Posts by Pascal Monett 18221 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007
A TV has one use, and one use only : to show images. That is all it should ever do.
Where those images come from is free to think of, and putting various kinds of ports solves the problem. Put an Ethernet port in your effing TVs and leave the "smart" to an add-on box people can buy (or not).
But the TV itself ?
Just an image viewer. THAT IS ALL.
Oh it's all about the money, no doubt there.
But just for one second imagine the situation if WinSlurp 1 0 fails as spectacularly as Vista did.
I'm pretty sure that would be one hell of kick to Micrsoft's bottom . . line.
But yeah, I know, I'm dreaming again. Nurse ! Bring me my pills. The red ones.
Not quite.
The setting and removal of the handbrake is via the button, but the handbrake system itself does not require energy to remain in place. It's like electric doors - they only need energy to move.
If you lose battery power with the handbrake on, you can be sure your car isn't going anywhere until you've plugged it in via the ever-useful jump cables.
Apparently, almost half of the population of Chine is online, mostly via smartphones.
That came as a surprise to me. I thought there was a lot less. Apparently, there are more Chinese citizens living in the cities than I thought.
Does this mean that the means to oppress are being stretched to their limits, or that the Chinese version of NSA technology laughs in the face of a challenge ?
I would have honestly thought that suppressing the opinions of over half a billion people would be a bit too costly for any state to bear. Of course, if the government gave such a project maximum priority and a "whatever it takes" budget (and why wouldn't they ?), then I guess anything is possible.
Agreed, although it seems obvious that to make such an account type work, any responsible adult would neutralize the "phone home" part and cut the online OS-level chatter to a level that can be justified to child services - and if that means zero that's no wind out of my sail, if you get my drift.
Of course, anyone who might actually make a proposal like that in a business meeting these days would probably recieve a slap with a baseball bat made of money, just to set him back on the Golden Path.
Gosh, how about starting by not breaking something that is already in place that people are (apparently) happy with ?
Only in the software business will you see a company completely uproot existing functionality and replace it with something totally different without giving either heads-up or time to adapt to its customers.
How much would it have cost to keep existing functionality and trumpet a "new, enhanced user mode specifically made for protecting children" ? How is it possible for Microsoft's PR department to NOT have thought of doing that ?
It seems Microsoft is intent on providing us with the Universal HandBook Of How To Annoy Your Customers. Keep at, Nadella, you're doing great.
that the brilliant individual who's idea is so genius that he was showered with praise and recognition be offered a tour of Congo's mining areas to witness first hand what a great idea it was.
If he doesn't come back alive, it must mean that he became enamoured of the place and decided to stay, right ?
Sure, but replace it with what ?
I cannot imagine the sheer volume of data stored and managed in a government-level group of Oracle databases, even taking into account the fact that there is no oversight or global planning of any kind (good one there, way to ensure economies are impossible).
You don't just get rid of Oracle. You need to find a suitable substitute, redesign the applications, create a parallel environment, migrate the data onto said parallel platform, design a test suite to validate the transfer and test the new environment and validate it.
When all that is done, you can start migrating the users. You'll be doing that bit by bit, so as not to have everything blow up in your face with the inevitable unexpected complications that will arise.
Just planning this kind of thing will be a major project which will require external expertise.
Hmm, do I smell the presence of yet another pork barrel for yet another vast, government-wide IT failure ahem, project ?
Albeit with a bit of a procedures issue, if I understood correctly.
A "legit security researcher" does not just publish his findings on a blog these days. Step one is to contact the company and open a discussion on the subject, at least asking the company to validate the findings.
Publish-and-be-damned is for when the company has repeatedly ignored the warnings, refused to acknowledge anything and denied all issues - that is when you go public and let the company fry, not before.
Used ink printers for years - Epson included. The result was invariable :
Buy printer
Use up included ink without trouble
Buy new ink cartridges (brand name only, no Chinese knock-offs ever)
Start needing to clean heads regularly
Start getting degraded print quality
Move on to head cleaning before each print while cursing profoundly
Chuck the whole thing out and buy another printer
Of course, some people would say that I didn't print enough. Sure, about a page a day on average and I agree that is not much, but why does it work find with the purchase-included cartridges then go to Hell with store-bought brand name ones ?
I solved the issue with a laser printer. Doesn't do color, but it bloody works. End of.
The US government keeps talking to these clowns and treating them like they are responsible businesspeople when in fact they are conniving scum with the morals of slave traders.
If they behaved like that in court, they would be strung up for contempt in two seconds.
Why, oh why do these people keep getting away with such shenanigans ? Do they have some dirt on the President or something ?
Because it's high time someone sent in the riot squad. A good beating would likely help in bringing things to order.
Nothing in the article says that Synology's encryption was insecure. It just states that the disk was encrypted.
Now, given the situation (post-Snowden the brass probably went ballistic), I'm pretty sure that disk was hustled to whatever NSA center they had available and decrypted in record time - National Security and all that - but that doesn't mean that the NSA didn't have to work at it a bit.
Don't think so.
The big problem that Microsoft has now is that its every misstep will be crucified in the media. Microsoft is not the powerhouse it used to be. Billions in the bank no longer guarantee user compliance.
Windows 95 was a turd, Windows XP was better, and XP SP3 was just about acceptable. In those days, the Internet reared its ugly head and when Vista rolled around, despite all the programmed hype that was Microsoft SOP, it was decried, pilloried and ridiculed and did not take off.
That is something that Microsoft had never before experienced ; rejection. Every single OS edition, every attempt, every tool had, previously, been kept or retired at the whim of Redmond HQ. For the first time in history, a Microsoft OS had been crucified BY THE USERS and Microsoft had been forced to accept its defeat.
I am convinced that historians will peg that as the point at which Microsoft has begun its march into irrelevance.
Meanwhile, Window 1 0 is attempting to save Redmond's bacon by adopting the Internet to an extent that is unheard-of in Redmond-land. Microsoft's marketing department is probably feeling a permanent high with all the potential (read, skewering user's wallets potential), but the Internet is here now, and Microsoft does not control it. Users will decide whether or not Win 1 0 is worth it, and Microsoft can bleat all it wants about Win 1 0 "features", if users don't accept them, 1 0 will fail.
And that will be a much more devastating failure in Microsoft's OS history, because its entire future is hinging on this moment.
I don't know which way this will go, but I'm not sure even Microsoft's legendary PR department will be able to save its bacon this time.
Nutrient-rich ingredients my ass. That slop doesn't fill a working man's stomach.
Give me a steak with potatoes any day. And if you don't know how to cook that, you deserve all the slop you get.
Cooking. It's what elevated us from the caveman. Let's not forget that important point of evolution, shall we ?
One of your own said it better than I ever will be able to :
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"
But hey, personal comfort is more important than freedom, eh ?
Don't worry, you're getting exactly what you deserve.
This is not about Soviet Russia, nor Nazi Germany.
This happened in a country priding itself in being a beacon of civilization, a bastion of good education. In the end, totalitarianism starts with well-intentioned people who are given too much leeway to decide what can be done about something.
It is frightening to think that the courage that these three people demonstrated would never had been known if the true nature of State Security went its logical course : a bullet in the head in some dark, bricked basement. All in the name of National Security, of course.
The watchers need to be watched a lot better.
Yes, there are people who give up their personal life to corporations, however there is an enormous difference : they do it by their own choice.
They use their freedom to conduct their lives as they see fit. Misguidedly, perhaps, but it is their freedom to do so.
Comparing that silliness, which is and always has been public knowledge, with the Stasi-like efforts of paranoid "security" organisations that slurp everything without consent and are one step away from blindfolding and shooting behind the shed anyone who has the courage to speak up is utterly ridiculous.
As much as I would really like being notified of traffic jams along my route, I cannot help but remember that there is only one thing that swarms - stinging insects.
I wonder how this will bite us down the road. We already know that OnStar uploads user driving habits whether the user agrees or not - how much more will this system slurp ?
It is supposed to be "open and independant", how does that translate into respecting privacy ?
Is it even possible to respect one's privacy when basically broadcasting one's position continuously ?
You mean dig up all the cables ?
Not going to happen. At most they'll scrap the routing equipment and burn the documentation - making it a nightmare for anyone trying to guess which patch goes where.
Digging up the cables means getting work permits to disrupt traffic and so on, paying workers the time taken to do it, and then what ? Selling the cable for scrap ?
Nah, it'll cost less to just abandon everything.
We'll see how baseless they are in 12 months.
I'm betting that Microsoft is not only going to go full-on pay-to-play with Windows 10 functionality, but it is also going to screw up the updating in a major way in less than 6 months. Facebook has demonstrated that people are willing to give in to micropayments for a stupid game, I'm convinced that Microsoft is going to take this idea to the next level.
Place your bets, people.
Meanwhile, I'll be using Win 7/64 until I retire. Then it'll be Steam OS and some flavor of Linux.
In a properly-run business, it is no business of a user to upgrade his PC.
Despite all the BYOD malarky, users are not the owners of their work PC and thus do not have the authority to install whatever they want, much less update them.
Of course, we're talking about companies that have the means to a professional IT department along with the procedures, applications and red tape that goes with it. In those environments, this whole article is a no-go because the network is locked down properly and Group Policies make tinkering all but impossible. SMBs are generally "every man for himself" anyways, but in that case you don't have an IT guy with the knowledge to keep users from buggering up their systems (and barely the time to correct the issues that do arise - if the technical competence is there).
What cheek.
So basically Google now thinks that it can do whatever it wants anywhere as long as it is not against "global law".
Care to explain that to the Chinese government ?
Oh, of course not. Try pulling that off in Beijing and you can say goodbye to your Chinese customers for a good, long while. So you only do it where you're confident that your customers will not be subject to such sanctions, smirking all the way.
Assholes.
Flash has had its day.
I'm happy to know that somebody thinks Adobe is doing a good job. Must be nice for the Adobe team.
The rest of us see that since 2010 there is constantly a truckload of instances where Flash is an active threat to security. If Flash was an employee, he'd be fired already, even if he helps old ladies cross the street.
Flash is on the way out, HTML5 it will be. For the good of everyone. So get with the program, Cisco.
No they don't. The people who care about their data are the ones burning it on optical disks. The clueless are the ones putting it on an external spinning rust drive and find out the hard way that after a while, their drive (and data) is dead.
Linux ? Please.
And cloud services to store their data ? Are_ you _ mad, or just _ totally _ off _ your _ rocker ?
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