Posts by Pascal Monett 18911 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007
My God, it seems that Fitbit owners are learning the hard way that you never auto-update your software until you've read about if it works or not for the rest of the population.
Microsoft has educated us about that for decades now, you'd think the lesson would have been understood by now.
During the course of my existence, I have crossed the Atlantic a mere twenty times, and you can add a number of Europe-to-Africa and intra-Europe flights to that number.
I have never been subject to such a situation. As far as I'm concerned, everyone farts on a flight, and the air system takes care of it.
Maybe I've just been lucky.
As usual, the hypothetical idea has good ground but, in a world where encryption attacks are run-of-the-mill, companies that are big enough to have big storage and backup solutions are also going to be targets for data encryption.
So a single version of truth means a single target to encrypt to cripple the company and potentially extort millions.
How does this pie-in-the-sky thinking cope with that threat ?
I find it incredible that, in this day and age, there are still Neanderthals walking about, treating women like objects.
Hey, I will readily admit that I like seeing a nice ass walk by, but when I'm talking with a woman I am first and foremost talking to a person, with a brain, and most of them use it quite well.
That is what I keep in mind, even when that brain is under a set of absolutely beautiful eyes and lips that smile a very charming smile. I will nonetheless keep my wits about me and treat her with the same respect I give all my conversation partners. I find that business relationships are a lot easier like that.
Indeed. I got so fed up I splurged for a laser printer. It's a Samsung. I've had it now for about six times as long as any inkjet I've ever had. Toner is so much more practical, and no company has even tried to DRM it.
On the other hand, color laser is not yet in my budget.
Great. So, for one cup of coffee not placed in its proper cupholder (for some asinine excuse), a control panel or two will have to be replaced, electrical components will have to be replaced, and tens of thousands of dollars in fuel have been wasted.
That is a shoe-in for the Most Expensive Coffee Ever award.
Although I generally agree with your post, one thing caught my eye :
"[Mozilla] will not sell, license, sublicense, or grant any rights to your [data]... without Mozilla's explicit written permission"
They're not saying they won't sell my data without my written permission, they're saying they won't sell my data without their written permission.
That may be a misinterpretation on my part, but that's how I read it.
I live in a rural town and had just gotten my FTTH connection for a month when the local farmer managed to knock it down - but without breaking it.
So my connection was fine, but the line was all over the road. Obviously, I phoned Orange Support - and, after getting through the inevitable anger-inducing first few questions, I managed to indicate that I was calling for a technical problem.The robot cheerfully announced it was going to launch a test of my connection, and of course, a few minutes later, announced that all was well, thank you for calling.
Um, I thought while staring at my phone that was broadcasting the end call beep, no, all is NOT well. MY LINE IS ON THE GROUND !
So, I went to the website, and got to the Support page. There is no chat link for a helldesk drone until you jump through ten hoops, turn around three times and clap your hands saying "there's no place like Orange". Kidding, even that doesn't work. I spent over 45 minutes on that support section and all I could do was test my connection - which, of course, was fine.
After bouncing off the walls for a total of about 90 minutes, I resigned myself to phoning the support line again. To my eternal surprise, instead of going through all the motions for nothing again, this time the robot remarked that I had already called, was it the same problem, I'll direct you to a technician. YES ! Oh heavenly bliss ! Finally, a human being !
I finally got to tell the story, and, after repeating myself twice (apparently it is hard to understand that the line is down but the connection works - must've been a city boy), he finally acknowledged the issue and typed some stuff into the computer. He told me I would be contacted shortly to get an intervention date.
A month later, I called again because nobody had called me. Yes, that is 31 days later, I had to call again. Knowing the procedure this time, I did the two calls and got a technician. I asked what was going on. He had no clue. I had to explain myself all over again. Twice. Again. Cue the typing on the keyboard, and the we'll call you soon. I asked yeah, but how soon ? Because last time you didn't call. I cannot do more, sir. I have escalated the issue. Yeah right. Well I'll see.
Next week came along, nothing. The week after that, nothing. It was now 45 days since my fiber was lying on the ground. I was about to call back when the inevitable finally happened : some car went by and ripped the fiber line from the lamppost. Now my connection was well and truly down all the way.
So I set up my mobe with its 4G sharing connection, fired up my laptop and went to the website, where I had it diagnose a connection problem. The next day, I got a call from a technician asking when he could come by and check it out. He dropped by, checked the situation, and we agreed to an intervention the following week. That happened as programmed and I am now reconnected and fully functional.
Moral of the story ? Orange doesn't give a damn about your line until it's broken, whether or not you talk to a human being.
Agreed. I cannot fathom how supposed professional pen testers failed to be explicit about what their action included.
As usual, lack of communication creates a misunderstanding which transforms into full-blown disagreement.
One would think that experienced pen testers would have already encountered this kind of situation and amended their proposal procedures accordingly. Am I supposed to understand that these guys have never, ever had a customer argue about what was authorized in the test protocol ?
Besides, I would think it is good marketing and a show of professionalism to list to the customer all the things the test will include. On top of that, had they done that they could shove the contract in the court's face and say : hey, you signed on this.
Look, I appreciate the imagery as much as any other guy, but a black hole is no less or more hungry than its gravitational attraction. When something stumbles close enough, it is not because the black hole reached out in any special way, it's just gravity doing its thing.
I'm not sure that describing black holes as monstrous space trolls is good for the public perception of the phenomenon.
On the other hand, it does make for a more entertaining read.
The "movers" and "shakers" are there to offer their great insights and then clear the area well before the grunts come in to try and apply the nebulous bullshit to the actual world.
That way it is clear that, if the project does not succeed, it is purely because the grunts were incapable of sufficient insight to make things happen. It is in no case because the project was defined by hot air and horse dung.
Yes, well, let me think about that for a minute.
Hmm, right : fuck that.
We have a national currency that is perfectly functional and I don't need anybody but my bank to transfer money to anyone I choose. I do not need to subscribe to a criminal organization's excuse for laundering money, or another criminal organization's excuse for spying on my private life. And, as far as investments are concerned, I invest in my house, thank you very much.
The problem with detecting planets is that, at this point in time, all we have is the transition model - and that means that detecting something that is actually Earth-sized is near impossible unless the system is very close and the planets orbit passes between us and their star.
Needless to say, we're not detecting any actually Earth-sized planets hundreds of light-years away any time soon.
Not that we have the means to get there anyway, so . . .
And yet you still paid him ? Without questioning him on his findings ?
Can I get a job like that ? Paid to participate in meetings every now and then, with nobody asking me what I'm up to ?
I'll need a beefy computer (with two screens) and a GB internet connection, of course.
Ohh buddy, desktop search in Windows has never worked.
Check out Everything Search. That is a search that works, and takes less than a millisecond to produce results.
You know, like a search should on computers that are a million times more powerful than when Windows came out.
That is not an acceptable behavior. You do not simply shrug off security issues.
Surely there must be someone at D-Link who is aware that they now have an impending PR scandal coming their way ?
Well, if that's what it takes to make them wake up, then so be it.
Indeed not. Launching a subscription service in the current environment feels like financial suicide. Apple is going to lose a lot of money on this. Not even Apple has the clout to buy anything off Disney and Disney is holding all the properties people are willing to pay for these days.
I don't know what Apple is going to offer, but I highly doubt it will find customers flocking to its service. People are already subscribed to what they want.
But of course, go and put all your accounting details in The Cloud (TM). What's the worst that could happen ?
Well, let's see :
- your entire account can get lost
- your account can be pwned and figures and such made public
- your financial details can get hacked and transfers made without your knowledge or consent
- your provider can get hacked and your account pwned through no fault of your own
Do I really have to continue ?
LinkedIn may be "protecting" its customers, but its ex-customers can sit on it and smile.
I closed my LinkedIn account when Microsoft took over. I'm still getting invites (or friend requests, whatever I don't care). Why ? If my account is closed, nobody should be able to invite me and you can't invite someone.
I raised the issue with LinkedIn chat people and the response was I could go to my profile and uncheck receive invites. Guys, I closed my profile, I shouldn't have to need to do that.
I'm still waiting for an answer on that point.
Good on him for building such a career and such a company. Working 9 to 9 ? Less good for the workers but hey, he's a billionaire, not a philanthropist.
I wonder how long it will take him to launch himself into another project. He does not seem to be the type to just up and retire to taking care of his garden.
Found the soundbar, and checked the manual.
For starters, the manual begins with 9 pages (!) of legal and regulatory blabber. The Table of Contents is on page 10. I went to the Recommendations page (page 14) where I read that the soundbar must be kept at least 1 to 3 feet away from any other wireless equipment. Well sorry, but my TV receiver is right under the telly and it's wireless and it is staying there. Not that I will be buying anything that phones home anyway, and especially not a soundbar.
If you are incapable of making proper speakers without having to tweak them from a distance, you're not getting my money.
So that's why you DDOSed it ?
I was hard against Wikipedia a few years ago, because I do not agree with 'truth by consensus' either.
But I have to admit that a serious sweeping has taken place, and the articles I am interested in (space and science, essentially) are generally up to par now.
Not that I'm trusting them blindly, though, but Wikipedia has gotten better.
If you have a complete system, then maybe. You might want to replace the CMOS battery before starting it up.
However, I regret to say that Win98 SE no longer installs on existing hardware since about a decade ago, if not more. Even XP can no longer install on "modern" hardware.
That's why I moved to Win 7.
Okay, I will admit that I can accept Level 1 as being Cruise Control. I do think that we have that down pat and reliable and working.
As far as I'm concerned, Level 2 should content itself with lane control. Stay in the same lane, slow down if there is a holdup in front, and that's it.
Controlling steering is way beyond Level 2. I'm sure we can find a number of things to be sure of before that.
The request may be urgent, but the account number should already be recorded if the accounting department is worth anything. That means that there should be no transfers to account numbers that aren't already recognized. CEOs need to impress their financial department that no transfers should ever be allowed, under any circumstances, to an unrecognized account no matter who calls.
I realize that a small company is less likely to have proper procedures in place, but a small company would probably not have over 200 grand to throw away. Here, we're talking about a company that does have that kind of money lying around. It is therefor a large company and should have proper procedures in place.
In any case, I'm guessing they are seriously thinking about implementing them now.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
