Posts by John 104

NASA's Curiosity puts cat among the climate pigeons: Lack of CO2 sinks water theory

Re: Carbons not the only greenhouse gas

@AC

The Register ran similar articles regarding the massaged data some years ago. Of course, this was back when El Reg was a tech site..

RAF pilot sent jet into 4,000ft plummet by playing with camera, court martial hears

Career = Over.

Big Tech files anti-Trump brief: Immigration ban illegal and damaging to business

@ AC RE War

Nope. He can't. Only congress has that power. The president can initiate other actions that closely resemble it, but aren't. Strangely, he CAN order the launch of ICBMs. Weird.

Re: And the system works, as intended. Stop panicking already.

@TIKIMON

Sort of...

Yes, checks and balances are in place to prevent crazy crap from happening. In this case, however, the president is within his power, as enacted by law, to do what he did. The judges who put a ban in place know this. They aren't stupid. They are playing a political game for points. Ultimately this will end up in the supreme court, be overturned, and we'll move on. By the time it is heard and goes through the lower courts, the 120 days will be over and it will be a moot point. They will have won a political victory by snubbing the POTUS, the law be damned.

As for the tech companies doing what they did, of course they did. They are in a panic because they know legislature modifying the H1B visa program is on the way. It means they won't have cheap labor on deck any more. Realize that these employees are bound to their employer. So, you WILL work 80 hours a week for the base pay you were hired on. Don't like it? Here is the door. Next. It's a shame for both the foreign workers and for domestic ones. I've seen it first hand and it is ugly.

Re: ...

@BillG

Don't confuse the argument with facts.This isn't about facts or law! This is about stopping that madman!

Re: ...

@Redstone

The flip side of this argument is that the Obama administration identified these countries as places from which it is impossible to get any kind of verification information for visa applicants. There is also a lot of terrorist related activity in each of these countries. Some caution on folks arriving from there would seem reasonable.

Reason is in short supply when it comes to anything that the left sees as not on their agenda. If it doesn't line up, its hate speak, no matter if it makes perfect sense.

Re: time for CA to CAEXIT from the Union?

Good riddance. They can leave all they want. The rest of us will just start charging more for the power and water they import....

Well-rested women in danger of bouncing their men into early grave

OR, you could stay physically active as you get older so your heart is in good shape. I'd like to see information on how much exercise these same blokes got prior to their 'event'.

Trump's visa plan leaks: American techies first

H1B Victim

Having been the victim of such layoffs (at Disney) I applaud this. I packed my shit while H1B or greencard or whatever workers got to stay. Not a good day.

The wage floor needs to be raised. Period. Make it too expensive to hire them and the jobs will come back to our own soil and might even encourage kids to study STEM subjects.

I also find it humorous that this has been an issue for some years and one that DT promised to fix during his campaign. Only now that he is in office does a Dem step up and say "Hey! this needs fixing and we are here to do it!"

Re: As long as the H1B visa has the present restrictions, it needs to be cut

@Voland

I'm sorry, but no one is forcing these people to take jobs out of their country. If their own country can't support the field of study they have chosen, perhaps they should have studied something else? Either way, I have no sympathy for the scenario whatsoever. Don't like the requirements? Don't do it.

Parliamentary Trump-off? Pro-Donald petition passes 100k signatures

Tech angle must be that it was an online petition.

Way to go Reg.

Re: nice!

@lansalot

It isn't that there aren't as many supporters. Its just that so many of them actually have jobs and can't be arsed with the whole thing.

Father of Pac-Man dies at 91

@ Dr. Who

Ugh. The ATARI version was awful! Horrid sounds, barely passable graphics. Not sure how they screwed it up so badly.

Has President Trump’s executive order on 'Public Safety' killed off Privacy Shield?

You don't have to be in a country to take legal action against it. Do you suppose people who want to immigrate to the U.S. first start out by illegally entering and then applying for citizenship? The laws are in place for a reason. They aren't very well enforced and are difficult to work with, but they are there.

If I wanted to become a citizen of the UK how do you suppose I would go about it? Just show up and hope for the best? No, I'd go through proper channels and do it the right way. It might be a pain in the arse, but if its something I want, then I'll do what I need to. If I feel that I'm mistreated by the UK customs folks, then I have available to me methods to address it.

I would suggest that any foreign national seeking redress of any kind in the United States would go through the proper legal channels, just like any other country. There is no magical exception to the rule of law in the United States just because the topic is a sensitive one.

Re: Nice Try, now go home.

@ Version 1.0

I don't think, given the evidence so far, that Mike Pence or his sock puppet, give a damn about the constitution

Oh, you mean just like the supposed 'Constitutional Scolar' Obama?

Facebook ‘Happy Birthday’ lawsuit rolls on

Re: Really??

@AC

Doesn't matter. If you have a friend or business associate who is on face book and has your contact info, FB has it.

Dicks.

Fitbit plans layoffs – report

Not surpised

Still don't see the appeal of this product. I exercise (mountain bike) and know I get a good workout when I get my heart rate up and sweat profusely. The heart rate monitor on these devices is know to be inaccurate, so no benefit there. Pedometer? I can get one for $20 or use my phone. So I'm left with wearing a slightly unreliable watch thingie that doesn't tell time...?

Naughty sysadmins use dark magic to fix PCs for clueless users

Re: BOFH fan-fic?

Speaking of BOFH, its near February and we have yet to be blessed by another tale this year...

@Bootnote

So there, Bitches!

Apple eats itself as iPhone fatigue spreads

If it isn't the case, and canny buyers are simply more aware of value, then new gimmicks packed into this year's iPhone 8 may not be enough to renew demand.

You do realize, of course, that this statement makes no sense in the context of the millions of drones who buy the product?

Re: The timing of this 'release'

@ Steve Davies 3

$121? My how the mighty have fallen.... Didn't this stock used to be in the $600s?

2017 is already fail: Let’s try a Chinese reboot

@Alistar

Just don't go. And point out their idiocy. One of two things will happen:

1. They'll never hire you again.

2. They'll learn to respect you and do a better job at communicating.

Either way you'll be happier. :)

'I AM TWEETING TRUTH TO POWER: AND YOU CAN'T STOP MY FACTS, MR PRESIDENT!'

Re: Hail Trump!

@ Potemkine

Enough already.

You and your like who compare Trump or any other sitting politician to Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, or Lennon need to go back to school (there were idiots comparing Obama to Hitler as well during his time) . Read the histories of those leaders and the atrocities they committed and ask yourself, without your political bent, if it really holds true. The constant comparison of any leader in the last 40 or 50 years to these people is insulting to those who suffered under them, insulting to the awful legacy they left behind, and ultimately a sign of your immaturity and childishness, no matter what your political affiliation..

None of our 1st world 'leaders' has led millions on death marches.

Or forced millions to produce weapons of war, or perhaps the road of bones, until they dropped dead from sickness or exhaustion.

Or lined up undesirables by the thousand and shot them into mass graves, moving on to gas because it was cheaper than bullets.

Please, take a mature approach to your views and try to be less like a child and more like an adult. You might just surprise yourself with a little honesty.

I'm deadly serious about megatunnels, vows Elon Musk

@Chrissy

OR, he is one of those so smart people that he can't be arsed with the university system. A few highly successful tech businessmen come to mind.

Windows 10 networking bug derails Microsoft's own IPv6 rollout

You do have to wonder – if even Microsoft can't get IPv6-only working, what chance is there for any other company to?

Why bother? As state in part above, unless you are a really large company or have very specific networking needs, IPv4 should be sufficient.

General Electric plays down industrial control plant vulnerabilities

Re: Oh jeez...

I feel like I should know what movie this is but i'm coming up empty.

Hacker cracks Facebook with remote code execution bug

It can only collect what you willfully place on it.

Or perhaps, things you don't willfully place on it. Like your contact info scraped from a friends list. Not a FB user? Who gives a shit, we have your info anyway and what are you going to do about it?

Ransomware brutes smacked 1 in 3 NHS trusts last year

Re: HR Issue

@ Lost all faith

The answer to all of those questions is this: $$$

These things take resources and money. In our environment (healthcare) we are understaffed and over loaded with projects. Sustained engineering is not a priority, and neither is updating our equipment or software.

AI and robots? Will someone think of the jobs, says HPE CEO Whitman

@AC

"Hey, just what you see here, pal."

Mr Angry pays taxman with five wheelbarrows worth of loose change

Change The Picture?

Those are not U.S. pennies. I haven't seen a British penny, but it looks more like Canadian coin to me?

Back on topic. I sympathize with the guy. And if I had deep enough pockets I'd probably do something similar. Good for him. We've all been there.

As for paying. I'm not sure about coins, but I know that paper money in the U.S. is legal for ALL debts, public and private. Says so on the print. This isn't the first time I've read stories like this in The States, so I would imagine that it holds for coin as well.

Tell us about that $1m horse, Mr Samsung: Bribery probe slips deep into South Korean giant

Shocking!

Political favors for money? Not shocking.

Actually prosecuting those involved? Beyond shocking. If only we could get some of that moxy here in the states..

Too much landfill, too little purpose: CES 2017

Barfing

I tried a Samsung VR at Best Buy recently. Within 5 minutes I felt motion sick and nauseous. I don't typically get these symptoms. I own a small fishing boat and spend plenty of time on the water in rough conditions and the only time I've ever gotten sea sick is when I drank too much the night before and was hung over. (I did catch a riotous Coho salmon that day though)

Imagine the average consumer who doesn't tolerate this sort of thing at all?

Fake History Alert: Sorry BBC, but Apple really did invent the iPhone

Rewrite history?

how does Fake History gradually supersede the reality-based version? It's through repetition

You mean, like saying that climate change is settled science? Say it enough times and it must be true! Never mind that pesky scientific method...

Trello, hello, hello: Todo list biz gobbled by Atlassian for $425m

Cool

More productivity helping tools in one place. We use it here at work and it is decent.

NASA taps ESA satellite Swarm for salty ocean temperature tales

Cool Stuff, Still Collecting Data

I love the science behind the methods of collecting data. Humanity at its finest. What I can't stand, however, is the unending beating that we are being subjected to of it being proven, settled, etc.I'm sorry, but the scientific method doesn't work that way. We are collecting data and trying to make sense out of it. We haven't proven anything other than that temperatures fluctuate. Genius. Come back in a thousand years when we have a good sampling and then prove the point. Until then, it is still just speculation driven by politics and the dollar.

In the mean time, please lets continue to reduce our emissions and pollution. I'm all for it. Look at Beijing. Dang. That place is out of control. When the snow is toxic you know something has to be changed.

'DNC hackers' used mobile malware to track Ukrainian artillery – researchers

Re: Interesting

I'd be more inclined to call it cyber intelligence vs cyber warfare. There are no shots fired by this software, it is just information gathering that was used to the advantage of the Russians.

Oracle exec quits over co-CEO Safra Catz's promise to assist Trump

Idiot

What an idiot.

I'm all for having a political viewpoint. However, letting it get in the way of your professional career, unless you are in the political machine, is immature, idiotic, and very short sighted.

@Just Enough

Technically, we here in the U.S. are a republic.

Re: "Planned Register of Muslims"

@AC

As the saying goes, you can tell a politician is lying ... his lips are moving.

That is the interesting thing. He isn't a politician.

Re: "Planned Register of Muslims"

@Dr_N

You have absolute proof of a positive?

Didn't think so.

Congratulation!

Re: "Planned Register of Muslims"

@Roo

Indeed. I read an article this morning about how the Democratic party is going to impeach him for conflict of interest. No government employee should receive monetary compensation in lieu of favorable policy policy, blah blah.

The irony. Clinton foundation gets hundreds of millions and that is OK? But if it is Trump we must take action!

Sports blog jocks to crypto-cash nerds – here's who got pwned

Seriously?

Ethereum said the hacker, who was also connected to an attack on investor Bo Shen, used social engineering to get access to a forum backup made in April of this year.

If you are even putting backups of user DBs in a place where a support tech or any other person has access to them and the ability to put them on a forum, your management should be fired. That is inexcusable.

Stupid law of the week: South Carolina wants anti-porno chips in PCs that cost $20 to disable

Re: Out of State

@Chris G

Sure they do. They know it will never pass, but they do it so that they can show that they are "Doing Something" about X. Its such a waste of money and time.

IT ops doesn't matter. Really?

Re: DevOps was never supposed to replace Operations

Yes, DevOps isn't about replacing Ops. But try telling that to the powers that be. It is sold and seen as a cost cutting measure.

As for devs learning Ops and vice versa, there are very few on both sides who really understand what it takes to do the others job. I have a very high regard for Devs, but when it comes to infra, they are, as a whole, very incompetent. Just like I'm incompetent in Dev. can't have one without the other. I feel that in time, the pendulum will swing away from cloud as execs and accountants realize how it isn't really saving any money.

The real question is: Will there be any qualified operations engineers available or will they all have retired out or have found work elsewhere. It isn't easy to be an ops engineer, takes a lot of experience to get there, and qualified candidates are hard to come by. Let's face it, in today's world, its a dying breed.

Very Nice

Nice of you to point out what us in Ops have known all along. I'm afraid it will fall on deaf ears, though. Until the executives who constantly fall for the new shiny are made to actually examine business needs and processes and make business decisions based on said.

Our laughable move to cloud here involved migrating off of on prem Exchange to O365. The idea was to free up our operations team to allow us to do more in house projects. Funny thing is, it takes more management of the service than we ever did on premises. True, we aren't maintaining the Exchange infra, but now we have SQL servers, DCs, ADFS, etc, to maintain in the MS cloud to allow authentication just to use the product. And because mail and messaging is business critical, we have to have geographically disparate instances of both. And the cost isn't pretty. Yay cloud.

@AC

Spoken like a true ddeveloper...

FTFY

UK Home Office slurps 1,500 schoolkids' records per month

"It has evidently zero educational or funding purpose.."

False. If children of illegal immigrants are not paying taxes, then one purpose of this is properly funded education for the children of taxpayers. What benefit is YOUR child losing because the funds that YOU pay are being diluted to accommodate those who pay nothing?

We have the same effing issue in the states. Millions (yes millions) of illegals (and not just Mexican, although most of them come through that border) are in our school system, from primary through college. Every one who is enrolled and is not being properly paid for by taxes is taking from those who are.

Locally, we have an instance of an illegal student who is president of student body at a college. He is in the states illegally and boasted about how he had to attend 5 different high schools as a child because his parents were always evading immigration. Now he is trying to make the college a "sanctuary" college so he doesn't have to face the laws that he is breaking.

I ask this: What tax paying citizen was denied a place in that college because of his illegal activity? What primary aged child was denied a proper education because of overcrowded classes or a needed lunch or after school program because of the children who are in the country illegally who took their benefit?

I'm all for educating the masses, and no one wants to see a child suffer. It makes it better for everyone in the long run. But we can't ignore the issue because "Think of the children." It is a viscous cycle that 1st world countries with poor border control are in. The fix is securing the borders and actually deporting illegals when they are apprehended. It isn't an easy or cheap task, and will likely be distasteful in the short term, but it needs to be done or the problem will only get worse. Until then, its just honest working class people paying for those who abuse the system.

Will Wikipedia honour Jimbo's promise to STOP chugging?

Why?

It's always about the money.

Wikipedia tries to paint itself as a noble endeavor to bring information to the masses. The reality is that a few up top use this as a guilt laden marketing campaign to line their wallets.

In other news, the sky is blue.

Sysadmin 'fixed' PC by hiding it on a bookshelf for a few weeks

Re: Symon

"Emergency Repair Procedure Number 1."

"You kicked it?"

"Yep"