Posts by Lord Elpuss

Protest group says Google has fired more staff over sit-ins opposing work for Israel

It may well be. Depends on the protest, and the circumstances; eg during work hours, wearing a company t-shirt, actively encouraging others, causing an obstruction or hindering the company’s activities… any of these could get you fired.

Re: King David Hotel

"That's irrelevant. Jews and Arabs were living in harmony and then Europeans landed and claimed the land. By force. In most books, that called colonization. End of story."

End of your story, yes. Call the nurse; your meds need refilling.

Re: King David Hotel

"For a start, I would not start my own country in a place where people have had their own country for centuries."

Such as who? I hope you're not referring to the State of Palestine.

"What really sticks out for me here are the piss-poor workers' rights in the USA."

I agree in general, but this is a specific situation that would result in dismissal in most countries.

I don't particularly like my client. I don't agree with their political stance, and I don't get on with how they treat their employees as disposable.

But it's my choice to continue working for them. I could choose to leave; but given that I don't, and I continue to bill them every month, I would consider it pretty arrogant to continue to take their money while knifing them in the back. My leverage is to stop working for them if I feel strongly enough.

"...while present, they weren't participating in the protest"

"One anonymous speaker, going by "Oreo," said that they, a Palestinian now-former Google employee with relatives in Gaza, only went into one of the protest sites to meet some of the participants of the sit-in. Afterward, Oreo claimed to have gone outside the building on public property to hold a sign in support of the protest."

I didn't participate in the murder, your honour; I just went round to his house to meet him, and happened to be holding the gun when it went off and shot him. Thirteen times.

Yeah you were a protester, no ifs or buts. And you got what was coming to you.

Voyager 1 regains sanity after engineers patch around problematic memory

Epic engineering chaps & chapesses. Have a >>>. And a stiff whisky for the person who actually has to press SEND, knowing that any cockup is likely to be utterly irreversible.

IBM accused of cheating its own executive assistants out of overtime pay

"Executive assistant and administrative assistant are both roughly synonymous with secretary. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary"

I don't care about the dictionary definition. I'm talking about IBM's definition. And IBM Executive Assistants were not secretaries.

I'm confused. Executive Assistant in IBM terms doesn't (or didn't used to) mean anything secretarial; the EA is typically an up-and-coming exec in their own right, 'shadowing' a senior exec in order to gain experience for their own future role. They're also very much not an 'exempt' employee - they're on salary, and a substantial one at that.

An administrative assistant, on the other hand, is a member of the secretarial pool who covers general administrative duties. Often for multiple managers, but the more senior execs get their own administrative assistant (or several).

Watchdog tells Dutch govt: 'Do not use Facebook if there is uncertainty about privacy'

Re: I have only one privacy issue with Facebook

Facebook would prosecute you? For what?

Unintended acceleration leads to recall of every Cybertruck produced so far

Re: Remind me

"Also don't forget the stainless steel they chose is such a cheap alloy that it will rust if it ever gets wet."

The problem isn't that it's cheap; the problem is that it's stainless steel at all; which is patently unsuitable for the job here.

PS it doesn't rust. It stains, which looks like rust but isn't. Stainless steel that... isn't.

Official: EU users can swerve App Store and download iOS apps from the web

Re: Freedom at last!

Ah well. At least your posts are being upvoted by all your friends.

Re: Freedom at last!

It's a good troll :)))

Re: Freedom at last!

Thank you for so eloquently proving my point :D

Re: If people want to side load crap onto their phone, they can buy an Android

Your first paragraph is correct.

Your second is not.

Re: If people want to side load crap onto their phone, they can buy an Android

Because market share is absolutely relevant, in the context of whether a government agency should intervene in a company's sales practices. Anybody who doesn't realize this needs to have their head examined.

Both IBM and Microsoft ask you to pay a fee to use their frameworks if they won't recoup revenue any other way. IBM earned more than $1.7bn last year from technology framework subscriptions, which is essentially the same thing as a Core Technology Fee.

Re: Where is the EU in this?

Grow up.

Re: If people want to side load crap onto their phone, they can buy an Android

"Apple's market share is irrelevant"

Dear oh dear.

Re: Freedom at last!

You're asking for a sensible response from a troll. I wouldn't hold your breath.

Re: Freedom at last!

Ah. You can't afford an iPhone and your mum won't buy you one. Got it.

Re: If people want to side load crap onto their phone, they can buy an Android

It always surprises me that on a site like the Register, where the commenterati is (presumably) of above-average intelligence due to the technical nature of the site, common sense comments like yours always attract so many downvotes from people who don't even bother to back up their downvote with a justification.

Apple are not the only option in the market; far from it. They do not have a monopoly position. They DO have a product which requires certain safeguards in order to maintain quality and revenue stream. They're entitled to take these measures.

It's that simple. And yet you state that here, on this otherwise intelligent website, and the comments section will accuse you of being a corporate shill and shred you with downvotes.

Re: Freedom at last!

iPhone landfill-ware?

It's not the most idiotic comment I've seen here. But you better hope that post doesn't get deleted.

Job interview descended into sweary shouting match, candidate got the gig anyway

Re: "He was also unable to do a decent wolf whistle!"

Even then. I wolf whistle my wife from time to time. She loves it. Goes all shy and giggly.

Re: "He was also unable to do a decent wolf whistle!"

“I like oranges.”

“So you hate lemons?”

“No, I just like oranges.”

“Disgusting lemon hater.”

Cloud vendor lock-in is shocking, but there's a get out of jail card

ODFO Charlie, I don’t owe you anything. Engage more than one braincell and I’m sure you’ll figure out the gist of my post without me having to spoonfeed you. It’s really not rocket science.

"You seem to presuppose the second source going broke but provide no real argument for this. In fact, the more companies that stipulate second source policies, the more choice we're all likely to have."

I'm not 'presupposing' anything, don't be daft. Companies go bust every day, and there's absolutely nothing guaranteeing that YOUR favourite supplier du jour is exempt in any way. Even Critical Vendor status is no guarantee.

If you want real arguments, how about this: US bankruptcies in 2023 were the highest in fifty years; across practically all industries, including Aerospace, IT and Manufacturing.

Definitely better than single-sourcing, until the second source goes titsup. Then you're back to monopoly suppliers, with all the risk that entails.

FTX crypto-crook Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years in prison

That's fair.

Right but it's also included for sentencing; the 25 years includes a component for conspiracy.

"The mastermind behind one of the largest cases of corporate fraud in US history was convicted on seven charges (conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers and lenders, actual wire fraud on the same"

Without passing judgement on the judgement, so to speak; I legitimately don't understand how you can be convicted of the separate offences of 'conspiracy to commit wire fraud' AND 'actual wire fraud' within the same act. If you conspire but fail to follow through, then ok that is a separate, legitimate charge and I understand it. But if you're convicted of 'actual', that should then encompass the 'conspiracy' part. Otherwise they could create separate offences for each and every part of the planning process.

Seems to me they're padding the charge sheet here.

Unrelated note: my car needed new brake pads recently. I got a message on the dash saying I needed new brake pads. It was abundantly clear that I needed new brake pads. Went to the garage (big Stuttgart-based German manufacturer who shan't be named) and asked for new brake pads.

Got the invoice. €590 for new brake pads, €45 excl. VAT for "Diagnostics" to determine whether I needed new brake pads. Fuck no. If I come to you and say "My car doesn't seem to be stopping well but I don't know what the problem is", then sure charge me a diagnostics fee. But you don't get to charge extra for stating the bleeding obvious. Just like the 'conspiracy to' versus 'actual' argument.

How a single buck bought bragging rights in the battle to port Windows 95 to NT

Re: Windoze NEVER worked well.

Was it stable though? Asking for a friend, I have no idea and no dog in this fight ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It is. And already been downvoted by Bob Day, I see. :D

London Clinic probes claim staffer tried to peek at Princess Kate's records

Re: peek at Princess Kate's records

You do.

Re: Don't dignify the tabloids

It hasn't been brought up because it's not the cause. It might explain one or two of the artifacts, but the rest are clearly photoshop; plus Kate admitted she'd Photoshopped it.

Old adage: everything's for sale, including morality. It just depends on the price.

People can and will argue that they would 'never' do something e.g. access records they're not allowed to, until some Middle East outfit offers them a billion quid no questions asked.

Re: Hard to fight the feeling that had this been a regular person

Why capitalise audit?

"All was proved well at the weekend when a healthy looking Kate was spotted at a farm shop doing a spot of shopping."

Haha tell me this is a joke.

Exposed: Chinese smartphone farms that run thousands of barebones mobes to do crime

Re: 1,000 smartphones all hard at work

You don't need a SIM to post comments or place fake orders...

Virgin Media sets up 'smart poles' next to cabinets to boost mobile network capacity

Re: color matched with the street cabinet beside it

As far as left-pondians are concerned, the world consists of the USofA (MURCAAAH), and... some smelly marshland that still has dragons and castles. The concept of real (British) English escapes them.

"We asked VMO2 if it intended to provide "appropriate community engagement," even if there is no official need for planning permission.

The company told The Register it always works "closely with Local Authorities before installing new infrastructure and notify residents ahead of works taking place."

So for VMO2, "appropriate community engagement" = putting up a sign a few days before saying telco works will take place here. That's neither 'appropriate' nor 'engagement'; in fact even 'community' is debatable.

Apple Vision Pro rentals take China by storm ahead of official release

The snark was strong in this one, Richard. Did the nasty Apple not invite you to one of their events?

Apple to settle class action for $490 million after Tim overcooked China outlook

I believe this primarily impacted investors who were interested in the China outlook, and made their investment decisions accordingly.

Voyager 1 starts making sense again after months of babble

Digital twinning is a useful concept (and I'm sure they're doing it, or something very similar) - but using genAI/LLM on such an incredibly failure-sensitive and risky project would be beyond madness. For once the reasons for NOT doing this aren't budget.

Re: Ah! Memories!

Sorry, is that just a random plug? I fail to see the link.

Re: Great news

"It won't stop until it hits something."

Yes so one day it will stop. Not any day soon, but one day.

IBM CEO pay jumps 23% in 2023, average employee gets 7%

Re: Interesting because of the legal mess he just landed IBM in.

Quotas are objectively bad. Full stop.

Biden's State of the Union included a battle cry against AI mimicry

Re: If America wants to be great again...

And 110v. What's that about.

Tilting the playing field IS a competitive tactic.

All's fair in love and business...