Posts by John Brown (no body)

Or tile the poll with a QR code and rick-roll the AI :-)

Re: cost vs return

"so that makes it net positive."

Well, it certainly might be for the supplies of those camo nets on poles the military use :-)

Re: Imagine hacking the source data ...

The article stated satellite photos, and since it's Google involved, it's going to be Google Earth/Maps imagery they are using. Yes, I know it's not all Sat imagery, some is simple aerial photography. Some of that imagery could be years old though. On the other hand, considering the money spent on this project, they may have paid for new and current actual sat imagery.

Re: 30% error rate!

About 50-100% of them, give or take a 50% error rate :-)

Re: 30% error rate!

"to sew wildflower seeds next year"

You'll need a very fine needle to do that. Just don't drop it into the stack of last years leftover hay.

It all sounds a bit fiddly and time consuming to me. You might be better just sowing them in the garden instead.

Re: Pool or pond

Risky. Especially if you decide you want to change the contents of the pond for the latest fashion in reeds or Koi. You might end up with protestors camping out in your garden and building tree-houses to "protect" the Great Crested Newts that you once claimed were there to avoid taxes :-)

Re: Chemicals & Services

Yes, for almost every purchase or service most people will ever need, you pay someone to do the job and/or deliver the service. But anything to do with "building", you "employ" a builder. And most seem to not carte about whether you know what you are doing if it's right or not. After all, you only "employed" them to do what you asked. If it all goes pear-shaped, then *you* should have also "employed" a surveyor, architect, project manager etc. Can you imagine if that was the case when having gas or electrical work done? (Which you probably also are if it;s a big job)

Re: If it steers boots on the ground to double check

"I wonder how many unauthorised extensions it would find in the UK ?"

Depends on how big and when built, it might not change the taxable value anyway. Lots of extensions can be built simply by getting them approved by Buildings Regs, no planning consent needed, especially if they are not visible from the front of the property. A pool may require a structural survey because of the weight and how it may affect nearby foundations, but unless the improvements are likely to change the tax band (and even then, IIRC only if/when you sell it) it's unlikely to be relevant.

For non-UK peeps reading, the Council Tax (property tax) is based on your property falling into one of 5 or 6 valuation bands, not the actual value of the property itself so everyone in a particular tax band pays the same amount. If it's currently near the bottom of one band, that allows for a decent increase in value by improving it before it might cross over into the next higher tax band.

Re: If it steers boots on the ground to double check

Maybe planning permission wasn't sought. After all, if you want a swimming pool and don't want to pay the increased valuation tax, obviously you don't want anyone in officialdom to know about it.

Re: a place in hell

"An understandable precaution, but surely it could present the name prefilled and ask for confirmation that's the patient you want so you don't have to type the whole name again?"

What? Like "There has just been an error. Here's the code to report to the helpdesk. Click OK to make it go away before you bother to read it and report it"

If a user has to click something to make a box go away, they will very quickly get into the habit of just clicking the box and NEVER checking what the box is there for or why. Windows users especially have been trained for years to click OK on dialogue boxes to make them go away. Especially what UAC first came along and it was an annoyingly constant "feature" for many.

Re: Just remember...

I've posted this before. I went to a client site because their backup tape drive had failed. The "fault", which no one had noticed 'till then, was that all the backup tapes had "expired". The person responsible for changing the tapes would pull the old one, pre-ejected, out in the morning, then just before leaving would put the next overnight tape in. No one ever noticed that it would spend a minute or two examining the tape, making whirring noises for a while as it read the tape headers and then immediately ejected it. So I called their head office, the people who called me out, to tell them. The tape was about 9 months past it's "use by" date, as was probably every backup tape across every one of the local offices all over the UK. I'm not sure if they had not set up the the option for the backup system to email success/failure or if the emails were going to to someone no longer with the company. Either way, this large UK insurance company had no local office backups at all, across their entire business.

I'm not sure exactly what was supposed to be backed up, but I'd imagine a lot of their stuff was on a mainframe at HQ since lots of people, while running Windows (3.11 I think), most of them were in terminal sessions. But there was definitely the sound of a bum clenching as I reported the situation to HQ IT.

Re: Stack popped reading that procedure....

That sounds like a wordy and overly complicated way of saying it's a Tower of Hanoi problem :-)

Re: Fun with Children

Already been done. I think there might have been a TV show, not sure, but I am sure I've seen this sort of thing on YouTube where young kids are given tech gadgets from before they are born and left to discover how to make them work. Things like wonder how to skip a track or read the playlist on Walkman, boot up a Commodore 64 etc :-)

Re: Pointless laws are pointless

"and the nuclear power stations are being shut off at the end of the year,"

Did I not just read somewhere they reversed that decision?

Re: Pointless laws are pointless

"but because I want to rub the noses of the nuclear supporters in it."

So, to be clear, you are hoping for another nuclear accident and that people likely will die, purely so you can say "I told you so?"

Nice.

Re: Pointless laws are pointless

"I have to imagine that if we can apply 40 or 50 or more years of gained operational knowledge, a brand-new fission reactor will be better, cheaper and safer than ones built two generations ago that are running today - which are still supremely safe."

Whilst I agree with you, I'll just throw this thought into the ring. Institutional and corporate memory. How often do we hear "Lessons Have Been Learned" only for the same mistake to happen again some years later as "Those Who Learned" moved on. The nuclear design and engineering industry is quite small too.

Re: Exceptions for such dual-purpose signs have been arranged.

"A printed note isn't going to work for something like a major train station timetable."

Admittedly I don't use trains all that often, but don't "major train stations" have dedicated timetable displays? People need to refer to them all the time, so AFAIK don't ever show adverts anyway.

Re: New cremation technique!

So, surely burial is the best option then, not burning nor chemical decomposition. "Worm food" surely has to be the best, almost energy-free, no pollutants of any kind (body implants excepted)

Re: Not going to happen

Wherever possible, I'll stick buying outright. ICE cars aren't going away for a few years yet, probably not for decades on the 2nd hand market. Being able to buy fuel, easily and conveniently for them, will most likely become a problem before the ability to obtain one does :-)

I'm just at the start of beginning to seriously consider replacing my current car. I might look at hybrids, but I've no idea if it's safe to be looking at 2nd hand there yet or consider only new. With my daily mileage, leasing costs get very high and even though it's used for business, I get a car allowance from my employer which is taxed as earnings. I can't claim tax back in the car in any way.

Re: El Reg forgot the customary headline!

Taking the piss out of CA especially and the US in general probably isn't allowed under the new North American English style guide :-)))

It's a proposed ban on the sale of ICE cars. Even if that was nationwide, it's be at least 20 years before most ICE cars were scrapped and off the road, probably much longer.

Re: SFTW

"especially since it's not like ElReg is the most "this is my serious face" example of reporting."

On the other hand, there does seem to be a slight slide towards more seriousness and little less frivolity in the headlines and sub-heads.

Paris is also gone. Coinkydink? Did she and Dabbsy elope? :-)

My response to a comment like that would something along the lines of "well, if you want to call someone out to fix something normally defined as user fixable, that's fine by me. Just remember that I'm not your personal servant and it may take some time to get around to tying your shoe laces for you.

Or I might be more diplomatic and simply point out a 10 second fix the user is normally expected to do themselves is far more productive of their own time than potentially waiting hours for someone to come out and do it for them.

Re: Photocopier challange

In a hire car with electric button press handbrake, I was very concerned that it might roll away when I parked half way up a steep hill when it moved a few inches after applying the brake. So I did what I normally would in that situation, but this time with a feeling that I really, really HAD to in this case, and left it in reverse with the front wheels turned into the kerb. I had no confidence that the electric hand brake was going to hold for a few hours.

Re: re: How do you add fuel?

A Volvo V90 PHEV that's only been filled up once every couple of months? It only has a range of 36 miles at best on battery. You must be a very low mileage driver or that's quite an expensive option for a run-about-town car.

Re: Photocopier challange

If you live on a busy, main road, they you indicate left and brake while pulling slightly out ready to reverse in, slowing in advance to give the driver behind a clue as to what you are about to do. I'd much rather take that chance than trying to reverse out onto that self-same busy main road with heavy traffic!

Re: Photocopier challange

It's also a little cheaper. Reversing is using the worst gear for fuel consumption and can often involve a little more manoeuvring. Also, parking usually happens with a warmed up engine running with the auto-choke/fuel management at leanest fuel use. Pulling away is usually with a cold engine at it's most fuel hungry so driving out forwards will usually be smoother and quicker in forward rather than reverse. Not to mention that frequent practice at reversing into a parking space makes you more spatially aware, a better driver, and for more likely to get into a parking spot that other less experienced people might ignore or give up on when they can't drive forwards into it, eg parallel parking.

Re: Photocopier challange

I must admit I don't often turn around to look when reversing. A properly adjusted rear view mirror in combination with properly set wing mirrors should be all you need in most circumstances, eg I set my wing mirrors so I can *just* see the door handles, and aimed slightly down so I can see the white lines of the parking bay as I start to reverse into it but still see a proper long distance when driving too. Obviously I also look around to see if or where any people might be and what they are doing, but I don't crane my neck around to physically look behind.

I've never hit anyone or anything when reversing. Or going forwards either, for that matter :-)

Reverse assists can be useful too. My car just has beepers the increase speed as I get closer. I've driven others with visual proximity indications and with rear view cameras. All are good, but tend to be over optimistic (or is that pessimistic?) with the distance you are from the object. They all take practice to learn to use properly. The first time I used proximity sensors I found the gap was much larger than I expected.

Re: Photocopier challange

"Firstly, in the UK at least, it's perfectly legal to remove your seatbelt while reversing - this is to allow you to turn in your seat as required in order to be able to see properly. Audi should know that."

That sounds like one of the laws put in place when seat belts were first mandated and were fixed in place, manually adjustable, rather then the retractable style we now have. I've not felt the need to remove a seatbelt so I could turn around for a reverse manoeuvrer in many, many years.

Re: car in reverse, but it was driving forward

"I just made sure I parked it in places where I could drive off forwards or was on a slope so that it would roll backwards without any problems!"

Certain Bubble Car drivers have sympathy with you :-)

Re: Photocopier challange

"Next day there was a sign over each copier saying "to print duplex - press this button", to shrink A3 to A4 - press ... this other button."

Even today, it find a lots of people in offices don't know what "duplex" means. They do usually know how print "double sided" or "print on both sides". I could imaging a sign stating which button to "print duplex" would stump some people :-)

Re: Conference Confusion

Marketing don't sit with Sales.

Design don't sit with Engineering.

Nobody sits with Accounting or HR.

IT don't get invited.

Re: Accountants and modern technology

"What a lot of technology appears to have done is simply exchange one form of grinding toil for another."

New "grinding toil" has been invented to replace the rows upon rows of people who used to do certain kinds of grinding toil but were displaced by a very few people doing that grinding toil assisted by technology. Keynes envisaged those rows of people at desks being assisted by technology to the extent that those same rows of people would still be there, just for fewer hours. Instead, most of them were fired

Re: How to make an ISP disappear

"So much for the internet routing around damage."

The rest of the worlds internet DID route around the damage. It's your fault that YOU couldn't route around the damage by depending on only a single provider :-)

Re: I won't be surprised....

True, but as yet, no one else doing it commercially, if at all, while SpaceX landing and re-use of first stages is now so common-place it's almost boring. Most landings don't even make the news any more.