Posts by Commswonk

Re: Anti-AI open source has an enemy in common, but almost nothing else

I don't write the headlines, only the copy.

Ah; I suppose then that the headline was written by (let me guess) AI.

Re: I am on digital voice

I did a bit of hacking on the socket and wired the analogue line from the router back into the phone socket so I have all my extensions working as well.

I wondered about doing that but could find nothing about what "REN" the router can provide. In the absence of that information I assume that it is "1".

From the (l)users perspective this migration to VOIP looks very much like a backward step.

Re: PTP

Is Lundy connected to the electricity grid?

No; see a later post.

Re: Perhaps we should

e.mail this article to Labour party HQ with a subtitle of "Do your damn job and hold the government's feet in the fire...

I would agree with you but for the fact that there is nobody on the Opposition front bench with the technical knowledge to make a proper job of challenging the Home Office about all this.

The relevant Select Committee stands a much better chance of highlighting Home Office failings in the adoption of the as yet non - existence of the ESN.

Re: The downside?

IMO, unless there's independent corroboration CCTV images must be inadmissible as evidence. The "witness" can't be cross-examined and the authenticity of their "evidence" can't be tested.

Not really; I know it is a cliché but the camera does not lie. It does not "know" what it is looking at*; it does not "know" who it is looking at*; it does not "know" where it is*; it has no idea what the time of day is*.

* Not yet, anyway... :(

If your house was burgled and (say) your television was stolen, would you accept a defence plea that because the television had failed to confirm the identity of the person who stole it then the verdict of the Court had to be Not Guilty?

I suspect that CCTV evidence falls into the category of Res Loquitur, but then IANAL...

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

rather than go to fund massive royal wankfests in the UK

From which I conclude that you are one of those who believes that "somehow" the UK becoming a republic with a president at the top of the shitheap will be without cost to the taxpayer.

Poor deluded fool...

Re: The AWEsome* Elephant and Unicorn in any Situation Room**

Something well worth saying again on El Reg in English...

Um... that didn't work as well as we might have hoped.

Re: 5G though?

which is why Tetra runs on 410 to 430 MHz

Not quite; it actually runs on 380 - 400 MHz; 410 - 430 MHz was used by the "non - emergency" variant, i.e. Dolphin, which IIRC is now long - defunct.

Being even more pedantic, when I retired the frequencies used were actually 380 - 385 & 390 - 395 MHz with the unused 5 MHz blocks held in reserve.

There is nothing specific about the frequencies used that results in "low bandwidth" for data; the TETRA specification is such that it simply doesn't allow data to be sent fast enough for user requirements, whether they are real or perceived.

Re: Fun(d) distribution

...I got a black mark on my file for causing trouble and neglecting my core duties.

Sadly this surpriseth me not.

Never forget the old adage that No good deed goes unpunished.

Re: Why is use of a 'phone in a car discouraged ?

...just babble and distract you from driving.

That problem can arise in my car without any AI being involved. :(

Re: ESN services vs network

TETRA was never the answer for national coverage as it is very localised

Utter tosh. If required TETRA will provide a call between John o' Groats and Lands End without any laborious setting up.

Fully expecting downvotes from die-hard defenders, but it is time for the incompetents and charlatans to go.

As someone whose political views are more "conservative" than anything else it grieves me that I cannot at the moment think of a single argument in support of the current government.

Perhaps it really is time "for the incompetents and charlatans to go" but I cannot find any enthusiasm for anything any other party is likely to bring to the table. As a constituent of the present Mr Speaker I will have no vote at the next General Election so at least I am to be spared the agony of having to make a choice.

Re: Priorities

Our government is eager to be business friendly.

Warning; Warning: Regulatory Capture Alert...

Re: Seriously?

Do these people NEVER LEARN?????

I think we all know the answer to that...

Re: $800 for a cheese board and cheese?

Are there cheeses beyond Cheddar, Stilton, and Stinking Bishop?

Oooh lots... see https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=cheese+shop+sketch&view=detail&mid=6C4BDECD7C1E9BAFC1B16C4BDECD7C1E9BAFC1B1&FORM=VIRE

Sorry about the HUGE link.

Re: OMG, Phones Can Be Tracked?

...there's no such thing as a sanity clause!

Take a bow please, Chico Marx.

(From A Night at the Opera)

Re: Stay clam everyone and don't picnic!

@ Scott Broukell...

Your post has given the game away to those the other side of the pond who might not have otherwise

cont p94.

Companies House needs to completely re-think how it controls limited companies and the people creating them.

I think you are assuming that Companies House has powers that it simply does not have.

It is a register*, not a regulator.

* Funny that, in one way or another...

Re: Love the language

This is, I suppose, PR speak intended to demonstrate expertise. It fails to demonstrate that in respect of language.

Thank you for sparing me the trouble of making this point.

My only niggle with your post is that you missed out Hosted Exchange environment which is an abomination equally deserving of censure.

The... person with whom I just ate lunch...

How very nice; some elegant grammar, well worth an upvote for that alone. Brightened a miserable wet morning here. :)

Re: Gotcha

...installing solar panels on the roof, or even the car park...

Or even having a gantry over the car park with solar panels fitted to it, thus having a solar farm and a car park.

Providing of course that the car park isn't shaded from direct sunlight by an adjacent building.

Re: BBC headline:

Misses space, hits sea... a little cruel perhaps?

Hey... that would make a brilliant film title: The Cruel Sea

Re: Magic Energy?

That would mean that as long as it doesn’t bother the fire service

It shouldn't; fire appliances do not normally rely on supply pressure to fill the hoses, at least not completely. A fire appliance is equipped with serious pumps driven from the engine to pressurise the hoses so that the water can reach a suitable height and come out of the nozzle ("Monitor" IIRC) at some speed*.

Where necessary an appliance can draw water from a static supply (e.g. a pond) although an additional "portable" pump may also be required.

That said, there has to be a potentially significant flow rate available; LFB ran into trouble during the Grenfell Tower fire because of the extraordinary volume of water needed and they had to ask the water board (whichever one it is) to pump harder to get enough.

* I find myself wondering how the fire services will manage when they have to use appliances powered only by batteries...

Re: Perhaps...

Here are a few - note that I'm talking about hypothetical future vehicles with working self-driving:

Interesting that you should include the word hypothetical because not only are the vehicles currently hypothetical but so are the benefits that you listed; they will remain as a wish list until such time as they have been proven to have been realised.

One in particular warrants further comment: Driverless freight vehicles cut freight costs by around a third. I'd like to know how that has been calculated; just the fuel cost for an hour's running is well in excess of what the driver costs.

In addition, the driver is normally responsible for assisting with unloading / loading the vehicle; in his or her absence who will carry that out? Loading is singularly important because it is essential that the load is properly spread to even to distribute the weight on the various axles and that it is secure and cannot move when the vehicle is moving. It is a legal requirement and if he / she gets it wrong the driver can be held liable in Court.

I'll believe that AI really exists when it can reverse an articulated vehicle round corners / into a tight space / etc without mishap. Will this hypothetical LGV be able to refuel itself with either diesel or electricity when the need arises?

The bathrobe. That's your problem.

Aha; time for an obligatory Dilbert: https://dilbert.com/strip/1995-02-07

Re: Dissent

Do you have a citation for the implication of what you have said that a director of a UK (by which I _probably_ mean English or Welsh) company is legally obliged to accept collective responsibility for board decisions?

No, for the very simple reason that that is not what I asserted. I did not use the word "legally" so IMHO you have wilfully misrepresented what I said.

A Director and the Board of which he or she is a member is legally required to act in the best interests of the shareholders. (OK; it is not hard to argue about what is and is not in the best interests of the shareholders!) You are asking me to support a statement that I did not make.

Obviously if he does dissent outside board meetings, he is unlikely to endear himself to the existing establishment at Nominet - but I have a funny feeling that "endearing himself to the existing establishment at Nominet" is rather a long way down his list of priorities.

Both statements might well be true, but he must avoid running the risk that the "majority" of this or any other Board of Directors get so pissed off that they seek the removal of the dissenter(s) by way of a vote at an AGM / EGM, which is why I wrote Dissent has to be practised with care...

Re: No perfect compatibility within Office either

It's also disappointing how hard it is to draw even the simplest diagrams.

I wholeheartedly agree. Prior to retirement I did a lot of diagrams / drawings using the drawing capability in 3.11. We then migrated to (IIRC) NT and while most would open without problems some finished up with a lot of misalignment that required sorting out. New drawings were as easy as they had been with 3.11.

In retirement I was able to do such drawing as I still wanted to do using XP on a desktop; no changes from earlier versions that I could identify. The laptop I then acquired offered me all the benefits of W7, one of which wasn't the ability to do drawings easily / at all.

I reluctantly had to retire the PC using XP and migrated to W10 (no great surprise there!) and found the same problems with the drawing tools as I had encountered in W7.

A serious retrograde step IMHO.

Change is inevitable; progress is not.

We never worked out how he managed to cause a transistor (I think it was) to lose its magic blue smoke.

Sometimes it does not require any external action to cause this, or something similar. Half a lifetime ago a colleague and I had a radio base station* open on the bench; it wasn't faulty - IIRC we were modifying the EEPROM program that master - minded the remote-control system.

We made some changes and were sitting back after checking that our changes had had the desired effect when the (large) room suddenly filled with what I can only describe as a "Dayglo - Grey" fog.

On later investigation we found that a small tantalum capacitor in the power supply had developed a tiny anus through which it had farted an inordinate quantity of magic smoke of a quite startling appearance; it was truly impressive.

We then found that the equipment continued to function perfectly well despite this loss so rather than spend quite a long time stripping the PSU apart to replace the exhausted capacitor we just left it as it was.

As Steve Kerr also said... truly Fun times.

* A Storno CQF6334 for anyone interested...

Truss was selected because she actually espoused policies that the party membership could support.

That may be true, but for myself I would have preferred policies based on pragmatism rather than party dogma.

I feel more than a little let down, but at my age I doubt if I have any right to be surprised. She would have been better to find a policy / policies that would have the support of the wider electorate, not just those who happen to be card - carrying members.