Posts by Christopher Reeve's Horse

Things I learned from Y2K (pt 87): How to swap a mainframe for Microsoft Access

"The main problem" is perhaps the wrong way of looking at it. If all these Access databases and Excel spreadsheets became business critical then perhaps he was doing entirely the right thing!

Going the corporate 'full IT' way with these things can be very difficult and challenging, especially without first having proof of concept or working model. Irrespective of whether the model owner and IT bods are in agreement, there's always at least one, or more layers of management level funding decisions to be made in-between.

Yes, if anything the software enabled the financial wizardry to happen entirely successfully, irrespective of the wetware's ability to understand the consequences for real people in operating in meat-space.

Hey! I can understand some of the hatred for Access, but Excel always seems to be an easy soft target. For all the criticism it gets it actually does a great job for most people in most circumstances.

As for Access or Excel not being 'proper' solutions, show me an alternative that 'ordinary' people can use without specialist IT training? The difference is ownership. Sure, if I contract out building a custom SQL database to run a particular business model or application, then I expect to need IT professional support to operate it. But show me a consumer level equivalent. Most people have other specialisms and responsibilities beyond being DB admins or system architects. These office level tools just let normal people get on with whatever they need to do. If there was a consumer level 'Office' style implementation of a 'proper' database would this solve more problems, or create more problems?

Ooh, watch out Google. You've got competition. Verizon has a new 'privacy-focused' search engine

I think they've somewhat missed 'opportunistic' and gone straight for 'dead on arrival'. Again.

If you're already worried about search privacy you're likely already on DuckDuckGo or StartPage, and if you're only just getting worried about search privacy why on earth would you go there? Personally, I ask Alexa to Bing results on Android, just to piss Google off.

Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly? It's about to be screwed for... reasons

Re: "Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly?"

For all the tongue-in-cheek derision, good quality cables do (or at least can) make a difference. Especially anything in the analogue domain - phono leads and speaker cable being the obvious targets.

I'm not suggesting spaffing thousands of pounds on hugely pricey esoteric nonsense, but once you get to a particular level of component quality you don't really want to constrain it by using shitty entry-level patch cables. Where your happy medium lies, as a free-agent consumer, is entirely up to you. Hi-Fi ownership is complex - and much like car ownership - there are many, many opaque rationales for wanting different things.

Re: "Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly?"

You mean you can't already hear it? I'll try turning it up to 7.

Re: "Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly?"

Well, if it's a game of lets all slap our big hi-fi dicks on the table and see who's got the heftiest junk, I'm in.

New SAP co-CEO 'runs simple' to Davos in Mercedes hydrogen car

Call me predictable, but I think you're a cynic.

It's update time – yes, again – for Insiders as the Windows 10 Slow Ring meanders towards release

Re: Just playing around

Yep, progress seems slow. You'd think they'd have had a chance to, I dunno, make all the control panel option pages consistent beyond 2 levels, or fix search so that it can find an application that's already installed. Or maybe even - and I don't know why this bugs me in particular - when you click 'empty the recycle bin', it would be nice if everything in the recycle bin actually disappeared.

Looking for a great value broadband deal? War-torn Syria will do you proud

Re: The "problem" of FTTP is that it makes the old copper network valueless all at once

A fairly simple regulatory policy chance could fix that - no new copper installation, all asset repairs and maintenance should be on upgrade only terms.

Autonomous Logistics Information System gets shoved off the F-35 gravy train in favour of ODIN

Re: Military Spec

Jesus, that's a lot of w**king, you must be all w**ked out.

Military Spec

I'm pretty sure that - maybe a couple of decades ago - anything described as 'Military Spec' was regarded with god-like levels of capability and reliability. These days 'military spec' seems to be about as trustworthy the bloatware pre-installed on a suspiciously cheap unbranded smartphone.

80's Action Film: "We got these from the military" - Cue some awesome special effects and epic stunts...

2010's Action Film: "We got these from the military" - Cue some Windows XP critical error noises...

More seriously, is there some sort of established basic relationship between software complexity and the scale of deployment required to ensure that it remains actively fit for purpose? Clearly military equipment software needs are now complex, but the deployment will always be, by definition, niche.

Shhh! It's us, Microsoft. Yes, it's 2020. We're here with a new build of Windows 10

Re: Too Slow

And before the immediate impulse to down vote this suggestion... hold on a minute and work with me on this - someone needs to make a Linux GUI that looks and works exactly like Windows 10. There, I said it.

MS appear to be integrating more and more Linux into Windows. Lets start at the other end and meet in the middle? All the underlying system advantages of Linux, without anyone even realising it's not Windows! Even better if existing Windows applications and games etc can run transparently and seamlessly without any extra end-user complexity at all.

One computer to rule them all.

What if everyone just said 'Nah' to tracking?

Re: But How ?

Is there a Blockada equivalent for Windows?

Re: But How ?

"I was thinking rather than blocking, why not feed it random (believable) crap?"

I've thought about this before. It would only really have an effect on the advertisers if a large proportion of people do it, aside from all the difficult issues of making it 'believable'. Whereas blocking is currently a more effective strategy as an individual.

Re: PiHole

I like Pi-Hole too. Although I'm not sure what the future holds in this area. DOH will circumvent it completely, and more and more connected devices are using direct IP addresses rather than rely on DNS.

Re: But How ?

I use Blokada too. It appears to be very good, and blocks 10's if not 100's of THOUSANDS of connections every month.

Who's that padding down the chimney? It's Puma, with its weird £80 socks for gamers

Re: £80 for a pair of socks?

You appear to be somewhat jumping in with both feet here - if you'd cotton on to the article title it clearly say socks. I suggest you take your dispute up with the author.

£80 for a pair of socks?

That's one way of putting your foot in it...

Close the windows, it's coming through the walls: Copper Cthulu invades Dabbsy's living room

"If there ain't half-a-tonne of spaghetti behind your TV and record deck, you ain't done it right."

This is completely correct. I legitimately use a Visio diagram to keep up with the complex wiring that's just behind my TV and Speakers. It has at least 51 separately identifiable cables, and it's not even a multi-channel set-up, just stereo.

Microsoft joins Google and Mozilla in adopting DNS over HTTPS data security protocol

So, for the simpletons like myself...

I'm just about competent enough with my home network to have set up a Pi-Hole and continue to use my ISP's DNS service (from BT) via the Pi-Hole to allow the fairly simple use of parental controls. I know DNS based parental controls aren't perfect, but lets run with that for now...

So basically, now, in Firefox, I can just go into settings, switch on DoH, and this will completely bypass my Pi-Hole and my ISP's parental control options. What now? I was just getting the hang of being slightly in control, and now that's all gone?

No it's not Russell Brand's new cult, it's Microsoft's Office crew rolling out their Save Experience

But...

Surely the better solution would be to improve the existing dialogue boxes and file explorer, so that online OneDrive / SharePoint document stores can be accessed directly through file explorer (instead of a locally synced copy a la OneDrive client).

It's all very well when you're using a 'logged in' MS application that has sight of your network, cloud and local storage locations, but this all falls apart when you need to save / open from cloud locations from any other application

Despite billions in spending, your 'military grade' network will still be leaking data

Convenience will always win

People just want to get stuff done. What is the simplest and least controlled way of getting a file to someone else? The email attachment. To quote Princess Leia "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." The tightening of grip often isn't done in balance with enabling productivity.

Historically there was little choice, as requesting a change to network file permissions could take weeks, but now even with cloud repositories such as SharePoint there's still a ton of stuff that just gets attached to emails, even with corporate level communications.

Generally, anything that blocks users to do something productive in a corporate environment is subject to circumvention and security risks. So, you don't have the software you need to do something simple and trivial that would take you minutes at home? Then why not bring in that unauthorised 'portable' installation version and run it from a USB stick?

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson moves to shut Parliament

Re: About Time

Ok, so that's literally the best (and TBH, the only) reason I've heard that some form of Brexit is a good idea. But is that it? Is that the best benefit? Is that worth all this mess?

Re: About Time

Well, I guess everyone is entitled to their opnion...

I've never heard a single sensible rational argument for any single instance of any example where the EU is in any way holding the UK back, or at the very least acting for the greater good, be it environment or people. So, you can have your opnion, and that is what it shall likely remain as.

Google touts managed Linux, gets cosy with Dell in Chromebook Enterprise push

The gradual and continual realisation that...

...running everything in a browser is awful.

As browser rivals block third-party tracking, Google pitches 'Privacy Sandbox' peace plan

"It's not that fucking hard." This! Exactly what this man said! It's all about the context!

There doesn't need to be a conflict between privacy and advertising, it's just that Google chooses to leverage user information to attract advertisers. I guess from Google's perspective the target audience can be sized far beyond 'context only' advertising (as per pick up truck example above). If Ford want 500,000 people to see it's adverts for a pick up truck, then it's much easier to accomplish if those ads are injected into any website rather that only those related to cars and pickup trucks, so I can see the advantage for Google, it's just a shame it's at odds with the behaviour I'd like to experience as a user.

Context is critical, and no matter how much data Google collects it will NEVER know the context of why I've searched for something. Maybe I searched for that F150 because I want to buy one, maybe I searched because I think they're fucking stupid. Maybe it's because I just saw someone load a dismembered body into the back of one, and I wanted to double check I was reporting the correct model of vehicle to the police...

Everything old is new again in this week's Microsoft roundup

Getting on top of things

And for that matter, why shouldn't there be functionality for the user to set ANY window to be always on top? Just right click the menu bar to toggle on or off. You see, useful and productive ideas aren't even that hard! Instead we get auto installed Candy Crush pish. Thanks Microsoft.

Facebook outage a peep at platform's ML tagging conventions, Baidu links up with Intel and Huawei on AI chips, and more

So...

If Facebook ever argues that WhatsApp is an entirely separate service, we'll know they're clearly lying. The chances that Facebook were't going to extract profiling data from their $19 billion investment: 0%.

It's a fullblown Crysis: Gamers press pause on PC purchases, shipments freeze

Re: Nvidia bet on the wrong horse.

I agree that the problem is pricing. The 1060-1080 series has been out for years now, and faced with a massive oversupply of stock at the same time as the release of the new 2080 there were two options: 1. slash the price of the 10 series, or 2. Drastically increase the price of the 20 series in order to make the 10 series appear to be better value. No prize for guessing which option they went with....

2 Years ago, a top flight 1080ti was in the £700 to £800 range. Now a top range 2080ti is £1300 to £1500.

Monster magnet in my pocket: Boffins' gizmo packs 45.5-tesla punch and weighs just 390g

Re: The numbers are not tautological.

Watt? A pun? A current pun? Joule have to try harder than that...

Amazon Alexa: 'Pre-wakeword' patent application suggests plans to process more of your speech

Re: Star Trek

Just remember to hold the mouse up like a walkie-talkie, and it will work just fine.

Re: You have the right to remain silent...

"Alexa, execute order 66"

Boffin suggests Trappist monk approach for Spectre-Meltdown-grade processor flaws, other security holes: Don't say anything public – zip it

Re: Know thy enemy (bugs in this case)

And if the the vulnerabilities were unknown, there'd be fewer reasons for consumers to have to buy new kit, cough *planned obsolescence* cough, cough, pardon me.

Europe taps Facebook, Google, Twitter on the shoulder. So about those promises to stamp out lies, bots, dodgy ads?

Re: took down 800m and 754m fake accounts in Q2 and Q3

And just to add, it looks really bad both ways, either a massive proportion of active accounts were fraudulent, or there's a much bigger number of fraudulent accounts still out there undiscovered...

Re: took down 800m and 754m fake accounts in Q2 and Q3

When I read that sentence I came here to say exactly that same thing! Have an upvote! Statistics available (quickly googled) show the number of 'Active' Facebook accounts as 2.27 billion for 2018 Q3. So, assuming this is minus the 1.5 billion of closed accounts, that means 40% of their 'Active' accounts have been shut! More worryingly, what if the accounts were't members of the set of active accounts? What if they were part of an unknown count of total accounts, active or otherwise? There's no upper limit to this - what if there's >100 billion facebook accounts and they only closed 1% of them? I bet the total number of accounts would be a statistic facebook aren't keen on publishing - any number far in excess of the world's population with access to technology would be a fairly damming indictment of the presence of shadowy bot plagues and sinister advertising practices. The whole ad industry is a fraudulent bubble as far as I can tell.

Amazon exec tells UK peers: No, we don't want to be dominant. Also, we don't fancy being taxed on revenues

Percentage change - that old trick!

An 89% increase of bugger all is still pretty much bugger all, even when you add it to the bugger all you already had.

Nvidia just can't grab a break. Revenues up, profit nearly doubles... and stock down 20%

Maybe it's just greed!

Certainly for the domestic graphics card market, the costs have inflated grossly and disproportionately against the performance increase. A new 2080ti costs £1,200 pounds or more. This is utterly mental! The previous generation 1080ti was an already excessive £650, and the new cards are nowhere near touching double the performance. It's just greedy pricing.

And to add, the already very expensive 1080 series had been the performance leader for SOOOOO long, that most of the market of high-end users were already running one, and few will justify the extortionate re-investment at this point in time for such a small gain.

YouTube supremo says vid-streaming-slash-piracy giant can't afford EU's copyright overhaul

Re: Eff the E.U.

@joekhul Bro, that's quite some comment history you have. Almost exclusively posting on articles related to Google, massive amounts of downvotes, and liberal use of the terms 'RegTard'. I'm almost tempted to believe you might be attempting to troll...

And just for clarity; exactly which part of Russia is it that you think is still communist? You appear to be >25 years out of touch.

SpaceX touches down in California as Voyager 2 spies interstellar space

Lack of Astonish!

It's not vaguely astonishing, it really is astonishing!

You're alone in a room with the Windows 10 out-of-the-box apps. What do you do?

Re: Isn't it obvious?

Isn't Clippy as a system app, essential and unremovable, effectively just Cortana?

Isn't it obvious?

If it's anything like the small suite of popular games that used to be part of windows, you ruin the UI, pump them full of sickening advertising, and then offer users the ability to pay for the adverts to be removed.

Decision time for AI: Sometimes accuracy is not your friend

Actually, change my mind - it's a trick question. You can't have better than 50% accuracy of positives, as any more than 99.9% accuracy of the assessment can't be done with only 1,000,000 claims. You can't have fractions of claims being positive or negative.

I make it 99.9990415565743% accuracy required (to get 99.05% of accuracy of positives).

Excel goal seek to the rescue, but not with enormous, erm, accuracy...

Edit - actually get a closer result with 99.9989889889889% to give 99.000088991885% positives

'Plane Hacker' Roberts: I put a network sniffer on my truck to see what it was sharing. Holy crap!

Richard Feynman

His story about safe cracking at Los Alamos is a perfect example of this kind of thinking. He was regarded as the security risk after announcing he could open an important safe at the high security site. The question of the safe not being fit for purpose failed to be addressed.

Quantum cryptography demo shows no need for ritzy new infrastructure

What about denial of service?

Forgetting the man i the middle risks for a moment, if every interfered with packet gets dropped automatically, wouldn't attempting to eavesdrop have the side effect of blocking the entire communication?

Shock: Google advises UK peers against more legislation

Hmmm

"focus on the underlying principles rather than obsess over the companies dominating the space"

Said one of the companies who's dominating the space...

In defence of online ads: The 'net ain't free and you ain't paying

If only I could pay

I'd be happy to, but the option is rare. And even when you do pay, it doesn't necessarily follow that you don't get hit by advertising and data harvesting anyway.

Microsoft, Google: We've found a fourth data-leaking Meltdown-Spectre CPU hole

Well well well well...

...well well well well well then.

Spring is all about new beginnings, but it could already be lights out for Windows' Fluent Design

Progressive Web App? Fluent Design??

Web apps may make sense on a phone, but if I'm on a desktop or laptop (where Windows is typically found) why the pissing hell wouldn't I just use the browser? The version of Twitter (or whatever) in the browser is always going to be up to date.

If I could only spend a few hours with their board and point out what using some of their products actually feels like for an end user I'd start off with "Dudes! WTF!..."

And I quite like Microsoft generally. Imagine...