Posts by Daniel

Microsoft emails its staff to reassure Yahoos

Growth?

Quoth Keivn Johnson:

'Microsoft is a growing company and needs staff "throughout the company as a whole".'

If Minimsft ever needed any notice that the time had come to start working on his résumé, this is surely it?

Microsoft is a 'growing company', apparently, Mr Mini.... So says one of those b*st*rds that troughed themselves at last year's SPSA binge... He says Microsoft needs to hire more people (presumably because some of them still spend less time driving to work, than they do in meetings) so, I'd suggest that Minimsft does his best to reverse that trend, bids his erstwiles farewell, gets himself a job with 'packetstorm', and finally takes that paper bag off his head.

Scareware package planted in ITV.com ads

You could sa, however..

.. that having invaded your computer, interrupted your web browsing, bombarded you with messages pestering you to buy their software, or else - all because you went to a web page with an advert on it... that they have, at least, proven one thing. They're right: you're computer's not secure.

They're still c*nts, like, but in a: 'Hey, look! We can act like c*nts, and you can't stop us!' sort of way.

Time to rewrite DBMS, says Ingres founder

Yuk!

Once again the "I've been using See-eek-well Suy-vur for over THREE YEAHS" weeners jump in with their willy-waving comments. Sure, when Berkley DB (from which Ingres, Postgres, SQL Server, Oracle, and almost all the otehrs draw a direct code-lineage) came along it was a breath of fresh air, but that air is now stale. The trouble is, SQL is such a hugely arcane and convoluted language, to learn, that many who SELECT to master the shouty-capitals tend to fetish over them. It was a good idea in the 1970s: so was draylon - get over it. Personally, I'm tired of shouting at some junky old database; if someone can come up with something genuinely more flexible then, I'm happy to see it.

Critics chuck MS 'friendly worm' plan on the compost heap

This won't reduce network load, it'll increase it

If systems end up sending around 'patch' files, to each other, just in case your macchine might have a vulnerability, you'll just end up with vastly more network noise, being flung around, not less. The only reduction on load, would be on the central servers. This is a dreadful stone age solution to an iron age problem. It was a silly idea, back when the Cheesworm authors thought it up, and it remains a silly idea, now.

It is unsurprising that Microsoft's overpaid P&RD department are as blinkered, as to think it's something new, or worthy of attention, however. One wonders how much MSFT shareholder wealth, these people have squandered, over the years, trying to design their own-brand perpetual motion machine, rather than finding out why it won't work before trying?

A more sensible option would be to move away from a 'patch' system towards a delta file approach, whereby only those portions of the code that needs to be replaced is sent. Not only does this reduce network traffic, and produce quicker patching; it can often lead to less rebooting, since the entire kernel is not patched, and the affected code can be unloaded, from memory, and reloaded if necessary.

Official: Linux buffs lay out more on marital aids than Mac users

Users and abusers

If there's HP-UX 'user' I suspect they are counting Robots and spiders as 'users'.

I wonder how many 'browsers', they have listed, with names like 'WiseCrawler', 'Scooter', and 'Lycos-News-Xml-Fetcher'?

Microsoft's smiley browser face turns sour

Most of you are already doing this...

You stick in hacky bits of CSS that explot internet explorer's traditional failure to support voice browsers, the "!important" directive, or, well other bits of CSS, generally.

Internet Explorer ahd become the new Netscape 4. All that's being proposed, is that we agree to indentify it, as such in a future-proof and explicit manner, rather than relying on clever ways to trick it's bugginess into rendering the page correctly.

Clash of the compacts: Eee vs Air

Comment? No comment...

I look at the MBA, and realise that it's definitely not for me. However, there's no point me (or any of you, for that matter) spewing vitriolic Mac-hate bile all over it, because, if your first reaction is a sort of baffled and offended rage, then you're clearly not the target audience.

The target audience don't particularly care what you think, either, because they think you're just you're a lonely, passive-agressive geek, with 'social issues'/a drink problem/probably both'. You're the sort of person who sees someone driving a big BMW or Mercades and declares (in a very loud voice) that your Lada is just as good. Alright, sado: it's a car. Why not get your mother to do a lapdance routine for you? After all, she's a woman?

The very fact that you can dedicate your time to vomiting hate all over a product that you've no intention of buying simply shows that you're not someone that this thing's target audience would want to even share a town with. get over it, I have.

You did all this over the bloody phone, remember? The phone sold a quarter of a million units in its first quarter. This will probably do the same. There's absolutely nothing wrong with products that sell a quarter of a million units a quarter. If you think there is, then it's just further evidence that you're better off staying in your basement, hacking the registry on your Vista box to get it to boot faster, or rewriting the XFConfig file on your Linux machine.

That girl on the beach? She's really a Mac Book Air user. that's why she's on the beach, and you're in your basement.

Personally, I predict many happy grannies, with Asus EEEs, and gorgeous blondes suddenly expressing an interest in multi-function USB hubs.

Academics slam Java

Who watches the watchers?

Ultimately, someone else has to write the software that sits too cose to the hardware layer for the hardware to be ignored. They have to do this, in order for others to be able to write the layers above that.

On the whole, you do not need a higher level educatiuonal qualification in software design, to work in those upper layers of programming, and that's fine. These guys are saying that you shouldn't even have to go to university, if what you want to do is write in Java, or some similar higher-level language. However, someone has to work in the lower layers of programming, because those layers will never go away. If students on university degree courses are not the ones being taught to do this work, then who is? To quote minimsft, writing of an absence of such tallents in core areas of Redmond:

"More and more candidates who can lay down the smack with Java and script can't manipulate memory and discuss deep operating system constructs just-in-time at all. I need you to be able to write a Garbage Collector, not be in an unhealthy co-dependent relationship with one."

(From: http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/11/microsoft-academy.html)

Microsoft set to milk mobile Messenger mavens?

More confirmation that most of those in 'Live' should have been on Minimsft's 'No hire' list

There's something marvelous about seeing incompetence and greed opperating, torether, so seamlessly.

Mk II... er, Tank Chair trundles into Las Vegas

Actually...

>The Abrams tank (US Army issue) will go 90 mph

No. Top speed of an M1A2 Abrams battletank is 45mph, on a totally flat paved road, 30mph (maximum) cross country. It's also worth bearing in mind that it does this, while consuming 4-6 gallons, of aviation-grade kerosine, per mile. Just starting the turbines up, in the morning, will consume 10-15 gallons: more, if the engine has not been serviced for some time.

(Do you see the 4000 gallon fuel containers on that chair? no, niether do I.)

At the risk to breaking the tracks to pieces, you could probably take the engine-governor off and get even worse fuel-economy/higher top speeds, but anyone whose actually been *in* a tank, ging flat out, will tell you that anything over about 40mph is fairly heamorrhaging, and only the prospect of being heamorrhaged by something else, that someone is shooting at you, would induce you to want to go any faster.

Please: grow up, boys. The inside of a tank, right next to the ammunition, has always been a nasty place to have to contemplate your own mortality.

Microsoft plugs 'critical' hole in Vista

Not installed...?

> It is just possible that the effected protocol is not installed by default on the 2K and 2003, hence a lower criticality.

The 'effected' protocol was TCP/IP. So, no, that's not possible. Next question?

I tend to regard the way this whole patching business gets reported (regardless of *who* is patching *what* code) to be a bit upside down, to be honest. After all, the argument for Open Source has always been that, because the code can be scrutinised, security vulnerabilities can be found more easily, and patches can be issued more swiftly and more frequently. The same logic holds for any other software, be it OS X, Windows, proprietary Unix, or the flash hardware on your domestic home router. A flaw has been found, a patch is available: apply the patch, or be an idiot.

Unless you assume that programmers can see into the future, and program flawless code, in advance, you should regard frequent code patching as a Good Thing, and not a sign of vulnerability. Infrequent patching is more likely to mean that flaws are either not being looked for, or are being found but hushed up.

Emacs diet for Visual Studio?

EMACS

Personally, I suspect that it's part of Don Box's on-going effort to actually <b>become</b> Richard Stallman.

Or maybe their graphics design department decalred that they needed some iMacs on a crackly phone line? Not quite as funny as 'needing more Eunuc programmers', but still...

Boffins report lightning on Venus, our non-identical twin

Some lightning, yesterday...

It's nice to see that the artist who used to do the front covers for all those 70s gatefold Prog Rock albums has now got a job doing aribrush-yellow-lightning bolts for the ESA.

Sun's OpenSolaris gets CIFS-ilis

So, they've done what Microsoft has done

They've integrated a whole heap of unnecessary 'services' into the system kernel, in order to make Solaris look as f**ked up as Windows, simply so that we can swap data around... Surely, it's this whole 'integrate it all directly into the kernel' business that A) causes Wiindows to be the circular-dependency Hell that it is B) causes Windows to be so insecure C) causes Microsoft to get dragged through the courts by people who want it to stop bundling everything together, for a change?

I'll simply allude to the inevitable car-analogy (which would probably involve fitting a Fiat engine into a Farrari, so that your local Fiat dealer can service it for you, or some-such) and say, instead, that it's like using mahogany to make chipboard.

Rosetta spies nightlife on our sleeping planet

Interesting variations

Somalia, Cameroon and Gabon appear to be burning the midnight oil, with a vengence, but the whole of South Africa is tucked up in bed.

W1NNT number plate vendor mocks L1NUX

And now the toss pot's even stopped his auction

Oh well, move along... there really is nothing to see, here.

recompiling the Kernel?

Real men don't compile kernels, hey 'hack their registries'! I've heard Windows guys going on about it all the time...

"Damn," one will say to the other. "My Outlook Calendar keeps sending me notifications about meetings that happened last year, all of a sudden!"

"Ah!" exclaims the other. "That's a KNOWN ISSUE(TM)! it's because you installed the new driver for that GeForce 7300: simply *Hack* *Your* *Registry*," he will say, proudly (placing a special emphasis on the word 'hack'). "Look for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet

Explorer\Main and scroll down to where it says 'Use Profile Assistant' and set it to 'no'.... Look for a Dword with a name of Install and Upgrade Automatic Assistant' and set it to 'no', add another Dword, with a name of 'AdHoc Assistant Poll Interval' and give it a value of '0x0E03'... blah blah blah... change it to Dword value of 'no' and add a Dword value called "Use Search Asst" and give it a value of '0xE0067'.... blah blah blah... Reboot your machine and recieve an error number 0x800ccc0e - but that's normal.... blah blah... then simply *Hack*Your*Hosts*File* to enter then name and IP address of the exchange server and roboot... blah blah blah... Recieve and error number of '0x800ce60e - but that's normal... blah blah... Then simply *Hack*Your*Registry* and look for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Notepad`Main and look for a Dword called 'Use Password Assistant' and set it to 'no'... blah blah blah..."

...and so it goes on, for what seems like an interminable period - all of it recited directly from memory.

They carry on like this because they are 31337 H4X0r Dudes who can memorise vast swathes of meaningless gobbledegook, and use this ability to demean and belittle those around them. They think it's normal to get error messages that list the exact virtual memory address where a paging error (that you can't do anything about, and wheren't directly responsible for) occured.

And they hate Unix, of course, because Unix is Something To Do With Computers, which they Don't Know About - and since Knowing About Computers is their only means of maintaining a feeling of smug superiority over those around them, they assume that Unix must be some vile conspiracy, aimed at making them all look like passive-agressive losers with bad breath.

Oh, hang on: Unix IS a vile conspiracy, aimed at making them all look like passive-agressive losers. (They provide their own bad breath, of course.)

Microsoft shouts 'Long Live XP'

Nostalia ain't what it used to be

About the time it first came out, I recall non-Windows team members at Microsoft would often refer to XP as 'the Vomit-colored abomination' (I kid you not), citing unnecessarily high hardware specs for what was, essentially, a Windows 2000 kernel wrapped in slippery green graphics. Now we have another NT 5 kernel wrapped in even more vomit-coloured graphics, and people are yearning for a down grade to XP.

Talk about a dog returning to his vomit....

MS confirms Halo 3 Limited Edn box scratch bug

Excellent

And this is before the machine's even had a chance to stratch it, yet.

787 unsafe, claims former Boeing engineer

That's Encouraging

"While i was there, theft, sexual/racial harassment, violence, sleeping on the job-these were all par for the course activities that happened all the time and usually rated a suspension or some time off without pay."

Oh wow! I realy want to fly in one of your ex-employer's aeroplanes, now! Which one were you? Wally or Dilbert?

The real issue appears to be the structural strength of the material itself. Yes, small executive jets and military jets have been made from this stuff, but nothing on the scale of the 787's dimensions has been tried before, and a certain amount of evidence exists to show that the air-worthiness tests are being rigged. You might have been asleep, while all that was going on, of course.

PC superstore unhinged by Linux

Can we have that quote in contex?

The story doesn't specifically name anyone from PC World as saying this, so is it just an attempt to troll for comments?

Given their relative market share, I'd say surely the analogy should be the other way around, although, because idiots like 'Penguin Worrier' still seem to think that the average Linux user might have compiled their kernel (or indeed anything) from source code, then perhaps the analogy would be better if it was to say it was like taking a stock-standard Mondeo and fitting a hand-built, custom V-8 supercharged nitrous engine, with a big shiny bit that sticks out throught the top of the bonnet in it, lik that thing Mad Max used to drive.

No one actually compiles anything from source, on the average Linux box, however, so it's actually a false analogy, intended to maintain the myth that Linux is some sort of backroom boffin's operating system. Much as I'd like to think I was some sort of boffin, I actually recognise that I'm about as intelligent as Penguin Worrier, over there - just better informed about the world, and less scared of what I don't know about.

Firefox-Google marriage on shaky ground?

Small correction

Carlton has not successfully blocked users of adblock, he has just blanket-banned all users of Firefox. he makes no attempt to determine whether adblock is installed - nor, indeed, any of the alternative adblocking software available for Internet Explorer, Opera and Camino. He has simply banned users of a browser, on the basis that that browser can have a feature installed on it, regardless of the fact that any other bvrowser can have similar features installed.

Carlton is, effectively saying Mozilla users are more likely to be intelligent enough to install such a feature - so he's banning all Mozilla users, on suspicion of being intelligent. All other web users are allowed in, on the basis that theya re stupid enough to be allowed to read his content (much of which is right-wing, christian-fundementalist, anti-abortion, homophobic hate-rage, anyway).

AK47: the open-source weapon that took the world by storm

More geeky history

There's also the Finish made copy of the AK called the Valmet Rk.62, which, in turn formed the basis for the Israeli Galil - an AK-like weapon that actually takes the NATO small caliber round. Galils remain common in Southern Africa to this day, because the only nation that would supply the Apartheid government of South Africa with weapons (other than Yugoslavia) was Israel. The South Africans liked to supply their various right-wing puppet guerilla forces, in countries like Angola, with Galil rifles, since - to the untrained eye - they looked like AKs and the guerillas could claim to have equiped themselves with captured weaponry. US sponsored supplies of Chinese Type 59s are often cited for how relatively common these rifles are, in Afghanistan, for the same reason: they look good on camera.

Perhaps a more telling story, is that of the SVD and FPK sniper-rifles, which were generally equiped at a level of 1, per 30 man-platoon, throughout the Warsaw Pact armies. This, in turn, meant that wherever those government were overthrown in anything resembling a conflict, the situation almost always disolved into grotesque 'sniper' combat.

Oxford University Libraries say chuck out your crap

These regulations came in on 1st January

Oxford University Library may just have noticed, but the WEEE directive has been in force for months:

http://www.dti.gov.uk/innovation/sustainability/weee/page30269.html

Maybe they got distracted trying to decide which particular bits of crappy clipart they should use for their memos, and let the deadline slide past them?

Let's hope they replace their stock with lots and lots of Vista machines: the extra drain on the national grid would more than compensate for any reduction in their environmental impact.

$1m concept PC contest winners named

What a laughable parade of bad taste.

Where did all the Vic 20s go? Oh, yes... They were melted down and turned into Asonos!

Cruise missile streaks across Google Earth

Appears to be listing sharply to port, to me

It may be about to undergo a turn.