Posts by Adrian 4

Computer shuts down when foreman leaves the room: Ghost in the machine? Or an all-too-human bit of silliness?

Re: How the hell does someone become foreman w/o a sense of cause & effect?

No, he's fine.

Cause : computer is fucked

Effect : Hell desk man comes

the last day before you went home, or the last day before it exploded / shot into orbit ?

Re: Fuel pumps

It didn't work for long enough to play the last line

Re: Power socket on the lighting circuit?

its a movie, so it doesn't have to be practical.

In real life, you'd have y-shaped adapter in your light fitting with a bulb in one branch and optionally a shaver/iron/toaster/arc furnace in the other.

Re: Power and lighting together

Or a ring main, like god's own country.

Re: US Residential Wiring

That sounds like hotel wiring, as does turn-off-the-power-with-the-lights

How you're supposed to charge your laptop when you can't leave the power on is a mystery. Maybe use the fridge power.

IKEA: Cameras were hidden in the ceiling above warehouse toilets for 'health and safety'

Surely even Dusgusted of Tunbidge Wells is disgusted by the present bunch ?

They're beyond apology.

They not even tories, they're a subspecies

2FA? More like 2F-in-the-way: It seems no one wants me to pay for their services after all

time for change

Alistair tells it like it is.

We need to get and there and PROVE that these security-obsessed arseholes are the first against the wall come the revolution.

I love that my bank and credit card claim, by making their use impossibly difficult and resulting in multiple unwanted cancellations, to be trying to save me from 3rd world thieves. No, you're not. Be honest. You're trying to save yourselves from first world thieves by adding to my inconvenience. You forget that it's YOUR business and YOUR problem if you can't make it work reliably. Fix your own bugs. Don't pass them on to me. That is specifically what the banking regulations making you responsible for fraud were intended to so stop wriggling and stand up to the plate.

Years of development, millions of lines of code, and Android can't even run a toilet

Marvin would enjoy this

Brain the size of a planet and here I am, flushing urinals.

https://youtu.be/z0yBf1JKTw8?t=116

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jLIRJwfZhg

UK government isn't keeping track of the risk posed by legacy systems, says Central Digital and Data Office

Maybe they could get some competent politicians ?

Nope, that's a non-starter.

How long till some drunkard puts a foot through one of BT's 'iconic, digital smart city communication hubs'?

Iconic

Wouldn't the traditional red and white tent have been more iconic ?

Muddy hole inside optional.

Ex-DJI veep: There was no drone at Gatwick during 2018's hysterical shutdown

Follow the money

If the end 'benefit' was to those elements who like to ensure there's a law to cover every eventuality, that's where the finger of suspicion for starting the panic should point.

Astro Pi 2: New Raspberry Pi hardware with updated camera, sensors to head to the ISS this year

Networking

obligatory xkcd

Boffins say Martian colonists could pee in buckets, give blood if they want shelter

Stillsuits

are what they'll need.

UK.gov is launching an anti-Facebook encryption push. Don't think of the children: Think of the nuances and edge cases instead

Re: So perhaps Politicians should put their own Houses in order

Hasn't parliament itself already harboured paedophiles, terrorists and mobsters ?

Potential abuse

We have often heard criticisms of laws and the attachment of oversight because 'some future government might abuse them'.

The current government is that government.

British data watchdog brings cookies to G7 meeting – pop-up consent requests, not the delicious baked treats

Re: Definition of a cookie

Hasn't someone - apple, maybe ? - made their browser partition data by website so that the only cookies available were set in that site's private universe ?

GitHub merges 'useless garbage' says Linus Torvalds as new NTFS support added to Linux kernel 5.15

Re: All very fine.....love it when the anoraks get excited about stuff like "git"........

If you don't want constant updates the solution is simple : don't follow a dev track which is there specifically to allow frequent, poorly tested updates.

From your examples, I would suggest you want the releases marked 'LTS' or long-term-stable.

Try Debian. they're exceptionally careful about what goes in, and you won't suffer much harm if you miss out every other release for even longer life.

Banned: The 1,170 words you can't use with GitHub Copilot

Re: Usage

I guess Jon Postel won't be using it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle

Confessions of a ransomware negotiator: Well, somebody's got to talk to the criminals holding data hostage

more on prevention

Would like to read more on prevention of these attacks.

Currently I only know the obvious issues of verified backups and anti-phishing measures - the first being more reliable than the second.

US Air Force chief software officer quits after launching Hellfire missile of a LinkedIn post at his former bosses

+ for the good boss > skilled boos

- for the sour grapes

What's the top programming language? It's not JavaScript but Python, says IEEE survey

Conversely, Python generates more questions because you never know if the code you have will be compatible with the version you installed.

Amusingly, it's supposed to be superior to Perl because Perls is a write-only language. Python may be clearer, but it's still write-only because it has a too-rapidly-changing standard.

Fake Apple rep amasses 620,000+ stolen iCloud pics, vids in hunt for images of nude women to trade

Re: Does he not know...

Naked cats.

Borking on the corner, watching the world go by

risk assessment

Likelihood : 100%, eventually.

Mitigation : Nobody reads advertising signs anyway

GitHub's Copilot may steer you into dangerous waters about 40% of the time – study

Re: sprintf?

Blindly following rules is the reason for today's code bloat and stackoverflow dependency.

You should use whichever of strcpy or strncpy etc. your intention demands. Don't just make silly rules and expect everyone to follow them.

Copilot considered harmful

I rapidly dumped VS when its annoying autocomplete and function 'help' insisted on blitzing my screen with useless and incorrect messages. It seems unlikely Microsoft have learnt anything in the intervening years so why on earth would I want to take VS's advice on the code itself ?

Apple didn't engage with the infosec world on CSAM scanning – so get used to a slow drip feed of revelations

Re: Sounds like

"Therefore Apple are immediately guilty the moment an unencrypted image exists on an Apple server, and their human is also guilty if it's sent to their device."

This seems an excellent point. While Apple claim to avoid accessing a customer's data by searching on the phone itself and then alerting police to make further enquiries, the verification stage where they intentionally copy the data (having reasonable expectation that it's CSAM) to their servers to do a second hash appears to be a hole a mile wide.

Re: Pot Kettle Black

Why is a software agent that runs on a user's computer (phone) any different in law from retrieving the data and executing the algorithm on your servers ?

Cloud load balancer snafu leads to 3D printer user printing on a stranger's kit

signing

'Coalfire pointed out was the apparent lack of signing for firmware updates, meaning anyone could install any binary to the device."

I'd consider that a basic requirement of any such device. Why would I want a machine I couldn't fix ?

Trust Facebook to find a way to make video conferencing more miserable and tedious

Re: "your table dynamically scales"

How did you manage that ?

It goes unstable for me above 4

UK's National Data Guardian warned about GP data grab being perceived as going 'under the radar'

Re: ignorance or indifference?

Unfortunately true.

So the government also needs to explain why they should and the consequences of that, or they will still fail the people who employ them to manage the country.

China starts testing tech to harvest solar energy from orbiting panels

Safe receivers

Large solar cells and microwave transmission seems an inefficient way to do it : you've got two conversions and neither is very efficient.

A solar oven seems a better way : many moderately sized reflectors which together focus on a single area. Failure of a few of them tom track would not be dangerous : it would only double the sunlight on the accidental target.

The intentional target could be in the sea, boiling seawater to make steam and simultaneously desalinating while allowing a large safety border.

The large passive reflectors would be slow to re-orientate, making it difficult to use as a weapon.

Re: Er, isn't this a weapon ?

If it can be used as a weapon, then maybe all governments will want to invest in it.

The web was done right the first time. An ancient 3D banana shows Microsoft does a lot right, too

Re: Maybe not.

> You all seem to have missed the point I made about requirements. If you need to chop down 100 trees in a day, then your axe will never be sufficient. It is obsolete. If you only need to chop down 5, then your Axe is perfectly fine and it is not obsolete.

That's not obsolete. It's just underrated.

Re: Would need a 32-bit Windows?

> I'm not as up-to-date on Linuxes as I should be, but haven't some distros announced that they're abandoning 32-bit?

Much easier in Linux as there are very few legacy 32-bit binaries to cope with. Even those apps that still think an integer is 16 or 32 bits can be fixed, because source.

Chocolate beer barred from sale after child mistakes it for chocolate milk

Surely the unforgiveable error is to store a stout in the fridge ?

Woman sues McDonald's for $14 after cheeseburger ad did exactly what it's designed to

Re: Traceability

I never heard of a farm that grew wet cardboard

Re: Really?!?

Upvote for the icon

New GNOME Human Interface Guidelines now official – and obviously some people hate it

Re: CUA FTW.

My pet hate is the gesture stuff, where you can't just grab a title bar and drag a window because if you do it wrong it will maximise or minimise the window instead.

And then there're those deep menu structures where you have to carefully and accurately follow each row to get to the next level, like a tightrope walker navigating a power distribution station on the 11kV wires.

Full Stream ahead: Microsoft will end 'classic' method of recording Teams meetings despite transcription concerns

Re: 273 years ... That's a strangely specific number.

So they're limiting it to fit into 100,000 days ... making sure it fits into a 17-bit number ? Seesm an odd constraint.

US labor official suggests Amazon's Alabama workers rerun that unionization vote

True enough.

But really, is it necessary to attempt to load the ballot so hard the other way ?

Why not just be honest and decent ?

Would that be so hard ?

If Amazon played by the rules and still won, it would be a clear result. The fact that they don't implies they expect to lose.

LOL ;-) UK govt 2 pay £39m 4 txt msgs 4 less thn 2 yrs

Re: Seems like a good contract to have

You just need to join the bidding list, aka the Tory party donation list

Redpilled Microsoft does away with flashing icons on taskbar as Windows 11 hits Beta

Featuritis

This is just bikeshedding. Too many managers with no clue having to have their say.

These sort of tweaks should be user options, not concreted into the OS.

What do I care, though ? I use W7 and XP for legacy stuff, and have had no need for W10. W11 is even less interesting.

Sysadmins: Why not simply verify there's no backdoor in every program you install, and thus avoid any cyber-drama?

evil code

Could we not implement a form of RFC3514 for executables ?

BOFH: They say you either love it or you hate it. We can confirm you're going to hate it

Re: ... to be continued ...

Escalation ? How do you escalate to a pale imitation ?

What is your greatest weakness? The definitive list of the many kinds of interviewer you will meet in Hell

Re: Best interview

All my best jobs have been those where the interview was not a test but a meeting of engineers.

My best advice for interviews is to turn them around. Don't let them be 'can I fool this person into employing me' but 'will I enjoy working with this person and do I want to confer on them the privilege of working with me'.

if you're only interviewed by nameless and pointless HR people and not the manager you'll be working with - or, better, the engineers - then run away as fast as you can. If that's the habit of your industry, abandon it and find one with actual people.

"and even your watch (for our younger readers, in the last century people would spend thousands on a clockwork toy on their wrist if one a bit like it was worn by a golfer on TV)."

In other words, the same as an iPhone.

I no longer have a burning hatred for Jewish people, says Googler now suddenly no longer at Google

It's not a network form professionals. It's a network for people who want to be considered professional and generally show their neediness by talking themselves up.

Whether that makes it a good place to bare your soul is debatable, but unlikely since it's most likely to be read by other linked-inners and judged without love or tolerance.

Refreshing: An Office update that won't frighten the horses

Re: I love the approach

Ok, so you're trolling and so am I (i''ve never used the dreaded ribbon, nor am likely to).

But what's good about making things easier for the 5% of the time that you're a newbie, if it's a nuisance for the other 95% ?

Lightweight VS Code is only getting heftier with addition of official web server extension

xkcd