Read what you sign
'Kellen Dwyer', we're looking at you.
Posts by Steve 114
368 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jul 2009
Court doc typo 'reveals' Julian Assange may have been charged in US
Windows 10 Pro goes Home as Microsoft fires up downgrade server
The nights are drawing in. Pour a cup of cocoa and join us for Windows 10 Autumnwatch
Android creator Andy Rubin's firm might think its phone is Essential, but 30% of staff are not
UK.gov withdraws life support from flagship digital identity system
'Incommunicado' Assange anoints new WikiLeaks editor in chief
Friday 28th September 2018 06:57 GMT
Re: "Legal ways"
Joking apart, how about inviting the competent English Court to have a special sitting in the Embassy? Then the bail-jumping matter can be resolved. After penalties, subject can then make his own way to the country of his choice, with whatever extraneous risk (not our problem) that might entail.
Euro bureaucrats tie up .eu in red tape to stop Brexit Brits snatching back their web domains
Sunday 16th September 2018 12:37 GMT
Re: Couldn't have said it better myself
Totally agree, having worked there myself. Noted though that most Commission staffers are hard working and effective, in several languages, except... that they are required to implement Treaties which everyone wishes they hadn't signed, or the French managed to make ambiguous. The real nonsense happens in the so-called 'EP', and in the not-even-EU 'ECHR'. I voted (at last!) against 'ever closer union', on page 1 of the most recent Treaty.
VMware 'pressured' hotel to shut down tech event close to VMworld, IGEL sues resort giant
Click this link and you can get The Register banned in China
Sunday 5th August 2018 16:11 GMT
Re: whatever’s wrong ...Xi does happen to be competent
Oopsie, I was on UK-Govt-paid visit to the PRC, who I found fascinating, credible (in local circumstances) and fully authentic. I'd question when 'repressive' begins to approach close to 'broader public interest'. We, and they. elect (or whatever) authorities to make that judgement. But I'd part company on 'Brexit' - if the PRC had inherited a 'free movement' Treaty with Japan, India, Indonesia and Russia, what would their public now prefer?
Sunday 5th August 2018 13:15 GMT 
Fake news?
'they may have mown down their own students with real tanks...' Any actual evidence of that? One tank stopped when a man stood in front. Tanks only entered the Square aftere it had been (OK, roughly) cleared. Meanwhile, townsfolk did hang some out-of-town soldiers from bridges - there IS evidence of that. Poo bah, rather than Pooh Bear.
IBM memo to staff: Our CEO Ginni is visiting so please 'act normally!'
The future of radio may well be digital, but it won't survive on DAB
EU court: No, expat Frenchman can't trademark France.com
England's top judge lashes out at 'Science Museum' grade court IT
Friday 8th June 2018 14:16 GMT 
One step forward...
My cousin used to draft his judgments with enormous care, print them double-spaced, and have Tribunal colleagues vet them with well-considered inky marks. Now he has to dictate them onto some voice recognition gizmo on-line at home (after reading bedtime stories to his children, and in that mindset), hope the spelling is almost right, and get comments from whenever colleagues have finished their family supper, and think to log-in. I'm sure he couldn't possibly comment on the virtues of paper..
Blighty's super-duper F-35B fighter jets are due to arrive in a few weeks
Brit IT contractor wins appeal against HMRC to pay £26k in back taxes
Thursday 17th May 2018 15:00 GMT
Re: So confusing.
The Court has set what is called a 'precedent', so HMRC is almost certain to go to further appeal. They will need exact criteria for deciding what's genuine in each and any future case, worded to exclude the obvious abuses that will arise from expert jiggery-pokery with the core intentions.
Navy names new attack sub HMS Agincourt
Monday 14th May 2018 15:30 GMT 
Nice Subs, if we had an adversary with similar assets (rather than, say, Russians who should be cultural allies, or Chinese, who have no tradition of invasiveness. All 'our' likely threats will be in shallow seas, where Subs are not much use. How about several dozen fast boats, equipped to arrest smugglers, repel human-traffickers, help immigrants get back home, and thus give independent commands to deserving young RN officers? Nothing nearing the price of a (wonderful, but obsolete) submarine>
Microsoft's latest Windows 10 update downs Chrome, Cortana
Cambridge Analytica dismantled for good? Nope: It just changed its name to Emerdata
Newsworthy Brit bank TSB is looking for a head of infrastructure
Whois is dead as Europe hands DNS overlord ICANN its arse
Five things you need to know about Microsoft's looming Windows 10 Spring Creators Update
Thursday 22nd March 2018 09:26 GMT
I moved 7 elderly cousins to 10 (one from Vista-7-10, 2 from 8.1) and for them it 'just works'. Did them all remotely with splendid TeamViewer (oh yes you can). Hardly any calls since then for OS glitches: maybe it's helped that with ClassicShell and anti-slurps I've made them all look just like XP. Only failure was one that didn't have HDD room for 'previous system' backup, which needed some repartitioning before it would 'downgrade' safely - give 'em credit for due caution. Only complaint has been that version upgrades take so very long on their ancient kit - but at least it says what it's doing while they're waiting, and fails gracefully if they shut down by mistake.
Taxpayers chuck burnt-out Bongs* millions of pounds to 'decelerate'
RIP... almost: Brit high street gadget shack Maplin Electronics
BBC Telly Tax petition given new Parliament debate date
Thursday 22nd February 2018 18:57 GMT
Re: the Beeb don't do anything that is or requires a natural monopoly
'Impartial'? But they aren't - even if they offend the Lefties exactly as much as the rest, you still have to look at e.g. RT to get the other side of a story. Worse is their active propaganda for PC causes that the majority may choose to resent.
Robot cars will kill London jobs – but only from 2030, say politicans
Julian Assange to UK court: Put an end to my unwarranted Ecuadorean couch-surf
Fancy coughing up for a £2,000 'nanodegree' in flying car design?
Friday 26th January 2018 16:00 GMT
Re: Oh, Udacity
Tell us more about 'nanodegrees'. Relatives have done UK honours 'degrees' that were a certifiable waste of time, whereas 6-week intensive courses in web-design (?) led to instant, forever, employability. Back in the day I did just 2 weeks wonderful COBOL, and never looked back. Somewhere there's some middle ground, but it isn't airborne.
Fridge killed my baby? Mag-field radiation from household stuff 'boosts miscarriage risk'
Tech giants at war: Google pulls plug on YouTube in Amazon kit
HMS Queen Lizzie formally joins the Royal Navy
Damian Green: Not only my workstation – mystery pr0n all over Parliamentary PCs
Tuesday 5th December 2017 10:44 GMT 
Thumbnails
I e-mailed my MP at parliament.uk very recently (quite a productive thing to do, as all they usually get are complaints). I still use MSGTAG for read-receipts: it adds a one-pixel image and you get told when that image has been (invisibly) 'opened'. It was duly confirmed opened within 30 minutes, and I had a pleasant reply in 2 days (probably from an assistant sharing passwords). Not sure what this proves about process, but it strikes me as all perfectly normal.
Royal Navy destroyer leaves Middle East due to propeller problems
Thursday 23rd November 2017 21:06 GMT
Re: I knew it was a mistake
My gg,,, grandfather commanded an RN ship which 'burned the pirates out of the gulf' using nothing but sail and cannon, and some impressive Marines. He got paid extra, to compensate for no valuable 'prizes' available for capture during the cruise. He is NOT 'turning in his grave' as it is in a nice green churchyard near Portsmouth, with his wife, and we've checked. But I can tell you he'd be VERY disappointed.
Universal basic income is a great idea, which is also why it won't happen
Mozilla extends, and ends, Firefox support for Windows XP and Vista
Wednesday 15th November 2017 12:05 GMT
Re: Will 52 ESR continue working?
I 'upgraded' a friend's Vista 32 to 7 yesterday, easy, cost me £15, all licenses preserved. Then that upgraded free (this year, anyway) to Win10, because she wanted it. Then an hour to tweak and de-louse Win10 so it looks/acts like XP. Then, oh joy, her Firefox wanted to be different.
Two drones, two crashes in two months: MoD still won't say why
Wednesday 1st November 2017 20:07 GMT 
Balance?
Doubt if these things cost what's claimed - someone's just 'apportioning' fixed/sunk cost. Years ago on certain MoD contracts there were lots of trials, quite a few of them unsuccessful (which is why they were called 'trials') and no outsiders ever got told. That was the nature of the work, and we were still close enough to wartime for people to understand.
Yeah, Autonomy's ex-chief financial officer is still up for wire fraud
Tuesday 31st October 2017 16:03 GMT
'Goodwill' is an intangible
Buy a high-street greengrocers with assets of 2k, and pay 10k, accounting supposes the 8k difference must be 'goodwill', which you contrive to revalue or write-off afterwards. How was this different? In the big league, someone does 'due diligence' - who was that? Often that's confirmed by Pro-Accountants - who were they? Caveat Emptor is probably not a USian expression. Actually, I thought Autonomy once had something special, and maybe that somehow evaporated (like EDS?) in the transition.
Credit insurance tightens for geek shack Maplin Electronics
Tuesday 24th October 2017 17:29 GMT
Re: Electronics Today International (ETI)
Bought my first Mullard 'OC', and Ediswan 'top-hat', transistors from Henry's Radio (still have them).. Lisle Street only had 'surplus' kit (but beautiful at that, and so heavy to take home) and finally only Proops in TCR could deliver. Now nobody knows what any given 'chip' can do, and they couldn't solder it if they did. EndEx.
Legends of the scrawl: Ordnance Survey launches augmented reality tool for maps
Yes, British F-35 engines must be sent to Turkey for overhaul
Windows Fall Creators Update is here: What do you want first – bad news or good news?
Wednesday 18th October 2017 14:44 GMT
Backwoods appreciation
Prior to routine pained calls from many ancient cousins, I tried this on the 5 elderly sample machines here. 3 successes, 2 bluescreens without damage, worked on restart. (Why does it always download the whole lot again?) Classic Shell recovered with one click on each, preferred XP-style desktop was unaffected. Spybot anti-beacon found only one reversion, but OOshutup found plenty to do. Claimed 'improvements' have no impact at all on geriatrics' use-case, but we should compliment Microsoft for not breaking anything. Oh yes - 'Fall' to those of us who were educated on Milton's 'Paradise Lost' suggests the very Devil's work - can't they look at language settings and substitute Autumn?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
