Posts by Scott 26

Meta starts rolling out end-to-end encryption in Facebook Messenger

didn't work in a messenger group I'm in....

Option to use E2EE was there, but when I went to send a message, it simply "failed to send"

Law secretly drafted by ChatGPT makes it onto the books

Re: Perhaps ...

it was local level govt.... if I look at my local council, I don't think any of them are lawyers. They were voted in to represent a cross section of the district. The mayor is the only 'professional' politician.

'Return to Office' declared dead

Re: Stick

> After all who cares if the worker is in the bowels of Slough or in Bangalore, no?

gawd - what a choice... a complete slum of poverty and backwardness; or somewhere 5000mi away from London.

I chose to move out of a main centre and into a the countryside (pre-pandemic), and I had always planned to discuss WFH 1 day a week once settled. Then Covid-19 hit, and the whole thing became moot.

Last year I was doing 1 day a week in the office (fronting up to the client site - rah rah rah). This year I haven't travelled into the city at all (for work).

Potential sat-bothering cannibal coronal mass ejection slams into Earth's atmo tonight

Our local FB community notice had stunning pics from the weekend's show (I missed it :( )... and we are at a whisker over 41deg S (normally The Lights are visible at ~45deg S - 900km to the south)

Bank boss hated IT, loved the beach, was clueless about ports and politeness

Had exactly this when on my OE in London - call came into the SD from the EA to #1 and #2 in the company.... problem with #1's new fandangled laptop (this was c 2000/2001 - laptops were a rarity even for the exec).

My Boss said "for some reason #1 has asked for you by name..... " (giving me a look of "what have you done", and "normally I'd send one of lackeys, cos I know they won't say the wrong thing")

I trundle over to head office (IT dept was in a separate building a street or two away - a casual 5 minute walk)... walk into #1's suite... "Ahhh Kiwi, I was showing Sir Herbert my new laptop but I can't get it to work"

I took one look at it and saw that they had plugged the modem cable into the RJ45 socket on the wall.... carefully eased it out with the blade of a letter opener, and then said "this goes into this kind of socket" and plugged into a telephone jack. "For the ticket resolution notes, who did it?" both of them quick as a flash both of them pointed at each other..... and laughed.

So I took my chance and asked why they asked for me, a casual contractor on his OE from NZ.... "cos you like rugby"

Musk tells advertisers to 'go f**k' themselves as $44B X gamble spirals into chaos

"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself"

Except, Bart is played by Elon, and Nelson is played by .... Elon.

Re: The corner of...

... and the lollipop lady is now over on Mastodon....

(we squeezed this metafor enough yet?)

I wish I was Elon Musk....And could tell advertisers (who bring my platform money) to quote GO FUCK YOURSELF unquote

no, wait.... no I don't.... what a dick. Talk about doubling down on his pig-headedness. What's that quote? "Your ego is writing checks your body can't cash"

Re: Delusional narcissist

> Yeah, no. Disney and IBM are paying monthly for their gold corporate "verified" status accounts.

Which is peanuts compared to the spend on advertising....

Which I believe was teh original point: keeping account open $$$ << advertising $$$

Plex gives fans a privacy complex after sharing viewing habits with friends by default

Re: Why do companies think we care what anyone else is doing?

> I remember when Twitter was still new and not widely known. I took a look at it and it was basically just people literally narrating their life 140 characters at a time. I remember thinking something along the lines of why world+dog should care about your bowel movements or that you're getting something from the fridge.

I think my very first tweet was something literally like "banal comment about my life"

Someone else has a go at reforming US Section 702 spying powers – and nope, no warrant requirement

> Additionally, the bill requires FBI agents to secure approval from their superiors for any query term that could be "reasonably believed" to identify a US elected official, political candidate, or appointee, US journalists, or religious leaders.

But everyone else is fair game....

AI threatens to automate away the clergy

Re: Evidence

> For example the indigenous people of the Amazon tested Christianity by crucifying missionaries

Harry Harrison used it as a plot device in his short story The Streets of Ashkelon

Videoconferencing fatigue is real, study finds

it was funded by a business who makes money from services & products that "help" with stress from tech,

so, immediately, I think "not unbiased, then"

I was going to share this with my colleagues with a cheeky "hope manglement doesn't see this", but once I saw the study's sponsor, there's no point even bothering with that cheeky joke.

OpenCart owner turns air blue after researcher discloses serious vuln

Normally I'm a late comer to these comments sections on El Reg (time zone differences mean I read the article the next day or 2, if it has been a weekend).

But sometimes that works in my favour - decided to check out the linked issues discussion - and it's been updated since this article was written... clearly he (or someone he knows) reads El Reg, and he has had an even bigger meltdown over the vuln reporting.

As my wife would say "Tee Eff Eff" (too fucking funny)

Firefox slow to load YouTube? Just another front in Google's war on ad blockers

> I'm old enough to remember when most video was consumed via broadcast television. The cool kids started talking about the wonderful new world of online streaming video. "And the best part is," the cool kids said, "there aren't any ads!"

or

I'm old enough to remember when most video was consumed via DVD and VHS. The cool kids started talking about the wonderful new world of downloaded video. "And the best part is," the cool kids said, "there aren't any (FBI) ads!"

Re: This is not the first time this has "accidently" happened

> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kboghdady/youTube_ads_4_pi-hole/master/youtubelist.txt

> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kboghdady/youTube_ads_4_pi-hole/master/crowed_list.txt

interesting.....

I will take a look at those after work.

I use uBlock Origin in my browser - no YT apps. But I cast to the TV or use the TV's native YT app = ads and I'm reminded how shitty they can be. Normally when casting to the TV its for the family audience, and I haven't seen anything inappropriate. Just annoying so far.

BUt if these work I will raise a virtual glass in your honour!

Sam Altman set to rejoin OpenAI as CEO – seemingly with Microsoft's blessing

Re: Mmmmm

+5 Insightful

Robocar tech biz sues Nvidia, claims stolen code shared in Teams meeting blunder

We are in the middle of our mandatory annual "compliance" training.. one module is Ethics and covers the re-use of company IP... have sent my team this article as a real-world example of what not to do.

Why have just one firewall when you can fire all the walls?

> four f'king Es

probably for the fork handles (four candles)

Rights warriors claim online ad auction data a danger to national security

Just promote the use of adblockers.... simple.

Tesla Cybertruck no-resale clause vanishes faster than a Model S in Ludicrous Mode

Re: Rent-a-brick

> glorious down-votes

your OP had 1 down-vote at time of writing this.... one, singular.

Want a Cybertruck? You're stuck with it for a year, says Tesla

I don't know about the land of the free, but in NZ, totally unenforceable:

- can't agree to illegal terms

- private companies can't "fine" you

BOFH: Monitor mount moans end in Beancounter beatdown

Re: Excellent!

mine took an hour last week, wiith 20 (!) individual like items!!!!

Can't wait for my T/L to approve 60 minutes of "unproductive time"....

Suits ignored IT's warnings, so the tech team went for the neck

Re: Wait a minute...

Downvote....

He's from NZ (which != Oz)

Digital democracy or IT anarchy? Gartner flags the low-code revolution

Been saying this for a good couple of years.... low code SaaS solutions like Power Apps, Power BI, etc, are just "MS Access in the cloud"

I'm all for makign the end users masters of their own destiny, but it has to be within guidelines/goverance frameworks.

Microsoft likens MFA to 1960s seatbelts, buckles admins in yet keeps eject button

I wish I could turn on MFA across the entire enterprise.... but OpSec still has this pre-cloud mentality that if the users are on-prem (physically or logically, via a VPN) then they don't need to do MFA..... I have strongly lodged my objections, and am now waiting for the first breach due to a compromised on-prem device.

Also the belief "we don't want to disrupt the C-suite" - ffs, who do you think is a richer target? The CxO or John at the callcentre?

Teens take a million metaverse Ryanair flights in Roblox

Re: Bathroom?

Prince John : Such an unusual name, "Latrine." How did your family come by it?

Latrine : We changed it in the 9th century.

Prince John : You mean you changed it TO "Latrine"?

Latrine : Yeah. Used to be "Shithouse."

Prince John : It's a good change. That's a good change!

Microsoft says VBScript will be ripped from Windows in future release

> "VBScript may seem outdated, and the support for VBScript is discontinued, but it is still being used in many places. Windows administrators may find it easier to learn/write than Powershell scripts."

hahahaahhahaha..... you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell to you

Scandium-based nuclear clocks promise punctuality for next 300 billion years

How do they know the scandium clock is showing the 'right' time....

Sure it doesn't drift, but for 300b years it shows a slightly wrong time, all the time.

Which of course, as we know, is an illusion - lunch time doubly so.

Re: one clock

88mph should just about do it

Beta driver turned heads in the hospital

In my previous job I had 7 monitors on my desk, and when I was (always) asked "Why do you have 7 monitors?" I would replied "To quote the late great Sir Terry Pratchett 'Because I haven't found a way to install an 8th'"

Techie labelled 'disgusting filth merchant' by disgusting hypocrite

Re: So let me recap...

>I have trouble inserting mine!

its USB - try it the other way around

IBM Software tells workers: Get back to the office three days a week

Re: My Winter Heating Is Always On

Passive House here (yay, Germany Building Standards!!!)....

No heating/cooling required.

> Think about it before you pile in and whine about how shit your management is.

yeah, cos you've just demonstrated how much worse it could be..... thank fuck I don't work for a prick like you.

I'll see your data loss and raise you a security policy violation

Re: Outlook...

> Imagine someone putting important paperwork in the recycling bin, and complaining when they find out cleaning staff threw it out overnight.

Happened IRL to my wife's company - she used to be an office manager for a cleaning company. One day they take an irate call from a client - his $300 running shoes were gone!!! Where did he last see them? Balanced on the top of the rubbish bin under his desk.....

ffs..... what were the cleaners supposed to think?

Florida Man and associates indicted for conspiracy to steal data, software

Re: What does this have to do with tech?

did you RTFA?

Microsoft 365 guest accounts + Power Apps = security nightmare

Great. Looks like I have some work to do this morning - or at the least, tell my client's internal PA team, THEY have some work to do.

Nobody does DR tests to survive lightning striking twice

Re: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I F'ing hate TOIL booked at 1:1 to hours worked....

You had me working out of hours and you see fit to renumerate me as if it were normal hours? Fuck that.

Hence why I always ask "Do your timesheet for Project X have an OT component?"

Elon Musk's Twitter moves were 'reaffirming' says Reddit boss amid API changes

Re: Nobody Mentions Why the Mods Are Upset

perfect summation.

Amazon confirms it locked Microsoft engineer out of his Echo gear over false claim

Re: I grew up with "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."

@orv - upvoting you to offset the arseholes downvoting you..... ffs, some people.

Re: A bit unfair

First name Brian?

Fed up with slammed servers, IT replaced iTunes backups with a cow of a file

Re: Years ago....

> I had permission from the senior partner of the firm to do random scans of the network and delete any mp3 files I found. No warnings to be given to the staff, just find and delete.

I wanted to do the same thing while working for a .govt.nz - just before pulling the trigger, fortunately for me, someone pointed out some of the Policy Advisors had accessibility issues, so they had (approved) dictation software, which, of course, saved as .mp3 ....

It proved too hard to search "bad" mp3s from "good".

In the end we just scanned for large file/folders manually and culled obvious music files.

WTF is solid state active cooling? We’ve just seen it working on a mini PC

Re: Done before?

When I saw teh headline, I too thought I had read this before, and then I realise I had... in a SF short story.

India official fined after draining reservoir to recover phone

This has blown up on reddit thus ensuring Vishwas' 5 minutes of internet fame live on forever

XFS bug in Linux kernel 6.3.3 coincides with SGI code comeback

Hat tip to the Sir Pterry reference.....

US mulls retaliation for China blacklisting Micron without evidence of security threat

Re: Pot meet kettle

> "On May 21, the Cyberspace Administration of China determined, without providing evidence, that products made by US firm Micron Technology pose a national security risk to the People's Republic of China (PRC)," Representative Mike Gallagher said in a statement.

And I bet it was said without a single trace of irony.....

Encoded 'alien message' will reach Earth today, but relax: It's just a drill

Re: Do Extra-Terrestrials Speak Encryption?

But instead of war, the invasion fleet was eaten by a small dog due to a miscalculation in relative sizes between the two species.

YouTube's 'Ad blockers not allowed' pop-up scares the bejesus out of netizens

> Late last year, YouTube said it had reached 80 million Premium subscribers, up 30 million from 2021. If you take that 80 million and multiply it by 12 bucks a month, that's $11.5 billion a year.

But it's not $12 a month in every locality. It was about $12 a year in Argentina at one point. I didn't jump on it, but I know friends who VPN'd to Argentina, signed up, removed the VPN and boom! YT Prem for $1/month.

Starting to think they were the smart ones.

>RaspPi

>PiHole

Pihole can't block YT ads