* Posts by Confucious2

42 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Dec 2022

DeepSeek limits new accounts amid cyberattack

Confucious2

Re: “your conversations and data are stored in China”

You will have to say they are the good guys if you want anything to work…

Confucious2

Reply

I’m not surprised DeekSeek have not replied, have you tried contacting DeepSeek?

Brits must prove their age on adult sites by July, says watchdog

Confucious2

Re: Age verification

Then they should block adult sites on PAYG SIMs unless you can prove your age. For contract SIMs you already have. Not that difficult.

Shove your office mandates, people still prefer working from home

Confucious2

Re: Just a thought

Why? You are paid for the work you do, not where you do it.

Confucious2

I took a job during Covid where the office was 90 miles away. I went in once a week.

I moved house and the office is now 110 miles away and I started going in once a fortnight.

My manager said my change in working practice had been noticed, but as it was working it wasn’t a problem.

It very much depends on the job. I’m in my 60s and know what I’m doing, but it must be difficult for youngsters who are still learning.

I’d hate to not go in at all (tried that with another role, it didn’t last long) but my job was mainly remote from the start.

For me, it’s meant I could move to a lovely village in the countryside rather than live in a town with good train connections to London.

Forcing people to go back for no reason is pointless, but, if people are more productive in the office that is a good reason.

No one size fits all.

Asda decided on a 'no go' for 'mass rollout' of store IT conversion

Confucious2
Facepalm

No go?

I’ve seen projects where the management is to scared to say no go even if they know it will be a disaster, so kudos to them for having the balls to do so.

But a go live in December? As others have said, that should have been enough for a no go flag months ago. It’s not just retail that have freezes in December.

I hope it works for them and the support staff don’t end up having to do even more overtime over Christmas and the NewYear.

Google Timeline location purge causes collateral damage

Confucious2

All the people

As with most things, you will never please all of the people. Whatever they did people would complain.

I didn’t even know this feature existed so am probably better off having my history deleted, not that it would have unduly bothered me if it wasn’t.

Who had Pat Gelsinger retires from Intel on their bingo card?

Confucious2

Cheap 80486

My company bought me an 80486 when you could get one for less than £4K

By the time it was upgraded to 5 Mb RAM and a massive 100Mb HD the price was actually £5650

Windows 95 setup was three programs in a trench coat, Microsoft vet reveals

Confucious2

Win 95?

I’m still not sure what all the fuss about Win95 was, it was Win 3.0 that made the real difference, that was the one I waited for and installed on the day of release and then had to figure out how to get Lotus123 to access all that extra memory.

That was a good day.

Win 95 just gave us a pretty interface but no real benefit that anyone could make use of.

Apple hit with £3 billion claim of ripping off 40 million UK iCloud users

Confucious2

I ran out of 50Gb years ago, next level is 2Tb which was £6.99 until they put it up to £8.99/ month.

I wasn’t happy, but pay for the convenience.

£70? Yippee - the lawyers will be the only ones making money while tying up the legal system on a case which will almost certainly fail. I’m not holding my breath.

Apple drops soldered storage for 2024 Mac Mini

Confucious2

80486

The first 80486 computer my company got me had its memory soldered to the motherboard.

It had 1Mb but you could upgrade it by adding another 4Mb taking the total to 5 Mb - which was a bit pointless as nothing could access more than 4.

It was the first 80486 to cost less than £4k but, by the time they had upgraded the memory and the HD to a massive 100Mb it actually cost £5695

Luckily I wasn’t paying because that was quite a bit back then.

Want to feel old? Excel just entered its 40th year

Confucious2

123 rules.

Lotus 123 was far,far better than Excel.

The only reason people moved to Excel is because IBM bought Lotus for Lotus Notes and stopped developing 123

Eventually Excel was the only option but still isn’t a full 3D spreadsheet like 123 was.

Lotus Improv was brilliant - until you added one more dimension and found 4Mb RAM wasn’t enough.

UK ponders USB-C as common charging standard

Confucious2

Why?

The EU has already decided so there is no way the UK could decide on anything different. No one will make a UK specific version, so it is a total epwaste of government time considering this, but that’s what they are best at,

Energy companies told to recharge for AI datacenter surge

Confucious2
Pint

Choice?

Does this mean people will have to chose between having intelligence or driving an electric car?

Mozilla patches critical Firefox vuln that attackers are already exploiting

Confucious2

Re: Yada Yada

Yes please, I’m to lazy to read the whole thing.

Bank of America app glitch zeroes out people's balances

Confucious2
Childcatcher

Re: Cash is king

I have some cash for emergencies, I believe I withdrew it before Covid.

Having some for emergencies is sensible, but people don’t still actually use it, do they?

Apple ropes off at least 4 GB of iPhone storage to house AI

Confucious2

The Apple lock down is exactly why I like it. It just works without me wasting hours of my life trying to get it to do what I want.

Maybe I’m just getting old, but I love my Apple devices and the ease of use.

AWS claims customers are packing bags and heading back on-prem

Confucious2

Outsourcing

It’s the same as any other service.

You will get someone in that writes a business case that proves you will save millions by outsourcing.

A couple of years later, after you have, someone else comes in that writes a business that proves you will save millions by bringing it back in house.

A couple of years later, after you have, someone else comes in that writes a business that proves you will save millions by outsourcing again.

If you actually made 1/10 of the savings, after a few iterations they would actually be paying you.

So you paid a ransom demand … and now the decryptor doesn't work

Confucious2

Re: Backups!

I worked for a small company and we did grandfather, father, son backups daily.

So when our server was stolen, no problem, right?

Well, no, the director who did the backups himself and was sup to take the tapes home to his fireproof safe, didn’t. He left the tapes on top of the server, so the thieves nicked them as well.

D’Oh!

1.7M potentially pwned after payment services provider takes a year to notice break-in

Confucious2

Apology?

Why should they issue an apology? That would suggest they were sorry.

They have done the minimum required by law, what more can be expected of them?

To patch this server, we need to get someone drunk

Confucious2

Re: 'Exit interview'

I worked for a company once which didn’t have a high turnover of staff.

Every exit interview was read out at the board meetings, so the board got to hear what people thought, warts and all.

They actually cared, which could be why they didn’t have a high turnover.

Russia tells citizens to switch off home surveillance because the Ukrainians are coming

Confucious2
Facepalm

Turn off?

Is it just me that thinks it is odd that the advice for unprotected systems is to turn them off rather than just protect them?

Under-fire Elon Musk urged to get a grip on X and reality – or resign

Confucious2

Re: I Feel Sorry For GB

I feel really sorry for the USA where they have “Free Speech “ that allows people to lie with impunity.

It looks a lot like VMware just lost a 24,000-VM customer

Confucious2

Re: What an absolute s**tshow

Broadcom should have sold all their stock as soon as they announced it, the advice was good.

Meta, Spotify break Apple's device fingerprinting rules – new claim

Confucious2

Re: You can't go after the 800 pound gorillas off the bat

Slightly off topic, but I don’t know anyone who uses Apple Maps, here in the UK it is absolutely useless.

I try it occasionally as people say it’s improved a lot but still find it a waste of space.

My wife and I have 3 iPads and two iPhones between us and love everything about Apple - except Maps.

Microsoft confesses April Windows update breaks some VPN connections

Confucious2

Re: VPN

The Virtual ones.

Attacks on UK fiber networks mount: Operators beg govt to step in

Confucious2

Death?

I disagree with the death penalty in almost all cases, but I think they should make an exception for interrupting my internet service.

Musk tells advertisers to 'go f**k' themselves as $44B X gamble spirals into chaos

Confucious2

Fine line

There is a fine line between genius and lunacy.

Elon Musk seems to cross it regularly.

Excel Hell II: If the sickness can't be fixed, it must be contained

Confucious2

Lotus

Lotus 123 was a much better spreadsheet than Excel (it was 3d for a start) but, unfortunately IBM killed it off when they bought Lotus for Notes.

Criminals go full Viking on CloudNordic, wipe all servers and customer data

Confucious2

Re: Where are the backups?

I was at a small company once and we did full grandfather/father/son backups onto tape.

It didn’t help us when some oiks walked in and nicked our server.

The director, who was supposed to take the tapes home each night and lock them in a fireproof safe, had got complacent and left the tapes on top of the server. Of course the oiks nicked them as well…

Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries

Confucious2

I buy iPhones because they work. No fuss, no hassle. I don’t want a replaceable battery or other software stores. If I did I’d buy Android.

Why does the EU have to interfere and make things worse?

Amazon confirms it locked Microsoft engineer out of his Echo gear over false claim

Confucious2

Rent

You only ever rent stuff from Amazon.

I bought something of Amazon France and, after my Debit Card and Credit Card were both used to subscribe to Amazon Prime in France I decided to cancel my Amazon France account as I almost certainly will not be buying from them again.

Of course, I lost all the digital content I ever bought from them. Kindle didn’t want to know, but, big shout out to Audible who, even though they are owned by Amazon, gave me back all the Audible books I could prove I’d bought.

I still use Alexa for convenience so I’m guessing most people here will think I’m stupid for not setting up my own Linux based system and writing my own books and making my own films etc.

The FBI as advanced persistent threat – and what to do about it

Confucious2

Re: Baseband processor

I was just wondering how many people I’ve killed.

I’m sure lots must have died of boredom analysing my data.

Pixies keep switching off my morning alarm, says Google Pixel owner

Confucious2

Requires internet connection?

I’m not sure about Google, but I assume it is similar to Alexa. I wake up to the radio each morning and, on the admittedly very rare occasions, when it can’t connect to the internet it just uses a standard alarm noise.

If you like waking up to an alarm noise every morning, good for you, but some of us prefer either the radio or our own songs.

Your security failure was so bad we have to close the company … NOT!

Confucious2

Re: Refuelling

I didn’t need to prank my boss, he did a good enough job himself.

He was late for work one day and we eventually got it out of him.

He had recently bought a 911 and went to the petrol station, filled up with petrol and the car wouldn’t start. He called the AA who had to take him and the car back to his house.

No problem, he just took the nanny’s car, went to the same petrol station and filled up with petrol.

The problem was, the nanny’s car was diesel.

I’m not sure how the AA man kept a straight face as he was called to the same petrol station by the same man for a second time.

We certainly didn’t keep straight faces.

With a mighty hand, and an outstretched arm, Musk scraps Pope's blue tick

Confucious2

Who cares

I used to use Twitter but closed my account when Elon Musk bought it.

I’m sure they miss me exactly the same amount as I miss them.

Microsoft-Activision deal will hurt UK gamers, says watchdog

Confucious2

Do people still play call of duty?

Google works on Blink-based iOS browser contrary to Apple's WebKit rule

Confucious2

I use Apple products because there is no competition. I don’t want to have a myriad of stores and multiple apps that all do very similar things.

Just give me the Apple Store where I know things will work.

If you want choice, fine, buy Android. Nothing wrong with that, but please don’t ruin Apple products because you want it to be like Android.

Windows 11 still not winning the OS popularity contest

Confucious2

Re: Awwwww, poor Microsoft

My personal laptop is a few year old Lenovo and it wouldn’t let me upgrade to Windows 11 (which I like) but as I’ve only turned it on about twice in the past three years I’m not that bothered.

iPads do everything I need for personal use, it’s only work that I need a decent PC and multiple monitors for.

But that’s just me.

US chip group: $52b is not enough, we need an extra $30b in federal funding

Confucious2

Communism

Sounds like communism to me…

Salesforce calls some workers back to the office amid slowing sales

Confucious2

Sometimes…

Sometimes in person meetings are better.

I tend to go into the office one day a week to have in person meetings, most of which could be done over teams so I don’t have to, but I still do.

This doesn’t sound like a mandated return to work rather than ‘we think it would be good for business’ if you do.

Mandated return to work when there is no benefit is bad, if it actually makes a difference then there is nothing wrong with it. IMHO.

Intruders get their hands on user data in LastPass incident

Confucious2
Trollface

Can they tell me my master password?

I lost my master password so can’t get into my vault many years ago.

If the hackers would let me know what it is I could get back in to my account.