* Posts by ADC

33 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Jan 2015

BOFH: Selling the boss on a crypto startup

ADC
Flame

Pedant alert...

Well someone has to...

> ...or license instead of licence?

These are different things, not spelling. Licence is the noun, license is the verb.

Icon for the coming flame wars... --->

Windows 11 Paint: Oh look – rounded corners. And it is prettier... but slightly worse

ADC
Unhappy

Re: Screen bloat...

> You can still buy cheap laptops with that sort of screen res.

My work-issued 4 years old Dell laptop has a stunning 1366 x 768 resolution.

When I need to leave my desk with the external monitor and join a conference call in a meeting room, there's no way I can read any documents shared on screen...

To CAPTCHA or not to CAPTCHA? Gartner analyst says OK — but don’t be robotic about it

ADC
Mushroom

Causes problems when travelling

I don't find captcha tests too bad, a little annoying - except when I'm travelling in, say, mainland China, stuck behind the great firewall, and unable to log in to my email provider's webmail page because all google services including the sodding captcha test are blocked.

We were 'blindsided' by Epic's cheek, claims Apple exec on 4th day of antitrust wrangling

ADC

Re: It is a subsidy

> By being available on iOS, they are bringing a lot to Apple in intangibles, as are other big players. If those big players were not available on iOS, would iOS have as big a market share?

On the other hand, Apple have already shown that they are more than willing to remove Fortnight from the app store. It's Epic who are desperate to keep it on the store and complained when it was blocked for a time.

If you're a WhatsApp user, you'll have to share your personal data with Facebook's empire from next month – or stop using the chat app

ADC

Re: Does this apply here?

According to the updated privacy policy, it applies in the UK (post brexit) but not in the EU.

There is a separate privacy policy for the EU.

Uncle Sam's legal eagles finally make up their mind on internet giants' Get Out Of Jail Free card – and it's not as bad as you may fear

ADC

Re: Different opinions...

...and more comments at Techdirt:

Justice Department Releases Its Dangerous & Unconstitutional Plan To Revise Section 230

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200923/14472345369/justice-department-releases-dangerous-unconstitutional-plan-to-revise-section-230.shtml

ADC

Different opinions...

Both Techdirt and Ars Technica seem to have a much poorer opinion of these proposals.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200902/20220245240/copia-institutes-comment-to-fcc-regarding-ridiculous-ntia-petition-to-reinterpret-section-230.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200920/16382945341/busting-still-more-myths-about-section-230-you-fcc.shtml

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/trump-admin-sends-congress-its-blueprint-for-weakening-section-230/

Stack Overflow banishes belligerent blather with bespoke bot – but will it work?

ADC
Thumb Up

And again :-)

NASA mulls restoring Saturn V to service as SLS delays and costs mount

ADC
Thumb Up

Nicely done El Reg :-)

Sticks and stones may break your bones but robot taunts will hurt you – in games at least

ADC
Unhappy

Marvin...

It amazes me how you manage to think in something so small

Hey, I wrote this neat little program for you guys called the IMAC User Notification Tool

ADC

Old project names

I remember some years ago having to explain to a (non-English) customer team that Control Unit New Technology was perhaps not the best choice of name for their new hardware security module.

Then there was the monitoring system named by an ex-colleague, Data Acquisition and Verification Real-time Operating System (or something close to that).

All's fair in love and war when tech treats you like an infant

ADC

Full marks for the Bill Nelson link Mr Dabbs :-)

There is no perceived IT generation gap: Young people really are thick

ADC
Thumb Up

Re: So there you stand....

Have an upvote for the Cosmograf reference :-)

French activists storm Paris Apple Store over EU tax dispute

ADC

Re: No taxes?

Then all the taxes are paid by end customers and none by the companies. VAT is a consumer tax only.

China crackdown: VPN vendor gets prison

ADC
Big Brother

Local tax laws are also highly regulated nowadays.

If we take visitors to dinner, even in a local Chinese restaurant, the expenses receipt must be an official form, computer printed, and must include the VAT registration numbers for both the restaurant and our company. Otherwise no expenses claim...

Hotel guest goes broke after booking software gremlin makes her pay for strangers' rooms

ADC

Re: Why not apologise?

> An airline cracked a hard case but fortunately nothing was damaged. The service staff apologised and said we could either have a voucher or a new suitcase. The offered suitcase was a samsonite hard case of a similar size. Within 10 minutes we were out of the airport with a new case. Biggest hassle was disposing of the old case.

Sounds like you were very lucky with the airline service team. After one flight I collected a suitcase from the carousel and found two out of the four wheels ripped off. The staff at the airport were helpful with filling in the claim form, but the cost of the suitcase was only paid later after sending the airline photographs of the damaged case and a copy of the original sales invoice/receipt.

Google wants to track your phone and credit card through meatspace

ADC
Big Brother

Re: We're already being asked for email addresses at the till

> even Aunty Beeb is at it, saying they're going to make a sign-in a requirement for use of iPlayer, purportedly to give one a personalised experience which personally, I do not want (I've contacted them to ask what the real reason they intend to insist on a sign-up is, as it's onl'y a bonus to users if it's an optional requirement).

This is preparation for allowing iPlayer access only if you have a TV licence.

And of course to track your viewing/downloading habits...

'Clearance sale' shows Apple's iPad is over. It's done

ADC
Joke

Re: As I have said a million times

> I've seen a few bands in pubs using a virtual mixer on an iPad - the advantage is the soundman can stand amongst the audience and adjust levels accordingly.

I would guess that the iPad is simply a wireless UI for a real mixer on or near the stage, that it's not actually doing any real-time audio processing or mixing on the iPad itself. Otherwise you need a really big adaptor to connect all the XLR mic cables to the iPad Lightning or 30-pin socket...

Europe's data protection rules set a high bar for consent – and UK ICO welcomes your thoughts

ADC
Facepalm

"draft guidance"

Read that as "daft guidance" - can't think why

Smart meter firm EDMI asked UK for £7m to change a single component

ADC

Re: The pi-zero w is less than £10 and I bet it would do all they need and more.

Smart water meters I saw 15 years ago were battery powered - with a large capacity battery and a low power MCU (TI MSP430) to get >20 years battery life.

ADC

Re: ...nope ... @JamesPond

@Alan Brown

Saturating the sensors with a magnet is detectable as a fault condition different from any normal state. Most meters will report a tamper fault in this case.

Pwned so many times - but saved by the incident response plan

ADC

Design for failure

The best, most robust systems are those where the designers expect failures and add features to deal them when (not if) they occur. It does not matter how low is the failure rate, when systems run continuously then eventually those rare failures will happen. This applies in IT just as in electronics, industrial controls, or other disciplines.

China tackles vital strippers-at-funeral problem

ADC

Having visited the tomb of the Ming emperors near Beijing, it turns out that the emperor's concubines (still alive) were entombed with the dead emperor, for several hundred years.

Thank heavens for the silicon chip: A BRIEF history of data

ADC
Headmaster

Re: I love sand so much

That's silicone, not silicon ;-)

Easy ... easy ... Aw CRAP! SpaceX rocket ALMOST lands on ocean hoverbase

ADC

Barge motion?

Is the barge simply floating normally? The oil companies in the North Sea have used large semi-submersible barges with multi-axis dynamic positioning thrusters for years to keep a crane platform.stable while assembling stuff onto an oil rig.

BOFH: The Great HellDesk geek leave seek

ADC

Does anyone know where the printer-friendly button has gone?

Oi, Kanye. BEYONCE deserves that gTLD more than you do

ADC

Re: I think ... Beyonce deserves that gTLD more than he does.

Not quite.

I believe it's a reference to Kanye West pushing himself on stage at the Grammy awards and telling everyone that Beyonce should get the award instead of Beck.

Even better, it seems Beyonce is not best pleased, it's ruining her carefully crafted image...

http://www.mercurynews.com/celebrities/ci_27523352/beyonce-isnt-happy-kanye-west

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/confidential/beyonce-fears-kanye-west-antics-hurt-image-jay-z-article-1.2113606

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/10/beck-kanye-wests-grammy-awards-stage-invasion-beyonce-outburst-grace_n_6651436.html

In praise of China’s CROONING censors: Company songs NOW!

ADC

Wonderful as usual :-)

Even here working in China this stuff makes us laugh at the same time as it frustrates efforts to work effectively in modern technology...

ALIENS are surely AMONG US: Average star has TWO potentially Earth-like worlds

ADC

Re: More than a coincidence?

"The orbit of any planet in a solar system with more than one planet is chaotic. (Mathematical fact, mathematical definition of chaotic). Given infinite time, all but one planet will inevitably be ejected into interstellar space (or less likely swallowed by its sun or collided with another planet)."

As far as I remember "chaotic" in the mathematical sense does not mean unstable, it means unpredictable. A chaotic system's future state can only be predicted if you know _exactly_ the initial state. A small (infinitesimal) change in initial state leads to a large and undefined change in future state.

ADC

Re: Charles Stross suggests that neighbors are ISIS-like and abhorrent

Then there's the Greg Bear/Forge of God/Anvil of Stars scenario.

That we don't see other civilisations because the hunter-killer self-replicating machines got there first.

Post-pub nosh neckfiller: Sizzling sag aloo

ADC

Re: How many potato based Chinese dishes are there available in a Chinese restaurant?

You'd be surprised.

Here in China, many of the local restaurants covering a range of regional styles (including Hunan, Sichuan and others), have some variation on a dish of sliced potatoes with chili/garlic/onions/ginger/bacon.

Definitely one of the ex-pat favourites :-)

Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 CPU dumped from flagship smartphone

ADC
Joke

Hardware failure

Looks like some nasty dry joints on the demo board in the photo