Posts by Pascal Monett

UK competition watchdog seeks to make mobile browsers, cloud gaming and payments more competitive

"Apple and Google have substantial and entrenched market power in mobile operating systems"

No surprise there, they're the ones that created the market.

Borkzilla, late to the party as usual, tried to muscle its way in but didn't have the balls to follow through. It rarely does when it's not the one dictating the rules.

Nokia was there for long time, but didn't manage to get to grips with smartphones and failed.

Competition is possible, but will not come from government dictate. Given the cost of entry into the market, there's every chance that the future competitor on the market will be from China, because that is where it is growing right now, safe from meddling by either of our two incumbents.

Maybe India could grow one too, who knows ?

Record players make comeback with Ikea, others pitching tricked-out turntables

Re: That vinyl sound

The analog sound is digitized ?

Maybe it is today, but back in the day (ie when I was young), the process was to make a master record, then use it to imprint the production line to make copies.

There was nothing digital in that process. They didn't have the technology for that yet.

I think.

Microsoft forgot to renew the certificate for its Windows Insider subdomain

Re: Certbot

Yeah, but that was not Made In Borkzillaland.

OVHcloud datacenter fire last year possibly due to water leak

Interesting article marred by dreadful time formatting

"The fire was subdued around 1000 after the electrical network was cut off and a pump boat arrived"

Around 1000 what ? Seconds ? Minutes ? Or is it supposed to be 10:00 A.M. ?

Military timing is all good, but a : every now and then wouldn't hurt.

Activision to begin union negotiations with workers from Raven Software

"Workers were also told they could not discuss sexual harassment and discriminatin lawsuits"

The company does not have the right to impose that.

If you don't want your employees to talk about lawsuits, you need to make it so that there are none.

And I don't mean by silencing the victims.

OMIGOD: Cloud providers still using secret middleware

"they also add new potential attack surfaces"

Okay, is it time to stop the bullshit about The Cloud^TM being easy to use ?

When it is working (which is not all the time) you have to track your usage (otherwise the bill at the end of the month is a punch in the gut), you have to ensure secure access, and now you also have to ensure against attacks you don't even know about.

I have a revolutionary idea : how about housing that server in your own server room ?

Warning: Colleagues are unusually likely to 'break' their monitors soon

A screen is a screen is a screen

A screen does not need smarts, all it needs is the ability to render an image, whatever the source.

Stop this "smart" nonsense. Just slap an Ethernet connector on it and allow me to stream whatever I want to watch from wherever I'm getting it.

If all it can do is render an image, it doesn't need updates and won't fall into obsolescence before its components die.

Put the smarts into whatever I connect to it, but leave my screen alone.

Emotet malware gang re-emerges with Chrome-based credit card heistware

"they came back in full force"

The only thing they're doing is relying on user stupidity.

Granted, there's apparently an ocean full of that, but when users will finally understand that you don't open mails from someone you've never heard from, their attack vector will go dry.

I give it another 10,000 years.

How one techie ended up paying the tab on an Apple Macintosh Plus

"I thought MacWrite needed no explanation"

There is no application that can't have a user too stupid to use it.

Russia, China warn US its cyber support of Ukraine has consequences

"acts of aggression"

Don't you just love how countries accuse other countries of exactly what they are guilty of (completely ignoring that, though) ?

It's like they graduated into kindergarden.

To think that this is a level that is supposed to be handled by responsible adults.

Hardware flaws give Bluetooth chipsets unique fingerprints that can be tracked

"However, an attacker's ability to track a particular target is essentially a matter of luck"

Cue the next Mission Impossible film where Tom Cruise dashes madly around a crowded mall trying to keep track of someone he's supposed to protect.

Chinese 'Aoqin Dragon' gang runs undetected ten-year espionage spree

Once again

When will people learn that nobody sends you an attachment without even knowing you ?

Symantec: More malware operators moving in to exploit Follina

"a specially crafted Word document"

Once again, an attack that is based on the user opening an attachment from someone they don't know.

I've been getting a few mails this week with the subject "Re: your order is blocked", containing an attachment.

I haven't ordered anything. If you really think I'm stupid enough to open an attachment from an email I did not request concerning something I did not order, I just wish I had Thor's lightning at my disposal, because I would use it.

Liberally.

Indian developer educator Scaler moves to America with $11k online courses

"Developers [..] with $11,000 to spend"

I'd wager that, if they had $11K to spend, they'd buy a new car.

If you want to improve your skills in IT, Internet is there for you.

Vivaldi email client released 7 years after first announcement

"displacing email as the communication tool of choice for many"

Are you out of your mind ?

Email is essential for business. You know, that thing that keeps the economy going.

The economy. That thing that keeps Microsoft on top of OS usage.

If you think business is going to switch to video conferences for confirming invoices, you have lost the plot.

Linux Mint adopts Timeshift from overworked original developer

Re: @voiceoftruth

And you couldn't post that as a reply ?

Google calculates Pi to 100 trillion digits

100 trillion digits

Congratulations.

Now explain to me why this is relevant and what impact it will have on Science and Engineering.

Microsoft trumpets updated HR-friendly policies (that comply with recently changed laws)

"we do not endorse the use of such provisions as a retention tool“

Then why have them in the contract to begin with ?

Infosys celebrates first birthday of glitchy Indian tax portal by fixing another bug

"Nair claimed job candidates voluntarily agree to the obligations prior to joining the company"

Well duh, obviously they're going to agree - if they don't, they don't get the job. You don't need a PhD to understand that.

The fact that the job comes with unacceptable limitations is another point entirely. If Infosys exists in France, it can always include non-compete clauses if it wants, but a French tribunal throws those things out the window as soon as the case is filed.

Indian law needs an upgrade before things will get better.

VMware customers fear Broadcom acquisition will stall innovation, increase cost

So, basically everyone is expecting VMware to die

This happens disheartingly frequently in the business arena. Successful company is bought by large conglomerate and disappears entirely.

What is the point of buying a company if you are already intent on killing its star product ?

The Lido just folded in Paris. It was purchased three months ago by the Accord group. Don't tell me that they were not aware of financial issues at the time of purchase, so why did they follow through ? Because Accord wanted to shut down the Lido ? A world-known icon of Paris night life ?

Who makes those decisions ?

AI to help study first images from James Webb Space Telescope

I can't wait

I can't wait to find out just how JWST is going to advance our understanding of this magnificent Universe we live in.

Supply chain attacks will get worse: Microsoft Security Response Center boss

"companies should know the sources of the ingredients"

I have to say that I completely agree with that idea.

She should add, though, that companies should not download libraries directly to the production server.

Test servers have a use, it's to protect production servers.

Five Eyes alliance’s top cop says techies are the future of law enforcement

"the psychological effect we have on organized crime"

I'm sure Russian/Chinese/Nork hackers are quaking in their boots.

It's so nice to be able to officially pat yourself on the back like that.

AI chatbot trained on posts from web sewer 4chan behaved badly – just like human members

So he trained an AI on 4chan

And then was surprised that the results were not appreciated. Well duh.

I don't really care that he created a response bot on 4chan. What irks me is that he wasted resources on training a so-called AI in the worst possible environment.

This is why we should not use the term AI to describe what these things are doing. There is no intelligence involved.

IBM CEO explains why he offloaded Watson Health: Not enough domain expertise

"there's a misalignment"

Yes, there is. Mostly in the fact that health is vastly more costly and, when you get it wrong, the lawsuits are way higher.

Citrix research: Bosses and workers don't see eye to eye over hybrid work

Really ?

"80 percent of business leaders have either installed monitoring software or are considering it"

So that is going to be your excuse to drag everyone back into the office ? Monitoring software.

Is there going to be any monitoring of management PCs ? I guess not.

We have not read any reports of reduction of productivity during the lockdowns, but now, all of a sudden, management is worried that we might not be 100% dedicated to our work.

I have in mind a saying (don't remember how it goes) about how, if you suspect someone of something, it's because you yourself are capable of it.

AI and ML could save the planet – or add more fuel to the climate fire

"It's good to get ahead of this issue"

Indeed. It's 2022 and we're on track for global temperature increase of at least 2°C.

You really got ahead of this issue.

Of course, if governments around the world were concentrating on Thorium reactors, AI/ML consumption would be less of an issue.

Photonic processor can classify millions of images faster than you can blink

30 pixels

That might be enough to recognize a toenail.

My Samsung A3 takes pictures that are 4128 x 3096. That makes for 12 780 288 pixels, which is 426 000 times their capacity of treatment.

I think this tech needs a bit of upgrading before we can worry about Big Brother recognizing our faces.

I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems all too well

Re: Windows is also in the schools and Universities

And that is probably the single greatest factor in Borkzilla's insulting success.

Bill Gates had the genius idea of inventing the school license, and now we are saddled with whatever stupid new idea Borkzilla invents.

Why chasing the AI dragon may force big tech to take sustainability seriously

"Where are my nuclear-powered datacenters?"

Good question. Ask Greenpeace, who has developed such a rabid anti-nuclear stance that they have approved, or at least shut up about, Germany's decision to build new coal plants.

NEW coal plants.

We are apparently going towards a civilization of electric cars, ubiquitous smartphones and electric heating everywhere. Diesel fuel is being pushed back as fast as governments can turn a whole population around. Fuel-based central heating is now forbidden in new homes in France.

All that is very nice, but wind and solar are not going to replace and improve on a coal plant. Nuclear does.

Of course, it might be a good idea to abandon the pressure-water reactor technology which was not made to power the grid but to provide plutonium for atom bombs.

We've passed the stage where we need so much plutonium. Any country today that launches a nuclear attack can be guaranteed to be put on ban from the rest of Humanity. Not to mention that you can't control where the fallout goes, meaning that you could very well get some of it on your own territory. Using a nuke is insanity (of course, Trump has no problem with that).

No, the future of nuclear is Thorium. A passively-secured nuclear technology that guarantees two things : minimal radioactive residue and, if anything goes wrong, automatic shutdown of the reaction.

Todays' PWR plants need constant surveillance from several experienced teams working 24/7.

A Thorium-based plant could have one engineer on standby with a pager.

Until we get reliable fusion, Thorium is the only way we are going to provide enough electricity for an ever-increasing load.

Sony launches a space laser subsidiary (for comms, not conflict)

So Sony wants to fire lasers at satellites

I've got the feeling that the airline industry might want to have a word with that.

Behind Big Tech's big privacy heist: Deliberate obfuscation

"We value your privacy"

Oh but they do, and they know exactly how much they value it.

Down to the penny.

Microsoft: You own the best software keyboard there is. Please let us buy it

"just take our money and bring Swype's best bits back"

What, and do something useful ? No can do.

Borkzilla still hasn't found the next useless idea to toy with, or it's looking at creating yet another set of emojis nobody asked for and hardly anyone will use.

That time a techie accidentally improved an airline's productivity

That doesn't mean that they're properly trained on using the keyboard.

It astounds me how today's civilization just skips training on how to use computers. It's as if we all expect kids to learn by osmosis.

Of course, the real issue us that teachers are not trained on how to train kids on using computers - because most of them haven't been trained themselves.

Re: simple, clear, and predictable menu system

Except that that is no longer possible today, because today's developers have only one job : change the UI to make it look as if they've worked on it.

Costa Rican government held up by ransomware … again

"Most cyber attacks can't succeed unless someone falls for them"

Now that is a profound statement, on par with "most phones get stolen by pickpockets".

I wonder what other gems of wisdom Proofpoint will bestow upon Humanity in the future ?

Japan lets its banks and other entities issue stablecoins

"only banks and other registered financial institutions"

That should at least guarantee that the yahoos are not going to mess things up this time, but I fail to see the point of all this.

Digital currency ? They're all digital already. I haven't used physical money for the last two years, if I pay, I just bonk the VISA on the machine and I'm done. If I need to transfer money or pay online, I just connect to my bank and I make the order - it's processed in less than five seconds (during banking hours, that is).

I fail to see how a so-called stablecoin will bring anything better to the market.

Brute force and whiskey: The solution to all life's problems

Re: Why a "retired farmer"?

Indeed, that is a fair question.

A young man with full knowledge of what was going on would certainly have run faster than some poor old coot.

The next time your program is 'not responding,' (do not) try these steps

Presentations on customer site are almost always a nightmare. It's always the wrong cable for the screen, or the laptop doesn't sync, or the feed is not recognized, etc, etc.

You get there a full hour before the meeting, and 5 minutes before H-hour, it's still not working. The IT/helpdesk jockey is still running around verifying this and that, and you're watching people coming in with their coffee, smartphone and laptop, already bored and wondering when it will be over.

Honey, it hasn't even begun to start.

The only times I have ever had a presentation go off without a hitch is when all I had to do was bring a PDF on a USB key - all the hardware was preconfigured and supplied by the customer. In that case, you go to the room with the helldesk sacrifice, hand him the USB key and wait for him appease the gods so that your PDF can be displayed. Generally, that goes rather well.

Taser maker offers electric-shock drones to stop school shootings

Re: Causes

I'm sorry to contradict you, but shootings did not start in 90s. They started in 2000.

My opinion on that, as I have already pointed out in these hallowed pages, is that it is the access to Internet that started this whole sorry mess.

Before the Internet, the wackos felt alone, isolated. Without access to the Internet, they did not act on their pulsions because they did not know that other people thought like them.

When the Internet became readily available to the general public, these wackos suddenly discovered that there were a lot of other wackos out there, and they were encouraged to act on their pulsions.

And now here we are.

Personally, I'm glad to live in France, where this kind of nonsense is (almost) non-existant.

Re: the problem is violent people, not items

Wrong.

It has been proven that easy access to guns increases violence. It also increases suicides. If you have a gun, all you need is 5 minutes of dispair and boom. Without a gun, you have to go through the trouble of setting up a rope, or throwing yourself out the window, or swallowing all those pills. All of that takes time, time during which you can put yourself in question and delay the worst.

Those who talk about knives have never knifed anyone. Shooting someone is a video game, knifing someone is intensly personal and real.

Besides, if you reason that Humanity is the same just about everywhere, your argument falls down because, if violent people really were that violent, we'd have reports of knifings in all countries where gun control is in place and efficient.

We don't have those reports.

QED.

Re: One of the reasons so many Americans are pro-gun

No, it's because they're fucking stupid.

The USA needs to divert 10% of its military budget to schools and education.

EDUCATION.

It's the only thing that will avoid making Idiocracy a documentary.

Amazon’s Kindle bookstore to quit China

"Amazon’s decision should [not] be taken as a sign that foreign investment in China is waning"

So I'll wait for the list of all the multinationals based outside of China that are not investing (or outright pulling out) in China to make up my own opinion ?

Maybe if China stopped forcing foreign companies to consent to placing a Chinese national they don't control, investment would start flowing again ?

46 years after the UN proclaimed the right to join a union, Microsoft sort of agrees

"Our employees will never need to organize to have a dialogue with Microsoft's leaders."

No, of course not. They can go to their manager's office and be told to get back to work on their own.

Tech hiring freeze doesn't mean people won't leave

"The good big companies are overstaffed by 2x"

Where does that metric come from ?

Who has decided that "good" companies have twice as many employees as they need ?

Who are you to define how many employees a company needs ?

Companies are generally pretty good at defining their recrutement needs - they have to pay the salaries. I don't know of any private company that decides to hire two people for same job when one is enough. If they do hire a few too much, that gets pared down in the year that follows.

Government administrations, on the other hand, is an entirely different ball game.

Starlink's success in Ukraine amplifies interest in anti-satellite weapons

"the Chinese military sees a threat that it can't easily control or disable"

Yeah, that's a big problem when your government is entirely based on dictating what people are allowed to view or say.

OpenSea staffer charged with insider-trading of NFTs

Not a bad argument. Indeed, he should have just kept the money in those accounts to use it later. Buy a car from one account, a new house from another, etc.

As usual, it's greed that is their downfall.

Greed makes you stupid.

FBI, CISA: Don't get caught in Karakurt's extortion web

Another bunch of Russian miscreants

It's starting to look like invading Russia is something that should start being planned.

Atlassian: Unpatched years-old flaw under attack right now to hijack Confluence

What ?

7.18 is more recent than 7.4 ?

Is Atlassian using a countdown scheme on its version numbers ?

Tim Hortons collected location data constantly, without consent, report finds

Tim Hortons

"identify when the user was visiting a Tim Hortons competitor"

Even if I were to admit that this information could be interesting, what were they doing with it ? Charging more the next time the customer came to them ?

This is a clear violation of every moral rule that exists. Tim Hortons is a restaurant chain, not the NSA. Where their customers go is not Tim Hortons' business in any way, shape or form.

Tim Hortons. Another company on my personal blacklist (not that it matters).