Posts by Pascal Monett

A sprinkling of Star Wars and a dash of Jedi equals a slightly underbaked Rise Of Skywalker

The prequels kinda dampened my enthusiasm for Star Wars, not to mention the damage Lucas did himself (Han shot first, you bastard). I have to admit though that Rogue One was, to me, once again a Star Wars film worthy of the original trilogy.

So, by my count, Star Wars is 4 films and a smattering of blah. I would like to see a film giving us a Darth Vader that is actually frightening, as he was (so briefly) shown in Rogue One. I think showing him tracking down and exterminating the Jedi that escaped Order 66 would have a lot of potential entertainment-wise, and could maybe be tied in to the original trilogy by explaining how Yoda exiled himself on Dagobah. Something like barely escaping Vader to throw himself against another Sith and then making the decision to lie low in the Sith's power shroud to remain alive and elude Vader's hunt.

Something like that.

But I'm not counting on it.

European Space Agency launches planet-hunting Cheops while Rocket Lab starts on a third launchpad

"using green hydrogen peroxide oxidiser and kerosene"

Um, since when has kerosene became green ? Okay, it's probably just the way the sentence was written, but "using kerosene and [a] green hydrogen peroxide oxidiser" would probably have been a better choice.

In other news, I note that, for the first time in Internet history, we're actually going to have to pay attention to what a Troll says. That's a first !

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

Re: I'm not so sure that options are the answer to why Office is so popular

Of course not. Office is popular because Microsoft gave it away to schools to wean entire generations on its software. That is why businesses are using it today, because everyone is supposed to know how to use Word and Excel.

But if you just look at the differences between the two products, Office is years ahead of LibreOffice in graphics and that's why LibreOffice is not gaining any traction in the business environment.

Oh, and there's the fact that, for some reason, people think it's a great idea to put their sensitive data on someone else's server, and Microsoft is all over that in Office.

"Has LibreOffice succeeded?"

Well, it's still alive, so I guess that is a positive. But as a comparison to MS Office, sorry. It's no wonder MS Office has the upper hand in the business world, the options for charts are ten times what LibreOffice has. As far as charts in particular and graphics in general are concerned, LibreOffice is at the Office 95 level. In Excel, you can adjust almost everything in a chart. In LibreOffice, you can change chart type and hide or show the legend and that's just about it.

Given how management is so attached to their pretty graphics, Office is the winner hands down.

At home, on the other hand, I use LibreOffice because it does everything I need to do and works well. I just don't need to make charts.

BOFH: 'Twas the night before Christmas, and the ransomware struck

The Director didn't have a chance

As it should be with a grade-A certified BOFH of Simon's level.

Well done ! And not even for personal gain ! What an altruist !

Say GDP-aaaR: UK's Information Commissioner pours £275k fine into London pharmacy's teaspoon

Re: exposed to rain, doesn't mean they aren't readable

I think that that would depend on how long they've been exposed.

I'm pretty sure they don't use waterproof ink on those things.

UK's Virgin Media celebrates the end of 2019 with a good, old fashioned TITSUP*

Re: don't go with just one supplier

What's the point of having two suppliers if they both use the same fibre ?

Because if you want to have two fibre lines from two different suppliers and you don't want them coming from the same direction, you're asking one supplier to lay a special cable just for you. A billionaire could undoubtedly get that level of service, I'm not sure a mere millionaire could, but I'm sure you can't.

Oh this 2019 timeline. Finish this sentence: Austrian politico accused of spending €3,000 a month on ...

These are interesting times

I'm sure politicians are no more corrupt than they've always been, but it is quite interesting to see that getting caught nowadays gets you crucified in the Court of Public Opinion, and thanks to the Internet, it has consequences.

I don't know how we're going to adapt, but things are changing in the way politics has become public.

Hold my Bose, we can do premium: Sennheiser chucks pricey wireless cans at travellers

Re: at least you won't hear people screaming

Um, if I'm not mistaken noise cancellation allows you to clearly hear people screaming.

If you want actual silence, what you need is more akin to industrial earmuffs - they cancel everything, to a point.

Edit : After checking the web site, I found that the app has a setting called Transparent Hearing. If that is activated, you can hear people talking to you. That means that, if it is not activated, you can't hear them. So your point stands, in the right conditions. Of course, if you're wearing these on a plane, I don't see why you would activate it.

You are right, but that in itself is not a reason to write off a product. MicroUSB works.

The reason I'm not interested in these headphones is because it is once again something that needs my phone to work, because of its price and because I just don't need that kind of functionality.

I'm not a road warrior, just a keyboard warrior, and I cannot bring a pair of headphones like that on client site. It would send a very wrong message.

Another free web course to gain machine-learning skills (thanks, Finland), NIST probes 'racist' face-recog – and more

"the Epoch Media Group"

Is there any link between these assholes and the Ethos group of assholes who are taking over .org for their own profit ?

Just wondering. The smell is similar.

Fuming French monopoly watchdog is so incensed by Google's 'random' web ad rules, it's fining the US giant, er, <1% annual profit

"Google said it will appeal the ruling against it"

Of course it will. Because it says that Gibmedia was using deceptive practices.

Now, if we had been presented with a spat between Gibmedia saying it had been booted unjustly, and Google stating deceptive practices, and the perspective of a lawsuit, then fine, we'll see what happens. But the judges have sorted it out, and they have decided that Google was unfair, thus justifying Gibmedia.

France is not the USA, you're going to have to find a different reason and just chanting "They were cheating" is not going to cut it.

Of course, this being Google, I predict that this affair is going to go on until Gibmedia shuts down for lack of funds.

It's cool for Brit snoops to break the law, says secretive spy court. Just hold on while we pull off some legal jujitsu to let MI5 off the hook...

arguments to stop prosecution of a law-breaking British spy would be based on the “public interest”

But they always are.

You just have to know which "public" they're talking about.

Brother, can you spare a dime: Flickr owner sends mass-email begging for subscriptions

"they don't keep your priceless photos safe"

Because you do ?

There's only one thing that keeps your photos safe : a physical copy on optical medium stored in a place without much sunlight and a temperate environment.

If you count on someone else to keep your pictures safe, you're setting yourself up for a big disappointment. Especially if you're not paying that someone.

Five years in the clink for super-crook who scammed Google, Facebook out of $120m with fake tech invoices

I'm tired of seeing that confusion as well. Oh well, what do you expect given the sorry state of the US education system ?

UK cops lost nearly twice as much of their own tech kit this year, says thinktank

"West Midlands police has over 6,500 sworn constables"

Could we maybe have a comparison that takes into account the amount of constables ?

Because if there's a section that loses 1000 pieces of kit but has 10,000 constables, then I'd think it's doing better than another section that only lost 100 pieces of kit but only has 250 constables.

Whaddya think ? Could you re-evaluate that ?

'Supporting Internet Explorer is hell': Web developers identify top needs – new survey

"If you allow web applications to be more like native apps"

Then you can be sure that the mayhem we are currently witnessing will expand tenfold, then tenfold again.

Look, I understand that this is interesting and important from a business point of view, but please, pretty please, DO NOT EXTEND THIS TO THE WEB IN GENERAL.

Because that will just be the end of the web as we know it. For reals.

Also, make sure you never program any SCADA interfaces with that, because God knows Russian hackers would just love to hijack that.

Uber forks out $4.4m to settle claims of rampant sexual harassment and retaliation in the Travis Kalanick era

Nobody died.

Yes, and FaceBook has agreed to improve its handling of its user's privacy.

Many times.

ACLU sues America's border cops: Tell us everything about these secret search teams targeting travelers

"and believes the government needs to be accountable"

Well there's your problem, my friend. You don't live in the country you think you live in. You still believe in "The Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave".

Unfortunately, the brave have been ousted by the paranoid, and those who remain are under constant surveillance.

You want the government to be accountable when it's Trump at the top and his cronies everywhere that counts ?

I wish you luck with that.

Cheque out my mad metal frisbee skillz... oops. Lights out!

The kind of boss I like to work with

You admit your mistake and, instead of chewing you out for fifteen minutes he rides in with the cavalry and coordinates everything so things can be set straight again. If, after all is said and done, I get my chewing out in his office I will meekly accept it because it was my fault. And I will sincerely regret having made the mistake because I will realize that he put himself on the line instead of offering me up as a sacrifice.

In such an environment, if I got a call to help as happened here, I would drop everything else and rush to respond - not because of the client or the problem or even the colleague, but because I would know the boss is counting on me and I would not want to disappoint him.

IBM to Google: Istio, Knative, TensorFlow should be under 'open governance'

What was that ?

At the very beginning of the article we start by reading "IBM believes that strategic open source projects should be managed by a vendor-neutral foundation".

That's all very nice, but given how every single big company out there treats the market like a shark treats its prey, I have trouble believing in a "a vendor-neutral foundation". Every vendor is going to be vying for an advantage, pushing his own agenda and trying to get his way.

I doubt that they'll all be sitting around the table, nicely listening to other vendor's ideas and giving their assent to good ideas even if goes contrary to their agenda. That's not the world we're living in when Fortune 500 companies sit at the table.

Email blackmail brouhaha tears UKIP apart as High Court refuses computer seizure attempt

Seems like justice has actually been served

This bunch of muppets have really overdone themselves in demonstrating what happens when you group together a gaggle of selfish, egotistical, racist bastards who haven't got a clue.

The amount of bindfolded backstabbing going on leaves one breathless. And they want people to give them the responsibility of government ?

No, of course not. They want the perks of government, the responsibility they'll leave to some expendable underlings.

JavaScript survey: Devs love a bit of React, but Angular and Cordova declining. And you're not alone... a chunk of pros also feel JS is 'overly complex'

Must be the cost of having a vibrant ecosystem.

IT consultant who deleted every account on UK company Jet2's domain cops 5 months in jail

How can you recover if you no longer have any access to the network ?

A real question for the networking companies.

British bloke accused of extorting victims for 'Dark Overlord' hacker crew finally gets his free trip* to America

One down, many to go

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, apparently.

Seems like it's actually getting harder to be a scumbag on the Internet. Good.

Das Reboot: Uni forces 38,000 students, staff to queue, show their papers for password reset following 'cyber attack'

That is taking security seriously

It is a hassle, to be sure, but it is secure and that's what security is about . being sure everything is OK.

But wow, almost 40K people impacted, the amount of gnashing of teeth must be impressive.

Huawei's P40 and P40 Pro handsets will not ship with Google Mobile Services, Richard Yu confirms

Re: don't see why we have no European Alternative to Google

One possible reason is that, to put that in place, you'd have to match Google's investment in data centers to a certain extent, and that means billions of euros that need to spent without any immediate return.

A second possible reason is that Google already has its fingers in 99% of all web sites, what with its implication in JavaScript and frameworks and all the genuinely useful APIs and function libraries that Google offers up for the price of your soul free. You'd not only have to replicate all that from scratch, but you'd also have to persuade all those web sites to switch to your code. Herculean doesn't begin to describe that problem.

Post Office faces potential criminal probe over Fujitsu IT system's accounting failures

Wow, looks like Oracle and ICANN could find some board material here.

Not telling the truth to a judge in a trial ? What moron thought he could get away with that ?

Samsung says sorry as union-busting chairman and VP head off for 18 months in the chokey

Not really. Apparently Google thinks exactly the same way.

It's just that public opinion is starting to realize it actually has an impact.

Log us out: Private equity snaffles Lastpass owner LogMeIn

Time to add an "import from LastPass" option

All password managers that don't have that option today would do well to add it pronto.

LastPass is going to have to do a recount of it's user base come June next year. It might well get a nasty surprise.

Amazon slams media for not saying nice things about AWS, denies it strip-mines open-source code for huge profits

"The journalist largely ignores the many positive comments he got from partners"

Well duh, they're your partners. They're not going to trash you, they need you. The journalist may have had an agenda, but if the truth hurts it's not his fault.

Besides, what's the problem ? It's not like your customers are suddenly going to disappear if you admit to "strip-mining" open source code. Many people have been warning about using someone else's server and that hasn't stopped them from using yours, so your use of open source is certainly not going to stop them either.

Hey, ICANN, if you need good reasons to halt the .org super-sell-off, here are two: Higher fees, more website downtime

It's no use

This is a done deal, and consequences be damned. The guys who have orchestrated this take-over (because that's what it is) have no intent of backing down and don't give a damn of who they hurt. They're billionaires, and ICANN is on their side.

Everything that needed doing to set the .org up for sale has been done, without the approval of the community, and the sale will go through no matter what.

That is my opinion. I hope I am wrong, but if you're counting on ICANN to stop it, you need to get back down to Earth pronto.

Hate speech row: Fine or jail anyone who calls people boffins, geeks or eggheads, psychology nerd demands

these terms are "divisive and humiliating,"

Personally, I have no problem being called a nerd. I think that that person is basing that statement on her personal experience in school, which she obviously did not appreciate.

That's not the case today. Nerd is a badge of honor now, and I don't need to defend boffins in these hallowed pages.

That book should have been written twenty years ago. It would have been more relevant then.

Power of the cloud builders: Who ate one-third of the $38bn data centre pie in Q3? AWS, Microsoft, Google 'n' pals

Be mindful of Rule 34 on that. It's real. Painfully real.

Allegedly, that is. Allegedly.

What do you mean your eardrums need a break? Samsung-owned JBL touts solar-powered wireless headphones you don't need to charge

"68 hours of playtime from just 1.5 hours of sunlight"

Two and a half days ? I call bollocks on those numbers. First of all, I don't believe that wireless headphones can last 68 hours on a full charge, full stop. Next, I seriously doubt that a small band of photovoltaic cells can recharge whatever battery it has to 100% in a mere 90 minutes - even if you live at the Equator in the middle of a drought.

Somebody post some figures that are more realistic.

IBM tailors Swift relationship after 'review of open source priorities'

IBM's specialty

IBM has had some great products in the past, and every single time IBM lets it whither on the branch to shrivel and die.

One would think that, after 30 years like that, someone at IBM would have a clue.

iFixit surgeons dissect Apple's pricey Mac Pro: Industry standard sockets? Repair diagrams? Who are you and what have you done to Apple?

I just checked. The basic model is €6000. For that price, I damn well expect reliability and ease of upgrade/repair.

The model with all the bells and whistles is a full 10 TIMES the price (okay, with over 700GB or DDR4 RAM - who the hell needs 700GB of RAM ???). You can buy a brand new BMW Series 3 Hybrid for that price. If I had the money to buy that and I couldn't maintain it myself with ease, someone would be hanging from a tree.

Digital Ministry merry-go-round set to continue as Nicky Morgan reappointed, made a life peer

"We were the global leader in outsourcing"

Yeah, and look at how that has left your Government IT. Not really something to brag about. You'd do better to bring stuff back in-house.

Well, it's not like you have a choice anyways, is it ?

In an homage to Harry Potter's every-flavour jelly beans, Microsoft unveils 'Lucky Dip' Windows 10 testing ring

"this is not so good for those planning deployments"

Windows is not so good for those who want to plan anything beyond the next three weeks.

Your workmates might still be reading that 'unshared' Slack document

"When you share Snippets and Posts in private channels or message"

You are handing over the information to an entity you have no control over and who is in no way obliged to handle the data in any specific way.

If you think that's a good thing, you're the problem.

Canada's .ca supremo in hot water after cyber-smut stash allegedly found on his work Mac ‒ and three IT bods fired

Re: What is it about domain name registries that attracts so much scandal and bad behaviour?

That's actually a very good question. ICANN is the grandfather in this domain, we have Afrinic and now Canada as well.

I'm guessing it's because they don't have all that much to do once the domain names have been approved. So they just sit around all day and wait for something to do, which of course means there is ample time to fool around. And, humans being humans, if they have time to fool around, they will.

Alphabet, Apple, Dell, Tesla, Microsoft exploit child labor to mine cobalt for batteries, human-rights warriors claim

"claim to have 'voluntary programs' to stop themselves"

I'm sure they do. I have a voluntary program to stop myself from eating too many crisps.

The beauty of the thing is that . . it's voluntary. So when I feel like it, I open my bag of crisps. When I'm done, I subscribe to my voluntary program again.

Simple.

My eyes thank you, Google: Android to get dark mode scheduling in future update

"Dark Mode scheduling"

What is this Dark Mode that they are talking about ? I can't find any Dark Mode in my Galaxy A3 menu. I do have a blue-light filter. I also have a phone that modifies its brightness following the ambient lighting, so why should I need a Dark Mode ?

My phone also has Always On, so I get the time on screen without blasting my middle-of-the-night eyes with the full effect of the unlocked screen. It adjusts its brightness automatically as well - during the day it is nice and readable, in the dark it is subdued and largely readable as well.

So what use is this Dark Mode scheduling to me ? I can't see that it has any.

The National Museum of Computing goes Marie Kondo at Christmas: Luckily all the Lego sparks joy

"the Lego was now shipshape and ready for Winter Bytes family events"

So, they'll be back to sort out the Lego again in January I take ? There are worse jobs :)

BTW : brilliant caption on the top pic !

It's 2019 so, of course, this Wells Fargo employee accused of stealing customer cash posed with wads of dosh on Instagram, Facebook

That's the problem with kids these days, no patience.

No discretion either. It's not because you got out the door with the loot that you can't get caught the week after.

In any case, he won't have any housing issues for the rest of life. That's one form of success, right ?

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

Re: I don't believe it was pressure from other aviation authorities

There was pressure. Wikipedia states that first China, then Europe grounded the 737 Max before Trump came out to seal the point.

Basically, he had no choice because everyone else was going to ground the plane anyway, so he just followed the movement.

Stop us if you've heard it before but... Africa's internet management body mired again by corruption allegations

A right nest of ugly crabs

It would seem that Afrinic resembles a condensed form of everything wrong with people these days. Blatant racism between people of different colors, origins, and now even language.

A new CEO is not going to be enough, everyone should be fired and replaced by people who can actually work together.

What do Nginx, Twitch... and the English Premier League have in common? Russians. It's always the Russians

Wait a minute

"all of which are stored on servers outside of Russia. No other products are developed within Russia."

So let me get this straight : this is a Russian company, developing software in Russian for Russians, and they store all their builds on servers that are not in Russia ?

Are they afraid that Putin is going to march in with a cohort of Stormtroopers and demand they hand over their code ?

I get that you can store anything almost anywhere these days, but they say don't have a single line of code residing anywhere in Russia. That's weird.

Where's our data, Google? Chrome 79 update 'a catastrophe' for Android devs with WebView apps

Indeed. You're a company and the only record you have is bloody phone ?

Well now you know why you shouldn't work like that.