* Posts by Alister

4259 publicly visible posts • joined 19 May 2010

Watch Waymo's totally driverless self-driving car cruise around, how the US military wants to use AI ethically, etc

Alister

Re: Did any one else notice

@Charlie Clark

You're missing the point, I think. Underneath all the Waymo extras, the car is a late model Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, which will have a substantial value in terms of its component parts if taken away and disassembled for resale.

Alister

Re: Prety neat driving

It was interesting to see that when the Waymo car came up to an intersection and signalled left, and then the following car pulled alongside on its left, there was a detectable pause whilst the Waymo car tried to decide what to do - you could see the steering wheel twitch back and forth for a second or so.

GitLab mulls ban on hiring Chinese and Russian support staff because 'security'

Alister

Re: Is this legal?

Except America, which as we all know is the Land Of The Free...

Please tell us why you're not securing yourselves, UK.gov asks businesses

Alister

what government could do to help and what incentives might encourage firms and businesses to manage their cyber risk.

Perhaps leading by example might be a good start.

If Gov IT was perceived as secure and robust it might, just might, incentivise other businesses to give a damn.

Not just adhesive, but alcohol-resistant adhesive: Well done, Apple. Airpods Pro repairability is a zero

Alister

Re: Removable stem seems like a reasonable suggestion...

perform vivisections on live Apples WITHOUT aesthetic!!!

I presume you meant anaesthetic, but you're right, Apple has no aesthetic...

Are you as handy with privacy certs as you are with a screwdriver? Ikea has the perfect vacancy

Alister

Re: News?

@ Steve Button,

It sounds like you need a drink.

Are you having a bad day?

Bet you can't guess what I'm wearing, or where I'm wearing it

Alister

Re: No one wants to hire a tit

And yet they do, in large numbers.

But usually only if they come as a pair...

IT protip: Never try to be too helpful lest someone puts your contact details next to unruly boxen

Alister

Re: Where were you 20 years ago?

Hmm, 1999, I was an NHS Paramedic, and computing was a hobby.

On balance, I think I'd rather be where I am now, working in IT, than still be trying to deliver effective patient care in today's NHS.

Delayed, over-budget smart meters will be helpful – when Blighty enters 'Star Trek phase'

Alister

Re: More ElReg trolling?

I demand that you be inconsistently consistent, it's no more than we deserve!

Alister

However, the department is expecting to "ramp up" the number next year, with up to 70,000 migrations per day

Hahahahahahahaha!

Oh wait, they were serious?

Belgian city slurps mobile data to track visitors

Alister

Re: With enough controls

Would be good to know how many people really do live in each area of UK etc to ensure correct number of hospitals and housing

I'd agree with you, if I thought that there was the slightest chance that any UK government would use the data to provide more hospitals and local services.

However, reality suggests they would do the exact opposite, and use the data to "prove" that they could close existing hospitals, schools, libraries, police stations etc etc in lower populated areas.

The UK's Civil Aviation Authority asked drone orgs to email fliers' data in an Excel spreadsheet

Alister

It is not yet known whether the database will still cost the £4m that we revealed the CAA was thinking of splurging on it,

Nah, they're just going to concatenate all the Excel sheets into one massive one.

FYI, we're now in the timeline where Facebook decides who is and isn't a politician on its 2bn-plus-person network

Alister

Re: Biased much?

Why does the Reg continue to publish this person's one-sided opinions?

You seem to be suffering from a few one-sided opinions yourself...

Most non-partisan observers would agree that Breitbart is rather biased.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/breitbart/

Weird Flex but OK: New Samsung laptop lines haul QLED monitor tech squinting into the sun

Alister

Re: All very well but

The UK has way more than 600 nits, just look in the House of Commons...

GitLab pulls U-turn on plan to crank up usage telemetry after both staff and customers cry foul

Alister

CEO apologises for ill-considered proposal

He's getting good at that...

Huawei with you! FCC's American Pai proposes rip-and-replace of scary Chinese comms kit

Alister

I'm surprised that a bunch of IT people are so sanguine about the potential threat of Chinese-made infrastructure equipment

As a member of the Rest-of-the-World, I'm much more worried about the actual threat of American made infrastructure equipment, than I am about the potential threat of Chinese made kit.

Oh, and Huawei are the acknowledged leader in 5G technology, there is nothing US made which comes close.

Google goes full Anti-Flash-ist, boots Adobe's insecure monstrosity out of web search index

Alister

Finding a browser to manage VMWare is going to get interesting, at the moment it's all Flash based.

Come on, you can't be serious: Now Australia mulls face-recog tech for p0rno site age checks

Alister

VPNs will shortly be banned, citizen.

No, we don't care that it will break all the secure connections used daily for management of servers, working from home and so on. VPNs are EEEVIL.

It's dangerous to go alone! Take Uncle Sam and the Netherlands: Duo join naval task force into China's backyard

Alister

Re: The South China sea is British

南海 apparently, or Nán zhōngguó hǎi

Are you coming to the party dressed as an IMP? ARPANET @ 50

Alister
Trollface

The first two letters sent that day were 'L' and 'O' – what should the third have been?

'L' of course.

Alister

It must have been an amazing place watching the future get built in front of your eyes, greybeards.

It used to be fun.

Like the Death Star on Endor, JEDI created a ton of fallout and stormy weather in cloud market

Alister

B5 pic with a JEDI related story?

WOOOOSH!

Have you not been following this story on El Reg?

We're late and we're unreliable but we won't invalidate your warranty: We're engineers!

Alister

Re: I need an electrician

240v is "will kill you."

No it won't, not if you're a normal healthy adult. I've had a number of electric shocks over the years, from 240V and 415V, and I'm still here, it hasn't affected me at all...

<twitch> <twitch> <twitch>

Alister

Re: I need an electrician

@Alan Ferris

Sorry but it depends where in the world you are.

In British English, Electrocution doesn't necessarily involve death. It just means to receive an electric shock.

Luke, I am your father... which is why I must eject from JEDI decision, says US Defense Sec

Alister

Secretary Mark Esper, head of the JEDI program, has a son called Luke.

It's just a gift to tabloid journalism, really.

Big Red tells crypto-coin publication: One does not simply call one's website 'OracleTimes'

Alister

I wonder if Larry ever visited Delphi...

Er, hi. Small Q. Where's our billion-ish dollars gone? We summarize Bitcoin exchange's subpoena requests

Alister

Re: What did they expect?

The Eater of Socks has been visiting.

The sound of silence is actually the sound of a malicious smart speaker app listening in on you

Alister

Re: Got one, never used it

Bingley bingley beep! Good Morning Insert-Name-Here.

Two astronauts conduct a successful spacewalk, world+dog lose minds

Alister

Re: world+dog lose minds

You are not a tabloid.

WRONG!

El Reg is indeed, and proudly, a tabloid. See the red top.

Row erupts over who to blame after NordVPN says: One of our servers was hacked via remote management tool

Alister

So Creanova had remote management accounts called "admin" and "support". Excellent, no hacker would ever think of looking for those.

Traffic lights worldwide set to change after Swedish engineer saw red over getting a ticket

Alister

In the UK, the law is quite clear: Green = go, Amber = stop, Red = stop. Sadly, very few drivers adhere to this, and instead treat Amber as "keep going if you think you can get away with it" or "set off before the green light".

I discovered the world's last video rental kiosk and it would make a great spaceship

Alister
Holmes

Oh, and I suspect the spray paint was not someone's attempt at recycling.

Well done. ==========>>>

Alister

They'd be illegal these days but he looks forward to their nationwide revival after Brexit, once we stop the reviled bureaucrats of Europe undemocratically preventing us from torching our own infants

<Snigger>

A History of (Computer) Violence: Wait. Before you whack it again, try caressing the mouse

Alister

Re: On the other side...

I thought that sort of thing was a closely guarded secret

Exactly, How can an IT department work up any sort of mystique, if you show everyone how it's done?

Alister

Re: Pain and Fear

As I have recounted here before, we have a 10lb lump hammer hanging off a rack in the server room, where all the servers can see it.

And a friend of mine leaves the carcass of a Dell PE850 on the bench, with a large screwdriver embedded in the motherboard, as a salutary warning to others who might stray...

GitLab reset --hard bad1dea: Biz U-turns, unbans office political chat, will vet customers

Alister

Re: Where do you draw the line?

Hard to bake a gay wedding cake and not know it's promoting homosexuality.

What on earth do you think you mean by "promoting homosexuality"?

You make it sound like there's a two-for-one offer or something.

Being gay is not something you can catch, you know, it doesn't rub off on people, and nor is it a choice that people might inadvisedly make if they see a wedding cake for a gay couple.

Alister

Re: The only way ...

Dear Bob,

In the UK there used to be a "reality TV" program called "The Only Way is Essex" (often known as TOWIE) which followed the lives of a number of young people living in the English county of Essex.

HTH

Privacy pop-up exhibit shows people in The Glass Room shouldn't throw phones – though they may well want to

Alister

excuse calendar linky

Some assembly required as Dream Chaser mini-shuttle's empty husk arrives in Colorado

Alister

Do they paint the parts before assembly?

I never used to...

I never read the instructions properly, either...

Conspiracy loons claim victory in Brighton and Hove as council rejects plans to build 5G masts

Alister

Re: Who cares?

Err, you do know that a microwave oven produces hundreds of Watts of power - some more than a kilowatt, as compared to the peak output of a cell tower being about 60W?

Alister

Re: Who Needs 5G In Brighton?

especially those Tetra eyesores.

Nice troll...

Alister

Our Scalar Energy EMF Protection pendant can help boost your energy during the day as it is a negative ion generator that helps red blood cells to disperse and release more energy!

Hmmm... not sure I want my blood cells to disperse, thanks, I'd rather they stay in my body, really.

If you or your child are suffering from any of the common symptoms of EMF exposure such as headaches, chronic colds and flues, digestive disorders, sleep disturbances, anxiety, fatigue, memory loss, brain fog, dizziness, etc;

Or asthma, eczema, st vitus dance, broken legs, deformed ears, small genitalia, delusions, paranoia or other common symptoms...

Getronics CEO on HMRC winding-up petition: An 'embarrassing' blip with cash in the wrong places

Alister

it is quite expensive to achieve cost cuts

Is it only me who finds this ridiculous?

"Oh yes, we expended $6.8million on cutting costs, it was money well spent in my opinion"

"How much did you save?"

"Oh, about $1.4Million"

<boggle!>

Apple insists it's totally not doing that thing it wasn't accused of: We're not handing over Safari URLs to Tencent – just people's IP addresses

Alister

Re: Exactly

I think you're misunderstanding how this works. The *service* in this context is your web-browser, not the safe-browsing service.

I really think that you are confused. If you insist that the service is your web browser, then by your logic, the browser should request your explicit consent before sending your IP address to any third party.

By it's nature, a web browser sends your IP to any entity it connects to, whether that be a DNS server, a website, or a safe-browsing service.

This is opt-out - you can choose not to browse any sites, but then having the browser running is sort of pointless really.

Alister

Re: Exactly

That's nonsense. To provide the safe-browsing service, your IP address IS required, and so if you choose to use that service, no further consent is required.

Welcome to the World Of Tomorrow, where fridges suffer certificate errors. Just like everything else

Alister

Re: monster refrigerator as a centre for "non-stop music, video & TV entertainment"

Anything that makes noise other than my TV or stereo gets shut down pretty damn quick.

Other family members?

;)

Alister

Re: Carbon footprint ?

Maybe I'm old fashioned expecting fridges and large appliances to have 20-30 years life.

My parents recently had to buy a new fridge, their old one had finally given up.

It was bought new in 1961, and had survived three house moves. It was older than me!!

Alister

Re: Luddites

Most compressor motors are digital - they're either on or off...

Alister

Re: Water cooker

Could be worse, you could have an old geyser hanging around in your kitchen...

'Technical error' threatens Vodafone customers with four-figure roaming fees

Alister

Re: Mistake?

From TFA I'm not sure anyone was actually charged - that is nobody has paid the amounts quoted - they've just had big billing alerts.