[Richard]

While I have some limited sympathy for the students, marching round and sometimes getting drawn in to running fights does not feel like the best way to get a job. Selecting a course which has good prospects rather than simply what someone ‘might like to do’ is a starting point. My daughter spent a while working in a school when she got her degree, she learned a lot about schools and their mafia, but above all she learned she never wanted to work in a school, ever. She revised storage to separate sources of ignition from flammable materials only to learn that her maternity relief put them in alphabetical order which broke all the hazardous materials rules. She got back into her specialisation after that thrilling episode.

However exactly what does anyone expect such a march to achieve? Jobs need to have a purpose and someone to ‘pay the piper’. To hear that they want jobs and cannot find work, while employers are having to import workers at all levels,  with more at the higher skills levels, not just potato pickers and other seasonal low grade work suggests something is seriously out of kilter. I do not know what but doubt that a march will find the answer to that either.

So cards on the table, yes the housing situation is a mess with cheap housing only in areas where no one wants to work. Yes there are pockets of youth unemployment, though not currently as bad as I much of mainland European locations, where educational levels are often higher. Let us agree that both suggest some structural issues. Maybe our training is not as good as it should be, e.g the recent training of midwives who do not get taught how to use equipment before qualifying, result brain damaged babies. Or those who go on courses of several hundred students when the market needs a few tens of graduates per year. That sound pretty structural to me. Or where we need apprenticeship level candidates but too few are being produced.

I agree that housing in the South East is loony tunes land. My daughter wonders if she should sell up and move her family elsewhere, they would loose a couple of thousand pounds a year income between her husband and her without the same allowances, but could buy two houses for the price of their present home. A structural issue or not?

Something does need to change but I seriously doubt a march will see that happen.

[Richard]

Sadly the psychopaths of the UnIslamic State were hoping for the effects that their brain dead ‘brother’ scum has produced, – fear and loathing. The press will not have disappointed them with their over hyping of whatever ‘stories’ they can dig out or failing that make up. (I have run Press Centres in a distant past life, I could see the event and compare to fantasies.)

I thought long and hard about responding at all. However, I am not at one with some of what you said ED. In general our official public officials are supposed to report only established facts based on evidence, a concept increasingly unfashionable in the alternative facts, (or should that be phacts) USA. Others may be less constrained. To my mind no one covered up (though the cheap shot is easy) there were many reports of the incident, useful detail is the missing part. Then there is the question of useful to whom?

I do not need to know how many arms and legs were blown off or how this that or the other person was affected, I do know the effects of PTSD and I have heard how to make those effects worse.

I am with you ED on interviewing those intimately affected. I find it deeply abhorrent and offensive. They may need to give unvarnished witness statements to aid investigations, but in private, sympathetic surroundings. Filling press and TV with endless mindless loop tapes of their suffering aids no one, it subtracts from the value of life.

Details of the method would have taken time to clarify, suicide or unlucky bystander? I am with slow and established rather than shout from the lip and get it wrong with a page 200 retractions.

[Richard]

As a sort of belate addendum, I agree on the use of so called PFI as an example of ‘Mortgaging the grandchildren by another name’ it ranks along with many other slight of hand efforts, like keeping civil service pensions off books as another example of ‘Mortgaging the grandchildren by another name’.

Some of the really crass and stupid PFI contracts can take your breath away, a routine rat catcher visit cannot deal with an actual infestation report, that has to be another visit paid for during the life of the faulty contract. Change a light bulb ditto, repair a sink and so on. Those are OP EX NOT damned capital projects DON’T CAPITALISE THEM for the benefit of others. Though it should be noted that pension funds are a prime investor in PFI contracts, I dare not check on my fund.

Also, COW in the above message was of course Clerk of Works.

[Richard]

While I agree that action on the final segment of life costs and care is well overdue Incidentally some such costs are in the process of being greatly increased for those who need overnight on call support and suppliers might yet stop supplying the services.

I am sorry ED that is just now how it was for me back in the late 1960s early 1970s. I looked to buy a house and found the likely price range. I started to save and saved about what I thought that I would need for a deposit, prices doubled while I saved, (which incidentally saved me from risking such a hell hole as Luton).

I missed out on what appears to have been a golden chance at the time. A major road scheme decimated prices in one London area and I might have been able to buy a flat in London for silly money, something like 25% of the previous asking prices. Two years later the scheme completed and prices went up almost over night by a factor of five, last time I looked some 10 or 20 years back the places were well over £500,000, I could have paid well less than £3,000 back in the day.

I had the chance to work overseas so I took it, adventure and pay, great. I saved, at times we saved a great deal more than we spent. Perhaps we were cheapskates but we bought a house that way. Some small legacies came along and together with savings we paid off the mortgage early, I have been mortgage free since 1980, all those 18 hour days and seven day working weeks helped. to pay for something.

When we returned we sold the old house and bought a new one as we were by then a family of four and space was needed.

Since then, our daughter bought a house seven years back. It needed work as it was a re-possession. Back then I could do some of the work and act as the COW and pay for other things. Yes I also ‘very soft loaned’ them some money. Interest rates on deposit were crap anyway and still are so they pay me back, slowly and some legacies have cleared bits of the debt and bought them a close to new car. Due to efforts to save they have overpaid on their mortgage and sometimes reduced the term and other times reduced the repayment rate. They would like to move on as the house is quite small and now with two children they would like the space. They are not part of the ‘experience generation’, live just outside the edge of London and yes they have received some help from us – while we were still alive. However that relied on prudent steps we had taken in the past.

As I set out above my parents paid out hugely for their end of life care, though father’s cost was met to some extent by his pension.Their whole cost bundle was met by them, the state ran screaming from the room and refused all approaches.

In one of my best investment moves ever I made sure my pension was as topped up as it could be paying in the maximum the tax rules allowed at the time. Because of work demands I had not taken all the paid leave I had accumulated and that was folded into the pension rather than have a ‘good experience or two’.

Perhaps that is the difference, you would have marched, to doubtful effect. I worked long and hard to make and take the chances life offered to me.

[Richard]

I have read all the clap trap about Dementia Tax from the Corbynistas and wonder where any reality might creep in. I dealt with my mother’s and father’s affairs. She had vascular dementia for years and father suffered the effects. They both lived into their 90s and mother’s trouble started about 2005. There was NO financial help for either of them, they had to pay for everything though mother, as a result of her condition did not want to have any very expensive helper come into her home.

In fact the helper was probably paid about £5.50 per hour at the time but it cost my parents nearly £20 per hour, that not the helper’s pay slip was the figure I saw. I think my parents even paid for travel time, was the helper paid that money? After a year or two mother had to go into a home and the council and anti social service moved heaven and earth to avoid paying anything at all for her. When they found she owned a half share of the house and had some money in her own right, the anti social services left burn marks on the path as they ran away.

Mother was bed ridden, could not feed herself, move or do anything except be craned into and out of bed. I arranged payment for everything so I know how expensive it was. Though I have not bothered to total all of the bills exactly it was close to £150,000, father was in a home for less time so his bill was only about £90,000. So their total was not far short of quarter of a million pounds. So what is going to change now? Oh yes if you need home help the user might also have to pay something for that, tell me pray where is that robbing the young?

Paying four times what the helper is getting paid is a disgrace I admit, but if the consumer of the care does not pay, who does? The young, active possibly tax payer?

Frankly, a cyanide pill or any other similar is my preferred answer compared to God’s very expensive unpleasant waiting room.

[Richard]

Thank you Dave for giving an answer that eluded me in previous searches.

Surely though, if the target only supports SMBv1, then its target should be the skip?

That way it will not become the source of further problems.

Thank you ED, I will try to look into Wireshark (again), I can see I did look into it a little back in 2015 as I have a PDF of instructions relating to its capabilities, though the reason for my then interest eludes me now. I believe that I have removed all chance of SMBv1 existing on my network with the possible exception of the de-powered and unused Windows XP machine that have not yet been cannibalised. They would have their capabilities ‘modified’ before they would ever be used, though they do have some old files (and storage space) available – if they still work. Looking will not be today as there are too many other distractions, interruptions and appointments planned for me to handle already.

[Richard]

OOPs I should have said a bit of cheap tat is not a £1~3 million scanner in my earlier posting.

Dave, does file explorer have to mean SMBv1? I have turned off SMBv1 and register blocked it in the server, yet file explorer still works into my server, so I am a bit puzzled.

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

Richard –  That is no excuse for the Buffalo device. I do agree that devices should no longer be sold defaulting to an obsolete standard, but Buffalo et al will have a devil of a problem convincing naive customers that it is their fault for trying to connect to an ancient router/switch etc., and that the problem sits squarely on their obsolete kit.

Original message truncated to save space, Buffalo and all others should be called out over their use of fully depreciated and unsuitable comms in their crapware. I understand the point about new things not working with old junk, it happened with rather newer items such as printers and scanners being rendered unusable without them carrying any such risks. If someone wants to continue with something best supplied by Steptoe and Sons no one can really stop them, but at least they should know the issues.

However, why should other folk have to suffer the side effects of this stupidity? A cheap NAS is not a 1, 2 or more pounds health supporting scanner when all is said and done. Were the crap modems/NASs/miscellaneous other crap the real reason for problem?

Perhaps drawing attention to the NHS suffering due to SMBv1 and noting that the Buffalo (and possible other OEM) crap wants users to suffer the same fate, might spur some to action. I still fancy a class action style assault on these bozos. Shipping the more reliable option disabled is plain stupid and some means of stopping them needs to be found.

I agree that the historical picture is both sordid and complex.

[Richard]

Dave, One has to ask why?

So their slogan is :

Forward to the Past with Buffalo

I trust they mark the crap not to be used with Windows, though I guess not.

Trades description act anyone?

[Richard]

Agreed ED, driving out there was something else. While in Iran we knew the food service had been fast if there were only two accidents outside the window, three was average and anything above three usually ment slow service.

I had an office accident with a newly polished floor and was in hospital for a month in another country. The nurses said the chap in the next door room had been in one night, he had somersaulted his car across the desert for well over 100 yards. He was fine, the car was not. Another judgement free bunch were doing well over 100 in a 40 limit they encountered one of the old buses, that looked more like a wooden top on a long lorry chassis. They tried to fit underneath but it was too tight a squeeze so they moved it about 30 yards up the road, neither they or the now banana shaped bus went any further.

The wags all suggested a long causeway should be built with a kink as a sort of brain tester…

[Richard]

Thank you ED, that was interesting, very interesting. Were those Windows 7 machines running current patch levels since it was supposed to have been patched via the recent patch release? I was unable to find the current patch status of my WHS system with regard to SMBx, though it was up to date, so I resorted to the manual registry patch, which was a nerve bending to say the least. I have seen no issues to date, but apart from some elderly attached devices, scanners, printers and the like I have no devices likely to have been affected. I have seen no problems with my Windows 10 machines, where I did perform the Control Panels fix and disabled the option, even though they too were patched up to date.

The SMB version in dispute dates back to the last century with Windows 98, which few are currently using – (I assume) and has been vigorously depreciated since then. Any, no make that ALL makers who want to use such a service should be forced to also ensure the use of quill pens rather than suggest users do anything as stupid as to force perpetuating discredited systems. I wonder if the sales of goods acts would be any help for the private users of the crap devices that try to force them back into the 20th century?

[Richard]

I have been going through a migration for the past couple of months as a result of the Orange abandonment. The biggest issue is all the long established relationships yourhad which only produce a contact every few months. I am sure that I have a few which have been missed, on the other hand there are some that I cannot be bothered to sort out. Then there are the scammers who have been having a field day since Orange decided to give up. For some reason their main activity is pushing dubious diet pills. Another pest sends a few mails a day straight to my junk mail bucket. Ah so soon to become history.

As for the original enquiry my feeling is why bother with someone who has no regard for what they think of as their business? If they are so cavalier in the face of clearly established risks to the business, what other stupidities are they also harbouring? The old address is clearly rubbish, possibly due to bad business practises as much as to anything else.

Do not try to help them, they are beyond help, but when they inevitably fail, your involvement will ensure you will be seen as the cause of their problem. Run away while you still can.

[Richard]

I am unsure that the discussion about steam engine bits is really a true measure of mental skills. Apparently Paris bought a steam pumping engine to help clear the sewage problems they had at the time. The theory was that having bought and examined one they could develop their own solutions. It did not happen that way. Any new design had to pass through scientific examination by a range of skilled specialists in their own field, which had little relevance to steam engines of the time. this was a civil service type way. In other contexts a prototype could be built, operated and its weakness could be found and perhaps fixed by one person or a small team allowing rapid progress. Does this mean that the Paris staff were all silly, or feeble minded? No, they simply had a very risk averse set up that targetted the highest standards but took to long to get there. So it was with some German armaments, too complex and unsuited to field repair by ordinary field types it was hard to keep working and cannibalising stuff was not on.

In short context is all, the Victorians had far more to find out, far more freedom to find things out and often more scope to work through to the end. At school I rewired some of the school electric heaters from strip down to re-assembly and testing before they went back into service, I was about 14~15 at the time. I can just imagine how well that would fly now.

I decomposed some specialised computer programs in order to reprogram the training devices they ran. My mental image was of a train shunting yard moving data about until it arrived in the right place, all in HEX code, I had no assembler. I was not trained to do anything like that, I dug in and sorted it out. Along the way I also found short cuts to achieve the end result that surprised the original builders, what was different was that I had the freedom to do such things. Do many now get such freedom? I doubt it, the environment has become more restricted with far more written and, thanks to antisocial media unwritten rules about what can be said or cannot be said or done.

So many seek new objectives such as ‘experiences’ which appear to be high cost apparent thrills – all supposedly sanitised until someone gets killed when all hell breaks loose.

I am left wondering quite how well we are doing when I read today that midwives are qualified to work without ever getting proper training on the use of basic equipment leading to lost lives. Coroners are suggesting a bar on new recruits until the issue is resolved.

Where was the much vaunted ‘elf and safe tea’ – drinking their brew when this was allowed to happen?

It is not really the fault of the newly qualified but it was a serious error by those training and certifying them.

[Richard]

I agree, it is far from simple and basic, but probably well worth it in the long run. It can be a bit of a pain on the older systems with registry fixes.

[Richard]

I suspect that it is clear from the above posts that the subject is quite personal and a matter of personal taste. Unless you know what the person or people really want it is easy to send them off in a wrong directions. I have had an Amazon Fire stick for 12~ 18 months and have yet to find anything to watch. Mind you I find the menu less than helpful and its first up items do not draw me in. Others rave about it so I guess I am wrong, it happens.

The Humax range do give both a wonderful pause and other functions with access to a range of other services beyond the usual Freeview options

However, I do think that the starting point needs to be what do the users want? Then how can that be best served to them? Be aware a high channel count may be as useless as a fish bicycle, most of the channels may only show, e.g. telemarketing sales for most of the time

[Richard]

Yes, thank you ED, after posting my query I was tied up on a couple of things and was reading the Reg link while you were posting. I came back to post an answer to my own question only to find it was already there.

It does blow away the early suggestions that e-mail was involved such report with one confidently stating the mail’s title and possible contents… Sometime what gets reported is worse than the miner’s spoil heap or other ‘outflows’.

The speed with which makers churn out tat and fail to update it is a substantial source of concern, as is their willingness to use old routines that should have been discarded from packages a long time ago. Still it makes some of their kit cheap – though you might not recognise that fact from the prices they charge and very, very nasty. No one appears to dodge that accolade.

[Richard]

Dave Rice wrote:

I don’t see why these MRI scanners cannot be isolated on their own network with some kind of bridging third party machine performing a routing type function.

I totally agree, I did this 30 plus years ago and I was no rocket scientist. It really pissed off one of the suppliers who would have liked to sell some multi dollar device.

The point is that the medical content is NOT being messed with, the original is always there to be cross checked. It is only the file or files that gets passed without manipulation. A few £1~3 million scanners (and other devices) getting saved would normally justfy some effort and costs. They do not justify shoals of old device unprotected still littering the place.

Does anyone yet know the entry vector for the worm?

[Richard]

Wheels-Of-Fire wrote:

I have much the same problem but it covers my whole face. My beard grows in swirls so i cant shave with or against the grain. I can wet shave once but it leaves raised red bumps around the base of the stubble. If i try it again the next day then the rasor takes the tops off the bumps leaving me a mess. The only rasor I can use is the Philips rotary type but the one I have was about £200.

Watch out on Amazon, I cannot now remember what I paid but it was about half price for a Phillips 18 months back.

However, if you are having skin problems I suspect that it might be down to more than the razor. Soaps, shaving creams and after shaves could be the root of the issue. Treatments are available though those based on Minocycline, (doctor only) can cause severe problems if you are the wrong genetic type.

[Richard]

Bob, there is a huge problem with assigning any origin to a package since it is often made from a range of contributions, some more validly obtained than others. The only real way to is to back track where the evidence shows an audit trail. So far as I have seen, no one has done this.

Just like no one has really sorted out the ongoing issue of why so many foxes are let into the hen house in the first place. IP Goods come out of every door in every location so some like Snowden steal information, I have every confidence, but no proof that his colleges were doing whatever they felt like with the freedom they appeared to possess to act at will. Whatever  happened to proper vetting? Then there is the ‘Person Manning’, leave aside their obvious and traumatic personal issues; how come personal management and recruitment failed to realise there were personal issues lurking there? Now Disney have seen an attempt to blackmail them over lost goods rather in the mode of Sony. Am I the only one who sees a real evidence based pattern here? People are in roles doing things that were outside of their competency and managed by people who had their eyes somewhere else.

The above examples are simply a tiny representative few. In a way I do not care if it was Putin’s bent bears, FAT Boy Nork, the NSA or whomsoever who was really behind the release; I do care that the level of sloppy work gets to me.

There is growing evidence that the latest issue could equally well be the product of some bedroom ego maniac using cut and paste to build a model, or a scheme being used to cover something else while the world and dog plus flees on the dog tear their hair out over a successful distraction.

Perhaps it was all down to Fox trying to test the plot of a new film blockbuster with Murdock as …?

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

It is easy for a politician to speak out of both sides of his mouth. Politicians are well practised at buck passing or giving orders while simultaneously saying ‘No Extra Money’. My Hospital Trust invested wisely and avoided the IT problems but was placed in ‘special measures’ for ignoring budget constraints. Maybe yours was as well Richard! Anyway to turn to less contentious items and get the taste of Hunt out of my mouth; one piece of good news was that some Brit probably accidentally saved the world megabucks in productivity by stopping the Ransomware worm’s propagation dead in its tracks (at least for a time). Link to hero and his story – this could easily get Slashdotted as I think the individual only has a limited bandwidth.

Somehow they have avoided special measures though they have been slated for poor management of many aspects. Nursing care and most doctor care was rated good, but admin was between hopeless and terrible and over all management  appears to earn a crap* rating. One of the great achievements was to build something between a gypsy encampment and a Hoover city in the car park only to be told that they had to remove it as it had no planning permission. OOPs never mind it was not their money, it was partially from our tax payments. Oh and yes they have over spent.

Appointments were made for my daughter to be seen by a consultant throughout her pregnancy due to constant problems. The consultant who was never there, some of the ‘appointments’ were unknown to both the hospital and my daughter, she would turn up and the reception knew nothing, etc. Still the actual delivery suite was, I am told excellent. So sharp end, (where it mattered) good, blunt end crap. Some other clinical outcomes were less satisfactory due to the poor management from top down into those areas.

[Author]

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