* Posts by Commswonk

1777 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Sep 2015

High Court judge finds Morrisons supermarket liable for 2014 data leak

Commswonk

Re: Vicarious liability

It will be interesting to see if this goes to appeal, and if so what the outcome is; I can see stocks of popcorn needing replenishment.

I must say that on the face of it this seems unfair to Morrisons; from a news report earlier in the day the person who actually stole the information had legitimate access to it, and if that is true then he had no need to hack the IT system to gain access to it; he just logged on normally and then stole it. (My words)

If this verdict is upheld then what happens if a company car driver (including anyone driving a car hired by his / her employer) behaves like a total prat behind the wheel and has an accident (from driving at excess speed up to death by dangerous driving)? Will the company / employer be held vicariously responsible in those circumstances?

The basis concept of "vicarious liability" is valid enough but there have to be limits to its application; OK it's easy for me to say this because it wasn't my personal information that got published on the internet. The only circumstances where it might be "fair" would be in the case of an employee who was dismissed and then allowed back to their desk before being escorted from the premises, but even then the employee might have stolen the data in advance "just in case". IANAL but I am uncomfortable with the verdict.

For the avoidance of doubt I have / had no connection with Morrisons or any other food company.

Ofcom proposes ways to stop BT undercutting broadband rivals

Commswonk

Re: If BT can lower their prices........

@ Slacker@work: You don't happen to be somewhere in Central Lancashire do you? I know of one very large new build area there.

A further point relevant to the title if not Slacker's point... this from the Ofcom report, Para 4.14.

However, we do not think it would be proportionate to introduce additional measures at this stage to restrict BT’s retail pricing. Introducing restrictions on BT’s retail pricing would entail a major intervention in retail markets that are currently broadly competitive and which we do not regulate.

I get the feeling that BT might be playing fast and loose with its wholesale prices by screwing its retail customers, of which I am one. Having seen various other company's prices I get the distinct feeling that BT's retail customers may be getting a raw deal. Mind you with all the introductory prices flying around it becomes difficult to tell, which is probably what is intended.

It all rather suggests that Ofcom is not bothered about the retail implications of its current / future policy.

.

Crown Prosecution Service is coming for crooks' cryptocurrency

Commswonk

Re: also of note: UK burden of proof.

f you car caught with a plastic bag with £10,000 pounds in it, and have no way of proving it's yours, you can kiss goodbye to it.

IIRC the "critical mass" is rather less than that - something like £500. And again (IIRC, but not from experience!) if you are caught and convicted of drug dealing* then your bank account can be examined and contents confiscated following an Order of the Court.

I think it has as much to do with "money laundering" as anything else, which is something of a catch - all.

* Other offences are available.

Commswonk

If that is the case we are all in danger of having any cash we have being taken from us at any time.

No change there, then, unfortunately. Gov.uk is always looking for methods of getting its sticky fingers on citizens' funds.

Why does no one want to invest in full fibre broadband, wails UK.gov

Commswonk

Re: Gubmint investment

A world run entirely by business is not one in which I want to live.

Or, for that matter...

A world run entirely for business is not one in which I want to live.

Commswonk

Final push, can you get a regulatory path that forces people to use what you build or force people to pay the price you want?

There is - or appears to be - a body of opinion that would support this approach.

Please do not encourage them.

Commswonk

Re: @ Anonymous Blowhard

@codejunky: "Trying to create a "market" for this to attract private investment has been a failing policy since Margaret Thatcher cancelled BT's project in 1990."

I had a read of the linked article and finished up feeling a bit annoyed. While I understand what Dr Cochrane was saying (it was quite clear after all!) I still think that as written the article may be misleading - albeit not deliberately - or it also may or may not fully represent Dr Cochrane's views. (If they are fully represented then I would have to argue with him (risky!) about his conclusion. I will paste a paragraph from the article, being a quote from Dr Cochrane.

"For example, I am sitting here, I work all over the world and say I want to upload a 350MB file. 350MB is not huge. With my old broadband, when I had less than 0.5Mbps upload you'd start in the morning and finish sometime in the middle of the night. Now I've got 32Mbps upload, I can actually watch it going. If I was in Hong Kong it would be instantaneous. Imagine having a discussion and putting a 10 second delay between each word, it wouldn't work."

Was Dr Cochrane concerning himself solely with the world of work? I can fully accept that "work" needs fater BB than residential use does, but the problem then becomes "of all the broadband circuits currently provided how many are for "work" and how many are for "leisure" applications, i.e. residential?" I don't know but I strongly suspect that the vast majority of the total circuits provided to premises are not for work applications, even allowing for those who want or need to work from home.

If we accept that the difference in usage "types" exists then we have to decide what general standard of BB provision should exist; (a) extremely fast to suit "work", in which case residentail users have to pay heavily over the odds to subsidise business user; (b) a fastish network with user costs set to be affordable by residential users, but which as a result may not be fast enough for (some?) business; (c) a mix whereby there are greatly different speeds available depending on how much the end user is willing to pay, and so on.

His argument appears to be based on the idea that it has to be "one size fits all", which in a way I can understand, but it ignores the economic reality that non - business users won't want to pay business rates.

If I have misrepresented what he was thinking then I will / would apologise, but to me his case is so "business - centric" that I cannot really see it being relevant to non - business applications.

Commswonk

A very fair point; it ought to be straightforward to poll BB users to try to find out (amongst other things) "how much more would you be willing to pay for a faster service?"

I write as someone who declined BT's offer of a faster service at contract renewal time because it cost more (OK; not that much more) so I stayed on my current speed at the same price. I am rather annoyed (well, pissed off actually) that I now find I am going to get the faster speed (which we really do not need) at the increased price regardless.

To return to my earlier "supermarket" analogy, it's rather like getting to the check - out with a chosen lower price product to find it whizzed away and replaced with a costlier one because that's what the shop wants to sell.

Commswonk

Actually I suspect that it's all down to basic market forces. I suspect that the Telcos know full well that a widespread migration to FTTP would have to be accompanied by a corresponding monthly price increase to their customers, and in turn the customers might not be too pleased to find this happening.

I cannot claim to know the full details of Ofcom's remit but I strongly suspect that it doesn't include forcing end users to pay more than they want for a service that may well be far more than they actually need.

I don't doubt for a moment that there are areas where the existing services (ADSL / VDSL) are woefully inadequate and no - one could argue against concentrating some effort and money in engineering a solution for those areas and their occupants.

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious providing those who have a good enough service with a much better one does absolutely nothing for those receiving a poor service. That would be rather like treating someone who is ill in London in the expectation that someone in Manchester will get better as well as a result.

I know the above risks downvotes but what on earth is the point in failing to address a problem that really does exist by addressing one that argably doesn't. How would you like it if the budget supermarkets were closed down by diktat so that we all had to pay Fortnum & Mason or Waitrose prices?

£160m ploughed into 5G is a fair sum. Shame the tech doesn't really exist

Commswonk

Re: Oh dear

@ Mage: There needs to be more fibre / real broadband so that Mobile only has actually mobile users.

I don't think it's that simple. AIUI consumers are using mobile broadband to avoid having to fork out for fixed line services, and that avoidance includes fixed line telephony. The argument seems to be "I need (want?) a fully featured broadband capable mobile phone anyway, so why do I also need a fixed line service?"

I strongly doubt if flood - wiring the UK with FTTP will persuade users to pay for fixed line services as well as mobile ones. An increase in "real broadband" cannot act as a replacement for mobile telephony (inc text messages) however good that broadband is, and people are so wedded to their fondleslabs that persuading them to put them aside is likely to prove a waste of time.

The fact that their broadband usage is perhaps largely trivial doesn't seem to come into it. A fixation with social media and ordering things they don't need probably covers most of the actual use for a large percentage of users.

Judge stalls Uber trade-secret theft trial after learning upstart 'ran a trade-secret stealing op'

Commswonk

Re: When are they appearing

Damn it, I was going to say that or something very similar. Perhaps I ought to have got out of bed earlier.

Lock them up and throw away the (don)key

Commswonk

Re: These damn donkey's

Something must be done about them...........

Let's deal with the rogue apostrophes first.

Uber, quit shoveling money into the fire for one second and explain that hack – US senators

Commswonk

Wow!

It also led to the ousting of Uber's security chief Joe Sullivan and Craig Clark, legal director of security and law enforcement.

Uber had a "security chief" and a "legal director of security and law enforcement"?

Who knew?

Another way to avoid eye contact: 4G on the Tube expected 'in 2019'

Commswonk

Re: Won't matter to me

For others it will continue their regular doses of the Social Media Drug that around 50% of the population seemed to be hooked on these days.

Only 50%? Is that really that low?

Dark fibre arts: Ofcom is determined to open up BT's network

Commswonk

Re: SHARON WHITE, OFCOM - WE NEED A FIRM DATE TO START THE LONG PROCESS OF SWITCHING OF COPPER.

The case for radical improvements to what might loosely be described as "rural broadband" is substantial - almost unassailable. However conflating that case with arguing for the replacement of mixed fibre / copper transmission on a nationwide basis makes "rural fibre" that much harder to achieve.

Unless you happen to believe that the copper element can be removed without cost then without a Magic Money Tree any money spent upgrading FTTC to FTTP will detract from that available for rural provision. Perversely if BT or anyone else got rid of FTTC (replacing it with FTTP) it could quite legitimately claim that it had materially increased the average speed available to UK customers, although at the same time it would have done nothing to help those in rural areas who have a poor or no service now. To put it another way, in what way would converting urban areas from FTTC to FTTP help rural customers? It wouldn't help them at all. The rural customers need addressing properly (I have never argued otherwise) and introducing a (in my view spurious) need to ditch copper in urban locations just fogs the overall picture.

On top of that do you really imagine that "urban" users are going to thank you for an enforced upgrade that will almost certainly be accompanied by a significant price increase to cover the significant cost of converting to FTTP? Personally I rather doubt it.

I'm not trying to pretend that Ofcom is a "perfect" regulator (FWIW I have no connection with the organisation) but I strongly doubt if trying to bully it is going to achieve what you want. You might object to my word "bully" but given the terms in which you have described it I cannot think of any other word to use. Although it probably wouldn't admit it I would expect Ofcom to keep an eye on the transactions on this forum so there is a more than fair chance that it has seen your opinion of it and as a consequence decided to disregard anything you say; submissions to be filed along with those written in green ink.

Commswonk

Re: SHARON WHITE, OFCOM - WE NEED A FIRM DATE TO START THE LONG PROCESS OF SWITCHING OF COPPER.

@ Adam Jarvis: Who moved your cheese?

Your post is probably the most personally abusive that I have ever seen on El Reg, to the point where I think it says more about you than it does about me. I did wonder about putting "Report Abuse" to the test but decided against it so that as many people as possible can read your rant for themselves.

To respond to a specific point, you wrote Your answer Commswonk is to ignore the plight of customers with copper/alu lines longer than 500m, but if you had taken the trouble to read what I wrote earlier you would have realised that I clearly recognised that those at the end of long lines did need a solution, specifically by writing For the avoidance of doubt I fully agree that subscribers at the end of a "long line" are currently getting a raw deal, and that a workable solution has to be implemented to provide them with a better service, but there is no reason why that solution has to involve re-engineering all those for whom a mix of fibre and copper provides a perfectly satisfactory service, even on a time scale which you admit yourself would be long.

Please explain how that is - to use your words - to ignore the plight of customers with copper/alu lines longer than 500m...?

And this sentence is completely and utterly wrong: Yourself. Self interest, nothing else. It's you that is thinking of the few. (well just yourself by the looks of it). And all because you are individually obsessed by keeping AGE UK 's aid call device working on POTS line. So can we assume you have more than a singular vested interest in Age UK's Aid Call over POTS. Any such assumption is incorrect.

It's about time for you to learn to accept the the existence of opinions that differ from yours with good grace, even if you believe those opinions to be incorrect.

To expand on the "let's not ditch copper entirely" theme, it is worth bearing mind that AIUI BT's revenue on fixed lines is falling, with more and more residential users relying on mobile telephony and data. What do you think the outcome might be if fixed line costs were to be significantly increased by a mass conversion to FTTP; the demand for fixed lines would fall even further so that the conversion cost might never be amortised. Hardly a good outcome.

So - you asked me about for whom I was speaking; the answer is, I suppose, for those not emotionally consumed for a need for greater data bandwidth, and perhaps for those who do not have an inexhaustable supply of money to pay for an increasingly expensive service that exceeds their requirements by a large margin. I don't doubt that you may speak for a section of the data consuming community, but I'm not sure that you have the right to claim that you speak for all. You accused me of writing out of self interest; you aren't I suppose...

Commswonk

Re: SHARON WHITE, OFCOM - WE NEED A FIRM DATE TO START THE LONG PROCESS OF SWITCHING OF COPPER.

SHARON WHITE, OFCOM - WE NEED A FIRM DATE TO START THE LONG PROCESS OF SWITCHING OF COPPER (ESP ON LINES OVER 500M) , BY END OF 2017. and...

Who is BT to say what is 'good enough?'

And who exactly are you to make that demand of Ofcom?

For the avoidance of doubt I fully agree that subscribers at the end of a "long line" are currently getting a raw deal, and that a workable solution has to be implemented to provide them with a better service, but there is no reason why that solution has to involve re-engineering all those for whom a mix of fibre and copper provides a perfectly satisfactory service, even on a time scale which you admit yourself would be long.

As has been pointed out (almost times without number over the months and years) there is an Ofcom requirement (that actually goes way back long before Ofcom was ever thought of) that subscribers' telephones must continue to function even if the subscibers themselves have lost mains power. Clearly there are ways of making that continue to happen if FTTP was to be introduced, but they require the beefing up of the reserve supplies in street furniture and having battery - backed terminating equipment in subs premises. In turn that raises questions about how much responsibility subs would have to take for the guaranteed working of the terminal equipment (batteries don't last forever, even if only on standby duty) and how much would have to be the responsibility of the Telco. And so on...

So I repeat my question: And who exactly are you to make that demand of Ofcom?

And for the avoidance of any other doubt I am not, and never have been, employed by BT or any other Telco.

Commswonk

Re: The consumer would like some of Ofcom's attention too

@ AC: A so-called reliable antiquated Copper POTS Phone didn't help in these circumstances, it just rang out. We need to move on and ditch copper going forward.

Apples and oranges. I fully recognise that a POTS would be of no help in supporting a series of medical monitoring devices, but I would have thought you would have realised that they don't need FTTP either. FTTC would be more than enough, and even ADSL would be able to cope if you dropped the "video" idea. (BTW; video in which room? All of them?)

And I hope you weren't thinking of IOT devices for the monitoring either; without properly developed security they would need to be wired.

And who would fund this Home Intensive Care Unit? It's a very nice idea, certainly, but it is also unaffordable on any sort of scale.

Commswonk

Re: Leave BT alone

while the competitive real telecommunication companies get on with giving this country a proper fibre network.

Nothing has been stopping them doing that, but perhaps they would rather offload the risk of the ROI being less than they want by demanding that "someone else" (BT with or without Taxpayers' money) commit to all the capital expenditure and work involved while they (the somewhat elusive "real telecommunications companies") get access on a wholesale basis, charge their customers a significant mark - up and possibly offer crap customer support thereafter.

Perhaps you could list the "real telecommunications companies" that you are referring to, just in case they aren't the usual suspects who spend a lot of time badgering Ofcom into getting them if not a free ride, a heavily discounted one.

Commswonk

Re: The consumer would like some of Ofcom's attention too

A nice collection of non sequiturs IMHO.

I would expect most consumers to be completely indifferent to the availability or otherwise of VOIP; it might well make sense if someone was building a complete network from scratch now, but they aren't because we already have an admittedly elderly network that seems to do tolerably well for a significant number of consumers.

Consumers are, however, cost concious so your idea that a regulator should come along and sweep the current system aside is little short of insane, because the cost of that would fall on er, the end user.

As I asked earlier, what data do you have to support your assertion that consumers (as a body, not just a vociferous few) want the existing system replaced by FTTP? (And VOIP since you have raised that as well?)

Commswonk

Re: The consumer would like some of Ofcom's attention too

@ Richard Boyce: Consumers are still being forced to pay for old-style land lines while VoIP is suppressed.

Are we to conclude from this comment that your preferred option is for (all) consumers to be forced to pay for an non - optional upgrade to FTTP? I am sure that consumers will be truly impressed at your generosity with their money.

Are we to take it that you have incontrovertible evidence that this is what the majority of consumers want?

Military test centre for frikkin' laser cannon opens in Hampshire

Commswonk

Re: Top secret MoD test ranges

Better link

Quite so; it also reveals the existence of "Pussy's Palace Cattery & Grooming Parlour" which sounds as though it might not be what it says on the tin...

And so close to what is probably "a place within the meaning of the Act".

Commswonk
Happy

Re: Simpler still

Sounding mediæval is a sign of a broad education.

As does the use of ligatures...

Royal Navy destroyer leaves Middle East due to propeller problems

Commswonk

Re: Propellor problems?

@ bombastic bob: ...it might also be related to sound signatures. A ship with a definite 'lope" in its propeller sound signature can easily be tracked from a very very long distance away

True, but in this case arguably academic. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/05/british-warships-noisy-russian-submarines-can-hear-100-miles/ for more details. A bit of additional noise from a defective propeller might not make that much difference.

Commswonk

Re: Propellor problems?

surely the RN can design a propeller properly though?

Er... I think you'll find that Bae Systems did the design.

And stop calling me Shirley.

On a more serious note IIRC cavitation can arise if the propellor is turned faster than its maximum design speed, and that might be temperature dependent.

Commswonk

Re: Propellor problems?

There is no mention in the article about whether the vessel is returning under its own power or is having to be towed; I suspect the former, in which case the problem cannot be too serious, at least not yet. The latter would simply be too humiliating for words.

Cavitation damage, I wonder...

Commswonk

Re: My guess

If it's anything like my car the first thing is a "diagnostic test" to tell you in detail what is wrong, and that costs a small fortune itself. Then you have to book the vehicle in again for the work to be done.

Once they've got the part...

Commswonk

Re: I knew it was a mistake

...not to take out the Extended Warranty.

UK emergency crews get 4G smartmobes as monkeys attempt to emerge from Reg's butt

Commswonk

Re: Just curious

@ lglethal: Would that it were that simple!

Once upon a time Police radios were just that; radios. As time passed there were enormous technological developments (not least in the field of miniaturisation) so that now a modern radio (or cellphone for that matter) is a much smaller package than it used to be, and very little of that package is actually radio; most of the space is given over to the hardware needed to process the software requirements that the overall specification demands.

Any trunked system needs a colossal amount of background work to be done unseen by the actual user so unless the different systems have very similar (or even identical) software specifications the opportunities for "repurposing" just by a simple frequency change are more or less non - existent.

Start adding more features that the user "needs" (pardon my cynicism) and the situation gets even more complicated.

Commswonk

Re: Replaceable Battery

I'm sure one of the standard features on a police radio is a battery that can be quickly swapped out for a fresh one while the dead one is put on charge.

Correct.

SurfaceBook 2 battery drains even when plugged in

Commswonk
Facepalm

Re: Trading standards?

Misleading advertising?

Thinking back to yesterday's "broadband" article the ASA might not see it as materially misleading advertising, so no certainty of help there.

Ads watchdog to BT: We say your itsy bitsy, teeny weeny Ts&Cs too small for screeny

Commswonk

Re: I see what you did there

I didn't even think the editors here were old enough to remember the original reference.

Or many of the commentards, for that matter. I can remember it all too well. :(

Commswonk

Re: I see what you did there

Does this indicate the start of a new punny headline template along the lines of "Super Cali goes balistic..."?

Only time will tell; I suspect that someone at Vulture Central can't get the name of one of Doncaster Council's new gritting vehicles out of his / her head: Gritsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Anti-Slip Machiney and is trying to better it... and not really succeeding.

This is peak AI: Bot to guest edit Radio 4's Today programme

Commswonk

Re: Politicians are already Bots, preprogammed, script driven

404 - Answer Not Found.

Commswonk

Re: Politicians are already Bots, preprogammed, script driven

Remember the foregoing next time you hear Jeremy Hunt being interviewed.

Credit where it's due; the voice synthesiser is excellent. All it needs is a bit of emotion to make it sound a little more human.

Mythical broadband speeds to plummet in crackdown on ISP ads

Commswonk

Weasel Word...

CAP's sister body, the Advertising Standards Authority, also today ruled that it is not materially misleading to describe broadband services that use fibre-optic cables for only part of the connection as "fibre broadband".

So it is misleading, just not "materially" so. Perhaps the ASA could apply some thought about defining the point at which something that is misleading becomes "materially" so.

The obfuscation will no doubt continue, but just in a different way (or ways)

Edit: Does this not clearly demonstrate that the ASA is perfectly happy for companies to mislead potential customers, as long as they don't materially mislead them, irrespective of what it is that they are trying to sell?

You're such a goober, Uber: UK regulators blast hushed breach

Commswonk

Re: Will Uber Go Under?

@ iron: How I wish I could argue that you are writing complete bollocks; trouble is that I strongly suspect that you are completely correct.

Depressing, isn't it...

Commswonk

Funny really...

Hail a black cab (which is a regulated environment, and has been more or less for ever) and pay cash and you have total anonymity, and are thus completely unhackable.

Such is progress... I still cannot see any half convincing argument as to why Uber would need a database of its victims passengers.

Uber: Hackers stole 57m passengers, drivers' info. We also bribed the thieves $100k to STFU

Commswonk

...it's probably that MJB7 chap you should be worrying about - he does the umlauts and everything.

For your future reference ü is Alt0252, or it is with Windows anyway.

As any fule kno.

Once more unto the breach: El Reg has a go at crisis management

Commswonk

Obligatory Dilbert...

http://dilbert.com/strip/2000-08-15

Level 5 driverless cars by 2021 can be done, say Brit industry folk

Commswonk

Re: "At-scale deployment to provide the evidence that AVs are safe for at-scale deployment"

BTW would an HGV driver not driving but sitting at the wheel counts as part of their "hours worked"? If not they can work longer hours, potentially eliminating one or two of them per environment.

If they read your suggestion I expect thousands of HGV drivers will queue up waiting in turn to kiss your feet at your kind suggestion that they should / could work longer hours.

NOT

How would you react if someone who probably knows little or nothing about your job decided on a new way of working that might keep you away from your home even longer than it does now?

Commswonk

The sooner we get rid of the knobheads the better.

Doesn't this rather overlook the simple fact that the software (AI or not) that controls these vehicles will be written by "knobheads"?

Rather like every bit of software that has been written to date, complete with its flaws and vulnerabilities.

Commswonk

@ wolfetone: There's also the issue with charging the cars. Sure, plug them in to the grid. Well the grid is under pressure every winter, getting more so really, so how will that cope?

I know I risk being accused of pedantry but I'm not sure how true the statement is. Generating capacity is certainly under pressure, but whether the grid - i.e. the distribution network - is under pressure is less clear.

However, if electric vehicles do form a significant part of the total the grid certainly will come under severe pressure then. IIRC this house has an 80 Amp fuse on the incoming supply, which is about half of what it would need to be for a fast charger to be included. Then of course there is the bonkers government scheme to move away from gas for domestic heating, and that will require another 30 kW or so from the supply. OK let's have a 300 Amp fuse on the incomer, along with all the neighbours having the same.

It's a toss - up as to what would fail* first; the underground cable feeding us or the substation. The whole thing reeks of "politician think" rather than "engineer think" and as we all know from experience the engineering view will be ignored as being too "negative".

Thinking about it, with all the demand that could fall on the electricity industry I suspect that cables to estates would be of such a diameter that they couldn't be drummed ready for transport and installation; the coiling radius would simply be too big.

* spectacularly

Edit: @ jmch: I think you're a bit wide of the mark in your comment about the investment comparison with conventional petrol stations; petrol stations don't need a truly humungous electrical cable supplying them; their "electric only" counterparts will.

Digital minister: We're still talking to BT about sorting crap broadband

Commswonk

A Politician Speaks...

Matt Hancock: "I didn't recognise the description in the papers... but part of being a minister is sometimes seeing things that are close to the truth and some that aren't."

And not knowing which is which.

Iran the numbers – and Persian internet is the cheapest in the world

Commswonk

Re: Chin up mate.

@ Ledswinger: You have clearly forgotten Einstein's Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Keep it in mind and everything makes sense.

In the meantime I would avoid any media access tomorrow; it's budget day, and I have no great faith in the present incumbent.

True Telecom busted by Ofcom for 'slamming', misselling and more

Commswonk

A company fined by the Ofcom goes in to administration, surely that has never happened before.

And if my reading of the article is correct it hasn't happened this time either; "Ofcom fines company that is already in administration" is the right way to look at it. Doesn't mean the fine will be paid, of course.

Car tax evasion has soared since paper discs scrapped

Commswonk

Re: No car tax?

@Voland's right hand: a nicely formatted dump once a month.

a nicely formatted dump once a month day.

FTFY

Ahhh...bliss.

So what does EE's 5G test really signal?

Commswonk

While we're talking about EE...

...this helps with the development of the ESN how, exactly? It all seems to have gone rather quiet, and tempus fugit

Tesla launches electric truck it guarantees won't break for a million miles

Commswonk

Re: Initial comments from a guy with a Class A.

80,000 lbs is about 35 Tons if my maths is correct, and that implies 5 axles in the UK/Europe, unless things have changed since I had to think about such things. And double wheels other than on the steering.

Quite a lot of rolling resistance to cope with.

Prosecute driverless car devs for software snafus, say Brit cyclists

Commswonk

Re: Go Dutch

For all your whining about Lycra and berserk cyclists - it's the motorist who's the carefree killer here.

Tosh. As a driver I am not "carefree" in the sense that you seem to mean. I have no desire whatsoever to harm any other road user or pedestrian; if I did I would care about it very much indeed.

I am of the view that as a sentient being I have a responsibility to keep myself out of danger and avoid putting anyone else in danger. As a pedestrian I have been endangered by cyclists, albeit not very often, but it has happened. A local canal towpath is clearly marked as "no cycling" but does that keep cyclists away? Does it hell; there have been accidents but nothing is done.

Although slightly OT I would cite a common local occurence; we live close to a primary school and as start time approaches the pavements (narrowed by cars parking with 2 wheels on them) fill up with pedestrians and schoolchildren on scooters, flying along with no regard for the safety of other pavement users, including pedestrians with dogs. It is for others to avoid them, not the other way round. They are already learning that they can disregard the safety of others in pursuit of their own selfish desires, and what is even more worrying the parents don't seem to see anything wrong with this.

It is high time that cyclists' belief that they ought to have a permanent "get out of jail card" awarded to them was debunked once and for all. IMHO the Dutch law is morally outrageous.