Posts by John 104

Iowa has already won the worst IT rollout award of 2020: Rap for crap caucus app chaps in vote zap flap

Because it was side load, it wouldn't have to pass validation. The whole thing smells of rotten fish.

That's what makes you hackable: Please, baby. Stop using 'onedirection' as a password

Why is it so hard for people?

like one direction? You could do: "0n3 W@y $tr33t" as a mnemonic, keep a clue about your favorite boy band and still have a rock solid pass PHRASE...

AI 'more profound than fire', Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai tells rich folks' talking shop

Re: AI 'more profound than fire'

Well, war IS ridiculous...

Remember that 2024 Moon thing? How about Mars in 2033? Authorization bill moots 2028 for more lunar footprints

Re: Private money

No way I'm traveling Wayland....

Co-Op Insurance and IBM play blame game over collapse of £175m megaproject

Duh

When you fire all of your technical people this is what happens...

US court rules: Just because you can extract teeth while riding a hoverboard doesn't mean you should

Re: Alaskan treats

Cadbury, as noted. And dang, those things are SO gross.

The delights of on-site working – sun, sea and... WordPad wrangling?

Re: How did that work ?

Before notepad++ became ubiquitous, wordpad was a go to because it didn't fiddle with formatting. Not sure if it is the same today. Even Notepad screws with stuff if you aren't careful.

Intel server chip shortages continue to bite: HPE warns of Xeon processor supply drought for the whole of 2020

Re: EPYC Fail...?

I think it is more likely an EPYC win...

We have a few servers with those chips in them and they are ridiculously fast compared to our Xeon servers.

Leaks point to Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra with mammoth 108MP camera and ... what? 16GB of RAM

Here's to hoping that it actually does come with a 5000mAH battery - and doesn't need it to run for 4 hours...

To manufacturers: No one gives a shit about thin. Give us decent batteries please. An extra mm to the phone thickness is worth it....

Tabletop battle-toys purveyor Games Workshop again warns of risks in Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP project

Good on them for winning.

For me, though, I'm not sure what the draw is. It is a hugely expensive game to buy in to and in the end is just miniatures combat. Cool sculpting though.

Re: 'Good project management'

Should he have written it as *GW* to make you happy?

Smart speaker maker Sonos takes heat for deliberately bricking older kit with 'Trade Up' plan

Re: Original Controller Only

Agreed.

I have a CD/AM/FM boom box thing that I acquired in the early 90s. It has been my shop radio for decades and still works as good as the day it was new (although it is a lot dirtier).

This whole scheme of theirs smacks of corporate greed and environmental carelessness. I'm firmly in the camp of "question the 'settled science' claims of politicians" (if they are talking, they are lying) There is simply too many billions of $$ involved. But that doesn't mean that I condone material waste like this. Shame on them.

No Motorola Razr comeback orders in 2019: Costly foldy nostalgia mobe pulled back

At $1,500, this has now become the idiot tax item of the decade. Retro cool? Sure. Foldable? Neat. Worth that much more than a bog standard $500 phone? No way.

Starliner: Boeing, Boeing... it's back! Borked capsule makes a successful return to Earth

"Chilton also called out how pristine the capsule looked following its 1258 UTC landing at White Sands in New Mexico on 22 December"

Are they sure it was 1258UTC? Perhaps it was 01:58?

What do you mean your eardrums need a break? Samsung-owned JBL touts solar-powered wireless headphones you don't need to charge

Re: "68 hours of playtime from just 1.5 hours of sunlight"

Probably similar to my watch. Citizen eco drive. always charging and to date, i've never replaced the built in battery - going on 10 years?

Alphabet, Apple, Dell, Tesla, Microsoft exploit child labor to mine cobalt for batteries, human-rights warriors claim

Re: How much cobalt per car?

Maybe mined in Canada, but all of it is shipped to China for processing, where they don't give a shit about the environment.

The idea of a 'green' car that is battery powered is a total joke. The whole thing has to be one of the biggest bamboozles of all time.

My eyes thank you, Google: Android to get dark mode scheduling in future update

Re: A better solution?

What? Use the light sensor? Why, what a concept. Except this has always been in place. Up until Android 9, it worked really well. On my LG V40, it is useless. The display darkens so much that it is unusable in low light situations and won't adjust up. As a result, I manually set the brightness.

Hey, Google, How about you fix shit you broke before introducing new features? Or are you just trying to be like Microsoft?

Canada's .ca supremo in hot water after cyber-smut stash allegedly found on his work Mac ‒ and three IT bods fired

Wrongful Termination

At least in the states, that would be wrongful termination and cause for lawsuit. At the point of firing and NDA, I'd pause and go get a lawyer. One would hope that at this point, they can sue for damages.

Attention! Very important science: Tapping a can of fizzy beer does... absolutely nothing

Re: So many flaws

Can is OK to buy in, as long as you pour it into a glass. NEVER drink from a can. Unless it's Carlsburg. At least they didn't waste good beer....

Five new players – including Blue Origin and SpaceX – are now in NASA's race to send landers to the Moon

Re: Pittsburg, Colorado, Houston, Texas, California

Don't get all bitter just because the UK has no skin in the game...

Can't you hear me knocking? But I installed a smart knocker

Re: Well that was a waste...

I'm with Gumby.

I manage access control among my many IT hats. At least here in the states, you have to have a system that fails to unlocked in the event of a power failure. Otherwise the doors stay locked in an emergency. Such as, fire, tsunami, power failure with fire and tsunami, etc.

If the garbage you are buying fails to locked, I'd dump it. Seriously, what if your house was on fire and your wife was inside and couldn't get to a window? What garbage.

Complete with keyboard and actual, literal, 'physical' escape key: Apple emits new 16" $2.4k+ MacBook Pro

Re: Selective deafness

@Rainer

Don't be obtuse. No one carries a spare battery with them. The point is that when the battery dies, the consumer can source a new one and install it themselves. With the Apple way, it is glued in, and there is no recourse for replacing the battery - WHICH WILL WEAR OUT - other than paying exorbitant amounts at the 'genius' bar, or throwing the device away. Myself, I just replaced my battery in my HP. Cost me $40 and about 10 minutes with a screwdriver.

Re: it might he a hipster thing to do

Same with my Skylake HP Envy. 13" screen, completely serviceable. All screws on the bottom. No failing keyboard, no dead pixles, no catching on fire during use. And, it's less than half an inch thick. Looks fantastic and runs great. I upgraded the SSD and have just replaced the stock battery after 4 years. Oh, and it cost me $850 US.

Weird flex but OK... Motorola's comeback is a $1,500 Razr flip-phone with folding 6.2" screen

Re: Want one

But my mobile phone is already portable...

SpaceX flings another 60 Starlink satellites into orbit in firm's heaviest payload to date

yeah. I have mixed feelings on this one.

On one hand, very cool accomplishments. Keep up the work for science and the improvement of lift/orbit vehicles.

However, more litter? In the name of profit? Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Hyphens of mass destruction: When a clumsy finger meant the end for hundreds of jobs

Re: Nostalgia ain't what it used to be...

To support the same workload today, you'd "need at least an 8-core 64GB server", Jed observed.

So...any reasonably spec'd laptop or desktop. Or, if you want to go nuts, any high spec engineering workstation. Couple of xeons or epycs, some RAM and off you go.

Likely, to support a modern version of these workloads, you need a farm of servers, each handling mail, application loads, file services, etc. Data needs are, naturally, much larger these days. And performance is much faster. Also, one user doesn't have the ability to accidentally screw the rest of the office over due to a mistake.

++ for robocopy.

I always keep a formatted command ready to go just for the mirroring issue - too dangerous to not have it all thought out ahead of time. It's all wrapped up in a nice PowerShell script with variables for source/destination directories, logging, etc.

I really fell in love with it when I worked at Microsoft years ago as a contractor. One of my fellow workers didn't really understand the limits of the drag and drop of explorer. During a migration of a rather large file server (one that ,no kidding had financials and code from as far back as the 80's), the job kept failing. He kept cursing and trying again, but to no avail. I mentioned how he was doing it wrong and picked it up. One confirmed Robocopy script later and it was well on its way - along with the Z switch. Pretty sure I made an enemy that day, but I got the job done.

Like the Death Star on Endor, JEDI created a ton of fallout and stormy weather in cloud market

Thank you!

Re: Here We Go Again.

Reminds me of the T-shirt with the pic of the Dalek on it and the quote "R2-D2! I loved him in Star Trek!"

@cdrkat

One does not 'buy' a geek card. It is earned. If you didn't earn it, you can't have one. Sorry.

It's back: The mercifully normal-looking Moto 360 smartwatch

It is really amazing that we can have a watch shaped computer on our wrists. The RAM, CPU, and display were the things of childhood dreams for many, spanning decades from Dick Tracy to numerous Sci-Fi writings and shows. I'm truely impressed.

However, I just don't see the merit of one - yet. When they can pack a modem, BT WiFi, large amount of RAM, and a battery that lasts a month between charges,THEN these will be ubiquitous. Until then, they remain a gadget.

Re: 1 day battery?

And I'll keep wearing my Citizen eco-drive. 10 years on and I've never opened the case to replace the battery.

Billionaire Bezos unveils plans to land humans on Moon, with a little help from some old friends

It's true, other companies have been doing things. But winning contracts isn't the same as actually putting a product to market. The dream chaser is pretty darn cool, but is still really in development as well. And the rockets you mentioned have been in rotation since as early as 2000. To me, this is still SpaceX eating lunch of everyone else. Developing, certifying and launching rockets is no small task. So far, they seem to be leading the pack.

Regardless, it is an exciting time for space technology again. I was a kid in the 70s and 80s and marveled at the Apollo and shuttle programs (although the shuttle program was hugely wasteful). I'm glad to see public companies being allowed by the US and other governments to pursue these programs.

@Stuart

Oh, that's easy. 1. Space X.

While everyone else is futzing about and getting nothing done, Space X is eating their lunch and actually launching rockets and all the other amazing stuff they do.

US customers kick up class-action stink over Epson's kyboshing of third-party ink

Fuck Epson

My story...

Bought a very nice Epson scanner/color printer many years ago. It printed beautiful color on glossy stock. It really was impressive.

Until the starter cartridges ran out. Out of cyan? No worries, I'll just print my normal documents until I replace the cartr-sorry, you can't print black and white because the cyan is out. Oh, and that scanner that doesn't even use ink to perform its function? Yeah, I'm afraid we are going to disable that too, so that you have to buy cartridges. Grrr.

Went out, bought a full spread of cartridges, Epson brand. Ran them for about 2 months of light printing and they ran dry. It was around $150 or so to do.

Fool my once...

Went out and bought a color HP laser jet for around $300. Lasted me a decade and I bought replacement toner once or twice. It finally bought the farm and I bought another HP. Been running that for many years as well.

What I'm surprised is that they are allowed to do this after the Lexmark lawsuit years back. That turned out in the consumers favor, making it illegal to disable printers when third parties ink is used.

If every penny counts, buy a laser printer. Cost per page is 1-3 pennies vs .25 for ink jet.

Yay! The ozone layer hole the smallest it's ever been seen. That's not necessarily good...

Re: So Good news

@Spartacus

Yeah, I'm sure China, India, and other 'we don't give a fuck' countries were right on board because Western powers decided to play nice. It's right up there with catalytic converters, efficient engines, and carbon neutral ideas that we have been promoting for years. All good for us, but when India and China are pumping tons of the stuff into the atmosphere, it doesn't mean much.

Nothing's certain except death and patches – so that 'final' Windows 10 19H2 build isn't really

Headline Photo Props

Monument Valley. Nice.

Power to the users? Admins be warned: Microsoft set to introduce 'self-service purchase' in Office 365

Re: But

If you've set up your group policy correctly, this is true. You can deny install new software, you can deny the Store too, with the right GP objects installed.

So, what's fashion going to look like on the Moon in 2024? NASA's ready to show you the goods

Re: White → Orange

@phuzz

Don't forget the crackers!

Masters of Puppet say: There's no magical one-size-fits-all answer to doing DevOpsery

The Takeway

No one gives a rip about DevOps, but the Master of Puppets album art is a win.

Oh, and don't let Metallica see that you've used the art work! Register BAD! Metallica GOOD!

How do we stop filling the oceans with Lego? By being a BaaS-tard, toy maker suggests

Why did your wife make her kids play with Lego in the loft? Surely the bedroom or kitchen table is more suitable?

Welcome to the World Of Tomorrow, where fridges suffer certificate errors. Just like everything else

We are a family of 5 and have a 29 sq ft LG. No fancy screen, just water and ice. 29 is HUGE! when it is full, we're like, "Yeah! Flush with the eats!" and when it gets even half full it looks like a wasteland due to the extra space. But the big freezer is sure nice.

How bad is Catalina? It's almost Apple Maps bad: MacOS 10.15 pushes Cupertino's low bar for code quality lower still

Re: No problems here!

At the time, the Windows name was appropriate. Everything ran on DOS. It was all command line, so having a 'window' to look at your software was pretty revolutionary.

Imperva cloud firewall pwned, D-Link bug uncovered – plus more

Never Trust Your Backups

There was a good write up I read years ago about never trusting your backups. Something along the lines of test, and test often. I do it here at my shop for several different sites. Random files, VHDs, etc. It has saved my bacon more than once and I've seen it do the opposite for those who trusted their backup software when it said it did a thing (looking at you Backup Exec). Just a few weeks ago we had an outage and I was forced to restore 3 VMs from backup. All ended well.

However, for the case of the hospital, how long ago were they infected? How far back do their backups go? Are their backups infected...?

Remember the FBI's promise it wasn’t abusing the NSA’s data on US peeps? Well, guess what…

Re: This sounds a lot like...

Just wait....

This sounds a lot like...

"Given the slightest opportunity to spy on citizens, the FBI will take it, lie about it and when finally caught, promise to do better next time."

Sounds a lot like Facebook...

Game over: Atari VCS architect quits project, claims he hasn’t been paid for six months

I still can't get enough of Command HQ. Graphics are hilarious by today's standards but the play is still pretty solid, especially vs human.

Re: All too rose-tinted for me

TAITO for the win. I was a huge Darius junkie back in the day. Could play through certain paths on a single guy.

As for this whole thing. Originally I was under the impression it was a re-release of the old console, not to be a new platform. Who wants that? The market has its big players and even real companies don't stand a chance. Seems to me that one could buy a broken 2600, put a Pi in it, wire up some USB risers and call it sweet. Retro look, modern emulators. Done.

Re: ET part 2

Still not illegal to throw garbage away. For now...