Posts by JimboSmith

Re: How much make up needed to

look like Priti Patel ?

Why on God's green earth would you want to look like Priti Patel? Is it some sort of Fetish I don't know about?

Once heard an ex USAF pilot who said he now debunks alien sightings after leaving the military. This was back in the days of Netscape Navigator and the early internet. Somebody emailed him to say they had footage of an alien spacecraft moving at speed with coloured lights, then hovering and emitting a beam. He travelled to meet this woman who seemed perfectly normal and not a usual UFO believer. Said he watched her video of the 'alien craft' and checked the date she'd recorded it. Then explained in detail what she'd captured on tape. Sadly her Alien was just a far larger than normal plane going into a local airport making an emergency landing. He said the plane did not start hovering and the beam of light was just from a helicopter probably a police one. Woman was unhappy with this.

Re: The Rain in Spain

"Scorchio"

A mate of mine who is wedded to the Apple ecosystem said in a message to me earlier

"Have you seen the new Apple line up? I think we've reached or passed 'peak Apple' and they've run out of new product ideas."

I wonder if he's right given they lost their Car head honcho Doug Field to Ford recently.

Re: Port scan results

A CTO I heard giving a speech said that it was important to remember that despite all the buzz about 'the cloud'........."That's still just somebody else's computer permanently connected to the internet."

The reason the Space Shuttle programme got enough funding in the first place I was told was because of the military/intelligence community. This was according former Nasa bloke I met whilst on holiday in the USA. They wanted to be able to launch payloads into space without the need to need to strap them to the top of a rocket. This was partially about secrecy and also because they could launch more complex satellites and do repairs to existing ones. The NRO in particular were very keen to use the Shuttle. Aside from any funding during the life of the Shuttle they also donated the a couple of their unused telescopes which apparently made the Hubble look like a child's toy.

Re: Pay as you Go

I use a 'Pay as you Go' plan. This means I buy the phone at retail upfront and pay an open ended subscription to my credit card. But I do not have a formal contract nor does the carrier require any information for credit approval. I got away from contracts when I could because the games played to extend the contract. I have had the same carrier for several years now (no plans to switch).

Yep I'm the same but I've never had a mobile contract.

Most people, the problem is, they ask if it runs $x which is very important for their workflow, and the answer is very often no.

My mother uses Libre Office on her Fruity Airtop quite happily. However my sister when she visited her for the weekend had a problem. She uses Word at work and opened one of her documents on mum's Airtop. She said she couldn't use Libre Office as the formatting wasn't exactly the same and needed to be so for her work. Also issues once formatting corrected on Airtop but saved and reopened at work on Word.

She has resorted to taking her own laptop down there when she goes to see our parents.

Re: Guess who

I'm the same and only realized when I visited one website. It was showing everything in Deutsche so I changed it to English. When I did so it told me I might want to keep it in German based on my location.

Re: People went to digital photography to get AWAY from this

Not forgetting Julia Somerville and her ordeal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Somerville#Allegations

Re: Seems like a good contract to have

How do you propose to send the letters then? Print them out at home and post them from Gibraltar?

Personally I wouldn't do any letter printing at all in Gibraltar or anywhere else. I'd subcontract Crapita or somebody to be doing that for me. I'd also register a company in Anguilla (not Gibraltar*) with the ultimate parent company in the Caribbean island of Nevis. That's to allow me to obfuscate my ownership as Nevis is really bad about transparency. I'd also buy a banking license in Anguilla...........I've not given this any real thought you understand

*As much as I like Gibraltar and had a lovely holiday there, they have 10% corporation tax, Anguilla has 0%.

Re: hold on

That's the flag-wavers who think Britannia still rules the waves.

I've posted some of this before but....Britannia was only retired when her pre and post nuclear strike role was deemed unnecessary and costs became very high. Cold war planners in the UK realised very important facts relatively early on*. Namely that:

One large bunker like the bunker under Box in Wiltshire was not H bomb proof,

The missiles were getting more accurate,

One strike could take out a lot of people in one go.

And the Soviets almost certainly knew where the bunkers were.

So a new Top Secret plan was hatched to send groups consisting of civil servants, senior trade reprentatives/negotiators (UK Supply Agency), ministers etc. to dispersed locations in the period of tension before a likely conflict. This was codenamed PYTHON and a very select few people knew of the existence of it. Officially the plan was still go underground in Wiltshire. Britannia was to host a Python group which wouldn't have included the royals.

These groups would have met up after the bombing had stopped and tried to resupply the country from other nations. If you look up a bloke called Mike Kenner @wellbright on Twitter you can read Gov documents uncovered by Mike you can also read more at https://www.subbrit.org.uk/features/where-did-the-government-go/ by Dr Steve Fox

The Calmac ferries which were constructed for the Secretary of State for Scotland were designed as floating bunkers

*and faster than the US planners.

Re: They didn't mention his autism

A Police officer I met years ago told me they had a repeat young offender who conveniently had an epileptic fit every time he got to court. He'd usually manage to get off lightly mostly without seeing the inside of a courtroom. The magistrate usually took pity on him because of his condition That was until the police had a doctor standing by ready for his 'fit'. Apparently the doctor saw through it and he was then well enough to face the magistrate in court. He couldn't be very specific because the offender was well under 18 at the time and couldn't be identified.

Re: In the public domain

I was waiting for a bus recently when two British Transport Police officers joined me. i watched as they stopped a couple of cyclists for cycling on the pavement. One was a Uber Eats/Deliveroo/Just Eat person, He said he had no idea that he wasn't allowed to do this it was different in his home country. Whilst they're talking to him a commuter tries to cycle by again on the pavement.

The second officer stopped him and he claimed it was a "shared space" for bikes and pedestrians. Officer pointed out the the clearly indicated cycle lane and the barrier that segregated the traffic and cyclists. Cyclists don't like it because it goes round the outside of a large roundabout adding extra time. Officer says the cyclisti is only using the pavement because it was a more direct route.

Both of the offenders were then introduced to the Highways Act/Highway Code. They both said they'd never heard of this only to be told that ignorance of the law is no defence. Bus appeared and they were given a verbal warning. Not exactly OSA stuff but given I've been clipped by a cyclist there, very welcome.

Somebody I know is a died in the wool Republican who believes that what happened to President Trump on Twatter and Facebork was censorship. They don't think politicians should be able to be banned from posting on these and similar sites. However they'r are also the first to complain about government interference in businesses. When I suggested banning politics and politicians from these sites it went down badly. Similarly when I asked if they agreed with President Trump using his personal Twitter not the official Whitehouse/POTUS one whilst President.

He suggested that Google, Twitter, Facebook, AWS, etc. are monopolies. I said you're not forced to use them and if enough people didn't the firms would suffer financially. I suggested that the London Underground was a monopoly. I said they're the sole provider of underground railways in London. However it's different if you're Big Tech apparently, at least according to him. It's impossible to put up whatever you want the world to see, you certainly can't set up your own website/webserver........I'm told by him anyway.

I wholeheartedly agree with right to repair and find it ridiculous it's taken this long to tackle the problem. Personally I'd add removing bloatware too.

Re: The future is coming

A showroom manager I once worked with had a brush with the law thanks to the alarm system at her previous employers. She was in the pub on a Friday night with everyone else from the shop just before closing. The pub lost power for 5 minutes and the emergency lights came on. Then her phone rang and it was the alarm company calling to tell her they were monitoring an activation at the showroom. She went back with somebody else and they checked everything was still locked up. So they went in and checked the back door was too. Satisfied she sent the other staff member home silenced the alarm and called the company.

She explained it was a false alarm caused by a brief power cut in the area. She gave them the everything's fine codeword, asked to reset at their end and then put the kettle on. Three minutes later a police card screeches to a halt outside the showroom and two coppers leapt out. They knock on the door, she lets them in identifying herself as the manager and offered a coffee. The alarm company had called them because the manager had given the "under duress" codeword. She called the company on speakerphone and explained she hadn't, then repeated the codeword and asked them to reset things at her end. Woman said she couldn't stop the alarm until she heard the manager's "safe word"

She asked her to repeat that holding back a giggle. Again the woman says she must hear the "Safe Word" before she'll stop the activation. Now the two police officers are laughing as hard as she was. Alarm woman starts getting angry

Re: Avoidance of responsibility

The consultation period was of course just the bare minimum and everybody knew it ultimately meant goodbye. The company had also altered the redundancy payment terms down to the statutory minimum about a year earlier. The thing was just as the 30 days was paid employment so would the 90 days. It's not like the company was that short of cash or sales. The CEO was in danger of losing his bonus through as not enough profit was being made.

Think you mean FTC not FCC, though I agree given leave to appeal I hope they'll have another revised go.

Sadly I can't avoid WhatsApp as my family and friends were using it long before Facebook got their hands on it. They continue to use it meaning I have to too.

Re: Err, yeees?

I suppose we should be grateful that it wasn't something more serious that the malware was designed to do. Could have been a lot more serious if it targeted financial login's and passwords.

Re: AMP is not a problem, nor is its replacement

When I click on a link, ClearURLs ensures that I get to the page that was intended : the one on the website I wanted to visit, not Google's cached version of it.

The Internet remains the Internet. If you do a little bit of research, you can have the experience you want, not the experience other entities want for you.

By posting on this site I assume you're technically and technologically literate. Therefore I would expect you to know how to defeat AMP. Think about those for a moment that don't have the same technology smarts as you. I've got older relatives who would find installing a browser addon a problem. I've got one who can do most things but is only just getting to grips with cut and paste. Expecting them to have an AMP blocker installed is like expecting my numbers to come up on the lottery - possible but very very unlikely. Your argument is along the lines of "it doesn't affect me so there isn't a problem?"

I've got an AMP blocker and other addons installed but that doesn't mean the problem has gone away for everyone else. I've actively told friends, family and colleagues about AMP and how to get rid of it from their browsing*. How about you?

*not all of them followed the advice though.

I believe in South Korea all boats regardless of size must have AIS onboard. AIS-A is required as usual for larger vessel, AIS-B for everything else. Tampering/fiddling etc. with it is a serious offencei think but I can't remember what the penalties are.

Re: Or just opt out completely.

I've had a few hurricane/severe storm/waterspout/twister warnings on my TV and radio in the US. The first scared the stuffing out of me as it hadn't been ovious there was anything coming. Then when the very strong winds and the horizontal but torrential rain started it was horrific.

Missed this afternoons test my feature phone didn't get it at all. My smartphone was on Wifi only because there's no signal on the network that it's on where I'm working. I'm clearly doomed.

Re: Leases

I worked during the dialup years for a firm with an internet forum on one of their websites. A member of this forum was giving away the endings and major rug pulls to films. Think along the lines of who Kevin Spacey actually was in the Usual Suspects or Bruce Willis in 6th sense etc. However the day of or day after release not 6 months later when most people who wanted to would have seen the film. One studio complained and asked for this users IP address. Some forum members also complained.

The company checked with the ISP and they assigned IP addresses dynamically against a customer number. If the customer logged out a new Address was assigned even if they'd been gone a minute or so. This meant in theory they could identify the user but the bloke I spoke to said they would want a court order before doing the work to find out who it was and release it. We relayed this back to the UK arm of the studio concerned. To keep them happy we banned or blocked the user concerned and deleted their posts.

Studio lawyer said he was quite relieved as he had no idea what arguments he could take to court to convince a judge to issue an order. Not the crime of the century.

At Xerox, all top management had to spend 3 hours on the help line. The theory was that if they couldn't fix it something was seriously wrong. Also, this gave top management an idea of what customers thought of Xerox. Some of these top mangers said it was a real eye opener.

Had the same at another company where somebody used the suggestion box. They thought it would be interesting for the executive board directors to spend a day doing a job in their division. Brilliant idea because it gave them all a chance to see what their staff were complaining about. When for example someone said the software they had to use was sh!t or a procedure was full of pointless steps, the directors now had experience of it and listened. One of them was treated as a full team member for that day. He was invited out for lunch with the team and Friday night drinks that evening

Re: El Bobbo

It was a whole exclusive CD for Starbucks not just one song.

The rock legend signed an exclusive contract with the coffee giant allowing it to sell Live at the Gaslight 1962.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4244934.stm

A friend is a fan and thinks he sold out by doing that.

Re: The Walled Garden

I'm no fan of Google or Apple but at least there's a firewall app or two on the Play store. No such luck with the App Store. The one I use (No Root Firewall) blocks almost everything on my phone from accessing the net. I can stop Google and anyone else from tracking me.

The one app it doesn't stop is a work app called Poppulo. It's really odd because despite having blocked it I was still seeing broadcast messages/push notifications. I don't know how it was doing it either which was more annoying than anything else.

Re: Turtle Expert

Have an upvote for the Sir Pterry reference.

Re: Just this afternoon

Jacob, from BT Openreach, called from an unavailable number.

Hmm...

I kept them hanging on for as long as possible by having to answer the door, turn the cooker off, deal with the decorator choosing paint colours, make a cup of tea etc. Then start the computer which took time as I had to remember my password "much easier once it's logged in as I keep all my passwords in a text file." That kept them very interested before finally I got into Windows. Then when I was asked to download teamviewer or whatever I'd say I obviously have to hang up to connect to the internet. Yes I'd say I had dialup but only used it to connect the computer to my bank for online banking. I'd hang up at this point to 'connect' and 'download' whatever it was then do something else.

Occasionally they'd call back and I'd pretend to be a business, foreign, or both. So calling back to speak to me might get you through to:

Freddy's Massage Parlor "Every customer has a Happy Ending",

Tony's Garage "A fender bender does not mean crash damaged,

RAF Strike Command, High Wycombe,

or even

Detective Inspector Hammond, if I was in a bad mood.

Re: looking at the DNS log

Worked.for a company where at the dawn of the internet PR0N there were no written rules about net surfing. However the company had signs up saying that it was being logged but didn't mention it being checked at all. HR did do some checking and saw some naughty sites being visited by a fair few people.

HR decided to have a quiet word with everybody concerned. One staff member was looking at a BDSM site quite a lot after hours. She was invited to a pesonal meeting where this was brought up. She said the PR0N was lifestyle related as she was in a committed BDSM relationship with her Master. She was looking for inspiration about painful things he could do to her. HR lady said in the meeting that she didn't have to suffer like that, it wasn't normal and the company could get her help.

She explained she didn't need help they'd been together for 15yrs and she was perfectly happy. So happy she'd married him a few years previous. If she'd been watching lesbian PR0N and announced she was gay in the meeting would their reaction have still been it wasn't normal and they'd get her help? "Nope thought not' was what she told me she'd hissed back at them.

The house prices in London are so high because there are so many empty properties. They're empty because the houses and apartments have been bought by corporations registered in tax havens as investments. https://alexcartoon.s3.amazonaws.com/6220_31102013.gif

Even worse than leaving an unencrypted USB stick on a train :-(

Far worse and a really dumb thing to do. Even if they'd password protected the spreadsheet everyone (so potentially 80k people) would have to use the same password. So the chances of that one password leaking to somebody unauthorized are far higher.

My current company requires you to use an encrypted memory stick for moving anything around even if there are no personal details. If there are, then you need to encrypt the spreadsheet etc. as well.

If you're interested in post nuclear planning then I would also recommend reading a book by Garret Graff called Raven Rock. Fascinating look at how they did things across the pond. They studied the dispersal concept the UK was using as opposed to hunkering and bunkering. The US military also had two floating bunkers the NECPA which stands for National Emergency Command Post Afloat. Well they did until the thought of it being torpedoed with the Commander in Chief on board became an overriding concern.

Oh really.... you might not have done directly but indirectly you have paid them many times over. You are their source of income.

How am I their source of income?

I don't visit their sites,

I block their scripts/3rd party cookies on other websites,

I disable or delete their apps on my phones etc.

If anything I cost them money because they have to pay to have their apps installed on my phone.

I've certainly never and will never let them have my card details.

So I could get your details and have a document made up such as an Air France elite frequent flier card http://www.magnoliprops.com/air-france-club-card-credit-cards-p-524.html. I then break the law and and when I'm searched they find the card with your details on. They identity you as the thief based on this 'ID' and you'd be happy with this?

Re: Retail Price Maintenance

I believe Amazon have some 'curious' tax arrangements and I should avoid them as a result. However it's so convenient when you can order something and in Central London have it next day or even same day on some items. I hate myself for using it though.

Re: Fuck the BBC - fuck iPlayer

Somebody I knew years ago started at the BBC about 1995 or 96. His died in the wool Labour supporting grandfather asked him why he'd joined the Propaganda Wing of the government? He explained that he hadn't and there were rules on impartiality producers had to follow. Then there was a regime change a year or two later and Mr Blair got in. He asked his grandad if he was still working for the propaganda wing and was told no it's the Information Unit.