Posts by Pascal Monett

Nominet faces showdown with British internet industry: Extraordinary vote called to oust CEO, board members

Re: Too little, too late.

And that axe is far overdue.

He "welcoms dialogue" ? Hypocrite. If you welcom dialogue, you don't shut down the forum that actually permits dialogue, even if said dialogue is telling you that people are not happy with your decisions.

I am very gald to see that there is, finally, a way to curb the over-enthusiastic reign of assholes who think they can use any structure to make themselves more money, without any regard to what the structure is supposed to do in the first place.

Somebody oust the board at ICANN, please.

Remember life on Venus? One of the telescopes had 'an undesirable side effect' that could kill off the whole idea

Science is difficult.

Google QUIC-ly left privacy behind in its quest for a speedier internet, boffins find

Wait a minute

"QUIC attack accuracy can reach about 95 per cent with only 40 packets and Simple features, compared to about 60 per cent attack accuracy for HTTPS "

So, the takeaway from this is that HTTPS has a 60% chance of revealing what you're doing, and QUIC is worse than that.

Bad news all around.

Transcribe-my-thoughts app would prevent everyone knowing what I actually said during meetings

It's a business meeting

Fuck the possibility of denial.

Personally, I don't take minutes, but when the meeting is almost done, I specify aloud what I believe the conclusion of the meeting is. Anyone who disagrees can set me right at that time.

If no one does, then I'm right.

Whatever the issue, the first thing I do after a meeting is send a mail to all the participants where I state what decisions were taken. If it takes someone two months to disagree, well tough cookies.

Takes from the taxpayer, gives to the old – by squishing a bug in Thatcherite benefits system

Re: 2^16

Shh.

Marketing doesn't understand exponents. They only understand bonuses.

Re: 01/26/2004 would have been cleared

Personally, I prefer the ISO standard of 2021/12/31.

We need to ditch local stupidity and get with the program.

I have wasted way too many days of my life programming around every one else's petty preferences.

Did you know that there are some monsters who write their dates as 12.31.2021 ?

Monsters.

Microsoft's Gooseberry is a dish best served really, really cold: Progress made on silicon quantum computing

On a side note : research refrigerator

Holy cow : $5000 for a fridge ?

What's so special about them ?

My fridge keeps my food at 7°C just fine, thank you, and it only cost me €900.

Google allows 15 more nations to offer gambling in the Play store

"such apps must be free"

Why ?

Where is the law that says that ?

I googled this, and I found many articles that say the exact same thing, but none of them linked to the legal document that justified it.

Now, don't get me wrong, but the fact that gambling is legal somewhere doesn't imply that the app should be free. It should, on the other hand, be just, and the chances to win should be fair. In other words, apps should be verified to not be specifically programmed to cheat you out of your money.

But free ? Both Apple and Google specify so on their Store guidelines, but that does not make it a law.

So, why ?

Biden administration pauses ban on Chinese tech companies suspected of military entanglements

Re: Too late

For sure, Trump has brilliantly forced Chinese companies to understand that they need their own tools and market stores.

The United States will pay that position dearly in the years to come.

Robinhood plays Sheriff of Nottingham as it pauses GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry etc stock sales, gets sued

Re: this time around it was different so it had to be outlawed ?

Well obviously.

You can't have the rich losing money, now can you ?

Um, you remember the insurgents were chanting "hang Pence" ?

They weren't there for tea and biscuits.

Let's see how you take when some of your colleagues openly welcome your murder while a mass of terrorists are trying to get at you.

"the equity required to buy a stock with borrowed funds"

I'm sorry, but a financial market that allows you to bid for stock with money you don't have is a broken institution.

The world needs to take a step back and end the madness. There is no excuse for allowing stock market operations with money that you do not own.

Take out a loan, sign up with a bank, by all means. But once you put money in this roulette operation, it should be yours, not someone else's promise.

"you almost had me murdered three weeks ago so you can sit this one out"

God I love that woman.

She is the shining light of Liberty and Justice that is the only reason why that Statue should not be dismantled and sent back to France.

Because right now, the US of A does not deserve it.

Nvidia accused of cheating in big-data performance test by benchmark's umpires: Workloads 'tweaked' to beat rivals in TPCx-BB

Nvidia has been accused of cheating

Many times.

Even when its hardware was the best, that still didn't keep it from "massaging" the numbers.

At this point, I think it is ingrained in its corporate culture.

Bothering to upgrade the iPhone 12 over older models has proven to be worth its weight in gold for Apple

"The iPhone – Apple's hottest seller – brought in revenues of $65.597bn"

I will never understand how people can throw so much money at something that doesn't allow a simple, user-accessible battery replacement.

If I have to go to a store and talk to a so-called "genius" just to have the battery of my phone replaced, I am most definitely not buying such a phone.

I don't care how slim it is, or how round its corners are.

Linux maintainer says long-term support for 5.10 will stay at two years unless biz world steps up and actually uses it

How can that happen ?

How is it that people (companies) using Linux distributions do not update their installations, thereby signalling their usage of said distribution ?

How can you complain about support if you're not keeping up to date ?

Tesla axes software engineer for allegedly pilfering secret Python scripts after just three days on the job

Re: "if you set that option"

IF being the operative word.

It is not set by default AFAIK.

"the software somehow started backing up those files"

Um, no. Dropbox does not scour your disk to find stuff to upload.

It uploads what you put in its folder, nothing else.

That is a very lame excuse, on top of whatever excuse the guy with three names had to install Dropbox in the first place.

And three names ? How many mafias are you a part of ?

Open the door, get on the floor, everybody walk the dinosaur: Expect an ad, get a bork

"while the base displays an impossibly early time"

7:42, impossibly early ?

Back in the halcyon days when we could still shake hands and generally cough over everyone, 7:42 was a time when I was already clocked in and working at my computer on client site.

I used to get up at 5:30.

Now I get up at 7:45, and shamble down to my home office to get my mail before 8:00 in order to make sure that I have time to brush my teeth, wash and get dressed before I need to connect somewhere in a hurry.

Dear God, if I ever have to revert to getting up at 5:30, it's going to be a hard week getting started.

SAP: Come to the cloud with us, we promise there's total accountability and lower TCO with lift-and-shift ERP package

"an attractive model for the customer to convert maintenance into the cloud subscription"

An attractive model would be one where the customer's customizations, which they have already spent millions on, would work in The Cloud (TM).

I hardly see anything attractive in moving to The Cloud (TM) just to shore up your revenue line when it will totally disrupt everything your customers have built their business on.

Tell me, is this plan from the CEOs nephew who just got his MBA ?

How can you be stupid enough to create a cloud platform that totally ignores your customers' needs, and then be surprised that it is not widely adopted ?

Facebook finally finds something it thinks is truly objectionable and needs to be taken offline: Apple

" interfere with how our apps and other apps work"

Oh, because you never interfere with apps that use your platform, eh ZucK ?

India makes China app ban permanent, forces TikTok to hose out local office

"The latter three companies are Chinese though assemble many of their devices in India"

For how much longer, I wonder ?

Tab minimalists look away: Vivaldi introduces two-level tab stacks

"It was CEO von Tetzchner who made the initial request"

Well then that settles it, it had to be done. Now it is.

I'm not a person who has a hundred tabs open at the same time. My home PC does have 32GB of RAM, but I tend to reserve that power for my games. I do, however, have a growing list of YouTube channels that open at once - that is going towards 40.

So I can't say that nobody would have any use for this functionality.

However, on my work PC I only have the tabs I need to do my job, and that is typically less than 10.

Apparently, some people need more than 50 tabs in their normal work day. I don't understand how you could manage that, but it is not my place to say anything against it.

If this functionality is useful, then I look forward to seeing it in Firefox.

University of Nottingham looks for new HR and finance software just 18 months after massive Unit4 system upgrade

Unit4 - a "better way to work"

It seems that Business World isn't too good for business.

I checked out their website. I can't say that I find the guy laughing in the banner to be an indication of professionalism. It feels more like they're partying all the time.

In any case, there is no shortage of tales of botched ERP implementations, and no shortage of ERPs to choose from. I gather that an ERP is a strategic-level decision, with great, long-term implications for the company. So how is it that all these implementations are failing ?

And how can a university need such a level of complexity to manage room schedules and order whiteboard pens ? Moreover, how does a university have the funds to change an ERP a year and a half after having upgraded their existing ERP ? I was under the impression that universities are generally strapped for cash. This one is throwing money into a bonfire.

Decade-old bug in Linux world's sudo can be abused by any logged-in user to gain root privileges

"has been hiding in plain sight for nearly 10 years"

And someone at the NSA is seriously pissed right now.

Drone smashes through helicopter's windscreen and injures passenger

Chilean Navy helicopter

Gosh. I clicked the link thinking I was going to read about how some idiot near London airport managed to screw up royally, but no, the rot is extending its clutches to South America.

It seems that drones are indeed going to be the scourge of the skies. I see a heavily-regulated future for them.

Apple slapped with €60m lawsuit from Italian consumer rights org for slowing down CPUs in old iPhones

Re: The solution is just to replace the battery

Yep, but this is Apple we're talking about.

The company that makes products in which glue is a major component.

UK Cabinet Office spokesman tells House of Lords: We're not being complacent about impact of SolarWinds hack

Still didn't answer the question

So, how many UK government institutions are impacted ?

First element of response : all of those using SolarWinds' product. That doesn't necessarily mean they were hacked, but it does mean they might have been.

But we still don't know the number.

In a trial run, Google Chrome to corral netizens into groups for tailored web ads rather than target individuals

"serve them ads tailored to their supposed interests"

Bollocks.

The best you can manage is to show me ads based on what I bought yesterday.

Utterly useless.

Biden said to be assembling cyber dream team to sort out US govt computer security

"primarily public-sector people with relatively limited experience in the corporate world"

Good.

Hopefully that means that he chose people who aren't easily given in to favoring companies over their job obligations because they aren't expecting a cushy boardroom seat when they're done forgetting what their actual job is.

Eh, Pai ?

UK government's cloud ERP strategy seems to be in stasis following top civil servant's move to COVID-19 task force

"it's no good saying, once you get on the cloud, it's all going to be OK"

Wow, a politician with a smidgen of a grasp on reality.

Is it snowing in Hell yet ?

You guys need this guy to be Prime Minister real quick, before he gets caught up in the greasy pole antics.

Showering malware-laced laptops on UK schools is the wrong way to teach them about cybersecurity

Re: meanwhile......

What does that have to with the problem ?

People do whatever they want with their own possessions. You're not exposing anything new.

The problem here is that a branch of government, imbued with the responsibility of children, seriously dropped the ball.

Heads should roll.

Freezing in Newcastle? You're not alone: For one lonesome creature, the world stopped on 31 Dec 2020

"A metaphor, perhaps, for Brexit Britain"

Hey, you've taken back control !

You would expect a qualified electrician to wire a building to spec, right? Trust... but verify

I guess I'm lucky

I am apparently the only person here who knows a competent electrician.

We moved in our new house in November 2017. After one winter, we had discovered that the heating needed a bit of an upgrade. Fine, so we go looking for other solutions. My wife takes a fancy to some stone panels and I, obviously, agree with her choice. We enter into discussions and end up signing the contract.

In the summer, the guy shows up to evaluate the premises. He takes one look at the electrical panel and says to me "I can't install your radiators with this - you are completely off norm and it wouldn't be safe".

The previous owner had copiously boasted about how he had done all the electricity himself. Apparently what he had done was create a fire hazard. It's a small miracle that he still had a house to sell.

Obviously, I agreed to have the guy redo the electrical panel to modern standards, after which the new radiators were installed.

This guy has done a few other things for me (replacing cieling lamps with LED lights), and I have absolute confidence in him.

I guess I'm lucky.

ADT techie admits he peeked into women's home security cams thousands of times to watch them undress, have sex

Re: impossible to access by anyone else..

but your security company.

Signing up with a security company is an act of trust. You trust the company and all of its employees to respect your privacy and protect your belongings.

This is a case of a rogue techie. One asshole does not change my opinion of the security industry in general - they are there to help, for a fee.

I have an alarm system installed, some of the motion detectors have cameras. I have been told that the surveillance personnel cannot access the cameras, they only get the pictures that are sent by the detector when the alarm system is active. I trust that they are telling me the truth.

Aside from that, the detectors are not installed in any given room. They are covering hallways, the garage, the living room, the dining room, etc. Places where thieves have to cross, or will go to because that's where the loot is (TV, audio, etc).

Why would you put a motion detector in the bedroom ? The thief has to go through the hallway to get there and that's all you need to know.

We'd rather go down in Down Under, says Google: Search biz threatens to quit Australia if forced to pay for news

Re: Google isn't the internet

Technically you're right, of course - but at the same time, you're kinda wrong.

With all its datacenters and the time it has had, Google has indexed practically all the Web (except the few who tell it not to, of which there are zero honest businesses). Whatever you think of Google's practices (and I don't look kindly on the ad business in general), that amount of knowledge has become priceless, so, in a sense, Google is the Internet.

That is also demonstrated in the fact that, when you ask Joe User what browser he's using, there is a significant chance that he will answer "Google".

Five years after US promised crackdown on ticket-snaffling bots, the first prosecutions are in... and are a slap on the wrist

Re: Getting soft?

Indeed, since when do you ask the condemned how much change he can spare for the fine ?

If they go bankrupt then so be it. If you can't pay the fine, don't do the crime.

Scottish enviro bods shrug off ransomware gang's extortion attempt as 4,000 files dumped online, saying it's nothing big

Probably the same thing that happened in the US when it made a federal crime to pay kidnapper ransom money.

There's a lot less kidnapping for ransom these days in the US.

Honor has flown the nest: Announces first phone as an independent firm, inks deals with supply chain big dogs

To the author : Thank you

Thank you for having linked to an enlightening article about wireless charging. I knew it was inefficient already (I often link to this video when encountering someone blathering excitedly about it), but I did not know (or remember) that putting the phone just slightly wrong on the pad could double the energy cost.

Given how careless most people seem to be when it comes to how they put their phone down, I'm guessing that they're all costing double the charge.

Wireless charging has to be the worst, most inefficient way anyone could have invented to charge a phone. I really hope you will link to that article every time you write about it.

Must 'completely free' mean 'hard to install'? Newbie gripe sparks some soul-searching among Debian community

Re: Debian isn't remotely difficult to install

Nobody said it is difficult to install. The problem, apparently, is that it is difficult to get it to work with the hardware.

Which is not a problem because, apparently, the solution is Ubuntu.

I prefer Mint, these days.

Nothing new since the microwave: Let's get those home tech inventors cooking

Re: The ability to check and remotely turn off such things

is trounced by the ability to be organized and methodical and check to ensure that you don't leave the house with the gas still on.

Inviting hackers into your house with stupid-security IoshiTe stuff is not a solution because if you can check and turn off, a hacker acan check and turn on.

All of these automated thingamajigs are turning our brains into much and giving us the focus and attention span of a goldfish. Use your brain, do not trust automated whatevers.

You can drive a car with your feet, you can operate a sewing machine with your feet. Same goes for computers obviously

Ah, Wordstar.

I used to know the keyboard shortcuts for everything. It was so much fun.

Then Borkzilla imposed Word on the world, and ramped it up until The Ribbon.

Now, keyboard shortcuts in word processors are almost a thing of the past.

Almost.

That reminds me of the number of times I had to pick out the fluff from a ball mouse.

Thank God for laser mice !

Yeah, in those days there weren't any of the functions we have available now, such as the ability to swap buttons or redefine them in any way.

It was right click to select, left click for menu, and that was it.

Today, I am using a Logitech G602. It has no less than 8 buttons in addition to the basic 2, all programmable. I use all of them.

If Logitech had existed back then, and brought that mouse to market, I think people would have had strokes trying to wrap their heads around the amount of functionality !

But to get here, we had to start there.

It happened to me about twenty years ago.

One of my wife's friends was complaining over the phone about how difficult using a mouse was. The next time we went over for dinner, I had her show me what the problem was. It was simple : she had positioned the mouse the wrong way, buttons under the palm of the hand.

I smiled and gently turned the mouse around.

We had quite a fun dinner after that, and she took a gentle ribbing quite graciously.

We'll explore Titan with a methane submarine, a methane submarine, a methane submarine...

"its liquid absorbs the incoming radar waves"

That is a cunning ploy by the Atlantians to not be discovered before they are ready to greet us.

What is it, gentlemen in white lab coats ? But of course I will follow you to the restaurant . . .

Judge denies Parler an injunction to force AWS to host the antisocial network for internet outcasts

"it struggles to find anyone willing to host its digital bile"

I wonder why it doesn't buy a server, plug the Internet into it and host itself.

If nobody wants to host you, you can still do it on your own - for a bit of work and money, of course.

But, given the apparent content, I guess I'm not surprised that they go whining to be hosted back again. Whining is always easier than working.

Laptops given to British schools came preloaded with remote-access worm

'we believe this is not widespread'

Aka : It only affected a small number of customers.

Yeah. it affected at least 23000 children.

How on God's Green Earth did you order stuff from children without bothering to order from a properly vetted supplier ?

Oh, right, stupid me. It would have cost more.

Well, enjoy your savings now.

Microsoft SolarWinds analysis: Attackers hid inside Windows systems by wearing the skins of legit processes

"and does so from memory"

Fascinating. And how does the malware get stuff into memory ?

Does it download it directly there ? If so, how does it download it past the security barriers ?

Re: What?

Indeed.

Since the last Windows Update of my machine, I can no longer disable Windows Update.

I'd really like to know what to jiggle in that abomination of an excuse that is the Registry to be able to lock that shit down and have my PC behave as I wish.