Posts by Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

Russia bans foreign software purchases for critical infrastructure

Don't write those Russkies off just yet...

Don't write off those Russkies. They are very good at copying things. Just look at the awesome cinematic job they did with their homespun Lord of The Rings...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVwypiLatbo

National Security Agency employee indicted for 'leaking top secret info'

How did he get it out?

Perhaps he has a photographic memory and then he just typed it on his home computer and then sent it?

You did ask.

Next versions of both Fedora and Ubuntu head into beta

Fedora

I did the same with Fedora 35 and installed it in Virtualbox but ended up with the GNOME UI which I just don't like. But after installing both Cinnamon and KDE, I couldn't get either to work when trying to switch on login. Something wrong somewhere...

Capgemini wins contract to look after legacy HMRC Aspire tech

Won?

How can it have been "won" if there was no competition?

EU law threatening 'commercially painful changes' for tech out tonight

Hmmm...

"WhatsApp, owned by Facebook parent company Meta, will be asked to ensure they have the ability to send messages to users of an entirely different messaging platform."

I'm not sure that makes any difference as even if I was able to use Telegram or whatever to message friends who use WhatsApp, WhatsApp would still presumably get all of my user data. App use and popularity for this sort of stuff is driven by whomever shouts loudest and what is easiest to use - and unfortunately almost all of my non-IT contacts and friends use WhatsApp : which means that I still need to use WhatsApp.

'Enterprise' browser maker Island valued at $1.3bn out of the gate

My bet...

My bet is that this story is probably the last you'll ever hear of it in any positive manner.

Boys outnumber girls 6 to 1 in UK compsci classes

Re: The really interesting figures

Eh? What is the problem that you seem to think exists?

I think the stats prove that women are choosing to do more of what they want to, rather than choosing CompSci to fulfill some meaningless metric.

"girls are outnumbered six to one by boys in computer science classes across the UK."

Who cares. It's much better that boys and girls study whatever interests them most at degree level rather than worrying about some pointless metrics that are meaningless in relevance to the actual workplace anyway.

Russian demand for VPNs skyrockets by 2,692%

Hmmm...

Looking through their "top 5" I'm not so sure that Top10VPNs top list really takes privacy assurance seriously - over speed, number of global endpoints, and being able to un-geo-block your Netflix account. There are 2 in that list where it has been reported that have provided security agencies with user data, and one that was used by a criminal where he was identified and caught when the VPN in question dropped without him knowing, and had DNS leaks.

Choosing a VPN is a minefield I know, but their top 5 list looks a bit "sponsored" to me.

YMMV of course.

Reg reader rages over Virgin Media's email password policy

Re: Another issue with VM's password policies is...

I am with VM for broadband, and whilst I have no real love for their CS approach and team, in my experience they do also require additional methods of validating your identity when requesting changes to your products or services. I have phoned up several times in the past and they have asked for further combinations of other information such as last 3 or 4 digits of bank account or phone number, select digits from the account number, last bill date or value etc. amongst others.

UK govt signs IT contracts 'without understanding' the needs

But but but...

But there is always good money to be made in prolonging a problem - and it takes skill to do it properly. That view works from both the customer and supplier sides.

EU cuts off key Russian banks from SWIFT system

For my own part...

For my own part I've sent my mail-order bride back to her bearded mother in Magadan with the receipt.

On the upside it's a lot fucking quieter in the house, there is less mayonnaise in the fridge, and the kids will love the snow there.

BitConnect boss accused of $2.4bn crypto-Ponzi fraud has disappeared

Re: It's all a ponzi

It is. And then said exchange always seems to get "mysteriously hacked" and all the cash disappears.

Fools and their money though eh...

Apple has missed the video revolution

I'm no Hollywood editor...

I'm not into media production either as a hobby or for work - but have always had an interest. I was surprised at how powerful the tools are these days - at zero cost for personal use.

So during a lull last year I downloaded DaVinci resolve, all of the user guides and tutorials and taught myself how to use it with some rubbish stuff I had filmed on my iPhone. I'm not doing anything advanced with at all, but it runs perfectly well on my XPS laptop and I'm now even mucking about with some compositing and gnarly effects using their built in tools.

Then I stumbled across an ultra low budget UK movie on Prime called Cosmos which I really enjoyed and noticed they had used the same toolset for that.

Yes, Mark Zuckerberg is still pushing metaverse. Next step, language translation

"The kinds of experiences that you'll have in the metaverse are beyond what is possible today"

I feel sorry for all of the twats involved with this - they seem seriously deluded. It makes me happy though that Zuckertw@ has staked his companies future on this carcrash and is now in a hole he can't easily get out of.

Scottish universities launch £42m ERP tender

Re: "Universities across Scotland are clubbing together"

Like large companies with multi country divisions or operations they'll probably host it all on a central tower with each University having access to its own separate client and data.

The key to this is getting stakeholder and technical agreement on who owns what in terms of that central tower - and who makes the decisions when common or integration change is required.

Skills shortage puts SAP projects on hold

Re: $AP Con$ultant

About 15 years ago I worked on a big greenfield SAP programme in London - the lead SAP UK consultant drove a Lamborghini. He was a bit of an arrogant twat, but he also really knew his stuff.

Amazon, Visa strike global truce on credit card charges

Innovative payment experiences

I don't want anything innovative. I just want it them to ensure it is quick and secure.

Unless "innovative" in this context is about how to extract more form the customer under the radar.

UK's National Savings & Investments bank looks for new IT partner in £172m deal

Lollin' about...

"The contract is expected to have a one-year implementation period"

Haha, good luck with that. Assume this what the non-technical bean counters want, rather than actually speaking to the technical leads and planners to gauge what is actually possible?

Expect sales reps' calls if IT wants to ditch Oracle

No doubt about it, that Ellison is a bit of a w-anchor.

Won't someone think of the Oracle sales drones bonuses...

The end client company I am contracting for is currently and initially migrating all of its standalone databases away from Oracle to inform the wider Enterprise migration. The IT Directors plan is to get all the standalone stuff migrated and stable in in PROD first, and then he said he was looking forward to the look on the Oracle peoples faces when they do the licence audit. It seems as though the business case for doing so has put a large smile on the face of the CEO, Finance and Legal teams.

Joyous.

IBM HR chief insists 'no systemic age discrimination'

Genuine question...

I don't live or work in the US but I was just wondering how hard it would have been for him to just go and get another job? Obviously no-one has all of the details, but as a 15yr IBM'er, and in what sounds like a fairly middling exec role - he can't have been that hard up financially (I guess)?

I'm not judging or condoning anything or anyone, but living here in Europe, I just don't fathom how being laid off in itself would drive someone to suicide unless the whole culture of US working practice is toxic - or that there are other contributory factors at play.

English county council blasted for 'inept project management' in delayed SAP replacement

Conservative.

"I don't see where the money is being spent."

It's not - probably. They don't have to "earn" it, so why take any actual responsibility for spending it; and why on Earth would they spend public money on pragmatically and visibly improving things for the actual public anyway. The finance bods are probably hoarding it or, similar to the Iceland fiasco, "investing" it into dodgy schemes because everyone wants to be a hot shot hedge fund manager right? And to gain those bragging rights down the golf club.

HMRC: Contractors, don't worry about IR35 reforms in private sector 'cos it all went so well in public sector

I'm not surprised in the slightest that a lot of companies just took a "blanket in" approach when the HMRC assessment tooling itself can't be relied upon, and even if it does give an "outside" result, that HMRC won't take that as final. It was far far easier just to give ultimatums to the contractors to take the new working terms, or leave.

I guess I'm kind of lucky that my public sector end client did take it seriously and we are all agreed with QDOS that I remain outside.

D-Wave to go public after $1.2 billion merger deal with SPAC

SPAC?

SPAC had a totally different meaning when I was growing up. So I'm offended by the use of this term on behalf of less abled acquisition companies, who themselves aren't actually offended.

Re: Probability

And those 5 will never need more than 256k RAM.

Vice Society said to be behind digital break-in at UK umbrella and accounting group

Eh?

What on Earth do they expect Experian to be able to provide in terms of services in this instance, that they themselves shouldn't be providing their customers?

Experian are probably the last company I would want advising me or answering questions about any leaked personal and business data.

Play Store class action has £15m budget for defeating Google in London court

I'm sobbing crocodile tears for Google...

Surely nobody gives a flying f**k as long as the cases are being brought in good faith and in the correct manner, because the average Joe in the street (myself included) doesn't have a chance in hell of getting Google and other lawyered to the hilt big-tech companies to change their ways.

That's a signature move: How $320m in Ether was stolen from crypto biz Wormhole

Total scam...

This seemingly happens every single time.

1. Set up an unregulated crypto currency and an exchange.

2. Have lots of sad idiots pile cash into it.

3. Have the crypto cash "mysteriously stolen".

It's a scam.

US Senate to vote on stopping Big Tech extracting 'monopolist rent' from app developers

Thank you Bruce...

We owe you a beer for making this point so publicly and succinctly...

"It’s simply not true that this legislation puts user privacy and security at risk. In fact, it’s fairer to say that this legislation puts those companies’ extractive business-models at risk. Their claims about risks to privacy and security are both false and disingenuous, and motivated by their own self-interest and not the public interest."

50 lines of Bash to bring a Wordle fan out of their shell

chmod 777

I just want to rwx the world!!!!!!!

Welsh home improvement biz fined £200,000 over campaign of 675,478 nuisance calls

Re: 29.6p for each call

I guess so, but it depends on how much revenue or business the calls generated. Hopefully not much as I'd expect most people response to be to "Please f**k off".

Court of Appeal ruling offers hope for UK umbrella firm workers chasing holiday pay

Re: Ho hum

Sorry to hear this. I left Parasol quite a while ago due to a number of issues, so it seems they have not improved. I then moved to Contractor Umbrella who were properly excellent, but then went Ltd co. after a lengthy sabbatical from the IT industry.

Hope you get things sorted. The Contractor UK website forums are rife with posts from people having issues with Umbrellas and those Disguised remuneration schemes.

China orders web operators to spring clean its entire internet

Re: Ban naughtiness?

Perhaps it's a play to address the massive overpopulation issue.

Mike Lynch loses US extradition delay bid: Flight across the Atlantic looks closer than ever

If that wasn't bad enough...

Mike Lynch's Darktrace holdings fell (even further) on this news.

Still, I'm struggling to understand how he can be extradited while the UK fraud case is unresolved.

IR35 is the biggest threat to the contractor working model, survey finds

I'm a contractor, but...

There are still loads of contracts out there, and it just means that a fair few will now need to go through Umbrella companies and such like. IR35 is not really an existential threat to contracting as a way of working per se.

For my own part, I remain a contractor for the sole reason that it gives me a lot more control as to how and when I work, and so I don't have to do office politics or jump through internal "objective based" hoops just to keep my job.

Do you know what TikTok is? Then you might make a good magistrate, says Ministry of Justice

Valar Morghulis

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.

Careful though, you wouldn't want to get claret on your Chinos.

Re: It's not knowing what TikTok is that counts...

Yes.

Multi-level marketing corporation that sells weightloss products sues ex-exec over 'fraudulent' Dell deal

Despite it not working out for him...

Despite the well documented Bill Ackman short on Herbalife not quite working out as he'd hoped, the documentary Betting on Zero is none-the-less quite an interesting insight into the Herbalife con.

Team behind delayed ERP project was aware of problems but didn't inform Surrey County Council for months

I do have sympathy...

I do have some sympathy for the Programme manager. But then again, Change and Exception management are processes that should always be thoroughly understood and agreed from the lowest level PMs up to the leader of the Programme board on both client and supplier level.

It's almost inevitable that requirement and feature changes will come in, and it is almost a certainty that a "big-bang" go-live will not provide 100% coverage in terms of the entire business requirement, first time, within the originally planned timeline. So whilst I have no idea of what that baseline scope at the project outset was, a normal approach would be to have a "Release 1 " go-live candidate feature set, and then a "Release 2" candidate set that adds these changes in a controlled and planned manner. But then again, that comes with its own unique set of problems, and also adds time, cost and complexity.

If this host of changes required were for functionality that would not allow the HR business team to function at a core level - it does beg the question as to how and why they were missed from the original business requirements and process mapping sessions, who reviewed them, and who signed them off.

Crypto.com now says someone tried to drain $34m from hundreds of accounts

They are way behind the times. Have they not heard of a "cheque"? It's like being in the future... but now!!!

If you want less CGI and more real effects in movies, you may get your wish: Inflatable film studio to orbit Earth

Ahhh...

Ahhh... finally perhaps a way to finally convince the flat Earthers that they are wrong. Obvs, because there isn't enough out there already to fill their bored and deliberately contrary little heads.

Vulnerabilities and censorship tools among hot new features in Beijing's Olympics app

Re: Definitely a requirement to buy a burner phone

Unfortunately that is not an option for a lot of the athletes that rely on national sports funding to support themselves.

Tesla driver charged with vehicular manslaughter after deadly Autopilot crash

On the flip side, I saw a documentary on TV once where they had robots who were providing utility in terms of understanding the binary language of moisture evaporators, speaking Bocce, diagnosing faults in hyperdrive systems, interfacing with Imperial SCADA systems, and serving drinks on your average sail barge.

Autonomy founder's anti-extradition case is like saying Moon made of cheese, US govt tells UK court

Re: Buyers’ remorse

"All because the idiots at HP and their advisors didn't do their due diligence properly."

We get it. They are idiots. I think that has been proved throughout this case beyond doubt.

Unfortunately however, that's not actually what this case is about. This case is about : did Autonomy falsely and knowingly misreport the company growth and financials that attracted HP in the first place. I've been following this from day #1 and I have a growing sense of fear for Mike Lynch, in that they did :-(

Deloitte have already settled and taken sanctions for their part in it which isn't a good look for anyone.

I do still have my fingers crossed for him though - as I'd love to see the HP "leaders" shown up to be the C suite tw@'s that they are.

Umbrella company Parasol Group confirms cyber attack as 'root cause' of prolonged network outage

Re: Mystery

Why so? I used one in the past and it was very useful in the short term as a quick and efficient way of having my contract payroll, tax and expenses calculated and paid correctly without the need for a full time accountant.

You're not just bashing because you are unable to comprehend that there is an increasing amount of people who need or want to work differently to you are you?

Support specialist Rimini Street found in contempt of court for continued Oracle copyright infringements

Of course. Unless the overarching license conditions state that the end user can create a clone / duplicate environment for development and/or diagnosis purposes.

In the enterprise space (rather than desktop) many companies do only charge license fees for PROD instances of applications, transactions and services : allowing companies to spin up as many DEV/Test instances of those applications as they need - but again, it all comes down to those T&C's.

Scam, pyramid scheme, environmental disaster: Vivaldi boss shares his thoughts on crypto-coins

Re: Wall Street?

At least on Wall Street, for the retail investor / trader - most tradable products such as currency, shares, options and futures mostly have at least some tangible "thing" that underpins them, and that the spot price is derived from - hence "derivatives", and also a certain liquidity and volume that makes the trades somewhat easier to get into and out of.

The problem with Crypto - is there is nothing with any real tangible value that supports the price, other than herd speculation that someone will pay more than someone else paid for it, and that the price will keep going up. There is also no real tradeable volume.

EthereumMax, a Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather Jr sued over alleged 'pump and dump' cryptocurrency scam

Re: This is Condolini

Mad Max reference.

And it was Cundalini. Not Condolini.

Another day, another ERP project behind schedule: This time it's Norfolk County Council and an Oracle system

Bootiful Bernard Matthews will be suing...

As he has the patent on all Turkeys from Norfolk.