* Posts by Brad Ackerman

274 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Aug 2008

Page:

Microsoft to RIP THE SHEETS off Windows 9 aka 'Threshold' in April

Brad Ackerman
Alien

First it's Threshold, then Foothold, and finally Stranglehold?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_(TV_series)#Planned_storylines

TPP treaty nearly ready to roll over us, says Oz minister

Brad Ackerman
Pirate

Absent our continued propping-up of certain Floridian families (who were allegedly more important to President Clinton than spending time with his mistress), the US would be buying much of its sugar from Brazil, not Australia. Also, a good amount of sugar currently being bought in Canada would be bought in the US instead—those sugar quotas and tariffs have been causing the US to hemorrhage food-production jobs.

What I'd want to see from a hypothetical trade treaty that wasn't just a giveaway to the MAFIAA: ditch the Jones Act, Buy America Act, and Fly America Act; eliminate the aforementioned sugar supports; give states the choice between allowing gambling and banning it (not, say, allowing a state-run lottery but no private-sector gaming); freedom of movement; and maybe even burying FACTA. Sadly, to get these things, we'd apparently need to actually exercise the option of ejecting the entire House and one-third of the Senate in an even-year election, which never seems to happen no matter how crappy our representation in DC is.

Report: Prez Obama kicks Healthcare.gov contractor to curb for web disaster

Brad Ackerman
Pint

Re: Sorry Michele, your buddies...

Getting work based on friend$hip with politicians works just great. You get twice as much money as a private-sector organization would pay for similar work, then come the overruns. By the time you've finished, the government has paid ten times and you've delivered maybe half. As long as you don't do anything that causes your facility security clearance to be pulled (such as inviting a delegation from the Russian embassy over to the data center for a weed-fueled orgy), you can keep lowballing bids and billing the government $150/hr for people who aren't even worth minimum wage until the cows come home.

Oh, wait... maybe you were thinking about how it doesn't work at all for the taxpayer? Nobody signing the cheques gives a flying frak about them; they're just wallets on legs.

Nearly 1 in 5 of UK's Xmas gifts were bought online... not that it helped

Brad Ackerman
FAIL

Re: Imagine how much better it could be

And yet the Japanese courier companies have no trouble offering one- or two-hour windows that don't stop when the banks do.

EE and Voda subscribers to get 2G and 3G INSIDE the Channel Tunnel

Brad Ackerman
Coat

Re: How about on UK train lines?!

Perhaps UK train lines should work on offerings more directly related to their business. Like, y'know, actually having trains 365 days a year, rather than sleeping in until noon and cutting frequency on Sundays.

My coat's the one with a Thuraya handset in the pocket.

Intel ditches McAfee brand: 'THANK GOD' shouts McAfee the man

Brad Ackerman
Mushroom

Re: Worst software on the planet?

It's not that difficult to remove Norton software with the right equipment.

http://www.jaybeehammermills.com/products.html

The DIY solution: KMnO4 + Fe2O3 + Al (with a strip of Mg for the fuse)

Or let the pros from 36th Civil Engineering Squadron do it their way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_xt-0fLhKI

Icon added in case you're not sure which solution I endorse.

Who's the best-built bot that makes the US military hot? SCHAFT!

Brad Ackerman
Gimp

Re: Skynet coming too?

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.

RSA comes out swinging at claims it took NSA's $10m to backdoor crypto

Brad Ackerman
Mushroom

Regarding RSA's competence or lack thereof, I'll just leave this link here.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2011/06/rsa-finally-comes-clean-securid-is-compromised/

Unite: HP 'addicted to culture of job cuts' as axe raised again

Brad Ackerman
Coat

Re: Earth to Unite

If HP did shut down, could Agilent get their name back?

My coat's the one with a 48GX in the pockets.

Dixons selling £68k gold, diamond, ruby and sapphire iPhone for Xmas

Brad Ackerman
Big Brother

I'm sure a certain Patriarch is on the way to Harrods as we speak to put in his order. His photographers can airbrush it out in post, just like the watch.

European Parliament reports HACK ATTACK, turns off public Wi-Fi

Brad Ackerman
Pirate

SMTP only broadcasts passwords in the clear if the system administrators can't find their own asses with both hands in a small, well-lit room. Sadly, this description probably applies to the contractors they're using. (CSC? HP? Almost certainly a company whose core competency involves procurement lawyers, not technology.)

HEADS UP, text-flinging drivers! A cop in a huge SUV is snooping on you

Brad Ackerman
Holmes

I haven't noticed any reduction in drivers with permanently-attached phones, on either coast or in between. I did see an idiot make an illegal turn with a marked police car right behind—I couldn't see whether the driver needed their phone to be removed from the ear and inserted somewhere else, but I can certainly guess.

Rare AutoCAD malware rigs drafting machines for follow-up attacks

Brad Ackerman
Boffin

The only surprise here is that the malware authors bothered to learn LISP; they must feel a need to diversify their product lines. (Or perhaps it's a targeted attack?)

Cryptolocker infects cop PC: Massachusetts plod fork out Bitcoin ransom

Brad Ackerman

Re: A novel approach to crimefighting...

The nice thing about being a cop is apparently that you can decide to become an accessory to a felony without risking jail. Yay Massachusetts.

3CX PBX for Windows: Everything you ever wanted from a phone system

Brad Ackerman
Coat

Re: Pricing

Free is speech, not beer. We do have to be fair to Windows, so let's overengineer a ROFLscale Asterisk PBX for comparison's sake.

First, a Digium-supported Asterisk installation at $11k for a three-year term. Since that's a five-server support agreement, we'll make this a three-system cluster just because we can. And since we're doing the support-contract route, that's three entitlements for RHEL at $800/ea/year ($7200 for three years). Buy the hardware; tart up some R720s with crazy RAM and call that $6k each. Add a nice switch (heck, add two!), firewall, and we're still at $35kish. I'll call that a draw based on the infamous parity exchange-rate concept; if you disagree, throw in training for your PBX guy and some one-on-one time with Digium's people until the prices balance out.

Oh, wait a second... we didn't buy Windows. That'll cost you $2k for those three machines (Windows Server 2012 Standard). Whoops, now the Windows software alone is more expensive than the Linux hardware and software.

My coat? It's an OpenBSD fireman's jacket.

Apple MacBook 13in with Retina display

Brad Ackerman
Gimp

Concur - minimum 8GB RAM

If you're happy with 8GB of RAM, the 13" Air has substantially longer battery life in addition to being cheaper and lighter. As in, you can take a weekend trip without the charger. I certainly wouldn't do 4GB, RAM compression or no; why risk needing a forklift upgrade on a $1500+ computer?[1]

(Also, dropping down to 8GB RAM allows in the competition: Dell XPS 13, Sony Vaio Pro 13, etc. But dammit, I want to be able to have a million VMs open locally.)

[1] Counterargument: don't buy one of the soldered-on-RAM computers. While my wallet would support this course of action, my L5-S1 just wants the thin-and-light.

New FCC supremo: Sort out your cell unlocking, mobe giants - OR ELSE

Brad Ackerman
Boffin

LTE has actually made it worse. UMTS/HSPA isn't much of a problem, especially now that T-Mobile has been upgrading its network to support non-AWS-capable devices. And I've seen SIM cards for sale at Wally World and CVS, so the idea does appear to be catching on.

File-NUKING Cryptolocker PC malware MENACES 'TENS of MILLIONS' in UK

Brad Ackerman
Pint

Re: Nasty.

Other than because the attackers didn't think that they would make enough BTC to justify a Linux port? Probably nothing. But I do reserve the right to snark about businesses that don't have offline backups.

Dell orbits Linux a third time with revamped Sputnik notebooks

Brad Ackerman
Linux

I'd expect a developer machine to come with 16GB of RAM. And what's with the non-5000 graphics? Half the point of Haswell is that the iGPU is now available in a non-sucking version.

Want a unified data centre? Don't forget to defrag the admins

Brad Ackerman
Pirate

Re: VMware Snapshots? For real?

NetApp has a nice vCenter plugin that handles snapshots on the filer. It does require some extra licenses that you may not already have purchased to use all the features (notably, single-file restore).

My choice of the icon should be obvious to anyone who's dealt with NetApp or Brocade licensing. Especially Brocade. Bugger port-based licensing with a bloody spear.

Dell ‘xpands XPS line with 'WORLD-FIRST' MEGA-RESOLUTION laptops

Brad Ackerman
Coat

Re: Back pains

I should've mentioned that I'm looking for 2 kg maximum weight, so the gaming/desktop-replacement laptops need not apply.

Your comment about budget airlines is why I flew traditional carriers whenever I could when living in the UK—it wasn't even much more expensive when you fully account for the checked-bag fee, boarding-pass fee, ticket-buying fee, fee-paying fee, and Helvetica fee.

Coat because I always took a filled-to-near-breaking SCOTTEVEST jacket on Sleazyjet/Ryanair and never ran into your gate agent attempting to close that loophole. (Perhaps they've changed their tariff conditions since 2010.)

Brad Ackerman
Go

Dell announced the Latitude 14 7000 series two months ago with rather nice specs, but they're still only selling stripped-down versions—only 4GB RAM, no smart-card reader, only 768p display. If I'm going to upgrade my 2010 MBP (which my L5-S1 disc has been advocating), I'll damn well want to take full advantage of Haswell. That means 16GB RAM and at least an HD 5000 GPU. The Clevo W740SU (System76 galu1) would be great if its keyboard didn't make the PCjr's look good.)

Please ship some of this rather than just announcing it, Dell. I'd love to leave Apple, but if they're the only ones bothering to ship ass-kicking Haswell laptops, I can't very well do that, can I?

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 region-locking saga CLEAR AS MUD

Brad Ackerman
Terminator

Someone who saw an unlocked phone with nice-looking features and couldn't have imagined a defect so batshit insane as this one.

Brad Ackerman
Pirate

Re: Software *UPGRADE*?

I've got auto-update—my phone lets me know whenever the latest Cyanogen release is available. Come for the security patches that stop random people from pwning your phone; stay for the patches that stop Samsung from pwning it.

Medical apps to come under FDA scrutiny

Brad Ackerman
Mushroom

Optional

Hopefully this new process won't take resources away from conventional medical device review, which seems to be slipping recently. Of course, if TPTB really wanted to improve access to medical equipment and pharmaceuticals without reducing patient safety, they wouldn't insist on separate FDA facility approvals for plants that have already been approved by the EU... oh, wait, we'd get rid of all those medicine shortages. Can't have that, now, can we?

I wasn't sure whether the facepalm or the mushroom cloud was more appropriate, but had to pick one or the other.

GitHub code repository rocked by 'very large DDoS' attack

Brad Ackerman
Mushroom

Re: ... beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.

If by "shotgun" you mean "B61 thermonuclear device", I'm with you. And if spammers are involved, we should see what sort of quantity discounts Pantex has on offer.

Because it's the only way to be sure.

HP StoreOnce has undocumented backdoor

Brad Ackerman
Coat

Backdoor in a SAN?

That would make it "StoreTwice". Or possibly "WipeOnce", depending on exactly what the attacker has in mind.

My coat's the one with pockets full of evil hardware.

Red Hat to ditch MySQL for MariaDB in RHEL 7

Brad Ackerman
Pint

Re: I dunno

RHEL does have PostgreSQL and has for some time; this change doesn't affect that.

Internet cafés declared 'illegal businesses' in Ohio

Brad Ackerman
Pint

Ohio only has four full-service casinos—two run by Caesars and two by Penn National. The remaining facilities on that list only have video lottery terminals. You could certainly call them slot parlors, but using the term "casino" is false advertising. (Unless every pub in the UK is now a casino.)

Brad Ackerman
FAIL

Alternatively, the legislature could have solved the problem of illegal casinos by eliminating their current cap of four casino licenses. While that option has many reasons to recommend it, there is one drawback — if legislators weren't intimately involved in deciding who may open a gaming establishment, the opportunity for graft would be greatly reduced. In the eyes of a politician, that's one thing that can never be allowed.

BMW offers in-car streaming music for cross-Europe road trips

Brad Ackerman
Pint

Re: here I was thinking why aren't they using satelite radio?

Because SCIENCE!

Why XM/Sirius specifically won't work: there are four XM vehicles at 115W and 85W, three Sirius vehicles in elliptical orbits covering the western hemisphere, and one geosynchronous vehicle that serves both systems. None of these satellites are visible from Europe.

As for why existing satellite radio services won't work in your car: the American services (two now merged into one) use S-band, and receiving that in your car is easy if the bird is visible. The European satellite radio services transmit in the Ku band; a car-mounted antenna would need to be electronically-steered. ESA has done research into such antennas and built prototypes, but they're not yet commercially available (at least at a price you'd want to pay).

Beer, because two-line ephemerides make me thirsty.

Another blow for Flash as Unity gaming engine kills support

Brad Ackerman
Mushroom

It's dead, Jim—pass the ketchup

I just looked at the Unity store last night and was wondering what the point of deploying your game to Flash was. It looks like I wasn't the only one; turns out there's a Flash because it's on fire like a ton of chlorine trifluoride.

CCTV hack takes casino for $33 MILLION in poker losses

Brad Ackerman
Pirate

Re: No Laws Broken?

IANAL in any jurisdiction, but shouldn't Crimes Act 1958 §81 (obtaining property by deception) and/or §82 (obtaining financial advantage by deception) apply?

'Mainframe blowout' knackered millions of RBS, NatWest accounts

Brad Ackerman
Stop

Re: I doubt it

That was an episode of Monk.

Yet more world+dog patent suits, this time over encryption

Brad Ackerman
Coat

Paging Ser Ilyn

A three-phase chainsaw would work if you can't find the traditional bloody spear. Wielded by a robot, though — wouldn't want to get too close. You never know what bloodborne pathogens you could catch that way.

My coat would be the one with pockets containing a mix of dental tools and construction implements.

Australia cuts Microsoft bill by AU$100m

Brad Ackerman
Mushroom

Re: John Sheridan, eh?

If you want to negotiate with Microsoft, it must help to bring the Starkiller.

Why did your outsourced IT fall over? Cos you weren't on Twitter

Brad Ackerman
Alien

Re: Gartner

Just as long as that shredder is CESG-accredited. Wouldn't want your partners to think you actually read Gartner reports.

Sectoids, because what species do you think designed the Benhall site?

Fifa 13 game review

Brad Ackerman
Pint

Needs more Slitty McMurderson

Maybe I'm just not enough of a sports fan, but I thought Yahtzee's review of Fifa 13 was a million times more entertaining.

Don't delete that email! Why you must keep biz docs for 6 YEARS

Brad Ackerman
Childcatcher

Re: Not far enough....

Ensuring that employees have access to a payphone meets the requirement for access to an unmonitored telephone.

Source: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/publications/1999/consumer/reco0899.html

Brad Ackerman
Black Helicopters

Re: Questions

Wouldn't medical information be better off kept out of email entirely? I'd think just a link to an ERM/EHR system would work, and do a much better job of restricting access to those with a need-to-know.

Black helicopters, because presumably they're the DPA Police's vehicle of choice.

Brad Ackerman
Devil

Re: Sir

Depends on the country and the object of the cover-up. In the US, whistleblowers receive a cut of fines for violations of tax and/or securities law. Do you trust Shady Cloud Inc. that much?

HP's Whitman: 'I will turn this company around – by 2016'

Brad Ackerman
FAIL

Dead and buried

"[T]he old HP" was spun off a long time ago; to the extent it still exists it's now part of Agilent and/or Philips. What little remained (calculators) was killed off. Their servers aren't as horrible as their desktops[1], but HP has entered a Brocade-style level of brain-hurting stupid. Sure, they'll sell you an OOB management card — but you wanted to actually use it? That'll be extra. Pay for a RAID card, and again for a license code to actually turn it on. If I want to be nickeled-and-dimed to death (by cats or otherwise), I'll talk to Michael O'Leary.

Then there's Enterprise Services, which survives only by finding executives dumb enough to outsource their IT so that they can be dragged to the ATM by their genitals for a multi-billion-dollar withdrawal. Sure, there's always a nice stable of fat and stupid government customers — HP is still getting business after NMCI, so how could they possibly lose? — but on the gripping hand, what happens if the US government starts blacklisting contractors with a habit of nondelivery? Goodbye, easy money. (Okay, you can laugh at that now... but stranger things have happened.)

[1] I have a sneaking suspicion that their desktop power supplies are designed by crack-addled monkeys somewhere in Hebei, to say nothing of the clusterfrak that is their BIOS.

Broadband minister Hunt LOSES portfolio, takes on national health

Brad Ackerman
Boffin

Time to roll out the homeopathic A&E.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

First, Google goggles - now the world gets self-censoring specs

Brad Ackerman
IT Angle

The English-language link promises portable screens that will "prevent the calamity of inadvertently watching an in-flight movie". I'm 110% shomer trayf, but I'd love to buy those.

Unite workers at Capita ITS vote for strike action

Brad Ackerman
FAIL

Re: Strike now or get "Struck" later

The IT-outsourcing business model can be summed up as "find a gullible board, promise the moon, and hold their business hostage." As such, it doesn't matter whether Capita can fulfill their contracts because the customer is too incompetent to notice — remember, they sacked all the people who know anything about IT when they decided to outsource, and the customer's non-IT employees are running around like crazy building their own parallel IT department because that's the only way they can get work done. The worst that can happen to them is that the contract will go to Fujitsu, HP (the company that brought you NMCI), CSC... see a pattern here?

Oh, and you're not going to work for the end user because you don't have a good-enough razzle-dazzle routine. The only option for sanity in IT is to find an employer (such as Intel) with sufficient clue to have a policy banning all non-employees from having root access. Or make the killer pay package as a VP-of-amorality for one of the outsourcers, of course.

Eurozone crisis hits pay TV: Punters pick broadband over telly

Brad Ackerman
Holmes

Re: Not the medium, the message

iPlayer does now offer live TV, for which you need a license. (Catch-up is still no-license-required, of course.)

Apple's iPhone 5 connector said to be a control freak

Brad Ackerman
Mushroom

Re: Mad/ charismatic scientist needed

I'd be happer without another Tesla, actually. Tesla + Apple == Peace Ray?

Page: