* Posts by David Nash

1434 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jul 2008

Hacking is not a crime – and the media should stop using 'hacker' as a pejorative

David Nash Silver badge
Trollface

Troll too

'nuff said.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: English is definded by it's users

and as well as the two examples in previous replies, I add

"you should not be surprising"

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Re: Bad picture

Wire ends can flirt?

Linux Mint emits fix for memory-gobbling Cinnamon – and future version may insist on some updates

David Nash Silver badge

Re: ...but it's OK when Mint does it, I guess.

Although it's not a reboot, is it? it's a restart of a background process. And the screenshot in the article showed that you can turn it off, or change the frequency.

Seagate UK customer stung by VAT on replacement drive shipped via the Netherlands

David Nash Silver badge

Re: In hindsight

I heard something about that recently, it seems that some companies set up to supply power at wholesale variable prices, because under normal conditions this is cheap. At least one of these suppliers, when they realised what was going to happen (ie. their customers would be hit with bills for thousands of dollars worth of now-expensive wholesale power) tried to warn customers, ie. said "drop us now".

Sadly many of these customers were not in a position to read email or switch power suppliers at that moment due to the weather conditions.

Splunk junks 'hanging' processes, suggests you don't 'hit' a key: More peaceful words now preferred in docs

David Nash Silver badge

Indeed, "dummy" means a non-functioning replica, which is where both the baby's dummy (pacifier) and the dummy data meanings come from. Nothing wrong here.

Using it to mean a stupid person is an insult but are we really suggesting banning the use of any word that can or has ever been used as an insult in another context?

Half a million stolen French medical records, drowned in feeble excuses

David Nash Silver badge
FAIL

Re: The 8 glasses of water a day myth

Indeed, I seem to recall reading that the source of this was "8 glasses a day, most of which come from your food" but the second bit is always omitted.

Qualcomm under fire for 'anticompetitive' patent shenanigans causing pricey UK smartphones

David Nash Silver badge

Overpriced phone?

While it's nice to try to compensate the consumer for overcharging, does anyone think that an iphone would have been £30 cheaper without this issue? They are priced at a specific point decided by marketing, eg. if they want to sell it at £500 they won't be selling it at £470 just because the chips were a bit cheaper.

Spotify to introduce lossless audio streaming: Better sound or inefficient gimmick?

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Re: "it reduces the quality for discerning listeners"

Forgot the joke icon there...I wonder if the downvotes are from people thinking "he's talking BS" or from people who think it's true and object to your last point!

NASA sends nuclear tank 293 million miles to Mars, misses landing spot by just five metres. Now watch its video

David Nash Silver badge

There are pictures from the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter.

https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25630/perseverance-and-mars-2020-spacecraft-components-on-the-surface/

Facebook bans sharing of news in Australia – starting now – rather than submit to pay-for-news-plan

David Nash Silver badge

I thought it was the AU Gov that was saying FB had to pay, not the news orgs themselves.

I don't really understand why they are all shouting at FB to be honest. They are doing what they are told - pay or don't show the news. They chose the latter.

Healthy 32-year-old offered COVID-19 vaccine because doctors had him down as 6.2cm tall with BMI of 28,000

David Nash Silver badge

I read that twitter thread yesterday morning and what is notable is the number of people reporting similar types of errors on their medical records or during interactions with healthcare workers. One person was told by someone literally standing next to her that she was a foot shorter than she actually was.

Citibank accidentally wired $500m back to lenders in user-interface super-gaffe – and judge says it can't be undone

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Ha ha ha

When I did that (1 pound tester first) my bank then refused to let me make the real payment until the next day after their anti-fraud team had checked it, because apparently it's a common pattern of fraudsters, to test out an account.

Atheists warn followers of unholy data leak, hint dark deeds may have tried to make it go away

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Americans and Religion

Although to be fair, there seems to be so much god stuff pushed out, in a country that supposedly separates Church and State, that it's not necessarily a bad thing to band together with like-minded individuals.

David Nash Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Just like the Peoples Fronts and Judea

The burden of proof isn't on those who say they don't believe in your extraordinary claim. It's on you to prove that something exists.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Same could be said about religious people

Actually Atheism isn't a hypothesis. It's the default state until the hypothesis ("one or more gods exist") is shown to be likely to be true. As in not believing in various other things, until one gets a good reason to do so. I don't need a hypothesis that there are no fairies at the bottom of my garden either, unless the default state is that they exist.

Mobile World Congress to run this year's Barcelona event in June with 50,000 attendees. We're speechless

David Nash Silver badge

The Spanish authorities may not want it to happen but that might be precisely why the Catalan authorities decide to allow it.

We know it's hard to get your kicks at work – just do it away from a wall switch powering anything important

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Re: My favourite one....

Just say "you're leaning on it". No need to mention which bits are doing the leaning.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Why have the switch ?

"I often wondered why UK sockets sometimes come without a switch"

Elsewhere on this website you will find people arguing vehemently that having a switch is pointless.

We imagine this maths professor's lecture was fascinating – sadly he was muted for two hours

David Nash Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Pray elaborate?

It's actually not a filter at all. It adds something to your image, rather than filtering something out.

Probably named by someone who thinks that a red filter (ie. a real one, not an online video thing) adds red light somehow.

Developers! These 3 weird tricks will make you a global hero

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Keep your damn "OK" and "Cancel" buttons way apart!

I agree, it seems increasingly common now for settings not to have any way to "confirm" or "save" your changes. Once they're done, they are done, apparently. So how do you cancel?

Do these people have no regard for 40 years of user interfaces?

'Best tech employer of the year' threatened trainee with £15k penalty fee for quitting to look after his sick mum

David Nash Silver badge

Re: See you in court

"Simply sue"

As if it's quick, easy, inexpensive and stress-free?

Also, nobody wants to employ someone who has a history of suing their employer.

Ad blocking made Google throw its toys out of the pram – and now even more control is being taken from us

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Sky

I wince in sympathy every time I see the Channel 4 F1 presenters saying that "you can watch the whole race on Sky or you can watch the highlights here..."

That must hurt, but was no doubt part of the price to get the rights to show the highlights.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: Misses the point

I agree with these points, however, I would expect that the price you pay for the service has the advertising factored into it, so if there were a version with zero adverts it would cost more than the existing paid-for service that does have ads.

Judge strikes down another attempt by President Trump to force a TikTok US sale

David Nash Silver badge
Facepalm

Yeah a race to the bottom is exactly what's needed here

'Massive game-changer for UK altnet industry': BT-owned UK comms backbone Openreach hikes prices on FTTP-linked leased line circuits

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Terminology

End users shouldn't be penalised for not knowing the jargon though.

Glastonbury hippy shop Hemp in Avalon rapped for spouting 'plandemic' pseudoscience

David Nash Silver badge

"Making misleading claims"

"lying", surely?

Arecibo Observatory brings forward 'controlled demolition' plans by collapsing all by itself

David Nash Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: FAKE NOOS!!!

Not to pick on you since you did say "why would someone fake an image", but It's sad that people's first thought is "it's a fake!!!" rather than "I wonder why the debri isn't visible".

Unfortunately that seems to be the trend these days. Everyone commenting thinks they know better and if they don't understand something it's either a fake or the fault of the other party. Never because the commenter doesn't have the full picture, oh no.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: It is literally a black hole...

"literally" it's not, no.

It's been an Honor serving with you but you're our 'competitors' now, Huawei tells its sawn-off mobile limb

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Facepalm

Re: "It's been an Honor serving with you but you're our 'competitors' now"

Swiss? Scandinavians?

Apple's global security boss accused of bribing cops with 200 free iPads in exchange for concealed gun permits

David Nash Silver badge

Concealed?

What have they got to hide? Are they planning to use the weapon for something they shouldn't?

The GIMP turns 25 and promises to carry on being the FOSS not-Photoshop

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Re: GIMP.. the poster child for terrible UI..

I've never found anyone giving concrete examples of why the UI is perceived as bad, just that it's "bad".

I read that as "it doesn't have the same UI as photoshop, which I already know".

David Nash Silver badge

Re: 25 years and still a pain to use

"do your research in advance to make sure that won't need features that GIMP doesn't have"

Same applies to any piece of software though, Photoshop included.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: I found the learning curve

" It's really unintuitive. Maybe I've been spoiled by having had access to Photoshop"

It's different than Photoshop.

FTFY.

David Nash Silver badge

Re: I found the learning curve

I've never understood why people have found it hard - maybe they are trying to do different things than I am with GIMP (astronomy image processing) or maybe they are seeing it through a Photoshop-shaped filter.

I would probably have trouble with Photoshop since it's apparently so different from GIMP.

Dell online store charges 16 million dollars for new laptop with paint job

David Nash Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Probably because the pigment

Airline prices go up in times of great demand because they are being helpful? I'm sure the stranded passengers you mention are so grateful that the prices just tripled to enable them to get home!

No, the only reason prices go up in times of great demand is because they can get away with it.

Microsoft warns against SMS, voice calls for multi-factor authentication: Try something that can't be SIM swapped

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Re: U2F

First time I've heard of it but the Wikipedia page for U2F suggests otherwise.

Did I or did I not ask you to double-check that the socket was on? Now I've driven 15 miles, what have we found?

David Nash Silver badge

I believe the reason for fuses is because of the ring main arrangement.

Excel Hell: It's not just blame for pandemic pandemonium being spread between the sheets

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Re: Relax...

"someone unaware of it's limitations and a lack of knowledge outside of a Microsoft ecosystem."

I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

Someone who had to come up with a solution didn't have the knowledge or experience to know that there were better solutions available. "Excel can hold thousands of rows of data and it's on everyone's desktop, what's not to like?"

Non-techies probably wouldn't even consider that there may be a limit on the number of rows.

Bill Gates lays out a three-point plan to rid the world of COVID-19 – and anti-vaxxer cranks aren't gonna like it

David Nash Silver badge
Boffin

First prove...

Of course. That's why the vaccines currently in development haven't been released yet.

However there will always be some who refuse to accept the standard clinical trial methodology and will demand ever stronger "proof".

Strangely they are often the ones who go for the products that have not undergone any decent clinical trials at all.

The perils of building a career on YouTube: Guitar teacher's channel nearly deleted after music publisher complains

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Re: Unfortunately....

It's a grey area because he's listening to the originals and figuring it out then publishing the tabs and notation for how to play the same tune. The publishers don't like that because they will have licensed the right to sell official tabs to another publisher, or done it themselves.

Calling it his own arrangement just means he doesn't go into as much detail as the original, might miss out some notes etc. Does that mean it's derivative and fair use? or just an inaccurate copy?

And I say that as an amateur guitar player and user of such things myself.

Amazon staffers took bribes, manipulated marketplace, leaked data including search algorithms – DoJ claims

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Re: New York, New York;

What did they do, apart from quote the <city>,<State> as for all the others?

0ops. 1,OOO-plus parking fine refunds ordered after drivers typed 'O' instead of '0'

David Nash Silver badge

The point of fining people is to ensure that people pay for their parking.

If it can be shown that you paid the correct amount for parking for the duration in that location, then there is no justification for a fine for a minor, trivial, or inconsequential mistake in the process.

Yet these companies and their rules seem to make it their mission to make it hard for drivers and refuse appeals for no obvious reason.

They need to be held to some kind of standards when awarding them the contracts.

Ruling that a paper ticket is non-transferrable to a different vehicle is another one that's unjustifiable in my view, but that's a different story.

If you think Mozilla pushed a broken Firefox Android build, good news: It didn't. Bad news: It's working as intended

David Nash Silver badge

Genuine question

This does sound like a disaster, and I agree with the sentiment that they shouldn't just foist an upgrade on people under the disguise of a regular update.

However, don't people just use the Android built-in back button, which seems to serve as a Browser "back" in my experience?

I am more likely to use the browser's "forward" button for times when I accidentally pressed back, than the browser's "back".

Nominet promises .uk owners it'll listen to feedback on plan to award itself millions... as long as it agrees with it

David Nash Silver badge

Sounds like they are not "members" in the usual sense, if they are pretty much powerless in this regard, as it seems.

Please stop hard-wiring AWS credentials in your code. Looking at you, uni COVID-19 track-and-test app makers

David Nash Silver badge

And the UK ones don't count towards any kind of credit scoring so they are not really a true "debt" in the sense that they are a burden. They are best regarded as a graduate tax which will be cancelled after 30 years at the most.

Sun welcomes vampire dating website company: Arrgh! No! It burns! It buuurrrrnsss!

David Nash Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Was that said with a sarcastic tone?

Seemed pretty clear to me that it was.

Geneticists throw hands in the air, change gene naming rules to finally stop Microsoft Excel eating their data

David Nash Silver badge

if someone sends a CSV and it opens in excel just by double-clicking, then people are going to double-click. You can't stop people doing things the easy way except by actually preventing it from working.

(Corrupting the data silently so they may not notice doesn't count as preventing it from working)

Microsoft to Cortana: You’re not going out dressed in iOS or Android, young lady!

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Re: Yes

"use 80's/90's tech (probably easily hackable)"

No, because it's not online.

Garmin staggers back to its feet: Aviation systems seem to be lagging, though. Here's why

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Down for "Maintenance"

I didn't hear about this until today, but it explains why, when I went for my run on Sunday, the Connect app said they were down for "maintenance".

Today the app says they are coming back and thanks for having patience.