* Posts by Spanners

1666 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Sep 2009

As US scientists flee Trump, MP urges Britain to do more to nab them

Spanners
Childcatcher

Re: Hmm

The exemption for beef is only for beef that meets our standards, most of theirs doesn't. And is also only of practical benefit if it is price-competitive with our beef, which it isn't. That also amounts to nothing.

I read a news article about this recently. Apparently, their ranchers see our dislike of BGH in our food as protectionist and were lobbying their Philanderer in Chief to punish us for it.

Spanners
Devil

Re: Hmm

Or Robert Kennedy?

How do you explain what magnetic fields do to monitors to people wearing bowling shoes?

Spanners
Happy

Buffer overflow noise

I got a call from a user on the support number. I could barely hear what they said because a keyboard buffer was making its complaint. I interrupted them and asked them to remove whatever was lying on their keyboard so I could hear them.

The noise stopped.

"Thank you for fixing that"

They hung up

Three seconds?

OK, Google: Are you killing Assistant and replacing it with Gemini?

Spanners
Holmes

What else would I want to do with is

I use Alexa to play Scala Radio to my dog overnight.

I use Alexa to set timers for cooking.

I use Alexa to do lights but SWMBO doesn't like it.

The only other use she gets is making animal noises when our daughter comes around.

I may be unimaginative but I don't want much else

One stupid keystroke exposed sysadmin to inappropriate information he could not unsee

Spanners
Facepalm

Re: Radio comms...

No. I is never indigo.

I think it is pretty common error amongst people without a uniform in their past though.

Spanners

Re: Quite the opposite experience

Can you imagine what the likes of Oracle would do to the national police network if they were let near it?

I imagine they'd sell it as well as give it to all their spooks!

Does this thing run on a 220 V power supply? Oh. That puff of smoke suggests not

Spanners
Linux

Re: 100V

Japanese hardware runs on 100V, not 110V.

It depends on where in Japan you are.

UK Home Office silent on alleged Apple backdoor order

Spanners
Big Brother

Re: Which is exactly....

"How would folks in the UK react..."

Would now be a good time to get a idiot politician proof VPN?

Copilot+ PCs? Customers just aren't buying it – yet

Spanners
Boffin

Will Linux stay free of the AI fixation

As I am getting closer to retiring, I am looking to replace the last Windoze PC at home with one running Linux. I haven't decided on which distro yet (or email client) but are there any I need to rule out because they will use AI?

Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever

Spanners
Happy

Re: Mint FTW

11 months and counting. Still haven't decided on an email client.

Europe hopes Trump trumps Biden's plan for US to play AI gatekeeper

Spanners
Facepalm

Re: No limit for the Netherlands but for EU?

... just certain members....

Does that show their absolute ignorance or does it give away how they want to divide it up?

At some point, the UK will be back and we will be even better integrated than we were allowed before. You can't limit internal trade. It would be like someone in Houston being told they were not allowed to do business with New York. You do business with one and you are doing business with all of it, no matter how different they are!

Elon Musk's galactic ego sows chaos in European politics

Spanners
Facepalm

Re: Voting is for losers

The people don't have tanks, APCs or supersonic fighter bombers.

Over the last few years, I heard various right-whingers tell me how the US military were about tu turn on Biden. They didn't

Tech support chap showed boss how to use a browser for a year – he still didn't get it

Spanners
FAIL

not unknown

I frequently dealt with people who were proud of this sort of inability.

I remember one place where their management felt superior to their secretary because she could type, and they couldn't.

They felt superior to their factory floor staff because they could use lathes and the managers couldn't.

They tried to feel superior to be in the same way. They felt it was because they had a classical education. The trouble was, so did I! My rusty Latin was better than theirs. My knowledge of all sorts of irrelevant junk was far better than theirs too.

This was years ago. I suspect that such attitudes are less common.

US senators propose law to require bare minimum security standards

Spanners
Facepalm

Your sub-headline needs fixed

Please try not to talk about non-existent US "healthcare".

AI PCs flood the market. Their makers hope someone wants them

Spanners
Meh

I suspect

When people see how useless AI is, people will work to find out how to remove such rubbish from their computers. Security will somehow be a concern.

When I retire in 14 months, my home PC will no longer need to run Windows and will be upgraded to Linux. I am not aware of anyone planning to infect it with AI.

Continuity of CHIPS and Science Act questioned in a Trump presidency

Spanners
Boffin

Re: Trump does not care

Again, the USA does not have a political left!

Just because someone is a huge distance to your left does not mean that they are "lefties". They may be in the middle ground - that's what "liberal" means.

If the, rational, middle ground is far to someone's left, where does that show them to be?

Please investigate the story of Typhoid Mary and see how disease carriers were treated in the past!

Windows 11 continues to creep up behind Windows 10

Spanners
Linux

An advantage of me aging

I reach the UK retirement age in January 2026. I am already working part-time. My 2 day week starts tomorrow, and my NHS pension pays me for the other 3.

I imagine we will be spending plenty of money on new kit that we shouldn't really need but, as of my 66th birthday, that is not my real problem!

I have a PC at home that probably doesn't run Win11 but It does run Linux - probably Ubuntu. It has a separate data drive so I shouldn't lose much stuff either.

I can leave that with people, mostly no older than my kids,

Russian court fines Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Spanners
Pint

He doesn't need a home

"Some country needs to give him a home to retire."

I suspect he wont get a whole building - just a window!

UK sleep experts say it's time to kill daylight saving for good

Spanners
Pint

Re: The problem with the UK

Definitely not but we could have our national capital in a more logical place!

London is a bit further from the centre of the UK (A bit north of Newcastle) than Inverness.

Let England keep its historical theme park in London and move it back to a more logical York?

Spanners
Boffin

Didn't the UK try before?

My understanding that the reason it didn't work was that they decided to try permanent BST rather than permanent GMT.

The story I heard, in Orkney, was that the people in charge of this test were in the remote South East of England and like so many there don't really believe that anyone actually lives in the north part of the UK!

Get rid of this change. Just don't dump an unsuitable one on us so that sunrise is after 10am!

AWS boss: Don't want to come back to the office? Go work somewhere else

Spanners
Facepalm

We need to wonder why

Full time RTO is irrational for a number of reasons, including

1. It is less productive

2. It is more expensive for the employer

So what are the real reasons behind it? The first reasons suspected were that empowering workers disempowers low quality middle managers and lowers the cost of office space which makes the landlord friends of some CEOs marginally less rich.

I see it as somewhat of a "CEO fashion trend". They can't see how it will affect their $Xmillion bonuses so it is just a game. When some companies make increased profits by allowing WFH this may change in the future!

In the meantime, we can all enjoy watching C-level stupidities harming big corporations.

Spanners
Facepalm

So why?

Several people here keep being contacted by AWS. Why?

Intel hits back at China's accusations it bakes in NSA backdoors

Spanners
Big Brother

So was the hype about Huawei just projection then?

Whenever I hear one group of politicians say that the other lot are doing "X" I tend to suspect that the complainers would like to, or already do, "X".

This sounds like this was the case with Huawei. Many of us wondered if this was the real reason instead of protectionism. After all, if I can't get Huawei, I most definitely don't want a US equivalent!

Elon Musk's X isn't important enough to feel the full force of EU regulation

Spanners
Boffin

Is this the reason

I had wondered why someone would spend so much (of other people's money" on Twitter and then manage it so badly.

I can now see that he needed to make it less significant or useful to avoid being a monopolist,

So, instead of being a "free speech"* absolutist, he is a responsibility avoider

.

*Like most people in the USA, he does not understand the concept of free speech!

Techie took five minutes to fix problem Adobe and Microsoft couldn't solve in two weeks

Spanners
Facepalm

This plug

My daughter sis it in her first year in primary.

I then taught her to say "is it plugged in miss?"

She decided to be a nurse instead!

Spanners

quickest fix

I imagine we all have had a call like this...

"...of course I plugged it in. I'm not stupid!"

On entering the office

"What's that plug lead hanging down the front of your monitor for?" looks and plugs it in. Computer starts.

..."how the f%%k would I know what that was for? I'm not a computer whiz!"

Cloudflare beats patent troll so badly it basically gives up

Spanners
Flame

We need a defenition of "patent"

Patents were originally to allow the inventors of a device or idea to benefit from it for a while. A good example was obstetric forceps,

Over the 20th century, this changed into something that stopped other people using an idea at all. An example is how oil companies used them to prevent Electric Vehicles from catching on.

By the end of the 20th century, This moved into a mobile telephone manufacturer using them to cut down competition (don't innovate, litigate).

This only ever delayed progress. The forceps are now available to whoever needs them, EVs are selling in ever increasing numbers and, outside the USA, that brand of smartphone is mainly used by the uninformed with too much money (expect downvotes from iFans here)

What should be done? Firstly, patents should be returned to their initial length - was that 17 years?

Secondly, that period should only be patents still owned by the individuals who created them. Any patent that is owned by a corporation should automatically be halved in length. Any that were owned from their start should never even get to the full length.

Finally, any patent troll that loses an attempt should automatically be fined 100 times what they were suing for as a minimum or a minimum % of their annual turnover - whichever is greater,

Now Dell salespeople must be onsite five days a week

Spanners

Re: The stupidity of such action is impressive

I think a lot of us in user support have seen things that you can's see from home.

"Of course the computer is plugged in! I'm not stupid!

What's that plug having down in front of your screen?

"I don't know. I'm not a computer expert!"

It is much less common now but there used to be people who were proud of being handless with computers. There are still those who really are...

Spanners
Facepalm

Re: The stupidity of such action is impressive

So they lose 20% of staff and over 21% of the work done. This is called poor economics

Spanners
Facepalm

The stupidity of such action is impressive

Working in IT support, a lot of my job can not be done from home. Simply put, I can't give you a new keyboard if I am not there.

Apparently, it is really annoying to poor managers that their staff are more productive when somewhere away from them. I have noticed that people do longer hours when they don't spend 30 minutes each way commuting. Businesses benefit from people having fewer distractions and lower costs. The only people who lose out are office landlords!

However, poor quality managers feel insecure because people work better without them messing things up. Senior managers read this as things not working and try and "fix" it by mandating a 100% RTO.

Heating bills etc go up, productivity goes down, commute times and associated pollution increase. Everyone loses!

Recall the Recall recall? Microsoft thinks it can make that Windows feature palatable

Spanners
Big Brother

That sounds like malware to me

Put some unverified images on your PC that claim to be screenshots.

Take a few pictures of you doing confidential stuff.

Act all surprised when these images are sent to third parties.

Perhaps they would like to encrypt your data files too?

Apple quietly removed 60 more VPNs from Russian app store, researchers claim

Spanners
Big Brother

Shouldn't they get in trouble for that

If businesses do business with the Russians, - sell cars, or anything else, buy oil etc they can be found guilty of breaching sanctions.

Surely this sort of thing should be covered by these rules?

The future everyone wanted – in-car ads tailored to your journey and passengers

Spanners
Pint

Car manufacturers and patents

If you believe the stories, US car & oil companies kept buying up patents any burying them from the 1950s onwards.

Ford could be carrying on the tradition.

1. Think of an appallingly bad idea.

2. Develop it

3. Patent it so nobody else can do it

4. Sit secure in the knowledge that you have saved lives and sanities!

As a late baby boomer, I am still hopeful for the future

If every PC is going to be an AI PC, they better be as good at all the things trad PCs can do

Spanners

Re: Hamster wheels?

I had to tell it that the register was a website but quite funny!

EV sales hit speed bump as drivers unplug from the electric dream

Spanners

Most of those reasons are ir3ellevant

The range is fine. My commute to work etc is 11 miles. A range over 200 miles would be very adequate.

The relevant one is the excessive cost. People in houses around me can afford the poor build quality of Teslas but I can't!

Give me something well built for a decent price and I will be fine on a 65 mile range, I can charge it every few days! So it might be expensive to replace a battery. 666,000 miles divided by a few hundred per week will outlast any petrol powered one by a good margin

Microsoft closes Windows 11 upgrade loophole in latest Insider build

Spanners
Devil

Re: So,

The big corporates will submit as usual. Just, not quite so many as last time.

Linux will remain a fully functional alternative for 99% of uses but the pressure to be an obedient serf will keep up

Spanners
Meh

Re: Upgrades?

It may be a mistake and even a crime.

It is however profitable for MS and their friends.

Client tells techie: You're not leaving the country until this printer is working

Spanners
Black Helicopters

They should have either ended the contract

Or they could have just failed to renew it!

Spanners
Happy

Re: Bo(e)ing?

I had a lovely trip to the USA on a KC135. Various others from my unit held their cameras over the window in the floor and took pictures that they considered scary. I had a lovely nap on the bench there!

I flew a lot as a child and never got a window in the floor like that!

NASA pushes decision on bringing crew back in Starliner to the end of August

Spanners
Meh

Re: Pretty soon you'll be able to pick up a shitty adapter at the local convenience store

If you were from the USA. you'd never know as they seem to have an alternative meaning to that too,

Spanners
Boffin

Re: Pretty soon you'll be able to pick up a shitty adapter at the local convenience store

"Freedom loving corporations"

That must be the most counter intuitive oxymoron I have seen this year!

The USA has got to where it is today in spite of corporations and corporate lawyers and the insane idea of IP which is the most likely reason for this incompatibility,

Is Lenovo a blind spot in US anti-China security measures?

Spanners
Alien

The real reason

The real reason behind the US assault on Chinese technology has absolutely nothing to do with security.

It was entirely about stopping companies like Huawei from racing ahead of anything the US can produce. It is pretty pathetic that the UK joined that sham. "We don't want Chinese companies evolved in 5g because we are sure that companies from the land of the (very un)free could get rich from it instead.

Perhaps the US can't make enough laptops of that standard and they know that this protectionism will be even more obvious?

Would you rather buy space broadband from a billionaire, or Communist China?

Spanners
Big Brother

Will they allow VPNs?

I expect China to do do some DNS fiddling and traffic control, in the same way I expect Musk to. Both are hugely intolerant of ideas they disagree with. It will be easy enough to note where the traffic comes from so everyone can limit locations etc just like he does but I would always want what I am doing - ie criticise fascists - to be hidden from them.

Actually I do so little political stuff that they probably wouldn't care but I would want the ability to use a VPN of my choice as a basic.

Users rage as Microsoft announces retirement of Office 365 connectors within Teams

Spanners

Re: A shower of shite

Is there aciiart for poo?

The Clacktop: A Thinkpad Yoga with a mechanical keyboard

Spanners
Happy

"Tiny laptops"

Before smarphoines appeared, phones were getting smaller and less useable all the time. Now they get thinner instead and the first thing I do when I get a new one is to order a wallet/case for it.

I do have an unusually small laptop - a Lenovo Duet Chromebook but the battery standby is well over a week and usage is almost 8 hours.

China and the EU agree to consultations over EV anti-subsidy investigation

Spanners
Boffin

Something both sides say

"It's not subsidy or dumping if we do it..."

A thump with the pointy end of a screwdriver will fix this server! What could possibly go wrong?

Spanners
Alert

Worst for who?

The worst damage I have seen done with a screwdriver was to themselves.

the second worst was to the person they were working with.

Screwdrivers, jewellers, normal little electrical and even woodworking-like ones have very small ends that become quite good at stabbing!

Because there were sharp edges in many PCs, I bet many people are very up-to-date with their tetanus shots but lots of people stab themselves when misusing them.

Life probably became safer with the introduction of electric ones. I never harmed myself with a screwdriver. I did drop an electric one on my foot though!

BOFH: Come on down to the dunge– erm … basement

Spanners

An entirely different matter of scale from me.

I have a USB floppy drive, a USB Zip drive and a load of discs.

In comparison, I don't count.

Google thinks AI can Google better than you can

Spanners
Meh

The first step in searching is to filter out the advertising garbage.

I have a sneaking suspicion that an important step of AI is to make it harder to avoid.

BOFH: Smells like Teams spirit

Spanners
Linux

Re: Nice try

They are also keen to get us to understand that just because we bought and paid for something, we don't actually own it.