want on Twitter, indeed to have an account, is not a Freedom at all, universal or otherwise.

Also if "everyone" agreed with what was posted it's not likely that this would have happened in the first place.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: viva freedom of speech..

Nobody was whinging. If anything people were having a good laugh and congratulating the Twitter (ex-)employee who did this while speculating on any number of things.

David Nash Silver badge

It's always "overnight" somewhere...so that will be all the time then.

First iPhone X fondlers struggle to admit that Face ID sort of sucks

David Nash Silver badge

Re: How can apple screw up so badly?

@Mage

I agree with you but you are pushing it a bit to have both (7) and (17)

Ex-Facebook manager sues biz after getting 'Zucked out of overtime'

David Nash Silver badge

Re: All depends on how useful you are.

It all depends on whether that was part of the job when you started. If you take on a job knowing that there will be some out-of-hours work included in the annual salary and you are not paid by the hour, then you don't have a case.

If they came along after the event and said you need to do out-of-hours work for nothing extra, then you are right.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Oh, skirting correct payment happens everywhere

If your normal hours are, say, 40 hours, and you work 45 hours, then that's overtime, right?

But it's not above 48 hours so doesn't need to be recorded?

One-third of mobile users receive patchy to no indoor coverage

David Nash Silver badge

"Thankfully it's not an issue for me anymore ever since the mobile networks recently supported Wifi Calling."

So any building you are in MUST allow you to use their wifi if your mobile signal is bad?

David Nash Silver badge
WTF?

Re: WiFi Calling

O2 have just announced that they are cancelling their WiFi app (TuGo) because apparently some new phones have it built-in.

So all the rest of us don't get it any more. That will teach us not to have bought a new phone for a couple of years!

USB stick found in West London contained Heathrow security data

David Nash Silver badge

Malware spreading via USB stick

As much discussed here in the past. That was the first thing that I thought of when I read the article. I wouldn't have known whether there was sensitive material on a stick like that, because I would not plug it into my PC.

David Nash Silver badge

Owning it, yes (for example I recently confused my son by buying a CD which is readily available on Spotify) but not with "being safe". I don't think we are under any illusions about the ability to copy and pass on digital data.

Boss put chocolate cake on aircon controller, to stop people using it

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Heating / Aircon

It's true the hands really start to suffer even if you wear a jumper.

I once worked in the Gherkin in London, such a modern building, you'd think that the environment would be right, wouldn't you? Except that inside there are these big areas cut out of the floors on several floors above each other, so you have something like balconies that can look down several floors. So if you are at or near the bottom of one of these sections the air just disappears up this section, leading to use of mini electric heaters in the offices.