Posts by Commswonk

Re: saving lives, expanding mobility and reducing congestion

Congestion - a factor in congestion is often poor driver behaviour, so there really is some potential there.

I might suggest that a more consistent factor is too many vehicles trying to use the same bit of road at the same time, and quite how autonomous (or semi - autonomous) cars are going to solve that problem isn't obvious. I'm not trying to argue that poor driver behaviour doesn't exist, or that it isn't a factor in some congestion scenarios, but your comment overlooks the rather bigger contribution made by the sheer number of vehicles on the road.

...history shows that BOTH approaches (leaving things to itself and affirmative action) have their downsides.

Or to put it another way life is inherently unfair. Get used to it.

Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

Further to #8...

#9: Ryanair, who have screwed things up by cancelling a shedload of flights.

I think blaming the PR team might be a little unfair; their role is to try to make the best of a bad job.

C suite occupants are fair game, though; they created the "bad job" in the first place.

I find myself wondering what the TalkTalk Data Controller has said about the security of customer data; he/she has a statutory responsibility for its protection even if the responsibility doesn't extend as far as ensuring effective cybersecurity.

Re: Ah, 'booking'

@chivo243:

Looks of "What devilish sourcery is this?" abounded.

+1 isn't enough ;-}

Actually +1 is too generous, because it should have been sorcery not sourcery

Re: Bald men fighting over a comb

Can we please enforce 100% (and decent quality signal not some micro fraction of a signal bar quality) coverage of the UK.

A cynic writes:

If you think about it EE ought to be doing that as a matter of course, given their (supposed?) commitment to ESR. Note the weasel word "ought".

Re: We are supposed to trust ...

... the Lizard People at the Mod?

Since you ask... yes.

They are on secondment from the Ministry of Truth.

More lessons are going to be learnt at Equifax I think.

"More lessons need to be learnt at Equifax I think" would be closer to the truth. There are no grounds for believing that the lessons are just "going" to be learnt as if by osmosis.

Re: BT franchise and research

Oh and don't get me started on "Market research" which don't have to abide by the TPS regs...

Quite so, because they aren't selling anything. However, agree to participate in this "research" at your peril, because any answer you give may be interpreted as your permission for a follow - up sales call. My invariable response to "lifestyle survey" calls is "we do not participate in lifestyle survey calls".

Or what seems to be the "pestilence du jour" of calls about grants for new boilers / insulation / double glazing et al.

Anyone else noticed how "pressing 8" to be removed from the calling lists is singularly ineffective?

Re: EU data protection?

I'd be curious on which legal basis they hold the data in the US.

I'd be equally curious about the legal basis on which they contacted Equifax in connection with me in the first place. By way of example, when I added broadband to my telephone account all those years ago it was all done over the 'phone and there was certainly no caveat that "we are going to discuss you with Equifax just to be on the safe side"; similarly I have no recollection of any similar warnings when we have changed energy supplier.

So never mind holding the data in the US; what is the basis of it being shared with another party in the first place without my clear informed consent? Do I sue Equifax with which I have no contract, or do I sue the organisations that shared information about me with Equifax?

Re: Only 4.8m homes in the UK?

DDCMS estimated that almost 94 per cent of UK homes and businesses (4.5m) currently have the option to buy superfast broadband

Assuming the above statement to be correct (other than the 4.5m that has already been questioned) I wonder why the DCMS never seems to put out the sentence that follows from it, specifically "of those 94% "x%" have taken up the option while the remainder have not".

It might be both revealing and informative.

Re: One thing I always failed to understand....

Why people leave their phones to constantly search for wifi networks.

Separation anxiety, plus a modern variant of I think therefore I am that boils down to "I am online, therefore I am"

Re: Only the best will do

When I hear any politician say "the fact is..." I take it as read that whatever follows is a complete "notfact".

Re: It's everywhere, but sometimes you can fix it

The rot has even gotten to LibreOffice our local <redacted> shop

Some bright whizz bought new tills for our local shop. The customer display (say 6 x 5 inches) displays individual items & price in black on near white, but in something like Font size 6 or smaller. The total however - while in a bigger font - is in pale yellow letters on a pale grey background.

Utterly effing useless; needless to say complaining achieves nothing. What tosspot thought that was a good customer - friendly design?

And sometimes you can't fix it...

Re: London not on the list

If only somebody had given it a few minutes thought before announcing full electrification in the first place...

Steady on; we are talking about "politicians" here. A "few minutes' thought" takes them beyond their attention span. On top of which there is the ever - present problem of politicians trying to understand engineering / technology matters, and that is a mix that rarely if ever has a satisfactory outcome.

Re: Train them

I would suggest that ALL workers should attend an annual IT security course, sign to show they have attended and be held responsible for lapses like that in the article.

Impossible to argue against that, but I might argue that a data protection failure would not necessarily be covered by IT security; data protection is the responsibility of an organisation's Data Controller - capitalised because it is a responsibility mandated by the DPA. AFAIK there is nothing that requires the function to fall within "IT".

At the same time if the data was set up to be accessible to "social care providers" then it follows that it passes outside the boundaries that the (Council) Data Controller has to take responsibility for; each of the "social care providers" would have their own Data Controllers (I hope!) who would each have to oversee how the data was managed once it was in their own organisation's possession.

Although I would not say that it happened in this case it is entirely possible that the best efforts of one organisation can be completely undone by carelessness, stupidity, or malice in another. (But see Hanlon's Razor!)

It might be interesting to know (even if not wholly relevant in this case) how many "social care providers" have proper Data Controllers to oversee the proper management of client data, and how many organisations have breaches of the DPA as a disciplinary offence down to the individual employee level.

Re: Another day,

Is there anything that company hasn't tried that's shady?

Please let's not make it easy for them and provide a pick - list... providing we can actually think of anything, that is.

PS; I think you meant to type "has tried that isn't shady" but your intent was blindingly obvious anyway. :)

Re: Grammatical pedantry aside...

An AC wrote: And that's usually you.

Invariably you would have been more accurate.

Re: Er, no, don't.

Is "wrist discomfort" worse than whiplash?

Only if you forget to change hands from time to time.

Re: Charging station ?

From the article: Wayne Liu showed he was able to run a proof-of-concept with his mobile phone, protected in a plastic bag, charging on a pad.

This sounds as though it was effectively a very small degaussing coil, a technology that is now highly developed for the demagnetisation of ships' hulls.

Trouble is that to transfer enough power to charge a submersible's batteries the amount of "input" power required would require a surface or submarine vessel to generate it; obviously enough a surface vessel would be visible (security risk) although a submarine would not be.

However, in order to get enough power into the uncrewed drone the magnetic field needed would be large enough to be moderately easy to detect by a hostile power using its own submarines or uncrewed drones. At the risk of stating the obvious this would compromise the security of any submarine charging vessel.

The "torpedo tube" approach would appear to have a lot to offer; the technology to enable bits of hardware to mate in orbit is now routine so an underwater equivalent should not be beyond reach. Of course it depends - at least in part - on the relative sizes of the drones and the "mothership".

Re: @Chris G

It's must be a strong candidate for the world's prime example of this management style.

Or this one: https://www.slideshare.net/apanitsch/the-management-rowing-race.

I know it's getting on a bit but "many a true word is said in jest".

Re: Convoy

@nick_rampart: C'mon....why is it a platoon?

Listening with half an ear to Today on Radio 4 this morning it's because a company working on the technology has Peloton in its name, and Peloton is French for platoon.

Simples <squeak>

Re: ACPO, the Home Office's ever helpful "arms length" not-a-company

FWIW ACPO no longer exists, so there is no point in blaming it for anything post 2015 - April I think.

It was replaced by the National Police Chiefs' Council, which may or may not be every bit as bad.

Blaming an extinct organisation for something that is happening now is a bit silly.

Re: Webpages that crash

A website that pulls in scripts from two dozen sources to just display the frontpage of whatever is slow and annoying...

And may the Good Lord forgive me for saying it, but IME this website is one of them. Sometimes the little display in the bottom left hand corner of my monitor suggests uploading from numerous sites.

Re: Post-modern advertising

Verizon offer "unlimited" which is limited.

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'unlimited' that I wasn't previously aware of.

Equally obviously with acknowledgements to Douglas Adams...

Somebody call Tesla and Mr. Musk, and order autopilot stat!

How do you now that they didn't fit one months ago? Seems entirely likely.

The answer, of course, will be "it's helmsman assist..."

Re: Custom Decision Service?

Computer says no becomes a reality.

Re: I met one security officer who said his team is known as the 'business prevention department'

I immediately thought of Mordac the Preventer of IT Services.

See Dilbert passim.

Re: 30Mbps? By 2020! Sad! Nay, Pathetic!

Not to mention Romania.

From some of the figures in the linked article and a look here: http://uk.businessinsider.com/brexit-eu-members-net-contributions-and-net-funding-2016-12 it may well be that Romania was in the happy position of being able to provide decent broadband at someone else's expense entirely.

I don't doubt that if the UK received a pile of money every year from somewhere else it might have been able to provide better BB services.