* Posts by Terry Barnes

670 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2008

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Uncle Sam rules on self-driving cars

Terry Barnes

Re: "self-driving systems can be considered a driver"

"This is something the courts will agonize over for years"

No, the UN has formed a group to address these issues and then formalise global best practice.

Seminal adventure game The Hobbit finally ported to the Dragon 64

Terry Barnes

Platform War

Wow, a game that was available on my home computer (Oric-1) but not on one of the competing ones*. There's a turn up.

*Ignoring obviously the software houses that were focused on the Oric - Tansoft, IJK software, Loriciels, No Mans Land and so on. Companies like Ocean and PSS and Software Projects would usually only have one or two conversions available.

Blighty's EU science funding will remain unchanged until new PM triggers Article 50

Terry Barnes

Re: That is a load of bull

"We pay more than we take out of the EU, therefore the British government can decide to match what was lost by EU funding"

Don't be silly.

The loss to our economy of leaving means that we'll be poorer. We won't have an extra £350M to throw around, we'll be looking for things to cut just to get back to where we were.

TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding pockets £2.8m

Terry Barnes

£220K wouldn't buy very much of any of those things.

With about 4 million customers, that works out at about 5.5p each.

Microsoft cancels Remain speech after death of Labour MP

Terry Barnes

Re: That's settled then

"If microsoft vote for it, you know its a shit idea."

I'd imagine Microsoft are against human slavery and putting asbestos in food. Play the ball, not the man (or the corporation, in this case).

Terry Barnes

Re: That's settled then

How many minimum wage employees do you think Microsoft has in the UK? Or anywhere?

Mind you, if we leave and the pound tanks, those wages just got a lot lower anyway. If lowering wage costs was your prime concern, you'd vote to exit.

Nokia offers up 10 Gbps HFC demo

Terry Barnes

Re: The need for this

"Put the tech out there and people will find a use for it."

But will they pay for it?

Brexit campaign group fined £50k for sending half a million spam texts

Terry Barnes

Re: Why is "Call me Dave" Cameron telling me what to think?

"It is a bit concerning that those wanting to remain have no idea what is going on."

There's a significant difference between not knowing what is going on and people simply disagreeing with you.

"For example people claim the leave camp have to explain what will happen when we leave. No we dont unless people are so brain dead as to not understand voting for the party you want to do what you want."

It's significantly more complex than that. Many people's livelihoods and relationships are dependent on how this country interacts with others. If you want me to jump off a cliff you're going to need to do a better job of convincing me than telling me that once I've jumped I should vote for more parachutes. It's telling that no leave campaigner has managed to produce any evidence of positive discussions they've had with other countries about any post-exit deal. Magical thinking from the leave side isn't good enough.

Terry Barnes

Re: Why is "Call me Dave" Cameron telling me what to think?

"Surely as we elect the government they should follow the will of the people"

No, that's not how our system works.

Parties publish a manifesto and are elected to carry it out.

If they simply followed the majority (or most significant minority) view on every issue there'd be no point in electing different parties as they'd all have to do exactly the same things. The government is elected to govern.

SpaceX is go for US military GPS sat launch, smashes ULA monopoly

Terry Barnes

Re: Why didn't NASA do themselves?

A step change in cost from $400M to $80M tends to come only through having competing suppliers.

Govt: Citizens, we know you want 10Mbps. This is the last broadband scheme for that

Terry Barnes

Re: RE: subsidy

"BT Retail charge £18.99 a month, so that covers the majority of line rentals, though not sure of BT Retail's exact share of the consumer line rental market, "

Less than a third the last time I looked at an Ofcom report.

Lost in the obits: Intel's Andy Grove's great warning to Silicon Valley

Terry Barnes

Re: The problem is the natural outgrowth of legislation, at least in the US.

" Personally I believe it's the People's Job to take care of each other, not the Government Job. "

That doesn't work though, does it? It's why, for example, animal charities in the UK are fabulously wealthy while people are using food banks. Government can enforce fairness, charity tends to see over-provision to some groups and under-provision to others.

We might have volunteer fire fighters, but what they do is regulated, managed and funded by government because no other approach would work.

Terry Barnes

Re: The problem is the natural outgrowth of legislation, at least in the US.

", they are sponging off the folks who are working. "

The government's safety net ensures that people unable to work don't starve or have to live on the streets. That's not sponging, it's just one of the requirements to consider your society to be decent and humane.

Look out, Windows Phone 8 users – yes, both of you – here's ... Windows 10 Mobile

Terry Barnes

Re: Can people opt-out?

"On Mobile (where MS is tiny and needs a reason like a major free upgrade to the latest and greatest to pull in punters)

People who want Win 10 have to beg for it and still may not get it."

In your scenario they've already bought the phone, so how does an upgrade pull a new user in? A new user will buy a new phone that will come with W10.

Former Nokia boss Stephen Elop scores gig as chief innovator for Australia's top telco

Terry Barnes

Re: ROFL

They were already in deep trouble by the time of that memo, hence that memo. Nokia was months from terminal failure, Elop did a great job with a business circling the plughole.

Tech biz bosses tell El Reg a Brexit will lead to a UK Techxit

Terry Barnes

Re: Does not compute

"If it was, as some evidence suggests, designed by Nazi industrialists to dominate Europe after defeat in WW2, it has delivered."

It was Churchill's idea. He called for a "kind of United States of Europe" to end the almost perpetual state of war between European nations. It seems to be working according to Churchill's plan.

Terry Barnes

Re: Why do we get such misinformation?

"The point is that it will be OUR decision, made by considering what is BEST for US. At the moment, if something is seen as good by Brussels, but is obviously bad for us, we are forced to accept it.

As an example, what happened to our fishing fleet...?"

You should probably read up on the Tragedy of the Commons.

If we hadn't have been in the EU and if our fishing fleet hadn't have shrunk, those fish would be extinct. Humanity has to take long term decisions that deliver the best results for all of us, else we all lose. Doing what's right for Britain alone is blinkered and ultimately harms us.

Terry Barnes

Re: Reading the article

Guess which national government vetoed making the EU president electable directly by citizens? I'll give you a clue - two words, first word 'United'.

Terry Barnes

Re: Removing the special treatment for eu

Your solution to having a group of people it's easy to recruit from and a group of people it's harder to recruit from is to make it harder for the easy group?

Given that your 'tidal wave' don't require visas or permits, what possible difference does their removal make to the people and processes used to recruit outside of the EU? If anything, isn't it going to increase the workload as those EU inhabitants will now need to do something other than just accept the job offer and move.

Removing ourselves from a pool of potential overseas recruits doesn't make recruiting people from overseas easier.

Terry Barnes

"Because, a business operating exclusively in the UK with UK customers won't have to adhere to EU regulations that they currently do? Same if they deal with non-EU businesses. The burden will only come into place if you wish to deal with EU businesses.!

You're going to reduce red tape by having two completely separate regulatory regimes? The first time my UK widget factory sells a 2p widget to France I have to completely change the entire set of regulation my business operates under?

I'm not sure you've thought that through.

Terry Barnes

Re: A false argument

"If we do leave (in my view, we should stay), what is to prevent those workers from still working in the UK? Nothing from the EU side of things."

It's pretty clear that for most people wanting to leave, immigration is the key factor.

If the exit campaign's stance is that we'll still allow free movement of people after an exit it rather suggests that they are conning people.

If exit means "still have to pay, no longer have a say", the Norway model if you like, it looks pretty daft.

David Cameron hints at Budget law change to end mobile not-spots

Terry Barnes

Re: cue the Anti Mast campaigns

That would only matter if they ever used the phones for voice calls!

Big-screen Skype gets small farewell note

Terry Barnes

It's cheaper to buy an Android TV box thing and a high quality webcam than it is to buy the Sony camera. you then have the advantage of lots of other apps, Youtube, and so on, as well as being able to run things like MAME (if that's your thing) and big screen minecraft which the kids love.

Terry Barnes

It just stopped playing content from my NAS. I could still navigate to and select content, but nothing happened when I hit play. After a torturous process to actually get in touch with tech support, their two step process was; 1. Factory reset 2. Give up.

I suspect (but it's only a suspicion) that I hit some kind of hard-coded limit in terms of file or folder volume as it stopped working just after I reached 1,000 albums (I buy a lot of music).

Every other device in the house plays the content fine still so nothing changed with the NAS or network. The TV is now just a non-Smart screen that displays whatever my NAS, BD player or ISP-TV box is doing.

Terry Barnes

Gradually all of the Smart features on my Sony TV have ceased working. DLNA, then YouTube, now Skype. I bought one of those little Android tablet without a screen things and plugged that in and it seems to work much better and get more updates than the TV ever did.

There’s a module for that: LG launches G5 smartphone complete with 'friends'

Terry Barnes

Re: "0.8 per cent of the 2800 mAh battery per hour"

That's not a real world scenario though, is it?

Your phone will be charging all night and probably while you're in your car and at your desk.

The real number is 0.8% x hours away from charger. Nowhere near 20%.

Mañana: Nokia’s in no hurry to go back to phones

Terry Barnes

Re: Just buy Jolla

"Even if Jolla/Sailfish don't become mainstream in any way, surely with the relatively small investment/startup costs, it would be worth the bother, no?"

People need paying. Development to launch is 10% of lifetime cost. Who gets sued when your customers lose all their banking details due to an exploit that your 200 sales didn't generate enough revenue from to pay a developer to keep the thing sailing true?

I think the risks are huge and there's no upside at all. They'd be better off launching a new range of Windows devices.

Alcatel drives upmarket with Idol 4 smartphone series

Terry Barnes

That's Alcatel Lucent - owner of Bell labs. Currently owned by Nokia.

Microsoft patent filing confirms existence of 3D Jedi gesture phone

Terry Barnes

Hover?

This may be just my imagination, but my 930 appears to offer 'hover' on the most sensitive settings. It's possible to operate the phone without actually touching it, tiles and buttons can be activated by almost but not quite touching the screen.

Sir Clive Sinclair in tech tin-rattle triumph

Terry Barnes

Re: 30% chance of failure?(@AC) @mephistro

The graphic equalizer would have had zero effect on tape to tape recordings on a ghetto blaster. Equalizers sit in the signal chain just before the power amp. Even if there was an effect it's unlikely to have improved things - the signal isn't supposed to sound pleasing to your ears, there are discrete tones in use to convey data - all that matters is that they are discernible above the noise floor of the medium.

PBX phone system hacking nets crooks $50 million over four years

Terry Barnes

Re: Telcos are money laundering too

The Telco hosting the PBX won't be the one hosting the premium rate numbers. They might be four or five steps removed. Each Telco pays the next one in the chain. It's likely that the one hosting the PBX will have already paid the bill it received from the next Telco in the chain before it bills the PBX owner.

The responsibly to have properly secured kit rests with the manufacturer and owner - unless you want a return to the days when you could only connect equipment your Telco has supplied.

Dell PowerEdge R730: Reg rack monkeys crack smiles over kindness of engineers

Terry Barnes

Re: Redundancy

Yes, resilience is a state that can be achieved by employing redundancy

Stylish Vaio biz mobe is flying this way – ah, it's got Windows 10 inside

Terry Barnes

Re: Businesses need a strong and well-developed app ecosystem

"On both these counts, business would be advised to steer clear of deploying Windows phones until one or other of these two measures hits 10% of the global (or US) market."

You've not really thought that through have you?

In other news, doctors advise man to hold off on eating until he's put some weight on.

Terry Barnes

Yes, what business wants perfect office, skype for business and exchange integration, zero security issues to date and a good price point?

Rooting your Android phone? Google’s rumbled you again

Terry Barnes

Re: This is not...

If you modify the gas and electrical installations in your home don't be surprised if the utilities decline to offer you continued service. You can do what you want to things you own, but you can't do that and expect other organisations to support you in it.

Similarly you can do anything you like to a car you own, but you might lose the ability to use it on a public road afterwards. The important thing is that it's entirely your choice.

You've seen things people wouldn't believe – so tell us your programming horrors

Terry Barnes

Re: Oric!

If you're after a fixed copy of FGC's League Champions I might be able to help you out!

Terry Barnes

I've just debugged a football game I enjoy playing on an Oric emulator occasionally.

You could play the game for an hour or so but it would eventually, always, crash. The crash results in a reset, so all the progress was lost. This used to happen when I played it for real on a real Oric loaded from tape as a teenager.

Anyway, when a goal is scored one of a number or simple animations is shown on the screen. There's a random loop which can extend the kicky kicky bit before the ball goes in if RND is over a certain value. In one of those animations, if that loop is triggered, there's a comma in the wrong place which results in the Oric trying to plot something off the screen. The program fails. I've moved the comma now.

What fascinates me is that this bug has existed uncorrected for 32 years. Was I the only one ever to notice?

BT scoops £100m network provision deal from the BBC

Terry Barnes

Re: Couldn't be worse

"BT's own subscribed sporting streams will prioritised over those of customers like the BBC when being transmitted across BT-operated infrastructure."

I'm no expert on these things, but I'd be fairly surprised if they propose to run the BBC's production broadcast network over their consumer broadband service.

Broadband-pushers expand user piggyback rides on private Wi-Fi

Terry Barnes

Re: I pay for my broadband, why should I share it?

No-one's forcing you.

If you want to use free WiFi away from home you have to turn it on. If you don't want to, turn it off.

Terry Barnes

Re: Spoofing and malware

Most people use an app to connect nowadays and those apps do verify the authenticity of the hotspot.

ICO says TalkTalk customers need to get themselves a lawyer

Terry Barnes

Re: Hold on a moment

Even if the second one is down to a different, previously unknown exploit?

Terry Barnes

Re: Hold on a moment

"Why should on-line data breaches be treated differently?"

Because they're different things?

One is a failure to take proper care by an employee of the organisation trusted to look after your data. The other is a criminal act undertaken by a third party.

I'd only expect a company to be liable if they can be shown to have not followed current best practice and taken steps to minimise the likelihood and impact of such an act.

If I get pickpocketed in M&S I wouldn't expect them to reimburse me unless they could be somehow shown to have been less than diligent.

Police Scotland will have direct access to disabled parking badge database

Terry Barnes

You stupid wanker.

My disabled child is 5. Probably too young to drive.

We use the blue badge because powerchairs for young disabled people don't go very fast or very far, and we have many and varied appointments to attend, often in town centres. Should we miss an appointment with a consultant we've been waiting for months for because the one designated space in town is both occupied and not big enough to open a ramp in?

Parking on yellow lines isn't an attitude - it's the law. There are clear rules and we follow them. Even if we could afford to waste half an hour trying to get into a multi-storey we often find that the wheelchair adapted vehicle we have is too tall to fit in many car parks and the disabled spaces don't allow for getting the chair out via the ramp without blocking the whole car park or damaging other cars.

If your attitude is that everyone else on their road and their behaviours are the problem, the thing that is common to all of that is you and your perception.

Terry Barnes

Re: Also Parent and Child bays

Parent and child bays are really intended for babies in car seats. It's very hard to get a car seat out without opening the door as wide as it will go and many older car parks have a problem with that as cars are wider and bigger than they used to be. The extra space allows the door to be fully opened and the right trolley to be lined up next to it.

Disabled space provision is based on local planning requirements, but there should be a link into the proportion of the local population who are likely to need them.

Personally, as the dad of a wheelchair user, I think there need to be some specific wheelchair spaces. I understand that older people with mobility problems might legitimately need to park closer whereas I'm not much concerned about closeness, but I do need enough room to open the hatch, lower the ramp and wheel my kid out without mixing it with people trying to park. It can be a 5 - 10 minute job to deal with all the chair restraints and belts and things.

We usually now park in the less-used more distant car park at our shopping centre because all the spaces that we could use without bringing the car park to a halt for ten minutes are generally taken up by older people. My child's needs are different to their's.

Terry Barnes

Re: @lucrelout

So your solution to abuse by normally-abled people is to punish the very people the system is intended to help? Like I said, think harder.

Terry Barnes

@lucrelout

You need to think harder.

I have 3 amazing kids, one of whom uses a power chair. We have a big car with a ramp for his chair and extra suspension bits for the weight. If you can lift him from his powerchair into a mondeo without injuring you or him you must spend a lot of time in the gym. I'm not sure where you'd then put the chair though.

It needs to be quite powerful to carry all that weight around, especially when we drive it to go on holiday. We can't fly because of all the extra kit we have to take and the ramp issue. Tried getting a hire car with a ramp before, or trusting an airplane hold with a powerchair?

Come on kids, let's go play in the abandoned nuclear power station

Terry Barnes

wind turbines

Crikey. If only there was some way to re-use the concrete base when replacing a life expired turbine?

Boeing just about gives up on the 747

Terry Barnes

Re: 0.3 of a plane?

.3 is not a third.

Terry Barnes

Re: It may have life in it yet

"ere is no reason that modern variants of the 747 can't compete against new comers"

Except the newer designs will still use less fuel, even if that fuel does cost less. That extra cost means your prices need to be higher than your competitors to cover your costs. That means using one puts you at a competitive disadvantage. Comparison websites and dynamic pricing and all that mean that you only have to be $1 more expensive to lose customers.

ETSI, CableLabs ask telco SDOs to help unscramble the NFV egg

Terry Barnes

Re: NFV & Software defined

You're confusing NFV and SDN.

NFV is absolutely about replacing expensive proprietary networking kit with commodity hardware. A base station might be a stretch at the moment, but for routers, switches, firewalls, SBCs it's all systems go.

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