Posts by Steve Evans

Amazon Appstore melts over Android 12 'Snow Cone'

Testing? Amazon hasn't heard of it

Android 12 beta releases were available for months before the full release... Looks like yet another company didn't think to test...

3D printing site Thingiverse suffers breach of 228,000 email addresses amid sluggish disclosure

Exactly the same here.

Unique email and password on TV. Found the email on have I been pwned.

Changed my password on TV.

Still awaiting notification of breach email...

Are you a 1%er? Windows 11 turns up in the usage figures

Re: Insiders

I suspect most are software devs who are checking to see how much of a headache 11 will be.

That's certainly how it is with me. I have a win 11 VM to check compatibility with our products. Of course it's running on a twin xeon machine with buckets of RAM which is deemed "Not worthy" by the requirements... Grrrr

Happy with your existing Windows 10 setup? Good, because Windows 11 could turn its nose up at your CPU

Re: What gen?

The i7-3770 with a nice helping of RAM and an SSD is a perfectly capable machine for all but the most demanding user.

CPU power really hasn't been the bottle neck for quite a white. GPUs and SSDs have breathed new life into many "ancient" (as Microsoft would class them) PCs.

Re: Miffed

I feel your pain.

I've got a 2014 HP Z620

Dual Xeon, 96Gig RAM, it has UEFI, safeboot and TPM...

Windows 11's upgrade tester thingy rejects the CPUs.

*facepalm*

Looks like I'm out of luck...

The only machine I own that gives me upgrade permission is a lightweight i5 machine.

My i7 laptop, and worst of all, twin xeon workstation are not deemed worthy.

I don't feel any urge to upgrade perfectly functional equipment. We're supposed to be thinking of the planet, not covering it with discarded 5 year old IT equipment.

Microsoft releases Windows 11 Insider Preview, attempts to defend labyrinth of hardware requirements

The list of non-approved CPUs includes Xeons from this year!

CPU requirements...

The CPU requirements are a joke.

My dual Xeon workstation is rejected for the CPU(s)...

24 cores just doesn't seem enough for Windows 11, and I've got more RAM than the minimum hard drive requirement!

I can easily run half a dozen Windows 10 VMs, with generous RAM allocation, on the same machine.

There is no way a machine like this is going in a landfill!

I guess there'll be no curved corners in my windows future.

(I don't think I own a single machine that will meet the requirements).

Facebook granted patent for 'artificial reality' baseball cap. Repeat, an 'artificial reality' baseball cap

Re: prior art?

I'm not sure anyone has done it before, but I certainly wouldn't call it innovative.

Just standard fare for the US patent office... Approve patent, let very expensive lawyers sort it out later.

EE and Three mobe mast surveyors might 'upload some virus' to London Tube control centre, TfL told judge

I suspect structural suitability would be exactly the kind of thing the survey was intended to check.

Linux Foundation, IBM, Cisco and others back ‘Inclusive Naming Initiative’ to change nasty tech terms

Re: Oh fsck off

If I had 3.5 inches, I wouldn't be bragging about that being a stiffy!

Oh fsck off

Anyone that finds words in a technical environment "harmful" needs help from an entirely different profession!

What next? People with erectile disfunction complaining about the term "floppy disk"?

Words have context, if you ignore that and just look for offence, then *you* are the problem.

Data communication systems often have a master and a slave, oh no, you can't say that, it's "offensive"... Well I'm English, and the English (along with others) were kidnapped and sold into slavery by the Barbary pirates, so I now officially claim them as "our words" and give everyone in IT a free pass... Now fsck off!

Software engineer leaked UK missile system secrets and refused to hand cops his passwords, Old Bailey told

Re: giving up personal passcodes

I tried this in Paris, and they just looked blankly and shrugged as I had the slightest hint of an English accent!

Dart 2.8 is out with a Flutter as Google claims to have solved the cross-platform dev puzzle

Is this even legal?

Is developing for iOS on this even permitted by Apple?

Last time I looked at iOS development you had to use the Apple software, on a Mac (because it wasn't available on any other platform), whilst wearing a black turtle neck jumper and facing Cappuccino.

Failure to comply would result in a firm "No" from the Apple app store.

Get in the C: Raspberry Pi 4 can handle a wider range of USB adapters thanks to revised design's silent arrival

Re: Bought one a few weeks ago

I'd look for the switch...

- The update, Upton told us, had also moved "the WLCSP SD card voltage switch to the top side" to protect it from damage, and also "silk screen tweaks to reduce solder bridging in manufacture".

The Six Million Dollar Scam: London cops probe Travelex cyber-ransacking amid reports of £m ransomware demand, wide-open VPN server holes

Re: Head in the sand again

It'll be interesting to see if, or how well, they survive.

I'm sure they have insurance against IT issues, but I'm also pretty sure that those policies have clauses about keeping things patched and up to date.

Elon Musk gets thumbs up from jury for use of 'pedo guy' in cave diver defamation lawsuit

Yes, go for it, it's a common phrase in South Africa where he grew up...

... at least in his house...

... When his father was at home...

Facebook iOS app silently turns on your phone camera. Ah, relax – it's just a bug, lol!?

Quelle surprise...

On Android the Facebook apps (FB itself, and Messenger) were such a battery killer when I tried them that I couldn't help but wonder what they were doing. Even if they weren't doing anything "naughty", they were obviously so badly written that they needed deleting.

Haven't used them for years. FB prevents access to m.facebook.com from mobile chrome, trying to push their apps, but they only filter on the browser user_agent field, so it's easy enough to either fake that or find a different browser which isn't spotted. Been using FB like that for years, haven't felt like I've been missing out on anything. Sure I don't get "ping" every time a contact posts a picture of a cat, but surely that's an added benefit!

France says 'non merci' to Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency

Hmmm....

Whilst I distrust farcebook about as much an anyone, I wouldn't be surprised if the French do this, then launch their own national cryptocurrency... They do like a bit of protectionism with their squashy cheese.

They could call the Le iFranc.

Storied veteran Spitfire slapped with chrome paint job takes off on round-the-world jaunt

Probably a bit of a range issue, most of the Southern hemisphere is a bit wet. Although it might be able to bounce down via Malaysia there's still a hell of a lot of open water to fall into, and sourcing avgas has been one of their big issues for the trip. Plus who knows what the political state is like down in some of those islands.

Sorry Aussies.

If it makes you feel any better, I live in the East of England, and it's not coming near me either. The map shows that it would, but the stop list says it's flying home from Paris, not Schiphol as shown on the map, which means it'll fly over Kent, much further south than shown on the map.

Re: harmonising the guns

I think I'd like that job on the Mosquito Tsetse... 6lb auto-cannon anyone?

You've just gotta love the crazy ideas that appear during war time.

You were warned and you didn't do enough: UK preps Big Internet content laws

Exactly as planned..

Exactly as Facebook planned.

Implementing whatever the politicians come up with will be impossible for any small social networks, wiping out any risk of competition overnight.

The only real opposition, Google plus, who could afford to implement these things has just been shuttered.

Zuck must be crying all the way to the bank... Assuming he can cry.

Hapless engineers leave UK cable landing station gate open, couple of journos waltz right in

Re: Not really secret

That's probably what the caravan are for, distracting the pikeys from the cable.

Re: Something smells

Mail reporters always hang about round caravans, it's where they get most of their celeb dogging stories from.

Reliable system was so reliable, no one noticed its licence had expired... until it was too late

Re: MUMPS Remember Y2K?

LOL... Who used a signed variable for a year... tut tut...

Oh cool, the Bluetooth 5.1 specification is out. Nice. *control-F* master-slave... 2,000 results

Re: It's not cultural cluelessness

If someone finds the phrase master/slave or male/female offensive when used to describe a communication spec or electrical connector, they really do have bigger problems they should be dealing with.

The number of people of people who need a good hard "get a grip" slap is growing so high that my hand is getting quite sore.

Want a bit of privacy? Got a USB stick? Welcome to TAILS 3.12

Re: Why Etcher?

Odd, I've not had any problem with Win32DiskImager on Win7 or Win10 64bit.

Disk drives suck less than they did a couple of years ago. Which is nice

Ironic timing ..

Today I plugged in a brand new 6TB drive and powered up the server...

I've never heard a sound like it! And the vibration... People on the other side of the workshop said "what was that?!", the expressions when I said "new hard drive" were quite something!

Apple: Trust us, we've patented parts of Swift, and thus chunks of other programming languages, for your own good

Re: ignoring the fact of Prior Art ?

The US patent office generally takes your fee and grants the patent.

Prior art is left for the lawyers to sort out later.

If you're small fry, and can't afford a lawyer, sorry, you're screwed.

DNAaaahahaha: Twins' 23andMe, Ancestry, etc genetic tests vary wildly, surprising no one

Why do you have to go to the trouble of finding twins to test these...?

Just use one person to make all the samples, and submit under two different names. Then you know they're all 100% identical.

Dutch boyband hopes to reverse Brexit through the power of music

Re: Slightly wrong.

I know the feeling... Is May the remainer really as inept as she has appeared, or has she deliberately manoeuvred us into a carefully crafted cancel position? I still don't know if she's that good an actress.

The question is, what will happen after Brexit finally happens or doesn't happen? I mean at the next election.

As far as I can work out all the parties have holed themselves below the water line. The Conservatives have made such a complete cock-up of this that both the remainers and the leavers will not forgive them for their incompetence for many years.

The Liberals shot themselves in both feet and then threw themselves over a cliff the moment they got a sniff of Cameron's arse in the coalition, so they're still out in the wilderness, and Labour, well Corbyn has been weak and wishy washy and his choice of shadow home secretary (Abbott) is as mad as hat full of kittens on cat-nip... I couldn't vote for them even if I agreed with 90% of what they said!

I think we're ready for Lord Buckethead to step forward.

London Gatwick Airport reopens but drone chaos perps still not found

Re: Shoot it down?

My thoughts exactly... Ring the local clay pigeon shoot.

Sure, it might be too high, but it might also come down lower, it gotta be worth a try.

For all we know, the police helicopter blew it out of the sky with it's down wash and the plod didn't even realise.

Clay pigeon shoot?

What astonishes me about this story, is that they seemed so intent on finding the perps, they completely ignored all the people suffering.

This is Gatwick, it's in the countryside(ish), I'm sure there are plenty of clay pigeon shooter in the area who would happily come and stand near the perimeter. I'm pretty sure a couple of cartridges of bird shot would have the same effect on a drone as it does to a pheasant.

Problem solved.

Newsflash: Twitter still toxic place for women, particular those of color, Amnesty study finds

Ah...

Is this what Diane Abbott was prattling on about earlier, I tune her out and don't really pay attention...

I guess she's still pulling the race/gender card whenever she gets some "abuse"...

I've got some news for her, she doesn't get abuse because she's black, or female. She gets abuse because she's a feckin' idiot!

Or maybe Piers Morgan should start a campaign because white males get abused on twatter.

Smartphone industry is in 'recession'! Could it be possible we have *gasp* reached 'peak tech'?

Re: Don't knock wireless charging

I was a late adopter of wireless charging (not Apple late, Nexus 6)... It was ok... Having a little holder on my desk that topped up my phone during the day was nice.

Eventually the 3 year old Nexus 6 expired (battery finally gave up, and I couldn't find a replacement which I could be 100% sure wasn't a Chinesium firebomb), so I bought a Pixel 2 XL. My main requirements were prompt updates, big screen, good stereo speakers, and a good camera.

No wireless charging, oh well... I still put it on the now disconnected stand, but I discovered something; when you've got a good battery in the phone, and a modern chipset sipping it very gently, you don't actually need a daytime top-up! I don't even plug it into the car during the commute.

I'll more than likely keep the Pixel 2 until it too wears out. I don't see anything in the Pixel 3 or others that I "must have"... And that includes the wireless charging.

There is just nothing new. The only "feature" that's appeared in the last few years is bigger and bigger screens, which has lead to notches. I'm sure I can't be alone in thinking that a bit of bezel isn't a bad thing... A bit of spare space for your fleshy hands to hold it properly, a bit of cushioning between the screen and the hard ground you've now drop it on (because you couldn't hold the bezel-less phone properly!)... crash tinkle tinkle... New phone please!

Oh, hang on... I think I've just worked out their sales plan!

Boom! Just like that the eSIM market emerges – and jolly useful it is too

Knowing the Pixel 3 had an esim, I decided to google to see what other recent Android phones had it (ya know, like a bit of research instead of just a rephrase of some marketing blurb from Truphone... *cough*)...

Guess what... Pixel 2 has an esim! I've had one for almost the last 12 months. Google release an eSim manager app in 2017

Changed my life... Ummm...

Bomb squad descends on suspicious package to find something much more dangerous – a Journey cassette

Re: That's not what DAT looks like

You're relying on the millennial who wrote the original source being able to identify either...

Woman who hooked up with over 15 spectres has found her forever phantom after whirlwind romance and plane sex

Re: "Amethyst Realm", really?

Assuming that was the name she was given by her parents, you can't help but think they are rather responsible for this.

I don't think you're allowed to refer them to mental health professionals as that would be oppressing their human rights and stuff etc etc...

At least this nut-job seems mainly harmless, and there's little chance she will be passing on whatever freaky gene she got dealt to another generation.

Just sit back, watch, and laugh like the rest of us (in the privacy of your own home of course, you don't want any witnesses to report you).

Hi there, Hubble, glad to hear you're doing okay

Big problem for Hubble is that since they grounded the Space shuttle they can't tow it back to a higher orbit any more.

With its orbit being as low as it is, it is just catching the top of the atmosphere, so it does experience drag. It's not going to stay up for many more years before turning into a fireball.

The secret history of Apple's Stacks

Re: Stardock is still around?

So like Classic Shell, but not free...?

Spoiler alert: Google's would-be iPhone killer Pixel 3 – so many leaks

Re: Notches

The notch is one stolen "feature" I'm happy they credit to the iPhone ;-)

Linux kernel's Torvalds: 'I am truly sorry' for my 'unprofessional' rants, I need a break to get help

You would have hoped...

Given his reputation as a stickler for quality, devs would actually do their best quality work when submitting things that Linus will see.

When they don't they get shouted at.

I really can't see the problem. Some people devs really do need shouting at, or to be kept away from critical things like kernel code until they learn to think about what they are doing.

There are way too many devs, some of them incredibly talented, who head immediately for the keyboard and start hammering away instead of taking a careful look at issues and thinking about solutions and what issues those might cause.

As for his use of language, the guy is Finnish, those guys can really swear!

Lenovo Thinkpad X280: Choosing a light luggable isn't so easy

Re: X220

Aye... I miss the Thinkpad keyboard, that was always one of their big plus points (that and the Thinklight and "nipple").

But, alas, they've followed the trendy and copied Apples horrible flat keyboard design in an effort to further copy Apple and make the damn thing thinner... (Same can be said for phones too! Make them thicker with more battery, and they won't keep flippin' bending!).

Sod the thickness, this is a Thinkpad, give us a proper keyboard, a whopping big battery and an ultra bay we can swap out for a second HD/CDR or even more battery!

Activists rattle tin to take UK's pr0n block to court

We need a popcorn icon...

A blocking system proposed by a bunch of doddery old techno illiterate farts trying to restrict what a bunch of 12 year old kids can and can't access...

I can't see how that could possibly not fail spectacularly.

It's been 5 years already, let's gawp at Microsoft and Nokia's bloodbath

Re: MS are the scapegoat?

I agree, Nokia's customer service and support forum was full of arrogant idiots.

I once got moderated in the forum for "disrespecting Nokia". I pointed out to the moderator that I was just reporting the same bug as everyone else, and expressing frustration that no attempt had been made to address it in over 6 months. I also suggested that as an employee of Nokia, they should be concerned that such a large number of previously loyal customers were feeling this way.

I gave up and bought an Android phone.

Within 6 months Elop arrived and the decline turned into a wingless death spiral.

I wonder what the forum moderator is doing now. Not out of work too long I hope.

Indeed. Elop was a shill shipped in by M$ to turn Nokia into Microsoft mobile.

Unfortunately Nokia had already started to eat itself from the inside before he even arrived, and it would have taken a business genius to have slapped the heads together and got it running straight again, this is not a job description that fits Elop.

Now you can tell someone to literally go f--k themselves over the internet: Remote-control mock-cock patent dies

Re: This just underscores that patents are crap

With US patents the rubber approval stamp is pretty much automatic.

They rely on them being challenged in court to weed out the crap ones.

Which of course is completely impractical for the small inventor/innovator, and only benefits lawyers.

Google Spectre whizz kicked out of Caesars, blocked from DEF CON over hack 'attack' tweet

@dbtx

Sounds familiar...

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

US voting systems: Full of holes, loaded with pop music, and 'hacked' by an 11-year-old

Re: Dry Erase Results

They'd screw that up and leave it sticking out the side.

Write once, read many, removed once, swapped once.