* Posts by Sir Runcible Spoon

5770 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007

Mark Zuckerberg did everything in his power to avoid Facebook becoming the next MySpace – but forgot one crucial detail…

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: "No one likes an asshole"

Personally I think the Americans elected an arsehole because they wanted him to go to town on the old-guard who have been lording it over them for so long :)

Sir Runcible Spoon
Facepalm

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

"And apparently enough Brits and USians liked the lies from putin's puppets to vote to wreck their countries."

What?? You really think that highlighting a few contentious issues is enough to sway people's votes to a greater degree than the daily brainwashing from the local news?

Suunto settles scary scuba screwup for $50m: 'Faulty' dive computer hardware and software put explorers in peril

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: Fuck!!!

I would never rely on my dive computer for actual air reserves left - that's what the gauge hanging off your regulator is for.

I still have my 2010 Oceanic Geo 2, never missed a beat.

Careful with this latest Microsoft release – tug too hard on the threads and it tends to unravel

Sir Runcible Spoon
Joke

Re: Appropriate attaire only

"It can only be worn in the Middle East because it has to hang on an iRack."

That only works if you usually mis-pronounce the name of the country (i.e. you're American)

Fraudster convicted of online banking thefts using… whatever the hell this thing is

Sir Runcible Spoon
Joke

Re: Tech or pretend-tech?

"How does the mirror and holy postcard help with that?"

Well, it's Xmas, he was wearing a Santa hat, so I'm guessing it was a works party :)

Privacy, security fears about ID cards? UK.gov's digital bod has one simple solution: 'Get over it'

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: "do you think the Leave voters would have been expected to 'like it or lump it'?"

"WELL DONE YOU."

That seems a bit harsh. I don't believe my one little vote can be conflated to me being responsible for the mess the politicians have made of the situation any more than your vote could be considered a failure to stop it.

You raise some valid points, but I certainly don't agree with all of them. At this point perhaps we should agree to disagree? I see no reason to sour the forum by continuing to dissect this particular beast, we're not going to change each others mind and it won't achieve anything substantial imo.

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: Dumbing down the general population

Putting aside differences and making the best of the situation seems to mean the other side should like it or lump it, and that's not going to happen. This is going to run and hamstring the UK for decades.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to agree with you there.

Just out of curiosity, if the Remain vote had won, do you think the Leave voters would have been expected to 'like it or lump it'?

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: "Naive, I know, but without trying we would never know."

So you and your pals thought you'd conduct a social experiment with the entire future of the UK's relationship with the rest of the world.

That's one way of looking at it, although I certainly took it a tad more seriously than you are implying - I'm not treating this as a game. From my point of view I was standing up for what I believe in.

Hoping for a revival of the "Dunkirque spirit" were you?

Guilty as charged.

How do you think that's worked out? 50% success rate? More? Less?

I will admit that I'm disappointed in the result. Whilst there was a slight majority vote in favour of leaving, it's hard to argue that there isn't an element of xenophobia there, rather than the positive viewpoint I had hoped would emerge. So I have to go with less than 50%.

I'll leave you to guess how well I think it's worked out.

I'm sure I have no need to guess, John. Any more than you need to guess that I was hopelessly idealistic in my faith that, when it comes to the crunch, people would pull together and show some solidarity.

I won't apologise for standing up for what I believe in, and I voted to leave because I genuinely believed that remaining in the EU would lead us down a path with fewer options later on, when an additional option or two could make all the difference.

It's just unfortunate that our political 'leaders' are so spineless and self-serving.

Lest we forget, the people of this country might have voted to join the EEC (an economic agreement) they didn't get a vote on handing over our national sovereignty. The very first time we had a chance to vote on that particular nugget was the Brexit referendum. Over 50% of the voters wanted to leave, and if you believe the pollsters the main differentiator appears to be age, i.e. the older people were more likely to vote to leave.

This has led to accusations of the older generation selling out the younger etc., yet you could also look at it as the older (more experienced) voters looking out for the younger generation (which are their children and future, remember).

Partisan lines have been drawn up along the most bizarre basis at times, but for me it's about the ability to stand up to the power brokers who see the little people as nothing more than cash cows to be milked and discarded, and I honestly believe we would have less power to do so within the EU.

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: Dumbing down the general population

"Not really seeing where your belief it'll achieve that result has sprung from."

Fair point, but it was only one of the reasons, and certainly not the main one.

If this country had been exposed to European culture (as opposed to almost entirely US culture) then Brits might *feel* European. As it is I don't feel connected with Europe, so the idea of decisions being made in Brussels outside of my ability to influence (by voting) doesn't sit well with me.

I was also rather hoping that this country would re-discover its collective backbone before it was too late and that once a decision was made that people would put aside their differences and make the best of the situation. Naive, I know, but without trying we would never know.

As it is, the remainers (who lost the vote by the way) have done everything they can to undermine the process and spread FUD across the land. Bloody annoying.

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: Dumbing down the general population

They succeeded above all expectations but in a completely unexpected way they didn't like: a majority voted for Brexit, largely because of the nasty habit of Whitehall to unjustly blame all impopular legislation on Brussels.

I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that voting for Brexit = dumbed down.

I voted for Brexit, and oddly enough one of the reasons was so that our fawning politicians wouldn't have a skirt to hide behind anymore and we could actually stand a chance of holding them to account.

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: They will have trouble with the protests this time round

re:stone throwing...do you have a link to this video?

Sir Runcible Spoon
Joke

Re: @ analyzer: Bloody typical

Require all politicians (i.e. of both houses) and all public servants (local, regional and national) to have these things (no exceptions), let the scheme run for a decent test-period of

P1: It'll never fly

P2: Have you tried pushing it off the cliff?

Doom: The FPS that wowed players, gummed up servers, and enraged admins

Sir Runcible Spoon

I seem to recall having numerous different autoexec and config sys files depending on the game that needed to be run, along with a menu that allowed me to select which set I wanted :)

All thanks to that visionary luminary who said that 640k should be enough for anyone.

Sir Runcible Spoon
Coat

Re: Speaking for myself

"(it was Token Ring, mind you)"

So, more of an Ultima - Underworld kind of network then? -->

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: Unproblematic admins

Totally agree with the original admins here - you adapt to survive, and that includes upgrading your network to cope with p2p gaming sessions run after hours.

Sir Runcible Spoon
Mushroom

Re: Doom II

My first ever 'shit-yer-pants' moment was given to me by playing Doom in a dark room with the speakers up full. One of those 'ripper' monsters snuck up behind me and gave me a nasty surprise.

In fact, I think I jumped so hard I bashed my legs on the underside of the desk :) Happy Days.

Side note: I used to get accused of cheating in UT because I had such low ping times - benefits of working for an ISP and having a 100Mb connection direct to the locally hosted server ;)

China on its way to becoming the first nation to land on the far side of the Moon

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: Optional

Perhaps they should have reported some anomaly with their gravity readings?

Official: Voyager 2 is now an interstellar spacecraft

Sir Runcible Spoon
Thumb Up

Re: Scale

Voyager 2 could go from London to Sydney in a shade under 18 minutes, and it's been flying how long again?

Although...saying it like that doesn't make it seem very fast at all :(

Sir Runcible Spoon
Alien

Re: Somewhere ...

...slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us...dunn dunnn derrrrrrr!!!!

Sir Runcible Spoon
Coat

Re: 50 years

@Bluto, I'm not sure my parents were involved in the engineering cycle, more like the commissioning body.

Sir Runcible Spoon
Paris Hilton

Re: I was around 50 years ago, just barely

Worst case, we could find ourselves on a Galactic Register.

You mean 'THE' Galactic Register. I wonder what their icon would be?

Wow, what a lovely early Christmas present for Australians: A crypto-busting super-snoop law passes just in time

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: I promised I'd keep doing this...

Maybe it is intended to be forced, thus they get the message..

"Keep your nose out of my business you wankers!" perhaps?

Sir Runcible Spoon
Joke

Re: As Thijs-vr on Reddit said

"a digital watch?"

-courtesy of 'Not the 9 O'clock News'

Sir Runcible Spoon
Big Brother

Re: Idiots

"if you haven’t done anything wrong you have nothing to fear”

I've just applied some basic logic circuits to this one (with all due precautions on overload/paradox etc.) and observed the following..

1. The only people who are afraid of this legislation are people who understand it technically and how it will affect the relationship between the people and government

2. The only people who understand this legislation in this sense are intelligent and have a moral conscience/sense of preservation for the whole of society and not just themselves

Therefore, for the original statement to be true, it can be considered 'wrong' to be both intelligent and have a moral conscience.

Now you know what the people who utter that phrase really believe.

Expired cert... Really? #O2down meltdown shows we should fear bungles and bugs more than hackers

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: The wrong day

"The day you overdose?"

Technically that's quitting too, after all , you won't be doing any more will you?

UK spies: You know how we said bulk device hacking would be used sparingly? Well, things have 'evolved'...

Sir Runcible Spoon
Thumb Up

Re: Sapphire & Steel

Thanks for reminding me, I have the whole set waiting for me to watch over the xmas break :D

Sir Runcible Spoon

1984 was just a draft, it has since 'evolved' many times.

Sir Runcible Spoon
Joke

Re: Equipment interference

Have they hacked oxygen now?

Sir Runcible Spoon
Meh

Re: Well, Well

"still waiting for that sarcasm icon El Reg"

Can't you make do with the poker-face? -->

Windows 10 security question: How do miscreants use these for post-hack persistence?

Sir Runcible Spoon
Facepalm

Re: Trade secret ...

I think you may have missed the point :)

Unless that was intended as sarcasm - hard to tell.

Talk about a GAN-do attitude... AI software bots can see through your text CAPTCHAs

Sir Runcible Spoon
Mushroom

Re: CAPTCHAs can FOAD.

I tried to track an item on the Royal Mail website yesterday, it took over 30 attempts for me to get the right combination.

I mean, is that dot in the distance, mostly obscured by a bush, a car, a lorry or a cyclist?

Is that a storefront? All I see are Chinese characters on a sign, it could be an old people's home for all I know.

FOAD indeed. Fucking parcel was here two minutes after I got through it.

GCHQ pushes for 'virtual crocodile clips' on chat apps – the ability to silently slip into private encrypted comms

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: Define "security"

At the conceptual level, security *is* binary.

It's only when you try to achieve that in reality that it falls short.

It's a bit like trust. Conceptually that is also binary, you can either trust someone or you can't.

In reality it's a bit more vague and it depends on what you are trusting someone for. Trusting a friend to return your car after borrowing it is one thing, trusting them to manage your bank accounts is another.

So here we have GCHQ, a known abuser of trust, asking us to trust it again. In response I would like to quote a well known security maxim back at them..

'Trust, but verify'. Until we have a cast-iron method of verification that their powers are not being abused then there simply cannot be any trust. At least not from those with a modicum of security training.

Microsoft reveals terrible trio of bugs that knocked out Azure, Office 362.5 multi-factor auth logins for 14 hours

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: I'm a bit slow

If we adopt the 'days since last incident' approach, isn't it like O7 or something?

Peers to HMRC: Digital tax reforms 3 days after Brexit? Hold your horses, how 'bout 3 years...

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: what a mess...

"Actually, I feel a letter to my MP coming on.... This could be fun."

I once sent a letter to my MP written on toilet paper. I recall mentioning that that's what I suspected all letters were used for anyway.

On that *one* occasion I got a response from the actual MP, handwritten, rather than the usual boilerplate stuff you usually get back.

Not sure it would work these days, someone would probably be offended and I'd be carted off to prison to learn to become an actual criminal and thereafter get an easier ride from the system.

Sir Runcible Spoon
Thumb Up

Re: Isn't that why I pay my accountant

Do you think that contractors are ok with the 'scumbag' moniker because we know that we aren't ;)

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: How they do it in NL

"The problem with that is I am then liable if I get it wrong which is less appealing"

You're probably liable if they get it wrong as well. Just sayin'.

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: How they do it in NL

HMRC do it that way in the UK too.

I've been submitting my VAT returns (flat rate) online for over 10 years now.

Sir Runcible Spoon

"I can't tell you that.."

..because it has come to light that if you ask 15 HMRC staff the same question you would get 15 different answers, revealing that we have no idea what's going on. This way we get to give everyone the same answer and just look awkward, rather than incompetent.

TFTFY :)

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: Nope

Ah, in that case it might be the same for me then, since the s/w I use to create the values in the VAT return boxes is my brain :)

Sir Runcible Spoon

Nope

First I've heard of this to be honest, although I am registered on the Flat Rate scheme (which I assume it doesn't affect*).

Perhaps the figures relating to #businesses meeting the turnover threshold that are not on the flat rate scheme is a bit lower than the headline figures here (unless that's already been taken in to account).

*I'm trying to break the habit of assuming anyone/anything makes sense anymore, but it's a struggle.

Microsoft confirms: We fixed Azure by turning it off and on again. PS: Office 362 is still borked

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: "Passwords also cannot be reset by users."

aka engineers.

Azure, Office 365 go super-secure: Multi-factor auth borked in Europe, Asia, USA

Sir Runcible Spoon
Facepalm

Re: Office..

I usually defend Microsoft quite a lot

The mind simply boggles -->

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: Latest update

Normally a change has a 'rollback' option.

So if they aren't 'rolling back' the change, they obviously have no idea what caused the issue in the first place. Unauthorised change/hack?

Congrats to Debbie Crosbie: New CEO at IT meltdown bank TSB has unenviable task ahead

Sir Runcible Spoon
Mushroom

There is a very good reason

for all these bank cockups.

Almost all of these banks have built up a plethora of bespoke applications/scripts over the years to perform tasks that no off-the-shelf products could do.

These applications and scripts were developed and supported by in-house technical expertise.

Then the bean-counters came along and thought that off-shoring all those technical jobs would be so much cheaper and give the bank more profits.

So, now they are in the situation where aging scripts and apps are failing to meet the changes that inevitably happen and they no longer have the expertise to make changes without screwing things up.

You might ask me how I know this, but I couldn't possibly comment.

Where to implant my employee microchip? I have the ideal location

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: Poor Reliability.. better idea

https://virtualsalt.com/barcode.htm

Sir Runcible Spoon
Coffee/keyboard

Thank you Dabbsy

You mad fucker..

This causes him to meow noisily, probably the feline equivalent of "fucking open the fuck up you fucking fucked fucker"

Highlight of my day so far :)

I don't actually need a new keyboard, I like mine pebble-dashed with luke-warm porridge.

OK Google, what is African ISP Main One, and how did it manage to route your traffic into China through Russia?

Sir Runcible Spoon

Re: A simpletons mind boggles

It isn't.

Sir Runcible Spoon
Coat

Re: Just a reminder

Does other person?

Mine's in the one made from a conceptualized waveform -->

Nikola Tesla's greatest challenge: He could measure electricity but not stupidity

Sir Runcible Spoon
Terminator

Re: training AI

I have detailed files ->

McAfee says cloud security not as bad as we feared… it's much worse

Sir Runcible Spoon
Angel

Re: So who's buying all these unsecured cloud instances?

"At that point, all you can do is pray"

You're such an optimist :P