Posts by Pascal Monett

Hubble science instruments still out after going down 3 times in a week

Thank you, I am completely aware of that.

So, I should expect NASA to be charged with a Hubble update any day now. Is that what you're saying ?

Because I'm saying that's not going to happen.

I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

I hope someone will step up to the plate

If replacing the gyros is all Hubble needs to continue functioning for another decade, then I hope some billionnaire somewhere will find enough loose change in his couch to make it happen.

Obviously, Space is now beyond government budgets, but the Science is still necessary. No use talking to politicians, so billionnaires is where it's at.

Ex-school IT admin binned student, staff accounts and trashed phone system

He was IT Admin. What makes you think he wants to deal with customers ?

At best, he'll be cooking the fries.

Re: NerdRageQuit

There's nothing in the article that says that he no longer had access after he was fired.

It's a university. Those things are not exactly renowned for having proper firing procedures, let alone IT procedures. I'm guessing he got called to the Head Office (or whatever equivalent), got told he was fired, and got sent back to his desk to clean up by himself and let himself out.

Yes, he's a blithering idiot and yes, he will never get work as an IT admin again. Way to capitalize on your diplomas. But there is nothing that says that he went home and wreaked havoc from there - although there's a 99% chance that the uni would not have had the administrative time to lock his account before that since unis are serially incompetent in everything IT.

So yeah, he was an idiot, but if the uni had handled the situation with proper oversight, it wouldn't have happened. The uni paid the price in inconvenience. The idiot will pay the price in a McDonalds kitchen.

Fitting for all, I say.

Bank boss hated IT, loved the beach, was clueless about ports and politeness

Now that is exceptional.

Not only did she recognize their work, but she organized money to make it official.

I always appreciate that you say thank you, but if you're putting your money where your mouth is, I give you 5 stars every time.

Roblox investor plays hardball over 'weak' parental controls

the DeKalb County Pension Fund

What are you doing investing in game companies ?

You're a pension fund. Go invest in oil or something else that lasts a long time. Gaming is one of the most volatile markets there is without you idiots throwing a monkey wrench into the mix. You have nothing doing there in the interest of your pensioners.

Go buy some Capita stock. They never seem to lose.

Six pack of sub-Neptune exoplanets hang tight around nearby star

Re: Music of the spheres

What astounds me is that, with the feeble amount of experience and empirical data we have, we can still project orbital stability over four billion years.

Thank God for Newtonian mechanics.

SAP faces more accusations of breaching on-prem customers' trust

"Our partnership with each of our customers is built on trust"

Yes. You trust that your customers will continue to shower you eternally in boatloads of money, while your customers trust that you will shaft them in every way you can find.

Weak session keys let snoops take a byte out of your Bluetooth traffic

Blutooth security

Glad to see that there are people who are keeping the industry on their toes on the matter of security. Unfortunately, automakers are still dragging their feet on that particular question.

So, until Blutooth security is wound up tight enough to force automakers to do it right, I don't see that much will change for consumers.

The specs can be complete and detailed, if the implementation sucks, there will always be vulnerabilities.

China's Loongson debuts processor that 'matches Intel silicon circa 2020'

Re: Loongson has a loong way to go

Maybe so, but the important thing is that they've started the journey.

Give them time and they may well find architectures that are better than ours.

Besides, competition is always a good thing for the consumer, right ?

AI offers some novel crystal materials that could form future chips, batteries, more

Finally, a proper use for a statistical analysis machine

I can totally believe that this is the way to go forward in creating new and useful materials to boost our technologies in every domain. Of course, as noted, a bit of fine-tuning is still required, but this can potentially bring many more returns than some stupid filter for smartphone pics.

And hey, if a machine finds us the proper compound for room-temperature superconductors, I won't complain.

That time a JPL engineer almost killed a Mars Rover before it left Earth

Re: Indeed a good "Who Me?"

Agreed.

Having to check that 10,000 pins are correctly connected, down to the last one ?

Lord preserve me from that.

Server sales down 31% at HPE as enterprises hack spending

"de-elongation and customer digestion"

My, my. To what ends corporate bullshit has to go to say that customers are simply not buying because they don't need to.

Someone else has a go at reforming US Section 702 spying powers – and nope, no warrant requirement

"that won't happen without meaningful reforms"

Indeed. So make a meaningful reform, and not this patsy of an excuse for one. Getting authorization from an FBI attorney ? Yeah, that's going to be a real hurdle. Why not just ask the janitor while you're at it ?

Virgin Atlantic flies 'world's first fossil-fuel free' transatlantic commercial flight

"There's simply not enough SAF"

Good. We have enough trouble feeding people as it is without diverting more food to fuel the tourist industry.

Build some high-speed railways. God knows you have enough space for them.

What are you saying ?

The truly rich have private jets. They don't come near the poor.

Not by a long shot.

Plex gives fans a privacy complex after sharing viewing habits with friends by default

"on by default"

So, Plex has joined Facebook, uh, sorry, Meta, in the screw-your-users-we're-selling-advertising-data market.

On by default. And you can turn it off. Yeah, sure, until the next update resets it to on. Oops, sorry, "honest" mistake, we won't do it again. At least not until the next update . . .

Ah, Zuckerberg, who would have guessed that a uni drop-out like yourself would be a trendsetter in the 3rd millenium ?

Okay, the wrong type of trend, but still . . .

Re: Why do companies think we care what anyone else is doing?

They don't. It's just an excuse to sell your viewing data to advertisers.

Activist Investor Elliott calls for a management reboot at Crown Castle

Activist investor

As soon as I read those words, I think of some asshole whose only interest is gutting the company to bolster the stock price, selling at immense profit and leaving everyone who actually worked in the dust.

Not a ringing endorsement.

Meta sued by privacy group over pay up or click OK model

Re: Stalking and financial abuse

Especially since the only thing they seem to target is the fact is that I just bought a LED flashlight, so they propose me the chance to buy more.

Pathetically useless. I have a LED flashlight now, and batteries to go with it. Suggest something more interesting, like a battery charger. But no, the vaunted AI they keep harping on can't even guess that.

What a failure.

Um, instead of proposing caveman solutions, maybe you could mention email and SMS ?

Nobody writes letters anymore. XMas is a time of Whats'App and video phone. Get with the program.

Microsoft opens sources ThreadX under MIT license

I'm all for Borkzilla-bashing, and I never miss a golden opportunity to do so (or even a copper one), but we might need a little bit more history of this RTOS before blaming Borkzilla for burying it ?

I mean, I'm sure Borkzilla will bury it, but maybe we could give it some time ? It's such a tiny thing, it is possible that might fly under the Embrace-Extend-Extinguish monster that is lurking in Redmond for little while longer ?

Maybe ?

Ukraine cyber spies claim Putin's planes are in peril as sanctions bite

"the civil aviation sector of terrorist Russia"

Um, it's terrorist Putin. It's his fault. Given the vast number of Russians who fled the country to avoid being drafted into this "special military operation", I doubt that there are that many Russians who are really into invading Ukraine. I think most of them do it because Russia is a dictatorship wearing democracy as sheep's clothing so if they don't, there's a 9mm bullet waiting for them back in the Rodina.

Now maybe, just maybe, if the Russian army was properly equipped and supplied, there would be a bit more enthusiasm on the front, but I am under the impression that the only Russians supporting this SMO are the ones who are not on the front.

In any case, this whole mess is Putin's fault and no one else's. The Russian people were not clamoring for a chance to invade Ukraine in 2019, or before.

P.S. : I do understand that Ukraine isn't really big on splitting hairs at this point.

Logitech's Wave Keys tries to bend ergonomics without breaking tradition

The absence of backlighting

Um, it's a wireless keyboard. You state that its two batteries should last 36 months. If it had backlighting, I'd wager you'd be complaining that the batteries last only 3 weeks.

Personally, I am at an age where backlighting is now a requirement for me to properly see which key I am bashing. As such, this keyboard is out of the question for me, but I do have to admit that it looks nice.

DevTernity conference collapses amid claims women speakers were faked

Magnificent corporate doublespeak

"Asked to confirm that no such person is employed at Coinbase, a spokesperson for the cryptocurrency exchange told The Register: "We’re not aware of any Coinbase employees speaking at the conference. "

I love the redirection. Do you have an Anna Boyko working for you ? I am not aware that any of our employees is going to speak at that conference.

Might as well have answered by saying that it sure looks like it'll be snowing at XMas. What was the point ? Does Coinbase consider its employee list as a secret ? In that case, are there any Coinbase employees that use social media and identify as Coinbase employees ? Because there's some cleaning to do there, if that is the case.

X/Twitter booted out of Australia's disinformation-fighting club

So, Musk is digging the hole ever deeper

Yeah, don't pay your rent, your fines or anything you think you can avoid, that way you'll be able to cry about injustice and bias in front of the judge sending you to jail.

Because that is where your casual disregard for everything democratic is going to send you (I hope).

Oh, you optimist, you . .

Tiny11 shrinks Windows 11 23H2 down to pocket size

It's a nice kick in the teeth

Shows Nadella just how much bloat is not needed to make an Operating System.

Unfortunately, however much I wish to salute this NTwhatever guy, his efforts are doomed to interest the same category of computer nerds that run Linux.

And they're not going to be interested in spending time on a Windows version when they've already got much better.

But hey, points for trying.

Google Drive misplaces months' worth of customer files

If you can't learn to cross the road safely, it doesn't matter how many people you (don't) pay to hold your hand, one day, something terrible will happen to you.

So you need to wake up and learn.

People will learn. Eventually.

The hard way.

Videoconferencing fatigue is real, study finds

"the video version also impacted nervous systems"

I wonder how that translates to YouTube ?

Not all videos have the same impact on the nervous system, I guess . . .

Crypto crasher Do Kwon's extradition approved, but destination is unclear

"a multi-billion-dollar crypto asset securities fraud"

Oh, so a basic crypto scheme then, right ?

And Terraform Labs "pledges" to continue the fight, just like Kwon promised he was not on the run ?

You have to have money to fight in court. TL has billions of debt. They won't fight anything any better than they managed their funny money.

These guys are history.

IT sent the intern to sort out the nasty VP who was too important to bother with backups

Globally I agree.

She was still a bitch, though.

Re: Can't stand IT

Well if you just delete them, why are you complaining they're not there ?

And why, oh why, do companies knowingly employ incompetent people ? I mean, if you're pretending you're good and it works, good for you, but if your reputation with upper manglement is that you're a fuckwit, you should be getting a pink slip next Monday.

This is not government administration, it's private money. Private money is supposed to be efficient.

I guess that's not a hard rule.

USB Cart of Death: The wheeled scourge that drove Windows devs to despair

Ah, the good old days

When Borkzilla had a testing department and bothered itself enough to make sure everything worked as well as possible. Bill Gates having demonstrated a BSOD on stage must have been quite the incentive.

Unfortunately, Nadella on stage with a BSOD won't change anything these days. What a shame.

Taxing times: UK missed out on £1.75B because of digitization delays

"digitization delays"

The fun thing about reading about UK Government shooting itself in the foot is how hilarious it is to consider that all their problems are entirely due to their own stupidity.

The stupidity of God only knows how many highly-paid people who consider themselves extremely important.

UK Government is shadenfreud writ large.

Black Friday? More like Blackout Friday for HSBC's online and mobile banking

Congratulations on instinctively choosing the best provider for your needs.

Not everyone has that skill.

Oh, you're using hindsight . . yeah, that's much more practical.

Except that it comes after you need it.

No, but the determined efforts of their governments is making progress in that direction.

Soon, as in, before the XMas shopping period ?

Oh wait, we're already in that.

Oops. Looks like HSBC is going to post some dismal figures for this quarter.

How unfortunate for board bonuses . . .

Do we really need another non-open source available license?

"proprietary gatekeeping wrapped in open washed clothing"

You remember Microsoft's Monkey Boy ? Ballmer. The one who said Open Source was a cancer.

He's metatstased. This is the result.

The only thing is, it's not important. The only ones who will subscribe to this are companies who had no intention of actually respecting Open Source, but are keen on paying lip service to it. For the creds. Before fucking it all over.

Nobody paying attention will run along with this. This is just Big Capital pulling the wool over the unwary.

Unfortunately, there's one born every minute, eh ?

German budget woes threaten chip fab funding for Intel and TSMC

Neither settlements are secured

And whose fault is that ? You're the idiot who decided that, hey, there's this money earmarked for something we don't care about any more, let's spend it elsewhere.

Well it's GOVERNMENT, doofus. That's not how you're supposed to govern. Government is all about, and I know this is going to be a shock for you, but bear with me, government is all about PLANNING.

Remember that word ? To PLAN. To prepare a budget and see it through.

Not like me, at the end of the month, deciding that yes, I can go to the restaurant this week-end because I have enough left on my account.

That's not how you manage a country.

Maverick Mars chopper has survived way past its warranty – now it's time for a sequel

So refreshing to read news about Mars

No politics, no war, no racism.

Just true human ingenuity at work, for Science.

Go boffins !

New Relic warns customers it's experienced a cyber … something

"the information we know and can share is in the security bulletins"

So, nothing then. There's nothing you know that you can share, and it's likely that there's not much you know.

I hope you thought to encrypt data and salt the hashes. I guess we'll see.

Broadcom re-orgs VMware into four divisions – none of which mention end-user compute products

"starting your next chapter elsewhere"

Oh, what a poetic way to say that you're being fired.

I hope it softens the blow for those who will be looking at XMas without a job this year.

How to give Windows Hello the finger and login as someone on their stolen laptop

So, still no solution for securing against physical access ?

What a surprise. Especially since, if you've got physical access, why bother with booting the machine ? Take the drive out and hook it up to your miscreant PC via USB and all the software you need.

Job done, and Windows is none the wiser.

Tesla, Musk likely aware of Autopilot deficiencies behind Florida fatality, says judge

"gross negligence"

Indeed. It was highly negligent to base a commercial campaign on the premise that autopilot was a good name.

I'm betting it sold more cars. I don't think those additional sales will balance the incoming lawsuits.

Eh, American capitalism.

Palantir bags £330M NHS data bonanza despite privacy fears

"despite privacy fears"

Okay, can we just accept that UK government doesn't give a shit about its citizens and move on from there ?

It's not like any reasonable argument has deterred them from going in the wrong direction before.

Nvidia revenue explodes, led by datacenter products and … InfiniBand?

"Nvidia execs were bullish"

After tripling revenue ? You bet.

It must be raining hookers and blow in the boardroom. They'll have time to recover by the time the next billion-dollar revenue is set up.

Hmm. Must start thinking about buying Nvidia stock . . .

Sam Altman set to rejoin OpenAI as CEO – seemingly with Microsoft's blessing

Oh, so you're saying it was the women's fault ?

1952 called. They want you back.

Well, lessons have been learned, right ?