* Posts by Robert Baker

175 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jul 2008

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TomTom bill bomb: Why am I being charged for infotainment? I sold my car last year, rages Reg reader

Robert Baker
Mushroom

Re: Simpler than I expected

Do these forums have the standard "ignore this member" function, so I can block Terdsmith and his stupid comments?

CEO of motherboard maker MSI dies after plunging from headquarters' seventh-floor

Robert Baker

If you're using "vertigo" in the correct medical sense (dizziness or difficulty with balance), that could explain his falling out of a window. The common misuse of "vertigo" to mean acrophobia (fear of heights or of falling) wouldn't account for being at a seventh-floor window in the first place.

High-resolution display output or Wi-Fi: It seems you can only choose one on Raspberry Pi 4

Robert Baker
Joke

>Shall I compare it to a DEC PDP-11?

It is more lovely and more temperate?

Right-click opens up terrifying vistas of reality and Windows 95 user's frightful position therein

Robert Baker
FAIL

Re: A stupid idea

I once had a piece of software which was supposed to protect against accidental deletion; attempting to delete files moved them to the Recycle Bin instead. I soon disabled it when I found that it was also protecting me against deliberate, intentional deletion; even files deleted using Shift+Del, or files deleted from within a DOS prompt, got "recycled"...

It will never be safe to turn off your computer: Prankster harnesses the power of Windows 95 to torment fellow students

Robert Baker

Re: More chaos

My favourite trick, when a PC was displaying a text prompt, was to create a smal batch file called XD.BAT which did MD followed by CD. I would then type something like:

for %z in (this computer is total rubbish) do xd %z

With the result:

C:\THIS\COMPUTER\IS\TOTAL\RUBBISH>

When Tesco had a laptop on display (running Internet Execrable) and unwisely not locked down, I changed the IE branding from "Internet Explorer provided by Tesco" to "this browser is cr@p, use Navigator instead".

Idle Computer Science skills are the Devil's playthings

Robert Baker
Gimp

Easy Fix

Ah, ROBOCOPY — the future of file-system enforcement! ;-)

Top Euro court: No, you can't steal images from other websites (too bad a school had to be sued to confirm this little fact)

Robert Baker

"do the decent thing and turn it into the nearest police station"

Truly an impressive feat of high level magic.

Much more difficult than merely turning it in to a police station.

Intellisense was off and developer learned you can't code in Canadian

Robert Baker

Re: Why has no one quoted Alexei Sayle?

Or: they say trump, we say fart.

Cox blocked! ISP may avoid $25m legal bill for letting punters pirate music online

Robert Baker
Pirate

Re: A broken judicial system...

As the Michael Jackson paedo case showed, the US has the best judicial system that money can buy.

User dialled his PC into a permanent state of 'Brown Alert'

Robert Baker

Re: Brownouts

"Google Translate came up with an interesting one the other day."

Yesterday, I was watching a YouTube video about twisty puzzles, with auto-generated captions. It made numerous gaffes, such as "mirror cube" being subtitled as "American cube", but far more alarming was that one instance of "floppy cube" became "fucking", and another became "fuck you".

Needless to say, I have now submitted a set of manually edited subtitles for that video.

UK government's war on e-cigs is over

Robert Baker
Pint

Re: Mmmmkay

"I don't think you should be entitled to puff your crap next to me but I would settle for you to have a ventilated area of the hostelry to indulge your habit even an indoors one."

Reminds me of what I've heard of the Las Vegas casinos; they don't want to alienate smokers or non-smokers, so they have massive, high-powered air-conditioning systems which totally replace the air in the room every few minutes.

It's said that you can be a foot away from a smoker in such a place, and if you're looking in the other direction you'll never know.

Robert Baker
Alert

Such controversy...

Is this the El Reg thread which holds the record for the largest number of downvotes?

Bonkers call to boycott Raspberry Pi Foundation over 'gay agenda'

Robert Baker
Joke

Re: Oh what a Gay Day...

"it's unlikely that was ever the case."

Great article from the Heterosexual Idiot. ;-)

Robert Baker
IT Angle

Re: Optional

"Never trust anything you read on the internet" — Abraham Lincoln

Robert Baker
Gimp

Re: Rainbow

"Well, according to Wikipedia there were eight colors originally."

In the Discworld equivalent movement (dwarfs who identify as female?), the eighth stripe is probably octarine.

Robert Baker
Pint

Re: Rainbow

"And there was certainly nothing gay about Messrs Blackmore, Powell & Dio back in '76."

Nor the venue in Finsbury Park where many rock bands performed.

In after-hours trade on Monday, NYSE deployed test code to production

Robert Baker
Coat

Re: Take your pick...

"Pissed contractor"?

Angry, drunk or both?

Mine is the one with a copy of "Money" by Pink Floyd in the pocket. ("I don't know, I was really drunk at the time...")

In touching tribute to Samsung Note 7, fidget spinners burst in flames

Robert Baker
Coat

Why would a fidget spinner need speakers?

Perhaps in order to play tracks by The Spinners?

(Liverpool or Detroit, take your pick — Amazon doesn't seem to know the difference...)

Crapness of WannaCrypt coding offers hope for ransomware victims

Robert Baker
IT Angle

Re: Hidden Files?

I set my folder view to not only show hidden files, but system files as well; the reason being that media software often not only downloads (extremely low-resolution, hence poor quality) album art, despite the files already having much better album art embedded, but erroneously flags them as system files(??), making it needlessly hard to get rid of them.

Phishing scum going legit to beat browser warnings

Robert Baker
Devil

Frankly, it's about time people realize "https" only means you're really talking to the site your address bar says you're talking to on an encrypted channel and not some middle-man impersonating it - it says nothing whatsoever about said site being actually legit in its intent (or being that other site a letter difference away that you think you're talking to)...

Case in point:

www.emaildiscussions.com — good (tech forum about email, on which at least one member has been asking for https: as if that's a magic wand that will cure all that forum's ills)

www.еmаіІdіѕсuѕѕіоnѕ.соm — bogus (unlike the first link, this one is mostly in Cyrillic characters which look like ASCII but aren't); which is why I haven't posted it as a hyperlink.

WikiLeaks exposes CIA anti-forensics tool that makes Uncle Sam seem fluent in enemy tongues

Robert Baker

Re: 你所有的基地都屬於我們。

І шіІІ лот вцч тніѕ товвассоліѕт'ѕ, іт іѕ ѕсгатснеД

UK hospital meltdown after ransomware worm uses NSA vuln to raid IT

Robert Baker

Re: Ransomware

"You don't lock them up and demand a ransom."

You might not now but in medieval times it was the best way of becoming rich

Ever wondered why the phrase "worth a king's ransom" came into being? That's because it originally wasn't just a metaphor.

Robert Baker

Re: Security vs convenience

I worked in one large hospital where management decided to tighten up security and have a whitelist of accessible websites. Unfortunately they didn't include the British National Formulary, TOXBASE etc with predictably hairy results.

I once read an account by an A&E doctor, who (not being able to diagnose a patient's problem with 95% or better certainty, as often happens especially in A&E) decided to run a query on the Best Bet site, this being a website especially for A&E workers faced with this kind of lemma. Unfortunately, the hospital's I(dio)T department had installed filters which blocked access to Best Bet on the (false) assumption that it was a gambling site.

Fortunately he was able to work around this by ringing a friend in another A&E and having the friend access Best Bet on his behalf. I bet he had a few choice words to say to IT/management when called in to the disciplinary hearing about this episode.

Robert Baker
WTF?

"The wards in Colchester General have free WiFi."

And? Nearly all hospitals have patient wi-fi, either free (such as at St. Thomas') or paid (such as at King's College Hospital), but unless the IT staff are not just clueless but total freakin' idiots (read: none of them), the patient wi-fi doesn't come anywhere near being connected to the hospital's wireless network(s).

Robert Baker

And introducing acoustic flu?

Robert Baker
Flame

Re: Eh?

"Perhaps the thumbdown didn't agree that later systems are vulnerable?"

Affected system != vulnerable system. The Spanish report covers those systems which were infected (and as I have said before, downvoting a fact doesn't make it false); it doesn't distinguish between those with unpatched vulnerabilities, and those with dumb users who click on dodgy links such as those "YOUR COMPUTER IS AT RISK!!!!!" ads we have all seen.

Robert Baker

"I suspect it also might be related to Windows preferring to execute emailed malware rather than than scan it. It nicely removes the user actually having to click anything, windows takes care of executing it for you."

That isn't a Windows vulnerability per se, it's an incompetently-written-email-client vulnerability. This is one reason why Pegasus Mail deliberately doesn't execute any code in an email, unless of course explicitly asked by the user to do so.

'I feel violated': Engineer who pointed out traffic signals flaw fined for 'unlicensed engineering'

Robert Baker
Joke

Re: Gas

I too pump my own gas all the time — especially if I've eaten baked beans.

NHS reply-all meltdown swamped system with half a billion emails

Robert Baker

Re: 'Ye Old Exchange 5.5 Bombing of 16GB limits

"You'll get me replacing email with chat applications when my manager agrees that I don't have to do any work.

Making it easier to interrupt me at _my_ work to help out with _their_ work is not something I intend doing."

You'll get me to replace e-mail with chat when flying pigs land on the frozen plains of Hell. Chat is a text version of telephoning; e-mail has many advantages over both, such as being able to compose my response and not having to reply immediately.

Google mistakes the entire NHS for massive cyber-attacking botnet

Robert Baker

Re: Pffff

"We are advising staff to use an alternative search engine i.e. Bing to bypass this problem."

The NHS staffer who wrote that clearly believes that Bing is the only other search engine, as indicated by the "i.e." (=that is to say). Unless of course he was making the common mistake of using "i.e." when he meant "e.g." (=for example).

Flight 666 lands safely in HEL on Friday the 13th

Robert Baker

Re: Room 13

When I was in hospital in March 2014, I was in bed 12B - between beds 12 and 14.

Programmer finds way to liberate ransomware'd Google Smart TVs

Robert Baker
IT Angle

Don't call it the "Internet of Things"

Instead, call it the "Infrastructure-Dependent Internet of Things" — much more appropriate initialism.

Houston, we have a problem: 'App dev stole our radio station'

Robert Baker

Sadly not unique

This is similar (in style at least, though not severity) to the time when the small housing association for which I volunteered got delusions of grandeur, and amongst other massive overspends decided to get a fancy, "professionally"-designed logo. The designer not only charged a hefty price, but also insisted on retaining the copyright; so every time the organisation photocopied a letter for the records (on a copier which would have been more at home in the HQ of a large multinational than at a small, very local charity) they were technically committing a crime (this being post-1979).

London's Winter Wonderland URGENTLY seeks Windows 10 desk support

Robert Baker
IT Angle

THere's a golden opportunity here

What's the betting that one evening, the flashing lights on the rides suddenly start scrolling the message "Switch to Linux — you know it makes sense"? :)

Robert Baker
Happy

Oi, HBO!

Winter (Wonderland) Is Coming™!

Robert Baker
Joke

Re: Not just Win 10

"More to the point they want Exchange, phones, voicemail and networking."

...and shooting? ;-) (or "and their heads examined"?)

Military reservist bemoans frost-bitten baby-maker on Antarctic trek

Robert Baker
Joke

Re: Sorry to be a cynic:

Anyone willing to sponsor my hazardous expedition to Alton Towers, to find the West Pole?

HBO slaps takedown demand on 13-year-old girl's painting because it used 'Winter is coming'

Robert Baker
Pint

Re: Well known phrase?

In this young artist's case, I will suggest "When I am a cold woman I shall wear purple".

Obligatory Terry Pratchett reference — I like it! :-)

Robert Baker
Flame

List please?

Someone should publish a complete list of all shows by the Heartless Bastards Organisation, so that we can all boycott them. Let them see how much their "trademarks" are worth if they're rendered worthless by the fact that their shows no longer have any viewers.

In the meantime, they can shove their "trademarks" where the sun don't shine, closely followed by at least one lighted stick of dynamite.

NHS IT bod sends test email to 850k users – and then responses are sent 'reply all'

Robert Baker
IT Angle

Re: A valuable insight into human nature

"5. Please don't reply all. (Understand what's going on.)"

That last one should be "kids themselves that they understand what's going on, but they actually don't, especially not the deep irony of replying to all to say 'don't reply to all'."

Robert Baker
Flame

Re: A special place in Hell...

"The common example of this is the email that asks all an "if " question, as in "If any of you can help with x please email me.." and there well be then a flood of "reply all" emails from people who don't need to answer at all, because they can't help, saying that they can't help"

Amazon Marketplace has a feature whereby anyone can ask a question about a product, and Amazon then email those who have purchased the product, asking if they can answer the question; but the dumb and poorly-thought-out aspect of this is, that there is also an "I don't know" button. I have always felt the latter to be pointless, since any moderately intelligent person can infer that I don't know the answer from the fact that I don't give one.

To my mind, the only earthly use of this feature is that if someone asks a question about a Pink Floyd product, the "I don't know" option could be replaced with "I don't know, I was really drunk at the time".

Robert Baker
Joke

Re: It did not need "reply all"

"Sadly, Croydon is already on the map at the moment."

...until a certain US President-Elect, who shall remain nameless, gets access to the nuke button? ;-)

Robert Baker
Alien

Re: So, the UK population has doubled?

"You under counted the Travellers, Sirians and Afhanis by about 6.5 million..."

Sirians? So we're now getting immigrants from a planet of Alpha Canis Majoris as well? :-)

Robert Baker
Joke

Re: Only 70 or 80 people

"You actually use Spiceworks?? You deserve all you get."

I'll tell you what he wants, what he really really wants... shooting. ;-)

Boy, 12, gets €100k bill from Google after confusing Adwords with Adsense

Robert Baker
FAIL

@Semtex451, Re: Twelve =/= teen

"@GKraut - Re: "realizes..." - Please upgrade to the UK Dictionary."

Which UK dictionary? The OED, which is widely regarded to be the British English dictionary, favours the "-ize" endings.

Google may just have silently snuffed the tablet computer

Robert Baker
Flame

Re: SD card storage and Android

"You're storing important stuff on (single) SD-card storage? Remind me how reliable that is, especially long-term, again??"

As opposed to the renowned superb reliability of relying on the device's internal storage, or on cloud storage (read: somebody else's computer)?

As I already said, my first tablet was a Nexus 7 (no SD card slot and I didn't even have the option of cloud storage back then), and I lost several months' data when it failed without warning. Never again.

As for cloud storage, I had already learned the hard way that one cannot trust a third party to store data; what if they go bust, or decide without warning that they no longer want to keep your stuff? (Both of which have happened to me.) Many a web site has been lost forever because the owner made the mistake of editing it online, instead of editing it on their computer and uploading the changes, which is what I did when I had a site.

Robert Baker
Facepalm

Re: @Arctic fox, @RIBrsiq "I remember a time when tablets were supposed to kill the PC"

Oops, in the above I of course meant to say "...for when it inevitably fails, any data saved..."

Robert Baker
Unhappy

@Arctic fox, Re: @RIBrsiq "I remember a time when tablets were supposed to kill the PC"

"I note that a certain section of our little congregation here at El Reg post regularly claiming that Win 10 is destroying the pc-market. I wonder what their explanation is for condition of the tablet and smartmobe markets?"

Probably the fact that Google, in their infinite wisdom, have decreed that being able to save to a device's external SD card (and thereby do useful work on it) is somehow a "security risk". The fact that the Android OS even has such a setting is to my mind idiotic; but to have it enabled by default, and locked so that the end user cannot correct it (short of rooting the device), makes less sense than deliberately trying for a Darwin Award. You couldn't make it up.

I know from experience (my first tablet was a Nexus 7) that it is not safe to buy a tablet which lacks an SD card slot, for any data saved to internal memory since you last backed-up the device is lost forever; and the other choices are to contend with the real security risk of cloud storage (not to mention the waste of internet connectivity; we don't all have so-called "unlimited" data) or to ignore Google's paranoia and decide to use my device in my way, not theirs. Even if there is some kind of risk in saving to an SD card, to my mind it's much less than the risks of the other two approaches, as outlined above.

Apple seeks patent for paper bag - you read that right, a paper bag

Robert Baker

Re: Folds or Gussets?

Folds and gussets never show their fruitless worth.

Robert Baker

Re: Now if only...

Is superglue made from pegasi?

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