Posts by Pascal Monett

Virginia school board learns a hard lesson... and other stories

"DARPA wants an ekranoplan"

Another good video on the ekranoplan and how it was discovered can be found here.

An interesting concept, to be sure, but its use is limited to bodies of water that have no waves.

The Caspian Sea, or the Mediterranean are viable areas for a ground-effect transport, but I doubt the Atlantic or the Pacific are calm enough to see this kind of vehicle survive.

If DARPA wants an ekranoplan for the Great Lakes, fine, but it won't be transporting troops from San Fransisco to Hawaii any time soon.

Then again, if you don't try, you'll never succeed.

Only 'natural persons' can be recognized as patent inventors, not AI systems, US judge rules

"Those are mighty big questions"

And they will be answered when the time comes.

As for AI, we don't have it yet and your neural network is not AI either, so the judge is right.

And if you need to look to Australia for help, you're not doing yourself any good.

Norwegian student tracks Bluetooth headset wearers by wardriving around Oslo on a bicycle

Re: ...and in other news

Sorry, but a mobile phone is not at all a pair of earbuds.

To be able to make or receive a call, your location must be known at the very least by the nearest mast. That is part of the bleeding obvious in life.

To learn that you can be tracked by earbuds is something else entirely. Unexpected, and unwelcome.

Unfortunately, it is not entirely surprising.

Lenovo pops up tips on its tablets. And by tips, Lenovo means: Unacceptable ads

"looking for the best balance between information and experience"

Here is the best balance : information comes before the purchase, experience comes after the purchase.

It's not up to you, Lenovo, to "inform" your customers when they have made the purchase. Your customers know how to use a browser, they can inform themselves.

Apple engineers complain of hostile work environment to US labor watchdog

Apple is not a company I would want to work for

Apple has an internal police that can carry concealed weapons.

Apple has given itself the right to search your house with its stormtroopers if it even only thinks you are a risk of giving away something about its latest curved-cornered smartphone.

Who in their right mind would want to work for a company that gives itself state-level police rights without a warrant ?

Not me.

US Air Force chief software officer quits after launching Hellfire missile of a LinkedIn post at his former bosses

To be fair ?

To be fair ?

Let's make one thing clear : bosses are not techies.

There may be a one-in-a-million people who rise to management after having lived in helldesk, but this is more than an exception ; it's a miracle.

The rest are all manglement material who have flunked Board-level entry and haven't the faintest idea of what an IP address is, much less how to manage a firewall.

Let me give an example. I was once part of a vast administrative entity with an IT department and, at its head, an individual who's grasp of IT was the following : one day, I and my colleague were summoned to the official's office to discuss access to the Dev server and how things were not going to standard.

My colleague had access to the Dev server. I had been refused access to the Dev server.

How is it that the fucking head of IT didn't realize that before I put it on the table ?

And you want me to believe that that fucking idiot would be entitled to not appreciate that I know that he should fucking know who he granted access to what ?

Head of IT. You should definitely know who has access to what. That's not rocket science. That is your responsibility.

Can we talk about Kevin McCarthy promising revenge if Big Tech aids probe into January insurrection?

Remind me how they caught Al Capone ?

Capricious tyranny ? Really ?

Republican representatives have been spouting treason for years now. I'll take anything that can take them down.

So, when are you moving to Florida ?

Or should I say, Mar-A-Lago ?

Don't you just love it ?

I am always absolutely flabbergasted when I see a US politician spouting bullshit without any consequence whatsoever.

This asshole is publicly trying to obstruct a government inquiry, and nothing. The cops don't show up, no journalist is calling him out, nada.

It is not a Democrat inquiry, it is a Government inquiry you moron. You're lucky I'm not the President, because I would have the IRS take your taxes apart line by line. I'm sure you've got some dirty laundry to hang yourself with.

Don't like the new Windows 11 Start or Taskbar? Don't worry – Microsoft's got your back

"Windows team's [..] apparently slipshod approach to quality"

Apparently ?

I didn't know it was Christmas already. You are being way too kind to this band of borkers.

Microsoft Azure deprecations: API changes will break applications and PowerShell scripts

"tired of updating scripts to keep existing functionality when the previous modules work just fine"

Yes but, it was old code.

You know, code that was written ten years ago ? It's rusty now.

Borkzilla doesn't give a flying fig about the efforts you have to make to continue working. Borlzilla knows best, and Borkzilla is all about innovating. If all that innovation makes you work overtime, it's a sacrifice Borkzilla is willing to make you make.

A speech recognition app goes into a bar. Speak up if you’ve heard it already

"Edit Select-All Delete Yes"

I can guarantee you that the guy who would try that on me would think twice before doing that again after picking up his battered body from the floor.

I'm not a violent guy by nature, but if you sabotage my work you will pay the blood price.

Oh! A surprise tour of the data centre! You shouldn't have. No, you really shouldn't have

Once I was on holiday in the USA when I got an SMS from a client asking me why I wasn't answering my mail. I had to phone at 6AM (California time) to explain that I was out of the country.

The interesting thing (from my point of view) was that my associate at the time was also in contact with the client, and he apparently did nothing to handle the issue before they texted me.

He is no longer my associate.

Perseverance rover drilled a rock on Mars and probably snaffled a core sample

"NASA's image of that sample"

Hey Mulder, is that a bit of black goo I see on the left-hand part of the image ?

Branson (in a) pickle: FAA grounds Virgin Galactic flights after billionaire's space trip veered off course

"the choice of either aborting the flight"

Let's be real, that was never a choice. If there was any chance to keep going without loss of life, that's what they would choose.

You can't take your boss for a ride and, because of an administrative alarm, tell him after one minute "uh, boss, we have to abort and all that publicity you made for yourself is going to come back negative times a hundred".

Being grounded after the fact is negligible, PR-wise, compared to the absolute shitstorm that Branson would have been subject to if the mission had aborted.

Busy day in China: Xi Jinping announces tech-sharing, services export push and a bourse for startups

"young men who dress fashionably and don't conform to male stereotypes"

Um, what exactly is that brain fart ?

Which "male stereotypes" are acceptable in China now ? The rugged woodcutter ?

I'm absolutely not and never have been a fan of boys bands in general, but I fail to see how the argument of male stereotype can be used to ban them.

That's pretty backwards as far I'm concerned.

Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa test cross-border crypto-payments

"all the qualities of other instruments like banknotes but lends itself to electronic exchange"

I'm sorry, fiat currencies do not lend themselves to digital exchange ? Since when ?

The only time I have to use banknotes is when I'm going for pizza takeout at my friendly local pizzaiolo in his mobile kitchen.

The rest of the time, I'm using a no-contact VISA.

Apparently, you can also use your phone for paying stuff.

I can also send money to anyone with an IBAN number. I do that all the time when I have to pay an invoice for work done in the house, or an important delivery. Easy as pie.

The only thing I can't do digitally is give someone ten bucks (euros, whatever). To do that, I have to use physical currency.

If that is the problem they want to solve, I think it would be a lot more simple to have an app from the bank that you can charge, and via Blutooth you could sync between two phones for a given amount. End of problem. No need to go fabricate some more funny money for that.

Stop with the funny money already.

FTC bans 'brazen' stalkerware maker SpyFone, orders data deletion, alerts to victims

Re: Zuck...

Zuckerberg's evil twin, perhaps ?

Ah, Forbes.

"A shocking new tracking admission from Google "

It's only new to you, Forbes. Only to you.

Re: THREE YEARS!

And that's only since the data breach. SpyPhone was operating before that, but I don't know for how long.

"We will be aggressive about seeking surveillance bans "

You need to be a bit more aggressive than that, I think.

Facebook: Let us tell you WhatsApp – we don't want to pay that €225m GDPR fine

"We will appeal this decision"

Well of course you will.

And when the appeal has found you also guilty, I hope the fine will be doubled.

In space, no one can hear cyber security professionals scream

Re: It's just boring numbers anyway

You do know that, for a computer, pictures are just boring numbers ?

Pictures transmitted by spy satellites, for example.

I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people who would not find those numbers boring at all.

UK VoIP telco receives 'colossal ransom demand', reveals REvil cybercrooks suspected of 'organised' DDoS attacks on UK VoIP companies

The transition has already started, my friend. It's largely on its way to be completed as well.

Imaginary numbers help AIs solve the very real problem of adversarial imagery

"a more 'terraced' or 'plateaued' landscape to explore"

Sure, we're already pretending we have AI, why not throw gardening in the mix ?

I really would appreciate it if El Reg at least could stop pandering to this marketing illusion. It's not AI, it's a statistical analysis machine.

In any case, call me when they need mowing the lawn. I'll be sure to ensure that all the data points are cut down to the same height.

AWS Tokyo outage takes down banks, share traders, and telcos

What is insane is that a bank relies on someone else's server.

Banks have a duty of security and confidentiality with their customer's data. How is that duty respected on a cloud server ?

Arm says it has 'successful working relationship' with Chinese joint venture run by CEO who refuses to leave

Re: This is a no-win for China

What it is is a giant warning sign for companies wanting to set up a branch in China.

Do so and you will run the risk of losing your IP to a local who refuses to obey your commands.

I don't think there's any other country in the world where the subordinate relation between a branch and company headquarters has ever been put into question. The Board wants you out ? You leave. Period.

But apparently, in China, that's not how it works.

Well I'm sure of one thing : even if I become a billionaire, I'm not setting up shop in China until I have the guarantee that no local can refuse my orders.

Dissected: A dropper-as-a-service miscreants pay to push their malware onto potentially 1,000s of victims

It will be interesting to put your theory to the test.

Obviously, I subscribe to the idea that Linux is generally "safe" because not many people use it on the desktop. That said, malware can be had on Linux, it's just that Windows is a far more juicy target.

Even so, the fact that most, if not all, Linux users do not work with an admin account, something that is virtually impossible to do on Windows without an IT department to manage things, means that even on Linux, malware will be rather limited in its effects.

But hey, when the day of the Linux desktop has arrived, we'll see what the scum manage to do.

Because one thing is certain : they will give it a go.

Re: Free porn viewer program anyone?

Well there's a browser and YouPorn.

Or so I've been told . . .

NASA tests flying taxis made by biz dreaming of being the Uber of the sky

I count six spinning beheaders

Okay, I will be upfront about the fact that I absolutely do not believe that airtaxis are going to be a thing.

We have enough trouble with the thousands of land-based accidents we already have, we hardly need to add falling hunks of metal into the mix.

If aerial travel was so important for hopping from one place to another in a given city, helicopters would already be a roaring business. It's not because your vehicle is electric that all of a sudden it creates an entirely new market, nor will it bring the cost down to regular taxi levels. Only rich people will be able to afford it, and rich people can already charter a helicopter.

Not to mention that landing sites are at a premium in any city that could use an aerial taxi service. It's not like they'll be landing in a park.

So I fully expect this startup to fail miserably, although I will be sad to see it go.

Fired credit union employee admits: I wiped 21GB of files from company's shared drive in retaliation

Absolutely.

Shame on her for deleting files.

Shame on the IT department for not having regular backups.

Shame on management for not insisting on proper security rules and surfing on the "hey, it's working, everything's fine" attitude.

Yes, she is to be blamed for what she did. But the company bears a greater burden of blame for making it possible in the first place.

Microsoft previews free Visual Studio Code for the Web

Re: I just don't get it

People don't keep pushing.

Companies managing clouds do.

Because an actual developer will not be pulled into this fairy tale.

An actual developer needs his local network, access to what it is he's working on, and no external dependencies.

Tachyum's Prodigy emulator achieves first boot, runs Linux and says 'hello, world'

But, can it run Crysis ?

Sorry, I'm leaving . . .

You know what they say about assume . . .

Spring tears down math geek t-shirt listing because it dared to mention the trademarked word 'zeta'

"The Greek alphabet is currently protected legally"

I'm sorry, if there is anything that is more public domain than the Greek alphabet, please inform me.

This really is an example of trademarks gone mad. Who the hell got custody of the Greek alphabet and under what authority ?

That needs to be revoked immediately.

With prejudice if necessary.

More cracks found in Russian annex of the International Space Station

Re: Red Green

Indeed, but remember the film Apollo 13.

Duct tape doesn't do so well in sub-zero conditions.

Yet.

Agreed. I'm all for nationalistic titty waving.

BrakTooth vulnerabilities put Bluetooth users at risk – and some devices are going unpatched

Re: Grr

Heh, buying TI does not mean you have a product made in the USA. Their web page boasts of 14 manufacturing sites worldwide.

Worlwide. Not in the USA.

Power users of Microsoft OneDrive suffer massive inconvenience: Read-only files

Power users

Bloody nuisance. They actually use the product. They find the kinks. And then patches must be made.

NSA: We 'don't know when or even if' a quantum computer will ever be able to break today's public-key encryption

"users will divulge their passwords in return for chocolate"

What makes you think they will gave their actual password ?

You want to give me a frozen Mars Bar for my email password ? Kachinka2708. Hand it over.

They've only gone and done it – South Korea forces Apple, Google to allow alternative app store payment systems

Re: Gotta love those lawyers ...

Indeed. Typical American response to anything that "tilts the playing field" away from them.

Obviously, a US monopoly is the only thing that has the divine right to make rules. Who are these underlings who think they can decide otherwise ?

Semiconductor veterans gather to design customizable, chiplet-based RISC-V server processors

Wow

"The CPU core running that code sees those instructions and communicates with the custom die to complete the operations fast, and returns the results to the calling code "

And to think that we all thought that Meltdown and Spectre were the worst that could happen. Now a hacker is going to be able to actually re-code the CPU.

And you'll never notice.

Neither will AV software.

Welcome to the future !

Volkswagen to stop making its best-selling product for Wolfsburg workers: VW-branded sausages

“good food is important"

Absolutely. A good steak is very important. Or a juicy sausage with a side of fries.

I'm pretty sure this measure is not going to go down well.

Logitech Bolt devices support secure Bluetooth Low Energy – but forget the 'Unifying Receiver'

Re: F*ck wireless

I basically agree with you. Wireless for keyboards ? Nonsense.

But I very much like my rodents to be tether-free. I've had a Logitech G602 for years now and I'm very happy with it. I bought a G603 for my work laptop as well. No problems with either.

Western Digital unveils 20TB OptiNAND hard drive, pledges 50TB to follow

Re: Old fart rant inside...

Ah, but it had 16Tb, as in tera-bits.

And, as we all know, there's 8 bits to a byte.

Plus there's the fact that marketing can't be arsed to calculate the kilobyte at its true value of 1024 bytes, it uses 1000 because if marketers knew how to count they would be beancounters.

Arms not long enough to reach the plug socket? Room-wide wireless charging is on the way

Re: "...37 per cent efficiency..."

Probably not good.

Hypochondriacs everywhere will be overjoyed at this new opportunity to complain, though.

Windows 11 will roll out from October 5 as Microsoft hypes new hardware

"all on PCs which lack a TPM"

Congrats, Borkzilla, on shutting yourself out of a rather large portion of the market.

I don't know if you've heard, but people don't upgrade every year anymore. And with the amount of computers that were sold due to COVID, you're not going to see much headway before 2026 the way you're going.

Re: That was fast

It's exceptionally fast when you remember that Borkzilla swore left and right that Windows 1 0 was going to be the last version.

Goes to show how much you can count on their word.

Docker Desktop no longer free for large companies: New 'Business' subscription is here

"Docker Desktop no longer free for large companies"

So, turning the screws now, are we ?

Leaked Guntrader firearms data file shared. Worst case scenario? Criminals plot UK gun owners' home addresses in Google Earth

"why it was collecting location coordinates down to six decimal places"

Well because Big Data, of course.

You never know what it might be useful for, so privacy be damned, grab everything you can and AI will sort it out.

Or hackers.

NHS England's release of 'details' on access to Palantir COVID-19 data store: Good enough? We're in a 'dialogue' says national data watchdog

"People have the right to a say in what happens to their personal health information"

I wish you the best of luck with that.

Palantir has the data and you have no control over that.