Posts by phuzz

Re: "will need updating"

"There is nothing to suggest that pre Oreo devices couldn't be patched"

No one is saying that it's impossible to patch, in fact, that's part of the problem, we know from experience that most Android phones don't get updates for more than a year or so after they're first released.

Personally I'm willing to put up with the occasional flakyness of a custom ROM (Lineage), and so will probably receive a patch for this in the next week or two, but the majority of Android devices out there will never get patched. Despite the fact, as you point out, it's possible to patch older versions of Android.

Oh, and why? Because there's no money in updating an old phone, when you could be selling people new phones.

Re: This is actually an amazing piece of work. Privacy protection sounds first rate. But please

"Do you really need a few million of the clueless looking head down inside some of those stations?"

They're already looking at their phones, why not give them a nice easy sat-nav type app which tells them exactly where to walk. That way they can point different individuals in different directions, perhaps routing that tourist family on a slightly longer journey so they don't have to get mixed up with all the commuters.

Re: CDs in 5.25" drives

Ahh yes, I remember a user who couldn't get their laptop dock to work. It turns out that a USB plug fits perfectly into an ethernet port.

Re: Just what we need...

They've been promising to allow non-OSX users to login to multiple accounts from one client for about three years now (when they released it for OSX they said it was 'coming soon' for Linux and Windows).

Aaaaaaaand when I tried to follow the link to the blog post where they announced such functionality:

blog.hipchat.com/2015/06/08/connecting-multiple-accounts-on-hipchat-is-here

it gets redirected to their new Stride announcement.

So no more features for HipChat, and presumably no bug fixes or other upgrades either, how else are they going to get people to 'upgrade'?

Re: stop posting shit about me its pissing me off

Your username got this song stuck in my head, except with leet instead of cool obviously.

(Would a 13 year old even know what l33t even means?)

Re: Oh Crap!

To be fair, it was a bloody ugly building to start with.

Calm down dear, you're making a lot of incorrect assumptions in just one short paragraph.

1) Illegal is the wrong word, this was a civil case. Just because it is legal to say something, doesn't mean that you can't be sued. Indeed, in the US there's very little speech that is illegal, but the yanks always seem to be suing each other.

2) He was arguing that Techdirt saying that he did not invent email was in fact harming him (presumably because he uses that claim to drum up business). Deciding if it was in fact harmful or not was one of the things that the court case was about.

3) Generally, if you are sent to jail, it's because the government, in the form of a judge and jury, have decided that it is true that you have committed a crime, and you are sent to jail. If the charges are false, you're not.

Re: Is this a problem ?

What about a malicious charger? (ie something which purports to just provide power, but is actually doing naughty things via USB)

Re: Screw 16:10

"Bring back the Radius Pivot monitor."

There's plenty of brand new monitors that can pivot on their stand (eg), and then you just rotate the display via your graphics drivers or OS. (Well, I assume OSX can do this, Windows and Linux can)

Re: Do Oracle fans exist?

I think the answer to your question is, there's people who are fans of some of Oracle's products, but only the ones that they bought up (eg Solaris) and then ruined (eg OpenOffice).

I've never heard a good word about their database product, and I wonder if anyone would use it if they weren't locked in.

Re: No accountability

"It's great - you can even remove an innocent mans head with seven dum dum bullets and get away scott free."

It's better than that, you get to be Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police!

(Let's vilify the person who gave the order, not the copper who was told they were dealing with a dangerous terrorist)

Re: Hehe... Love the fake names.

Imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth if Belarus had openly called their wargame opponents "America"! (and the hilarity from the rest of the world)

Of course, they could have pretended that they were the British armed forces, except that that even the OPFOR in a minor wargame would probably vastly outnumber any realistic UK force.

Re: Irony ?

Well, given the readership of elReg, a lot of us here probably rely on a management systems like Intel ME to do our jobs.

Only we have to pay extra for it and it's called iLO or DRAC.

Re: HIS FIRST MISTAKE WAS...

You're half wrong, but if you are 'the house', then you always win.

At least, it would take a complete idiot to drive a casino into bankruptcy, and who could possibly be that stupid?

Re: Not sure what your issue is...

Yep, sorry 'mericans, you're getting ripped off.

Although the case could be made that it's a lot easier to build a mobile network somewhere like the UK or Japan, with a high population data meaning you can reach many subscribers with a few masts, rather than the US, where (outside of cities) each mast won't cover nearly as many paying subscribers.

One thing China are worried about is that they would likely bare the brunt of the refugee crisis if/when the NK state collapses.

Re: I'd pay good money ...

"I rather suspect that if you took 450,000 random members of the general public [...] you'd get the exact same number of decent drivers"

I disagree. While Gran Turismo is, in part, a test of hand-eye coordination (an essential skill for a driver), it also requires the ability to learn, remember, and understand racing lines and braking zones across many courses, and also requires one to know how adjusting things like wing angles, suspension geometry, tire choice, weather etc. affect the way a car handles.

Simply put, if you were designing a home-based test to find driving ability, a modern racing game would probably be what you ended up with.

"Competitive modern dance [..] wouldn't sell video games, now would they?"

Oh yes they do.

Much as I'd like to join the "virgin are incompetent scum" brigade, our service has been ok for the last year or so.

Maybe every two-three weeks we start getting really bad pings, but a quick (actually, quite slow) reboot of the router sorts that.

Several years ago we used to have a lot of problems which seemed to be down to a lack of capacity on their network, but touch-wood, it's been ok recently.

It seems very much a case of "Your mileage may vary".

Their customer service does suck though.

Re: I wonder...

Even better, plug an mp3 player into the external mic socket, playing a constant loop of Never Going To Give You Up.

Re: Or maybe they still couldn't make a case against him even with Blairs extradition law

I imagine there's some folks inside GCHQ who are a bit ticked off with the FBI right now, as well as their own higher-ups for giving Hutchins to the FBI.

Not only is he never going to trust them again, but other potential collaborators will think twice before offering to help out as well.

The whole point of civilian contractors is that they can do things that the civil service aren't allowed to do, but now they're being thrown to the wolves.

Re: Generous police

"I'd have thought that there would be blood all over the sub - and him - if that's what had happened."

If only there was a quick way of washing the entire submarine, inside and out...

Re: Move along...

I would have assumed that it was easier to get your hands on a real gun, rather than a replica in the US.

Don't they give them out in cereal packets over there?

Re: No public code review --> security by obscurity.

Security by Obscurity is a useful technique as long as it's used in conjunction with other forms of security. It's just pretty useless on it's own.

Eg, if you move your SSH to a random port, it won't make you more secure per se, but it will cut down on the number of automated attempts to break in to it.

I was thinking the Conservative Party conference would be a good place for a trial, especially if they wanted to see if they were getting any false-negatives.