Posts by paulf 1250 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Aug 2009
FTA: "...beyond mobile handsets, the business [...] more recently added a wireless vacuum cleaner, sweeping bot and smart running shoes to its fragmented portfolio."
If those shoes want to be considered smart they'd better be capable of popping out to do a 5km run while I stay on the sofa in my pants, with a pint and a take away.
Not just TVP but also the broadcaster involved. FTA: "True Visions Productions (TVP) was working on a Channel 4 documentary..." If Channel 4 were involved then TVP would have had some contractual relationship with the broadcaster. That may have been TVP approaching C4 with their own idea and C4 committing to pay for and broadcast the finished prog, and/or Channel 4 came up with their own idea and commissioned TVP to make it for them (Channel 4 being a commissioning only broadcaster, with no in house production facilities). You may argue TVP was at "the coal face" and made their own decisions about how to capture the footage they wanted to inform the documentary, but there ought to have been some oversight by the broadcaster, and thus some joint responsibility for how the production company conducted themselves on the broadcaster's behalf.
An aside, the whole Sachsgate thing happened in part because BBC Radio 2 had wholly inadequate controls/oversight over the independent production house making Russell Brand's show. It didn't help that Brand owned the production company which meant that when a producer told him no, he fired them and hired a new producer that would say yes, and this should have encouraged greater external oversight from the Beeb due to the likely absent internal controls.
Fascinating article.
It was a sad day when Luxottica bought out Oakley. I only buy their frames as they're absolutely bomb proof. My first pair was in 2005 and I still use those frames, albeit with updated lenses, as a spare pair. Unfortunately my optician (David Clulow) has also been borged by Luxottica so I get triple shafted by them (eye test, Oakley frames, Essilor lenses). The only reason I keep going there is the optician there is really good and knows her stuff, unlike the robot button pushers at other places who just follow the script on the computerised testing machine.
@danger mouth, "Motivational posters that make you want to slash your wrists," I suggest a gradual but complete replacement of these with the fine wares available at despair.com. See if the manglement and hollistic numpties in the HR department (or whoever put the originals up) even spot the difference.
Whereas this comment has made my day and has been added to my growing armoury of phrases to describe work place idiots. IMO it's up there with Sea Gull Management, a growing problem at "paulf and co" at the moment which is made all the worse because they no longer fly off after shitting on everything and just keep making a lot of noise. Also there is no clean up of said shit any more which means it just corrodes things.
"Now the Boss may not be the sharpest fork in the toaster..."
FTA: "The job can be extremely mentally distressing, so the ultimate goal is to eventually hand that work over to algorithms."
Perhaps we should take a step backwards and wonder why the Facebook platform is attracting the kind of content upload that would cause such distress in the first place? We're told Facebook is a wonderful way for the kids to keep in touch with Granny and to watch cat videos, but this kind of content sounds like the kind of nasty that would be more at home on the dark web. Whatever your view on moderation [Human|AIMachine Learning] or [proactive|reactive], maybe that's the problem we should be solving first?
But you're a techie that understands the problems and downsides of outsourcing so your definition of success would include doing the job at least as well as it is before outsourcing. If you were a C-Suite picking a firm you'd be thinking of your pay/bonus/career so would pick the cheapest "over promise and under deliver" bunch of sharks (with an extended remix of "you can completely shaft the TUPEd workforce too, if you give us a further 5% off the contract price"), pick up your stonking bonus 12 months later for a job well done, then GTF out before the merde hits the fan ready for the next bunch of sea gull managers.
Or, as I summarised 18 months ago
"The HR department exists only to protect the company from its employees."
My first email address in 1995 was <something>@netcomuk.co.uk which was an awful mouthful and reason enough not to use provided email addresses.
Next up was <something>@clara.net which was much easier to remember and tell people, although that became @clara.co.uk when I moved to one of their cheaper services.
After trying some of the free services like Rocketmail/Yahoo and GMail I settled on my own domain.
It's also worth noting that many Crown Post Offices (the ones owned and operated by POL) have been moved into branches of WH Smith (i.e. been privatised). That likely explains your problem with expensive stationery.
These shouldn't be confused with the smaller Post Offices (more like a corner shop with a PO counter in it) run by a Sub-Postmaster owning and operating his/her own store and providing Post Office services under contract to POL.
@AC "Authentication works two ways."
I've been bashing my head against that brick wall for years so I'm glad it's not just me. When a Bank or some such calls me they always want to verify my identity even though they've called me. I understand you need to make sure you're speaking to the right person but I need some way to check you are who you say you are before we get on to who I am.
I've had some more pragmatic responses when I've pointed out I have no means to verify their identity and usually get a name/reference so I can call back on the main number to make sure the call was genuine but I've also had plenty that think I've started speaking in Swahili when I point out I'm not giving personal information to an unverified caller who just calls up and asks for it.
Similarly Lloyds and Halifax/Bank of Scotland share the same Lloyds platform but have reported separately, perhaps because they have separate banking licenses. Not sure I agree with this as it depends on how segregated things are on the platform in question. Is it a platform problem that only affects selected brands/licenses using that platform or does it affect all brands/licenses using that platform.
It seems not a week goes by now without another 20:20 view into the cesspit that is Facebook (also Google’s YouTube as the article explains). I just wonder at what point do users reach a point of sufficient revulsion that they say, “I cannot in all conscience continue using a creepy platform that enables evil people like this.”?
Perhaps we’ve seen so much filth from Facebook in terms of the habitual lying about privacy and the ever shifting sands that are their “privacy controls”; the way they “leak” personal details to outfits like Cambridge Analytica along with other, perhaps more traditional, advertisers; how they give a platform to hate content like this; that we’ve become used to it to the point of implicit acceptance? Now that would be deeply worrying.
I would have also wondered how nasty the platform would have to get for advertisers (the real customers) to start bailing wholesale. There was IIRC a brief advertiser boycott a few months ago(?) but I think that was just token and didn’t last long once they realised their adverts weren’t being seen by eyeballs. Maybe advertisers will finally realise the brand damage from being associated with toxic platforms that have no content control like Facebook and YouTube (plus the others), but I suspect the users will have to move first.
(In case anyone wonders I used to use Facebook occasionally to stay in touch with people but my use was very limited. I last logged in 18 months ago and won’t again. In contrast TOH has a science PhD yet shares all and sundry with Zuckerborg’s Facebook and WhatsApp etc so there’s more to it than blaming idiot lusers)
For some odd reason, that I've not quite got to the bottom of, I've got in the habit of taking my railway bardic with me when I go away. It means I can find the toilet in one of three authentic signalling colours (or white) without turning on lights and waking TOH. The red option might make it a bit hooker like though.
Mines the anorack with the Ian Allen stock list in it, and a flask of weak lemon drink.
Not sure if other places have authentication on the card used in the power slot (JHFC that would be truly evil!) but I've spent the last 10 days with a my Boots Advantage card in the power slot of my Hamburg apartment as I like to charge things when I'm not in the room. Also it's the most use that ruddy card has had since I got it about 20 years ago.
[Thankfully the fridge stays on regardless of the card being present which is good as warm beer may have made me snap, in the way that finding my phone/laptop/camera hadn't charged when I first encountered the abomination that is the hotel key card power slot idea last year in Iceland almost did]
Mum and I have an agreement when it comes to tech support. If she wants my tech support then she uses my recommendations on software/hardware/ISP etc. As soon as she does her own thing she gets tech support elsewhere as I pick options that are generally easiest to use while also being easiest to support. It’s worked pretty well for the last 20 years when her first computer (for email and web browsing) was my old 486 laptop!
In fairness she’s reasonably good at figuring stuff out for herself and can even help her brother with simple problems. She’s also a (relative) pro at checking windows updates for Microsoft malware like GWX.
Hmm, I wonder if we experienced the same billing SNAFU? Back in ~1998 I was on Clara Call for dial up Internet - you prefixed the dial up number with their Indirect Access Number and they billed you for the phone call at a rate below what BT would have charged. This was paid for using (IIRC) a pre-pay method that debited fixed top ups at something like £10/time. I think the problem came around early November 1998 - this was likely the first hour change their ClaraCall billing system had encountered and calls were being charged at stupid amounts - I only realised when I spotted an unexpected debit on my CC when I thought I had plenty of credit left. It was fixed quickly and the charges corrected but I didn't get an MD call or compensation.
I moved on in 2003 to Eclipse (remember them?) who still run my FTTC and landline but I left my email domain at Clara as their alias management is pretty useful and their techies are always helpful when I have a reason to contact them.
Be careful as some PAYG schemes have some really arcane requirements in the Ts+Cs.
I have an old O2 PAYG SIM which is my "burner phone". It has the usual requirement of a chargeable event once every 6 months (I play safe and make a call rather than risking just a text) BUT it also has to be topped up with at least £10 once every 999 days (no, really). I guess they don't want people topping up £10 and stringing it out over 5+ years.
As a burner phone you may not be bothered if it does burn because you don't meet some obscure T+C like this but just make sure you can switch accounts that use it to your new burner number without the old now burnt number!
I think these are the two key points of that whole sorry affair.
1. The Lib Dems thought the Tories would play nicer with them if they were in coalition together - completely overlooking the point the Tories don't even play nice among themselves (cf what's going on with Brexit at the moment and the party within a party that is the ERG seemingly intent on bringing down a Government of their own party).
2. Putting aside the various and extensive criticisms of the Tories the one thing they do very well is politics - and that's how they managed to spin things the way they did, to the detriment of the Lib Dems. People used to moan about New Labour spin doctors like Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson but they're mere amateurs compared to the Tory machine when it gets in its stride.
I had a similar problem when we moved offices a few years ago and the person in charge of our newly built office decreed that everyone will ditch their nice comfy, but generic red+black, office chairs for new crappy chairs upholstered in the selected corporate hue. I had a very comfortable special posture chair in red+black that was specially purchased after an occupational health assessment confirmed it was necessary. I asked if I was also expected to replace my chair and told in no uncertain terms "yes". I then asked if I could have her cost code so I could charge it with the £1000 a new chair in the correct colour would cost. A special exemption was hurriedly offered to me (and several others who also had non-standard chairs for similar reasons).
With hindsight I'm surprised she buckled so quickly as she had a long history of pissing money up the wall, until a new CEO gave her a rapid and hard boot in a big cost cutting exercise.
Normally I drink only strong filter coffee, but at home if I have tea iit's Yorkshire Tea only as I expect my tea to be Steam Loco Crew Strength (tm). That's three bags in the tea can, leave them in, just a splash of milk, let it stew on the shelf over the firebox hole during the next trip = normal strength.
I recall once being asked to make a cafetiere of coffee at my grandparents house. I made it my strength (about 3x their normal strength). They were normally pretty active, even into their late 80s, but after mine they were bouncing off the walls (and no I wasn't asked to make coffee again!).
Our water dispensers (filtered mains - hot and cold) are being removed because, we're told, they're not used often enough and the cost of flushing them to keep the water fresh is higher than getting bottled water. They'll be replaced with the keg on a pillar type which I assume will go green as they'll be hardly used too...
At the current "paulf & co" the most awful brouhaha has broken out about changes to the supply of free tea bags. We used to get a rotation of PG Tips, Typhoo, and Tetley*. Now TPBP have decreed we get something called "Country Range" which no one had heard of until it appeared. Reasons cited have been demolished by the now thirsty tea aficionados in the Engineering Corps: "It's cheaper" (it's not), "It simplifies ordering" (BS), "it's allergen free" (So were the others).
The rumblings I've heard suggest this has caused far more upset than it would ever have saved. If nothing else I've learned you don't piss off devoted tea drinkers (British or otherwise) if you want them to get on with their work rather than stand about bitching about the new tea bags.
We've never had free coffee (only Nescafé which is NOT coffee!) - and reception are under strict orders to rugby tackle anyone daring to help themselves to coffee from the filter machine brewed for visitors. OTOH we get free a food event once a month (usually cheese and biscuits - yum!)
*I'm sure those three brands alone will spark lively debate on the merits, or otherwise, of these brews, but they're better than what we ended up with.
Sorry for being a touch OT but your comment "there was no way to report it unless I had a sellers account." reminds me of my major bugbear with Amazon: Sellers paying to get negative reviews removed.
I ordered an item (car mount for a smartphone - about £10) and when it arrived it was a completely different design to the photos, although it worked just fine. I left a seller review noting this and the next day got a phone call from them offering me a 50% refund if I removed the review. I said I'd think about it (it didn't take long to conclude, "no") to get them off the phone realising they also had my home address. They were only able to call me because Amazon demands a phone number (thankfully my burner phone) which they share with the seller as part of the fulfilment address.
When I tried to report this I got standard replies offering help with a seller's account, completely missing the point. When I went to the seller's account help centre to try and report it there I was told I didn't have a seller's account and offering help to open one.
I've had various subsequent contacts from negative seller reviews. Some offer to rectify the problem and suggest I remove the review but sort out the problem anyway. Others offer me a bribe some kind of refund if I remove the review so this must be rife while Amazon turns a blind eye to it.
The talk of these confirmation algorithms is interesting, FTA: "Previously the Silicon Valley biz has been criticized for sending users down a conspiracy theory wormhole where watching one video about, say, the Earth being flat, leads to another and another"
Surely this is no different to the "You've just bought a toaster, hey look at these adverts for toasters!" advertising algorithms that are oft criticised in these esteemed forums. We're told these adverts are much more useful* to us as a result of the creepy tracking but in reality, no. This really is all they've got - there is no AI, the Machine Learning touted as "AI" is still really fucking dense and can't do anything other than feed an echo chamber.
So for all that data they slurp and activity they track (emails, messages, chats, searches, friends networks, page views around the web) all they've got is something that can do simple reactive regex matching. I can't see the promised automated moderation being any better so the usual perpetrators will be able to circumvent it with the usual tricks like spaces and substituting letters for numbers as they do on the Daily Heil message boards.
* = for no values of "useful"
Perhaps, but buying them in the first place (especially IBM, considering stories passim, in El Reg and others) was one of his significantly less better calls. The research power of us lowly commentards doesn't even come close to the Sage of Omaha(tm) but even we can see IBM for the fantasy shit show it clearly is.
As said further up, respect that he admitted his mistake in thinking he understood something when he didn't; but considering his excellent calls in the past it's surprising he thought he understood it in the first place.
Proper link to Micro SD Card Covert Spy Coin - Secret Compartment (U.S. Quarter) for anyone really keen. Temper your enthusiasm though - it's over seventy fucking quid. That's one valuable pr()n stash!
"...the in crowd kids are all wearing limited edition Yeezy Boosts that start at ~$250..."
Sweet waltzing Lord. £250 for a pair of white running shoes personally anointed by Kanye West? Christ on a Bike I'm in the wrong industry.
I'll admit to a well stocked shoe rack but nothing cost anywhere close to that.
I hope all those internal cost payments paid for a serious office party on expenses to make up for it?
(I'm assuming they were indeed paid and said drunken idiots were given the bollocking they deserve even though this is the Civil Service and they were likely knighted for their services to pissing off the plebs)
@AC, "the transition from 'Personnel' to 'Human Resources' as a backward step".
You're right. I've seen it said, by others of this parish, that "Personnel" comes from "Person" i.e. someone you work with; whereas "Human Resources" comes from "Resource" i.e. something you use.
Re @steviebuk Oak furniture Land
Their prices are all over the place like a cheap suit with several different sales each month! I wanted some stuff from them so monitored their prices as a new "sale" came and went each week. Some items went back up - some went down. I guess overall the price movements averaged out so how good the sale was came down to what you were buying. I spotted a point at which one item I was after dropped heavily and the prices on the other items hadn't significantly risen to compensate so completed my order. After that sale ended, the next few "sales" my items were more expensive so that worked for me but could easily have gone the other way. Paying a reasonable price for something shouldn't be that much work. That said prices on Amazon can also waver about like a drunk walking home in a strong breeze - thank $DIETY for camelcamelcamel !
The article doesn't state the reason (and I've not read the PDF of the suit which I hope does give some kind of concrete evidence). My guess is he found out from his recent call history? Did the bug record the incoming but answered Facetime call? If so, did it record a missed call or an answered call (with a duration shown)? It's still a leap of faith from missed Facetime call to "Someone recorded my private client meeting" but it would at least add some substance to the claim as it would show an incoming call that could have taken advantage of the bug (even though it doesn't show any recording or listening took place).
Last work I had done at Kwik Fit (many years ago) was a replacement exhaust. About 18 months later the Catalytic converter failed its MOT. I returned to the centre as it was still under warranty. It was being run by a 17 year old as the manager had gone AWOL. One of the "mechanics" put some fuel treatment in my petrol tank saying that would sort the problem out (it didn't but I was naive). After another MOT fail I took it to another KF centre and they agreed the Catalytic converter was faulty and rectified it under warranty. Another time I went in to get my AC regassed - they did a high pressure sell on a new set of 4 tyres (a type I didn't normally buy but they were on "offer") even though every tyre had at least 5mm tread (Note: for anyone not familiar in the UK minimum legal tread depth is 1.6mm and when new those tyres had 8mm of tread).
Scumbags every one of them - couldn't happen to a nicer more deserving company.
I've had Kirsty MacColl - There's a guy works down the chip shop, swears he's Elvis for years if only because it makes a lot of noise pretty quickly. No point having a quiet intro as by the time I hear the phone it'll have gone to voicemail.
Only exception is the Mother in law has Star Wars- The Imperial March (it's totally justified).
I have to agree with AC on this. When I'm reading at work I can't send personal emails so a webform would be much more convenient. If you're worried about Spammers abusing the webform you could just insist on reports requiring an El Reg Commentard login. At least then you know a correction submission from someone with a Commentard badge ought to be relatively reliable.
That's sad to hear that WD reliability has dropped so far. I have about 14 WD spinning rust drives between 5 and 8 years old - a mix of Green/Red/Black mechanisms across NAS and workstation uses. In that time (touches wood) only one drive failed - WD provided a refurb replacement as it was 2.5 years old and thankfully it was caught in time so no data loss.
I had a quick read through the Fidus story mentioned in the article about this and it linked to a page (apparently from Paypal) listing invalid Credit card numbers for testing purposes. Worth having by the phone if you do like to wind up these scumbags and they start looking for payment before attempting to shovel malware on your computer.
Yes, things do get activated during an iPhone update. Every update I've done (since at least iOS 10 I think) has enabled WiFi on my iPhone even though I always set this to off (proper off in Settings, not the fake off in the control centre). When I've very clearly turned this off I don't expect Apple to turn it back on without my agreement.
I think the OP was alluding towards things deep within settings but my example still counts as it is a setting modified during the update process. I think I did see one or two settings elsewhere in settings being changed during an update but I don't recall the exact details.
+1 for Crucial SSDs. I got a 1TB MX200 to replace the 500GB spinning rust in my MacBook Pro which is from the long gone age of 2010 when you could just replace the standard SATA HDD/SSD with another standard SATA storage device.
That was just over three years ago and it's not missed a beat in that time - I'm relieved to say - despite regular use. I just hope Crucial is still good on quality as they're my preferred upgrade path for the 9 year old WD spinning rust in my Windows box.
I love my old iPhone 4S. It's like that IBM Model M keyboard, you could beat someone to death with it then use it to write blog their obituary. Mine has had several drops and is still in good condition (YMMV). That was very much the high water mark though, iPhone build quality went down after that as evidenced by Bendgate
My mum is on Win 7 x64. The GWX shitshow saw her go from technophobe to a "pro" (in the parental sense of the word) in terms of reviewing the offered updates and excluding the ones I tell her to skip or permanently bar.
There's limited positivity for MS right now, but educating the parental units on the merits of checking updates is one of them, even if it wasn't intended by MS!
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
