* Posts by Pen-y-gors

3782 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Oct 2010

UK.gov isn't ready for no-deal Brexit – and 'secrecy' means businesses won't be either

Pen-y-gors

Re: Hmm

I'd vote for moving the UK population to move to Mars.

Good idea. We can build two large spaceships - the L Ark and the R Ark. The L Ark would leave first (as is their right) and never be heard from again. The R Ark would experience technical issues and have to cancel lift-off, with the colonists forced to Remain in a (much less crowded) UK.

Pen-y-gors

Re: Hmm

but having no plan to leave was brexiters fault

Errrm....it was their great idea. You mean they hadn't prepared a detailed plan for when their wish was granted? Who did they expect to do the donkey work?

Can we have a new referendum: Should the UK population move to Mars?

When we vote Yes we'll leave it to the government to work out the details. It'll be the easiest mass-migration in history.

[I am getting too cynical and sarcastic. But what else is left? Running wild in the House of Commons with a Combine Harvester just isn't my style.]

Pen-y-gors

Re: No shit, Sherlock?

@Len

You're going in the right direction. Killing people is wrong. And anyway, we'd have to pass a law to make killing MPs legal, and they're unlikely to do that.

But in terms of Cabinet members (and others - Farage)...

Treason Act 1351, as amended reads:

"or be adherent to the King’s Enemies in his Realm, giving to them Aid and Comfort in the Realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be [X4probably] attainted of open Deed by [X5the People] of their Condition"

1. Brexit will cause massive damage to the UK

2. Who would want that to happen?

3. Only enemies of the Queen and the UK. e.g. Putin - who welcomes Brexit and kills people in the UK. Sounds like an enemy to me.

4. So, by implementing Brexit, they are giving Aid and Comfort

5. The People can attest to that.

Which makes them guilty of High Treason, which no longer has the death penalty. But they can spend the rest of their days on Dartmoor, breaking rocks and picking oakum.

Can we crowdfund a prosecution?

Pen-y-gors

Re: Y2K all over again

nothing too serious will happen

True. People won't be able to fly, and the queues at Dover will start to grow.

After a few days in the queue things start to get nasty, as mobs of lorry drivers roam the Kent countryside looking for food and water.

After a couple of weeks the rotting food in the lorries has attracted rats, which breed rapidly. Bubonic plague sweeps southern England.

And after a month or two the insulin supply dries up. Theresa May is okay, as she gets private supplies imported by sea from the USA.

The last makes me wonder: would an insulin-dependent diabetic be likely to get off by claiming 'self defence' if the started slaughtering pro-Brexit MPs before the final vote?

Pen-y-gors

Re: Hmm

@John Brown

But it's quite evident that many who voted for Leave had other ideas, including a soft, negotiated exit.

I think many of them belonged to the "I still want to use the golf course even though I've resigned and no longer pay subs" tendency.

Euro bureaucrats tie up .eu in red tape to stop Brexit Brits snatching back their web domains

Pen-y-gors

Re: Couldn't have said it better myself

Exactly. I voted Remain, and will continue to do so. The EU is an essential part of the future of the countries in the UK and the continent of Europe - and the world.

But I don't pretend it's perfect and infallible! This is just another example of the imperfections, which are best tackled from inside the organisation.

UK.gov finally adds Galileo and Copernicus to the Brexit divorce bill

Pen-y-gors

Remind me...

There has been much discussion about the pros and cons of Brexit. In recent months there has been a growing list of very specific things that will definitely be worse, or no longer available, or cost more after we leave. The precise numbers may be open to debate, but the trend is very clear.

Remind me, what are the specific and definite benefits of leaving? And that doesn't include 'the possibility of a Free Trade Agreement with Vanuatu'.

Pen-y-gors

Re: TL;DR

@AC (There's a lot of AC comments here, wonder why?)

Just leave Scotland in the EU and put all trade through there

Ideally, Scotland, Wales and a united Ireland. (Latest Welsh polling shows strong Remain support now - the original referendum had a lot of stuff you Cameron behind the vote, and farmers who thought it would cut down on the paperwork! Which it will of course - no more payments, so no paperwork!)

Anyway, that wouldn't solve it. There would then be a hard border between the glorious kingdom of Little England and Wales/Scotland.

Face it, the vast majority of citizens of the disUK are going to get battered, unless they own a hedge-fund in Ireland or a German passport.

Pen-y-gors

Re: The punishment beating will continue

@Aladdin Sane

Strangely, now that I look at it, that troll icon does look remarkably like Drumpf! Just needs an orange makeover and it's perfect.

Pen-y-gors

Re: TL;DR

@Thought about IT

The level of ignorance about the effects of leaving the EU at the time of the last referendum - not least among the most extreme Brexiteers in the government - casts a long shadow over the proceedings.

The level of ignorance about the effects of leaving the EU at the time of the last referendum even now - not least among the most extreme Brexiteers in the government - casts a long shadow over the proceedings.

FTFY

Pen-y-gors

Re: TL;DR

@Helen Highwater

You don't understand - the system is to keep voting until we get the correct result, then stop. And of course, 'remain' is the correct result. More votes after that would just be silly.

Pen-y-gors

Re: TL;DR

@AC (should really have been Troll icon, but I'll bite...)

Effect on the UK economy: insignificantly small and unmeasurable.

Unless you are one of the 158,000+ job losses already announced, and we still haven't left! And then of course there is the drop in government tax income as GDP falls steadily for a decade or more.

Interesting list at:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTIPx0lI6pb-3Tn-3D6uNJNyKcCd-A8uPMxViagyJAR9T87ZmnSdAEPCzp5ljlNYoUNdxJiJqQdBm7b/pubhtml

Do not adjust your set, er, browser: This is our new page-one design

Pen-y-gors

And I don't think any of you are psychopaths.

Let's face it, read just about any of the comments about DIE! DIE! DIE! anything

Milton Keynes: Come for roundabouts, stay for near-gigabit broadband

Pen-y-gors

Re: Openreach

@Roland6

8K at 120 fps plus sound requires around 500Mbps after compression.

Call me an old Luddite, but I do wonder whether the world will be a substantially better place if we can sit at home watching Loose Women in 8K at 120fps, on our 80" screens, or even some superhero movie with lots of explosions. If you want the big screen experience go to a cinema! If you want incredibly realistic images, step outside your front door!

And, deep down, (and this is my Puritan streak showing) do we really need to be spending hours in front of an idiot-box, of whatever resolution and size, passively absorbing 'entertainment'? There's a whole exciting world out there, with real things to do in it and real people to meet. [I shall now go back to my computer...]

Pen-y-gors

Re: Openreach

@Steve K

We used to shout 1s and 0s to each other over the telephone - when we were baud.

Ah, happy days...

Pen-y-gors

Re: Openreach

Oh yes, no reason not to roll out fibre to all, but I'm not convinced about the 'build it and they will come' model for 'needing' 1Gbps to a domestic setting. Even streaming 4K only needs about 25Mbps, so unless you are the old woman living in a shoe with all her children streaming Netflix at the same time...

And, based on practical experience, there are so many bottlenecks in the wider interwebs that the headline figure makes damn all difference when using a browser or similar, once beyond a certain point (perhaps 10-15Mbps per user). It's all the chat back and forth that slows things down. Nominal high speed is great for uploading and downloading large files, or doing cloud backup, but makes damn-all difference for most real-life situations.

And if everyone had 1Gbps and used it, what size would the upstream connection need to handle? And the servers delivering all that content? It's about a lot more than the last mile.

Pen-y-gors

Openreach

Openreach can claim 300Mbit/s from its cabinets

Not just claim - if you are lucky enough to have had FTTP installed it delivers. I just ran a test and got 292 down/35 up - but I do pay a bit extra for that!

Gigabit would be nice of course, and I have heard tell that Openreach have pushed full-fat fibre to 1GBbps, it's just not been rolled out yet. But, to be honest, I really can't think of many homes, or even businesses that need that sort of thing on general release. Yes, a shopping centre offering free WiFi, or large office, but do we need 1Gbps to every home?

Pen-y-gors

Re: An impressive challenge undertaken

Quite a nice Cathedral. And the new-town bits aren't too bad to live in.

Having spent 13 years there I tend to say that there are a lot of places that are nicer than Peterborough, but there are a lot that are worse!

Of course, I moved away 25 years ago. It may have gone downhill...

Brit armed forces still don't have enough techies, thunder MPs

Pen-y-gors

Re: Do we need an army?

@DavCrav

That is certainly an option. Personally, if I am asked whether I want my country to be governed by potential genocidal nutters, people who would be willing to turn thousands or millions of people into glass, I tend to answer 'No'.

Pen-y-gors

Do we need an army?

A more fundamental question is "Do we need an Army" in the sense of armed forces who, at the end of the day, are there to kill people when the government orders.

Yes, there may be a need for defensive armed forces, and for a bit of UN peace-keeping. But perhaps by moving to a Defence and Emergency Force we may ease some of the problems. Having a body of trained people with equipment ready to handle extreme situations is essential for any country. In the UK we have floods, there could be other problems in the future. Other countries need outside help. It may be that a core of professionals backed up by part-time volunteers ( a la T.A.) is the way to go. But do we, as a country, really need to be able to kill thousands of people on the other side of the world at a moment's notice?

By having a Civil Emergency and Defence force we can make use of their skills all year round. If there isn't an emergency they could be working on public infrastructure projects. The Medics could deliver health programmes, at home or overseas. The techies could be doing something worthwhile.

Our massive and useless aircraft carriers could be re-purposed as floating disaster relief bases, able to travel to areas hit by flood, fire, hurricane, disease or war, and provide an instant base for relief services. And probably won't be such an easy target for a single hostile missile or explosive-laden trawler.

The pay for techies probably wouldn't be as good as in the private sector, but many people are happy to work for the job satisfaction and earning 'enough' rather than buckets of dosh helping bankers become richer by screwing the poor (or whatever). If money was all that mattered to people where would Médecins Sans Frontières be?

<lennon>You may say, I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...</lennon>

Pen-y-gors

Re: Simple answer.

@Chronos

our leaders are about as batshit crazy as it is physically possible to get without being sectioned.

Let's be fair, many of them are way beyond the 'ready to be sectioned' point, but somehow haven't been. Friends in high places?

2-bit punks' weak 40-bit crypto didn't help Tesla keyless fobs one bit

Pen-y-gors

Re: Problem-solution dichotomy

It gets me that the VERY NEXT ACTION you take is to touch the door.

That bugs me too. What I want is to be able to press a button (or, ideally, think a special phrase) and the vehicle door opens, a long arm extends to where I am, gently cradles me in it, and draws me back into the vehicle, which starts to play my preferred music, delivers me a nice glass of plonk and some nibbles, and autonomously drives off to my destination (which it read in my mind). Now THAT would be a good use of technology.

Python joins movement to dump 'offensive' master, slave terms

Pen-y-gors

ancestors who were slaves

Slavery has been widespread throughout human history, whether as outright property (Rome, Berbers, W.Indies and I'm sure China etc) or as serf/villein arrangements. So, given the mixing of genes, I think that probably pretty well all of us have ancestors who were slaves of some sort..

Law firm seeking leak victims to launch £500m suit at British Airways

Pen-y-gors

Fees?

SPG Law said it would cap its fees at a maximum of 35 per cent including VAT.

So, 35% of £500 million = £175 million. It warms the cockles of my heart to hear about lawyers willing to work for a pittance so that their clients don't suffer. And people say rude things about lawyers being money-grubbing scum who aren't fit to line the brimstone pits of hell. This will set the critics right!

<Insert obligatory Shakespeare quote>

Raspberry Pi supremo Eben Upton talks to The Reg about Pi PoE woes

Pen-y-gors

Re: Oh dear, a fan

PoE has a lot of plus points. I was looking at Rasp prices a couple of days ago and saw mention of the PoE HAT. I'm only running one 'production' Pi at the moment, that is feeding a TV slide show. I've got the Pi getting updates via ethernet, but I've also got a power supply strapped to the back of the TV. I have another box on the network getting PoE so I could easily add another to the cabinet, which would mean less cabloid mess behind the telly!

MPs' proposal to cash in on public-private algos given a solid 'maybe'

Pen-y-gors

Ethics?

The government also pointed to its Data Ethics Framework,

That would be the follow-up to the government Suthics Framework?

Government + Ethics? ERROR: INCONSISTENT DATA. DOES NOT COMPUTE

PPI pushers now need consent to cold-call you

Pen-y-gors

Re: Too late

It would be handy if they could extend this idea to people wanting you to switch phone/energy supplier.

Pen-y-gors

Re: How did El Reg get your number?

Weird. That's my number too! That explains all those odd calls I've been getting asking me something like "Will God...?"

Voyager 1 left the planet 41 years ago – and SpaceX hopes to land on Earth this Saturday

Pen-y-gors

Whatever...

Regardless of the units, my mind boggles that a machine built by humans, is now over 13,300,000,000 miles from our planet, and is still talking to us. When I was born, no-one had sent a machine more than a few miles from the ground. How far can we. as a species, go?

Benchmark smartphone drama: We wouldn't call it cheating, says Huawei, but look, everyone's at it

Pen-y-gors

Just bought an Honor View 10 - seems pretty credible to me!

Microsoft gives Windows 10 a name, throws folks a bone

Pen-y-gors

Cheap Office

Neatly side-stepping the usual civil war, for those who really want/need Office or bits thereof, the best deal is the academic licence. It's under £100 for four years, and includes Access. Basically you just need to be a student (sign up for a cheap evening class?) - obviously you wouldn't dream of doing this for business use.

Huawei's Alexa-powered AI Cube wants to squat in your living room too

Pen-y-gors

Re: Countermeasures

Duct-tape is your friend.

Pen-y-gors

Errm...

But what exactly IS it?

BlackBerry, Sony, Honor and LG flash their new phones for all to see

Pen-y-gors

Honor?

Bum! Just got an Honor V10 - for £400!

So far it's looking pretty impressive, and something at £279 could be great fun.

This was a replacement for my trusty three-year-old(?) One+ One, which is a bit unwell after several droppings!

Spec is fairly impressive, 6GB/128GB, 6in screen, 2 SIM or SIM+SDCARD, twin camera, fingerprint sensor, usb-C very fast charge (bit of a pain - I have a lot of micro-USB cables and chargers around the house and car - now need to buy adapters!) - and pretty well stock Android 8.0

Honor are definitely one to watch.

Voting machine maker claims vote machine hack-fests a 'green light' for foreign hackers

Pen-y-gors

Re: Weasels!

It could only pose a 'threat to national security' if the voting machines are actually insecure. It's not as if the hackers are creating the security holes.

So the threat is actually the manufacturer.

If you have to simulate a phishing attack on your org, at least try to get something useful from it

Pen-y-gors

But how...?

I suspect there are many ways to do phishing research. Some good, some bad. But surely one of the things to be done is to occasionally have a confidential one to target senior management just to prove to them that they, with their mekon-brains, can be fooled, and that if they can, then think how easy it will be to fool their idiot menials. And so please can we have some more money for cyber-security. Ta.

Sometimes these things need to be secret. I remember living on a Vulcan nuclear-bomber base in the early seventies. Every now and then a staff car would turn up unannounced at the gate (any time of day or night, but usually night), would go to the C.O. and shortly after the sirens would go off. No-one but the C.O. knew if it was a drill or if they had four minutes to live. Tends to focus the mind wonderfully. But f*cking terrifying.

Russian volcanoes fingered for Earth's largest mass extinction

Pen-y-gors

By 'eck,

Lasting a million years, wiping out life - that sounds like a description of the effects of #Brexit!

UK getting ready to go it alone on Galileo

Pen-y-gors

@Primus etc

its parliament is ineffective compared with Congress;

Are you suggesting that the US Congress is effective? For heaven's sake, they can't even manage to impeach Drumpf!

Pen-y-gors

Re: Wait, what?

Very short report.

TL;DR

1) Of course it's bloody feasible. How do you think the Americans, the Russians and the EU managed it? Pixie-dust?

2) It's an insane waste of money.

[Not bad, that's nearly £4 million a word. Even BoZo doesn't get that much from the Torygraph for his shit]

Pen-y-gors

our government is hiding away in its shelter, with the bombs raining down

It does seem to have a distinct whiff of 'Last Days of Hitler' about it. Sitting in the bunker with the Red Army a mile away, planning for the counter-attack and ultimate victory. How did that turn out?

Pen-y-gors

Re: UK has the resources

UK has several options, not necessarily satellite based only

One of which is, and let us not forget this, is for May to write a short letter saying "The UK withdraws our earlier letter regarding our intention to leave the EU under Article 50 of TEU"

Simples.

Pen-y-gors

Re: That is going to be one hell of an expensive failure

Is their hardware history better or worse than their software history?

Pen-y-gors

All a bit unnecessary?

This seems a lot of money, when the UK won't have any. An alternative...

Stockpile satnav positions and routes. The government can download a lot of Google Streetview photos, together with their grid refs. Then issue a booklet to everyone with a few sample ones. If you're lost, you flip through the booklet until you find a photo of where you are and bingo. If that doesn't work you phone a special government helpline (usual rates) and describe where you are and the person at the other end of the line (in Mumbai?) will look through the photos for you. They will also then be able to give you turn-by-turn instructions (provided you hold the line)

Boffins bork motion control gear with the power of applied sound

Pen-y-gors

Re: There are limitations to the attacks

Limitations, yes. But it does sound as if, with some extra work, there is the possibility here of something really, really useful - a drone scrambler. And much less legally dodgy than a shotgun.

Surprise! VAT, customs likely to get a bit trickier in a Brexit no-deal world

Pen-y-gors

Re: What I really want to know is

@AC

After Brexit, when will I be able to vote for "None of the above" at election time...

Move to Scotland or Wales and you won't need to.

Pen-y-gors

Re: Can anyone

The parlous state of Zimbabwe is due to the greed of a few (Mugabe and friends) rather than an underlying weakness.

Fifty countries have become independent from Britain since 1945. Not a single one has asked to be re-colonised.

Malta is another example

In January 1959, The Times published the following: “Malta cannot live on its own ... the island could pay for only one-fifth of her food and essential imports; well over one-quarter of the present labour force would be out of work, and the economy would collapse without British Treasury subventions. Talk of full independence for Malta is therefore hopelessly impractical.”

Malta is now a full member of the EU, using the Euro. It has the 31st highest per-capita GDP. (Just behind Spain, and almost exactly the European average)

Pen-y-gors

Re: See the bigger picture people

You forgot the Troll icon. Or the taking the piss one.

Pen-y-gors

Re: Can anyone

@Chloe Cresswell

And of course we can negotiate these great trade deals with loads and loads of countries, probably within a few days of leaving the EU! <hollow laugh> We must remember though that we already have deals with dozens of countries, via the EU, which we'll lose. So we'll have to ask them if they have the time to negotiate a replacement deal with us. And of course they'll offer the same terms to get access to a market of 70 million (less 10million in Scotland Wales and NI after the breakup of the UK) as they do for access to a market of 500 million. (Won't they? Pretty please?)

And what about the countries without a deal with the EU? They'll be queueing up to do a deal with us, on our terms, won't they? Well, no. Most of them are already queueing up to do a deal with the EU, so we'll have to wait our turn.

And for the few remaining countries? Like the USA? Do we really want a deal with an economy that is 5 times the size of ours and is determined to 'Put America First'? I prefer my chicken safe.

Ex-UK comms minister's constituents plagued by wonky broadband over ... wireless radio link?

Pen-y-gors

Re: @AndrueC

allow providers to charge more to the customers that it costs more to supply to

Absolutely. No more of this wimpy idea of helping all members of our communities have equal access to important services. Make people using food-banks pay the full cost of giving them the food. Make people walking on the streets pay for wear and tear. Make sick people pay the full cost for treatment. Charge people who are out after sunset for use of street lights. Make recipients of letters pay for them on a per-mile basis. Make MPs pay the full cost off food and drink in the Commons bars and restaurants. (Actually, forget that last one, it's a silly idea)

Pen-y-gors

Re: @AndrueC

The only ways that this can be overcome is by re-nationalizing Openreach

I think there is a middle way between that and full capitalism-red-in-tooth-and-claw - social enterprise

Nationalised industry with a monopoly theoretically should be a good thing for a utility. No paying profits to shareholders, no duplication of facilities /resources. Potentially the monopoly makes it fair to impose universal service obligations. In practice it's usually a disaster. The managers think they have a job for life, and decide that the sole purpose of the business is to give them a cushy number. Then the government interfere by telling them what to do (and change minds frequently) and also panic about money and starve investment.

So. How is social enterprise better? Think a mutual or a co-op. A socent Openreach would be a business, a legal company, but with rules that ban private shareholding and require the directors to work for the benefit of the customers. They will be able to raise money in the market through loans and bonds the same as any other business, and they would have to service the loans, but their only interest in life is providing a good service or the customers will demand a change at the top. There are various options for governance, customer-directors etc. It's not perfect, but tends to be better than the other extremes.

It works pretty well for Welsh Water.