* Posts by graeme leggett

2467 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Oct 2007

Japan's unwanted IT workers dumped in 'forcing-out rooms'

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: They do this everywhere

Of course, some time they do this through incompetence rather than to make you leave.

I wonder which reason is worse.

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: This isn't very new really.

presumably in the Japan of several years back you would either take the hint and leave, or put up with it while drinking yourself to an early grave.

this sounds like the old way with a bit more prod behind it.

Wow, the future is HERE: Charge your phone (wirelessly) in your CAR

graeme leggett Silver badge

Having just bought a screen mounted holder for my phone, I'd like to know why car manufacturers don't leave a "bald spot" on the top of the dashboard so that suckers can fix there rather leaving it in an all over wrinkled finish.

Or a couple of captive nuts on the dash that I could screw the holder to. Is that too much to ask?

Mystery of Guardian mobos and graphics cards which 'held Snowden files'

graeme leggett Silver badge

"Given the vigour with which “a senior editor and a Guardian computer expert” clearly applied themselves to the destruction of the devices "

I've had kit that's been a bugger to get into too.....

I've a theory that these are indeed pictures of some random bits used to "illustrate the story" and knowing newspapers these days, lifted off the internet. I suspect that when they flipped the computer over to dismantle it, they found they didn't have the right screwdriver set and instead cut the thing open with the grinder before pushing the resulting chunks through the office shredder. (that's one advantage of a superslim Mac they don't mention in the brochure)

Microsoft shoehorns Skype into Outlook.com - we quickly kick the tyres

graeme leggett Silver badge

If you are using RT then you've probably got a small device (no sniggering at the back) and would use the Skype client rather than the browser?

LinkedIn lowers age of consent to 13

graeme leggett Silver badge

lower limit?

Might be useful if you are a chimney sweep looking for an "apprentice"

Fear the JOBZILLA! 150ft STATUE of Steve planned 'lest fanbois forget'

graeme leggett Silver badge

photoshop opportunity

For Jobs visage - in faded bronze, or bright marble - superimposed on examples of statuary across the ages

Nelson's column - really, I do not see any problem with the antenna

Venus de Milo - you're (not) holding it wrong

Michelangelo's David - ?

graeme leggett Silver badge

Perhaps it could be sited next to the Colossus of Yorba Linda?

seem to be similar projects.

AREA 51 - THE TRUTH by the CIA: Official dossier blows lid off US secrets

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: SR71 Blackbird

The SR-71 is still there at the American Air Museum within IWM Duxford

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blackbird_Sr71.jpg

Bureaucrats foil Nestlé's bid to TRADEMARK KitKat's chocolatey digits

graeme leggett Silver badge

I see that Cadbury Dairy Milk bar (introduced 1905) has a trapezoidal profile to make it breakable, I suspect many other brands used a similar profile and that is why when Rowntree's brought out the Kit Kat in the 1930s they also used the same profile - but needed to make it taller to accommodate the crisp wafer.

I think we all know a KitKat imitation bar when we see it, customers are more sophisticated than the Penguin / Puffin altercation between McVities (United Biscuits) and Asda suggested.

I wonder how much of the Quaker influence/ethos of Rowntree's history carried forward into Rowntree-Mackintosh and thence to Nestle. Or was it all lost along the way.

(PS I still remember the smell of Rowntree's factory when in Norwich city centre)

Microsoft to fund Blake's 7 return as Xbox Live exclusive

graeme leggett Silver badge

Reboot already done

The audio version as broadcast on BBC radio from time to time, and its Early Years backstory episodes (one was on Radio 4 Extra earlier this week)

teleport was junked which was probably for the best, but the Liberator and Zen is a much more darker thing.

Your encrypted files are 'exponentially easier' to crack, warn MIT boffins

graeme leggett Silver badge

can one use the greater power of the human brain for pattern matching

eg if I deliberately misspell or add random letters in my message does this make it harder for machines to identify the text. ie the opposite of Enigma operators using standard texts in their messages?

"meet me at nine at the station below the clock"

becomes

"meet me 9 at stn below t'clok"

UK.gov intros shiny CREST badge for cyber crime-scene cleanup squad

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: CREST = TARGET

All certification is "They look like they know what they are doing".

Even to some extent is accreditation - it's just a question of how much paperwork/evidence you can stack up to show that you do meet the specification.

even then accrediting bodies are at pains to point out that there may be faults with your (eg) quality system in areas that they haven't assessed.

WoW gold farmer throws sueball over real world gold theft

graeme leggett Silver badge

Date of loss and some other thoughts

Was in 2008, so looks like one of those drawn out arguments. Or perhaps she saw an advert on TV for Lawyers4U or some such.

Some interesting lines in the news article.

"She was working in the day as a nurse (and) from midnight to 4am trading online,"

"She made a lot of cash from this internet trading (but) found cheques and money orders extremely inconvenient ... she would ask for cash through the mail."

"in March 2008, Ms Fincham took a week-long trip to Queensland with a man she had met through the internet. While they were away, her house was robbed three times and all her possessions were taken - including the wall safe containing the gold bars"

""Her customers were frightened away because they were being chased by insurance investigators and her business has failed,"

Violent Hamlet 'bard' by British Library Wi-Fi filters

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Polonius is neither Hamlet nor Shakespeare

"But I would have expected Brit journos to have actually seen, or read, the play they are quoting"

To rework another Shakespeare quote "The commentator doth expect too much, methinks"

graeme leggett Silver badge

Do not ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by cockup.

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Sounds like a bit of a self-important prat to me

He could have accessed the digitised copies that the British Library have.

http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/homepage.html

graeme leggett Silver badge

It seemeth fit that the staff resolved the issue promptly -

Redeeming time when men think least they shall.

(closest fit i could manage from Prince Hal in Henry IV pt 1)

Is NASA planning to send LAVA LAMPS to Jupiter?

graeme leggett Silver badge

Go Meccano

Frank Hornby's greatest achievement.

I don't think model railways and toy cars have contributed as much, or celebrated engineering as well as Meccano.

Norway BANS Apple from Oslo's skies: No aerial Maps app snaps allowed

graeme leggett Silver badge

Id like to think the US embassy would offer its support to any American company trying to win over a foreign government.

would i be wrong?

There she blows! Mid-October release date for Windows 8.1 sighted

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: If they haven't removed anything it's a service patch...

Sounds like it would have been called Win 8 SP 1 under the old way of working.

Waiting for a Windows Phone update? Let's talk again next year

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Nokia Lumia 920

The one volume fits all was a surprise to me when I got a 620. ( I was using an iphone 3G before)

As a general thing, there seem to be some aspects where you get less customization than the iPhone. On the one hand that's fewer things to accidentally muck up, on the other a residual feeling that the phone isn't quite set to one's personal taste.

My only two gripes at the moment are 1) the phone freeing up unusued memory - there seems to be a quirk whereby you upload images to the Service-soon-to-be-formerly-known-as-SkyDrive to get them off the phone and the phone then stores a local copy just incase you haven't got a signal when you want to look at them.

1.5) Just thought of this one - location search in the maps app is set to online, you can manually set it to offline when you don't have a signal, but it doesn't do it automatically.

2) Bluetooth - tried handsfree setup with a 2013 Honda. Pairs but then cycles connected-disconnected-connected-disconnected. Might be this particular phone, but it's not a fault with the Honda per se, as I tried it with another Honda. Compatability list says it ought to work.

Apple wins Samsung import ban, loses 'Battle of Rounded Corners II'

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: "detection of an audio plug's insertion and removal from a phone"

a principle as old as the hills in physical form - old style headphone sockets with the inbuilt contact to break the connection to the speakers, or the long pin RCA plug that was used to differentiate between mono and stereo connections twixt source and amplifier.

so why is a version using resistance etc patented?

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Trade war

I thought in the past that US involvement in South Korea was partly based on two principles.

1 - that it was a buffer zone between North Korea and Japan and other US interests in Asia/Pacific.

2 - Not to give up ground that US servicemen had died fighting for.

now if the US did pull out of Korea what would they do with those troops, warships etc? Disband and cut the budget? Would it parallels the British "east of Suez" withdrawal?

random thoughts mostly while stuck at a car boot.

Bill Gates's barbed comments pop Google's broadband balloons

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Specifous

The world health organisation has said about one child per minute.

nuff said.

Brit Skylon spaceplane moves closer to lift-off

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Think of the rest

Skylon could be the de Havilland Comet of spaceplanes - but only in a good way, I hope.

(at its time there was nothing like Comet, the Avro Canada C102 Jetliner was a jet transport design but it doesn't look the part. )

Tough luck, bumpkins! Blighty broadband speed gap misery worsens

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Since when is this relevant?

for those who don't get any adequate broadband or speeds above 4Mb, this "gap" sounds as relevant as describing a housing gap between availability of 5-bedroom houses and 10-bedroom (with pool) houses.

Shouldn't they be worrying about a minimum available speed for all and accept that some areas will get higher due to geographic, financial and other reasons.

Can't agree on a coding style? Maybe the NEW YORK TIMES can help

graeme leggett Silver badge

as a non coder

Surely the one single requirement for style of coding is:

that you can read and understand it, that your colleagues can do too, and when you've gone to another job the person who replaced you can read and understand it.

(with proviso that a certain skill level may be required - Jane & John books bs Milton etc)

Sergey Brin's 'test-tube burger' cooked, eaten, declared meat-like

graeme leggett Silver badge

no, they just reinvented veal

Peter Capaldi named as 12th Doctor Who

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Matt Smith was too young

I'll agree with some of that.

Yes, an older Doctor was due - for variety if nothing else.

Yes, less of the sexual and romantic element twixt Doctor and assistant/companion/fellow traveller

But I don't think Smith was too young - because he made a good job of it.

Buy a household 3D printer, it'll pay for itself in months!

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Razors too expensive?

look at amount of grey in beard (or worse still, how little colour left) - reach for razor and damn the price.

graeme leggett Silver badge

@Fishman

your chin must be made of heroic stuff.

i nick my skin just looking at cheap razors.

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Does this use the same plastic that everything seems to be made of these days?

If you're not going to use the printer then why not use Milliput instead of the plastic.

Roses are #f00, violets are #00f. This witty code is a boffinry breakthrough

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer?

"There's plenty more where that came from"

( output from RCI - Random Catchphrase Inserter)

Nokia sidles up to Qualcomm, hands over bulging map package

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Handy actually

Tesco has an app that tells you where along which shelf on which aisle you could find products.

eg own brand spaghetti - aisle 8 bottom shell 10 units along.

and then give you a shopping list of items by aisle order and a total price. In theory you can add items by barcode but the phone was never any good at reading them.

Murdoch machinations mean Microsoft must rename SkyDrive

graeme leggett Silver badge

Welkin - meaning vault of the heavens

I just like it as an old English sort of word.

Exposed: RSPCA drills into cops' databases, harvests private info

graeme leggett Silver badge

@peter

my apologies for giving your comment a downvote ; i was trying to copy the url but my finger slipped on my shiny new smartphone.

UK economy to lose £198m if BBC and pals lose EPG slots - Ministry of Fun

graeme leggett Silver badge

popularity

When any of channels stuck down the arse end of the epg can get audience levels like ITV and BBC, that's when the authorities should start to ponder whether the rules need changing.

TV shopping channels get low audiences and it's not because they haven't got an epg slot in the first 10 numbers.

'Wandering Dago' tuck truck ejected from NY race track

graeme leggett Silver badge

Offensiveness scale

Being a white Briton, its hard for me to understand the level of offence in some names, and the media sometimes over-reports the issue (Daily Fail?).

Can we have a scale, with Register units, so that can see how for instance "dago" in the US lies with respect to UK "Eyetie" or "spaghetti muncher"?

Fed up with poor Brit telly and radio output? Ofcom wants a word with YOU

graeme leggett Silver badge

Ofcom would also like to switch off FM radio, but can't until it knows that DAB is reaching everyone"

That'll be never then at the rate that goes. But shouldn't it be government policy that FM is switched off, and then for Ofcom to carry out the policy? I'm probably not paying attention but it comes across as ofcom has these ideas itself and then looks to carry them out without much ministerial input.

Google Chromecast: Here's why it's the most important smart TV tech ever

graeme leggett Silver badge

I know that Samsung have a remote control app for their smartTV range. On a tablet its mostly just really big button version of the remote with slider for volume, but it did give a keyboard when using the tv's inbuilt browser.made it a lot more usable.

graeme leggett Silver badge

"While you're viewing the content on your TV, you're free to use your fondleslab to browse the web, send emails, play games, "

I'm going to sound old-fashioned here but if you're not going to actually watch the video why bother putting it on?

Wikipedia switches on mobile editing

graeme leggett Silver badge

Accessibility

Is the aim. But Visual Editor which was supposed to allow the masses to get involved without learning the wiki markup techniques was hideously bug ridden when introduced.

Hopefully the simplicity of mobile isn't built on VE.

Google kicks off Android 4.3 updates for Nexus devices

graeme leggett Silver badge

Restricted accounts

Just what i have been waiting for so i can exert a bit more control over my son's use of his Tab 2. It was partly the expectation of the update that led me to avoid cheaper (and therefore more expendable) devices that had older versions of Android.

Man who pulled gun during chess game surrenders to robot cop

graeme leggett Silver badge

what are these robots like?

More Johnny 5 or Wheelbarrow than ED209, I guess

Royston cops' ANPR 'ring of steel' BREAKS LAW, snarls watchdog

graeme leggett Silver badge

sinisterly deliberate or incompetently deliberate

were the APNR a result of Royston lying on a convergence of convenient east west routes between the A11 and M11 and the A1M and Luton and the north south route from Huntingdon to Hertford?

(I remember before the bypass when the traffic went through Royston)

PHWOAR! Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, Prime Minister

graeme leggett Silver badge

@Ledswinger

you're right about miscategorising Horoscopes - they should be under "scams, "load of old bollox" or "you're having a laugh"

The facts on Trident 'cuts': What the Lib Dems want is disarmament

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: The MAD question

@McGoole

One of the points in the drama is that no-one must know what the contents are.

But also that if the PM doesn't order the retaliation strike, no matter that it makes not a scrap of difference to the burning British cities and condemns another nation's population (but not its leadership) to annihilation, then it is not a deterrent.