Posts by Sir Sham Cad

Microsoft's 11-year itch: The uncelebrated anniversary of Windows 8

I had honestly forgotten that Windows 8 existed and that I had to use it at home until Windows 10. Nobody I knew used it apart from me.

Larry Ale-ison institute invests in Oxford pub linked to Tolkien, CS Lewis

About a thousand years before the last Ice Age, when I was 18 I spent a week in Oxford doing extra tuition for my maths A-Level. Sank many a pint in that pub with my fellow desperate students. Hope it's restored sympathetically and the beer is good.

Corner cutting of nuclear proportions as duo admit to falsifying safety tests 29 times

Re: How did they find out?

I would imagine getting paid for work they didn't have to do, meaning they could do other paid work as well and make double-bubble?

More X subscription tiers could spell doom for free access as biz bleeds cash

Money for nothing

So, a "service" that is, essentially, just enabling access to content created by its subscribers wants to charge those same contributors for access to their self-generated content?

That ain't working (with apologies to Mark Knopfler)

UK tribunal agrees with Clearview AI – Brit data regulator has no jurisdiction

Re: LOL

Pretty sure that's the output of an LLM trained entirely on Twatter.

Microsoft kills classic Azure DaaS, because it isn't really Azure

Confuse and conquer

It must be so much fun being a Microsoft Channel Partner. Since the customers can't keep up with the changes it's Professional Services Pork for all.

Techie labelled 'disgusting filth merchant' by disgusting hypocrite

Were people really PAYING for low-resolution background images for their phones for "a few years"?

Yes, and I worked for a (now defunct) company specialising in early personalised 3D avatars where the VCs panicked, brought in someone to pivot the company to sell said low-res images of the custom, personalised, hi res 3D image as that's where the quick money was.

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

If it's good enough for Suzanne Vega it's good enough for me!

Guess what? Ask clouds to behave like old-school vendors, they will – and you lose

My philosophy on Cloud is never put anything important in a cloud provider that you cannot lift-and-shift back on-prem. I'm not a fan of Serverless instances for that reason.

Microsoft tells partners unbundling Teams is a 'compromise' with the EU

Re: "The Register was able to download from Microsoft without entering channel partner credentials"

I would suspect there's some sort of Journalistic exception unless our current Home Orifice lot have binned it off.

Re: A little homily comparing two basketball players?

Since I can never let a good metaphor go un-tortured, I would suggest one player owns the court and gets to place their hoop anywhere they like and only they can score points in their hoop and the other player needs to sneak their hoop in if they can at all.

Still, I cannot find it in me to have any sympathy with Zoom

Google rebrands 'android' as 'Android' to remove any doubt about its affiliations

Re: Logos

Yep, for something that nobody will notice apart from the people who are paid to notice it.

US Air Force wants $6B to build 2,000 AI-powered drones

Re: They are getting part of a clue

Or a copy of Antony Johnston's "The Exphoria Code" (unless they've already read it)

Southern Water to drink up tech deals worth up to £358M

Re: "asset management period set out by regulator Ofwat"

Little known fact: Ofwat stands for Ombudsman for Watching anything else but what we're supposed to.

"asset management period set out by regulator Ofwat"

Since when have Southern Waster ever given a fuck what Ofwat say?

NHS watchdog expresses vendor lock-in concerns over Federated Data Platform deal

Re: Investigation

You'll be approached by a tall man in a big hat and sunglasses going "pssst! wanna buy some cancer drugs?" long before your GP will know anything about it.

Palantir lobbied UK pensions department for its software to tackle fraud

Re: "Reduce fraud in the social security benefits system"

Any money saved will only go into "Health" or "Education" that is provided by a private provider with links to the current Government. Gotta replenish the trough.

Hide and seek in outer space highlights a battle here on Earth

Re: Science

Or "The other guy might get there before you". That used to get Space Budget allocated!

How to get a computer get stuck in a lift? Ask an 'illegal engineer'

Re: With apologies to Phil Collins

Don't apologise to Phil Collins, after everything he's inflicted upon humanity!

Brit healthcare body rapped for WhatsApp chat sharing patient data

Re: Sigh..

Secure mobile clinical messaging systems do exist. Unfortunately the staff know what they like and they like what they know so it can be difficult to make the new app(s) stick.

Farewell, Aeolus: Doomed ESA weather sat reenters atmosphere over Antarctica

Re: Penguins???

The Penguins now have Space Technology. We should be afraid.

Nobody would ever work on the live server, right? Not intentionally, anyway

Re: not uncommon

Oh God. Back in 2002 (at my current employer) we had a bespoke-built Intranet system on a physical Dell server and a copy on a PC (same OS, in theory identical) as the test server.

Microsoft patches. Worked fine on Test. Rolled out to Live. Irretrievably broke the Live server which needed complete rebuild plus a full rebuild of the bespoke software at considerable additional cost.

This will now identify me to approximately three people in the world.

NASA mistakenly severs communication to Voyager 2

Re: Auto-correcting antenna aiming! Amazing!

And we only had 3 months of downtime as a result!

Infineon to offer recyclable circuit boards that dissolve in water

Re: 90C for 30 minutes

Indeed and I've got Switchzilla kit that runs normally at an internal temp of 60+ degrees, touching 80C sometimes. Also what's the ignition temp of the fibre substrate?

Clingy Virgin Media won't let us leave, customers complain

Re: Switching to a non-cable area? Fugedaboudit...

Same experience here. Moved home recently, already checked to see if I could port my service and couldn't. Tried to cancel and All I got was chatbot that couldn't help. Called up and was told to use chatbot. A long time later (hours) I got through to somebody in, well let's not call it "cancellations", it was the "customer retention" side. Asked my reason for wanting to cancel and would I consider a different tariff (new 24 month contract ahoy). Didn't read a damn thing from the chatbot or anything else I'd divulged. Had to give them my new address so they could confirm that they couldn't help me and then agreed to cancel the service.

I was out of contract and should have been able to phone up and say "cancel and confirm my last payment date".

Better than Plusnet, though, who won't even let you cancel if you're dead!

Fancy tinkering with the atmosphere? The Derecho supercomputer can advise

I've seen this before

Morpheus: "We do know that it was us that scorched the sky"

Also the plot of Highlander II, I recall. 2024 was the date that was set so we're almost there.

Obscure internet boutique Amazon sues EU for calling it a Very Large Online Platform

Re: because it mainly sells stuff, not advertising.

Yep and also what are "reviews" (which it hounds you to give for weeks after you've bought the Thing) but user generated content?

You're too dumb to use click-to-cancel, Big Biz says with straight face

Subscription for Monopoly

Ah so just like Software licensing, then. Looking at you, Virtzilla, Switchzilla, Redmond!

Post-Brexit tariffs on cross EU-UK electrical vehicle imports still going ahead

Re: Fuck business

We had a Veto.

We elected a load of Eurosceptics as MEPs. They didn't turn up to work. That was the problem.

BT CEO Jansen confirms he's quitting within 12 months

FTTP via BT Retail

If only they could integrate other services sufficiently so that I can get it on EEEEEEEEE. I watched the fibre being installed outside my house but I can't have it!

Europe's largest city council runs parallel systems to cover Oracle rollout mess

As a rule I don't comment on live Work things but this year we moved to an Oracle finance system.

It is widely regarded as "fucking shit" and "not as good as the old system" which was widely regarded as "fucking shit".

That takes some doing!

Out with the old, in with the new – Accenture declares AI is 'mature and delivers value'

Choo Choo

Accenture riding the AI hype train for short term profits (as is their habit) until they run it off the track.

Parker Solar Probe uncovers mystery of 'fast' solar winds

mystery of 'fast' solar winds

"Fast" Solar Nando's?

These Microsoft Office security signatures are 'practically worthless'

I can see OOXML "signed" documents being blocked by default and then never being fixed.

Clippy designer was too embarrassed to include him in his portfolio

Clippy was the first Microsoft Annoyance that had me screaming "oh just FUCK OFF!" across the office because it was an extra unwanted/unrequested step I needed to dismiss whilst getting on with the work.

Windows system messages always popping up in the bottom right hand corner of the screen right where I'm trying to scroll is Clippy's legacy.

For old times' sake, then: "FUCK OFF, Clippy!"

Software rollout failure led to Devon & Cornwall cops recording zero crime for 3 months

internationally tried and tested platform

"It worked alright in a different country with different rules, processes and completely different upstream systems so it'll be fine here"

That sounds like a very familiar Procurement rationale.

Activists gatecrash Capita's AGM to protest GPS tracking contract

"We urge Capita to take a principled stance"

Hahahahahahaha!

hahahahaha!

Seriously? Crapita?

Bwahahaha etc...

Fucking good luck with that one!

Millions of mobile phones come pre-infected with malware, say researchers

Re: Non-Google Android

To be fair, with Huawei there's no need to wonder whether your phone is infected with malware or not.

Ubuntu 23.04 welcomes three more flavors, but hamburger menus leave a bad taste

Like the one in the top right corner of this very site indeed.

Microsoft's new AI BingBot berates users and can't get its facts straight

Re: The mind boggles as to where it gets this stuff.

Google

Ride-snare: Lyft ruse helps cops cuff suspect in tech CEO murder case

Re: Important information missing from article

Silver Toyota Prius.

You could pretend to be just about any minicab company driver with one of those.

Jaguar Land Rover ropes in Gorillaz to help it lure 5,000 'electronic wizards'

Intended to fire up

“budding electronic wizards and coders”

Gorillaz? Really?

I mean, even I know their music and I'm about a thousand years old! Are they still relevant to Da Yoof?

Has riddle of the 1977 'Wow!' signal finally been cracked? Maybe...

Re: I'll wait thanks.

You'll be waiting a while. They can't just whistle up a comet in a lab, point a spectroscope at it and, bosh, Science!

Where do you publish comet research? In a periodical!

Coat. Yes.

Crapness of WannaCrypt coding offers hope for ransomware victims

Re: Doesn't reliably infect WindowsXP

Bugger! We shouldn't have done all that XP migration work after all.

Healthcare tops UK data breach chart – but it's not what you're thinking

Re: As long as someone admits to having an incident.

The ICO actually tend to take a lighter touch if you self report so it's very much in the interests of the org that has the breach to report it.

One example of how a data breach can occur in the health service, for example, is with automated mailing (snail and e) of patient discharge summaries to the GP that is registered on the patient record only for the GP to have changed so a GP gets information sent to them regarding a patient that is no longer theirs.

Data quality can cause data breaches.

Plastic surgery patients face extortion in wake of clinic data breach

Lithuanian airbags. I have no idea of the comparison of quality of the fake jubbage with Bulgarian ones.

That's got to be worth a research grant! Guranteed an IgNobel

Re: Implications

Hey, the broom cupboard is locked, what more do you want?

Acronis adds automated ransomware protection to latest Backup version

Re: "The product uses blockchain technology . . "

All the better to pay the bitcoin ransom?

NHS U-turns on blanket IR35 tax crackdown

Anything to do with mass contractor walkouts?

Yes. We nearly lost a *lot* of very good contract staff due to this. Very hasty new arrangements were made but some couldn't transition so we lost them.

Not quite chaos but certainly harmful.

El Reg straps on the Huawei Watch 2

FUGLY

Even the Classic Mode. They just look like Casio G-Shock rejects. Ugliest smartwatch I've seen and I include the Galaxy Gear in that!