* Posts by Chris G

6754 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Oct 2007

No happy ending for the 93,000 Kazakh domains that got nixed instead of massage parlour's site

Chris G

So they don't have Khazakerly the right method for blocking naughty sites?

Boffins build a tiny nanolaser that can be inserted inside our cells

Chris G

Re: Enquiring minds want to know:

@ Rich11

I'm a crappy biologist snd not much of a laser engineer but going forward, aI was wondering how many cells implanted into my forefinger would make it interesting.

But underwater Shark football? I could market that.

Chris G

Re: Enquiring minds want to know:

Implant several million of these cells into the centre of a shark's head and find a way to detect attack mode in the shark's nervous system y voila.

Next, leg and lung implants for sharks.

After complaints over leaked Voice Assistant recordings, Google says: We hear you

Chris G

Re: Google Play

Same here, the OS is deliberately configured in a way that encourages users to allow whatever google wants.

Chris G

Re: "It's clear that we fell short of our high standards..."

'High' is a relative term for a moral and ethical midget!

Vimeo's Clippy-for-video-bumpf app 'breaks biometric privacy law by slurping thousands of faces without consent'

Chris G

Millenial Marketing

People buy millennials?

I've got a few would like to sell cheap just to get them off my hands.....

Pizza prankster's prisoner plea plot perturbs police, Norks invading and Uber woes

Chris G

Let me get this right

The Air Force needs a contractor to get them into the cloud?

Devonitely not great: Torbay and South Devon NHS declares 'major IT incident'

Chris G

When I lived in Devon, if we was sick or ailin' we used ter go an' see the Hedge Wife, bit like Nanny Ogg but scarier.

'Ridiculous, rubbish, outrageous, complete bollocks': Just some reviews for Amazon's corporate contribution to Blighty's coffers

Chris G

Re: A few of us at work are already using Amazon to the minimum needed

I have found Amazon to be expensive compared to the same products direct from the company's web site or even eBay.

The most irritating thing about Amazon however, is that when I make a search for something, Amazon. De always comes up high in the search but never has the item when you go there.

Instead I am offered a dozen other products that bear no relationship with my original search.

Do they pay for high search listings?

Imagine if Facebook could read your mind: Er, I have some bad news for you...

Chris G

Re: Do you have something to tell us?

Clearly he's not trying hard enough, but then although most boys like fine young women, it doesn't mean they want to be one.

I have an answer to EM pollution and Facebook reading my mind, I suggest eating a tin foil every day, increasing it as the body adapts until you have aluminium skin. Ha! Then they won't be able to mess with my mind.

In the meantime you could make a suit out of space blankets.

Ebuygumm doesn't break t' Nominet rules, eBay and Gumtree told

Chris G

Re: In a complete about face...

Amazingly, back in the '90s when I still keot horses, a lot of people would save a winter's worth of twine from feeding and then put it in the local farmer's auctions. Usually a decent bundle would fetch about a fiver. As you say, a baler spool cost peanuts.

Chris G

Re: In a complete about face...

An English friend of mine who farms in Carmarthen told me Welsh farmers save all their old baling twine and hang it up with weights in the hope it will stretch. I think Yorkshire men and Scots have a bit of catching up to do.

UK.gov confirms: Yes, our former DWP perm sec will join Salesforce

Chris G

I seem to remember a few ex NHS types have got positions with some private healthcare companies who are looking to do business with the UK.

I think we need stronger contracts and NDAs for these positions in the civil service.

You can trust us to run a digital currency – we're Facebook: Exec begs Europe not to ban Libra

Chris G

Re: "Libra is designed to be a better payment network"

For me a better payment system would in preference to a promissory note or worse an electronic promise would be physical coins, ideally in gold or silver and definitely not with zuck's head stamped on it.

I just know there are millions of ovine followers of FB who will go for 'social currency' but they are people who think reading what a celebrity has for breakfast is interesting, thank deity I am not one of them.

If Syria pioneered grain processing by watermill in 350BC, the UK in 2019 can do better... right?

Chris G

So nothing has changed since I did my government sponsored robotics degree in 1985?

What kind of creative jobs will displaced workers be looking at and does reduced working hours mean reduced income? After more than thirty years they are still pondering the same questions, amazing.

Fujitsu pitched stalker-y AI that can read your social media posts as solution to Irish border, apparently

Chris G

Re: secceed to Canada [sic]

If Boris stays in charge, the UK will get similar status to Puerto Rico.

NASA's lunar spy looks for hide-and-seek champ Vikram, Starliner test success, and more

Chris G

Re: Please remain seated.

Emergency exit procedure?

That would be the Swiss Army knife with can opener on board

UK.gov's smart meter cost-benefit analysis for 2019 goes big on cost, easy on the benefits

Chris G

Re: No accurate bills

Estimating your bills on the high side is simply a free loan for the utility companies. It should be legal for everyone to charge interest to offset their loss of use of the money, I wonder how much bill over assessment money is held each year?

Chris G

Re: Don't want. Don't need

I have a 12 panel 48v array, it's cloudy today but I am still getting over 600W, had a lot of rain and cloud over the last few days but have had no problems. The mppt panels produce power from light at almost any angle and at low levels.

In a little over a year I have made 2.176 kWh of leccy, closest thing to a meter is the bluetooth app I connect to the controller with.

First they came for 'face' and I did not speak out because I... have no face? Then they came for 'book'

Chris G

I have dealt with the European trademarks people and they seemed to be eminently sensible so with a bit of luck the will tell Zuck to f,,,,ind another trademark.

Trademark s and patents in the states have reached absurdity level as have the idiots applying for them

Boffins build AI that can detect cyber-abuse – and if you don't believe us, YOU CAN *%**#* *&**%* #** OFF

Chris G

Re: AI...

Snowflakes aren't the problem, the problem is the people who are trying to protect us from ourselves and suffocating freedom of speech in the process.

Who gets to decide the limits of what can be said, to whom and what context, particularly on the occasion s when something may be unpleasant and/or aggressive and may even be in a bullying tone but is a necessary truth.

Nobody has to like what I say but I do have the right to say it.

Disclaimer:

If anyone is offended, outraged or feeling oppressed by this comment, someone made me say it.

The results are in… and California’s GDPR-ish digital privacy law has survived onslaught by Google and friends

Chris G

Re: admit defeat?

"Until corporations are deprived of the right to lobby, the fight will go on."

Good luck with that, no matter how undemocratic buying favourable legislation is, big business will continue buying out consumer's rights from under them.

Lobbying will have to get a lot worse before there is an appreciable public backlash against it and part of the problem is that it is under reported, perhaps because those who could report on it are largely dependent on those same lobbyists.

UK Home Office primes Brexit spam cannon for a million texts reminding folk to check passports

Chris G

Re: Credit where credit is due.

Yeah! Just renewed mine from Spain, a little more expensive because of use of couriers but the whole thing was efficient and seamless.

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google told: If you could cough up a decade of your internal emails, that'd be great

Chris G

Small change

A kitty with $100.000.000 from each for a bit of lobbying and this will all go away.

At least that's what they'll be hoping.

Pushing Verify in Brexit plans more about saving troubled project

Chris G

Re: Call me a cynic but....

The same in Spain in theory but in summer most people wear shorts and a teeshirt withe flip flops, maybe have enough money for a beer, otherwise the only thing they are carrying is a pack of cigarettes.

A police friend of mine had the idea of electronic dog tags so that everyone could wear their ID around their neck.

I told told him STFU,

COBOL: Five little letters that if put on a CV would ensure stable income for many a greybeard coder

Chris G

Re: First language

If I am going to be involved with giggles at two in the morning, I can guarantee there will be no coding involved, though potentially a little binary application may be warranted.

Two years ago, 123-Reg and NamesCo decided to register millions of .uk domains for customers without asking them. They just got the renewal reminders...

Chris G

Re: Inertia selling

Why not also look for a collective action in the courts (called a class action in the US).

Magnetic cockroaches, dirty money, wombat poo and posties' balls: It's the Ig Nobels 2019

Chris G

Re: Two future poop Ig Nobels

"create a Poopba that follows your dog on walkies and picks the poop up so you don't have to."

That's why I prefer cats, they don't require walkies and they go to next door's flower beds to carefully excavate a hole and then bury their contribution to fertilising the neighbour's plants.

Time for another cuppa then? Tea-drinkers have better brains, say boffins with even better brains

Chris G

Re: I wonder if ...

You may be right there, but by the mug, multiple times a day, keeps the brain active , the joints at least moving. Can't be bothered with a pot and if you drink tea out of a glass, you are probably some kind of furriner.

Just what we all needed, lactose-free 'beer' from northern hipsters – it's the Vegan Sorbet Sour

Chris G

Fruit Beer

In terms of true beers and ales, this is pushing the envelope.

Hopefully down the nearest drain.

Are you who you say you are, sir? You are? That's all fine then

Chris G

Re: Chatbot

Tracking wise, I had a parcel coming from AliExpress, it was apparently coming from their warehouse in the Netherlands. According to the tracking the parcel went from Holland to Singapore and then Romania where it got lost, I received a refund and then re ordered, on the same day I received my replacement parcel and the one lost one from Romania.

Chris G

Re: Voice response phone

"YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US! PLEASE STAY AWAKE AND ON LINE AND YOUR CALL WILL BE ANSWERED IN THE ORDER IT WAS RECEIVED."

Fixtit for you!

Chris G

Re: Voice response phone

I was thinking of Aviva while reading the article. I retired recently, trying to get my poxy little pension released as a lump sum only took about a dozen calls (from Spain) at an average of 20 odd minutes per call, of which 15 minutes was waiting to speak to an alleged human. Though in fairness the girl who finalised everything was a star, polite helpful and actually put notes into my file so that the next person knew what I was talking about without having to initiate the entire process from the beginning.

Every company that uses these systems must invest heavily in the manufacture of blood pressure treatments.

MIT boffins turn black up to 11 with carbon nanotubes that absorb 99.995% of light

Chris G

The darkest black?

Nah! I just don't see it.

Service call centres to become wasteland and tumbleweed by 2024

Chris G

Tumbling Tumbleweed

First, even near term 'Futurist' studies by consulting groups are notoriously and frequently wrong.

Second, the title 'digital transformation decision makers' tells you all you need to know about the group consulted for the study. These will be people for whom disruptive technology is their bread and butter, they will disrupt no matter the cost or how wrong it will turn out to be, most of them will have gone the way of Roy Rogers along with their tumbleweed before a lot of their ideas work.

Even the call centres that are allegedly on their way out haven't begun to work well in many cases.

Captain's coffee calamity causes transatlantic flight diversion

Chris G

Re: Mandatory A330 upgrade

If it had a been on a Boeing, they would have glued a cardboard rim around the cup holder to allow bigger cups, self certified the 'upgrade' and charged $100K per cup.

Astroboffins baffled as black hole at center of Milky Way suddenly a lot hungrier than before

Chris G

Re: @Chris G Black hole crisis

I recently read Ringworld for about the 5th time, a great story. Brexit and puppeteers? Hmmm

Chris G

Black hole crisis

I see people making light of this issue, but the British government is taking this threat to our sovereignty very seriously indeed.

To that end I have set up a parliamentary committee of enquiry, to set out a plan to deal with the crisis. Due to limited time for debates on the subject we have decided in the mean time to exit the galaxy, as soon as parliamentary time tables permit will be urgently discussing this matter............

From pen-test to penitentiary: Infosec duo cuffed after physically breaking into courthouse during IT security assessment

Chris G

Re: Doing their job to the fullest extent?

I have worked in various aspects of physical security, it is easy to assess that without actually trying to break in to the building.

If they include that aspect of security in addition to actual infosec then they need to know a little more.

The fact that they got caught shows not only that the physical security works but also that they didn't do enough homework.

DNA-in-space archive could spark 'Upload Me to the Moon' croon boom soon

Chris G

Veeger

I think I would prefer my DNA to be distributed Voyager style, outside of the Solar system rather than dumped on the moon.

But just confirm that facebook isn't involved in this, I don't want them having anything of mine.

France says 'non merci' to Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency

Chris G

Re: "thought needs to be given to creating a public digital currency"

Public digital currency or farcebook's spy as you pay Libra don't need much thinking about at all, solutions to non existent problems.

Eco-activists arrested by Brit cops after threatening to close Heathrow with drones

Chris G

Possibly the best thing they could do for the environment, is to remove themselves from it. At least that would be a bit less CO2 being emitted.

Watchdog: Hush-hush UK.gov blew £97m on Brexit wonks from six of the usual suspects

Chris G

Re: For the Blind leading the Blind ...... the 0Daily Soap that just keeps on Giving .....

Am I right in thinking you are a bit of a cynic?

Brit MPs: Our policies are crap and the political process is in tatters, but it's Twitter's fault, OK?

Chris G

Re: The saddest thing I've ever read

Far worse is the fact that the platform has brought us tweetocracy; government by twits, or is that tweetocraps ( no that's not a typo).

MPs would love to hear all about how UK.gov plans to ratchet R&D spend to 3% of GDP

Chris G

Re: So what we're saying is...

Yeah but, when do you plan to start committing?

Cloud, internet biz will take a Yellowhammer to the head in 'worst case' no-deal Brexit

Chris G

But, but, Sovereignty!

Of course, leaving Europe means the UK can exercise it's sovereignty in a very full and meaningful way.

Apart from having to comply with EU regulations on everything from data to the butter on your breakfast toast, if you want to do business with the EU. Oh, and havingto comply with WTO trade rules for most of the rest of the world, which will also allow megacorps free rein to buy into and corporatize anything British that they fancy. Fracking in your back garden anyone?

Yay! The UK will be able to control it's own destiny!?

First water world exoplanet spotted – and thankfully no sign of Kevin Costner, rejoice!

Chris G

Life but lower

What kind of life would evolve on an 8G planet.

For energy efficiency it would have to be short and low on friction, something like planet of the Skateboards.

UK ISPs must block access to Nintendo Switch piracy sites, High Court rules

Chris G

Re: Aren't UK laws optional these days ?

I think you will find WTO will also trump UK law, it certainly won't be any better.

Oops: Rockets lighting their tails is a good thing – but not three-plus hours before lift-off

Chris G

Fire!

"What now? It's a bit early"

" No! Fire!"

"I already said, ' It's too early".

"THE FUCKING ROCKET IS ON FIRE!"

Psst. Wanna brush up your supervillain creds? Get a load of this mini submarine

Chris G

"South American drugs smugglers might be interested as well."

Probably the most likely customers for this, they already build similar things, just leave out 6 of the 8 passengers and replace with white powder.

Wonder if there's a discount for cash?