Posts by Pascal Monett

First they came for Notepad. Now they're coming for Task Manager

"But hey – this is development code after all"

Yeah, and it's name is Windows 11.

NASA's Curiosity finds signs of ancient life on Mars. Or maybe not. More data needed

You need to update your knowledge base on the Sahara. It is positively teeming with life.

The only real problem is the downer the probe would get if it actually happened upon a human being.

Party on Semiconductor Street as worldwide 2021 revenues top record half a trillion dollars

Re: bump one client if a higher paying one comes along

I wonder how much longer that is going to continue. After all, it's not exactly very customer-friendly, right ? With all the new fabs that are either in construction or planned in the next few years, some fab plants might soon find that a number of their customers have gone off to other fabs who actually respect their contracts.

Maybe.

Version 7 of WINE is better than ever at running Windows apps where they shouldn't

Pirates ?

If you think I'm going to download - not to mention install - an executable file from a pirate these days then I have a bridge to sell you.

My pirating days are done, and even back then, I was only interested in the NoCD cracks so that didn't have to bother with putting the plastic disk in.

Piracy today ? A slew of malware just waiting for the clueless.

No thank you.

Japan solves 5G airliner conundrum: Keep mobe masts 200m from airport approach paths. That's it

"accusing the FAA of not carrying out proper testing"

Well duh.

The FAA is nothing more than Boeing's rubber stamp these days.

Mine's the one with the self-certification in the pocket.

Google sours on legacy G Suite freeloaders, demands fee or flee

Absolutely.

But hey, Google will be Google.

And it's a bit rich to call people freeloaders when you started by offering the product for free. Don't act all surprised that people prefer staying with that contract.

APNIC: Big Tech's use of carrier-grade NAT is holding back internet innovation

That old chestnut

We're running out of IPv4 addresses ! We must transition to IPv6 !

Oh really ? Why ?

IPv4 still works.

When I'm running out of nails, I don't start thinking about buying a new hammer.

Besides, all that IoT shit works on IPv6, right ? That'll transition things for you just fine.

Singapore gives banks two-week deadline to fix SMS security

"remove clickable links in text messages or e-mails sent to retail customers"

They're still doing that ?

My Luxembourg bank never sends me SMSs, and actually practically never sends me mail to my email address. All communications are held on the banking portal I have access to (ID, password and OTP token), and are held in the Message area, with a little red bell when there's something I haven't read.

On the other hand, my bank does call me when there is an unusual transaction of more than €2,000 to ensure that it was me and that I authorize the movement.

I appreciate that.

COVID-19 was a generational opportunity for change at work – and corporate blew it

Agreed on all points, with one caveat : the company will have to provide me with a laptop, secured and configured to company specifications.

Big shock: Guy who fled political violence and became rich in tech now struggles to care about political violence

Too true

You may not like it, but it is a fact that the oppression of the Uighurs is known and there has been zero protests in the streets anywhere.

So, basically, that billionaire is indeed telling the truth, it's just that we don't like looking at that particular angle of ourselves.

And I'm as guilty as the rest of us.

International police shut down 15 server infrastructures as part of VPNLab.net's takedown

So, is it LabVPN or VPNLab ?

Some consistency would be appreciated, or at least a hint as to why the name change.

Autonomy founder's anti-extradition case is like saying Moon made of cheese, US govt tells UK court

"while the US government said"

At this point in time, what the US Gov says is worth peanuts.

This trial is happening under UK law, not US law, and the US has nothing to say.

At least, that's my POV.

Microsoft patches the patch that broke VPNs, Hyper-V, and left servers in boot loops

Seems like it is time to train a new generation

About fifteen years ago, Borkzilla was famous for teaching us to wait for v1.1 - it looks like today's new generation of admins need to update their training courses.

NEVER install a Borkzilla patch the day it comes out. Wait a few days. Find out what the feedback is.

It's incredible that people just blindly go and update their business-critical software when Borkzilla has publicly recognized that it has no more Q&A department.

HELLO ?! YOU ARE THE TESTERS.

If you want to risk your network, go ahead, but don't come back griping about how the latest "patch" borked your network.

Live and learn.

Indian IT services biz HCL sees boom in business – and staff attrition

"HCL [..] has already added 10,000 this quarter"

Maybe, but it has added 10K newbies that need training. Cheap, but unskilled. I don't care what your diploma is, you're not ready for the working environment.

On the other hand, you are ripe for being pressed and stressed until you either soar or crack.

It seems that the previous batch mostly cracked.

It also seems that HCL does not offer a working environment like Google. Like it or not, the adslinger and PII-hooverer apparently has a very nice working environment which ensures employee loyalty, even when Google is publicly shamed for projects that impact personal liberties or humanitarian concerns.

HCL : take a hint.

Billionaires see wealth double during pandemic as tech bros lead the charge

"governments could tackle these inequalities"

No, they can't.

Governments can only act within their purview. A billionaires' purview is the entire world.

Whatever one government does, a billionaire can undo by playing in another country. Problem solved.

The only way to bring billionaires to heel is to have a World Government.

The only problem with that is ensuring that billionaires don't buy it out.

European Space Agency whittles wannabe astronauts down from 23,000 to 1,391

"opening up applications to would-be astronauts with a physical disability"

In space, I really don't see how that can be a problem. Legs are actually a hindrance, if I'm not mistaken, since you mostly need your hands to get places.

The main use of legs is for physical training to try to counteract the effects of freefall. I wonder how the ESA is going to manage integrating that part into a parastronauts' physical training.

Microsoft seems intent on buying the gaming industry with $68.7bn purchase of troubled Activision Blizzard

Oh great. They've already borged Minecraft, now they've got Diablo

For fuck's sake, Borkzilla, can you leave my gaming life the fuck alone ?

I already have to deal with your shit every single workday.

Bug in WebKit's IndexedDB implementation makes Safari 15 leak Google account info... and more

Re: How long ago?

Hey !

Have you heard of the XMas break ?

Ukraine blames Belarus for PC-wiping 'ransomware' that has no recovery method and nukes target boxen

"no recovery method and nukes target boxen"

Or, in other words, a chance to practice your backup recovery procedures.

Because you have those, right ?

Move over exoplanets, exomoons are the next big thing

Supermoons

Here we go again.

At the first stage of exoplanet discovery (which we have not entirely left yet), we only detected hot Jupiters and other behemoths orbiting near their parent star. Then we started detecting so-called "super-Earths" that might have the means to support life, but were more than twice as large as our Earth.

Well I'm sorry, but, independantly of the problem we have getting there, I don't see any normal human being settling on a planet that has a gravitational field that is twice as powerful (or more) then the one we have here. A person weighing 80kg on our blue planet will find themself battling against 160kg on a "super-Earth" that has just twice the grav potential. Cardiac problems, ahoy !

Now, I understand the issues we have with detection, and the fact that media outlets need to generate views, but could we put a damper on all these pseudo-Earth-like planets we are finding until we find a planet that is actually Earth-like in size and density ?

Because that is the kind of planet we need to look for as far as colonization is concerned. Well, IMO at least.

Open source, closed wallets, big profits – nobody wins the OSS rock, paper, scissors game

Not a bad idea, but

Here's what is likely to happen :

1) OSS coders who want to get paid will get fed up not being paid anything, and will simply stop updating their code

2) Companies using said code will start fretting about outdated code, or will wait until everything breaks to wail about how they didn't see that coming and OSS is not reliable

3) Somebody will step in and say "for a price, I can update this", and they will require a licensing deal, which companies will gladly fork over

4) Situation normalizes to "free" OSS code, not paid for ever, and "commercial" OSS code, which requires a license and gets updates, but can be forked and any approved coder can contribute (how that happens needs to be determined)

I don't believe in unicorns and I doubt very much that companies are going to wake up to anything until it slaps them in the face - especially when it means spending money that does not go towards CEO/board bonuses.

Planning for power cuts? That's strictly for the birds

I say it's plausible

I still blame them for not testing before the blackouts happened.

It's one thing to not upset your network for no good reason, but knowing that it's going to happen and not making sure the failover works is not acceptable.

Alien life on Super-Earth can survive longer than us due to long-lasting protection from cosmic rays

From what I understand (not an astronomer, much less a scientist), an objects density has a direct correlation with how well its gravitational field can attract other things.

You know that a black hole gobbles up light, right ? That's because its density is insanely high (to not use the word "infinite"). A stellar-mass black hole (supposing there are any that exist) would still be a black hole, would still have the mass of the Sun, but would be much, much more dense.

So, the Sun balloning up in size will reduce its overall density, and there are some scientists that think that that could change our orbital distance.

At least, that's what I understood.

"Earth’s magnetic field will disappear in 6.2 billion years or so"

By that time, ou Sun will have already entered its Red Giant phase and either we are cooked, of the change in the sun's density will have moved our orbit outwards - hopefully to a new Goldilocks zone.

And by that time we definitely need to have colonies on other planets and moons, as well as large space stations harvesting minerals in the Kuiper Belt. I would also hope that, in a few billion years (if we live that long as a species), we will have a presence in other solar systems.

Because if we don't, there's every chance that there's a large, dense asteroid out there with our address on it, and that'll be the end of us.

North Korea pulled in $400m in cryptocurrency heists last year – report

With the engine running and aircon/heating (following outside temperature) on.

Russia starts playing by the rules: FSB busts 14 REvil ransomware suspects

"few expected Russia to arrest ransomware gang members before today"

I don't think anybody was expecting that.

When I started reading this article, my eyes went wide open.

Now that I have finished reading it though, the fact that Russian FSB agents are operating in Ukraine, a nominally indepent country, is telling. I'm sure that, normally, Russia should have asked Ukraine to take care of the arrests. It doesn't sound like there was any such diplomatic niceities. Putin just sent in his jackboots and they did the job.

As if Ukraine was part of Russia.

I'm glad those bastards got their comeuppance, but I would have been happier if it had been in a proper, legal fashion.

Admins report Hyper-V and domain controller issues after first Patch Tuesday of 2022

"if it was aware of the problems"

Not until enough beta testers customers had voiced their dissatisfaction.

'IwlIj jachjaj! Incoming LibreOffice 7.3 to support Klingon and Interslavic

Re: like the French habit of protesting before negotiations

I hear you :).

There is an historic tradition that has partly to do with pure tradition, and partly to do with syndication, but the fact is, in France, if you want to make sure that the subject is important, you need to yell before negociations take place.

From my point of view, that is somewhat logical. If you don't make yourself heard before the decision, what guarantee do you have that the decision is not going to be carefully considered (as opposed to handed out to whatever initial factor tried to influence it) ?

Of course, given the number of decisions that didn't give a damn either way, you could ask : what's the point ?

The answer ? It's l'esprit Gaulois, whatever that means these days.

If your intent is to truly master a language, there is no substitute for immersion. You need to go somewhere where that language is spoken and yours is not, so as to remove the crutch of falling back on your native tongue.

You learn very quickly when you have to learn to be able to eat, or find your way.

I think language diversity is essential. I am lucky, I was born in France to a French mother and a Canadian (English) father. I grew up in the USA, and moved to France when I was 11. I was young enough to learn French by assimilation. It took about two years, but it worked.

I am now bilingual English/French, but more than that, I have a perspective on things that my purely-French compatriots do not have.

A language is also a culture, and learning a new language means getting introduced to that culture. Czech appears to be a very interesting language, with intriguing ramifications on the cultural mindset. Intellectually, I would love to be able to learn that language and be introduced to the mindset that accompanies it, but I won't fool myself. I'm too old to wrack my brain with such an effort and, given that I can barely grasp German, it would take me the rest of my life to get to grips with Czech.

My loss, obviously.

Games Workshop has chucked another £500k at entrenched ERP project with no end to epic battle in sight

"The early concepts look amazing"

Why ? Which artist did you hire to paint the figurines ?

Okay, I jest, but Games Workshop was a cornerstone in my AD&D years.

I do hope they'll make it through.

'Admin error': AWS in dead company data centre planning application snafu in Oxfordshire

Set the rules

Multinationals are not the only things capable of defining the rules.

Set your own rules. First of all, no tax rebates. At all. Next, mandatory presence for the next 30 years. Any abandonment of service before that time is subject to penalty equal to the average amount of revenue times the number of years not present before the limit.

Note that I said revenue, not benefits.

Weed dispensary software company's ambitions pruned after Spotify trademark clash

"The 'Potify' branding as shown in the document looks pretty much like Spotify's"

What a bunch of morons. You see Spotify and, in a cloud of weed, you think you're a genius by just removing "S" and keeping everything else ?

You deserve a stiff fine.

Idiots.

Then again, what can you expect from a bunch of weed-addled morons ?

HMRC tool for measuring IR35 status is so great, employers are ditching it in their droves

"just 5 per cent saying they thought CEST was accurate in the survey"

I'm sorry but, as a freelance consultant myself, I can't help thinking that, if my customer satisfaction was 5%, I would be out of business and looking for a chance to flip fries at McDonalds.

Software engineer jailed for 2 years after using RATs and crypters to steal underage victims' intimate pics

"pleading guilty to accessing women and children's webcams"

For Christ's sake, man, don't you know PornHub ? Or YouPorn ? Or just the goddamned Internet ?

There's enough images out there, most of them from professionals, for you to sate your thirst for a good wank session.

Or so I've heard.

Allegedly.

I couldn't possibly comment.

Mine's the one with . . uh, yeah, that one.

UK competition watchdog closes the comment book on Microsoft's Nuance merger

"Microsoft's acquisition of Nuance"

So, Nuance bought Dragon, the best speech-recognition software I know of. Now Borkzilla had bought Nuance.

Well then, goodbye Dragon, it was nice knowing you.

Final PCIe 6.0 specs unleashed: 64 GTps link speed incoming... with products to follow in 2023

Re: But what about my wife's gaming rig?

Oh I wouldn't worry. Nvidia will have PCIe 6-compatible GPUs by next year.

Given that I have just upgraded my 10-year-old desktop last November, I'm planning on taking advantage of my 3080 until my retirement. By then, my next upgrade will clearly be PCIe 6-compatible across the board.

NASA's Mars InSight trips into safe mode and ESA's Sentinel-1B gives scientists the silent treatment

Or just a brush on an arm, like a windshield wiper ?

Would that have really been that much to add ?

Open source maintainer threatens to throw in the towel if companies won't ante up

There's something I don't get

You decide to contribute to a FOSS project. That is a Good Thing^TM, and good on you.

Whatever brought you to think that you should get paid for it ?

Now, let me be clear that I am aware that there are many companies that are profiting from this, but you knew that there would be people using your code when you started. That is why you started. Why do you feel that you should be paid now ? Is it because there are companies making mint out of your work ?

There should only be two categories of developers working on FOSS projects : the ones paid by their company to contribute code, and the ones doing it as a hobby after their day job.

If you are contributing FOSS code as a full-time occupation, you are perverting the system and I don't see that you deserve being paid. Open your own company and go closed-source. If you're worth it, you'll make it. If you're not, you'll find another employ and go contribute on your spare time.

Anonymous employee review site Glassdoor research: Tech companies dominate the best places to work

Frankly, it seems a bit stupid to me to go and post bad things about your company on the company network. The company has the right, and the power, to log everything you do.

You can access the Internet from your phone. Or from your home PC. In either case, you are secure from the prying eyes of your company.

Ransomware puts New Mexico prison in lockdown: Cameras, doors go offline

"The attack took automatic security doors offline"

Well at least the installation reverted to manual control, instead of just opening all the doors.

Silver lining and all that . . .

Mine's the black one with white stripes.

US watchdog pokes Facebook a second time: Meta faces fresh monopoly lawsuit

But of course

Target the person criticizing you and state that they have an axe to grind. That paints them as biased and, therefor, unreliable. Well done, Zuck, your minions have been properly assimilated and are emulating your despicable mindset of explaining away any problem with strawman arguments.

Unfortunately, it's not because you don't like being criticized that the criticism is not justified. And, if it is justified, it doesn't really matter if the person criticizing is biased or not.

For example, I am heavily biased against FaceBook. However, when I state that FB has enabled genocide, it doesn't matter if I am biased. It is a fact (unfortunately).

EthereumMax, a Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather Jr sued over alleged 'pump and dump' cryptocurrency scam

Methinks he's going to find out the hard way that funny money offers no guarantees.

If I were the judge, I'd throw that lawsuit out in an instant.

Data centre outfit Interxion hit with outage at central London facility

"Interxion pronounced 'Interaction' "

No.

That is the same thing as Cuil supposedly pronounced as "Cool". It is written Cuil, which is pronounced Ku-il, NOT Kool. And that is why they failed.

Writing is supposed to be clear. If they wanted to be pronounced as Interaction, they should have called themselves that. Failing that, they could have called themselves Inter@ction, or some other brain-dead version.

Interxion is pronounced In-Ter-Ksion. Period.

Secure boot for UK electric car chargers isn't mandatory until 2023 – but why the delay?

What great news

The industry is creating an entirely new market for skiddies to brick charge points unless you pay $$$ in funny money to unencrypt them.

I am so happy that this new ecological market is taking into account those poor malware writers. Truly we are in the 3rd Millennium.

Instead of just bonking a credit card or a phone on a contactless pad to pay a given amount and have everything local without needing Da IntarWebs to authorize everything. You want a blood sample with that ?

Honestly, I'm looking forward to my retirement, but the way things are going, I'm going to start looking forward to leaving this world for good.

Another day, another ERP project behind schedule: This time it's Norfolk County Council and an Oracle system

Re: Surprise, surprise ..... yet another cost overrun :)

Well, they're not actually "estimating" the cost savings, they're just repeating what the marketroid told them.

Mobile networks really hate Apple's Private Relay: Some folks find iOS privacy feature blocked on their iPhones

ISPs and networks are being paid by the contract you signed up for to use their services. They do not need additional revenue, else they should have priced their contracts differently.

Signal CEO Moxie Marlinspike resigns, leaves WhatsApp co-founder to run things until a successor is named

Re: some unknown influencer

Now that is a contradiction in terms.

That said, I am severely disappointed. When I learned that this guy was creating Signal I had the utmost respect for him. He was really championing our privacy, and I felt that that deserved all the recognition.

Now he thinks his work is done, and the last thing he does is foist a funny money ecology-destroying scheme on us ?

Shame on you, Marlinspike.

JavaScript dev deliberately screws up own popular npm packages to make a point of some sort

Proof that the industry is mad

"Faker.js is incorporated into more than 2,500 other npm packages and is downloaded 2.4 million times per week; colors.js is incorporated into almost 19,000 other npm packages and gets 23 million downloads a week."

That is over 25 million web sites (or at least web pages) that outsource their functionality to a guy they don't know and don't pay every day of the year.

Are you out of your fucking minds ?

I'll never stop repeating this : your production server should have all of its code local and you should know all the code you put into it.

You find a package that is useful ? Fine, download it, test it and incorporate it into your code. But YOU DO NOT LINK TO IT.

It's called security. It's a bitch, but it works.

GCHQ was rebuked for ignoring spy law safeguards as pandemic hit Britain

Complaining about something that you have approved 99.94% of the time

Is that called CYA or what ?

OK, it's not CYA, it's just a politician trying to get brownie points.

But still . . .

The James Webb Space Telescope has only gone and deployed its primary mirror

"As the agencies ticked off each JWST milestone"

Because, contrary to UK councils deploying an ERP, NASA knows exactly what needs to be done, has recorded the milestones and is applying said knowledge to ensure that JWST will be functional.

I suggest that all UK councils wanting to deploy an ERP go take a learning course in project management at NASA.

They will utterly fail, but at least they will get a cluebat to the face.