* Posts by Wiltshire

162 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Sep 2013

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India pokes Vikram with a stick, drill-toting robot lands on Earth, UK plans launch site, and more

Wiltshire
Alien

Scots In Space!

Regarding Space Hub Sutherland.

This is proposed by the Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE). Roy Kirk is HIE’s Space Hub Sutherland project director. The facility would be sited between Cape Wrath and Thurso, and reached via a bridge across the Kyle of Tongue.

Let's hope there's (not) some problem with the bridge.

Wait for it ....

Kirk to the bridge!

Psst. Wanna brush up your supervillain creds? Get a load of this mini submarine

Wiltshire
Pirate

Re: Roger the cabin boy

Left hand down a bit.

And, as Julian Clary so notably commented, there's a lot of seamen discharged in Portsmouth.

Not so easy to make a quick getaway when it takes 3 hours to juice up your motor, eh Brits?

Wiltshire
WTF?

Please can the El Reg commentariat suggest a suitable Register Unit for the number of Charging Units per mile of main road / Average number of road users?

Also, units for the odds of

(a) finding a Charging Unit on the journey you are making

(b) that Charging Unit being available

Wiltshire
Joke

Re: Maybe Base 10 is not used

Fermat - is that you? How's the Theorem coming along?

MPs tear 'naive' British Army a new one over Capita recruitment farce

Wiltshire

Does anyone remember what came before the Crapita system?

It was the TAFMIS recruitment system, built for the MoD & UK Army by EDS.

(Training Administration and Financial Management Information System)

The MoD's administration of that was so lax that the data went "missing" several times.

e.g. search for : "MoD statement confirms loss of the 1.7million record TAFMIS recruitment database, yet again"

Some might say the MoD *did* learn from their TAFMIS mistakes. Outsourcing the whole operation to a firm like Crapita meant the MoD should have been at less risk of being blamed for mistakes when it goes TITSUP. What are the odds of being struck by the same kind of lightning twice? Of course, sod's law that choosing Crapita is a completely different kind of mistake, in a super-league of its own. Along with all the other examples of similar TITSUP.

Blockchain study finds 0.00% success rate and vendors don't call back when asked for evidence

Wiltshire

Re: FWIW

AKA "Dead Cat Bouncing on a bungee cord"?

Microsoft: You looking at me funny? Oh, you just want to sign in

Wiltshire
Joke

FIDO2 dongles.

It's the dog's bollocks.

Big data at sea: How the Royal Navy charts the world's oceans

Wiltshire
Joke

Re: Not being a noisy neighbour

It's a noisy party.

They're having a whale of a time.

UK rail lines blocked by unexpected Windows dialog box

Wiltshire

Where's Windows for Warships when you need it?

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/05/windows_for_warships_hits_type_23s/

Please insert disc 39 of 40...

Lucky, lucky, Westminster residents: Who better to look after your housing benefits than Capita?

Wiltshire

Re: Doing fewer things better...

...with few choices manged by people with big egos and small brains.

I am going to assume you meant...

....with few choice mangy people with big egos and small brains.

or..

...with few choices mangled by people with big egos and small brains.

Russian computer failure on ISS is nothing to worry about – they're just going to turn it off and on again

Wiltshire

Shirley comrades, Dave Akerman and Vulture Aerospace must be sending them a triple-pack of Raspberry Pi's?

ICO poised to fine Leave campaign and Arron Banks’ insurance biz £135,000

Wiltshire

Remainers like myself were hoping for an explosive report to blow up Brexit. Sadly it's been revealed that it’s our Remain campaign and the Lib Dems who are under investigation by the ICO for potential data breaches before the referendum. Arron Banks’ looming fines are well-deserved but almost entirely for using his Leave.EU mailing list to flog insurance after the referendum, not for activities during the campaign.

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

Wiltshire
Joke

It's a teenie-weeny itsy-bitsy bareboard computer, but you can keep your hat on.

Second-hand connected car data drama could be a GDPR minefield

Wiltshire

Wonder how any buyer of a secondhand car is supposed to know if the car has been connected?

Qualcomm, Microsoft drag apps for Win-10-on-Arm into 64-bit world

Wiltshire

Is it finally true? RaspberryPi.Net apps?

Social networks have already violated the spirit of GDPR

Wiltshire
FAIL

What's that smell?

Oh, it's just The Register. Or VultureCentral to give it it's Facebook name.

https://www.facebook.com/VultureCentral

I'll believe The Register's sincerity on this issue when they are no longer on Facebook.

Time to ditch the Facebook login: If customers' data should be protected, why hand it over to Zuckerberg?

Wiltshire
FAIL

Bottom-right of this very page, what do we see?

The Register

Sign up to our Newsletters

Join our daily or weekly newsletters, subscribe to a specific section or set News Alerts

And there it is : a Facebook logon option!

A big The Register mistake Shirley?

Texas residents start naming adopted drains

Wiltshire

It only the UK Environment Agency had thought of that in 2014. They could have had their waterways kept clear *and* reduced the damage they contributed to by (a) not dredging and (b) keeping water flow gates closed

Irish High Court slams Facebook's conduct, smacks down bid to drag out data probe

Wiltshire

A question for the panel:

Does one have to be a sociopath before getting a job as a FaceBook spokesperson?

Or is it the job that makes them like that?

Royal Bank of Scotland decision to axe 160+ branches linked to botched IT gig – Unite

Wiltshire
Devil

Re :

"A consortium that included private equity investors and the Church of England ploughed £600m into Williams & Glyn in 2013 in return for equity once it floated in an IPO, but RBS shelved plans to spin off the subsidiary due to concerns over its survival post-Brexit."

Just wondering what happened to that £600m. Will they get it back? Or is there a very special corner of Hell being prepared for the CoE Financial Advisers? I would ask my parish vicar, but he is too busy coping with the latest CoE cutbacks.

Ahem! Uber, Lyft etc: California Supremes just shook your gig economy with contractor ruling

Wiltshire
Joke

It's good to see that the UK plc is leading the world once again (irony icon).

We've had IR35 for how many years now?

Once upon a time, almost solely used to bash IT contractors, now being used to bash more deserving folk. Like locum GP doctors and all the people the BBC pushed onto contracts.

North will remain North for now, say geo-magnetic boffins

Wiltshire

Re:

They used two geologically-recent events as their model: one at Laschamp around 41,000 years ago, and the other at Mono Lake, 34,000 years ago.

There's a funny coincidence Shirley:

Milankovitch cycles (of precession and obliquity) include a 41,000 years period.

I forget what has a 34,000 year cycle. Any ideas?

Facebook suspends, investigates CubeYou, another data-harvester

Wiltshire

Re: Will it make any real difference though :o(

Re << If there's one thing likely to stir politicians into action its the prospect of fighting a skewed election. They certainly don't want that disadvantage. >>

What disadvantage?

They have *all* had access to the Facebook data for their campiagns. Back in 2012, it was being reported as a Good Thing and openly used by the Democratic Party.

What's changed? A few people have woken up? Some Democrats are shocked (shocked I tell you) that Trump's team did the same as them?

Which? leads decrepit email service behind barn, single shot rings out over valley

Wiltshire

Their mailing list is so old even Rudyard Kipling opted-out.

“I keep six honest serving men (they taught me all i knew);

Theirs names are What and Why and When And How And Where and Who.”

No mention of Which.

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, off you go: Snout of UK space forcibly removed from EU satellite trough

Wiltshire

What we need is a comprehensive Defence Review.

Aha, here's one they made earlier:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKQlQlQ6_pk

Cardiff researchers get £250k to monitor Brexit hate crime on Twitter

Wiltshire

In related news, the Centre for Cyberhate Research and Policy is considering a rebrand as its role is expanded (thanks to more grant money).

The new name will be : Centre for Cyberhate Chat Policing (CCCP)

Any connection with any previous organisation with the same acronym and similar activities is entirely coincidental.

Nunes FBI memo: Yep, it's every bit as terrible as you imagined

Wiltshire

Are my eyes deceiving me? Or did the Reg strangely miss out a chunk of the memo?

i.e. from what some have dubbed the "damning section"

I quote:

a) Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele's efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.

b) The initial FISA application notes Steele was working for a named U.S. person, but does not name Fusion GPS and principal Glenn Simpson, who was paid by a U.S. law firm (Perkins Coie) representing the DNC (even though it was known by DOJ at the time that political actors were involved with the Steele dossier). The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of—and paid by—the DNC and Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.

America restarts dodgy spying program – just as classified surveillance abuse memo emerges

Wiltshire

Breaking news ....

FBI "Loses" Five Months Of Text Messages Between Anti-Trump Agents

https://www.yahoo.com/news/more-texts-turned-over-fbi-agent-taken-off-161343170--politics.html

Wiltshire
Mushroom

Re: Liar liar....

Not forgetting Hilary (as the Clinton Foundation) receiving millions as "donations" from Russians for allowing the sale of uranium to Russia...

Microsoft to rebuild Redmond campus, including cricket pitch

Wiltshire
WTF?

In related news, Digital Research has built a better campus.

But nobody knows where it is or how to find it.

Why is Wikipedia man Jimbo Wales keynoting a fake news conference?

Wiltshire
Childcatcher

"... despaired after the site had been taken over by far-right extremists. "

Will no-one show some care for the far-left extremists?

Surely they deserve some credit for all their hard work as well?

Lap-slabtop-mobes with Snapdragon Arm CPUs running Windows 10: We had a quick gander

Wiltshire

Does anyone know of a version of Linux that can run on these?

Is it close enough in spec to the ARM RaspberryPi to run Raspian?

'Drunk' developers delay software vendor's release

Wiltshire
Pint

I didn't get where I am today by being sober at work. Especially at this time of year with endless Team Xmas Lunches and Dinners...

BOFH: But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?

Wiltshire
Joke

Re these designer belts with a 128 gig USB3 stick built into the buckle.

That'll be my excuse for taking off my trousers in the middle of the office.

It's the only way we're going to be able to do this business-critical backup.

This could be our favorite gadget of 2017: A portable projector

Wiltshire

Take one king-sized white bedsheet and a ball of string.

FTFY.

Giza geezers' muon-geyser visor reveals Great Pyramid's hidden void surpriser

Wiltshire

Re: Do things the hard way...

They've already been invented.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36313958

Jupiter flashes pulsating southern pole, boffins understandably baffled

Wiltshire
Mushroom

It *must* be caused by climate change (hey, everything else is).

Stand by for an appeal to authority for a reason for a new tax.

US voting server in election security probe is mysteriously wiped

Wiltshire

Stand by for Al Reg bots down-voting any reports that run counter to the party line. Like (for example) the recent news in the Washington Post:

"Russian Dossier" was paid for by the Clinton Campaign…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html

Meanwhile, stories are still breaking about the Russian donations to the Clinton Foundation around the time of the Uranium One deal which gave Russians part-ownership of American uranium assets. And a $500,000 speaking fee received in Russia by Bill Clinton,

"The Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees will jointly investigate the FBI’s probe into Clinton’s handling of classified documents. Meanwhile, the latter committee with the Intelligence committee will jointly probe the sale of a uranium company to a Russian firm when Clinton was Secretary of State."

More down-votes?

Tories spared fine after being told off by ICO for election telemarketing

Wiltshire

How to get downvoted on Al Register?

Just mention the same-style of "push polling" carried out by the GMB and Unite unions (on behalf of the Labour Party)

Sarahah anonymous feedback app told: 'You're riddled with web app flaws'

Wiltshire

Ha Ha Ras !

You can't find tech staff – wah, wah, wah. Start with your ridiculous job spec

Wiltshire

Re: The Missing Elephant

Unemployable? Age-ism?

Not here. I started my current BI/SQL job at the age of 61. My (relatively) old age and decades of scar tissue experience is proving to be a valuable asset for a rapidly-growing firm struggling to build secure, stable and scaleable systems. It's fun being a mentor as well, being able to predict the consequences, and help people Choose Wisely.

I'm old enough to be the grandfather of some of the people I'm working with, but we all get on happily. It might be because of a rather unique perk of the job, we can bring our dogs to work with us. :-) And my wife / Financial Director has no plans for me to retire for many years to come.

AMD comes out swinging, says: We're the Buster Douglas of the tech industry!

Wiltshire

AMD's UK press conferences will be at Hampton Wick.

Followed by an AMD-sponsored pro-celebrity cricket match at Lords.

The bowler's Holding, the batman's Willey.

The umpire is Hampton.

Want to keep in contact with friends and family without having to sell your personal data?

Wiltshire

Sounds like a job for a Raspberry Pi + 10 inch display?

ICO fines Morrisons for emailing customers who didn't want to be emailed

Wiltshire

The crucial weasel-phrase is "implied consent".

I once worked in a place with a mailing list of c. 3 million people. We (in IT) looked at the ICO guidelines on marketing preferences (optins). We told the Marketing Team that if we took the guidelines literally, it meant (a) we should now only mail c.10K of the names on the existing list, and (b) new account registration forms should not have the "send me spam" checkbox ticked by default. The Marketing Team shat themselves. They decided we had "implied consent" to carry on emailing all the accounts. By adding more things to opt-out of. Educational mailings, professional development mailings, third-party material mailings, and so on. With obscure unsubscribe links that automagically went to a data-silo that strangely never got sync'd with the live database.

Just don't call them Marketing optins, OK?

The future of Python: Concurrency devoured, Node.js next on menu

Wiltshire
Linux

I'd like to tell you about the scaled-out racks of Raspberry Pi 3's we've built. Running web servers written only in Python 3. Generating async dynamic server-side code, with not even a single line of Javascript. But I've signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement. So I better not tell you.

Florida man is world's fastest flasher: Just 53 quintillionths of a sec

Wiltshire
Coat

That's just about long enough to capture an image of my pay going into my bank account. Just before my spouse and children spend it.

Our day with Larry Page: Embedded with one of the world's richest men

Wiltshire

I didn't get where I am today by remembering anything about the Google business. Or how it got started. Or who the original sponsors were. As mentioned in print in Byte Magazine many years ago now. But now "disappeared" from Google's own history.

Crashed RadioShack flogs off its IPv4 stash

Wiltshire

Re: Arthur Daly Sales Ltd

This time next year, Rodney, we'll be IP billionaires.

Wiltshire

Re: Arthur Daly Sales Ltd

Re your friend Arthur and the 192.168.*.* blocks

Strange. I've just bought some of those from Trotter's Independent Traders.

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