Posts by Pascal Monett

Nominet sets the date for extraordinary meeting where members could fire CEO

“no credible alternative plan has been put forward”

That sentence was not finished. It should read : “no credible alternative plan to ensure the current Board's lavish lifestyle has been put forward”.

Microsoft sides with media groups, together they urge Europe to follow Australia's lead, make Google, Facebook pay for news article links

"Microsoft has sided with publishers"

I wonder what the decision would have been if FaceBook belonged to Microsoft ?

Microsoft survives today for two reasons : 1) it's bottomless pit of money, and 2) Windows and Office, which are the defacto standards of computing.

Everything else Borkzilla has tried has basically failed to bring in money. Windows Phone is only the latest disaster, there have been others. Borkzilla is in the back seat on the Internet, it is no longer calling the shots.

I wonder if it is going to start a news outlet. Being paid by Google & FB would certainly be the ultimate irony.

NASA sends nuclear tank 293 million miles to Mars, misses landing spot by just five metres. Now watch its video

Re: Magnificent!

That video brought tears to my eyes.

So awesome !

Forget GameStop: Keyboard warriors and electronic trading have never mixed well

You might want to check out this video and revise your understanding of how the brain works.

If you don't want to watch all of it, the relevant part starts at point 12:45.

Enjoy !

House Republicans introduce legislation for outright ban on municipal broadband in the US

It's what they do

They are Republicans.

The last four years have amply demonstrated what it is they do : shit on the Constitution, morals and the law whenever possible while favorising their billion-dollar corporate buddies.

This is no longer a political party, it's a mafia.

Citibank accidentally wired $500m back to lenders in user-interface super-gaffe – and judge says it can't be undone

I find IBAN transfers to be very reliable myself. The only hassle is that, in some banks, you have to record the recipient's details and wait for the bank to check them before being able to use it.

It's a hassle, but like all security, it's a good hassle to have.

Well, Citibank went to court to recover half of it, so no.

"all believing the settings were correct"

And nobody checked. A billion dollar transfer and nobody checked.

Three different "managers", and they all blindly clicked OK without checking themselves, or checking that the previous guy had did the job properly.

Rubber-stamp management is easy.

Citibank certainly does not deserve to get the money back.

UK Supreme Court declares Uber drivers are workers, not self-employed: Ride biz's legal battle ends in a crash

Well done

And kudos to the UK Supreme Court judges for not having been blinded by lawyers wearing expensive suits. It is good to see that Reason and Justice can still prevail against corporate greed.

"We respect the court's decision" - well of course you do now, you have no other option but. And of course, now you wish to engage with drivers and listen to them, but you won't hand out mass employement contracts unless they go before an employment tribunal - which many will probably decide is not worth the hassle.

So, in the end, Uber hasn't really lost much and, cherry on the cake, those "employees" can easily be fired in the near future as soon as they make a mistake.

So I heartily applaud the decision, but until it is enshrined in law and valid for all UK Uber drivers be default, it's not really a win in my view.

Fancy a £130k director of technology role with the UK's Ministry of Justice? All you need to do is 'fix the basics'

"Court digitisation has gone poorly in the UK"

Could someone please point me to a Government IT project that has not gone poorly in the UK ?

Just one ?

Because I can't remember ever hearing about one.

Emergency services communications ? The old one was going to be cut off and the new one wasn't in place.

NHS ? Please.

No, somebody please tell me that something has gone well in UK Goverment IT services.

Oh, the lifts are working ? Well that's something, I guess.

Nvidia cripples Ethereum mining on GeForce RTX 3060 to deter crypto bods from nabbing all the kit at launch

Sorry, Nvidia, tweaking your driver is not the solution

The solution is simple : only allow the purchase of one card per credit card number.

Gamers generally only buy one card, it's the miners who buy them in stacks of four.

Of course, the miners could manage getting four credit cards, but if you had announced the move on the day the sale started, that would have them flummoxed and the gamers would win.

It's impossible to get three more credit cards in a day, and once the gamers had gotten their legitimate share, the miners would have wasted a lot of time.

Atheists warn followers of unholy data leak, hint dark deeds may have tried to make it go away

Not a hack, an inside job

Which basically means that not even atheists can be arsed to keep themselves under the same banner.

Is there anything Humans will not fuck up ?

AWS tops up the Bezos rocket fund thanks to more money from Brit tax collection agency

"that still doesn't make tax avoidance ethical"

Obviously not, but unfortunately ethical and legal are two different things.

CEOs are not there to be ethical - they exist to "maximise shareholder value". As long as that situation is not changed, there is no amount of laws that will force a CEO to things ethically.

The only thing that can have an impact is public image. That is why is critically important to continue flaying online any company that underpays its workers, does not keep bonus promises, does not provide a safe workplace, or sources components from child labor or slave labor conditions.

We, the citizens, are the last force to make CEOs comply to what we think is ethical.

If we don't do it with our voices, the law cannot do anything about it.

Australia facepalms as Facebook blocks bookstores, sport, health services instead of just news

I am totally convinced that that is exactly what is happening.

Hero to Jezero: Perseverance, NASA's most advanced geologist rover, lands on Mars, beams back first pics

Re: how do you think Cruise Missles find their target?

You're right, but Cruise Missile Terrain Navigation code is not available on GitHub.

Or anywhere else, for that matter.

You want me to do WHAT in that prepaid envelope?

Re: Compared to a colonoscopy …

Yeah. Don't like the procedure, but I've already mailed my poop twice.

Saves a ton of time at the doctor's office as well.

Post-COVID-19 biz travel: Jet in, go to hotel, meet in rooms sliced into sealed halves to separate locals and visitors. Still get jetlag

Yeah but, well, no

There are enough visioconferencing tools available, and email makes a perfectly sanitized hole in the wall.

I see no reason to waste more than a day in a plane, not to mention airport hassles, in order to not be able to take advantage of the local nightlife, or even do a bit of shopping.

If I'm supposed to be locked in a room during my stay, I might as well stay home.

The wastepaper basket is on the other side of the office – that must be why they put all these slots in the computer

The human mind is a frightening thing

What on Earth was he thinking ? Slipping bits of flammable material into a box that uses electricity, what is more natural ?

I mean obviously, this "computer" thingy has a portal to the waste dimension, right ? Isn't that in the specs ?

And the fact that the thin opening is not labelled "Waste Basket" is just a mistake, obviously.

It is one thing to not understand computers, it is an entirely different thing to build the intellectual fortress of stupidity that allows you to justify to yourself that you're doing nothing wrong.

The helldesk drone should have evacuated the building. Then, when time came for explanations, the responsibility of the user . . . would have been swept under the rug and the helldesk drone would have been blamed for wasting everyone's time.

Ugh, I hate stupidity.

Groupware is not dead! HCL drops second beta of Notes/Domino version 12 and goes all low-code and cloudy

Just watched the preview video from HCL

You can find it on YouTube here.

They've finally managed to make Notes browser-based. That is awesome.

Mail still has the same look. That is unfortunate.

But hey, Notes can now be completely browser-based. No more local client if you don't want one. And you can use it on a phone as well !

Can't deny it, HCL has put a lot of work in this version.

As a Notes developer, I can't wait to have V12 on my work laptop.

Teams, obviously

Notes has a very consistent UI, which is unique to itself, hasn't changed in almost two decades and mightily annoys many people.

Its backend, however, is a breeze for backup administrators.

Want your broadband fixed? Best write to your MP, UK's Zen Internet tells customer

Clearly a maintenance schedule issue

"This is an ancient ECI cabinet and the lines here have been problematic forever (lead sheathed paper insulated ... "

If this is true, then Openreach is guilty of not having upgraded that thing in due course. Openreach just let it rot to avoid the costs of ensuring proper service.

I'm guessing that a new cabinet costs a pretty penny, for sure, but unless I'm mistaken, Openreach is making a lot of pretty pennies. Time to drop one and make your service better.

Oh, and you might want to take stock of the age of all your cabinets and start planning their replacement dates.

Cred-stealing trojan harvests logins from Chromium browsers, Outlook and more, warns Cisco Talos

And bingo !

“CHM is a compiled HTML file that contains an embedded HTML file with JavaScript code to start the active infection process. "

Javascript, again.

Block it, and the install process fails.

NoScript FTW !

Machine-learning software scours database of already available drugs that could treat COVID-19 infections

Hmm, it seems that my information was out of date.

Thanks for the heads-up.

"repurpose existing drugs"

Um, like Hydroxychloroquin ?

Which has been largely demonstrated to help people recover from the respiratory sydrome ?

Sure, proper clinical trials are needed to establish facts with scientific rigor, but apparently millions have been treated with it and they're still alive to talk about it.

Mobile World Congress to run this year's Barcelona event in June with 50,000 attendees. We're speechless

Getting back to normal

Very nice words, but the only way to do that is vaccination. Until herd immunity has been achieved, there will be no normal.

This event is lunacy. I wonder how many people will actually sign up, I know I wouldn't.

Fujitsu scrapping fuel card benefit to cut costs, threatens dissenters with fire and rehire

"by removing the fuel card it would have saved"

You know what, Fujitsu ? By removing 80K employees you're also going to save a lot of money.

Oh, but you'll also be removing your means of making money. What a shame, eh ?

You want to make money ? You have to invest money. Salaries and bonuses are your investment to ensure that you continue to make money.

Texas blacks out, freezes, and even stops sending juice to semiconductor plants. During a global silicon shortage

Re: Texas is known as a superpower in the power industry

Not any more.

Re: Probably insignificant when offset against the days they are working optimally

And that is, what, five days per year ?

Interesting link. Thanks for that.

Re: Power Grid

France is selling power to basically every country it has borders with, plus the UK.

Germany, who has the heavy anti-nuclear lobby, readily buys part of its electricity from France's nuclear power stations.

Even better, Luxembourg buys its power from Germany so as to say that it doesn't use nuclear power.

We're going to have to face the fact that nuclear is the only future of power generation. Preferably with thorium reactors, and fusion the day we get there.

'It's where the industry is heading': LibreOffice team working on WebAssembly port

"a smartphone today is more powerful than a typical PC back in the '90s"

Undoubtedly.

It's limited to a pathetic screen size though, so the PC still wins in functionality and ease of use.

Besides, do you really think people are going to be typing 150-page documents on a smartphone ?

Watch this space: Apple offers free repairs for the self-bricking Apple Watch SE and Series 5 wearables

"a small number of customers"

That is code for "less than 90%".

Always.

Iron in the kinks, say boffins: Wrinkly graphene could one day make computer chips 'smaller and faster'

"thousands of times faster"

I think that might be a bit a bold claim.

Technology has now reached 7nm when it comes to engraving electronic chips. This technique is not doing much better.

Of course, this is like arguing that next year's Olympic champion is only going to be 0.1% faster/better than last year's. It's the final 0.1% that is the hardest.

Science of Love app turns to hate for machine-learning startup in Korea after careless whispers of data

Re: That's something of a bold assertion

So, if I am not good at maths, you're saying that I'm incapable of recognizing that a given subject involves math ?

I'm not good at running. By your definition, I'm also incapable of recognizing that the New York Marathon involves running ?

You don't have to be good at something to realize what the basic requirements are.

AI Fluency

Admittedly not a bad title, but there is no AI - it's all statistics. So, if you want to get your machine learning on, you need a maths professor. Not an economist, mind you. While those ones are full of statistics, they're only good at explaining why their predictions didn't pan out.

Google has a great AI course out and it's free. I started to follow it, but I've never been good at maths And after lesson 5 I was lost.

Try that out before giving money to people who steal other people's images to make themselves look good.

France's cyber-agency says Centreon IT management software sabotaged by Russian Sandworm

And it continues

Another provider to many important companies has its software compromised. Okay, through its customers' fault, granted, but still.

I think it is time to have a general review of high-profile software being used by companies that serve many other companies. We've basically stumbled across an underground trend that has been going on for years thanks to SolarWinds123's stupidity, but now it is time to take stock of the true situation and every company that operates in the Network Management market should be reviewing its published code with a fine comb and checking all of its code repositories to ensure that it is still offering secure code.

Recovery time objective missed by four weeks, but Parler is back online

Tea Party Patriots

It's funny how the racists always have the their mouths full with the word Patriot.

Voyager 2 receives and executes first command in 11 months as sole antenna that reaches it returns to work

Re: medical imaging and diagnostics that are so advanced even Star Trek couldn't envision them

Sorry, do you know what a tricorder is ?

Not only did Star Trek envision the Ipad, it envisioned one that is actually useful.

Forgot Valentine's Day? Never mind, today marks 75 years of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer

ENIAC, the reference defining how far we've come

When your debugging session required a technician and line-by-line computation verification, you were heavily incited to think about your code twice - if not more.

18,000 vacuum tubes (or 19K, who's counting ?). Can you imagine a modern datacenter based on that ? You'd have twenty guys replacing the broken ones day in and day out. The vacuum tube industry would be more important than Exxon.

The industry has come a very long way in a very short time. Always makes me wonder what will come by in the next ten years.

"fear of a battering with delicious cheesesteak sandwiches"

Cheesesteak sandwiches ? When all the restaurants are closed ?

BRING IT ON !!

Microsoft says it found 1,000-plus developers' fingerprints on the SolarWinds attack

"SolarWinds did not employ a chief information security officer"

You don't need a 'chief information security officer'.

You do need an admin that's doing his job properly.

Solarwinds123 didn't even have that.

Housekeeping and kernel upgrades do not always make for happy bedfellows

Those are the lessons you remember best.

Accenture, Capita, IBM jump on £800m framework to make the NHS more agile as UK.gov announces further reforms

"with whom NHS Digital can develop strategic relationships"

I'm sorry, given how long UK Government has been shoveling money their way, you'd think that the strategic relationship was already developed.

President Biden to issue executive order on chip shortages as under-pressure silicon world begs for help

"urges the Democrat to fund efforts"

I thought this was the USA, the country that frowns on government intervention.

Oh, right. Money. Nobody frowns on getting that.

Supermicro spy chips, the sequel: It really, really happened, and with bad BIOS and more, insists Bloomberg

Pics or it didn't happen

Bloomberg's credibility is zero as far as I'm concerned. So they're doubling down ? Still no pictures ? It's hookum. Hogwash.

I will believe this very dubious story if you show me pictures of the modified mainboard, with a bright red arrow pointing to the part that has been added, and specify where you found it.

It's classified ? How can it be classified and widespread at the same time ?

I'm tired of this bullshit story.

Mine's the one with a phone that can take pictures.

Myanmar Junta delivers harsh cyber law and more IP blocking orders

Solve ?

Internet access is not going to bring back Democracy in Myanmar. At least, not if there's only a handful of people who have access that is not under surveillance.

Remember, they still have their local Internet. They're just going to need to find a way to coordinate without raising suspicion if they want to do something and, given that they would be going up against armed men who, contrary to US Capitol guards, likely have orders to shoot and will probably do so, if the people try anything there will be blood. Lots of it.

Better buckle up: Volkswagen puts Microsoft in driver's seat to deliver 'automated' platform

"Buyers are advised to check the privacy policy"

My privacy policy is simple : it's my car, you can fuck off.

I will not buy any car that is tied to any other person's server. I don't care what your excuses are, or what service you pretend to offer, as long as I am the one who is legally liable for how the car behaves, you can go drown in a gutter if you think I am going to give you the slightest amount of input in how I drive my car.

Dev creeped out after he fired up Ubuntu VM on Azure, was immediately approached by Canonical sales rep

Re: knowing more about your personal life than Microsoft has ever cared to

Um, it's more like more than Borkzilla has ever been able to.

You might want to revise your computing history. Microsoft has been late to every Internet party. First it ignored it, then it scrambled to rejoin it, then it faught to dominate it, which happened with IE 4, then it forgot about it letting Google take over.

Since then, it has stayed in the background, because it had no choice. Google has taken over, JavaScript is everywhere and none of that has anything to do with Borkzilla.

Borkzilla is now in the back seat, as far as driving the Internet is concerned.

That's why you're not CEO.

Nor am I.

Criminal charges against Autonomy's Lynch will never be dropped, even if extradition bid fails, says lawyer

"Criminal charges against Autonomy's Lynch will never be dropped"

Of course not. We all know how the USA can hold a grudge.

We also know how the USA can withhold its citizens accused from abroad of war crimes and keep them from facing trial.

Justice and freedom for all ? As long as you're white and USAian.