Working fine for me here (in London)...
Posts by qwertyuiop
249 posts • joined 15 Jun 2009
OneDrive is broken: Microsoft's cloudy storage drops from the sky for EU users
Perfect timing for a two-bank TITSUP: Totally Inexcusable They've Stuffed Up Payday
UK.gov finally adds Galileo and Copernicus to the Brexit divorce bill
Friday 14th September 2018 12:42 GMT
But Nigel was in favour of a second referendum!
In this BBC story - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36306681 - just a month before the referendum and with a Remain victory seeming likely Nigel Farrage was reported as saying "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the Remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."
Funny how with Leave having won unexpectedly by precisely that margin those who voted Remain are supposed to just accept it when the Brexiteers clearly weren't prepared to.
I don't understand why Brexiteers are so scared of a second vote. If "Leave" was the will of the people two years ago and still is then surely it will only confirm that?
The problem of course is the "and still is" bit. I suspect many in the Leave camp know they attracted a protest vote - about things other than the EU - which they won't benefit from second time round.
Voting machine maker claims vote machine hack-fests a 'green light' for foreign hackers
London's Gatwick Airport flies back to the future as screens fail
Tuesday 21st August 2018 12:37 GMT
Two failures?
"...It really doesn't double the cabling costs. Pulling a multi-pair cable is a sensible precaution..."
Ah, I see. We increase resilience by using a multi-pair cable but immediately reduce it by using... a multi-pair cable. When the digger goes through the cable it doesn't matter how many pairs are in it! (and yes, I know that in this case it wasn't a digger)
The only way to truly increase resilience is to have two cables which arrive by completely different routes - and that will increase the cost.
Drug cops stopped techie's upgrade to question him for hours. About everything
Israel cyber chief's 'pants' analogy for password security deemed, well, 'pants'
Trainee techie ran away and hid after screwing up a job, literally
Friday 22nd June 2018 09:10 GMT
Re: Screws and escaped death.
He wasn't a trainee or apprentice. He was supposed to be a proper assistant experienced with wiring....
....One was fitting the 25 litre water tank on a steel frame high on the wall.
The problem I'm having here is why you consider it his fault that he screwed-up. He is, supposedly, an experienced wiring technician so you criticise him for not being able to install a water tank? The only part of the job that was within his acknowledged skill set was wiring the pump.
I wouldn't expect a plumber to be able to install a ring main so that he could then fit a water heater...
What's all the C Plus Fuss? Bjarne Stroustrup warns of dangerous future plans for his C++
Don’t talk to the ATM, young man, it’s just a machine and there’s nobody inside
Ex-staffer of UK.gov dept bags payout after boss blabbed medical info to colleagues
Tuesday 29th May 2018 10:24 GMT
Even if these 11 people (...the superior sent an email about it to a colleague, with 10 others copied in...) were immediate colleagues they didn't need to know the detail. At most the manager simply need to say "As you know, Aftab has had some time off because he was ill. He'll be back at work on Monday so when he comes in let's cut him some slack while he adjusts to being back at work."
If anybody asked what was wrong with him it was only necessary to say "I'm sure you appreciate that I can't share that with you."
Make masses carry their mobes, suggests wig in not-at-all-creepy speech
Programming languages can be hard to grasp for non-English speakers. Step forward, Bato: A Ruby port for Filipinos
Thursday 22nd March 2018 11:26 GMT
Re: Nothing new here
...Then again, most code is not shared...
What? It seems to me that nowadays most programmers - sorry, Developers - don't write much code at all. They just scour Github et al and cut and paste somebody else's code that does a similar job. (Usually without understanding all that it does so that they include unnecessary fucntionality.)
Office junior had one job: Tearing perforated bits off tractor-feed dot matrix printer paper
Friday 16th March 2018 09:52 GMT
Size matters!
Not a "foreign body" story, but the headline reminded me of something...
Early 1980s and I was working as a junior programmer at one of the NHS's 14 Regional Computer Centres. We were in the throes of preparing for the replacement of our venerable ICL 1904S mainframe with a shiny new (orange!) ICL dual 2966 mainframe. Amongst many changes we learned we'd be getting new printers which would be industry-standard (at that time) 13.2 inch width rather than the 16 inch character width we'd had up until then.
Inevitably much redesigning of reports and other printed output was taking place. The system I was working on had one very unusual piece of output; it was printed on thin card and was 16 inches wide by about 12 inches deep. It was lightly perforated in various places so that when printed it could be split into a large record card, a small index card, a postcard to go to the patient and a fourth piece whose purpose I've forgotten.
After many attempts we eventually conceded defeat on trying to accommodate the existing documents within the new narrower printer format, so it was decided to split the print into two separate jobs: the large record card would be one and the three smaller pieces another. All the programming had been done and it was ready for final test, including a print run. The only problem was that we hadn't yet received a delivery of the new stationery.
Thus it was that a young trainee programmer and I spent a day using the burster to trim the tractor feeds off the existing stationery then split it along the perforations before sellotaping it back together to replicate the new design stationery. To my astonishment it actually worked!
IBM thinks Notes and Domino can rise again
Batteries are so heavy, said user. If I take it out, will this thing work?
Beach, please... Billionaire VC finally opens way to waves
Friday 6th October 2017 11:09 GMT
Re: B E A C H P A R T Y ! ! ! !
@jake - The Who's sound system?
Stuff that, THIS is a sound system: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wnnayb/the-wall-of-sound
To quote from the article "This singular work of engineering would come to weigh over 70 tons, comprise dozens and then hundreds of amps, speakers, subwoofers, and tweeters, stand over three-stories tall and stretch nearly 100 feet wide.
You forgot that you hired me and now you're saying it's my fault?
Friday 22nd September 2017 08:18 GMT
You were doing so well...
I was completely with you on this (it echoes my own experience over the years) - and then you let yourself down with the licence issue.
There's not much you could have done about your host forgetting the session was happening, there's not much you could have done about no room being booked, but you could have done something about the licences.
After a very similar experience early in my career I always confirmed all of the session details with my host beforehand in writing/email. This always included confirming the requirement for everybody to have their own terminal* or PC with a copy of the software on it. That leaves them with no wriggle room to blame you.
*I am old enough to have trained people in the use of software running on a mainframe and accessed by a dumb terminal.
Nasty firmware update butchers Samsung smart TVs so bad, they have to be repaired
Friday 25th August 2017 08:19 GMT
Re: Go Samsung!
@Dan 55 - I have a Raspberry Pi plugged into my 40-inch not-smart Samsung TV. Taking your comments in order:
- Difficult to watch on the sofa - although I'm of very mature years and need glasses I don't have any difficulty watching the 40-inch screen.
- No remote control - I have a mini wireless keyboard with built in trackpad for the Pi and it works just fine. Ordinary remote for the basic TV functions.
- No 10-foot UI - this is true, but see my first comment; I can read the 40-inch screen just fine, not sure I could cope with a 10-foot high UI. ;-)
Biz sends apps to public cloud, waves 'bye to on-premises server folk. NO! WAIT!
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 15:03 GMT
Strictly speaking that's not impossible.
The ad is for a .NET developer with 10 years' experience - but it doesn't say "10 years' experience of .NET". So in 2003 somebody who had started work in IT in 1993 and had been working with .NET from the moment it was available would satisfy the criteria.
</pedant>
She's arrived! HMS Queen Lizzie enters Portsmouth Naval Base
Another day, another British Airways systems screwup causes chaos
Wednesday 2nd August 2017 12:56 GMT
Because of course it's only people in the UK who have holidays in the summer. Strikes by French air traffic control staff don't affect people going to France in the summer from other countries or French people flying to other countries for their holidays do they?
It's not all about the UK you know!
'Real' people want govts to spy on them, argues UK Home Secretary
Wednesday 2nd August 2017 10:22 GMT
Re: ""A piano could drop on her head tomorrow""
...I have no desire to arrange for the aforesaid musical instrument to descend on the aforesaid current Home Secretary, or any knowledge of anyone else who might wish to do so...
Aha! So either you have a desire for a piano to fall on a past or future Home Secretary or you have knowledge of somebody with that desire!
The ultimate full English breakfast – have your SAY
Don't panic, but your Bitcoins may just vanish into the ether next month
NASA flies plane through Earthly shadow of Kuiper Belt object
Ubuntu Linux now on Windows Store (for Insiders)
Bonkers call to boycott Raspberry Pi Foundation over 'gay agenda'
Don't panic, but Linux's Systemd can be pwned via an evil DNS query
Thursday 29th June 2017 13:19 GMT 
But isn't this how it's done?
...Linux already has a bunch of DNS resolvers...
But I thought that was what you were supposed to do in Linux: if you don't like something - regardless of whether it works or not - you go out and write your own version so that we find ourselves with endless variations on a theme.
<duck>
Men charged with theft of free newspapers
Monday 26th June 2017 15:44 GMT
Re: This is England. We use common sense here.
You can commit "theft by finding":
Theft by finding occurs when someone who chances upon an object which seems abandoned and takes possession of the object but fails to take steps to establish whether the object is abandoned and not merely lost or unattended. - Wikipedia
For example, if you take something from a skip (dumpster for our American cousins) because you think it's worth having then technically you can be charged with theft by finding - even though the original owner clearly no longer wants it. You're supposed to ask the owner's permission before you take it.
Social media vetting for US visas go live
Cybercrooks charging more than the price of a new car for undetectable Mac malware
iPhone lawyers literally compare Apples with Pears in trademark war
Revealed: UK councils shrug at privacy worries, strap on body cams
Tuesday 28th February 2017 12:07 GMT
What if I object?
Hmmm... I'm not an expert on the Data Protection Act and so I'd welcome an opinion from somebody who is, but I'd like to know how this is legal if I object to being filmed.
I believe that video of me in which I can be identified is considered to be "personal data" within the meaning of the Data Protection Act (and the General Data Protection Regulation). In order to collect my personal data you must (a) inform me that you're going to do so, (b) inform me of the purposes for which you're gathering it and (c) obtain my consent to process it.
So if I decline to give my consent how is it legal for you to film me?
2009 IBM: Teleworking will save the WORLD! 2017 IBM: Get back to the office or else
Monday 13th February 2017 15:47 GMT
Re: You answered your own question
"...where an old school CEO or COO...'suddenly' decides to stop remote working..."
Or in the case of a company I worked for, the CEO and several other C-level managers decided the company needed to relocate from London to a scenic spot on the south coast. This caused huge disruption for a large number of staff for whom relocation wasn't an option due to family or other considerations.
Of course the fact that the senior managers responsible for the decision were all approaching retirement age and were able to set themselves up very nicely in new homes, aided by the relocation package, was a total coincidence!
God save the Queen... from Donald Trump. So say 1 million Britons
Monday 30th January 2017 11:42 GMT
...hacks at The Register are guessing is the most popular to have ever graced the site...
No, the most popular petition to date was the post-Brexit one http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-government-rejects-eu-referendum-petition-latest-a7128306.html.
<sigh>I know I'm just a grumpy old git but I remember the days when hacks did some research instead of just guessing.
Xmas software update knackered US Customs computer systems
CERT tells Microsoft to keep EMET alive because it's better than Win 10's own security
Thursday 24th November 2016 16:27 GMT
Re: Great point he's making
Ummm... I don't get this.
Why should every new version of an OS support every bit of software that ever ran on previous versions?
The world moves on, technology moves on. A payroll or accounting package that was released back in 2001 alongside XP may no longer be compatible with modern legislation/requirements (electronic submission of returns to HMRC for example) so you'd need to update/replace it anyway.
User needed 40-minute lesson in turning it off and turning it on again
Friday 18th November 2016 11:40 GMT
Re: Can you hold down the power button
...it's the big key with 'Enter' printed on it ...
Hmmm... I've worked in IT for longer than many of the readers have been alive so I hope I know at least a little bit about it. However I'm looking at my keyboard and I can't see a key with "Enter" written on it. Should I just continue using the big L-shaped key with a bent left-pointing arrow on it instead?
New measurement alert. The Pogba: 1,200Pg = NHS annual budget
UK fintech firm reaches for Ireland Brexit escape hatch
Friday 21st October 2016 14:52 GMT
Re: @johnaaronrose
...Or take it up to 1% of GDP for extra bragging rights...
So that's effectively a cut then given that the economy will probably tank.
(And, before somebody weighs in with "Oh there may be a few difficult years but then it will pick up", maybe that's true - but how long will it take to recover the ground lost in those "few" years?)
British jobs for British people: UK tech rejects PM May’s nativist hiring agenda
Thursday 13th October 2016 14:36 GMT
@Tom I don't think it's as simple as that. The problem is that those who voted to leave had a huge variety of reasons for doing so and are therefore a disparate group. They wanted everything from "soft Brexit" based possibly on the Norwegian or Swiss models through to the hardest possible Brexit severing absolutely every kind of tie with the EU and setting up deals (eventually) with every individual nation in the world. There was also everything in-between. Those of us who voted to say had a pretty consistent view by contrast.
Given the huge range of views of the Brexiteers how do you possibly negotiate? Which particular constituency do you try to please? Go too soft and you'll alienate the hard liners, go too hard and you'll alienate the soft Bexiteers.
Roboats hunt 'mines' and 'submarines' on Ex Unmanned Warrior
Tuesday 11th October 2016 13:08 GMT
Re: Machiavelli on troops
Broadly speaking I'd agree, but there are some notable exceptions. The Ghurkas have an outstanding record of service in the British Army going back almost 200 years, and the Légion étrangère (the vast majority of whose members aren't French) have an equally outstanding record in serving France.
