Posts by heyrick

Chipmakers threaten to defect to US, EU if UK doesn't get its semiconductor plans sorted

And when we meet

Which I'm sure we will

All that was there

Will be there still

I'll let it pass

And hold my tongue

And you will think

That I've moved on....

Re: Usual

Probably best they don't. They don't exactly have a history of success (or even a clue) with anything technical (with "technical" being defined as "has a plug attached").

Creator of Linux virtual assistant blames 'patent troll' for project's death

Re: Shame but..

What's the world coming to when taking steps to defeat the built-in spyware in too many things needs to be defended with "I'm not a luddite"?

No, you're not a luddite. Just sensible.

Somehow it seems wrong that a company can cause a round of expensive litigation and then just walk away after buggering everything up.

Spotted in the wild: Chimera – a Linux that isn't GNU/Linux

Re: Stallman on removing GNU from Linux

Stallman's response was "I'd say, what an enormous waste of effort."

It appears to be one guy's pet project. Maybe it'll go somewhere, maybe it won't. But if he wants to try, why not?

US military spends weekend shooting down Useless Floating Objects

Re: Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said it "wasn't an aircraft per se"

Anybody can launch a weather balloon, sure. But something the size of a small car?

Maybe, instead of just blowing them out of the sky, try instead to get some cameras pointed at the thing), and if it's a big balloon, how about making a small hole so it can descend a little more gracefully for future recovery and analysis?

Probably because the Americans are paranoid and there's empty space in Canada. Let the flyboys get on with it, and if it lands on a moose, America's fault...

Learn the art of malicious compliance: doing exactly what you were asked, even when it's wrong

I'd argue that this is not MALICIOUS compliance, just compliance.

When you work in a company where the managers think they're a cross between Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and God, orders are handed down from on high and us little peons are expected to follow them.

So I do. I don't second guess, I don't try to interpret what they meant, I simply do as instructed. If the instructions were wrong, I was not the one who issued them.

Oh, and before anybody comments on the peons not using their brains and/or thinking for ourselves, we aren't paid to think and the few times that anybody does, if they were wrong and misjudged something, the shit splatters all over the place. We get reminded that managers manage, not us.

Well, they can't have it both ways, and the least potentially destructive to my job is to do what I'm told unless it is clearly unsafe/dangerous.

Four top euro carriers will use phone numbers to target ads and annoy Google & Facebook

Thank god it's opt in

Let's just hope opting in is indeed opting in, and not periodically not not opting in, or some rubbish like that.

No more rockstars, say Billy Idol, Joan Jett in Workday Super Bowl ad

"Basically, anyone badass enough to promote a corporate for cash."

Badass? Really? Try "shallow", "desperate", "delusional", or something... anything... other than badass.

Google's Go may add telemetry that's on by default

"because it would ensure low adoption and would reduce the amount of telemetry data received to the point it would be of little value"

Gee, it's almost as if people are trying to tell them something.

What's up with IT, Doc? Rabbit hole reveals cause of outage

"I'd say it's more than slightly unpleasant."

"Slightly unpleasant" is British for "fuck me that hurt".

Re: Ouch

Mine tears through brambles line they aren't there. It's a shame I can't attach a sharp blade to each side, then she could do something useful as a side effect.

Surprise! China's top Android phones collect way more info

Re: Boffins?? What a weird word.

It is equivalent in meaning to egghead, nerd, and geek, but those terms are often used disparagingly.

Boffin is praise. Boffin is, well, Stephen Hawking was the überboffin.

What's not, at least in part, made in China?

Remember: Proudly assembled in Belgium / Wisconsin (as per your ocean side) might indeed be assembled by happy employees in a friendly company in Belgium / Wisconsin . . . . using Chinese components.

Re: Blaw yer ain trumpet

"The only way to ensure that private information is not used against you is for it not to be recorded to begin with."

This.

That one might think they're unimportant or not worth bothering about is missing the point.

Would you be happy to put a live running commentary of your movements on Twitter? Because your phone is quite likely doing so, only in a place you can't see. And you can't see because you'd probably be horrified about what sort of detail is being collected. Did you just quickly write a text when doing 36 in a 30 zone?

Oh, and just because you're nobody now doesn't mean you'll still be at some random point in the future. People have derailed careers because of some random offensive rubbish they wrote back when they were teenagers. Those digital wankstains? They stick around. Whether intentional (social media) or unintentional (app/phone tracking). Once it's out of your hands, it's out of your control. Just better hope it doesn't ever come back to haunt you.

Shhhhh!

<whisper> see icon </whisper>

Re: Seems to be the modern thing to do

I think people are worried about China because it's "the government" doing the spying, whereas in the west it's "just Corporate America", as if that's really somehow better.

Now shops are swapping loyalty cards for apps. Apps that want to know your location, run at startup, access device logs, phone identity, blah blah blah. They're being pushed quite hard these days, but you can't argue with the checkout girl as she's just following instructions from above and has no idea what app permissions are, never mind why I would be annoyed at the idea of granting all this access to some shitware cobbled together by a third party to offer me...uh...nothing I can't find on the place's regular website.

Problem is, everybody is so used to this, if you say "over my dead body am I going allow you to report my activity every time I touch my phone", I'm the weird one.

FFS.

Re: As an owner of a Xiaomi

I have a Xiaomi Mi 10T. I guess as part of the EU concessions, some of the bundled apps ask if they can pillage my data, to which I say "hell no". Whether or not they do anyway, I cannot say, but it's rather amusing how many Xiaomi apps ask first [1], and how many Google apps ask first [2].

1 - pretty much all of them

2 - exactly none of them

Wikimedia Foundation confirms, and bemoans, Pakistan ban

Re: The ban-hammer

"Literally any opinion they can think of."

I'm actually a goldfish and you're a figment of my imagination as I try to alleviate the boredom of going around and around and around and around...

Prepare to be shocked: Employees hate this One Weird Clause

What I don't get is why a company thinks it should have any rights at all to something you created yourself outside of paid work hours and not using any work related resources or equipment.

Re: Watch out for "multiple sites"

Oh, and I should add the magic word "polyvalent" in a contract which means "all sorts of other tasks at the whim of your manager", and if hours are not rigidly stated but has any vagaries, then it could turn into weekend work or night shift all while keeping to the wording of the contract.

There's no better way to screw an employee than vague wording.

Watch out for "multiple sites"

Where I work, the new contracts are issued saying that you work for the company based at X, Y, and Z. My contract was from ages ago, so it says only X.

Here in France it's not that easy to get rid of a full time employee (as long as they don't do fireable things), so the ruse that companies have is to give you your legal notice (2 weeks?) that your position is moving to another of the sites. If you go, it will have broken up the social clique that was likely part of the problem. And if you don't go, it's a dismissal, your fault.

Re: I enjoyed my non-compete

Just leaving school, I took a summer job as a cleaner while taking time to work out what to do next. I was sent a "contact" to sign and return. The non-compete clause was worded so vaguely that it would have prevented me from cleaning anything in any context for a period of three years. When that job ended, my immediate boss had the cheek to remind me that I can't leave for a competitor and the contract applied.

So I worked out how much I had worked for them, calculated what three years of that would be, and invoiced them saying I'll accept either full payment in 28 days, or monthly installments. But if they're going to have any influence on my future activities, I fully expect to be paid.

The company gave up on the idea. Probably took about as long as necessary to look through the filing cabinet to realise that I never signed and returned the contract (I binned it as the crap it obviously was), so they didn't even have any proof of such an "agreement".

Microsoft warns some Azure usage notifications – including abnormalities – are broken

Look, it's simple.

Either it's broken, in which case they can't tell if you've used to much; or it works, in which case they can tell you when you're running into the extra pay zone.

If they can tell, but they won't tell you (the excuse is irrelevant), then how is that not a breach of contract? If you're relying upon that facility to control your expenditure, but it happens to conveniently not be functioning, whilst they're able to know your usage....come on, pull the other one.

McDonald's pulls plug on Wi-Fi, starts playing classical music to soothe yobs

Re: Error

Which part, using free WiFi or going to McDo?

(I do neither these days)

Either way, upvote for an amazingly succinct reply.

Re: print car number plates on takeaway bags to discourage customers from littering

No, not an opaque token. It'll be some piss poor idea that will get hacked and soon people will be hounded down for littering at the other side of the country.

Much simpler idea. Take a photo of the car and occupants and have some sort of colour laser jobbie that can print "souvenir bags" (let's call them that).

It's a bit like what the ferry companies used to do in the late 90s, they'd take a photo of every car as it entered, and all of the photos would be pinned up on a board, you could go and order a big size print of yours. It was passed off as a sort of on board souvenir of your voyage, but in reality it was photographic evidence of what cars boarded and who was in them (at least, the adults, they didn't tend to hassle children in the back seat).

Plus, if your mug (and licence plate) are clearly printed on the bag, you'd have to be a right twat to toss it into the ditch.

Re: Classical music calms?

Classic or Classical? I would suggest a loop tape of something by Kylie Minogue, like Locomotion. A few times around of that ought to disperse the crowd...

...and us crusties can be like "eh, that was chart topping stuff once upon a time, kids today, don't know they're born, etc etc".

McDonald's WiFi? Only if you're a complete fool.

July 2009, France, Loire Atlantique. A friend and I were in a McDo and thought we'd try out the free WiFi, see what it's like.

We quickly discovered that any attempt to connect to an SMTP server is answered with McDo's own one, that will happily allow you in, though it's really slow at relaying messages (we made up some ridiculous headers and sent a rude message about the eatery to a spam drop address). We abandoned any further investigation because to silently hijack an entire port like that (and do what with the messages sent?)....Fuck right off, then die, then fuck off some more.

NASA Geotail spacecraft's 30-year mission ends after last data recorder fails

JunoCam

Can't help but wonder if the Jovians are camera shy... or just don't want to be found.

FOSS could be an unintended victim of EU crusade to make software more secure

Will this actually ever happen?

I can't but imagine there's a lot of lobbying and brown envelope passing going on behind the scenes on the part of the corporate players who won't want the apple cart upended.

Re: "That breaks so many funding models for FOSS it's not even funny"

A commendable aim, but one doesn't normally deal with the weeds by napalming the garden.

Three seconds of audio could end up costing Fox $500,000

Re: Maybe..really?

Didn't downvote you, but... really? This shouldn't ever be "normal".

"to those of us who have to pay close attention for where the current drive-by shooting hot spots are"

You're right that I'm from a country where this sort of thing isn't a risk. But I'd have to disagree with you and say that it is the availability and access to guns that is the problem. Every country has its share of nutjobs, the United States isn't any different in that respect, but around these parts it's usually knife crime (which is a problem) simply because access to firearms is that much more restricted.

Re: Siren tests

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzW3G-XUFHw

Ah, that brings back memories. They only went and put one right in the middle of Sandhurst school, didn't they?

It's gone now (decommissioned them), but here's a look from Google's Street View a few years ago - https://maps.app.goo.gl/cxd1qk6oA2Z5q1pH8

Re: Maybe

I don't know how accurate the site is, but https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ would suggest that if one broadcast an alert every time, the alert would likely be disabled (or, ironically, shot at until it malfunctioned) due to never shutting up.

Siren tones

Since we're talking about sirens and tones, I have a question to ask.

When I was at boarding school (85-90), the fire alarm was like fwee-wee-wee, high pitched and the sort of annoying that rattles around in your head.

At work (nowadays), the fire alarm is more like ooh-laa-ooh-laa-ooh-laa, a much lower pitch and not so much annoying as just loud.

Is there a technical reason for the difference (like lower sounds carrying better), or is it just that they picked a different sort of siren?

Or, maybe, the higher pitch is better at waking children in the middle of the night?

Re: Harmony by disharmony

It's been MANY years, so I don't remember the precise time, but when I was young I could hear the weekly test of the Broadmoor sirens. I think it was at eleven am on a Monday (don't quote me on it), followed about ten or so minutes later by a different siren (the all clear).

One day, the sirens sounded on time. And a little while later they sounded again, not the expected all clear signal. I remember thinking to myself that finally somebody was smart enough to try to get out during the regular testing.

Re: Harmony by disharmony..turned off Amber Alert as well

Well, I can see from these posts that the system is being abused - from too many (irrelevant?) messages to messages sent at stupid o'clock, if it's pissing off people to the point where they deactivate it, then it's failing in its purpose.

User was told three times 'Do Not Reboot This PC' – then unplugged it anyway

Re: Remove, Throw, Call

"Couldn't some form of planning be done to avoid the last minute rush and panic?"

When I was younger, I used to like to sit in a little cafe at the top of a shopping centre on the 24th of December and watch all the little panicked ants scurrying around, as for some, it seemed that Christmas snuck up on them without warning.

Re: Content

Just to balance the scales, I've dealt with a number of neuro-normies who had no idea about technology. To them the internet was the 'e' icon, they refused antivirus products because "it's a machine, it won't catch the flu" and attempts to explain went nowhere. So, I feel this has less to do with a person's internal wiring and more to do with their exposure to technology. After all, it took me fixing a start-up blue screen three sodding times (all praise Hirren's boot CD) before they understood that yanking the plug out of the wall was not an acceptable way to turn the thing off, it's not like a fancy typewriter...! But I did have to make a shortcut to shutdown.exe because they just were not getting the idea of clicking on the thing marked Start in order to Stop.

James Webb Space Telescope suffers another hitch: Instrument down

The Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph

Sitting in the staff break room speed reading the news. Misread the penultimate word. Oops. :)

If your Start menu or apps are freezing up on Windows, Microsoft has a suggestion

Re: Wait, what?

Just came to say the exact same thing. There are a load of side effects due to collusion that is really rather sickening, especially given the obvious house of cards approach to error handling...

Techies ask PM to 'prepare UK chip strategy as a matter of urgency'

Re: Autumn 2022 Report DCMS Minister is.....

That somebody like Dorries was the DCMS minister says all you need to know about the government's attitude and competence with anything that has a plug attached.

Given the calibre of the current Cabinet, I rather imagine the PM has a mate or some distant relation (in India?) fishing for a cushy contract at the taxpayer's expense.

Re: It depends on what they are trying to achieve

Poor wages = more profit.

Horrible public services - healthcare isn't provided by the company = more profit.

World's highest taxes - for the little people maybe, for the rich... = more profit.

Claustrophobic housing - not that different to parts of other countries, and better than some.

Bloke allegedly stole, sold private info belonging to 'tens of millions' globally

was it worth the $500k and prison jumpsuit?

The way things are, the crypto fraud will likely hurt more than the distribution of personal information.

I long for a day when an arsehole that does something like this gets a more reasonable fine, like at least €100 per person (convertible, if he's broke, into one day behind bars per person).

Software glitch revokes copyright protection for AI-generated comic book

Re: It's simple. It is not.

My take on this is that she used an AI as a tool, as opposed to that other guy who wants to get the AI itself as the copyright holder.

If it's a tool, then how is this that different to a word processor? A pen? A set of large dice with plot relevant actions on them (roll your own story), etc etc? The AI didn't think of what to do for making the end product, there would have been a fair amount of human interaction to get the AI to output that which was wanted (and having played around with Dall-E, easier said than done!), plus the plotting, scenario, and how it all fits together.

The AI doesn't deserve copyright any more than Bic does it one writes something with a biro. But she should, as the AI was a tool she used.

It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system

Re: which is warmer

My old (Daewoo?) VCR had am/pm and allowed you to set a start time and a stop time, or a start time and a duration. It also did nifty things like pick up the TSDP from Teletext so it would power up with its clock correctly set.

Just saying...

Re: which is warmer

It's 12ths of an hour because an hour contains sixty minutes (we inherited that from the Babylonians) and using five minute intervals (which coincides with the positions of the hours) works.

There's no such thing as a metric clock, it would be utterly alien to the entire world.

However it's worth noting that smaller units of time measurement are metric/base 10. Centiseconds - 100ths of a second. Milliseconds - 1000th. Microseconds, Nanoseconds, and so on.

"elitist snobs telling them how they should live their lives"

Oh, the irony.

Apple releases Lisa source code on landmark machine's 40th birthday

Re: Architecture and Morality.....anyone?

Oh, that's what that A20 stuff was about... Thanks.