Posts by Robert Carnegie

Finally, a wafer-thin server... Only a tiny little thin one. Oh all right. Just the one...

Re: "cartoons depicting lazy American workers"

Nationality isn't a race in UK law (someone claimed anti English discrimination in Scotland and got hee-haw for it), but "American" isn't really a nationality - it is two point one continents after all.

"Race" isn't really defined except as something to discriminate on, unless you're discriminating on something else.

The theme song to "American Dad" refers to "the American race" as if there is one (and only one that matters), but this isn't a documentary.

Only accepting Scottish £1s - A printing company might have their own innovative answer to that.

I'm in Scotland and I haven't seen a £1 note for quite a while, are they making them still?

Poetry in lockdown: hiQ to Supremes / Please leave LinkedIn scrape ruling / well enough alone

A newspaper website gives me permission to read a few articles without paying. Anything I want to look at, as far as I can tell, but rationed. This meant that I saw a "complimentary article" about President Trump that was the opposite of complimentary. My point is they give away everything but they don't let me take everything.

I expect there are ways around the restriction, but I'm not pursuing that. At the moment I'm not subscribing either, I can insult President Trump myself and I frequently do.

Beware the fresh Windows XP install: Failure awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth

:-)

That's how "Puss in Boots" was invented

Re: I saw a mouse

Reportedly, a mouse released anywhere near the premises it was removed from will head straight back in. Co-existence is achieved only by killing them, modern easy-open snap traps checked daily being recommended, baited with peanut butter, chocolate spread, or manufacturer's patent which may be just one of those but don't taste it. The traps are not easy-open if you're a mouse and/or dead. Poison means that you now have dead poisoned mice hidden all over the place. And the poison, the dead mice, or traps may be bad for other pets.

I've occasionally had mice get away from the traps, and one survivor bleeding from his injuries. Lively though. I did take him for a walk in the dark around the corner, in the trap, let him go, and I think that was it for a while. I wasn't going to a vet. "Humane" killing needs consideration: dropping a paving slab on the poor chap is one suggestion. The survivor might have had a worse night (or not) if I'd had another idea; since he was captive in one trap, I could drop him onto another trap, snap.

Well, we move all the left legs together, then all the right legs, maybe the lizards copy us.

I am assuming that you are not e.g. a crab and I apologise if you are.

Re: chewed wires

It sounds like real rats have learned that real people catch you going down a drainpipe, so they go up. And are good at it, apparently.

Re: chewed wires

UK temperature "must be" reasonable + comfortable but this has no legal force according to https://www.gov.uk/workplace-temperatures

However, if the computer repair workshop is too cold, you could plug in some PSUs or monitors.

My CRT television generates enough heat that I can't leave it on on warm days. Also has a possibly beyond economic repair fault (I'm not trying it myself) since a couple of weeks, the picture ends on a bright band close to the bottom, doesn't look very happy at the top either. Oh well.

Faxing hell: The cops say they would very much like us to stop calling them all the time

Re: Fax will never die!

My doctor started taking repeat prescription requests online a few years ago. Stopped a couple of years later. I'm considering taking my sickness elsewhere.

Re: I called the cops

You could use your mobile of course but the day trip to London was cheaper. :-)

Re: Also works the other way round

Nice idea, but I gather this is customers wanting their money refunded for flight or holiday cancelled due to the coronavirus this year. Referring them to a different holiday company won't get their money back.

However, you might be able to argue that if your number was misused on purpose to avoid refunds then RuinAir are in breach of their legal duty to blah blah blah and they could be fined astronomically.

PC printer problems and enraged execs: When the answer to 'Hand over that floppy disk' is 'No'

Re: What used to be a joke has become fact

I keep saying that Donald Trump is not as stupid as he seems, but apparently that is some special kind of secret because no one believes me.

I do say he's not as clever as he thinks.

Health Sec Hancock says UK will use Apple-Google API for virus contact-tracing app after all (even though Apple were right rotters)

Re: NHSX devs apparently superior to Google devs

The information about Find My Phone might be unofficial because it covers the scenario of theft and you don't want to help thieves to circumvent it. But it's just as likely to be your briefcase or handbag or coat that is lost or stolen and it may be moving. (Also if you left it in a taxi or something.) Not where you left it.

Then again, wasn't there a house somewhere in the U.S. that for some reason was reported as the location of 50% of all lost cellphones and got extremely frequent visits from police...? Something like that?

A memo from the distant future... June 2022: The boss decides working from home isn't the new normal after all

Re: india?

That's not what "gardening leave" means! (that, instead of gardening, you leave)

Re: I think

I do sense satire. In fact I don't think the writer is from the year 2022 at all.

Ex-director cops community service after 5,000-file deletion spree on company Dropbox

Re: Sentencing

As of a year or three ago, "Woman's Hour" was complaining that more women than men are sent to jail for the same convictions, one logical reason offered being that they can't pay fines so they get jail time instead. Separately, or at the same time, we hear that a prison sentence less than a year (e.g. for not paying a fine) does nothing to prevent re offending, is very expensive for the tax payer, and is less effective than a community penalty. It isn't long enough for a prisoner to connect with education and other services in there, although perhaps it should be. I'm not sure if it's considered that if someone is locked up for a year (or in practice six months maybe) then they're mostly stopped from harming the public during that time and have a reasonable chance to be further penalised if they do harm to other people locked up with them. Nevertheless, unless violence is likely to occur, making people perform a community penalty is more effective than a short sentence.

Microsoft snubs Service Fabric as it plots to switch Teams infrastructure to Kubernetes

Robert is still reading...

Animation doesn't have to move. Derek Jarman made a film called "Blue" which visually just has a blue screen for an hour and a half. Familiar to Windows users... It does come on either DVD or CD so not entirely taking the liberty. The CD might come with "No D" glasses to not watch it through?

Only true boffins will be able to grasp Blighty's new legal definitions of the humble metre and kilogram

I've been waiting for someone to demand social distancing in non metric measurement, but I'm not aware that anyone has. Maybe that sort of thing has finally died out. The WHO stipulating one metre - while we're using two; I think the WHO generally expects large death tolls on these occasions and just likes to take the edge off it, we wanted actually to stop the plague, and we haven't - the WHO probably does set a bar that makes it crazy talk to go below it, e.g. three feet.

I think anyway that if you tell people to stay e.g. two metres apart, they try to do it but they don't get it right. So if you want one metre apart, then you ask for two.

Re: Me too

That's Harry Potter wizard money. Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts. "There are 17 Sickles in a Galleon, and 29 Knuts in a Sickle, meaning there are 493 Knuts to a Galleon" (obviously!)

Only in the United Kingdom though! If you see prices like that elsewhere, it just means there is, at the risk of using offensive language, a loony. (Which is a Canadian coin worth one dollar, but only in Canada.)

It looks like you want to browse the internet with Chrome. Would you like help? Maybe try Edge? Please?

Re: To be fair...

I think I still get told by Google on my work computer (at home currently) that I would be better off using Chrome, but that is in Internet Explorer so I think even Microsoft is calling that fair.

Facebook's cool with sharing the President's nonsense on its mega-platform – but don't you dare mention 'unionize' in its Workplace app

Re: Testing

Well, you probably can't use the term "non-unionized" either.

Logitech G915 TKL: Numpad-free mechanical keyboard clicks all the right boxes

Re: Sounds excellent all round

"No keypad" as a feature? Where we're going, we don't... count?

In one or more "Latin" languages, the word for "keyboard" is something like "teclado". If that really sounds like it does in my head (like somebody typing), that has to be something to do with it...??

Have I Been Pwned breach report email pwned entire firm's helldesk ticket system

Untrustworthiness of the software you're using is exactly the reason that when the publisher drops version 9.4.5 due to preferring 9.4.6, you should find out why 9.4.5 is no longer the bees knees. "Prevent execution of SQL injection while assigning a technician" in this case. That might be time to leave altogether, I admit. 9.4.5 was released bad, clearly. But where do you get something better?

And, having said all that, 9.4.6 release notes are dated 5 May 2020. So 9.4.5 wasn't so far out of date...?

Downvoted because that sounds funny but it isn't. Any software in contact with the Internet, your customers, or your colleagues, needs to get updated not instantly but promptly every time, not held off, because none of the three can be trusted.

Re: Now, tell us, Troy

Are you really in "Today's Ten Thousand" people who learn something that we thought "everyone" knew?

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/327:_Exploits_of_a_Mom

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053:_Ten_Thousand

(10000 is estimated from U.S. population and birth rate. In fact we should call it... 10000. Or how could we link to the comic?)

Re: Now, tell us, Troy

If HIBP went with ':--oopsie then there may have been no problem.

I'm in two minds whether this incident is funny or very irresponsible. I suppose if it was my data deleted then I wouldn't be in doubt.

Kinda goes without saying, but shore up your admin passwords or be borged by this brute-forcing botnet

Is any site too small? If only to recruit you into performing the next distributed attack.

Sometime really I should improve my password for this forum. It's left over from much more innocent days.

Re: My sympathies

I wonder what his password is? ca$hlarry maybe? :-)

Re: Nasty

A home IP address may change from day to day. Even a business one. Or it could be your boss's PC. You can't block every IPv4 address, there aren't enough anyway.

If Daddy doesn't want me to touch the buttons, why did they make them so colourful?

Re: Can't remember where I saw this...

Internet Speculative Fiction Database usually would know any title, but nothing that sounds right comes up. (Note that 'worlds war' does not elicit "The War of the Worlds".)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi

Re: But I didn't touch nuthin!

"As the actress said to the bishop."

Re: But I didn't touch nuthin!

Engaged indeed. Back in the day, if you reached out and did all that then you "had" to get married. ;-)

Re: Many years ago...

A wall-mounted trouser press that doesn't turn off when it overheats shouldn't be managed, but removed. And did you see a trouser press? No? Just as well!

That's my guess; what's yours?

Re: I'll just leave this here.

Out of interest, how much coverage of, we'll, right now, any country's politics does your "Bull Guard" allow to be viewed? Since a very high proportion surely will be evaluated as Bull.

Trump's Make Space Great Again video pulled after former 'naut says: Nope

Re: That's a cheap-ass looking hat he's hawking.

Well, if there's still a shortage of toilet paper by then...

There's always a coronavirus angle these days: Honor intros new smartphone with built-in temperature sensor

Re: Is it really the first?

That may or may not be different from an accurate temperature measurement device, you saw it I didn't. And the new product is a "consumer" model. The Caterpillar is a tough, workshop, "handy if you misplaced your hammer" model.

Indian app that deleted Chinese apps from Androids deleted from Play Store

Re: the common denominator in all of those disputes.

I suppose we had the Gurkhas, what are they, religiously speaking? If you're looking for it.

Re: What horrid security Android has to allow this in the first place

Maybe it just "legally" launches the app store and gives the user the option to delete the nominated other apps.

Or, yes, maybe it uses an illegal hack of Android.

I don't know and neither do you, and probably neither of us ever will.

Still, there must be some places in the world where Great Britain isn't the number one hated former overlord. Hmm.. Belgian Congo sounds promising... but still, hard to be sure.

Guess who came thiiis close to signing off a €102k annual budget? Austria. Someone omitted 'figures in millions'

Well, you can't really have a sense of humour without having common sense. But I do see various other possible objections to what I wrote. I leave it to others actually to object, er, them.

Re expectations, Hitler was Austrian and there are some right dodgy characters there nowadays. So having them see the funny side is good news. It suggests an outbreak of common sense has occurred.

Microsoft's carefully crafted Surfaces are having trouble with its carefully crafted Windows 10 May 2020 Update

I'm not an expert but I suspect that some Windows updates don't get along well with other updates. Ideally they'd queue up nicely like supermarket customers during the coronavirus pandemic, but nevertheless some may trip up over each other and require a second try. There are definite issues if you do your patching by hand, that Patch 29 actually reverses Patch 11 (these numbers are not real) and it's even possible that they don't know that. In such a case, hopefully Windows Update knows to run Patch 29 before Patch 11 - or to run Patch 11 after Patch 29 even if Patch 11 was run already - and to sort the thing out. Or if not, Patch 37 ought to come along as a replacement for both of the others.

80-characters-per-line limits should be terminal, says Linux kernel chief Linus Torvalds

Re: Excessive complexity

I agree that what you're used to is what you're used to, although in my case that's usually around 70 characters page width to be ready when I need to use the Printout Fairy to magically reveal all the baffling bugs and typos.

Star Wars intro code editing would be awesome. The drawback is the time it takes to load the file...

I think I once was in a programming team instructed to keep programs to two sides of A4 paper and functions to 1 side; any longer and we were supposed to split it out into sub-routines. But this wasn't enforced a lot, thank goodness.

I thought coloured lines was an option in Notepad++, or maybe Microsoft Word. Checking documentation, Notepad++ does seem to have an option to highlight the line that the cursor is on, but that's different.

So you really didn't touch the settings at all, huh? Well, this print-out from my secret backup says otherwise

Re: Root Cause Analysis

Hmm... I probably should change the password on the work machine just delivered to me, before I even hint what the password was that I set originally, what I was told the password was when I got tired of trying mine, and what I eventually was told the password ACTUALLY was. Never mind, cautionary tale.

Personally, for typing, I favour: rando mlett ersin fives

(with actual random letters, from a random provider, plus muddled by me before use)

but since password systems claim to know better than I, in practice I use (if I have to) variations:

ihave asong tosing O.

whati syour songe 0

dontm akeme angry O!

At the moment though, I’m finding it is pretty hard to remember rando mlett ersin fives after a long break, or even a short one. And to read some of the little writing in my little secret book, even though it’s my writing.

'I wrote Task Manager': Ex-Microsoft programmer Dave Plummer spills the beans

Re: It hasn't been able to kill lots of stuff

Is it fair to blame Task Manager deficiency for having to reboot the OS? The assumption seems to be that one process goes bad but the rest of the system is fine if the bad process is killed - but that may be not a good assumption, the system may really be in a sorry state needing rebooting, and the poor little processes are blamed unfairly. They may even be already gone.

Re: DoubleSpace

Wikipedia’s article is titled “DriveSpace”. The order of events seems to have been: VertiSoft produced separate product DoubleDisk, then Microsoft bought it in to bundle or integrate as DoubleSpace, then Stac Electronics sued about patents and won, then Microsoft released DriveSpace which was the same thing as DoubleSpace but presumably less patent infringy.

cmd.exe is dead, long live PowerShell: Microsoft leads aged command-line interpreter out into 'maintenance mode'

Re: "It shouldn't have lived so long"

Yeah, there’s a reason that UNIX / Linux scraps the command shell standard and adopts a new incompatible one instead every five years maximum. :-) (what is it again?)

sh, ksh, bash, yash, cash, credit, cledit... I imagine no one remembers them all, partly because I made up at least half of those.