Posts by TheOldFellow

Microsoft to pull support for PHP: Version 8? Exterminate, more like...

Why would anyone care?

You'd have to be nuts to use Mickysoft on a proper webserver anyway.

A few reasons why cops didn't immediately shoot down London Gatwick airport drone menace

Re: Set a thief to catch a thief

Yes, indeed. It's all very well for us to have a good joke at the expense of our incompetent politicians and certifiably insane Civil Servants, not to mention the hugely expensive but incompetent police, but actually this is bloody serious.

Where is the RAF when you need them?

Don't we pay an inordinate amount of money for an air force?

This is an aerial attach on UK critical infrastructure. Deploy the same tech as the RAF use to protect their airfields.

What? They don't have any tech to protect their airfields?

So why do we have to pay for the RAF if Russia can neutralize it with a dozen big drones?

Thanks to UK peers, coming to a laptop near you in 2019: Age checks for online smut

Isn't TOR wonderful.

of course, it's so difficult to use only people over 18 are able to understand it.

GCHQ pushes for 'virtual crocodile clips' on chat apps – the ability to silently slip into private encrypted comms

Re: Quid pro quo, Clarice...

Most Brits agree with you. It's just the rulers who don't. I am not talking about the elected misgovernment, but the deep perpetual misgovernment that lives in the Civil Service and the Old-Boys networks.

We never had 'essential Liberty' to give up, it was never granted when the Crown passed it's open self-interest to the hidden deep-state.

Should a robo-car run over a kid or a grandad? Healthy or ill person? Let's get millions of folks to decide for AI...

This is all blasphemy

If God has decide you are going to get it, then the AI will do God's will, just like the dork-driver does now. Programming is futile.

The only answer is to work from home, shop on-line, and never go out. That way only the earthquake, forest fire, or dishwasher explosion can get you.

Spies still super upset they can't get at your encrypted comms data

Invest in Quantum Computing Now (IQCN)

The only way out is to be able to crack encryption. Any legislation will fail because the laws of math are higher than the laws of misgovernments. Only Quantum Computing will work. At least at first Quantum Computers for encryption cracking will be too expensive for crooks, only taxpayer-raping misgovernments can afford them.

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

and the moral of the story is....

Take your conference to another city next year.

Crypto-gurus: Which idiots told the FBI that Feds-only backdoors in encryption are possible?

Make America grate again.

I have to say the the UK's Home Secretary Rudd is just as much a cretin as the Farcical Bumbling Idiot (FBI) director.

Hate to ruin your day, but... Boffins cook up fresh Meltdown, Spectre CPU design flaw exploits

Re: Oh that's just great

Oh, it's easy. Just buy 3 Intel Computers where you used to use 1. Everyone happy, especially the Intel stockholders.

Yay, it's power play day: Conaway prays USA says 'no way' to Huawei

Doesn't the NSA already track everything?

What's the difference between Chinese misgovernment spying and US misgovernment spying? Don't see it myself.

systemd row ends with Debian getting forked

This has more to do with egos, including mine, than technology. I'd prefer not to have anything written by, or influenced by, Poettering because I don't like the way he operates. Same goes if Seivers, and a number of others.

My love affair with UNIX started back in the 1970s, after reading Kernighan and Plauger: Software Tools. The elegant way the tools fitted together, each doing just one thing really really well, but combining to be tremendously powerful, was entrancing.

All this died with Linux really, because the Kernel has become one enormous monolith, if Hurd or one of the other micro-kernels had succeeded we could have been in a better state. Yet systemd is a terrible init scheme, and I rebel against binary logging, but it's in the same stable as Linux (and Android, OSX, and NT) - monolithic. I hate monoliths (as Kubrick demonstrated).

TOF.

US court shuts down 'scammers posing as Microsoft, Facebook support staff'

Doesn't everyone get that girl from BumBay Microsoft Support at least four times a week? My record is 34 minutes, which is quite good considering the last time I had Windows was in 1997.

DEATH by PowerPoint: Microsoft warns of 0-day attack hidden in slides

The patch is already here. It's called LibreOffice.

Video: Dyson unveils robotic tank that hoovers while you're out

No Legs, No Stairs, No use.

Title says it all really. My house is multi level, lots of two steps between them. I also have furniture.

Mozilla axes HATED Firefox-ad-tab plan ... but will try again

Pay me for the bandwidth you steal.

If advertisers want to send me unsolicited data, then I require payment for the bandwidth, which I have paid for, that they use. Anything else is theft.

Torvalds rails at Linux developer: 'I'm f*cking tired of your code'

Despite all the invective about slang, spelling and grammar, isn't the important point that we need to get rid of the systemd mega-behemoth and return to sanity in the bootstrap? Something related to Prof Bernstein would come to mind.

I QUIT: Mozilla's anti-gay-marriage Brendan Eich leaps out of door

byy bye moz.

I've removed all copies of Firefox from my machines now. I can't use software from a company that imposes political views on it's employees.

MANUAL STIMULATION: Whack me with some proper documentation

No User Manual, no software.

When I was deputy CTO in a large international IT company, my mantra was "No Manual, No Software". Now I'm retired. I am trying to learn how to build websites using things like Laravel and Yii, but even buying the books recommended hasn't helped, so I am giving up. It was what made me give up on Joomla% and all the other wonderkind software goodies. No way IN. OK, if you know how to use them you can refer to reference stuff that helps with detail, but there is no damned overview way IN. I'm sorry folks, a YouTube Video doesn't hack it either.

Now, it's true that I am seriously old now, 64, so you can't expect me to call you U. But U have not written ANY software if you have not written the USER Manual.

Internet Explorer 11 for Win7 bods: Soz, no HTML5 fun for you

IE?

Do real people still use Internet Exploder? I can't think of a single reason to.

OK, so we paid a bill late, but did BT have to do this?

You use Bombay Terrorcom?

I can never understand people, and businesses, who think that, just because the GPO used to be a nice quiet friendly reliable technically competent organisation, it's successors must be too.

Ballmer's emotional farewell to Redmond: I LOVE THIS COMPANY

Hey Ho, the Witch is Dead!!

Wonderful news!

Report: NSA spying deals billion dollar knockout to US cloud prospects

Cheap Cloud storage for legit uses then?

Does this news mean that US cloud storage will get cheaper. If there is less demand, then there should be a price drop. This is good news.

Limbaugh: If you hate Apple then you're a lefty blog-o-twat hipster

Yep.

As a confirmed Americophobe, I hate everything that comes from the USA. I'd never noticed Limbaugh before today, but will happily add him to the list: Macdonald's, Burger King, IBM, Microsoft, Dubya, Apple, Limbaugh.

Win XP alive and kicking despite 2014 kill switch (Don't ask about Win 8)

I like XP apps, they run under wine just fine.

I can happily report that I have not used a Microsoft Operating System since 2002, and at home since 1997. Linux just works, and besides it's free. It takes a bit of ingenuity to avoid vendors putting Wonkydoos on their boxes, but it can be done.

Terror cops swoop on couple who Googled 'backpacks' and 'pressure cooker'

Heartening story

I'm pleased to read this. It shows that the authorities are, in fact, taking things seriously, as they should. The guys boss is also to be congratulated for his vigilance. OK, these two were innocent, and all they got was an interview by the Men in Black. The regular American way, if we are to believe the press, is to drag them to Guantanamo and then interrogate them for 25 years without trial with the waterboard, or ship them to Saudi and get their friendly cops to get a confession under torture. It's good to know their budget doesn't run to that for everyone.

Gmail, Outlook.com and e-voting 'pwned' on stage in crypto-dodge hack

They can have mine.

I only talk about taking over the world on my blogs, never on email, so I'm probably safe.

Linux 3.11 to be known as 'Linux for Workgroups'

WFW 3.11

Hey, I still have the floppies!

But no floppy drive :(

Universal Credit? Universal DISCREDIT, more like, say insiders

GCHQ are the Govmint IT experts.

If you want a govmint IT project to work, get GCHQ to do it. They seem to have no problem managing vastly vast amounts of data in all sorts of complex patterns, predicting who has WMD and stuff accurately and without any manual (or mental) input at all.

Google whips the sheet off new Gmail interface

the best thing about this..... you can turn it all off.

Title says it all. Useless verbage. Don't waste your time G.

I am NOT a PC repair man. I will NOT get your iPad working

Oh it's windows, I don't know anything about that.

My answer to everything, Substitute OSX, Android, whatever. I then offer to install Linux instead - they usually run away.

Oi, Microsoft, where's my effin' toolbar gone?

This is exactly why I use Linux, and recommend it to everyone. Not that it's any better, but there are far more ways for it to be entertaining. I am still looking for the 'random' plugin for Grub, so that I can't predict which of the several versions of Linux on my disks it will load - once I find it I will install it on all my client's machines. No one wants computers to become as predictable as journalists, after all.

First rigid airship since the Hindenburg enters trials

Hot Helium anyone

You can get much more lift from helium, and use less of it if you heat it up. No one ever seems to follow this idea up. BTW you can make helium in a fusion reaction, the only problem is the radioactivity....

Schmidt 'very proud' of Google's tiny tax bill: 'It's called capitalism'

Good ol' Google

I like free stuff. I'm quite happy if someone else pays for it. That our lords and masters are not clever enough to write tax laws that don't have legal loopholes is quite OK with me. All strength to your arm Google (and thanks for the free search, free docs, free email, free calendar, etc.,etc..)

Linux kernel dumps 386 chip support

386, what about the 4040?

Damned new fangled chippery. who needs 64 bits, 32 bit or even 8 bits. 4 bits was enough for Apollo and the LEM!

NASA: THE TRUTH about the END OF THE WORLD on 21 Dec

I was relying on that!

Damn, now I have to visit folk and do all that bonhomie stuff at xmas.

Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

You can stuff Unity, Mark.

Title says it all. If you install 11.04 and change everything so it's like 10.10, then it's OK, but why bother? I'm used to Groan now, and I'll stick with it.

Gmail inbox experiment auto sorts 'important' messages

But the musak is driving me knutts

Together with this new 'feature', and I use therm with big double-scoop sarcasm, there is an annoying - can't be turned off - bug. The gmail page now plays honky-tonk musak if you use The Grone browser!

Google blames Gfail on 'availability' upgrade

Isn't Imap wonderful

So I was worried? Was I inconvenienced? No and No.

BT wins pricing control over faster broadband

Waste of resources

56kbps is enough for anybody.

Where is all this glass coming from anyway? Not off my beach, thank you.

Parcelforce website cold-shoulders Linux lovers

0870 Rip off too

It's worth noteing that http://www.saynoto0870.com have some nice geographic non-rip off numbers for Parcelfarce too. Should you absolutely need to talk to them.

Online identity card scheme aims to remove password headaches

But it's only for Yanks!

At the moment only Yanks can get an I-Card. Perhaps they have more trouble with their identity than the rest of us.

Google cedes Belgium to Germany

Germany surrenders to Netherlands

Who cares if we have to redraw the map of Europe. As long as Microsoft doesn't get any of it.