As the final phase of the inquiry is to provide recommendations for the future, isn't it best to wait until September?
Posts by Ol'Peculier
605 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2009
Fancy building a replacement for Post Office's disastrous Horizon system?
Majority of Americans now use ad blockers
Out with the old, in with the new as 100 Starlink satellites take atmospheric exit
Re: Disposible like BIC or Gillette razors
There are some places on earth that will never get a fibre link - such as the Galapagos Islands where the only way of getting decent internet access is via Starlink.
Which is why on Isabella Island, in a small bar in the middle of nowhere, I got 169 Mbps down and 9 up)
I'm no fan of Musk, but colour me impressed.
Because the bar also had it's own brewery, and it's Friday... --->
Zen Internet warns customers of an impending IP address change
Post Office boss unable to say when biz knew Horizon could be remotely altered
Tell me if I'm wrong but...
So the daily balance would double when the screen froze.
The subpostmaster would find money from their own pockets to send to the PO.
The post office now has money from transactions that didn't occur. These may be the same transactions twice but...
Say out of those transactions was £x of stamps x 2. Take that over a week and say x number of stamps have been sold. Reconcilliation would surely show that the number of stamps supplied to the PO was less than that?
Same as car tax, you don't pay your tax twice when renewing it at the PO. The same number plate appearing twice in the same days audit trail?
I'm just glad they are getting hauled over the coals, at last. There was a big article on the BBC site about it and it didn't mention the F word once.
BOFH: The Christmas party was so good, an independent inquiry is required
Hershey phishes! Crooks snarf chocolate lovers' creds
Ukraine cyber spies claim Putin's planes are in peril as sanctions bite
Your ex isn't the only one stalking your social media posts. The Feds are, too
NASA celebrates 40 years of Discovery, the longest-serving Space Shuttle
Wordpress sells 100-year domain, hosting plan for $38K
The price of freedom turned out to be an afternoon of tech panic
Many years ago I managed to mess up the logic in processing discount codes on our site that for one bank holiday weekend* anybody using a one that had being promoted through social media etc. ended up paying 20% more, rather than less, for their order.
It was surprising how many people didn't notice...
The number’s up for 999. And 911. And 000. And 111
Many years ago my local telephone exchange burnt down, and BT went on a big skip hunt finding old Strowger kit to install, rather than take the opportunity to update it to System X. Which took quite a while.
But anyway...
What we ended up with was police cars dotted all around the town, so if anybody had an emergency they could bolt down to the street corner and get help there.
The other alternative was for those with a mobile - which wasn't many - was to go to the large hill overlooking the bay and hope to connect to a mast that was wired to a different exchange.
Surprisingly, we all seemed to get through it.
Techie wasn't being paid, until he taught HR a lesson
Many years ago a friend shared the same name as me. Very useful when I was overdrawn as I'd give the cheque (said it was a long time ago...) to him to cash for me, in return for a couple of pints.
Sadly he died, too young, and his obit was in the local rag. I had a client at the time had one of their members call to ask if they knew their web designer had died - to which the lass that was my main contact there replied "well, I hope not - I had a coffee with him this morning!"
We regret to inform you Earth will not be destroyed by an asteroid within 1,000 years
San Francisco fog defeats pack of Waymo robo-taxis
Requiem for Google Reader, dead for a decade but not forgotten
I was very disappointed, but not that surprised, when Google killed Reader. Fortunately, feedly.com came along, allowed you to import your feed list and has a pretty good interface on desktop and mobile.
RSS can be such a useful tool, but who wants things that are useful that you can't make buckets of £££ with?
My God, it's full of tabs: Vivaldi's coolest new features shine on phones and cars
Nice smart device – how long does it get software updates?
Musk bans private-plane-tracking @Elonjet on Twitter, threatens legal action
OK, we know iPhones are expensive but... $11 a month for Twitter Blue on iOS?
Elon Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff: Go hardcore or go home
Nvidia, Lockheed team up to build digital twin of the Earth for climate researchers
Royal Mail customer data leak shutters online Click and Drop
Spooky Pillars of Creation snap reveals a dark side
Data loss prevention emergency tactic: keep your finger on the power button for the foreseeable future
Re: Another sign of the migration of El Reg Westwards?
Agreed.
Terribly worded phrase. It's the National Health Service. The way it's written makes it sound like it is there to cater for government staff only.
I'm starting to think I need to find other places to find my IT news'n'stuff that still stick to their roots.
Emissions-slashing hybrid trains to hit tracks in Europe
When in a station, If they can switch to battery power (and possibly recharge at the same time) then this needs bringing over here now. The rumblings from the locos in my local station are a major noise nuisance, and caused a newly built multi-million-pound servicing depot to be effectively abandoned.
BOFH: It's Friday, it's time to RTFM
BOFH: Who us? Sysadmins? Spend time with other departments?
BOFH: Selling the boss on a crypto startup
Everyone back to the office! Why? Because the decision has been made
Tropical island paradise ponders tax-free 'Digital Nomad Visa'
Ransomware plows through farm machinery giant AGCO
Do you know what TikTok is? Then you might make a good magistrate, says Ministry of Justice
Malaysia tweaks copyright law to hit streamers of copyright-infringing content
Just to clarify, I've never tried to take drugs into Malaysia, nor anywhere else for that matter. I've visited a few times, and have friends there, and it's just one of those little cabin announcements that makes me smile.
But going back to the original subject, there's a big street market somewhere in the centre of KL where you can get knock off Rolexes, western football tops, that kind of thing. Right bang centre of this hive of illegal activity is a police station. Go figure...
So what happens if you visit the country with material already loaded onto a tablet or suchlike?
Asking for a friend, obviously...
(it always amuses me that, just as you start your descent into KLIA, they choose to announce possession of illegal drugs carries a mandatory death sentence. Could they not say that before you get on the plane?)
BOFH: What if International Bad Actors designed the vaccine to make us watch more Steven Seagal movies?
A lightbulb moment comes too late to save a mainframe engineer's blushes
Google's Pixel 6 fingerprint reader is rubbish because of 'enhanced security algorithms'
I've had a Pixel 6 Pro for just under a week, and have no problems with the fingerprint sensor.
I must admit, I preferred the one on the back of the Pixel 3, but all I do is keep my phone pressed to the screen for a gnats whisker of a second for it to register. Seems to be a lack of patience on the couple of people that have Tweeted about it...
What a clock up: Brit TV-broadband giant Sky fails to pick up weekend's timezone change, fix due by Friday
Re: By the time I noticed it, it was too late to return.
A few years ago I drove US Route 50 from coast to coast, so every now and again we'd pass into a different time zone. What we learnt was to look at the clocks on the big displays outside banks to decide when to change, as some places right next to the time zone may choose which side of the line they wanted to be on.
Was odd driving along and changing the clock on the car in the middle of the afternoon...
Sharing is caring, except when it's your internet connection
Reminds me of a holiday (remember them?) to Sri Lanka about 5 years ago, the Wifi was working at first hotel I stayed at, but there was no on-going connection. So, out of curiosity I logged into the hub - as it was still using the manufacturers default password - reset it and bingo, back up again.
I'd say 3 of the 5 places I stayed at hadn't changed the router password, but it's too nice a country to explore, than spend time trying to explain internet security to the staff on the front desk.
---> because it's Friday and it was surprisingly difficult to find in a couple of smaller towns...