Posts by Adair

US govt 'told Germany that Chinese spies bug' Huawei 5G kit. It also told the world Iraq had WMDs ready to deploy...

Re: "America warned Germany"

Some American corporate entities are VERY unhappy that someone else is eating their lunch. Right in front of them.

Remember the Clipper chip? NSA's botched backdoor-for-Feds from 1993 still influences today's encryption debates

Re: In the end ...

"... conceding we're stranded up the mountain, staring up at the avalanche and realizing the only option left is to curl up and pray."

You've nailed reality there, I think. After ten thousand years plus of human civilization there is no evidence that we are any better at dealing with stupid (including in ourselves) than we ever have been. It's that 'human condition' thing.

Pray - yes, that conversation is always worth having. Curl up - never! Stand and face the avalanche and keep heading in the opposite direction. Stupid is as stupid does, but it is a choice. Jeremiah never gave up speaking the truth, even as stupid carried him away to the doom he was warning about.

Re: In the end ...

There's no arguing with stupid. We either have a system that ensures some kind of dictatorship (benign or otherwise); or allow that 'stupid' will occasionally/often win the day and live with the consequences.

As far as I am concerned, the latter is preferable, but that doesn't excuse 'politicians' from a duty of honesty, integrity, truth telling, and being 'servants' to the general well being, not masters (which obviously takes us off into dictatorship territory).

Trump et al maybe the embodiment of lowest common denominator politics, but at least we all get to experience the consequences and have the 'freedom' to respond and do something about it (however much we may wring our hands and pound our keyboards in outraged disgust and despair).

Re: In the end ...

'What do you do when the voters demand unicorns?'

Tell them politely to STFU, treat them as adults and explain simply and clearly that unicorns are fantasy beasts, and that for the well being of as many as possible we will be doing this, in this way because we have sat down and listened and thought and are determined to discharge our responsibility to serve the needs and well being of the people of the nation (regardless of whether they voted for us or not).

Some will not like it.

But then you can't please everyone.

In the end ...

isn't this a philosophical issue, and a long running one?

After years of bitter violence and fear across Britain and Europe Elizabeth I had the wisdom to say, "I have no desire to make windows into mens' souls" and gave people space (relatively) to think and believe as they wished, without 'the state' feeling the need to intrude or to 'know'.

Politicians and societies need to make fundamental decisions about the boundaries of 'state' interference and knowledge, accepting that there are places they will not and should not go, and accept the cost of doing that for the sake of the greater good.

On the whole we seem to lack politicians (and others) with the capacity or the will to be big enough to step back and consider the bigger picture and put issues of the day into some kind of context.

Nah, power, money, fear and loathing - much more fun.

Boris celebrates taking back control of Brexit Britain's immigration – with unlimited immigration program

But then so are swanky apartments supported by modern infrastructure, Michelin starred restaurants, fabulous baristas, glorious weather, and a warm welcome from the locals.

Brit brainiacs say they've cracked non-volatile RAM that uses 100 times less power

But you can already see ...

phone manufacturers, ISPs, and nameless govt. agencies dribbling with greed at the prospect of being so totally in control of the user's device.

What brave new world is this, to be so totally pwned?

Free Software Foundation suggests Microsoft 'upcycles' Windows 7... as open source

Re: Yeah, sequester, ...

Are you replying to some other comment? To me Linux/Windows/OSX... are all just OSes - horses for courses. Choose the one that most usefully fits your needs at any given time.

None of them are panaceas. All of them are crap in their own way. They are all just tools in the box, to be used as and when they are most appropriate.

But, as the old saying goes, a bad worker always blames their tools.

Open sourcing W7?

For God's sake, no!

Re: I'd like a pony with that one, please

And then, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, there's Windows to prove the old saying that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the buying public.

Re: reply to AntiSol

But this is nothing to do with 'Linux', is it? Someone else could make exactly the same argument against Windows, because the issue is 'tools for the job'. In which case it is the responsibility of the user to choose the system that enables them to do what they want to do most effectively. There's no point whining that X doesn't let me do what I want to do in the way that Y does, that's just being pathetic.

In practice there is stuff we can do through Linux that Windows doesn't even begin to enable, and the other way around, and a whole lot in between where either will do just fine (it really only depends on personal preference). It's the user's responsibility to choose wisely.

Yeah, sequester, ...

some folk just don't/can't do change.

"Arrgh, it's different!", they howl. "But I can't use [favourite time waster]!", they scream.

Meanwhile, people who need to get work done, need to do things the way they need to do them, are willing to learn and/or 'do change' get on with making sensible decisions for their use cases. And, guess what, quite often a Linux distro fits the bill very nicely.

Meanwhile, the 'religious' fanatics on both sides shriek at each other from their opposing hilltops. Which are, in fact, small pimples on the summit of the big hill they all occupy - 'The Hill of Idiots'.

Re: Do they know an open source Windows would be the death of Linux?

Come on, don't be a wuss, give them both barrels - they'll be completely blown away by your argument.

Protestors in Los Angeles force ICANN board out of hiding over .org sale – for a brief moment, at least

The whole thing ...

is a complete disgrace, but at least it lifts the lid and lets folk see that ICANN is no longer fit for purpose.

High level domains should in no way be the prerogative of a 'private' national entity to do with them whatever it wills, especially to seek personal wealth.

The 'Internet' has come a long way from when it was a private playground for a handful of US military and academic institutions. ICANN, as currently constituted, is effectively a throwback to that era, and is long overdue to be abolished, or completely reconstituted as an international org.

SLS goes vertical at Stennis while NASA practises SRB stacking

The future here ...

is looking more and more like the past.

Sad really.

We need to make it even easier for UK terror cops to rummage about in folks' phones, says govt lawyer

Re: "for quite reasonably refusing to incriminate themselves or others"

Which would be perfectly fine if we could rely on the Police (and others of HM's security services) to apply the legislation at their disposal with integrity, just cause and a transparent determination to apply the law fairly and justly, i.e. not allow the law to be weaponised in order to intimidate those deemed 'awkward/inconvenient' by powerful people in order to pursue their own political/economic advantage.

Flinging resource-hungry apps at landfill Android? Ubuntu daddy wants to lure you into Anbox Cloud

And the users keep on paying.

Even if it's just a salami slice all those slices add up to a very nice yacht visiting the Galapagos Islands, followed by a quite jaunt to Antarctica (before the ice melts). BTW, did we take out those future mining options?

From WordPad to WordAds: Microsoft caught sneaking nagging Office promos into venerable text editor beta

Re: Where did it all go wrong?

It all went wrong the day MS stopped having 'Making a [decent] operating system (and other bits of software)' as its priority, and changed its priority to 'Making lots of money for its shareholders'. The moment that flip occurs in any business is the moment what they 'do' simply becomes the means to a mercenary end.

MS could quite easily shift to making electric cars/underwear/sugar saturated fizzy drinks/vegan burgers/... and it wouldn't make any difference because MS primary business is, and has been for many years, extracting the maximum amount of money it can get away with while minimising expenses - like most of the world's corporates. Developing a [decent] OS crashed down the priority list years ago.

It's a no to ZFS in the Linux kernel from me, says Torvalds, points finger of blame at Oracle licensing

Re: The problem is Oracle (again)

So what's your complaint? The GPL is aimed to achieve particular practical and philosophical ends. If you don't like it don't use it.. If some software you like uses it, which stops you doing the thing you want to do, then write your own code, by all means, but don't whine because someone else has chosen a particular, perfectly legitimate, licence. Likewise, for those who find that some other licence prevents them doing what they want to do, whether under the GPL or anything else - don't cry like a spoilt brat.

Let's just be thankful that all software isn't (yet) owned by Oracle, MS, Amazon, Google or anybody else, and that people are still allowed to release their software under whatever licence they see fit, whether it be a selfish money grubbing one, an open hearted generous one, etc.

It's still the freedom thing, which includes the freedom to be mortally offended that somebody, somewhere isn't doing what we want.

What was Boeing through their heads? Emails show staff wouldn't put their families on a 737 Max over safety fears

Re: "But it's not a 'new' aircraft is it? "

New subsystems is not the same as new airframe. The Max is based, according to all the reports I have ever read, on the existing 737 family airframe - hence the difficulty encountered mating the engines to the airframe in an airworthy fashion.

Re: Decent aircraft

But it's not a 'new' aircraft is it? It's a mutation of an old tried and tested design that has been pushed beyond what the existing airframe is capable of safely handling, i.e. the aircraft does not default to neutral handling characteristics, which is an important quality for civilian passenger aircraft. The 'safe' handling characteristics are, instead, dependent on synthetic controls, which have been installed ona 'lets keep this as cheap as possible' basis.

Those engines should have been fitted to an airframe designed to safely cope with their size and weight by default. Instead money won out over safety, with the inevitable result. There are people in th eupper hierarchy of Boeing who should be sacked without benefits, some of the should probably face criminal charges, or maybe more appropriately the whole of Boeing should face 'corporate manslaughter through gross negligence' charges and it wouldn't be too much to ask the Boeing be broken up and sold off. No one is above the law and no corporate entity has a right to exist, certainly not fo rthe selfish benefit of shareholders and senior staff.. The whole thing is an utter disgrace.

As I've said before,

if Boeing has any integrity at all they should:

1. sack the entire board - they are responsible

2. sack the Head of Design - they are responsible

3. sack the Head of Safety - they are responsible

The fact that none of this has happened shows that the company is an irresponsible money grubbing self-serving zombie that just happens to build aeroplanes as a means of serving its actual needs - the enrichment of its top people.

Almost all big corporations reach this stage of senescence eventually.

Firefox 72: Floating videos, blocking fingerprints, and defeating notification pop-ups

It's a shame ...

whining can't be used to generate electricity.

Long-term Linux Mint: 19.3 release unchains the Gimp, adds HiDPI, is kind to your older, less-beefy kit

Re: Gimp

Most/many people only like what they know and know what they like. And change is a terrible thing, much to be feared and defended against.

LibreOffice 6.4 nearly done as open-source office software project prepares for 10th anniversary

Re: ELEVEN YEARS to "succeede"?

That is indeed a good question, and unfortunately there is no panacea out there that I know of, except that a vast quantity of documents could stand to be written in plain text and then imported into the relevant corporate template, and many outfits operate some equivalent sort of scheme.

As for graphics, one can only weep! Proper training across a range of tools would be good, but then I also want the Moon on a stick.

As for home users, well who knows what people get up to behind closed doors, although the resulting mutations do regularly break free and get to be seen in public.

The reality is that Office/LO/etc. attempt to be all things to all people, and of course end up being at best barely adequate and at worst horribly unhelpful. Not to say there aren't flashes of brilliance - people have tried really hard, but your average user is really up against it when trying to produce effective, consistent and timely documents in any of the suite tools.

It pays to keep a sense of humour; even so I stand by my assertion that 'office' tools, starting with Word and Writer, are basically crap - they try to do too much, and either infantilise the user or leave them swimming in a swamp of options and expectations. Such is life.

Re: ELEVEN YEARS to "succeede"?

On the other hand we could all just recognise that when it comes to the business of creating and managing documents, especially long ones, Word is basically crap. So, also, although in slightly different ways, is LO.

Given the above reality, and the relatively negligible differences between the two suites (although LO is significantly 'better' with its inclusion of the surprisingly useful 'Draw'), one would have to say that LO is easily the better choice - simply because in the light of what it offers 'free' is very hard to beat.

The fact that Word continues to be the dominant package by a significant margin illustrates the time honoured truth that 'quality' is no guarantee of success. Word 'succeeds' not on the basis of its 'quality' - which is barely 'good enough' - but on the fact that MS has done a sterling job of grabbing 'market share' by fair means and foul. Now we all get to enjoy the fruits of that dominance - whether we like it or not.

It is therefore much to be applauded that LO (and other alternatives to Word) continue to exist at all, and in many cases to offer highly usable packages within the sad limits of a wretched 'wordprocessor'.

Re: Black squares

Although why anyone in their right mind would choose Word for output formatting for professional commercial publication is anyone's guess (or LO for that matter).

Where content is only words plain text is more than adequate and keeps things mercifully simple and focussed (saves writers faffing around with formatting as a form of procrastination).

Once graphics are involved there are other professional packages far more suited to producing professional output than Word/LO - which are really just glorified letter compositors.

Boeing, Boeing, gone! CEO Muilenburg quits 'effective immediately'

Classic scapegoating

The whole Board should have resigned, or better still been sacked with extreme prejudice - along with the head of engineering and head of safety. All of them carry proper responsibility for this deadly shambles of greed and cowardice.

Deadly 737 Max jets no longer a Boeing concern – for now: Production suspended after biz runs out of parking space

Re: Is it a good idea ...?

This is the thing: they designed an aircraft that, without constant computer input, was/is fundamentally un-airworthy.

Bolting engines onto an airframe that was never designed to cope with said engines is an obvious recipe for disaster - and disaster ensued.

Why the entire Board of Boeing have not already resigned - they are responsible - along with whoever is head of engineering and head of safety, I do not know. They obviously value money more than people, and so, like the product of their greed, they are unfit for purpose.

Microsoft's Teams goes to bat for the other team with preview on Linux

'... it's a shame that there is currently no Snap or Flatpak installer.'

What's wrong with Appimage?

Kiwi tax probe squeezed $25m out of Microsoft – now it's Oracle's turn

Parasitism

Allowing profits within a nation to be 'offshored' is just a form of parasatism - the benefit only goes to one side and the other side 'the nation and its people' are actively harmed.

Never underestimate the deviousness and selfishness that will be deployed by anyone driven by greed (especially if it's an 'multi-national corporate entity').

Elon Musk gets thumbs up from jury for use of 'pedo guy' in cave diver defamation lawsuit

Only in America* (TM)

* Other hubristic moral swamps are available.

As pressure builds over .org sell-off, internet governance bodies fall back into familiar pattern: Silence

Re: Time for a new TLD

'grubbly' should = 'grubby', but in many ways is more evocative (and I won't charge for its use!).

Re: Time for a new TLD

.gro - has the right feel, and reversing the name has a long and noble history when it comes to forking the code (and possibly giving a middle finger salute to the grubbly/unhelpful actions that led to the fork).

Delayed, over-budget smart meters will be helpful – when Blighty enters 'Star Trek phase'

Re: Couldn't have one even if I wanted it

If you've got a garden look into the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of a heat pump for your heating.

Q. Who's triumphantly slamming barn door shut after horse bolted at warp 9? A. NordVPN

Re: Just out of curiousity....

I also use Nord at home, and on mobile occasionally. No real issues on either; I'm certainly not going to stop using their service, not on account of this snafu anyway.

Your kids will be glad a UK government-funded robot will be changing your nappy and not them

Re: Immoral fuckers!

Great, except that's not the scenario under discussion. And, there are plenty of people available to 'help' each other, it is simply a case of will and organisation. We might have to change our behaviour and priorities (shock horror!).

Re: Immoral fuckers!

BTW, I've no problem at all with mechanical aids being available as adjuncts/extensions to human care, but as a substitute? No!

If we haven't the guts, compassion or humility to properly care for each other, especially when ill, infirm, etc. then we really have lost the plot. Personally and as a society. If we sink that low we will deserve all the consequences that come to us.

Re: Immoral fuckers!

Sorry, but bollocks. I've actually had, and continue to have, a lot of contact with frail and I'll elderly people - mostly now in hospital, but in care homes in past years. So, wrong assumption.

There's one thing, and one thing only, that this is all about: MONEY.

It I'd evidence of the lazy, self-centered ness and greed which drives too many of us.

Caring for each other, especially the frail and ill, is probably the highest human activity; and we pay little more than slave wages for people, often foreigners (good on them, and shame on us), to do this incredibly important and honourable work.

Robots will never have the empathy, sensitivity and compassion of a human being. It is a disgrace that we even consider absenting human contact and replacing it with a mere mechanism, as if that is anything but a poverty stricken and immoral substitute.

Immoral fuckers!

The people who think this is somehow a 'good' idea.

US customers kick up class-action stink over Epson's kyboshing of third-party ink

Washout your keyboard for mentioning the vile 'L******'! 'Skidmark' would be more appropriate.

I vowed never to touch their products again after being on the receiving end of their cynical and abusive treatment of customers. Here, from 2009, are my two main complaints (re a C530dn printer):

1. Utterly cynical and abusive treatment of the customer; toner cartridges (via integral chip), will 'time out' regardless of how much toner has been used. Printer becomes a paper weight until cartridge (or chip), is replaced;

2. In 2009 Lexmark increased toner cartridge prices by 30-40%. Toner now >£100, so that's >£400 to replace all toners, which don't have a particularly long life anyway (not counting the 'time out' feature).

Trust, once lost, is extremely difficult to recover.

See you in Hull: First UK city to be hooked up to full-fibre broadband

Re: meh

In Hull it is fibre all the way.

Actualitie

For what it's worth, I'm sitting just outside Hull and on KCom's fibre network. Broadband speed check reports:

Ping Download Upload

13 ms 77.33 Mb/s 9.77 Mb/s

... but then that includes the trudge through my Netgear router which may not be helping.

Anyway, speeds are perfectly adequate for domestic usage at Adair Towers.

China and Russia join to battle 'illegal internet content,' which means what you fear it does

Re: As Shakespeare said ...

Actually, Ecclesiastes 1:9b I believe - somewhat earlier.

And no doubt the idea was already very old when the Teacher decided to write that all down.

This won't end well. Microsoft's AI boffins unleash a bot that can generate fake comments for news articles

Just bring back the Twat-o-tron

(as already mentioned by Alister above)

Fairytale for 2019: GNOME to battle a patent troll in court

To hell with Prior Art ...

I hope the suit fails on the basis of 'Absolute-Mindnumbing-Obviousness' (that is a technical legal term) - with full costs being awarded to the Gnome Foundation, plus a hefty punitive fine to the Trolls for wasting the Court's time.

Next!

The D in Systemd is for Directories: Poettering says his creation will phone /home in future

That's a maybe.

It's also possible that Systemd was pushed for political reasons as much as anything else, i.e. it wasn't about being 'the best' option, just the one that happened to work well enough on a technical level, but also happened to be being pushed by a particular person/people at a particular time and place that suited certain other peoples political and financial agendas.

This happens all the time: witness the rise of Microsoft and their broken Windows. You wouldn't choose it if you had a choice of decent OSes, but here it still is... still of questionable quality, but tolerated and abused by millions.

UK Supreme Court unprorogues Parliament

You don't really seem to understand how it works. In British civil law anything that is not explicitly ruled illegal is, on the face of it, allowed - that's your starting point.

Therefore the 'Govt.' is quite entitled to attempt anything it feels it can 'get away with', and will sometimes do this in the hope that no one will bother to take the time or expense to put their actions to the test. if they get away with it that establishes a precedent which then makes it more difficult (but not impossible) to demonstrate 'illegality'.

Gina Millar has had the guts, determination and help of appropriately placed 'friends' to immediately put Govt. claims to the test, and has so far made the Govt. look like cynical fools two times running. it certainly does the Govt. and it's advisors no credit whatsoever.

I have no mouth and I must scream: You can add audio to wobbles in latest Windows 10 patch

Re: Sorry, I can't help myself...

An excellent question that raises some profound existential questions about Windows place in life.

Re: Sorry, I can't help myself...

Life is full of bitter disappointments.