Posts by Pen-y-gors

Which government, what country?

El Reg has a wonderfully international readership, but we assume that in general it's written from a UK viewpoint, unless noted otherwise.

Could the authors of articles make it clear which country they're writing from the perspective of? Eventually I worked out that in this case the 'government' that did the funding is the US government, and the National Instituter of whatever is the US National Institute of whatever, which makes more sense of the wild numbers of 'Drunk driving costs thousands of lives every year' - which is rubbish in a UK context. Over the last five years road deaths in the UK attributed to drink driving have been a pretty consistent 240 per year. The UK has some of the safest roads in the world.

But, whinging apart, looks like this could be a useful and effective tool to get that even lower, provided they don't cost an arm and a leg. Issued free by pubs perhaps?

Dodgy numbers?

Jolly good for M$, but I have my doubts about the numbers.

11.3% errors for a human transcriber is appalling! Who did the transcription? Were they using human court stenographers? Audio typists? Hansard transcribers? If any of them had an 11.3% error rate they'd be out on their ear.

I also suspect that in real world situations when people are in a 'formal' situation or know they ned to speak clearly then the numbers would be better, both for the humans and the robots.

There are some good use cases where accurate audio transcription by software, ideally in real time, would be great - instant(-ish) translation of phone calls etc., ability to make audio files earchable. But it does need to be accurate - 99.5% and upwards, like decent OCR. Unfortunately it also means that our friends in NSA, GCHQ, the Kremlin etc can also do all these things, which is not so good!

I think 7/10 for effort.

Next stage?

Perhaps ICANN can now consider changing from being a non-profit Californian corporation to being a non-profit Icelandic corporation, just to make it clear who isn't the boss any more.

Moteur de recherche?

I do love languages!

Duct tape...

...is your friend.

{NO, not for doing anything like that! - you have a filthy mind! - I mean a small piece across the webcam works wonders at blocking unauthorised filming of you lying in bed pleasuring youself with a cup of hot chocolate and an old episode of 'The Good Life' on DVD)

Confused

Must have thought he was Facebook or Starbucks

Resignation time

The head of the CPS should be ashamed to have published such ill-considered rubbish about a subject of which she is clearly ignorant. But it's just another example of ignorant, knee-jerk responses to a complicated issue, completely ignoring most of the basic principles of British law and justice (and often, the laws of physics).

She should a) withdraw the guidance, b) apologise and c) resign

This could be quite fun...

Billboards obviously come under the realm of IoT and so we all know how easy they'll be to hack. How about loading them up throughout the land to recognise the faces of Tory ministers and MPs and show them a graphic goatse advert or something? (I'd suggest something useful like illustrated appeals for Syrian refugees, but I suspect they'd be totally wasted). And can they recognise numberplates on ministerial limos?

Let's face it

The only way to make IoT thingies safe is to disconnect them from teh internet - and possibly re-program them with an axe to be doubly sure.

I hate mission creep

Having had several die on me over the years, the idea of a heating pump that monitors ITS OWN performance and sends me a text message or e-mail if it's feeling poorly is very tempting. But the key features are that it does all the checking internally, not downloading data in real time to GCHQ, and that it has very hard-wired connectivity limitations, i.e. outgoing SMS or e-mail only. Perhaps it could tighten up further by only sending a message to a local receiver in the house that displays them on a status screen, so no need for any outside connections at all. How about an IntRAnet of Things?

Hmmmm....maybe I see a major business opportunity here. NB the above is all MY idea, and I'll be lodging patents shortly.

Hyperoptic?

Why listen to comments from Hyperoptic, when discussing RURAL broadband?

"Hyperoptic specialises in bringing full fibre optic broadband direct to multi-dwelling buildings such as apartments and offices. If your building is within our catchment area, and enough residents show support by registering online, we can connect you to our future-proof full fibre network."

They really don't seem to be interested in running fibre to single dwellings, along country lanes. And to be fair to them, they may be taking their time, but that is exactly what Openreach are doing in our area at the moment.

Competition in in backhaul in rural areas is a silly waste of resources. Why spend the money to dig up the road twice or three times for different companies? (Same arguement for electricity and water - if I switch electric company they don't string a new cable to the house. 'Competition' is bullshit)

Security?

From a security viewpoint, financial fraud will never be completely eradicated,

...and we'll make sure it isn't by regularly coming up with stupid new ways for security to be compromised.

$649?

I thought you only paid the Apple tax on Apple products?

I don't like to mention this but....

Copyright? It's a great cartoon and I can see lots of people thinking about heading off to their local T-shirt printer clutching a USB stick...Not that any (extremely law-abiding) El Reg commentards would think of any such blatant copyright violation of course.

Should Computer Misuse Act offences committed in UK be prosecuted in UK?

Yes

...and could we now have the next bleedin' obvious question please?

One thought...

Presumably spectrum (which is available nationwide) should only be rented by providers who offer a full nationwide service. e.g. Cityfibre are proud of offering service in 40 cities. But why should they be allowed to have spectrum in the countryside that they won't really use and which stops it being used by other providers who are willing to spend money on building infrastructure outside the easy-money of the cities?

I admit defeat

I was racking my brains for a punny comment, but have been totally ouclassed already. Kudos to all. Ah what a wonderful world it is that has El Reg commentards in it.

All of them?

What's the crew capacity?

Acronym

Actually I rather like 'FLIB' - sounds soft and bendy and cuddly, like Flibbertigibbet. Doesn't seem to have any serious contenders for prior art (I think we can ignore the Fachverband Luftdichtheit im Bauwesen (German: Association for Airtightness in Buildings; Kassel, Germany)

And it's pretty language neutral - works well in many languages without any embarassing meanings (remember the Polish 'Fart' bar?)

Wo ist mein flibie?

Ou est mon flib?

Donde es mi flib?

Ble mae fy fflib?

The flib of my uncle is in the fire-bucket of my aunt.