Posts by My Coat

Microsoft hijacks keyboard shortcut to bring Copilot to your attention

You gave them permission when you agreed to their terms when you first logged or installed windows.

The rise and fall of the standard user interface

Thanks for the fascinating article. I knew basically nothing about any of this - only read the article because disabling cua mode is one of the first things I do when configuring emacs. Now I actually know what cua mode means!

Sorry Pat, but it's looking like Arm PCs are inevitable

Re: Strategy

I mean, it's hard to tell if that's a CPU or a razor blade...

Export bans prompt Russia to use Chinese x86 CPU replacement

Re: Russian politics aside

> For HPC, ..., so long as it has a fully functional Linux toolchain including Python, Numpy, Scipy, Julia, C, C++, Fortran... I really don't care which instruction set I'm using.

Tell me you've never used an HPC without saying you've never used an HPC...

Clue: it's not the hardware that HPC vendors sell, it's the expertise to use that hardware properly.

Microsoft sides with Epic over Apple developer ban, supports motion for temporary restraining order

Re: Meanwhile, in other news

Especially as MS can still claim the 30% fee for purchases of Epic products made through the XBox app store - definitely a case of "do as I say, not as I do".

Can I get some service here? The new 27-inch iMac forgoes replaceable storage for soldered innards

> and RAM is not upgradeable (which almost everybody wants to do at some time).

Did you read the article? "Fortunately, Apple hasn’t (yet) dished out the same treatment to the iMac’s RAM, which remains user-serviceable and uses standard 260-pin DDR4 sticks. ".

In fact, for the hard of thinking, the article mentions the user upgradable RAM twice, the second time being the second half of the sentence you half-quoted: "It won points for the use of a socketed (and thus, upgradable) CPU, as well as the user-serviceable RAM."

Farewell to function keys and swappable SSDs in the new two-port MacBook Pro

"work on a remote machine"

Just run emacs on your local machine - TRAMP lets you edit files over ssh.

Astronomer slams sexists trying to tear down black hole researcher's rep

Re: Hunt to blame for NHS attack

Earthsea sharp?

Trend Micro tools tossed from Apple's Mac App Store after spewing fans' browser histories

GDPR?

So do an Europeans affected by this have any rights to redress under GDPR?

Hot chips crashed servers, but were still delicious

Re: Hunt to blame for NHS attack

Back when I programmed in perl, I used to use xmodmap to remap the row of number keys to the symbols (!, @, #, ...), and shifted press to the numeral (1, 2, 3, ...). Programmed perl in emacs for years without getting RSI, so it was worth the ten minutes to set up.

Over a million Android users fooled by fake WhatsApp app in official Google Play Store

Re: .. and that ..

In my case, because I have an android phone and an iOS tablet. I've seen that there's a lot

fewer blatant rip-off apps in the apple app store than the google one. The only thing I've used that comes close to the shovelware rip offs in the google app store is steam.

Malware hidden in vid app is so nasty, victims should wipe their Macs

Re: A complete wipe?

Rather than create a bootable USB drive etc, probably easier to boot from the recovery partition, no?

GarageBanned: Apple's music app silenced in iOS 11 iCloud blunder

Re: "Countless 32-bit apps"

You can use Apple Configurator 2 from the app store to do app management, local backups from iOS devices etc (and possibly ring tones - not sure about that) from the computer. It's Apple's management tool for enterprise iOS deployments, but it's free and works fine for a single iOS device too.

Software update turned my display and mouse upside-down, says user

Re: Oh noes

Yeah, you'd probably want to bolt the desk to the floor too. Just to be safe.

Everybody without Android Oreo vulnerable to overlay attack

Re: "will need updating"

On my third android phone now - an HTC, a Motorola and a Lenovo. Not one has received an update more than 18 months after the handset was released. Each time, there's been stories that "In this years update, google have solved updating without needing handset manufacturers/carriers" - it's like the year of the linux desktop.

Read IBM CEO Ginni Rometty's letter to staff: Why I walked from Trump's strategy forum

Re: Hunt to blame for NHS attack

Bit of a change of tack from IBM. I urge people to read "IBM and the Holocaust" by Edwin Black for details of their collusion with Nazi Germany.

BOFH: That's right. Turn it off. Turn it on

Re: Hunt to blame for NHS attack

But surely you can check it's 16 characters after removing the spaces?

74 countries hit by NSA-powered WannaCrypt ransomware backdoor: Emergency fixes emitted by Microsoft for WinXP+

Re: Hunt to blame for NHS attack

Win 10 is not vulnerable if the patch from March was applied. So staying on XP and not paying MS for supporting XP since 2015 (as per the article) is the reason the NHS was so badly affected. Not blaming the NHS here - it's the fault of the person (rhymes with Jeremy Runt) who decided they shouldn't pay.

SpaceX wows world with a ho-hum launch of a reused rocket, landing it on a tiny boring barge

Kerbal Space Program

Every time SpaceX hit the news, I feel the urge to fire up Kerbal Space Program again...

Microsoft to close its social network on a week's notice – and SIX people complain

Re: Microsoft has a problem with word of mouth

You've never heard mention of IE from friends/family? Or Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Office?

MAC randomization: A massive failure that leaves iPhones, Android mobes open to tracking

Re: Surely the 4G/Simm provides good tracking anyway?

More than that - the mobile broadband info is held by the phone company. The wifi info is held by the local shop you're in. It's probably easier and cheaper for the local shop to set up a wifi access point to get the information than to try to buy it from the mobile provider.

Linus Torvalds fires off angry 'compiler-masturbation' rant

I'm pretty sure the line length limit in the FORTRAN f77 I used as an undergrad in the 90s was lower than 80 characters. You lost the first 6 or so characters on every line (okay, they weren't really lost, but they had specific meanings so for most lines of code they weren't used), and I'm pretty sure everything after character 72 was ignored, no?

Weird garbled Windows 7 update baffles world – now Microsoft reveals the truth

You may need to restart...

This test update - with presumably no real content - is showing a restart may be required message in the screenshot. I see that Windows habit that "updating anything requires a restart" hasn't changed.

The roots go deep: Kill Adobe Flash, kill it everywhere, bod says

Re: Yet...

You can work around the BBC normally requiring Flash by changing the user agent of your browser to pretend to be an iPad. Doesn't work for Channel 4's on demand service though: that just asks you to install their app.

Debian ships new 'Jessie' release with systemd AND sysvinit

You know you've spent too long with linux when you read "f*ck" as "fsck"…

Superfish: Lenovo ditches adware, but that doesn't fix SSL megavuln – researcher

Re: liability...

I'll wager that customers agreed to it in the EULA that absolutely no one reads.

Stephen Fry MADNESS: 'New domain names GENERATE NEW IP NUMBERS'

Re: Isn't a number that is almost infinite, er, infinite?

0.999 recurring is equal to 1.0, not almost equal. Here's a test: 1-0.999… equals zero.

EBay, you keep using the word 'SECURITY'. I do not think it means what you think it means

Re: Tried to change password ..

I found the close account option quicker than the change password option - so used that approach instead.

Apple's iPod: ten years old

2nd Gen ipod still useful

Still have my 2nd Gen iPod from December 2002 - and found an alternative use a couple of days ago. Internal hard disc died on my iMac, so installed Snow Leopard on the iPod via firewire and ran the iMac for a couple of days from there while waiting for a replacement hard disc to arrive. The iMac was surprisingly useful from the external iPod, although the boot time was horrendous.

Used this setup to update an iPod touch to iOS 5 too.

Nintendo sells metric %#@&-load of Wiis in November

Units!

Hang on, your units are all messed up! As any fule knows; the correct units for volume are:

# Walnut = 0.16gf

# Chicken's egg = 0.35gf

# Bulgarian airbag (C-cup Posh Spice - allegedly) = 1.1gf

# Bulgarian funbag (DD-cup Jordan) = 3.27gf

# Football = 11.07gf

# Olympic-sized swimming pool = 4,780,114gf

# Known universe

(As defined in http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/). Can we have an update with correct units?

Postman Pat goes postal

Playmobil?

Anyone else click on this link expecting to see playmobil?

No? Just me then...

Bubbly billygoat-bursting boffinry brouhaha at MoD

@John A Blackley

The French humane solution: they ask us for our results with the goats!

PS Why does everyone want to get me?