Posts by Diogenes

Microsoft coughs up yet more Windows 11 24H2 headaches

Re: Windows 11 Bluetooth...

I gave up on my Bluetooth mouse and keyboard ages ago.

24h2 broke my sound, I am using an ordinary headphones jack. Unplugging it and plugging it back in got it working again.

iFixit to the rescue: McDonald's workers can rescue their own ice cream machines

Re: For sale - Strange Electronic Device

Sell from OS and don't allow orders from the US.

The clever know how to work around it.

Yes, your network is down – you annoyed us so much we crashed it

Re: Finance dept. are at the root of this issue

I had a female student try the same. She had very well developed Bulgarian Funbags for a 15 year old. Every time I roused on her, magically another butoon on he shirt would pop open. Luckily I had a female aide in teh room with me and asked her to have a chat with the young lady - had I said something it would have been "whey are you even looking at my funbags you dirty old pervert"

China claims Starlink signals can reveal stealth aircraft – and what that really means

According to Mentour Pilot, they have been able to track MH370 using WSPR, references in the description

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5K9HBiJpuk&ab_channel=MentourPilot

Techie's enthusiasm for decluttering fails to spark joy

Re: A good manager

I was used as the troubleshooting Project Manager. You know the one who gets called in after project has turned to manure and the original PM has been sacrificed to appease the customer.

Account manager "I want twice daily status updates" Me "Give me 3 days to work out where we are at and come up with a plan to finish as soon as possible, if I am doing twice daily updates all I will be doing is status updates.

Every single firetrucking time for 5 years.

Enterprise browser maker Island says it's now worth $3B

Re: At least one of us is confused by this

As a teacher, I can see a use case for this in schools. On the plus side, students will actually read the text and reproduce in their own words rather than cutnpaste. On the other hand, the amount of gibberish we have to read will increase.

Workday abandons new-build Dublin office project

There are the substantial changeover costs which need to factored in. In Australia you pay the government a large tax ( stamp duty) when you purchase your new home, eg for a 1 million house (median price in much of Brisbane), you give the government over 30k. Add 20 k for real estate commission and moving expense and you are looking at a 50k changeover cost.

Australia secures takedown order for terror videos, which Elon Musk wants to fight

Re: Australian jurisdiction, Australian rules

Twitter geoblocked the video so Australians could not watch it, which is fair, Australia's circus, Australia's monkeys. He is objecting to a world wide takedown order, Aussie law says that the Ministry of Truth can request such an order, but then again according to a former PM Aussie Law also overrides the laws of Mathematics :-)

I get that people don't like Musk. Try this for a mind exercise - a Russian court ordered a world wide takedown of all videos of the Ukrainian conflict or any video that praise/mentions the Ukrainian President as they are illegal under Russian law. Twitter needs to comply?

Wing Commander III changed how the copy hotkey works in Windows 95

C,X,V Predates computing

I still rember editing hand typewriter produced documents with my mum, an EA, bracket around text put a C or X then an arrow to a v where you want that text to go instead. She was taught this in 1948 when she went to school.

Qt Ubuntu 24.04 betas show that there's room to innovate

Re: You're not alone, Mr. McMurtrie.

adjectives and conjunctions and then spit out all the verbs right at the end.

I am classed as a native German speaker, and I still have nightmares about reading Kleist short stories... 10 paperback

pages of clauses, sub clauses, sub sub sub sub sub sub clauses, then the verb.

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

Forgot one of the golden rules of business

Never, ever, ever annoy the PA/EA

Roku makes 2FA mandatory for all after nearly 600K accounts pwned

Re: Credential stuffing and password spraying

I saw a cartoon that I can no longer find...

Imagine an office with 2people standing looking over a programmers shoulder. The code they are looking at is a function called something like stopBruteForceAttacks...

The code is

if (correct password && first attempt) then

display message "Incorrect Password - please try again"

One of the 2 exclaims "you cunning bastard!"

Support contract required techie to lounge around in a $5,000/night hotel room

Re: And I thought I had it good.

This is before Covid.

There used to be several senior lawyers who lived on the Gold Coast, and flew to work in Sydney (1 hour) or Melbourne(1.5 hours) and return every day. Business class natch. A stewardess friend told us settlement terms for some massive lawsuits were hammered out on these flights.

SoftIron rolls its own server virt stack to join the 'let's get VMware' crowd

they make sure that it is vegan, organic, and has low food miles

Australian techie jailed for accessing museum's accounting system and buying himself stuff

Re: Circular reasoning

However it is illegal to prefer a candidate on this basis, they must simply be eligible for clearance. But we all know what happens in the real world.

I didn't mention the fact the fact that I had a clearance when applying for an IT job, but they knew anyway as I was then still an officer in the ARES which they knew from my resume. Still had to apply for a new clearance, but it only took a few days not months like the initial one did when I was commissioned.

Yes, I did just crash that critical app. And you should thank me for having done so

Re: The ultimate test

Or the English or Humanities faculties in a High School.

Don't ask how I know this.

McDonald's ordering system suffers McFlurry of tech troubles

Re: My last meal at McDs

There is a special place in hell reserved for those who invented the bamboo cutlery and the inventors of the paper straws that become unusable before you have finished half your drink that Maccas uses.

Nissan to let 100,000 Aussies and Kiwis know their data was stolen in cyberattack

The more pertinent question is, why would they need to retain this information after the loan approval process has been completed?

When the inevitable " you shouldn't have given me this loan which I can obviously can't afford" lawsuit, Financial ombudsma, Royal Commissionn etc complaints come in

Health system network turned out to be a house of cards – Cisco cards, that is

Re: Heading off after completion of a task

I teach ICT. Its amazing how many 'faults' are solved by me just laying hands on the machine.

Australian spy chief fears sabotage of critical infrastructure

There are a few contenders, 2 ex-PMs and an ex Foreign Minister being among them.

A visa to fill Australia's empty tech jobs is getting more expensive, but maybe better value

ACS - was once part of the solution

In the early 80s they were part of the solution, I got my start in the ACS run "Computer Industry Training Program". My then employer paid my ACS dues, but, being neither a golfer or "yachtie" I got little for value.

Microsoft posts another set of bumper results. Market's response? Meh

Re: "In 2025, it will be the year to execute."

Anybody else remember the Japanese reaction to IBM's "Win Execute Team"?

Dems and Repubs agree on something – a law to tackle unauthorized NSFW deepfakes

Libel/Slander?

Given the damages order made against "orange man - bad!" for slander/libel, surely this already exists as a potential remedy.

The rise and fall of the standard user interface

Re: Torn

I worked for company that used IBM 3090s, AS400s and PC-ATs all at the same time. We adopted CUA for new projects and started working at changing older systems on an "as time allows*" basis.

Usually the tertiary project we were working on, to help fill in the time while waiting for our 1 or 2 compiles/tests a day because the machine was (the 3090 - they ended up buying a second one for all the non "billing" stuff

CLIs are simply wizard at character building. Let’s not keep them to ourselves

I am still fond of IBMs common user access (CUA). The manuals for which are still around

CompSci teachers panic as Replit pulls the plug on educational IDE

Re: Where have all the grown ups gone ?

Amen & Hallelujah!

I have been teaching IT for 13 years, after 30 years as a software dev. Since moving interstate, I have been working as a contract or day relief teacher in 10 different schools over the last 2 and a bit years, and over the last year I have been teaching a bit of manual arts/shop, Industrial Technology as well. I see this everywhere.

In one school we had AUD 100k+ in gear, CAD/CAM, 3D printers, laser cutters, vinyl cutters etc that we could not use because of out-of-date software (either on the connected PC, or machine firmware). The IT support guys did not understand the machines, and the Manual Arts/Shop guys didn't understand computers (they knew the CAD software), and the business manager did not want to pay for software licences. I managed to get half the devices usable but was stymied because we could not ventilate the laser cutters to outside, and the only space available for some of the other machines in the workshop, or anywhere was too far from a power point and for good reasons we were not allowed to use extension cords. The faculty head put in a budget request to move thing around/get new power points/new software/ventilation, around 3k worth of work. I will give you three guesses what the answer from admin was, even though they were proudly touting - "we have all this tech". This school also mandated BYOD iPads for students in years 7-9 and closed all the computer rooms while insisting we use the technology.

Microsoft dials back Bing after users manage to recreate Disney logo in fake AI-generated images

Re: Teens can also get Bard to help them learn skills or complete homework

My years 10s have just handed in assignments on famous rockets.

They are unusually literate - spider senses are tingling.

Feed a para to ChatGPT and I can find out where it has been copied from. The source website has white text on a black background ... amazing coincidence, so does the work the student submitted.

I have also had a "Sure I can help you with that" cut and paste into the assignment.

Don't fear the Thread Reaper, a Windows ghost of bugs past

Re: It should never happen, hence the bug check

Looks like ancient code is the best . . .

For whatever value you choose as ancient. There must have been a golden age.

In the 80s I had to rewrite a Pl/1program written in the 70s that used gotos, and not even semi structured gotos.(Manglement ran some sort of program over our entire codebase looking fror files with gotos in them - everybody was given a program to structure properly as a side project for when we were waiting for jobs to run, walkthroughs etc). Code was jumping everywhere.

Judge bins AI copyright lawsuit against DeviantArt, Midjourney – Stability still in the mix

Re: copy and distribute

How is that any different from a human copying a book in a public library giving the copy to a teacher who makes copies as teaching material for their students.

Can't speak for any other jurisdiction, but copyright law in Oz allows teachers to copy a single chapter or 10% of a book (whichever is greater) for use in the classroom.

Clippy-like AI at forefront of Windows update previews

Re: Rectify11 and OOSU10 (works on 11 too)

I just did the today update and haven't seen any of the new "Want to be Clippy of Today" shit.

At least the windows version seems to stay dead after updates. The Edge version - I have to kill it and that dopey right hand side taskbar after every single update. -

Work computer , no admin rights Chrome/Firefox/Opera etc etc not allowed.

Word turns 40: From 'new kid on the block' to 'I can't believe it's not bloatware'

Re: That sounds about right...

WordPerfect et al was late.

I was a WP fan, and still think 5.2 was the best word processor I ever used. WP for Windows was great big steaming pile of expletive deleted. My son's godfather was a sales droid for WP in Sydney at the time and gave me a copy a few weeks before release. He was not happy to get my feedback, but his wife, who was using it as well, confirmed everything I said.

Re: Ah yes, Word for Windows 2.0

And "disappeared" the document, and occasionally the whole folder it was in, as if it never existed, no matter how many times you saved it while working on it. Word was the big reason I learnt to backup in multiple places.

Got used to hitting ctrl+s at the end of every sentence or 2 and stopping word and taking a copy of the file every page. Still do the ctrl+s thing, but only take a copy when I am done for that session.

CEO Satya Nadella thinks Microsoft hung up on Windows Phone too soon

Re: He's right, and it is his fault...

The 950XL was my favourite smart phone. At the time the specs hit the sweet spot and I actually liked the OS. I bought the 950 for SWMBO (a real technophobe - she still hasn't realised the difference between the facebook 'ping', and the different bing bongs we have set up for email and SMS notifications) and she loved it, I got very few requests for help. She replaced it with an iPhone, which hated, and since then has had Samsungs, her current for 2 years. I am still being asked "how do I".

Teens take a million metaverse Ryanair flights in Roblox

Re: Bathroom?

and a python in the rafters.

iFixit pries open Google Pixel 8 Pro with clamps and picks

Re: non-FDA approved temperature sensor

I would love to use the temperature sensor on it to measure its own temperature. Gets noticeably hot when watching video on youtube or reading a book on Kindle.

It is 20 years since the last commercial flight of Concorde

London Sydney 17 hours - sigh !

I took a half day off work to go watch the Concorde on its one and only flight to Sydney, my boss, his boss and a few of my team did as well.

I am more a train 'nut' than a plane nut, but it was a thing of beauty and a joy to behold.

Ex-ASML worker accused of stealing chipmaking secrets for China is Huawei to a new job

Re: It won't make any real difference

AND had a working model to disassemble and reverse engineer

This is what happened to somebody I know. They had designed , and manufacture a bit of kit to be used in the mining industry.

About a year later they kept getting enquiries why part x was continually failing. Odd because they had never sold that kit to the companies making the enquiries. It seemed that a Chinese competitor somehow acquired a 2nd hand model, and reverse engineered it, including the wear on part x which was causing it to fail.

Making the problem go away is not the same thing as fixing it

Re: The Story of Mal ...

My 3rd ever real life programming assignment was to take an old ca 1975 PL/1 program and basically rewrite it was written in the organisations - 'standards yeah we've heard of them' phase - no proper loops , all GOTOs, no functions or procedures, all GOTOs. It was the 'side job' I was given whilst waiting for the compiles and test runs of my 2nd, 4th and 5th real life programming assignments.

My first was the one and only time I used coding sheets and punched cards, I had almost finished that work, when 3270 terminals were rolled out, great excitement when my last run was submitted from my desk, rather than trekking down to the computer room with my deck.

Six months or so later, after the company dropped the word 'trainee' and added analyst/' to my title, I was put into the "maintenance team", it would not be unusual for me to come into work and find a program listing and core dump on my desk with a big note left by my team leader if they had been oncall - "job failed for account zzzzzzzz. removed account from batch, rest of batch executed ok - original batch file is at yyyyyy, - Fix before going on with anything else."

Chinese citizens feel their government is doing such a fine job with surveillance

Re: ASPI

Is this the same ASPI who suggested our new, yet to be built, NBN class* nuclear submarines be based in Brisbane because of both our and the US subs based here during ww2?

Those rocket surgeons totally ignoring that subs will need to surfaced to use the one channel into the port which starts near Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast, 90 or so km long.

*Some blogs I am on refer to them as such because they will cost a lot mor than budgetted, hellishly late and a 3 world solution, as opposed to the cancelled "Turnbull" class of French origin.

Workload written by student made millions, ran on unsupported hardware, with zero maintenance

Re: A quick question

1991 - only decommissioned in 2018.

A real quick and dirty, "it will only need to be used for 6 months". It generated scripts to be used with an exchange (as in telephone exchange) terminal. A year later I had to change it so that it would run properly in protected mode and discovered lots of null pointers, and a really interesting buffer corruption problem that took months to find (had to replace a macro call with a new line of code), the hunting down of which exposed lots of small memory leaks.

Re: Boundary Disputes, was The staying power of powerpoint

Mrs Diogenes aunt used to own a house in San Fransisco. When she went to sell, the neighbour raised a boundary dispute, hoping to blackmail her into a quick settlement as they had a buyer, and the boundary dispute was a massive spanner in the works. One characteristic of SFO is that boundaries move due to tremors and movements and survey pegs no longer match their real locations, so the neighbour thought she was on a winner. The aunt and her buyer were in no rush, so the aunt decided to fight it. A year later the neighbour ended up losing and being responsible for paying the 250k in survey and legal fees.

Airbus takes its long, thin, plane on a ten-day test campaign

Re: I guess someone had to...

No - 'the pits' is a 707 on what was supposed to be Sydney-Singapore-Bangkok-New Delhi-Athens-Rome-Frankfurt flight.

Well, it was a 707 as far as Athens where we deplaned as the pilots refused to fly the plane further because of the stench despite an hours' worth of cleaning*. Passengers for Rome went with other flights, and we went straight to Frankfurt. As I was travelling as an unaccompanied minor, I sat very close to the stewardesses and they were saying while it was a semi regular occurrence for the plane on that segment to need a deep clean, this was the worst they had ever seen.

A year later I had a DC9 for my flight home. My memory is that it was a much nicer plane.

*Naive, one week shy of my 11th birthday, me, wondered why they had instructions to sit on the toilet seat and not squat.

Uncle Sam warns deepfakes are coming for your brand and bank account

We have a passphrase because of the "Hi mum" scam

Because of this technology the kids & us have a phrase that we have agreed on to verify that it is us if we make a "we need monies" call. We did this at the start of last year. SWMBO has done the same with her siblings, as I have with my brother.

Both SWMBO & I have in just the last 3 weeks received a couple of very good fake calls purporting to be from our son, but without the phrase we just hang up, and then phone him just to be sure.

Bit harder to do in a corporate environment.

IBM Software tells workers: Get back to the office three days a week

I miss WFH

I was actually able to teach & provide 1:1 assistance than waste more than 50% of my time on classroom managementcrowd control. I had generous "office hours", because in some households the kids only had access to one computer, because mum or dad needed it for work, and they were only able to log on between 6 & 7pm, in return I could 'disappear' for a few hours during the day - approved by the Principal as I had data as to when kids were actually logging in & retrieving material or starting teams chats with me.

Without continual interruptions (SWMBO excepted, but she knew closed door meant I was "on class") I rewrote units of work & resources in no time, and actually had time to think about and investigate alternate approaches.

The printout may be dead but that beast of a print queue lives on

Re: Based in Royston Vasey?

You are Anastasia Palazu,, Palush.. Palace.. Pileofshit, Premier of Qld. I claim my $5 dollars

Musk's X caught throttling outbound links to websites he doesn't like

Re: Mr unlimited free speech strikes again

Well regulated militia" bit i

...Have a look at 10 US Code S 246...

(a)The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

(b)The classes of the militia are—

(1)the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and

(2)the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Perhaps AI is going to take away coding jobs – of those who trust this tech too much

Not AI but SI ?

Where SI stands for Simulated Intelligence

Cops cuff pregnant woman for carjacking after facial recog gets it wrong, again

Re: "Facial Recognition" is no worse than any other kind.

You might want a word with my 2yo grandson. He saw a cartoon gorilla in a book, and proudly proclaimed "Opa"(granddad) - I don't think like I look anything like the gorilla in the cartoon.

How to get a computer get stuck in a lift? Ask an 'illegal engineer'

What about the monorail?

Was the silly question I asked when one of IBMs 3800-3 lasers was due to be delivered. There was a large cargo door on our floor together with a heavy-duty crane on the roof to allow delivery of heavy kit straight into the floor.

Since the last delivery of kit, a monorail had been gifted to the people of Sydney to mark the bicentenary of settlement, and construction had been finished for several months. They though to test for radio interference when they were testing the monorail, but nobody looked at the position of the track and the door.

I have no idea how it ended up being delivered.