Posts by Dan 55

Red Hat bins Bugzilla for RHEL issue tracking, jumps on Jira

Jira is the single source of suckage

Over 16 reasons why Jira and Confluence suck

Jira is not as good as project management software for managing projects and not as good as bug tracking software for tracking bugs, it's just an event horizon of stupid user interface choices coupled with crazy backend design which makes it impossible to revert mistakes (and we do make mistakes because we're only human after all). Once a company realises their provider or end clients also use Jira then all bets are off, they connect up their Jira instances in the mistaken belief that it will make working with Jira easier and the fail grows exponentially as comments get sent externally that people didn't mean to send and workflows don't match up. The only thing that makes working with Jira easier is ripping it out and using better tools for the job.

The only way is WebKit: Vivaldi's browser arrives on iOS

Previously, I liked mobile Firefox on Android, but they yanked that out from underfoot and it's a shitty Chrome back end browser too now.

No, Firefox uses GeckoView instead of WebView or Blink.

Also, the extensions I was using with mobile Firefox are GONE (Can't do that Dave... not in this browser engine)

They're removing restrictions on Android extensions in December.

On your marks...

I suspect they're getting the UI ready and hoping to flip the switch when the EU mandates that Apple allow other browser engines in 2024.

Volkswagen stuck in neutral after 'IT disruption'

My Toyota from about 10 years ago reboots the media centre more than I'd like, all it has to do is play music and it can't even manage that without it getting its knickers in a twist. I shudder to think of new cars which absolutely rely on software.

A few links from Mozilla's car survey:

It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy

What Data Does My Car Collect About Me and Where Does It Go?

Volkswagen

Here's the deal: Privacy at Volkswagen doesn't look very good to us. VW earns all three of our privacy dings for how they use data, for how people can control their data, and for their track record at protecting the data they collect and we could not confirm them meet our Minimum Security Standards. Not good. Our privacy worries are even more concerning when you consider the vast ecosystem of things VW uses to collect your personal information -- from your car, to the Car-Net or We Connect connected services, to the myVW app users can use to interact with the car, to the personal information your VW dealer can collect on you, even during a test drive, to the additional information they can gather or buy on you from outside sources like data brokers, to the inferences they can draw about your when they combine all this data.

But the company that brought you dieselgate is by no means the worst of them...

Raspberry Pi 5 revealed, and it should satisfy your need for speed

Re: Expensive

Zeros and Picos were less powerful, there's the CM versions, the 400 was a different form factor, and some updates to the earlier models were released with the same thing in a smaller size or sometimes with less memory or only added wifi or more GPIO pins.

The official power supply now delivers up to 27W even though Tom's Hardware could only make a Pi 5 use 7W when stressing it and changed the configuration so it drew 0.05W when in standby.

OSMC works fine with 4K (Ethernet connection, not wifi). I suspect LibreElec will too since it's a little lighter than OSMC.

After failing at privacy, again, Google is working to keep Bard chats out of Search

Re: "We're working on blocking them from being indexed now"

Because privacy is always an afterthought with Google, perhaps with a nice dashboard to try and make it look like they've got a coherent privacy offering.

Long-term support for Linux kernels is about to get a lot shorter

Re: Dosh

But unlike construction projects, there's no opportunity for mutual back scratching by funding the Linux kernel.

NYC rights groups say no to grocery store spycams and snooping landlords

This one isn't for the gammons, it's for Palantir et al.

Meta spends $181M to get out of lease at vacant London offices

What?

"More diverse work styles have impacted employee productivity, satisfaction and customer experience"

The analyst has run out of money, we have to insert another coin if we want to know whether that's for better or for worse.

Twitter, aka X, tops charts for misinformation, EU official says

Re: Twitter / X is a sewer

If you want a read-only Twitter without any need to open an account to follow "a curated set of tweets" as the youth say, try Squawker (chronological timeline with no "for you" nonsense) or Fritter (no timeline at all). They sometimes break for a while when the API gets messed around with though.

It looks like you’re a developer. Would you like help upgrading Windows 11?

Re: Remove the crap

Productivity can be fun, fellow kids!

Some would maintain Snow Leopard is still the best version, everything after that was either bling, bugs, or bloat...

set up the OS in a configuration intended to delight software developers

Oh, does it download VirtualBox and install Linux automatically?

Teardown reveals iPhone 15 to be series of questionable design decisions

No no, Apple will definitely be the first at whatever it is, whenever they release it.

OpenAI's DALL·E 3 teams up with ChatGPT to turn brainfarts into art

Alexa, could you flog a dead horse for me?

This is where Amazon discover what sunk cost fallacy means, Alexa and Echo speakers are never going to be profitable even after after spending yet more millions on sprinkling AI pixie dust on them.

Getty delivers text-to-image service it says won't get you sued, may get you paid

Unlike other commercial text-to-image tools, Getty's model is not trained on third-party images scraped from the internet. It was only fed data that the stock photo provider owns – meaning any pictures generated by the software shouldn't violate any copyright laws.

Unfortunately it also means all generated photos feature at least one woman laughing while eating salad.

Google killing Basic HTML version of Gmail In January 2024

Priorites

How are Google going to implement emoji reactions with plain old HTML? Clearly the POH version has to go.

I suspect all it will take is the AFB to direct Google's attention to the Americans with Disabilities Act and Google will post a GIF on Twitter with a black border and very serious reply saying sorry, hopefully with alt text.

Unity apologizes, tweaks runtime install fees after gaming world outrage

Re: The damage is done

They are not particularly reasonable. They create a new problem (per-install fees), they come up with their own solution (DRM which the developer doesn't have any insight into), and they say to the developer "we're going to charge you this, trust us on this".

How does it deal with uninstalls? Computers not being used for months? Hard drives dying, being changed then a new install? Android app storage being cleared? Nobody knows.

If end customers have a licence to use their purchase on five devices as is usual now, they should just be more honest and raise their fee from x% of developer revenue on a game to y% from Unity 2024 onwards. That way the developer isn't trying to work out if they can afford the pricepoint vs average number of installs. There will be people grumbling of course but it still wouldn't be the mess we've just seen.

Why Chromebooks are the new immortals of tech

Re: Data

It's not a complete list, it doesn't list any ARM devices.

Beneath Microsoft's Surface event, AI spreads everywhere

Sod this for a game of soldiers

I'm off back to Workbench.

As TikTok surveils staff's office hours, research indicates WFH is good for planet

Re: Good for the planet?

To start, your understanding of the scientific principle is wrong. Those theories that are proven and pass peer review become part of the scientific consensus, those theories that are proven wrong don't.

So the "view" that there is no such thing as climate change is not being suppressed, it's being proven to be wrong.

"View" is also the wrong word to use, as that implies everyone can have different views, but since this is about finding theories which explain facts there is no room for those theories that have been proven to be false.

Re: Good for the planet?

I'm sure scientifically wrong articles are unpopular on tech websites.

The rest of your post... well... it's scientifically wrong.

Re: Good for the planet?

Unpopular or scientifically wrong, call it what you will. As a tech publication being scientifically wrong is not generally a good editorial line to take.

Re: Good for the planet?

Also, using similar arguments to El Reg USED to make.

They stopped making them for a reason. Also I don't think El Reg's arguments were like that, they were more like drawing the wrong conclusions from ChatGPT-style maths.

Mastodon makes a major move amid Musk's multiple messes

Re: Shame about Mastodon

I don't remember N-word user IDs being allowed on Twitter before Musk landed. After landing, certainly, just like Bluesky.

Re: Shame about Mastodon

Why would everyone go to Bluesky if their moderation is as much of a bin fire as Musk's Xitter is?

Data breach reveals distressing info: People who order pineapple on pizza

Re: Detroit pizza only, please

It'll let you debate that point with an Italian. An Italian from Italy, mind, not an Italian-American whose great-great-great-great grandfather got off the boat in New York about 200 years ago.

Pineapple on pizza...

... is the best pizza.

Some people may look at this post and think it's merely an up/downvote experiment, but I really do believe this.

Lawsuit claims Google Maps led dad of two over collapsed bridge to his death

Re: Process failure at Google

Here Maps also shows the road is out.

Google on trial: Feds challenge deals that set your web search defaults

Re: The end of Firefox

Google won't stop development of Chrome, they'll add more features to enable more tracking. Google account login, Privacy sandbox, web attestation...

UK Online Safety Bill to become law – and encryption busting clause is still there

Re: Why?

You receive an SMS message and idly assume that it is an encrypted Signal message and disclose sensitive information in a reply.

Signal made it pretty obvious in the UI that text messages were not encrypted, every SMS message bubble in a chat conversation had an open padlock in the corner and so did the send icon in the textbox where you write the reply.

In my opinion the app is less useful now, supporting SMS was another reason to install the app in the first place and unlike other SMS apps it's trustworthy, meaning the user base grows meaning there are more people who can use encrypted messages as well.

Google Bard can now tap into your Gmail, Docs, more

Spot the problem

"[...] And of course, you're always in control of your privacy settings when deciding how you want to use these extensions. [...]"

Users are automatically opted in to Bard Extensions, and have to manually disable access to turn the system off.

Big Tech just can't help itself, can it? It has no real understanding of privacy.

Britcoin or Britcon? Bank of England grilled on Digital Pound privacy concerns

No point

As we have bank accounts and credit and debit cards, it's all digital anyway.

Lightning struck: Apple switches to USB-C for iPhone 15 lineup

Re: Where do we go from here...?

I think the innovation was making French and German sockets compatible by coming up with plugs that worked with both types of sockets and making appliances work with polarised (French) and non-polarised (German) sockets. Now nearly all European and African counties can use the same appliances.

Re: Not so green

I wont be sad to see Lightning go as it does eat cables but switch cleaner sorts the blackened contacts and sockets, cant do that on usb C

Can't say I've ever noticed that happening with either Micro-B or C connectors. Is eating cables and blackening contacts and sockets a Lightning-only innovation?

Edit: Apparently so.

Re: Thank God for fast forward..

They also have to figure out a way of artificially limiting transfer speed as a product differentiator. As with the iPad, so with the iPhone.

Re: Where do we go from here...?

Because a proprietary connector with a 480 Mbps transfer speed in the Year of our Lord 2023 was so innovative.

And check out the price of Apple's cables. Of course there'll be enough idiots to make selling them worthwhile.

Salesforce flipflops from 'you're fired' to 'you're hired' in six short months

Re: soooo

And then there will be complaints from leading lights in the business world that productivity has nosedived since the pandemic and the fault is 1) WFH and 2) high salaries.

Nothing to do with employee churn and losing the business knowledge that goes with that, no sir.

Scientists trace tiny moonquakes to Apollo 17 lander – left over from 1972

Yes, you just fold it in half, whatever it is.

Did Lockheed-Martin also want to be paid for their work in goats?

I find this video very enlightening if ever I'm confused about Imperial.

Re: El Reg comparators for temperature?

What are the El Reg comparators for temperature?

According to The Reg online standards converter the temperature range mentioned in the article is from 10.1111 Hiltons to -15.3333 Hiltons. I trust we all have a clear idea now.

GitHub alienates developers by force feeding them AI recommendations

Have we migrated to Codeberg yet?

Perhaps we should. They don't copy your code wholesale then start waving their dick in your face.

UK government hurt by delays in legacy tech upgrades, skills shortages

'counter-productive staffing cuts' in technology

Yeah, so you fire people who know how to do their job and later on it turns out that productivity has fallen. Who would have thought it...? (Answer: Not the C-Suite and MBAs.)

Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

Re: Axe

El Reg has a Perl script to Americanify English and they're going to use it.

Does Printix require a third-party printer driver?

Better complain to the EU about MS forcing people to use Universal Print and locking out competition if so.

Arm's lawyers want to check assembly expert's book for trademark missteps

It does seem they've started being about as dickish as Nintendo can be.