Posts by Pascal Monett

SAP's locked-down offshore project managers develop remote work plans for clients

"IBM asked to be excused from the story"

On what grounds ? Too difficult to simply state that they are not affected ?

Or too affected to actually be able to formulate a response that won't get them grilled in the tech press again ?

What's the difference between Windows 7 and a bin lorry? One is full of garbage, and the other… oh dear

Indeed. Wouldn't a normal poster have been enough ?

For the price of that screen and the equipment behind it, I'm pretty sure you'd have a year of posters changing every day.

And you wouldn't change them every day.

Are you extracting the urine, ESA? Why, yes it is, from Moon dwellers to build homes out of lunar regolith. Possibly

Re: we have seen that a waste product...could also be used

Soon, Humanity will be pissing all over the Universe !

Microsoft qualifications will pad the CV for another year, Teams for ventilator boffins, and Windows 10 threatened with very retro news app

And if you click on it, it opens Edge instead of the default browser.

How difficult is it to open the default browser ? I'd think it's more difficult to set it to open to a specific browser.

Microsoft, let it go. Nobody uses Edge.

'Social distancing champ' Linus Torvalds releases Linux 5.6, tells devs to put health before next release

Re: "the pandemic has wiped out pension funds and investments"

There is apparently an impact (of around 10-20%), but saying that pension funds are wiped out is a bit exaggerated, isn't it ?

Leaving Las Vegas... for good? IT industry conference circuit won't look the same on other side of COVID-19 pandemic

I disagree

This pandemic is a temporary thing. We were globally all caught with our pants down, despite SARS and MERS, but that's because this COVID-19 is much more transmissible, and that much more dangerous.

But we'll get a handle on this, and the vaccine will come, in time. Things will more or less go back to what they were, and life will resume. Conferences will resume, because they are way too useful to not have, for all sorts of reasons.

People are not going to simply stop meeting face-to-face. It can be hoped, however, that people will have learned to properly wash their hands.

The next time a pandemic rolls in, we'll be better prepared and know how to react. We'll switch to online conferencing seamlessly, and ride it out like we are doing now. And, when it's all over, we'll go back to living as before.

UK big five carriers bin wired broadband download quotas for as long as we're all stuck indoors

Re: U-turn?

Yeah, that certainly came out of left field.

Lost in translation and adrift in cloud storage

The problem is not beheerder

One can argue about Google Translate and its relevance back then, or how the previous admin should have been a bit more knowledgeable, but the real problem has nothing to do with the admin name.

The real problem is that this Dirk launched a file operation without checking what he would be transferring. It's that second of inattention that always gets you, and it got him.

When you are the admin, you never initiate a file operation without checking and double-checking what you're doing. With your access, it's way too dangerous not to. He didn't check, and the mayhem lasted a month. I'm guessing that was a learning experience for him.

Planet Computers has really let things slide: Firm's third real-keyboard gizmo boasts 5G, Android 10, Linux support

"the hinge is a complex affair"

Translation : it is a point of failure and will be prone to breaking/blocking. Physical complexity is trouble when you're making something that will be put into the bumbling hands of thousands of idiots.

And it weighs 300 grams. Out of curiosity, I just weighed my Galaxy A3 : 135 grams. And after talking on the phone for ten minutes, I change hand because the other one needs a rest. I like the keyboard, but that thing is going to be deforming shirt pockets.

Delivery drones: Where are they when we really need them?

"Futurist predict"

It's all well and good to use science-fiction as a basis for prediction, but the question is how can drones be useful now ? Apparently, the answer is : they can't.

We're not going to redesign our cities to fit drones. Telephone poles are here to stay for a while yet, because small towns do not have the money to bury all wires and get rid of them in one go. It'll take a long before everything gets buried, and that will only happen when burying wires is as cheap as setting up poles.

And cars going up building walls ? Please. Sci-fi is nice, but the energy cost of dragging a car up a wall is insane next to a person in an elevator. Even when we get fusion working and energy becomes "free", there will still be no reason to go and drag tons of mass to elevated places just because we can. The danger of having them drop back down in an uncontrolled manner is just too great.

Microsoft cops to 775% Azure surge, quotas on resources and 'significant new capacity' coming ASAP

“We are expediting the addition of significant new capacity"

While your workers are supposed to be at home in social isolation ? I doubt that mounting a new server in a rack can be done by a click of the mouse, so that means you have people that are not isolated doing the job.

I hope that that means you are adding this significant capacity in countries that are not under the pandemic panic at this time.

Infosys fires employee who Facebooked 'let's hold hands and share coronavirus'

Ah, that old chestnut.

Freedom of expression does not mean you have the right to spout any old bullshit at any point in time. This is the exact same thing as yelling "Fire !" in a crowded theater.

As such, freedom of expression falls under the same blanket of social responsibility. You don't yell "Fire !" in a crowded place because the ensuing panic can get people injured and even killed. You don't encourage people to spread a pandemic virus because God knows there's gonna be some damn fools that are actually going to find that a hilarious idea and do it.

Your freedom of expression is subject to being responsible for what you say. The thing is, on the Internet, nobody feels responsible for anything and they behave accordingly.

Hailing frequencies open, sir... America's Space Force hurls its first military comms satellite into Earth's orbit

There is, but the USA has demonstrated an ample amount of not giving a flying one about such uninteresting things as international treaties.

Capita cuts projects, furloughs workers due to 'unpredictable level of disruption' from COVID-19

I've got the feeling that I should invest in Capita shares

After all, these clowns fail major projects all over the place, yet never fail to be awarded new projects.

Why should I not partake in the bottomless trough ?

Could WFH web traffic topple a Brit telco? Pfff, scoff operators. This has nothing on Liverpool v Everton streaming

Britain has plenty of internet traffic "headroom"

Of course it does. It has all the "unlimited" contracts that are actually limited headroom.

Why that has still not been shot down in court never fails to amaze me.

Yeah, that Zoom app you're trusting with work chatter? It lives with 'vampires feeding on the blood of human data'

"Zoom is in the advertising business, and in the worst end of it"

Is there any other end of the advertising business ?

Please point me to a product that lives off advertising without harvesting my personal data.

Re: Back to GTM and Skype then!

Why not give Teamspeak a try ?

At least, with Teamspeak, you can host the server and know exactly who is participating. Every other solution depends on Someone Else's Server, and you have no idea what they're doing.

Grsecurity maker finally coughs up $300k to foot open-source pioneer Bruce Perens' legal bill in row over GPL

So, let me get this straight

"He insisted that Perens' statement was opinion, rather than settled legal fact, and that OSS has the right to withhold updates from customers exercising their rights under the GPL."

He insisted that he had the right to ignore a clear contract stipulation, and there is nothing to contradict that.

Ah, America. The best justice money can buy has once again proven that it's the money that defines the justice. If you or me tried that bullshit, we'd be in jail, but because it's a company with hundreds of thousands in the bank, it gets to decide what the outcome of the trial actually is.

Contractual stipulations be damned.

Interested in Busting a Move? Mmmm? IBM UK: We couldn't get to GTS redundo numbers we need by voluntary means

"I would encourage you to give it careful consideration"

Because the kick to the behind that will follow will be much less pleasant.

Honestly, what is IBM thinking ? People may be looking for employment elsewhere, but right now that doesn't mean that they can find a position. We're in self-isolation, that makes things a tad difficult for interviews, doesn't it ?

20 years later, Microsoft's still hammerin' Xamarin: Bunch of improvements on the way for cross-platform coding toolset

"Dual-screen support is coming soon"

It is extremely telling that such a phrase seems totally normal these days.

Dual screens. We've spent over four decades using IT stuff more and more because prices have, globally, always been falling. For what seems like forever I've only used one screen per computer, like everybody else. But, since between five and ten years, I've been seeing more and more developers use two screens at work, and I've personally been on two screens at home for nine years now. About a third of my career.

I know some people who have three screens. My graphics card has four ports for connecting screens. It is currently managing exactly 10 512 000 pixels.

Technology is awesome.

AMD dials 911, emits DMCA takedowns after miscreant steals a load of GPU hardware blueprints, leaks on GitHub

"why not just leak it to everyone?"

Great idea, genius. That way AMD has the perfect reason to sue you.

Admit it, you never had the intention of doing The Right Thing, you just wanted to brag about what you'd found. And what's with the four copies ? Did you think that you needed to make extra copies in case the main one was taken down ? That's how lazy scum think.

Want to see through walls? Electroboffins build tiny chip in the lab that vibrates at just the right frequency to do it

Kapton tape, sapphire substrate, gold or tungsten and titanium

I don't know what they're going to make, but I'm sure it won't come cheap.

That awful moment when what you thought was a number 1 turned out to be a number 2

You solved the problem, goodbye

Stress and panic may explain why the guy didn't find his spreadsheet, but that does not explain why he didn't try and learn from the situation.

When you find yourself in a bind and someone comes along to dig you out, you're supposed to gain experience and learn how not to get yourself in such a situation again.

I guess that, since apparently he didn't call back the next day, he at least learned to pay attention to the recent file list, but most probably he just went back to his habit of clicking on the first thing in the list. Oh well, maybe after a decade he finally learned how files work.

Google warns against disabling websites during Coronavirus pandemic

Yes, Google

This is absolutely the time to worry about website rankings. Congratulations for reminding us that you exist.

Don't believe the hype: Today's AI unlikely to best actual doctors at diagnosing patients from medical scans

"the rest of the 81 were purely academic"

In other words, pie-in-the-sky, Ai-is-wonderful, please-continue-funding-me papers that apparently have a diametrically opposite view from papers based on actual data.

Why am I not surprised ?

These are the kinds of papers that proclaim that facial recognition works almost perfectly, when actual trials come back with a success rate of less than 13%.

Look, I understand that theoretical physics is just as important as actual physics, but the difference is that theoretical physicists do not try to pass their musings as actual science. They ask science engineers to create the experiments that justify or invalidate their theories. Once a result is obtained, they review their theories and progress in their musings.

It seems that, as far as "AI" is concerned, there are no such updates. That means that actual AI is nowhere near being created because the pie-in-the-sky musing are not bothering to ground themselves in reality.

Oh well, it's for the better I guess. The longer we take to build an actual Skynet, the better.

Brits swarm Dixons Carphone for laptops, printers, games consoles, fridges, freezers to weather out COVID-19 storm

Ain't that a shame ?

You shut down retail points and lay staff off, and suddenly a pandemic comes along and boosts your activity.

I'm guessing you're happy you can still use those thousands of hands now, aren't you ?

Which is not going to keep you from ejecting them as soon as the spike ends.

Give us a reason... not to buy a new handset? Samsung back-ports Galaxy S20 photo features to Galaxy 10 range

"the ability to create customer photo filters"

Shouldn't that be "custom" photo filters ?

I know we're all in confinement, but editors need to pay a bit more attention. The amount of errors in articles since the beginning of the week has been on the rise by an order of magnitude.

What happens when the maintainer of a JS library downloaded 26m times a week goes to prison for killing someone with a motorbike? Core-js just found out

I cannot bring myself to feel sorry for the guy

The one going to jail, of course. I do feel sorry for the person who was just walking around, minding their own business, and found themselves before the pearly gates.

Accidents do happen, of course, and I understand that this was not a case of cold-blooded murder or a joyride that ended badly. But still, someone died. A price must be paid.

And, when he gets out in 18 months, he can remember that the other person is not getting out of their grave.

Sadness all around.

Drones, apps and packed lunches: The latest on big tech's COVID-19 response

"the kind old tech giant"

Doing an Apple, are we ?

So nice to donate your spare change.

Microsoft tries getting touchy-feely once again with its Windows Insiders

What I really like is seeing people with latest touchscreen-enabled laptops pointing to something on screen, like they've done for the past twenty years, and then getting pissed off when Windows reacts to their gesture.

That never fails to amuse me.

That should have been :

dɐu ʎɯ ɹoɟ ǝɯᴉʇ s,ʇᴉ ʞuᴉɥʇ I

Hey, China. Maybe you should have held your hackers off for a bit while COVID-19 ravaged the planet. Just a suggestion

Since when has international diplomacy been based on turning the other cheek ?

Well ain't that nice and neighborly

Somebody spike their computers.

Borky shark: A deserted airport and a Raspberry Pi feeling poorly at baggage claim. Welcome to 2020

Well _this_ is news

A Pi has crashed. In a standalone game thingy. I'm supposing it doesn't get updates, so it doesn't change. What can possibly have brought it to its knees ?

Given that each CPU failed to launch (apparently it has two), the problem shouldn't have anything to do with associated hardware (like spinning rust that failed to respond). Looking at the messages, each CPU has a stack exception, and then fails to complete startup.

So the question is : what threw a stack exception ?

Short of tech talent to deal with novel coronavirus surge? Let us help – with free job ads on The Register

So, vultures don't only bite after all :)

I applaud this initiative. Well done El Reg !

Singapore to open-source national Coronavirus encounter-tracing app and the Bluetooth research behind it

The NSA is not a shady security outfit, it is a shady national security outfit.

Cops charge prankster who 'corona-coughed' on aged officer and had it filmed

"the woman police officer was 71 years old"

And she was still working ?

What kind of barbaric country requires people to work when they should be retired ?

And nobody thought that sending her home in these times would be a good thing to do ?

Barbarians.

Sharp gobbles NEC as Japan's display giants team up to take on Europe and North America

"contribute to our business growth by enforcing our B2B business"

Enforcing ?

They're going to send enforcers to prospects to make them become customers ?

That's an interesting strategy.

There's no Huawei a virus can stop us! 90% of our staff in China are already back at work, says CEO

Re: Bad becomes good

Governments have had a valid reason reason to spy on us for a while now.

It's just that now, they have a justifiable one.

BT Openreach prepares to declare UK MBORCed* as all new phone line installations halted over coronavirus

Wait a minute

I may not be the brightest bulb in the bunch, but 23rd of March plus 3 weeks does not add up to 1st of June, however you count it.

Seems to me that they're pushing things a bit.

Xerox slurps something that isn't HP Inc: Brit managed print services houses Altodigital and ITEC Connect

"there are no plans for staffing changes"

Yet.

Just wait 'till lockdown is over, though. Then you'll see just how finely the pink slip brigade can dice you.

London court tells Julian Assange: No, coronavirus is not a good reason for you to be let out of prison

"costing his chums £93,500 as he did so"

And that, in a nutshell, is Assange.

A parasite.

Keep him in jail.

For his own safety, of course.

Stuck at home? Why not let an edgy, GPU-boosted slice of Azure keep you company?

Sorry

The words "Microsoft" and "Edge" do not incite any interest, much less excitement, in my mind.

As far as I'm concerned, anything Edge that Microsoft does is best avoided.

Tupperware-dot-com has a live credit card skimmer on its payment page, warns Malwarebytes

"the little HTTPS padlock shows up in the browser address bar"

That is going to be an interesting explanation, when Tupperware gets down to it.

IT services sector faces armageddon as COVID-19 lockdown forces project cancellations – analysts

That's one point of view

Another possibility is that companies are going to want that project completed double-time, since they've had to wait for it to get done.

I'm not convinced project cancellations are going to be all that legion. Sure, there will undoubtedly be some, but I think there will be more that will request urgent finishing, or undertaking.

We'll see.

World's smallest violin to be played for opportunistic sellers banned from eBay and Amazon for price gouging

"filters were in place"

Well, they're working very well, are they ?

At the same time, this is Ebay we're talking about. I think it's a bit unfair to single out the guy who posted an offer at 0.01 and the offer reached 210. It's not the sellers' fault if people are nuts, even if it is rather obvious that he fully intended to take advantage of the nuts.

India tech firms warned not to abuse their exceptions to national coronavirus lockdown

"contracts carrying penalties"

It seems obvious to me that, given the period, a judge will not rule in favor of a client complaining that the job wasn't done on time.

It should be useless to even try. Nobody is going to be on time for a few months at least. This lockdown is going to throw plenty of schedules into the shredder.

Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo dies aged 92

I have the whole collection

Book by book, I collected them over about two decades. There are a few I had to buy again, because they were worn out.

I will now read them again, with him in mind.

Stuck inside with nothing to do? Apple fires out security fixes for iOS, macOS, wrist-puters... and something weird called iTunes for Windows

iTunes is still a thing ?

But, we were told that Apple was replacing it and banishing it from its OS.

I guess it's still good enough for Windows users, though.

Samsung says it has the future of DRAM sorted after success with new EUV process

So EUV chips can be made faster, are more dense and they consume less

Sounds like paradise. And, made faster and easier means making more with the same resources means each unit costs less, so it's a win-win-win.

Except that they're going to want to recoup the costs of putting it in place, so we're not going to see price drops any time soon. And the gaming crowd won't care because it'd DDR5, man, look at those framerates !