Posts by Alistair

Smash-hit game Fortnite is dangerous... for cheaters: Tools found laced with malware

Re: Happens all the time

@DrXym:

Anything that requires you run special software,

Ahhhh, Doc, there are a bunch of folks over at Curse Forge would like to have a chat with you.....

Disk firmware can kill a whole cluster how exactly? Cisco explains

Re: I love how a disk firmware problem requires a UCS manager update!

no two servers had the same config, no automation, no scripting skills, nothing.

Oh GOD do I feel your pain. been there done that at least 4 times. At least once I had to advise my manager that there was no single circumstance on earth, in heaven or in hell that would get me working civilly with a certain individual. I remained employed.

Icon relevant to what happens to those systems when I find them.

Not API: Third parties scrape your Gmail for marketing insights

gah

Equally relevant to this article, and I'm lazy bastard today after a wonderful long weekend.

I'll leave this here, my comment on another advertising industry "but we're doing our *job*!!!" whine.

Re: Geee-male.

(I might be a catholic bishop).

And just why do you think the church is in such a mess these days?

Micro Focus offloads Linux-wrangler SUSE for a cool $2.5bn

Re: Cut-and-shut

@mjflory:

Eh, I thought he'd used duct tape.

Time to dump dual-stack networks and get on the IPv6 train – with LW4o6

This, and my cannon printer are the reason we're still dual stack.

The cybercriminal's cash cow and the marketer's machine: Inside the mad sad bad web ad world

urrrm:

It is one of the biggest ways bad guysadvertisers have of pulling money out of the onlineglobal economy,

Modern advertising is utter shit. They've analyzed the industry as a whole in to horrible territory, and it bluntly *no longer* works the way any real vendor of product or service *truly* needs or wants. Its overpriced, raising the costs of products at the end user level, and effectively contributing the boom/bust cycle that we will, thanks the MF "velocity of money" theory continue to follow into the financial doom of the human race.

Why, yes, I am a grumpy bastard this afternoon. Don't ask why. Executives really are the bane of our existences. I'll go back to writing up why this project doesn't belong on a cloud. And explaining that saving 30% on CAPEX to increase OPEX by 250% really really isn't what the beancounters want.

SD cards add PCIe and NVMe, hit 985 MB/sec and 128TB

Re: No Wear Levelling hmmmmmm

I will be brutal here:

Sanshit SSD's are not worth the extra crap prices they charge for them. Dude I know refuses to buy anything else, and is forever bringing me cards to 'recover' - I can generally get about 30 to 45% of his data back.

Stop buying those things and get Kingstons. I have one of the earlier Kingston 8 64G microsd card in my phone and was in the previous .. 3 or 4 phones. My wife has had *one* 32G kingston micro sd card - has survived all her phones. We've about 8 or 9 others. I'll not buy a sandisk ever again.

Git365. Git for Teams. Quatermass and the Git Pit. GitHub simply won't do now Microsoft has it

MSGit

Q2 2018 "Oh, we're not going to change the name"

Q3 2018 "Our developers have created this amazing new client for git, $128/seat/year!"

Q4 2018 "dammit no one is using MSGit"

Q1 2019 "Github will be using a new *updated* standard for GIT !!!, have to use MSgit since no one else uses this better standard"

Q3 2019 "Wow, traffic on GitHub fell off a cliff ....make it sexy again!"

Q1 2020 "Git For Business is now available, a git repo, compiler engines in the cloud, interface design UI servers in the cloud, and true collaborative coding, we'll search all the gits and find the best code that matches what you're trying to do and pull it into your git!!!!"

I think they should just give up now, rebrand it MScodeGitsnBitsforBusinessFailure

Oh! And happy friday of the weekend Canada Day celebration from the northern leftpondians!

Another staffer at mega-hacked Equifax slapped with insider trading rap

Soo -- dude makes $75K being (rather) foolish. Stomped on by SEC, Fired by the company and about to get run over by criminal convictions, but of the three senior C suite members that were in scope only one is getting an (effective) slap on the wrist, and FWICT a new $4.8M/year post in another country? (possibly is a different person).

Never mind the corporations themselves, the corporate puppets.

The butterfly defect: MacBook keys wrecked by single grain of sand

Our office Macbook keyoard is usted ecause the key is roken

I take it that the issue is intermittent?

I've been typing on an elitebook 8570w without s or f keys for about 8 months now. I'm rather sure that my speed has dropped off a wee bit, but my left index and ring fingers are developing odd calluses on the tips.

(the posts are still there and the contact works -- the z hinge works, its just the little tiny clips in side the caps are broken and no longer grab the z hinge, and I'm a cheap bastard not about to pay $75 for a new keyboard.)

No more slurping of kids' nationalities, Brit schools told

@COCM:

Either they got to me too late or I'm proof that they're wrong.

And I'll add to VRH's point:

It is a well known argument, but it has a few issues:

It always plays on the irrational fears of those at the bottom of the ladder

IBM memo to staff: Our CEO Ginni is visiting so please 'act normally!'

Re: We expect 100% occupancy during the visit

/thinks a moment.... .hmmm.

I'm thinking about an app to hire stand-ins to ensure 100% occupancy is such situations... maybe I can call it UberChair, AirC&D or Oookoookupancy....

There, thats more like it.

Reality Winner, liberty loser: NSA leaker faces 63 months in the cooler

Re: Clearance checks

@Mike:

I was born in Lynn Mass. Took up Canadian citizenship in 1978. Dad was a British Subject.

I can get Sec clearances here, in the US, Britain and Hong Kong for some strange reason. Weird it might be.

Re: Guilty?

I'm going to point out that The Intercept followed the law. In my view RW fucked up in sending the document to the Intercept in the way that she did.

Oddly, *faxing* it to them would have substantially obscured the digital watermark that identified the printer and person printing the doc.

Puppet is a poppet in the eyes of DevOps cash injectors: Automation upstart bags extra $42m

I've driven a CFengine for 15 years, and I'm putting on a Chef's hat so I can get my Puppet to play with an Ansible.

This is good in my books. Still no maven with Puppet. But One Day I'll get there.

*p.s. Automation ROCKS!*

Crime epidemic or never had it so good? Drilling into statistics is murder

excellent read

The article presents the issue well, and is done such that one can translate to other countries stats, at least ephemerally.

I'll point out one thing that isn't mentioned here - although statistics can be manipulated, and often are, the stats themselves are not the only issue in the overall perception of the population. What I'm seeing over here in Canuckistan is that social media is coming into play, with rather a lot of 'petty' and 'minor' criminal events that would not make main stream media being 'reported' by folks on social media, and often being re-reported and mangled in the process, the result being a perception that 'crime is way worse' than it has been in the past.

And I can honestly say that over here, at least, house breakers are exceptionally unlikely to be carrying weapons, and the only thing they seem to be interested in are Macbooks. A good pupper is more than sufficient defence.

Re: We need gunlaws like in the US to fight crime

@hplasm:

Considering naive's posting trolling record, I'm starting to think that it is an alias for a Register stockholder. He *has* to be doing good things for ElReg's ad views counts with the crap he posts.

Creep travels half the world to harass online teen gamer… and gets shot by her mom – cops

Re: Great outcome, but what about over here?

@ LucreLout

Considering what my wife can deadlift and benchpress, I'm not worried about her. More, being here in Canada, how much the city will charge us for scraping his smears off the street when he lands.

Re: Now he can get a tattoo, "Shot by the Mom!"

Some folks just don't understand a tree with a 12' diameter trunk base.

I do however recall cutting down a 4 or 5 year old maple with an uzi 9mm 40 round clip once. A loooooong time ago.

White House calls its own China tech cash-inject ban 'fake news'

@YAAC

I suggest that all future presidential announcements be prefixed with the venerable legal term "no take-backs"

accompanied by a pinky swear, double high five, cross-my-heart chest bump.

El Reg works with Byte Night to put techies out on the streets

For the leftpondians:

https://sleepout.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=cms.home

For those of us around the T dot:

https://covenanthousetoronto.akaraisin.com/Common/Event/Home.aspx?seid=16861&mid=8

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2018

(Yup, November folks. In Canada.)

If you sleep out, for the T dot version, I may see you there, still working on a team.

Norwegian tourist board says it can't a-fjord the bad publicity from 'Land of Chlamydia' posters

Re: "Norwegians are not good at using condoms."

@Ken Moorhouse.

Dammit, you owe me a double-double -- I managed to miss the keyboard.

p.s. brilliant

Cops: Autonomous Uber driver may have been streaming The Voice before death crash

Re: Headlights

@BIIIG re headlights

The forward facing videos from the Uber vehicle are tuned for *daylight* and do not accurately reflect the lighting in place. i.e. the videos give one an impression that the area is dark and bleak and the headlights are weak. Trust me on this one, Volvo XC90 headlights are not weak, and have been known to fully illuminate my bedroom when the dink that lives around the curve leaves at 3 in the morning.

Big Cable unplugs Cali's draft net neutrality protections yet AGAIN

Canada's wall

@Kane:

what revenue stream, I missed the conversation as I was out back planting things.......

Galloping greenback rocks Red Hat

Well --- with oracle tagging Java SE with a cost, I can imagine that will fix some of the middleware costing issues for RedHat, as it will likely reduce oracles "middleware discount".

Oracle's new Java SE subs: Code and support for $25/processor/month

Oh well

That'll be painful here 'bouts.

Weblogic. lots of weblogic.

I'm thinking there'll be cost management actions shortly.

Anyone want a copy of my CV?

Microsoft CEO wades into ICE outcry: Cool it, we only do legacy mail

Hurry Hurry, Step Right Up and See The GREATEST show on earth!!!!!

I'm pretty sure (and have been for while) that the GOP deciding to punt these two (Trump/Pence) as candidates was the ultimate distraction.

The damage this administration has done (and continues to do) overall will be to the general (global) population's wealth, security, health and overall future viability. The Wall street financial hyenas are (the ones with the initials GS and 5 8 ex employees in the white house) raking in the profits, and feasting on the results of T&P distracting everyone from the debt financing gambols they are engaging in throughout the globe. And the GOP continues to hand them more toys to play with on a monthly basis.

Yes, this whole fiasco at the "Boarder" (sic) is horrible to perceive, but the administration has played it out for almost a month now, and the shrieking is loud enough that T&P will fix it. Now, go back over what happened quietly in the midst of the shrieking. There is the path that needs followed. In the meantime a dozen American bedfellow companies have made nice chunks of change off providing "holding centers" and the bodies to run them, and the guards to secure them and the cleaners and construction crews, catering staff, truckers, etc etc. Someone's stock portfolio (in a double blind trust run by a close family member) has improved a wee bit. WHAT ELSE HAPPENED.

(And I know there are folks out there that will vomit over the idea, but you might want to check out what Noam has to say ......)

(Cryptographically) sign me up! Android to take bad app checks offline

Re: I don't understand why we need App Stores

@GIRZIM:

Not sure about Poe's -- but since we're speaking of stores, I sure miss Cole's.

And its summer, so Coles Law anyone?

Fraudster admits she was OPM dealer: Leaked US govt staff files used to bag cash, car loans

Re: Take that!

@AC

.e. the inability to resolve credit scams, inability to buy a home, rent a car, get a credit card, open legitimate bank accounts, investment accts., etc., etc. This nightmare can last most of a victim's lifetime and require thousands of hours of time and never be totally resolved

It can take rather a lot of work to untangle if has been left lying about, however a) All credit issues fall off credit reporting in 7 years if there is no activity* on that item. 5 years if the the report item is a positive (interesting that). Furthermore, at least in my experiences (my own and a pair of relatives) - clearing them up is a *legal* battle, but can be handled effectively and efficiently within about a year. It wasn't "free" but all things considered about $1200 in legal fees and about 5 months of back and forth, depositions, court filing and a series of requests from the legal beagles to the credit ratings agencies with nice legal stamps and seals got things sorted.

I'm not saying that these folks should not be prosecuted, but to claim that mucking up someone's credit rating fraudulently can affect their entire life is somewhat of an exaggeration.

* I'll note that one thing that had to be stomped on in a relatives case was having a loan agent, and a collections agent tag teaming back and forth with one fraudulent item. In that case it ended up not costing a penny since the claims court judge found in her favour, and made the agent and the collections "company" (an individual with about 11 different corp names) pay costs.

It's time for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 to die (die, die)

Re: TLS ? Our customers still demand ssl3 support

@GiovaniT:

I would have put "at least" in bold, underlined, and block caps.

Ex-Rolls-Royce engineer nicked on suspicion of giving F-35 info to China

Re: 1st Gen Swarm Tech?

@IWVC:

Bosnia, Gulf and Afghanistan didn't involve fighter to fighter combat, just fighter to friendly ground troops.

Re: Stupid... Just stupid...

@ Joe H.:

And at the moment there's some issues betwixt the couple involved in snopes....... But the data remains (for now)

Office 365 celebrates National Beer Day by popping out for a pint

Re: Remember the good old days?

@a_yank_lurker:

I do. I try very hard to forget. Icon is relevant.

Bank of England to set new standards for when IT goes bad

Uhhhm:

(c) Some of our IT knowledge was transferred to IBM during ramp up. As soon as IBM could they fired those. We fired the rest.

Fixed that for ya ....

User spent 20 minutes trying to move mouse cursor, without success

@ASAC:

Uhhhm..... I still have a Genius Mouse in the box with the 30 year old working cables and connectors.....

Re: Keyboard ecosystems

@CoCM:

Ask your vet what the most effective treatment for feline herpes is. (In cats it crops up as an eye infection) -- Silver Nitrate 0.5%USP drops.

Shatner's solar-powered Bitcoin gambit wouldn't power a deflector shield

Re: @disgustedoftunbridgewells

@Kane:

I think DoTW pulled off a shatnering presentation myself.

BOFH: Got that syncing feeling, hm? I've looked at your computer and the Outlook isn't great

I have something like 3 complete computers lying about my residence in bits and pieces. They have been delivered unto my care by an associate that (once) had some talent in the herding and management of bits and bytes. Now long disassociated, he picks up dirt cheap crap from 'recycling' and 'free' mailing lists, in an effort to find himself and others 'cheap' computers.

I no longer engage in his attempts to invoke warranty return policies......thus I have lots of electronics to recycle. (he's cooked up some doozies....) And he can't keep his stories straight with the vendors any more --- I rather suspect they've blacklisted him.

For the record, if someone is 'freecycling' or 'selling' an i7 "real cheap" "because they upgraded" I'm going to pretty much guarantee, they've cooked that sumbitch good.

Oh, hey, thats BOFH, that means its FRIDAY!!!! YAY!!!

Thought the AT&T Time-Warner tie-up was scary? Comcast says 'hold my beer'

There are some interesting charts out there

I think there are something like 12 global corporate entities that essentially cover all the food production, distribution, packaging, and sales operations

And we seem to be looking at having 6 or 8 corporate entities around the globe that will essentially cover all the media production distribution, packaging and sales operations.

And soon enough we will have 4 or 5 global corporate entities around the globe that will essentially cover all the government production, distribution packaging and sales operations.

"First they came for ....."

Fuck, where's my isolated private island in the south pacific again? I keep loosing the #$%@#% keys......

Men are officially the worst… top-level domain

Re: I'm feeling left out

@LJB:

Works well on ssh scan runs too.

Citation needed: Europe claims Kaspersky wares 'confirmed as malicious'

Oh look

The 1950's called, they would like some of that Cold War Ignition Fuel back.

(And Korea will be ....wait .. this is really really starting to look like a rewind, except that DJT keeps lauding Putin....)

Solar winds will help ESA probe smell what Mercury's cookin'

Re: I haz a disappoint

Well, if we're all up for flinging things "screaming into the sun" I have a *fairly* long list of candidates, mostly politicians and lawyers for some reason, although there are a couple of economics professors who may or may not be around anymore. Now all we have to do is crowdfund a falcon 9 or three......

Kepler finds three Earth-sized exoplanets, but they're too hot to handle

Re: And still no messages from the stars....

@tiggity:

if human belligerence anything to go by, big destructive wars trashing your civilization such that it never reaches such heights again is a possibility - as a lot of stuff is "one shot" - on next go after calamity the low hanging fruit of easy fossil fuels etc. that make advances "easy" are probably long since gone, harvested in earlier civilization rise

Museums. Make them temples. The moties had the right idea.

Trump's ZTE deal challenged by Senate

Canada is a THREAT to US (corporate healthcare) Security.

Someone in his entourage had to get stitches for a nasty cut while they were in Chateuguy (France according to CNN) and didn't have to pay a red cent to the hospital. This adviser is now all gaga about socialized medicare and will not shut up.

New York State is trying to ban 'deepfakes' and Hollywood isn't happy

Re: Ain't going to work

@VRH:

Upvoted for "intravenous expresso". I've been on those for the last two years. The doctors tell me its a life long thing now.

Trump kept ZTE alive as ‘personal favour’ to Chinese president Xi

I have to point out that

ZTE went into 'coma' mode -> Trump deal for resort -> sanctions lifted -> ZTE *LIVES*

I don't care about the finer points, there is only one point, I refuse to believe in coincidences in the case of international political actions.

As for the "Special Place In Hell for JT" -> Team Trump is simply taking the reaction (and I can honestly say it matters not one single whit WHAT Trudeau (did/did not)(would/would not have) (say/said) in that post G7 press scrum) that the ex Tea Party members that currently manage the (not) Progressive Conservative Party in Canada dictated to them.

Sadly the "I'm not a real politician and I will bring about a sea change" line of bullshit was bought by sufficient numbers of dolts in this province that we now have a "minitrump" running the show here for the next 4 or 5 years. I rather suspect that I'll start coming off as an inverse Bom.Bob. in the near future.

UK digital secretary throws cold water over bid for laws on kids' use of social media

Re: Molehills and mountains

@YAAC:

Yeah well, you should see what us what were brought up on Classical symphonies, Kung Fu movies, BetaMax, Lasarium and Heroin got up to!!!!

In defence of online ads: The 'net ain't free and you ain't paying

Re: +1

Knopfler, Straits all over my list.

Along with a rather heady mix of late 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's, and current pop/indie/jazz. I retreat into the 60's when the drama lamas of the modern pop scene drive me insane. If I'm really having a rough go, I have a whole wack of gregorian chants recorded in old world castles that make wonderfully calming background.