Posts by Jason Bloomberg

Re: Was I the only one...

And from the clip of next week's episode, he's been back to SpecSavers and got himself a new pair, or repaired the old ones.

Re: ISP email?

Why not? There is no implicit reason VM email should be worse than any other and it generally hasn't been.

In the wake of moving from Google it has been a steaming pile of crap; endless spam getting through, incoming mail lost (even email I have sent from one of my own accounts to another), web mail not working properly when one has to use that to try and fix things. And it is taking weeks to get things fixed.

Why October 13?

http://findingada.com

Re: In the hands of a burglar, would a portable (battery powered) unit stuff up....

One would hope that a decent alarm system had been designed such that, if it did not receive valid 'still alive' signals from sensors on a regular basis, it set off the alarm. Otherwise it would be at risk from having signals blocked or having the sensors removed.

Re: Janky

Jerky and wanky. Very apt.

Re: Irreplaceable photographs

That got me thinking; unless an item is recovered or its theft admitted to, how does anyone prove anything has been stolen beyond reasonable doubt?

Evidence of having had something does not mean lack of it now proves it was stolen.

Re: Google has also sought to make the Google Now virtual assistant more prevalent with Marshmallow

^ This. The all or nothing approach isn't what everyone wants. When I finally get everything set-up, looking and working how I want it, I don't want an upgrade to undo or break all that, don't want to struggle through doing it all again.

If it's not broken; don't fix it. But like Nate Amsden earlier I would like to have security upgrades but it's all or nothing.

I also don't want to be forced to have the latest version of an app when I don't think that is as good as the previous version. It's probably why XP is also still stubbornly sticking around.

Re: I love those calls!

Take care though. Some scammers know the number they called and if you piss them off the bastards will then call you up at every opportunity they get and then simply hang up.

For coding cheats that impact the company of this over-reaching magnitude, I cannot see the CEO not knowing

It is not so much having known, but what they knew. It is one thing to say "we're cheating the system", quite another to say "we have developed software which improves compliance with emission testing, puts us ahead of the market in a number of key areas and will generate a marked increase in sales". Who wouldn't sign off on that?

Perhaps it was not so entirely innocent, that the CEO did know more than that, but it's in the same ballpark as "the legality of war in Iraq". A CEO acts on advice of advisors and may have been convinced it was entirely legal and acceptable at the time.

Re: Samsung

Could it be that it is not the LED flash itself which causes heat, but the drawing of fairly high current which could heat up the battery, push it over some programmed limit, if allowed?

There are a whole load of tricks to ensure a developer does not to get see nastiness even if downloading as if an end user; a simple one is to check that the current date, or date when first run, is a good few days after the application build date. It can also hold off until a certain version or revision. I am sure those behind this have even better tricks to use.

Re: All together now

And that's what someone probably did think, perhaps even had long debates and focus meeting over, and in most cases it is perhaps more true than not. But it doesn't matter if there is a rational and argued explanation for it, there being some good reason for some fixed size limit; Microsoft have handed a big stick to anyone who chooses to take it and beat them with it, and they should have seen that coming.

But then; if it hadn't been this it would have been something else. Those seeking to find fault will always find one.

I survived the Bonothon

I was reminded of many DVD 'making of' programmes where the cast and crew all high-five and back-slap themselves for having been incredibly clever and funny when they have in fact been neither, think it's the best thing ever done when it really isn't.

I don't begrudge them the occasional slapstick but it could have been much better done; cut short with a "WTF?!?", a "Hello Clara, hello Missy", and on with the show.

I actually enjoyed the episode apart from that. I usually let any nonsense just wash over me, but that was very out of place with the rest of the episode.

Re: Why not a Pi

To turn a Pi into a Micro:Bit you need to add LEDs, buttons, Bluetooth, compass and accelerometer.

To do that you need a HAT or other add-on board. And that's really what the Micro:Bit is but self-contained, platform ambivalent, and it doesn't have the BBC supporting only a specific commercial venture which is what the Pi actually is no matter that the Foundations has charitable goals.

One could equally argue "why not an Arduino shield?". Arduino base units are far cheaper than a PI.

Re: Sylvester McCoy

He was the one who finally had me switching off. It probably wasn't solely his fault, just that it had become a pile of shite and he was mired in it.

Re: no court of law was involved, no evidence has been offered, and no defence allowed.

I think you'll find the concepts of 'law','evidence','and defence' don't mean much where they live

And don't seem to mean much in this country either. That's the problem I see.

Re: Unsurprisingly, it seems someone has

Wasn't there also an earlier El Reg article noting some limit on bitcoin transactions per second?

It all seems to me like a typical pyramid scheme where the early adopters get rich while those last off the starting block are left holding the baby.

Re: II thought El Reg was exagerrating

I had read some other reports on the new terms before wandering round to El Reg and it seems Spotify's 'defence' is they will only collect / use / exploit the information they acquire under some particular circumstances, where the user / victim has granted permission, but that's not quite what the terms themselves say. It appears to give them virtually unlimited scope to do whatever they damn well please.

I accept that it is sometime difficult to come up with terms to allow something without appearing to allow more than is intended but that can usually be clarified by having some statement of "but only when the user explicitly allows us to".

Spotify doesn't seem to have any of that. Just saying they won't doesn't mean they won't and particularly once given permission to do so.

Most criminals have the right to their conviction being spent. That's what the law provides for and grants certain rights of privacy which can be enforced. Those rights of privacy extend to non-criminals too.

Re: Why should they ban them?

Most e-cigs seem to be from China, with dodgy CE marks on them and are doubtful electrically, let alone what they are actually doing with the chemicals put in them.

And probably still safer than real cigarettes.

And safer than a lot else too. That's the real joke about this desire for a ban.

Chromecasts are great for streaming and casting but they are not standalone systems. For digital signage use I am looking at Android TV/PC because of their low cost; about the same as Chromecast, more compact and cheaper than an equivalent Pi or an Intel stick.

Re: WTF

What is this 'statistical artefact'?

I have no idea. I would expect the experts to have described what it is somewhere but my guess is that it is about weighting; having something meaningful regardless of large or small spots, the same whether a peanut-shaped spot is counted as one or two.

If there was a change in counting methodology back in the 40s there should be a jump from one day to the next when it changed, and that jump will have stayed with us. There is nothing wrong in factoring that jump out so pre-change and post-change can be better compared.