Posts by nichomach

BOFH: Will the last one out switch off the printer?

We've been watching Mindhunter on Netflix and it's rather nice to see Anna Torv again - especially after the Watcher (minus hat and opera glasses) turned up as her boss... Who knows, we might get the rest of the Scooby Gang back...

BOFH: Here he comes, all wide-eyed with the boundless optimism of youth. He is me, 30 years ago... what to do?

Re: Seems a bit cheap

Presumably their requirement fluctuates up and down rapidly?

Judge Vulcan-nerve pinches JEDI deal after Amazon forks out $42m to pause Microsoft's military machinations

Re: Vulcan Jedis!

Understanding is not required; only obedience.

Day 4 of outage: UK's Manchester police deploy exciting new carbon-based method to record crime

Re: Never trust a copper with a pencil

*cough* Hillsborough *cough*

Is it a make-up mirror? Is it a tiny frisbee? No, it's the bonkers Cyrcle Phone, with its TWO headphone jacks

The headphone splitter thing is real, as evinced by my daughter & her gf.

[TEAL'C]"Indeed!"[/TEAL'C]

ICO scammer Maksim Zaslavskiy to miss 2020 Tokyo Olympics over digital currency fraud

Re: "no investments in any sort of real-world asset to back the coins"

Inscamtion? "We need to fraud deeper..."

UK Info Commish quietly urged court to swat away 100k Morrisons data breach sueball

Here we go again...

As I noted elsewhere: "That presumes that the ICO's role is to protect citizens' data. Observation would indicate that in most cases it's to explain that they're not going to."

Eerie sense of deja vu...

Sure, we made your Wi-Fi routers phone home with telemetry, says Ubiquiti. What of it?

Re: Cloud product talks to cloud

True, but be aware it uses MongoDB as its back-end. Just ripped out Unifi from here and replaced with Aruba, not least because of the controller's propensity for periodically crapping itself and leaving the database corrupted.

When the IT department speaks, users listen. Or face the consequences

Yep...

We provide a batch file that does a backup of the stuff in users' documents/pictures/videos folders. They are told that anything important should go on the network (actually into our CMS). Do they use the former? Sometimes...but not often. Do they pay attention to the latter? Three guesses, but you'll only need one...

Radio nerd who sipped NHS pager messages then streamed them via webcam may have committed a crime

Re: Humbug

That presumes that the ICO's role is to protect citizens' data. Observation would indicate that in most cases it's to explain that they're not going to.

Surprise surprise...

Not that I don't think this pillock should be prosecuted, I certainly do, but the contrast between their lightning-swift reaction to one guy on his own breaching RIPA as opposed to their glacial pace and unwillingness to act against a couple of big companies like, say, oh, BT and Phorm is somewhat noticeable.

Hell hath GNOME fury: Linux desktop org swings ax at patent troll's infringement claim

"We want to send a message to all software patent trolls out there — we will fight your suit, we will win, and we will have your patent invalidated," they said in Liam Neeson's voice...

Lies, damn lies, and KPIs: Let's not fix the formula until we have someone else to blame

Re: KPIs

Isn't the axiom that when a metric becomes a target it ceases to have any value?

Re: bigwigs had spent the last year working on ... "numbers totally unrelated to reality"

See, the problem isn't that you mixed the words up, the problem is that you attempted to lecture someone else who picked up on that and had a little (non-malicious) fun with it. Don't blame other people when you pwn yourself?

Former BAE Systems contractor charged with 'damaging disclosure' of UK defence secrets

Re: ??

I think this could be more of a "watch this space" kind of item - OSA prosecutions don't seem to be that common, or at least not newsworthy ones, so one wonders what he's leaked.

Oracle demands $12K from network biz that doesn't use its software

I'm wondering whether...

...Oracle are on the cusp of crashing; they are so abusinve to their customers (honestly the Redmond Beast is a fluffy teddy bear by comparison), and there are so many other options out there that they might be hitting the tipping point where people simply won't use them anymore. Oh happy day!

Three UK slammed for 'ripping off' loyal mobile customers by £32.4m per year

Re: Bonuses

Yeah, but they didn't pay extra for a vote that *counted*...

From pen-test to penitentiary: Infosec duo cuffed after physically breaking into courthouse during IT security assessment

Re: I can't help thinking

Next cell along. Bail hearing's Tuesday.

Right-click opens up terrifying vistas of reality and Windows 95 user's frightful position therein

Re: Walk like an...

Slide your feet up the street, bend your back...

HP Inc waves bye to EMEA president with 'immediate effect'

Re: Home printers are rubbish

Couldn't agree more. Last "genuine" ink I bought was appallingly bad; loads of gaps, wouldn't print some colours. Bought some generic stuff off Mamzon and it works much better. I still get the "you are not using genuine HP ink" message, to which my response is "You're damned straight I'm not, you thieving %#@£s!".

We ain't afraid of no 'ghost user': Infosec world tells GCHQ to GTFO over privacy-busting proposals

Here we go again...

"We welcome this response to our request for thoughts on exceptional access to data – for example to stop terrorists."

Or check what people are putting in their wheelie bins. Or whether their dog left a mess somewhere. Or whether you're a furry. RIPA powers were supposed to be used in "exceptional" cases too and now look where we are.

Irish data cops are shoving a probe right into Google's ads

An ICO spokesperson said...

...nothing but took an awful lot of words to do it?

Exclusive: Windows for Workgroups terror the Tartan Bandit confesses all to The Register

Re: TCP/IP?

There definitely was; we had install disks for W 3.11 where I was working at the time - not that we ever used them!

Re: TCP/IP?

There were a number of third-party TCP/IP stacks that worked with Windows 3.x and LAN Mangler (Beame & Whiteside leap to mind), but Microsoft did provide a TCP/IP stack for WFW (I believe it was labelled a beta when it shipped, and I don't know if they ever shipped a release version) which worked OK.

Want a good Android smartphone without the $1,000+ price tag? Then buy Google's Pixel 3a

Re: Cloud Storage

That puts me in the "archaic" club as well; still using mine, it's not full yet, only niggle is that the Android 8 update gave me significant issues with Bluetooth, but there we go. Wondering what 9's going to be like on it when it finally pitches up.

Firefox add-ons...

Firefox add-ons...

So...anyone else been hit with all their add-ons being disabled in Firefox because of the certificate expiry problem?

Boeing boss denies reports 737 Max safety systems weren't active

Hang on...

...I was next!

Two Arkansas dipsticks nicked after allegedly taking turns to shoot each other while wearing bulletproof vests

Re: I was thinking the same...

Don't know how it is in the US, but with certain exceptions for sports in the UK you can't consent to battery.

Airlines in Asia, Africa ground Boeing 737 Max 8s after second death crash in four-ish months

I'm probably being silly...

...but as I understand it, the indicator for AoA Disagree is an "option", rather than being standard. I would have thought that this was a fairly ****ing important thing to know?

Insane homeowners association tries to fine resident for dick-shaped outline car left in snow

Errrrr....you probably want to read the victim's update - the loony in question yells "THIS IS TRUMP'S AMERICA!" at her, so not likely to qualify for the SJW label...

BOFH: Bye desktop, bye desk. Hello 'slab and a beanbag on the floor

Re: "digital natives"

By "consumption devices", you mean slow, wheezy, liable to vomit blood over anyone in the vicinity and the subject of overwrought dramatics?

Only plebs use Office 2019 over Office 365, says Microsoft's weird new ad campaign

1TB per person.

The "work offer" would be because your company is on something like an Enterprise Subscription Agreement which includes software assurance (and thus home use rights), or possibly an O365 subscription (don't know whether that includes home use). We're not, and my wife's employer doesn't offer that either.

Wife and kid; they use MS Office and are comfortable with it. Between my desktop, laptop and their machines, plus use on mobile devices, it's worth it.

Personally, I use Office 365 Home because it covers the whole family for £79.99. If I *only* had to think about myself, I'd probably buy the 2019 version, but for me, the subscription is more cost-effective.

How big is the UK space industry? It hauled in £14.8bn for 2016/2017 – report

Re: Brex-shit

"My job's been exported to Singapore! And this chicken tastes of chlorine!"

"You won! Get over it!"

Amazon takes aim at MongoDB with launch of Mongo-compatible DocumentDB

Re: But is it...

Beat me to it...

Oracle sued by app sales rep: I made tens of millions for Larry, then fired for being neither young nor male – claim

Oracle in...

"...are bastards" shocker. Who knew? *spoiler alert* Everyone. Everyone knew.

That scary old system with 'do not touch' on it? Your boss very much wants you to touch it. Now what do you do?

Re: Even the simple things

And a bit of hood cleaner, maybe a stick-on logo, just to keep it convincing...

Official: The shape of the smartphone is changing forever

Taller and narrower is good news

Especially the narrower bit. Picked up 2 A8s for people here and they're much more usable.

Uncle Sam is shocked, SHOCKED to find dark-web bazaars trading drugs, weapons, etc

"Feds bust shady people doing shady things on shady sites" - Quite right too; that's the government's job!

MongoDB turns on, tunes in, drops ACID and goes mobile

Re: Mongo DB is Web Scale

"Smells like roses to me..."

HTC U12+: You said we should wait and review the retail product. Hate to break it to you, but...

I saw the bit about PSBs and...

...instantly thought "It's tiring, always stretching for something just out of reach.. But I'll get it. After all, what I want isn't as easy as all that.". I'll get my coat...

Want to know what an organisation is really like? Visit the restroom

"Restroom"?

Gents/Ladies. Loo. Bathroom. Bog. Khazi. Jakes. Toilet. But "restroom"? You gone Septic on us, Mr. Dabbs?

Mike Lynch's British court showdown v HPE pushed back to 2019

Re: Caveat Emptor

"These are the numbers. If you don't like these, we have others..."

Sysadmin shut down the wrong server, and with it all European operations

Re: Could have been worse ..

If someone had "accidentally" powered off that system it might not have been a bad thing, under the circumstances...

Life's a beach – then you're the comms nexus of the British Empire and Marconi-baiting hax0rs

Re: I concur

That's a SUPERB idea!

I concur

Went to Porthcurno a few years ago and it was a great day out. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed it (although Mrs Nichomach and I had a thoroughly uncharitable giggle at her reaction to a rotary dial telephone - *stabs numbers with fingers* "It's not WOOOOOORKING!").

UK Home Sec Amber Rudd unveils extremism blocking tool

I would note that...

...having happened on this report just now, 6Music's just started playing "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing". Not only is it obviously live, they're using it take the mick...