* Posts by macjules

3426 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Oct 2014

Astroboffins peeved as SpaceX's Starlink sats block meteor spotting – and could make us miss a killer asteroid

macjules

Re: "Accurate [..] predictions are essential for understanding the hazard they pose to spacecraft"

Near space is very much cluttered but the problem is the size of the debris which can be a fleck of paint or less than a fraction of a millimetre. And no, satellites. do not "autonomously move themselves to avoid collisions" especially if the debris can not be seen or detected. Read about the RemoveDEBRIS project, which attempts to deflect debris into entering our atmosphere, and thus burning up.

macjules

It is not just 12,000, he intends to launch a total of 42,000 Starlinks by the late '20's. Presumably by then they will be able to arrange constellations so on a clear night you will be able to see a 'full-sky' Tesla ad.

Explain yourself, mister: Fresh efforts at Google to understand why an AI system says yes or no

macjules
WTF?

Selling England by the pound?

Applaudable that London's Met police are soon to be assisting in the "AI" removal of terrorist or violent videos BUT (and it is a big but) giving that data to Facebook might be construed as dangerous in itself, let alone not informing Home Office exactly how much footage they handed over to Facebook? If this is indeed day-to-day video footage how would the Met obtain this and by what means and do they need ICO permission?

macjules

debuggability

Sometimes I despair at how the English language is being bastardised.

You can forget about that Black Friday deal: Brit banks crap out just in time for pay day

macjules

Re: Bonus Payouts

Hah! Having worked at that behemoth (albeit only for a 6 month contract thank God) their IT director will pass it to one of his 10 minions, one of whom will nominate a divisional manager to be sacrificed.

We've found it... the last shred of human decency in an IT director – all for a poxy Unix engineer

macjules
Pint

Re: Beer...

Seconded. One of the best On-call stories.

Brian Eno's latest composition: A giant Christmas card with Julian Assange on it

macjules

Re: Assange != Journalism

A journalist is a person who collects, writes, or distributes news or other current information to the public. ~ Wikipedia

Using that as a definition I rather think that Mr Assange can safely call himself a journalist.

Irish eyes aren't smiling after govt blows €1m on mega-printer too big for parliament's doors

macjules

Re: That's some printer there

Funny you say that. Komori also make a currency printer.

UK political parties fall over themselves to win tech contractor vote by pledging to review IR35

macjules

Re: So why'd you do it then?

Left hand: "We support business and the small business man"

Right hand: "Sod that. Tax the lot of them"

macjules

Re: More nonsense

And incidentally, what would be the situation working for Apple or FGT in the UK as a contractor after 6th April? I say this as I have just been asked to start in March at Apple UK as a contractor.

Christmas in tatters for Nottinghamshire tots after mayor tells them Santa's too busy

macjules
Childcatcher

I have it on good authority ..

.. that Jeremy Corbyn is now en route to Nottinghamshire in his Leave Campaign Labour Battle Bus to play Santa to the poor children*.

(* providing that none of them are of Semitic origin ... not that Labour is antisemitic in any way you understand. Right?)

No wonder Bezos wants to move industry into orbit: In space, no one can hear you* scream

macjules

Re: No Sci-Fi needed

DPD:”Sorry you weren’t in. We left your package at your nearest Amazon collection point on Tranquillity”

Bose customers beg for firmware ceasefire after headphones fall victim to another crap update

macjules
Coat

Re: One poor punter ?

Perhaps he is one poor Punta?

macjules

No, there are just those 3 criteria. I hazard it would be a legal minefield to get a company like Apple or Bose to agree what "sufficiently durable" meant.

macjules

Consumer Rights Act 2015 says that any product or service, physical or digital, bought online or in store must meet the following standards: 'Satisfactory quality' – Your goods should not be faulty or damaged, or at least of satisfactory quality, 'Fit for purpose' – you should be able to use it for the purpose they were supplied for and 'As described' – your goods or service must match the description, model or sample shown at time of purchase.

Up to 30 days you can get a full refund but after that you can ask the retailer (e.g. Amazon as opposed to Bose) to replace or repair the goods, which do not meet the three criteria.

You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: A quirky investigation into why AI does not always work

macjules

I thought the principle problem is that humans do not really know what they want: so how on Earth is an AI supposed to deduce what it is supposed to be doing?

Absolutely smashing: Musk shows off Tesla's 'bulletproof' low-poly pickup, hilarity ensues

macjules

Re: Turns out it was inspired...

Ah Lotus, as in Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious. Musk, take note.

macjules

Looks more like someone at Tesla was using Minecraft as a design tool.

Taxi for Uber: Ride-hailing app giant stripped of licence to operate in London

macjules

Re: 'there remained concerns that systems were so easily manipulated'

I wondered why they did not include AFR into their app and simply instruct the drivers to take a selfie when instructed to do so at random times. I am pretty sure that they could do that.

macjules
Coat

I thought London blacks cabs didn't have apps .. just mis'apps. As in, "Sorry for the mis'ap mate, I 'ad to go via Croydon to get to 'eathrow" *

* attempt at East London accent, NOT an Apple keyboard error.

macjules

"Passenger safety is not our priority"

FTFY

©2019 Über, Boeing et al

UK taxman updates its employment-checking calculator for IR35: Still crap, say contractors

macjules

Moo?

Have they considered using the British actuarial alliance (Baa) standards as a means of testing? Or perhaps including Obligation inclusion Not-Known (Oink) for contractors who do not know if they should be IR35?

Take a Big Blue cheque and go: IBM settles 281 UK age discrim cases

macjules
Facepalm

IBM rejected any attempt to characterise those changes as age discrimination

You are never "old" at IBM, just "chronologically challenged".

T-Mobile US hacked, Monero wallet app infected, public info records on 1.2bn people leak from database...

macjules

And it's primary purpose is for phishing.

macjules

Re: "Impacted users may receive spam and phishing emails as a result of this incident."

No payment card data nor social security numbers nor passwords were lifted by miscreants who broke into the outfit's systems, apparently, though the company is still expecting some of the info to be weaponized.

<beep>

"Sorry, but our insurance policy does not allows us to say that we lost your SSN, passwords and card details. But we can admit that they got everything else."

PSA: You are now in the timeline where Facebook and pals are torn a new one by, er, Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen

macjules

Re: We used to use paper for communication

Good point made and well expressed.

It is about time there was a legal test of GFT's legal responsibility as 'publisher', especially in the UK. What would be interesting would be a full disclosure by Facebook of all targeted advertising during the current election campaign, including demographics and reasons for specific individual/group targetting as well as the amounts paid.

But then Facebook is not accountable for its actions to anyone except to its own CEO.

From July, you better be Putin these Kremlin-approved apps on gadgets sold in Russia

macjules

Because in a country the size of Russia they can have someone come round to your house and ask to inspect your handset.

Then it is time to see how many tress you can count in Siberia - without an app to help you do it.

Close the windows, it's coming through the walls: Copper Cthulu invades Dabbsy's living room

macjules
Flame

"Simples"

If this is French wiring (given that Dabbsy recently upped sticks to France) then, non, non et encore non. France is a country where the reason why the electrician trade is a closed-shop is because there is no bloody standard for electrical wiring. You might well think that the simple UK standard of "brown = live, blue = neutral and green/yellow = earth" could be adopted, but no this does not apply in France. In France the red wire might be live or earth or neutral since it does not matter - nobody else is legally allowed to touch it, so hence the lack of labelling or standards.

Think Richard Harris in Juggernaut yelling "Cut the blue wire!" - if that had been a French movie the ship would have blown up.

Totally Sardonic Bank: Well, it must be, to have a TITSUP* the same week as THAT report

macjules

Re: TITSUP

Transfer Incompetence Totally Spoils Users Paydays.

That code that could never run? Well, guess what. Now Windows thinks it's Batman

macjules

Where were you 20 years ago?

This time 20 years ago? 22nd November 1999? Sitting in a briefing room in King Charles Street demonstrating to a number of civil servants that the "Millennium Bug" was not going to affect them at all, that every single computer had been checked and that there was no possibility of anyone losing data.

Sadly they had already engaged a "Millennium Bug Proofing" contractor, at vast budgetary expense (and out of MY budget thank you very much) to carry out a complete audit and who 1) failed to actually check any computers at all and then 2) reported that in their considered opinion there was no need to worry.

Halfords invents radio signals that don't travel at the speed of light

macjules
Coat

Re: Speed of light

Better use the rectangular lambs then in future.

We(don't)Work: Rent-a-desk outfit cuts 2,400 staff in bid to be a functioning business

macjules

Re: Another one bites the dust

I worry about LEG, as in Neumann's "Lets take all the cash and LEG it"

A short note to say I'm off: Vulture taps claws on Reg keyboard for last time

macjules

Re: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Prime Minister: "Do we really use algorithms and big data in our decision making?"

Sir Humphrey: "No, Prime Minister: we just say that we do so that we do not lose the funding for GDS from the Cabinet Office"

Good luck Kat! I for one will certainly miss your headlines.

Mysterious IT snafu at British Airways causes bunch of inbound flight delays and cancellations

macjules

"Where's Mr Speed today?"

At FCO I used to occasionally check on the whereabouts of one of HM Diplomatic Couriers.He one told me that his wife had once named him "The Harbinger of Doom", due to his uncanny ability to arrive in a country when it was peaceful and to leave it just as revolution or war broke out, which he did on a large number of occasions.

macjules

Re: BA = Bloody Awful

Really? I would put just about any American airline in the category of "worst experience". Think RyanAir without the faux smiles and with the legroom intended for an anorexic dwarf.

The lure of Brexit Britain proves too great for DevOps pipeline wrangler CircleCI

macjules

freshly poached Facebook exec

I do hope you actually mean, "thrown into a pot of boiling water and left for 5 minutes until poached".

We lose money on repairs, sobs penniless Apple, even though we charge y'all a fortune

macjules

It would have been like this if it was, since the apple auto text remover just removes B L M R T:

"ecause hey cae aou hei cuis^H^H^H^Hstoes of couse."

You wanted flying cars and colony worlds. Instead, IKEA furniture-building-ish AI robots

macjules
Terminator

Re: Not sure I am comfortable with AI doing this....

Hey, just be thankful that they are not using Über's AI.

Brexit bad boy Arron Banks' Twitter account hacked: Private messages put online

macjules
Coat

Re: The Streisand Effect

Great pun .. "nose about the Streisand effect"

macjules

That's easy: the really implausible ones are the real ones.

London cops seeking £600m mega IT contract to knock 'towers' sprawl into 'one throat to choke'

macjules

Re: Just one more throat to choke ..

Thought it was GDS-directed policy for everyone to use the UKGOV AWS system now? Much as I am aware that Home Office have a history of "sod that, we're using Capita" I was recently told that that was all behind them now.

macjules

Just one more throat to choke ..

Noticed that this the second time in 24 hours that someone has used that expression. Met police aren't about to engage with DXC are they?

Royal Bank of Scotland IT contractor ban sparks murmurs of legal action

macjules

Re: Never mind

+1 to that.

'Big Bang': Great for creating the universe, but not as an approach to IT migration, TSB told

macjules

Re: Read report - conclusion >>>

Age-old problem, someone simply would not put their signature to the cost of buying an automated testing system. In a day and age of Automated DevOps, Code Reviews > Unit and Security Tests > Performance and Functionality tests and (if passed) automated deployment, why is a bank showing 2000 unresolved test issues?

I do hope that IBM threw the book at them.

Pack your bags, you're going to America, Lord Chief Justice tells accused Brit hacker

macjules

Isn't "extreme stupidity" punishable by lethal injection in the USA?

macjules

Re: He attempt to hack the British Upper Class.

“There can only be ONE Dark Lord”, said Dark Lord Chief Justice Burnett of Maldon.

American telcos get 90 days to wrap up deals with, er, dangerous Chinese supplier – that's Huawei the news goes

macjules

That’s like saying you have a choice of Trump or Clinton.

Apple's latest keyboard travels back in time to when they weren't crap

macjules

Re: Bad keyboards...

As an update, I just took my (almost new) MBP in to Apple to have the keyboard “replaced”. Rather hostile reception from the Genius Bar staffer who steadfastly maintained that there is nothing at all wrong with the keyboard and that I had got it wrong .. however they would take a look at the keyboard to see if it needs replacing. Then comes the egg-on-face bit as he admits that there is a 7 day delay due to the demand “and our engineers are working flat out”.

macjules

Hang on a second! Could it be that Jony Ive just invented the perfect condom?

macjules

Re: Bad keyboards...

I believe the excuse was that ‘in space there is no dust so why can’t you all go into space. Also in space nobody can hear you hammering away on that awful keyboard’.*

* In actual fact on a MacBook Pro that comes out as : ‘n apc tr no dt o why can't u a o nto apc. so n apc nobod can a ou amm rin awa on tat awfu kboar’