Posts by Adair

Wrap it before you tap it? No, say Linux developers: 'GPL condom' for Nvidia driver is laughed out of the kernel

Re: "It will ensure proprietary stuff will slowly become more and more behind"

Yeah, but nah. FLOSS is what it is. Take away the bleating and crowing from the immature fannys on both sides and what we're left with is a functional tool kit that ANYONE can pick up, use and modify to suit themselves.

It really matters not one jot if the fabled 'Year of the Linux Desktop' never happens. For those who want/need what it provides Linux already offers fully functional desktop experiences. And then there is everything else Linux offers.

Linux's year is every year, for those who find it meets their needs, and offers potential that proprietary systems, by their closed nature, never can do.

We should learn not to compare apples with oranges as though they are the same fruit.

In the market for a second-hand phone? Check it's still supported by the vendor – almost a third sold are not

Re: LineageOS?

Mmm, not sure I completely go along with your gloomy description of Lineage, although I have no doubt that for a certain percentage of devices what you say rings true.

But, other experiences are available: my Oneplus 5T switched over to Lineage fairly painlessly, although there was a moment when it appeared to be a brick, but then some hours later miraculously wasn't. Putting that to one side there was no need to go through a painful process of defining and testing every single component/driver - the installation process (buttock clenching glitch aside) basically 'just worked'.

I would never recommend installing Lineage, as it is currently offered, to anyone not reasonably IT competent and willing to kiss goodbye to the value of the target device. OTOH the process is not always difficult and the results, at least in my experience, are thoroughly worthwhile.

If you own one of these 45 Netgear devices, replace it: Kit maker won't patch vulnerable gear despite live proof-of-concept code

Re: How I'd like to....

Likewise. The 'Update' feature has never worked, but if I do the whole process manually it works fine.

Boeing confirms it will finish building 747s in 2022, when last freighter flies off the production line

Re: Flying wings/bodies

Bring it on, I'd take suspended animation, or mere unconsciousness, for the duration any day on a 12+ hour flight. The shine wore off years ago; cattle class is not a civilised way to travel, and even business class loses it's thrill, but at least you can lie down.

And then do something about the Seventh Circle of Hell that is transit, especially through the US. Yep, unconsciousness all the way would do very well.

Re: Flying wings/bodies

TBH, windows are highly over rated. Except for some of those making their first flights and a few others, the vast majority of passengers - esp on long haul - know there is bugger all to see most of the time, and are just looking forward to getting off at the other end.

A plane with no windows, or just a few in a 'viewing area', or where they can charge extra for those for whom looking out is a big deal, would be cheaper to build, sounder structurally, and the majority of passengers would be quite happy, only a small proportion of seats have a window even now.

After banning Chinese comms bogeyman, UK asks: Huawei in this mess? It was a failure of capitalism, MPs told

Re: Obvious

Because the 'free market' is a fucking lie! The 'free market' is a ploy to allow the money grubbers a fig leaf to cover up their money grubbing ways.

'Markets' are ALWAYS regulated, whether it's by a friendly beating behind the pub - "Nothing personal, just business" - or 'Health & Safety' regs, or taxation - ALL markets are regulated.

The questions are: by who, and to what end?

The 'Free Market'(TM) is a gigantic con, enabled to ensure the money keeps flowing in the approved direction of those who already have more than they need. Everything and everyone else is just collateral damage.

Only EU can help us, pleads Slack as it slings competition complaint against Microsoft Teams

Re: Slackbot is the worst

That's what you get when you have a software 'bundle'. Can you turn it off? If so then turn it off. If you can't, and you don't want to use it, then don't use it.

I've got little patience with MS at the best of times, but they are quite entitled to do what they've done. If 'you' don't like what they've done, don't use their shit, it's not as though there aren't alternatives. And there are perfectly viable alternatives, however much the whiny brigade whine.

The fact is, far too many of us want to have our cake and eat it. We want it for free, but we want it the way we want it. We pay for it, and we still want it exactly the way we want it. Change is possible, but we don't do change here. We prefer whining about how unfair it all is, that we can't have what we want, when we want it.

Do it yourself then? Hell no, that looks like hard work, much easier to whine.

Linux Foundation starts new group to build pandemic-popping software

Correct me if I am wrong

but some time ago it seemed to me that he LF transmogrified from being an essentially benign organisation providing a useful 'front door' for organisations, and anyone, wanting to get to grips with 'Linux' and the concepts behind the label, into something much more aggressively there to simply serve corporate interests and itself.

Am I wrong?

SpaceX to return NASA 'nauts to Earth with a splash

Splash

-- so last century.

Companies toiling away the most on LibreOffice code complain ecosystem is 'beyond utterly broken'

Personally...

...I would be quite happy to pay a monthly subscription - two or three ponds a month - a relatively trivial amount for an individual to sustain over years, and covering the majority of socio-economic circumstances. Don't even make it compulsory, just make it clear that if you value what LO offers then it depends on most users willingness to contribute, if not their time and IT chops, then at least the price of a coffee to keep the show on the road.

If it dies then we get what we clearly deserve and it clearly didn't mean much to us anyway; if it lives then it lives because many users actually do value what they are being given and are willing to demonstrate that value by giving something back.

It's handbags at dawn: America to hit France with 25% tariffs on luxuries over digital tax on US tech titans

Re: They're tariffs

Exactly! The price going up will simply add to their scarcity and hence increase their desirability. My bet is that it'll have a short term negative impact on receipts, but after a few months will have no significant impact on sales whatsoever.

UK government marks 'at least' £115m for new Brexit systems against backdrop of chequered IT project history in customs and border control

Re: Brexit is coming

(also numbered 2 for some odd reason? ) - something unnecessary done badly. ;-)

Re: Brexit is coming

Some of us never manage to leave the school playground, do we? Brexit is done, apparently, but the consequences of how and why have barely begun, plus so much more has yet to be done. Where will it all end, I wonder, what will have been achieved and at what price? Don't miss the continuing unfolding saga of THE BREXIT FILES!!!

Re: Brexit is coming

There is:

1. doing something necessary well

2. doing something necessary badly

3. doing something unnecessary well

2. doing something unnecessary badly

Which category does the evidence suggest 'Brexit' belongs to?

Linus Torvalds banishes masters, slaves and blacklists from the Linux kernel, starting now

Re: Icon

Poor petal

LibreOffice community protests at promotion of paid-for editions, board says: 'LibreOffice will always be free software'

Re: There is a third way

I'd be fine with that - 'Click here for paid support' - especially if that included a sensible 'pay per ticket' system for anyone at any time. We would still be free to use community support, but if we wanted to actually 'talk' to a 'qualified' person the option would be there.

Linux kernel coders propose inclusive terminology coding guidelines, note: 'Arguments about why people should not be offended do not scale'

Re: Loaded words replaced by euphemisms

Wow, 40 downvotes! I'm impressed, I don't normally do so well relative to upvotes.

But, I have to ask: is this really the hill you all plan to die on - even systemd is a more serious risk to public well being than changing some labels into less loaded terms.?

Re: Thin end of the wedge?

But YAAC is correct, their comparison simply highlights the issue. Simple words that may have a plain and inoffensive meaning from one cultural perspective can shout out the historical atrocities to another.

But who gets all twisted out of shape at any suggestion of change?

And yet change is happening all the time.

Some of us don't cope with change at all well.

Re: Loaded words replaced by euphemisms

Language changes all the time and meanings with it.

Words that are freighted with meaning from past history are not neutral to everyone; where a word can be swapped out for another that does not carry an historical burden why not change it?

The question here is why some folk are allowing themselves to be so exercised by something they wish to claim 'is of no account so why waste time on it'. If it is of no account why are they wasting their time on it?

Clearly it is of account or I would not have gathered so many down-votes for what is demonstrably a very mild and not unreasonable statement.

It would seem that perhaps some of us a very defensive about the ground we stand on.

Re: Loaded words replaced by euphemisms

The question is: is there an issue that should be addressed?

If 'Yes' then

Do something OR do nothing

If something THEN better it were done with grace and good will, so that we can all raise our eyes to higher horizons and get on.

One does not simply repurpose an entire internet constellation for sat-nav, but UK might have a go anyway

Re: What?

For a given value of 'democracy'. It's always worth thinking through what that word means in our own minds; what it might need to mean in order to be something that a substantial majority of mature people would wan to buy into for the long term well being of the society they belong to; and then how it is currently being played out in reality.

Chances are none of those three aspects will match up very well. Clearly 'democracy' is a fluid concept, depending on who we ask and what the person asked is hoping for.

I guess a simple definition of 'democracy' might be something like: government conducted with the engagement and consent of 'the people'.

True, but that doesn't alter the fact that the whole thing was clearly a cynical money grubbing exercise relying on who we know rather than what we know.

It was a shambles, and you know it.

It's a 'state of mind' not a title anyone uses, unless they intend winding up those who know the cap fits their state of mind.

You know the kind of thing: 'world beating', 'punching above our weight', 'a seat at the table', 'buccaneering', etc. - they are all terms that hark back to empire and colonialism.

Some people in the UK are determined to march into the future facing backwards, instead of allowing who we are today - ALL OF US - and looking to see what we can be when we do COLLECTIVELY, with allowance for differences and compromise, work towards being the kind of society that MOST of us want to be a part of.

Nothing wrong with that at all, except that in the current circumstances one would be hopeful that those who presume to rule/lead us, having found themselves - largely through their own efforts - in a rather large hole, would have the humility, integrity and political nouse to STOP DIGGING!

What do we see: the digging machine going into overdrive. 'Lazy snark' is the least of your, and our, worries.

Are human beings capable of being self-serving idiots?

Are 'governments' comprised of 'human beings'?

Is it possible that governments are capable of making decisions based on self-serving idiocy?

The evidence presented thus far suggests that experts in the relevant fields are, at best, bemused at this apparent decision regarding the satellites. We shall await further developments and illumination, but on the record so far (investing millions in a company with no ferries and no history of operating them, etc.) we should not be hopeful that this latest wheeze has been thought through thoroughly - unless it happens to financially benefit certain 'cronies', regardless of the eventual outcome of the service.

Re: Why Galileo?

Ummm, why then are we spending/wasting millions/billions on reinventing the satnav wheel?

Remember this is 'British Empire 2' we're talking about. We're starting small (it's really 'English Empire 2'), but we're spending like we stole it ["What? We did steal it. Well, okay then - no problem!"]

So where were we? Oh, yes, if you're going to look like an empire you have to spend like one - noses in the trough, consider all awkward matters rapidly closed, move on, break things, never admit anything, never apologise, point to those sunlit uplands, lie, lie and lie again, whatever it takes to keep the money flowing from the sheeple to the people who really matter - my family, my mates and my paymasters.

Job done.

Brit police's use of facial-recognition tech is lawful, no need to question us, cops' lawyer tells Court of Appeal

Re: Wedge

'Thick end' = 'Boris'

Re: So now

How about: we just don't do it at all? Problem solved.

Just because something can be done - murder for example - doesn't mean it should be done.

Somehow human civilization has managed to stagger through the last five thousand years without the means to randomly check every passing face against a vast data base of 'persons of interest' and then to proceed to generate x number of false positives/negatives, ruin people's days/lives, hang on to data even though we said we would delete it, and generally act like 'God', but in a very 'human' - that is to say 'broken' - kind of way, and somehow claim that 'we are improving the quality of people's lives'. Utter bullshit.

Two things: power and money.

And a third thing: fuck 'quality of life'.

So now

...the whole English population is in an identity parade, on the off chance we might [possibly] match some template.

On that basis why don't we just cut to the logical conclusion and give everybody a suspended sentence in advance of them being caught doing whatever it is that we do to offend 'the law'. After all there's no point in throwing everyone in jail, the sheeple need to work to earn the money that the priviledged few need to keep them in the manner to which they are forever wishing to become accostomed but which is forever just beyond their reach - someone else always has that little bit more than they do.

The 'little people' - 'the law' will keep them from getting too uppity.

Internet Society, remember your embarrassing .org flub? The actual internet society would like to talk about it

Re: ISOC and PIR...

I cannot do better than to quote Oliver Cromwell speaking to the 'Rump Parliament' in 1653:

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

Just because we have done some good does not absolve us from the consequences of our failings and failures.

Re: A billion really ain't that much.

But, your honour, I only murdered one person, and he was scum; Jack has slaughtered hundreds of innocents.

So, it seems only fair that I should be let off with a warning, but let Jack be torn to pieces by dogs, as an example to others.

ISOC and PIR...

should both be dissolved and cease to exist as legal entities. They are utterly discredited.

Germany prepares to launch COVID-19 contact-tracing app 'this week' while UK version stuck in development hell

With grateful thanks to the Python crew [no not you Guido]

Some things in life are bad

They can really make you mad

Other things just make you swear and curse

When you're chewing on life's gristle

Don't grumble, give a whistle

And this'll help things turn out for the best

And always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the light side of life

If life seems jolly rotten

There's something you've forgotten

And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing

When you're feeling in the dumps

Don't be silly chumps

Just purse your lips and whistle, that's the thing

And always look on the bright side of life

Come on!

Always look on the right side of life

For life is quite absurd

And death's the final word

You must always face the curtain with a bow

Forget about your sin

Give the audience a grin

Enjoy it, it's your last chance anyhow

So, always look on the bright side of death

A-just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit

When you look at it

Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true

You'll see it's all a show

Keep 'em laughing as you go

Just remember that the last laugh is on you

And always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the right side of life

C'mon Brian, cheer up!

Always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the bright side of life

Worse things happen at sea, you know

Always look on the bright side of life

I mean, what have you got to lose

You know, you come from nothing, you're going back to nothing

What have you lost? Nothing!

Always look on the right side of life...

Nothing will come from nothing, you know what they say?

Cheer up you old bugger, c'mon give us a grin!

There you are, see, it's the end of the film

Incidentally, this record is available in the foyer

Some of us have to got live as well, you know

Who do you think pays for all this rubbish

They're not gonna make their money back, you know

I told them, I said to them, Bernie, I said they'll never make their money back

Russia drags NASA: Enjoy your expensive SpaceX capsule, our Soyuz is the cheap Kalashnikov of rockets

Re: When a monopoly comes to an end you can always hear the howling start. ..

Which brings us neatly to the question of Huawei - that 'proven' security nightmare which cannot be allowed to threaten the fine upstanding purveyors of networking tech that are, and always will be, pargons of security and moral probity from the US of A. Nothing to do with profits at all, nosiree, nothing at all!

As UK Parliament heads back to in-person voting, select committees are told they can continue working via Zoom

Re: Progress

Change - as is often sadly noted - frequently only occurs one funeral at a time.

25 years of PHP: The personal web tools that ended up everywhere

Re: Thanks Rasmus!

Mmm, that does somewhat depend on one's perception of 'elegance'. Arguably for something to be truly 'elegant' it must be 'functional', in fact functionality and efficiency should be the foundations of elegant code - it does what it is supposed to do, no more and no less, does it efficiently and in a way that is pleasing to read, i.e. maintainable!

Huawei launches UK charm offensive: We've provided 2G, 3G and 4G for 20 years, and you're worried about 5G?

Re: If?

Perhaps the UK Govt. would be kind enough to publish the evidence demonstrating persuasively, if not conclusively, that Huawei does indeed present a genuine security danger to our interests, a greater security danger than is presented by anyone else's kit that we are in the habit of using.

It would, afterall, do wonders for trust and transparency, whilst having no actual impact on the actual processes of implementing national security.

Please. Or shall we just call: US bullying capitalist bullshit?

Legal complaint lodged with UK data watchdog over claims coronavirus Test and Trace programme flouts GDPR

Re: Conspiracy time?

Reading the article one would have to say, 'Yeah, maybe'. It's hardly a ringing confirmation of readiness and committment. It could just as easily be a 'got-to-keep-on-keeping-up-appearances-until-it-all-blows-over-so-the-boss-doesn't-end-up-looking-like-an-idiot' whitewash.

Time will tell.

Barmy ban on businesses, Brits based in Blighty bearing or buying .eu domains is back: Cut-off date is Jan 1, 2021

Re: Shock

I somehow think that the EU registry will cope with the grievous loss of its UK registrants.

Money isn't everything, and sometimes it helps to have rules that are generally adhered to, isn't that right Dominic?

But when we think we are exceptional, obviously everyone else is to blame and/or a fool.

Embrace and kill? AppGet dev claims Microsoft reeled him in with talk of help and a job – then released remarkably similar package manager

New leopard...

...old spots.

Could it be? Really? The Year of Linux on the Desktop is almost here, and it's... Windows-shaped?

And long may that day never come, while Linux, and FOSS in general, gets on doing what it does best - being the tools that anybody can make their own, and pass them on to someone else who is free to adapt them as they see fit, etc.

Re: Linux is hard because so many versions.

No, no, no and lots more 'No' - part of the essence of 'Linux' as a concept and philosophy is its capacity to branch - even to fork.

We really do not want, or need 'Linux' to become the new 'Windows' - we've already got one of those, and one is quite enough!

New Zealand releases Bluetooth-free COVID-19 tracing app

Re: IQ downward spiral...

Perfection is not the aim, nor the expectation - good enough is good enough.

Guess what, the NZ Government, and the nation's response has been: good enough.

If you're appy and you know it: The Huawei P40 Pro conclusively proves that top-notch specs aren't everything

Re: If you are desperate for Mountain Views spyware

I use Aurora on Lineage. Almost all my installed apps come via F-Droid, but the few that come through Aurora work fine - apart from one banking app (Natwest). My other three banking apps all just work, although some of them, and one or two other apps, complain that they can't find Google Services - they still work.

Whether Huawei's Android is even more disconnected from Google than Lineage, I wouldn't know, but for what it's worth loading apps via Aurora is mostly a non-issue.

Just make sure you choose the 'Anonymous' option.

NHS contact tracing app isn't really anonymous, is riddled with bugs, and is open to abuse. Good thing we're not in the middle of a pandemic, eh?

Why, oh why...

...could we just see this coming; with bells ringing, clown shoes slapping, and full custard pie slap?

It didn't have to be this way, but somehow we just knew it would, as we peered through our fingers, hoping against hope that they might just manage to do it right. At least right enough to avoid the clown shoes and the custard pie.

And who ends up paying the price?

UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

Re: Hanlon's razor

Well, I wouldn't apply it to ALL governments, but it is certainly a common feature - the more so where ever entrenched privilege through aggregation of power and money are a prominent feature of 'government'.

Re: Hanlon's razor

Except, arguably, the Govt. has at no stage (or with rare exceptions) treated the adult population as 'responsible adults'.

The Govt's. default position is secretive, defensive, blustering, with enough lying to make anyone with any brain ask, "Why should I trust a word these clowns say? Even when they are trying to be honest I don't trust them, because they spend so much time being dishonest - or, as we are supposed to politely put it, 'economical with the truth'"

There we have the outcome response to ingrained arrogance and paternalism - lack of trust and an unwillingness to take the Govt of the day seriously.