"i.AI is piloting ten different initiatives, including using algorithms to flag fraudulent transactions in pharmacies"
Looking forward to the ITV drama about this in 15 years' time
Posts by Volvic
57 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Nov 2009
AI to fix UK Civil Service's bureaucratic bungling, deputy PM bets
Backdoored SolarWinds software, linked to US govt hacks, in wide use throughout the British public sector
Abolish the Telly Tax? Fat chance, say MPs at non-binding debate
Friday 24th November 2017 09:39 GMT
Re: Threatogram received from Crapita today
A strawman argument, eh?
The duty to enrich the lives of your citizens is just as important as the duty to protect them, yes. And I'm happy to pay money to help do both. Life without information and entertainment is not life, it's just existing. Your comments about the Garden Bridge are irrelevant to the topic at hand, but on the internet a reasonable discussion without ludicrous hyperbole is a "nice to have".
TalkTalk teen hacker pleads guilty as firm reveals £22m profit jump
BT blames 'faulty router' for mega outage. Did they try turning it off and on again?
It's not you, it's EE: UK mobile network goes titsup, blames gremlins
IT bloke publishes comprehensive maps of CALL CENTRE menu HELL
YouTube channels at $1.99 per month could launch this week
Monday 6th May 2013 22:15 GMT
I'm not sure that this statement is correct
"Over the years, YouTube has been slowly evolving away from its original user-generated content model, toward one where the service plays host to a variety of slick, professional videos from well-funded creators. Most of the major Hollywood studios now have YouTube channels, as do TV networks ranging from HBO to the BBC."
I think rather than pushing channels from established TV networks, movie studios or brands, YouTube have actually thrown a lot of cash at promoting and pushing homegrown video makers who are now producing their YouTube-exclusive shows and receiving ad revenue as their primary income. They flew loads of them to London for the Olympics last year, for example.
There are people who now make slickly produced shows for a living, purely on YouTube and nowhere else.
This subscription model feels like even more of a move away from the established brands being the big draws - it seems like they're trying to turn independent, YouTube-only content creators into established brands in their own right.
Ofcom fines TalkTalk AGAIN - a whopping £750k over 'abandoned calls' gaffe
BT engineers - missed appointments
Tuesday 12th March 2013 17:29 GMT
MBORC
Openreach had an MBORC status (Matters Beyond Our Reasonable Control) on most of the country over the winter months which might go some way to explaining the rise in complaints.
MBORC basically means they can't actually confirm that they'll turn up on time or at all due to weather conditions. At one point in December we (major ISP) had over 10k overdue tickets with them because of it.
Vodafone goes titsup for BlackBerrys in mobile data outage
Japanese cops cuff cat carrying remote control virus
Red-faced, sweating and still in your chair: Welcome to eSports
Wednesday 26th December 2012 11:23 GMT 
Great article
A good follow-up might be to get an insight into how eSport stars deal with their game of choice's bubble bursting.
Ten years ago arguably the biggest names in eSports were Counter Strike 1.5/1.6 players - teams like SK and mTw, players like HeatoN and SpawN. The CS ship has well and truly sailed (although the CS:GO submarine may be surfacing soon) so it would be interesting to hear how they've handled it.
TalkTalk somehow retains most-complained-about-ISP title AGAIN
Thursday 27th September 2012 15:08 GMT
It's not a case of them 'realising' that you need to be put through. The absolute highest priority metric for 1st line teams is first time fix rate - ie, trying their absolute hardest not to transfer you to 2nd line. They're seen to be under-performing if this rate is down, even if you need a 2nd line resource to actually fix the issue for you. It's fucking stupid but unfortunately that's how it works.
It's exactly the same at TalkTalk ; the on-shore support guys in Preston and Manchester are, for the most part, absolutely excellent and really conscientious. But the 1st line support teams based offshore are being torn a new arsehole every time their first-time fix rate drops, so they keep people going through the same tedious script over and over and over again.
Dr Who shoves BitTorrent in the Tardis
Assange's fate to be revealed at high noon
EA sues Zynga over ripping off Sims Social
Saturday 4th August 2012 12:01 GMT
For anyone thinking this is a bad thing...
..here's a good example of how Zynga are not just guilty of the normal genre bandwagon jumping that is rife in the games industry.
http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/indie/tinytower/tinytower0125-610b.jpg
Tiny Towers is the original indie game, Dream Heights is the later released Zynga version.
Zynga deserve everything they get.
Saturday 4th August 2012 11:55 GMT
Re: Zynga @ 3rd August 2012 20:57 GMT
Also, if you have a look at the filing it's full of hilarious things like Zynga using the same RGB values as the Sims game for all the characters' skin tones.
Zynga don't jump on genre bandwagons, they wholesale rip off entire games, down to the order that options appear in the menus, the interface design, and getting their sprites to look as close as possible to the inevitably better indie game that they're ripping off. They deserve to be bankrupted entirely and hopefully this will do it!
Never thought I'd say this but COME ON EA
Valve: Games run FASTER on Linux than Windows
RBS must realise it's just an IT biz with a banking licence
TalkTalk Q1 sales fall as number of broadband punters declines
Let's talk about the RBS IT cock-up
Friday 20th July 2012 14:59 GMT
Re: Hmm
The whole approach to this story from El Reg has stunk, unfortunately. Very Daily Mailesque, from the immediate finger pointing to India to the vindictive move of printing entire extracts of some poor sod's CV - who for all they know had absolutely nothing to do with the incident whatsoever.
Definitely not the vulture's finest hour.
Friday 20th July 2012 12:47 GMT 
Hmm
"And although RBS denied it, The Reg uncovered that the person responsible worked offshore – in one of many positions sent abroad as part of wide-ranging outsourcing to cut costs and so-called efficiencies."
No you didn't, you uncovered that other people who work on CA-7 are based offshore. You've got no actual proof that the person who buggered this particular change was offshore, onshore, or on the moon.
So, that vast IT disaster you may have caused? Come in, sit down
Tuesday 3rd July 2012 16:12 GMT
comfortable behind the pseudo-anonymity of their Fawkes masks...
...as opposed to the lack of pseudo-anonymity that comes from using a name like "perlcat"?
What difference does it make if people are using AC, there's valid points being made here.
If a company uses this interrogation approach then all it will result in is
a) more and more lying after incidents because everybody's terrified they'll get fired for trying to do the right thing but cocking it up;
b) a culture of constant blame shift in a desperate attempt not to have a consultant finger one of your team, and
c) Dominic's pockets getting fatter and fatter.
I'm a major incident & problem manager and in our root cause reviews I don't give a shit which individual caused the incident, I just want to know what is being done by the relevant supplier/operational team/etc to ensure that a similar incident doesn't occur again. Whether that's tightening access rights, training, documentation, or whatever else. Blaming one person and shitting up the entire IT staff while you're working out who to blame doesn't help anybody. Except Dom obviously.
YouView 'launch event' to take place next week
UK regulator re-opens probe into Google Street View slurp outrage
Tuesday 12th June 2012 21:24 GMT
Re: Seven questions for the ICO to answer...
They're an embarrassment. They're completely unable to act unless a foreign regulator shows them up by actually doing their job properly. They focus on rinsing public bodies for hundreds of thousands and completely ignore the most flagrant disregard for privacy law by private companies.
Hands on with Nintendo's Wii U
Watchdog relieves iPhone 5 scammers of £10k
BSkyB blocks The Pirate Bay for millions of Brits
Virgin Media site goes titsup in Pirate Bay payback attack
Two teens cuffed after Blighty's anti-terror hotline hacked
UK student faces extradition to US after piracy case ruling
Monday 16th January 2012 13:28 GMT
The usual argument
"It's just like Google"
Except he categorised search results by the names of TV series, or films. Exactly the same reason why Newzbin arguing the same thing doesn't work, because they had categories like "PS3 games" and "Windows applications". It's clear that the aim of both sites was to facilitate the accessing of copyrighted material without paying, even to an idiot.
If they weren't so fucking organised these warez sites would be untouchable
Sky follows BT in blocking Newzbin2
Wednesday 21st December 2011 09:26 GMT
Is there anywhere that offers the same experience as downloading a film illegally, for a fee? As in a file that you can keep, transfer to whatever device you want, watch in whatever software you want, without adverts?
If there was somewhere that offered this for a reasonable price (ie a couple of quid per movie), then piracy wouldn't be an issue at all, and the content producers would make billions off it.
Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Qwerty Android smartphone
Ten... Androids to outshine the iPhone 4S
HideMyAss defends role in LulzSec hack arrest
LulzSec hacks EVE Online as rampage goes on
TalkTalk goes silent
Sony unsure if PlayStation Network user data was stolen
Tuesday 26th April 2011 08:53 GMT
Word on the street is...
There's been some suggestion that rather than being a response to any sort of direct attack, Sony have brought down PSN due to the release of a custom PS3 firmware called Rebug, which gives you what is essentially the development firmware. Amongst other things this gives you the option to perform a "quick sign up" to PSN, bypassing a CC check, and bypassing the payment steps for grabbing any content off it. There's various videos of it in action on YT.
Rumour is they've brought down PSN to bork things for the rebug users.
Vodafone's network knackered by thieves
Monday 28th February 2011 12:34 GMT
MVNO too
This is also hitting their MVNO customers, our contact centres are getting hammered from pretty much all our mobile customers.
What's a little concerning is we've just had an email saying their MVNO incident mgt desk is now knackered and we've been given a mobile number as an altwrnative..
Biting the hand that feeds IT
