Posts by Number6

IRS hopes to replace fired enforcement workers with AI

Given my experience of the accuracy of AI to date, I don't expect this to go well.

Your graphics card's so fat, it's got its own gravity alert

Sometimes I'm glad I'm not a gamer or in need of that level of graphics performance. My current graphics card is ten years old and I'm only using it because I acquired a free second-hand machine (thanks, Windows 11) with one that was better than what I was using, albeit of similar vintage.

Windows 11 roadmap great for knowing what's coming next week. Not so good for next year

My roadmap for Windows 11 is to avoid it as much as possible. It's on my work PC but everything else runs Linux because none of my hardware is good enough for W11. So I get to avoid all the annoying features.

Weeks with a BBC Micro? Good enough to fix a mainframe, apparently

Re: hot plug

You'd be surprised. What is easy in the UK is way harder with the weedy US mains voltage. I have a high-velocity blower that allegedly[*] takes 10A (and is designed to be a bit inefficient as the airflow runs over the motor and so comes out slightly heated for fur-drying purposes). The plug and cord on that get a bit warm when I use it for long enough. It would be pulling half the current and a quarter of the heating effect if it was a 230V device.

[*] I think it takes more than that, based on the size of generator needed to power it reliably.

Amazon to kill off local Alexa processing, all voice requests shipped to the cloud

I use the most effective way of not letting Alexa send stuff to the cloud: not allowing them in the building.

Now, if only I could find a way of permanently disabling the Android phone voice features without having to ditch all the phones in the house.

Microsoft trims more CPUs from Windows 11 compatibility list

Re: Goodbye Windows 11

The only thing I "need" Windows for is the tax returns software. While the vendor is willing to let it run on Windows 10 (they may lose a lot of their market if not) I can cope by running my Windows 10 VM, which only tends to get fired up to do taxes. If not, I'll find another way to file taxes, even if I have to resort to a paper filing.

This is partly why I've always built new machines from parts. I'm not aware that they get kickbacks at that level (and I hope not), and given that I've always installed Linux, it meant I could avoid the Windows tax. My laptop (too old for Win11) did come with Win10 and I have subsequently acquired a Pro licence which is used when I dual-boot, but the disk I/O is painfully slow compared to what I get from Linux, so between manufacturer and MS, they screwed that up too.

My newest desktop machine is now over 11 years old and is still going strong, albeit with a few upgrades. Running Mint22 with KDE on top and copes perfectly well.

Microsoft 365 price rises are coming – pay up or opt out (if you can find the button)

Wow, fancy having to pay for a more annoying version of a paperclip.

Meta blocked Distrowatch links on Facebook while running Linux servers

I put up a post with distrowatch,com in it and it's still there six hours later.

Then again, I've had the bot take offence to something I posted a year earlier (and which I'd later set to viewable by only me) so it may just mean it's busy elsewhere.

Microsoft declares 2025 'the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh'

The Windows shop is going to keep hyping Windows 11 and trying to sell the public on its AI OS vision, whether customers like it or not.

A lot of customers don't have a choice. Some of the tools I need for work are only available on Windows, which is why my work PC is new enough to run Windows 11. However, it lives on my desk next to my Linux machine which does pretty much everything I need it to for my use.

Re: Kicking and screaming

Keep a careful eye on it though, it is not unheard of for disabled features to be "accidentally" re-enabled by updates.

After China's Salt Typhoon, the reconstruction starts now

In a similar vein, one of the largest potential vulnerabilities for all users are ad brokers. You're clicking on a web page, which includes a load of JavaScript from a third party. Neither you nor the owner of the website you're viewing has any idea what's in that code, and there have been a few instances where someone has successfully attacked the ad broker, so that JavaScript contains malware. The only way you're going to improve that is to put all of that server side, so that static images are what gets delivered to the end user. That would also potentially defeat most ad blockers, because if done correctly, it would be near-impossible to distinguish between an ad and a wanted image.

There's a lot of other JavaScript that gets loaded from third-party sites too, which means that even if everything was fine when the web page was written, if someone compromises that site the day after you've released your web page on the masses, it's going to affect a lot of people. Sadly, the only way to reduce this risk is to take your own copy of the common code and source it from your own servers, so that even if the central library gets compromised afterwards, you still have a pristine copy (assuming you're not blindly auto-updating). If your server gets compromised then it doesn't affect all the others with their own copies.

Security and convenience have a fraught relationship, and you rarely get both together.

Google's 10-year Chromebook lifeline leaves old laptops headed for silicon cemetery

Re: 10 years !!!

I have a PC I put together in 2013. It has an i5 processor and 32GB RAM. I recently swapped out the graphics card because I was given an Nvidia P2000 which was better than what I had. It's running Linux perfectly happily. I have looked at replacing it a few times but I'm not convinced newer stuff at an affordable price is going to be significantly better. It's not capable of running Windows 11, but that's OK, I don't want to.

How the OS/2 flop went on to shape modern software

Interesting to read the line:

...designed it for machines that it had already sold. It did not want to let existing customers down.

While not quite the same situation, Microsoft, is effectively abandoning existing PC users who have machines that could probably run Windows 11 perfectly well, but are being prevented from doing so by MS design decisions. None of my machines is considered capable of running it, despite being decent spec machines, their only failings being that the CPUs are considered too old. Of course, they still have that big stick to beat people with, if they stop supporting Windows 10 and key applications are only available on Windows, industry has to give in and buy new machines, whereas home users will still hang on with their last version of Windows 10 while their PCs are still good enough, and security will start to fall apart because undoubtedly it still has some embarrassing vulnerabilities.

I do still run OS/2 in a VM on my Linux machine. It was a nice OS, shame it got screwed over.

US reportedly mulls TP-Link router ban over national security risk

Re: Freedom awaits you

I second the OpenWRT route too. TP-Link routers tend to be cheap and reliable, although I've never used their software for longer than it takes to reflash it. My router currently says it's been up for 236 days, which is probably about when we last had a power outage longer than the UPS could handle. It's handling VLANs to keep some devices partitioned off from the rest of the network on their own subnet, took a bit of effort but figured it out in the end.

Guide for the perplexed – Google is no longer the best search engine

I asked it for tonight's winning lottery numbers but sadly it didn't provide those, just the results of the last draw.

Backup failed, but the boss didn't slam IT – because his son was to blame

Re: Backups...

Yes, because having all the children in school, regardless of whether they're actually learning anything, is considered to be a high priority regardless of any adverse effects it may have on those children.

Windows 11 market share falls despite Microsoft ad blitz

If MS want to provide me, at their expense, with new PCs that meet their hardware requirements then I might consider swapping out the W10 machines here. Most of what I have runs Linux, some of it is 10 years old (I finally replaced a Core 2 Duo machine last month, ironically with someone else's cast-off as they upgraded to W11 hardware) and runs the latest distros just fine. So no, not going to switch to W11 any time soon.

NASA wants ideas on how to haul injured moonwalkers

I assume a self-assembly trebuchet wouldn't meet the spec?

I've seen something like that in use at Bryce Canyon in Utah, hauling people up out of the canyon. Eight local volunteers, from the fire department and other locals, come down with it, strap the casualty to it and then wheel them back up the narrow path. It's at 9000ft, so I suspect they get plenty of practice with all the visiting sea-level dwellers.

The sad tale of the Alpha massacre

I looked at their process and figured a script was needed. It would check that QATOOLS was not empty before executing the rm commands. The script would probably also take over copying the tools across too.

The harder it is for finger trouble to cause mayhem, the better.

Sysadmin shock as Windows Server 2025 installs itself after update labeling error

Re: Wait...

I know they've got more lawyers, but I'd start with the line that it was their error, so I shouldn't have to pay more than my existing fees until the time I would have had to upgrade anyway (if I've got proof of typical upgrade cycles for my company then I'd use that to nominate a date).

Your air fryer might be snitching on you to China

Re: Really?

I have so far failed to come up with any reason to have it connected to the internet at all.

Refunds

I see a need to change the law to provide a full and immediate refund if a smart device is returned because the buyer did not wish to provide the required permissions if they were not clearly disclosed in advance of the purchase. If you can't determine whether a device is acceptable before purchase and attempting to set it up then you don't know if it will be fit for purpose. Having a significant return rate might cause some of these companies to revise their policies a bit.

Last time I bought a large screen TV I managed to find a dumb one - I probably couldn't find one now. I attempt to confine various other IoT devices to my home network with a firewall entry in the router, and a few that do need external access are separated out onto their own VLAN so they can't see the rest of the network. I try not to buy stuff that requires giving away personal data.

AWS boss: Don't want to come back to the office? Go work somewhere else

I was approached by an Amazon recruiter this week. I said I wasn't interested because I was unimpressed by their RTO mandate. So I'm taking the advice of the AWS CEO and concentrating my job search elsewhere.

China claims Starlink signals can reveal stealth aircraft – and what that really means

Re: I'm skeptical

There might be something in it. In the early days of stealth technology there were moves to create a stealth warship[*], but one of the limitations was that while you couldn't see a positive return from the ship, what you ended up with was a hole in the general noise caused by the returns from the sea. So if you were paying attention, you could deduce the rough location by where there wasn't such a noisy return. It's quite possible that the same trick could be applied to an F22 - if everything around it is providing a good return then it's sitting in the quiet hole in the middle. A lot harder to do, of course, because a warship tends to be a lot bigger than an F22.

[*] I know they have improved the warships to reduce the returns, if you compare a modern one with a WW2 destroyer and all those random reflecting surfaces, they're a lot harder to spot directly, and looking for the hole is going to be a lot harder.

Meta's mass layoff severance agreements illegal, says judge

Because if it turns out they missed one, or another one arrives between writing the press release and publishing it, they'll get roasted for being wrong. I almost never make a definite statement for the same reason, because people, especially the media, often forget the implied "to the best of my knowledge and belief". Saying "approximately" instead saves several seconds and avoids the need to type a few letters.

Speed limiters arrive for all new cars in the European Union

Re: Changing Country - what then?

As far as I know the cameras just assume any speed sign that is facing you applies to you.

I foresee much fun with this one. If you live in a village and your house number is appropriately low, make yourself a sign with that number in a red circle and display it in your front garden to get all the cars to slow down.

If it's using GPS then there are several situations where it can get confused about the speed limit. I drive in the US using Google Maps for general navigation, and it shows me the speed I'm doing, and what it thinks is the current speed limit. Sometimes it doesn't show a limit when it has decided it doesn't know, which is fair enough. Sometimes I can see the limit change as I pass the relevant sign, but it does have a noticeable failure rate, especially when there's a freeway running parallel to a slower road, often separated only by a small distance. The other place it can get briefly confused is when two roads with different limits cross, because then it depends on how well it copes with any disturbance in the GPS signals due to reflections from overpasses. The other place it often gets it wrong is roadworks, where it will continue to display the normal speed limit, rather than the reduced roadwork limit.

For the record: You just ordered me to cause a very expensive outage

Re: possible fix

That would have been E1 (up to 30x64k channels), 2Mbit links in the UK,as oposed to the T1 1.5Mbit. If they were PSTN lines then either DASS2 or Q.931 if they were a bit newer.

Windows: Insecure by design

So we'll be able to disable the Recall feature. I wonder how sure we can be that this will stick, and that it won't quietly and "accidentally" be re-enabled by a future update? Or by a convenient and exploitable security hole, where malware could enable it, let it run for a while and haul in the net to see if you've done anything interesting in the intervening period. I would much prefer it to e an installable feature that I could purge from the disk.

Not that it's directly my problem at the moment - another Linux user at home, and my PCs are all too old to run Windows 11 anyway, despite working perfectly well with the latest Linux. The work machine, I'm only concerned if something bad happened and it abused my home network while it was connected, I don't keep any of my personal data on there.

T-Mobile US drags New Jersey borough to court over school cell tower permit denial

Safest place for the tower is on top of the school. Your average cell tower antenna is designed to radiate very little energy downwards, so the children would be in the zone of least field strength, unlike putting the tower down the road a bit. Also, good signal strength received by the tower (easily achieved by optimal receive antenna placement - doesn't have to be the same as the TX antenna) causes mobile phones to adjust their transmit power downwards, further reducing exposure by children using phones.

But as said elsewhere, you can't fight wilful ignorance with facts.

AI Octopus predicts results of Euro 2024: It isn't looking good for England

Re: Of course England will lose at footy

I remember being in a bar when the England-Germany semi-final was on. the Germans scored, the on-screen commentator exclaimed "Kuntz!" and we all agreed with him.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Kuntz for reference)

Spam blocklist SORBS closed by its owner, Proofpoint

Re: re: Proofpoint mass emailing campaigns

I don't know about the persuasion side (I thought it was a company initiative, not imposed from outside), but we get that too. I can't be arsed to flag them with the button installed on Outlook, I just add them to my blocked senders list locally in case they re-use a dodgy address. I get way more fake spam than I do real spam.

Re: DHCP addresses (maybe)

I think the way it works now is that the DHCP server will remember you for some period of time, which may be from zero to "we need an address for something not in our system, let's take this one" after your last lease elapses. I know that the few times I've had an ISP outage, short ones mean I get the same IP address, longer ones mean I have to go reconfigure a bunch of stuff that relies on knowing the address. I did set up a cron script on one of my machines that queries the IP4 and IP6 addresses regularly and will let me know if either changes.

The other change is that in the early days we were on dial-up modems, so leases probably had deliberately short timeouts, whereas now I suspect that you get at least 24hrs for a typical DSL or cable connection (mine currently has almost four days left), simply because they do tend to be up most of the time.

Re: Not true.

I had to jump through a few hoops to get Google to accept my home server, but it seems to be working smoothly now. Ironically the only problem I have at present is with Proofpoint. For some reason they decided to add my mail server IP to the Cloudmark CSI-Global list a couple of weeks ago, and they're either ignoring my request to sort it (I wish they'd explain why something landed on a blocklist, too - is it because someone else in the netblock is running a dodgy server?) or are merely taking forever to look at it. In the meantime, it won't even let my server connect to any of their stuff, which makes it harder to forward stuff from home to work, as well as talk to a few other people who use email providers who use their services.

Tape is so dead, 152.9 EB of LTO media shipped last year

Re: Long term storage to tape, takes more than just a bunch of tapes!

I think I still have a DAT drive somewhere, and one of my older machine still has an Adaptec 2940 SCSI controller in it, even though there's nothing currently connected to it.

I would like to be able to justify an LTO drive of adequate capacity for home use - said DAT drive, in the days when capacity was larger than a hard disk, used to do weekly full backups, spit the tape out and prompt for a new one, then do incremental backups for the rest of the week, then spit the tape out and prompt for a new one, ready for the following full backup. All done with scripts, too. I even did a successful restore once, when the disk abruptly died on me. Every few months I'd take a tape to work and store it there, bringing home an older one.

Bad vibrations left techie shaken up during overnight database rebuild

Re: SSDs [Dot-Matrix Printers]

I still have an OKI Microline dot matrix printer somewhere, wide version, too. However, I think it's only a parallel interface, so I'll need to get an expansion board if I ever resurrect it.

However, for proper thundering, I once had an ASR33 teletype in my bedroom. Everyone in the house knew when I was printing on that. None of this two pages a minute, it was probably closer to two lines per minute.

The chip that changed my world – and yours

I did the RAM-less Rugby MSF clock on a Z80 once - saw someone had done it and so figured out my own version. Still have that around here somewhere, minus the 60kHz radio.

Re: there should always be a need for simple chips that do simple things

MSP430 series was nice, had a chance to play with it once. A nice compact 16-bit architecture, made it better than the 8-bit stuff because we needed 16-bit math and the 8-bit chips weren't quite fast enough.

Re: 8051 in PCs It lasted 50 years, but history finally claimed it

The original keyboard controller was an 8042, I think.

Re: Designed by a software engineer

I think some of the unsupported CB codes, SLI (Shift left and increment, basically shoving a 1 in instead of a 0) affected the flags differently to the related instructions, which is presumably why it wasn't on the official opcode map.

Re: All is not lost.. yet.

IIRC, the way the BBC Micro did it was to use the graphics hardware to effectively provide refresh, so it didn't really need anything extra. The problem with the Z80 refresh was that it was only 7-bit, and some of the 64K DRAM needed 8-bit refresh.

Re: The Z80, however, was compatible with a rival, Intel 8080.

I think officially, to be a CP/M program, you were supposed to stick to the 8080 instruction set.

I used to know the Z80 assembly stuff off by heart - I could write the assembly language and then go down and write all the op codes, effectively hand assembling it. Forgotten most of it by now though, although somewhere I do still have my home-made Z80 computer with 7-segment LEDs and a hex keypad. I think it may even still work if the EPROMs haven't given up.

US Chamber of Commerce to sue FTC for banning noncompetes in most jobs

The UK considers it restraint of trade and the Unfair Contracts Act has put reasonable limits on it, with notice periods and compensation usually incorporated into employment contracts. The US largely doesn't have such contracts, many employers expect you to give two weeks' notice (although you're free to just walk out) but wouldn't dream of giving you two weeks' pay if they fire you on the spot.

Gardening leave is a reasonable compromise, you get paid a fair wage, your (soon to be former) employer gets a 3- or 6-month head start on anything you might subsequently do, and you get a nice holiday. Although I've heard tales of people required to turn up for their notice period, to be seated in a bare room with the minimum of furniture.

Microsoft really does not want Windows 11 running on ancient PCs

Re: The trap

This is why I tend not to buy new PCs, I buy new motherboards, CPUs, RAM, etc, and put them together to make my own PC, then run Linux on it. I have paid for Windows stuff i the past, but I don't see the need to keep doing it when it's not necessary.

My current machine is over ten years old. i5-4440 CPU and 32GB RAM and it runs the latest Linux Mint quite happily. It won't run Win11 though, and while it's working I see no need to upgrade it.

Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

Re: Do they work?

There are two sides to it - do you see the ads, and are you being tracked even if you're not?

One way to get around ad blockers is to collect the image but then render a blank space or otherwise not bother to display it, which hides the ad but doesn't stop them collecting their tracking data.

I use an ad blocker because I find the ads annoying and intrusive, and given that they're usually arriving courtesy of Javascript from an unknown third party broker, I don't want that script, which is potentially a malware vector, running on my system. I also run a script blocker, which is an eye-opener to see the huge variety of third-party scripts that some sites run. Again, a potential malware vector, so I try to only run the minimum necessary to load the page. If it's too difficult I give up and go elsewhere.

Anyone who can implement a decent server-side ad-dispenser will probably do well with it, because then the ads get served as part of the page load rather than a separate script and would be way harder to block. It also avoids the malware problem because static images are way less likely to be a source of something dodgy. However, all those third party data-collection companies would find their business models dented.

World-plus-dog booted out of Facebook, Instagram, Threads

My first thought was that the browser had lost its cookies. Then the login attempt failed and I wondered which of my recent posts had earned me a ban.

My cat was highly offended that I couldn't upload all the latest photos of him.