Posts by Long John Brass

Feds drop bomb on Multiplan in legal war over healthcare 'price-fixing' algorithms

Multiplan?

Saw the name Multiplan and wondered why the US Feds were still using a spreadsheet running on CP/M

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplan

Yeah I'm old... Yes That's my coat and hat

New Zealand internet outage blamed on DDoS attack on nation's third largest internet provider

Re: It wasn't DDoS...

Or someone fat fingered a subnet mask :)

The shelves may be empty, but the disk is full: Not even Linux can resist the bork at times

Yeah usually %10 reserved for root user/processes... Doesn't help if the process writing to /var/log is running as root :(

Have this argument with some of the DevOPs guys... They look surprised when I tell em that each application should have its own account.

Re: R/O FS

For the PIs I run various single function settups I also mount /var/log elsewhere

tmpfs for things that I don't care much about... an NFS mount for when I do

Even cheepie SD cards seem to survive just fine

But if you are looking for a desktop/family machine class10 from reputable brands can do wonders for speed & reliability :)

Re: This can't be Linux

I remember back in the NT3.51 & NT4 days; If you filled a drive to %100 the file system would crash hard. I had a special DOS + NTFS + Network stack disk so that I could copy the data off, format the drive & copy back a cleaned/trimmed image.

Took a while :(

Freed from the office, home workers roam sunlit uplands of IPv6... 2 metres apart

Re: Don't blame corporates, its not strait forward migrating established systems to IPv6

It's usually easy enough to build out an IPv6 DMZ and run some proxy servers to pip data in and out of the core IPv4 stuff. Esp for web traffic. You can even buy/rent this as a upstream service.

Convincing manglement that they need to budget some time & money is a whole different kettle of fish.

Meltdown The Sequel strikes Intel chips – and full mitigation against data-meddling LVI flaw will slash performance

Dumb question time

If the mitigation's are built into the compiler chains. Is there a way to turn them *OFF* for AMD based systems?

Australia down for scheduled maintenance: No talking to Voyager 2 for 11 months

Re: The Dish

The Quiet Earth; Fantastic movie Bruno at his best!

Disk stuck in the drive? Don't dilly-Dali – get IT on the case!

Re: Shonky-net

They still make 9track reel to reel tapes?

It's only a game: Lara Croft won't save enterprise tech – but Jet Set Willy could

Re: its FPGA chip

Every once an a while the stupid idea of "building" a VAX or PDP-11 on a FPGA core wombles into my mind. I hurriedly shoo it away before I loose a year of my life to it :)

If it's Goodenough for me, it's Goodenough for you: Canuck utility biz goes all in on solid-state glass battery boffinry

Re: 1000 cycles?

With you on the "Software" side of these new cars; But that's not limited to just EV cars.

My Leaf won't win any races. But it's no slug off the line :)

I don't hate ICE cars. If I had the cash I would probably get myself a project/toy/weekend vehicle for shits 'n giggles.

Re: Still a problem though

I have recently switched to a Nissan Leaf(30kw/h)

The charging issues are not as bad as everyone makes out. Overnight charging from the household supply brings me up to a full charge. And I recently tested a fast charger battery was at 20% and I charged to 80% in about 15-20 minutes. Just enough time for a coffee and peruse the news sites (Well, ElReg)

Yes there is a change in how you think about "fuelling" your car. But the ability to charge at your house takes care of most of the worries I had. If these "glass" batteries have better performance then the range anxiety will go too

Going Dutch: The Bakker Elkhuizen UltraBoard 950 Wireless... because looks aren't everything

That's what we need. Bakelite keyboards

Only if it comes with a slightly chintzy gold & silver cloth speaker grill :)

Verity Stob is 'Disgusted of HG Wells': Time, gentlemen, please

update the social touch-points

Except for one very important fact... The esteemed Mr Wells had actual talent.

Take DOS, stir in some Netware, add a bit of Windows and... it's ALIIIIVE!

Not just you

The DD model in th early NT days (possibly still is) a labyrinthine crawling horror that would make Cthulu weep.

I remember working through some of the MS header files to try and make sense of how to get things work.

*shudder*

Xerox names the 11 directors it hopes will oust most of HP's board and put $33bn hostile takeover to shareholders

So the HP board are worried...

That they will loose their Autonomy?

Yes yes; I'm going, no need to push

SLS goes vertical at Stennis while NASA practises SRB stacking

Re: If you had actually listened to your glorious leader ...

pork rocket

Nyuck, nyuck, chortle

Beer necessities: US chap registers bevvy as emotional support animal so he can booze on public transport

their name's Eric.

Shouldn't that be Bruce?

Behold Schrödinger's Y2K, when software went all quantum

Re: Helpful hint.

How much does it cost to buy a bus?

About $4000 second hand. That may vary from place to place. If you wan't a cheapish RV they are one place to start :)

Re: Helpful hint.

Ahh the "Oh shit it's all gone horribly wrong" fund.

I also keep a "oh shit" stash about the place and another on my person. Just in case I need a Taxi Uber Lyft Bus

Starliner: Boeing, Boeing... it's back! Borked capsule makes a successful return to Earth

Gotta agree to disagree

True; However whatever faults Elon may have. He's pretty consistent with his statements about risks etc. "High pucker factor" and "<sarcasm>That went well</sarcasm>" when something RUDs.

It's one of the reasons I think that the established aerospace companies like to ridicule him for not being professional enough. Then we have Boeing :(

Cheque out my mad metal frisbee skillz... oops. Lights out!

Re: The kind of boss I like to work with

"why it wasn't fixed yet"

I once managed to piss off a head trader by saying; Look, I can stay on the phone while you yell and scream at me! Or I can call you back once I have fixed the problem. But I can't do both.

Which would you like me to do? He slammed the phone down while swearing a fit :)

Re: The kind of boss I like to work with

I have often recommended during a major cluster-fuck that the manglement teams and the engineers hold different conference calls.

Works a treat... Except for the boor dumb bastard that has to jump between calls or have two phones to their skulls as they have to keep reporting back to the manglement team as to current progress.

Oh this 2019 timeline. Finish this sentence: Austrian politico accused of spending €3,000 a month on ...

Re: These are interesting times

I think you are right on this; However the kangaroo court of public opinion cuts both ways :/

This isn't Boeing very well... Faulty timer knackers Starliner cargo capsule on its way to International Space Station

All time in UTC

The number of time I've seen borkage in various global distributed systems because some dumbfuck didn't set the time zone on the bloody server to UTC like they should.

When you tell them; You can actually hear the gears in their heads shredding as they attempt to contemplate "A machine in Europe should NOT be set to US CST"

Listen up people... All default Timezones on a global network should be set to UTC. If *YOU* want times in *YOUR* timezone set your local users TZ variable.

Canada's .ca supremo in hot water after cyber-smut stash allegedly found on his work Mac ‒ and three IT bods fired

Re: That's quite an iMac

At a minimum the sharp corners on the bezel would be uncomfortable

Ahhh; so this is why the Apple patent for the rounded corners on I-thingies it worth so much?

Confilicted...

One one side; As long as the images are not illegal who gives a flying fuck?

On the other side; Firing the techies for finding said pics on a work computer no less = dick move.

On the gripping hand; Running and whingeing to HR about pics of a few bewies = childish dick move.

No one in this story has covered themselves in glory

FUSE for macOS: Why a popular open source library became closed source and commercially licensed

Over the years

I have donated to the Debian project, Now that money goes to Devuan. Also thrown Shekels at the OpenSSH crowd and a couple of others that I can't remember offhand.

I've never had millions to throw around, but I suspect that most of us here at elReg could spare a tenner or two every once and a while.

Re: Apple should step forward

What Like ext(3/4) btrfs and the other file systems that Linux supports?

No box shifting, no Buck Rogers. Bezos-backed Blue Origin blasts off once again

Re: Is it just me

Form follows function.

What shape would you suggest for a rocket?

Americans should have strong privacy-protecting encryption ...that the Feds and cops can break, say senators

Re: Next on the TO DO list...

The cake is a LIE!

the fig leak of impossibility

I don't know if I should up-vote or down-vote...

Most of what you said is reasonable... The fig leaf of impossibility however is not; and it is I suspect the reason for your current down-votes.

The the crypto boffins tell you that there is no way to build a secure crypto system that contains back doors... They do so with reason.

What you effectively doing; is wanting to go up AND down at the SAME time. It's a physical impossibility

Magical thinking...

[edits are mine]

"We can be certain that if we build a backdoor for the US government, [the] government, including [ours, can be another] repressive and authoritarian regime [just like those others all] around the world, [we] demand access or try to gain it clandestinely, including to persecute dissidents, journalists, and their political opponents,"

There; Fixed that for them.

Internet world despairs as non-profit .org sold for $$$$ to private equity firm, price caps axed

Re: The Internet is for everyone

If this situation is one of the "pure suits / non-technical / boardroom-only" decisions, is there a critical mess of techy-resistance to it such that disobedience / resistance is possible?

Well the browser guys are already moving the browsers to TLS only DNS lookups via a "trusted" resolver.

I was thinking about some sort of truly distributed back-end that still serves up what look to be port53 DNS records. But such that everyone gets to play on a level pitch

Something along the lines of what the LetsEncrypt guys did for TLS certs?

The Internet is for everyone

Internet Society’s vision that the Internet is for everyone

Yeah; But only if they have phat wallets or deep pockets full of loot

Wasn't there an alt DNS project somewhere? I seem to recall you pointed your DNS upstream to the "alt" servers and they would answer if they had a local record; or pass the "real" DNS entry if they didn't?

Maybe it's time for a fully decentralized DNS... Block-chain anyone ;)

From humble Unix sysadmin to brutal separatist suppressor to president of Sri Lanka

Re: Well, at least he’s got some sort of engineering skill

Wasn't Maggie (Thatcher) a Chemist?

Wikipedia suggests that she was a research chemist, before going dark side and becoming a barrister

Email! HUH! Yeah. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing...

Re: 20 years ago..

Survived for almost a month on the tea rooms bikkies. Thursday was always a treat... Choccy Bikkies!

Couldn't look a biscuit in the face for years after that.

Interpol: Strong encryption helps online predators. Build backdoors

Re: FOSS?

We could call it P)retty G)ood P)rivacy

Pity it will never take off :(

One man's mistake, missing backups and complete reboot: The tale of Europe's Galileo satellites going dark

So in short...

Managers after massive organisational clusterfuck recommend more managers and bureaucracy?

Seems legit. And the SOP for most organisations I've ever dealt with or been a part of.

*sigh*... Jeezus wept.

What is this, 1989? Laplink is still a thing and wants to help with Windows 7 migrations

Re: Old and busted to new and shiny?

I feel your pain. Nope Security team says Windows only. But VirtualBox is apparently OK.

Most of my day is now spent in a Devuan VM on my laptop :)

Pro-Linux IP consortium Open Invention Network will 'pivot' to take on patent trolls

Re: Fundamental Question

A simpler solution would be... You can copyright or patent; Not both.

I cannae do it, captain, I'm giving it all she's got, but she just cannae take another dose of bullsh!t

Re: too late...

*YUMMY*

Re: Let's look at this as the inverse, and therefore ill-posed problem it really is

Don't worry some "genius" will mix in a healthy dose of A.I into the solution. For moar batter analysis.

Are you coming to the party dressed as an IMP? ARPANET @ 50

Re: re: fun

It puts the lotion on its skin?

Median speeds for UK 5G four times faster than 4G, but still way behind US and South Korea

Re: How fast is that really?

I'm looking to retire in the next few years & get the hell outa the rat race; Only big issue I worry about is internet. Mobile systems seem mostly fast enough (4g/5g) but few (none that I can find) off flat rate data.

I'm pinning my hopes of star-link and it's ilk to bridge that gap. The wet string used for internet in non urban environments makes my skin crawl.

Your kids will be glad a UK government-funded robot will be changing your nappy and not them

Re: Why Government?

OAPs in mech suites demand worthers originals. Armed standoff continues :)

Re: growing our status as a global science superpower

As an antisocial bastard; I think I would prefer the robot rather than the human. I will be in that demographic by the 2040's

/crusty icon; Because I am one!

Remember that competition for non-hoodie hacker pics? Here's their best entries

Idea #42

How about two suit clad miscreants one male one female wearing anonymous masks legging it with a swag bag spilling ones, zeroes and money?

Traffic lights worldwide set to change after Swedish engineer saw red over getting a ticket

"Proper English" and "Colonial English"

As a colonial that uses te correct form of her Maj's English; I would object to that!

It's only the USians that have bastardized the rules. We play cricket (badly) here goddammit!

Telstra chairman: If those darn kids can earn $5m playing Fortnite, why can't execs?

Re: One difference

or have an aimbot or similar

It appears that a lot of corporations do indeed have an aim-bot; Targeted directly at their own feet.