* Posts by JimmyPage

3215 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Mar 2010

Solar panel spammer hit by UK’s biggest ever nuisance calls fine

JimmyPage Silver badge

Re: Dump the landline ...

Sorry I have no advice.

We managed to buy a house in one of the most topsy-turvey places in Britain.

Technically, we live in a city. But are 5 minutes walks from a "shire" with beautiful countryside all around.

We're 2 minutes from a motorway.

We're a "deprived area" (no stamp duty, thanks to Gordon Brown) yet are cabled up to the max. My standard 60MBps pure-cable connection is better than *any* of our directors (so they tell me). And I am a minutes walk from a highly-ranked UK university (although not so highly ranked they reply to my emails).

Mobile coverage is 100% for every network - probably due to the proliferation of masts on tower blocks within line of sight.

And a 10 minute drive from the newest hospital in the UK.

Yet house prices here are sub-normal. Currently. A couple of country-dwelling friends have commented that they would pay more for a property with decent broadband.

JimmyPage Silver badge

Dump the landline ...

3 months ago, for various reasons, we had to pull the phone out of the wall. Since then the world hasn't ended. We have already ensured that any communications are email/twitter/ Hospitals and doctors seem to be able to call the mobile.

Bottom line, is 3 months without a landline, and not a single cold call. Probably not what Virgin Media will want to hear when I next call them up "to quit".

Presumably the fact that you still have to pay for a mobile call means they are much less prone to spamming ?

Slander-as-a-service: Peeple app wants people to rate and review you – whether you like it or not

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FAIL

"Peeple"

why did I immediate think of "Menshn" ?

Bill Bailey: The man, the musician, the comic, the troll, the legend

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Happy

Hindi-Indie

the mash-up of Dueling Banjos/Creep with the Indian band and choir is probably my favourite.

Oh, hang on .... how about "Cars" playing on a rack of bicycle horns ?

UK.gov wants a cloud wizard at £1,000 a DAY. That's more than the prime minister's salary

JimmyPage Silver badge
Stop

Oddly, the job spec does not ask for security clearance

I predict the person who has (already) filled this post (what ? You *really* thought this was an above-board business) doesn't have security clearance, and

has proven knowledge and experience of operating within a Microsoft private cloud system system, plus proven knowledge in non-Microsoft technologies, such as Agresso, Cisco core networking, NetApp Storage, and HP Blade Centre and Compute.

iOS 9 update set to bork 'hundreds of thousands of EU businesses'

JimmyPage Silver badge
FAIL

Hardly a surprise though

For something which really should be the dogs bollocks, it seems to me that bluetooth is fragmented and badly implemented in most cases.

For just $400 you can have this Raspberry Pi – and mine bitcoin

JimmyPage Silver badge

Reminds me of the comment about the Analytical Engine

that the only use for it would be to calculate how much it had cost

Indianapolis man paints his ball every day – for FORTY YEARS

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Thumb Up

Disappointed

So far into comments, and no comparison to the pitch drop experiment ?

UK terror law probe stresses 'safeguards' amid MI5 plot claims

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Happy

The joke icon spoils the truth .....

JimmyPage Silver badge
Flame

since 7/7 "only two people have been killed by terrorists"

And how many innocent people have been killed by the police ?

Blood-crazy climate mosquitoes set to ground Santa's reindeer

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Thumb Up

Of course this is good news ...

for those people who advocate eating insects as a source of protein.

US Catholic Church launches app for Jesus-phone

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Happy

Bishop Christopher Coyne

Nominative determinism at work there. Or proof God *does* have a sense of humour.

JimmyPage Silver badge

English, Spanish

not Latin ?

Apple working on 3D mapping at secret Swedish hideaway

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Gimp

Saw the Apple car here last week

(Birmingham).

Quite an impressive piece of kit on the roof ....

Confession: I was a teenage computer virus writer

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Thumb Up

sending text commands to the monitor

ah, that was how mainframes did graphics in those days. Techtronix and Wyse terminals ring bells.

Hey, glassholes: Google patents movement-sensing, shape-shifting specs

JimmyPage Silver badge

Already drifting OT ...

whatever happened to the idea of using a film of liquid curved with electrostatic force to replace solid lenses ? Maybe bit premature for eyeglasses, but for cameras ?

Vanished global warming may not return – UK Met Office

JimmyPage Silver badge
FAIL

And then people wonder why the Met Office lost the BBC contract ?

For at least 10 - maybe 15 years, I (not a climatologist nor a meteorologist) I have been increasingly sceptical of how the Met Office headlines can be connected to the data. It seems to me that *whatever* the (pesky ?) data shows, the story from the Met Office conveniently fits the narrative of <p><del>global warming</del></p> "climate change". Making the Met Office look like prize charlies, when the "BBQ" summers they insist will happen didn't. And then when the mild winters they insisted we will keep having didn't either (anyone remember 2010-2011 ?).

'Walter Mitty' IT manager admits to buying gun on dark web

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Thumb Up

Re: Entrapment?

Probably finely nuanced ...

The key question is "would the defendant have acted as they did, if the police had done nothing ?"

In this case it would seem the defendant would have - they seem to have dreamt up the idea of buying a gun, and if it hadn't been for the actions of the police, may very well have got one. A real one. And like people who want to be MPs, the very last person who should have a gun, is someone who wants to have a gun. They are - by definition - dangerous people.

So in this case, big up for plod --->

Laminate this: Inside Argos' ongoing online (r)evolution

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Flame

Yodel ...

I was on a conference call by my (home) office window last week. Facing the road. Saw an anonymous white van pull up. Driver gets out, walks up path. Hearing no doorbell, I assume the Missis, who's in the lounge (i.e. by the front door) has dealt with it.

Imagine *our* surprise when next day, we find a card jammed into the letterbox (so you couldn't see it from the inside) from Yodel, telling us we'd "been out" when they tried to deliver.

Collected the parcel from a neighbour who said the driver "had rung your bell, and banged your door for ages" ...

Bollocks he did. CCTV (which will catch a lot of lying towrags out - vis dashcams) shows him neither ringing the bell, nor knocking. Just carefully folding the postcard up to ensure it remained hidden till next day.

If your job is really *that* boring, why not change, rather then waste your life ?

Court battle date set for £300m BT Cornwall termination dispute

JimmyPage Silver badge
FAIL

Ah, BT

when our office was closed, and remaining staff transferred to homeworking, it was decided to install separate phone/broadband lines for them. I argued against the office managers decision of BT, and was given an opportunity to contact Virgin. Which I did, but they didn't reply, so probably no great loss there.

BT managed to cock up every single install for 5 people. When it was all sorted (2 months after the contract date) the office manager asked why I had been so anti-BT, and couldn't understand my answer ... "I've used them."

Seriously, my wife and I can't recall a single time we've had a BT service from install to moving which hasn't been blighted with some spectacular incompetence.

The worrying thing is, having been private for the better part of 40 years, all the systematic incompetence from the 1970s era must be gone now. So where is this new generation of muppetry coming from ?

Voluminous Versailles vagina viciously violated – again

JimmyPage Silver badge
Headmaster

"everything will be done to identify the authors" ?

Is this a translation fail ... did someone see autuer, and not grasp the subtleties of nuanced meaning.

"Culprits" would have been more appropriate. "Perpetrators" even better.

"Authors" bestows a degree of respectability on the criminals.

e2a: I did briefly look to see if I could find an original report, to see what Mr. Hollande actually said. But then I really couldn't be bothered.

HMRC breaches job applicants' privacy in mass email spaff

JimmyPage Silver badge
FAIL

If only they'd hired a script kiddie

to write a plugin to stop emails with more than <x> addresses in the "TO" field from being sent.

If they were *really* clever they'd have got a job applicant to do it for free.

French hacker besmuts road sign right under Les Plods' noses

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Happy

Bravo !

et nous ditons les Francais avoir pas un bon sens de l'humour.

NHS to go paperless by 2020. No, really, it will, says gros fromage

JimmyPage Silver badge
FAIL

Ah, the paperless office, like nuclear fusion ...

just around the corner.

Those El Reggers old enough (like me) to remember the PC boom of the early 80s will recall how the first peripheral that got purchased after the computer was a printer ....

Canned laughter for Canadians selling cans of air at $15 a pop

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WTF?

Seriously ! 35 comments

and NO ONE has mentioned this is the plot of "Gasping" by Ben Elton.

Which I saw in the 1980s, with Hugh Laurie and Bernard Hill.

Well, at least I know how this story is going to end.

Legal eagles accuse Labour of data law breach over party purge

JimmyPage Silver badge
Unhappy

Merely a reflection of society

where few people take data protection seriously

Visitors no longer welcomed to Scotland's 'Penis Island'

JimmyPage Silver badge
FAIL

Proof, (if it were needed)

That a lot of this linguistic pride is an affectation, pure and simple. Which would be fine and dandy, if public money weren't being spunked on it.

What's Russia smoking? Kremlin bans Wikipedia for dopey article

JimmyPage Silver badge
FAIL

Because there are no other online resources

telling you how to grow plants ?

Oi, Google! Remove links to that removed story, yells forceful ICO

JimmyPage Silver badge

Out of interest ...

what are Bing doing ?

Youth Hostelling with Chris Eubank becomes TV reality

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Re: More ideas

Celebrity Beekeeping ?

Feltch with [Vanessa] Feltz ?

JimmyPage Silver badge
Coat

Throwing shit against a wall ...

...with Chris Eubank ?

Yet another Android app security bug: This time 'everything is affected'

JimmyPage Silver badge
Coat

A storey of flaws ?

Anyway, all of this seems to underscore what I said nearly two years ago, after messing around on the fringes of Android (because my wife has accessibility issues).

Android is a great toy operating system. But it's not ready for any real work.

Having bought a new phone, with a much later version of Android, I'm still of that opinion.

Enjoy vaping while you still can, warns Public Health England

JimmyPage Silver badge
Flame

Evidence based policy ?

That's for other people.

Mumsnet founder 'swatted by misogynist griefers'

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FAIL

If mumsnet just hashed the passwords

Or protected the Access database with a password ?

EE Harrier Mini grounded by errant Wi-Fi calling upgrade

JimmyPage Silver badge
Headmaster

Surprised the statement didn't end

with an offer to "...borrow you a phone, while yours is being fixed"

It a sad state of affairs, when a techie has better English skills than the marketing department.

Has anyone lost 37 dope plants, Bolton cops nonchalantly ask on Facebook

JimmyPage Silver badge

Hermies

My understanding is that some female plants can change the gender of some of their flowers when they haven't been pollinated

If they do, they weren't "female" plants, but hermaphrodites that were expressing female traits over male.

A true female plant, is a true female plant. Cuttings and clones will always be female.

It's all to do with F1/F2 hybridization.

As a previous poster suggested, for an "illegal" substance, there is an awful lot known about cannabis. In PhD. depth.

JimmyPage Silver badge

Male plants

depends. The psychoactive part of the plant is concentrated in the trichomes, which appear on the flowering tops. These are tiny hairs, which have a sac with the resin atop.

If a plant is fertilized, then all the energy goes into producing seeds, rather than trichomes.

(There is no accepted consensus as to the evolutionary reasons for this feature. Given the Himalayan origins of Cannabis species, it has been suggested it's a protection from UV light).

Therefore, drug producers try very hard to prevent their female plants getting fertilized - they try and keep them without seed. And Spanish for "Without Seed" is "Sinsemilla".

However, some people also like to breed their own strains of cannabis. For this (obviously) male pollen (and therefore plants) are needed. Once the pollen has been gathered, the plant has no use.

The fact that I know all of this show what an utter farce the past 44 years have been.

Incidentally, it's fucking anti social to dump any waste material. But even worse when it's something which could have easily been composted. If I caught the culprits, I'd give them a pass on the drugs, but cut their balls off with a rusty razor.

Government embarks on futile mission to censor teen music vid viewing

JimmyPage Silver badge
FAIL

Wow. Another chance for Geo-IP lookups to fail

and VPNs to prosper.

In fact if we combine this news story with another today - that VPN usage is required to avoid the immortal cookie monster, you have two drivers to progress pulling in opposite directions.

Anyone remember a pushme-pullme from Dr. Doolittle. ? The irony being Do Little would be the best thing the UK government could do about a lot of things.

Whatever happened to the push for more Reg icons ? "Fail" seems a little weak. "Facepalm" to obvious. "Morons" would be more suited .....

Assange™ is 'upset' that he WON'T be prosecuted for rape, giggles lawyer

JimmyPage Silver badge
Mushroom

Or alternatively

The Swedish authorities decided to treat Assange like any other person of interest in a criminal investigation, and refused to allow him to dictate terms ?

I know which I believe,.

JimmyPage Silver badge
Flame

OH FOR FUCKS SAKE

Even if Assange were to be extradited to Sweden. HE COULD NOT BE EXTRADITED ON TO ANYWHERE ELSE WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE UK.

Although since that has been explained clearly, many times, I have no confidence anyone who doesn't already know it will correct their understanding.

You can invent all sorts of black helicopter conspiracy scenarios whereby someone who at one point must have been the most recognisable man on the planet, mysterious appears in a US court, but real life is not a comic book.

Assange is more at risk of being eaten by an arctic lion in Sweden, than of being extradited to the US.

Apple's AirDrop abused by 'cyber-flashing' London train perv

JimmyPage Silver badge

Of course those of use with long (or good) memories

can recall bluejacking

which was going to end the world a few years ago.

JimmyPage Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Exif

or that he didn't send a picture (culled from wherever) of someone elses schlong ...

Police use RIFLE AND TASER to relieve man of iPhone case

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Facepalm

Jeez

there are some morons around

Apple and Google are KILLING KIDS with encryption, whine lawyers

JimmyPage Silver badge
Coat

No. It sounds like something Fry & Laurie would have rejected when writing a skit involving a brash, in-yer-face, hornswaggling yank.

IWF shares 'hash list' with web giants to flush out child sex abuse images online

JimmyPage Silver badge
Childcatcher

No outrage here

But sadly, morals, and evidence-based policy hardly (if ever) coincide.

Drugs and sex are two of the most legislated areas of human behaviour, despite being, in the main, activities which take place in private.

Bear in mind, the more hysterical and pitchfork-wielding society becomes, the harder we make it for people who might realise they need help to seek it. Thus increasing the risk to children.

JimmyPage Silver badge
WTF?

Am I being a bit thick here

Or could this whole castle of sand be skewed by changing at very least a byte or two of data in the source image ?

I appreciate this might have some - limited - effect. But it's hardly the dragon-slayer it's being touted as.

What a shower: METEORS will BLAZE a FIERY TRAIL across our skies

JimmyPage Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Icon says it all ->

Random numbers aren't, says infosec boffin

JimmyPage Silver badge
Boffin

Brainstorming ....

1) Use t'internet. Aggregate a few thousand web pages from a dictionary of millions (say every odd result from a Google search for cat videos, plus every even result from yesterdays most popular search), then a running XOR of a selection of bits from said pages to give you a seed ?

2) Surely there is a market for a chip with an inbuilt radioactive source, detector and a clock ? (I've seen an old XT clock chip with an inbuilt battery). You'd only need picograms of material.

3) Use next weeks lottery numbers ?