Posts by Anonymous South African Coward

The server is down, money is not being made, and you want me to fix what?

Re: I added a sentance...

Beautiful. Oh, well done!

BOFH: But we think the UK tax authorities would be VERY interested in how we used COVID support packages

This one will also mature well and be a delight to read...

Well done, excellent.

Now, vere are mein tax auditors und collectors?

Ubuntu, Wikimedia jump ship to the Libera Chat IRC network after Freenode channel confiscations

now that'll be a fun thing to try on any remaining freenode channels...

After staff revolt, Freenode management takes over hundreds of IRC channels for 'policy violations'

Game of Thrones?

Or is it Game of IRC Servers?

Just what is the poop capacity of an unladen sparrow? We ask because one got into the office and left quite a mess

But if planned and done properly, any shipping container can be converted to a most excellent small office or the such.

As mentioned, insulation and the such need to be high on the list of things to be done.

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz? Detroit waits for my order, you'd better make amends

Re: Sometimes though....

On Reddit somebody in r/sysadmin mentioned that he had an user with a dial-up modem.

Everything worked beautifully, but then the user got ADSL.

And ADSL doesn't warboe, beep or boop. User was most unhappy.

Cue brainstorm - every time user want to "connect" to the internet, a script is run playing a .WAV of a modem handshaking and connecting - and user was happy.

Pub o' clock time, will be gone the whole day to have a bout of nostalgia at those simpler times... --->

Samsung shows off rollable and foldable displays, suggests they'll arrive in 2022

Sagsmug at it again.

I'll take a traditional phone any time of the day, one where I know the camera is, and which I can hide/disable if I want to.

Re: No thanks to a camera behind the screen

Purveyors of pr0nz will make a plan...

Re: Meanwhile at Apple...

You forgot the patented rounded corners.

WhatsApp: Share your data with Facebook, or we'll make our own app useless to you

Some of us old-timers are seriously contemplating going back to BBS systems.

Yes, those which we used with modems etc. But adapted for the multi-user environment, able to handle more than one (or two) logged on users.

MeWe : https://mewe.com

Looks like they're gaining traction.

Preliminary report on Texas Tesla crash finds Autosteer was 'not available' along road where both passengers died

A number of fatal crashes have been attributed to over-reliance on vehicle automation by drivers.

I will not have a car with automation installed. Makes one lazy and tend to enforce the habit of letting your attention wander.

The driver need to be aware at all times of other cars and objects around his/her car.

If you want true automation, get a donkey/horse carriage.

Re: Best just make a full size scalextric

dodgycoin?

As another vendor promises 3 years of Android updates, we ask: How long should mobile devices receive support?

It's all about the money.

Updating a phone costs money. If the phone(s) can be pumped and dumped, then it's the users' problem, not the company's problem.

Also, CEO fatcat types need moar moniez for their bling lifestyle.

British bank TSB says it will fix days-long transaction troubles tonight

Wot mate? I thought all banks - with the exception of TSB - was solid and reliable in Blightey, it being a bastion of Western civilization. Or have I missed something?

Maybe Sid Meier need to add a "wibbly wobbly electronic banking services" into his next Civilizations release for added realism.

Going forward, the Brits can jolly do well to learn from our South African people - if they're unlucky about something, they'll loot, burn and destroy. Not sure if that will get the message across?

Chinese rocket plunges into Indian Ocean, still lands sharp rebuke from NASA

Re: NASA .. a sternly-worded statement

Think they'll plan a launch so as to pollute the USA part with geosynchronous space junk?

Re: Perhaps,

Which country's government's the biggest performer in that regard? Probably South Africa...

Jaguar Land Rover reaches for graph database in search of supply chain knowledge during chip shortage

...Harry Powell...

Why am I thinking of Harry Potter?

Re: Got any 300TDis handy?

ECU less = field hardened.

I pity the poor sod going into the boondocks and an ECU fries...

Anything can happen in the boondocks. Mr Murphy's a regular visitor to forn parts.

Big right-to-repair win: FTC blasts tech giants for making it so difficult to mend devices

Re: Merceded

So that means you'll either have to buy a completely new Mercedes, or make-do with a Bluetooth speaker paired to your phone for music etc...

I have been eyeballing the integrated radio consoles in modern cars. They sure look neat and all that, but they'll be a ballache to replace should Mr Murphy drop in for an unwanted visit.

The older style of radios are easier to replace if not worth repairing.

Re: Being able

I don't care for thickness. I'll sacrifice a few mm of thickness just to have a removable battery.

Clever engineering can be used to make sure that the battery package is optimized by using the least space possible, to keep it neat and thin.

Of course we don't want a brick like the Nokia Communicator...

Re: End of life

Exactly this.

My Redmi 4A was starting to get a bit wonky regarding battery life. That, plus the small storage space made me upgrade to a Redmi Note 8 with 64Gb RAM.

If they made it easy to swap out batteries, then things would've been different.

Re: Injunctive relief

We also purchased a pair of walkie-talkies recently.

What I like about the Motorolas is that you get a battery pack - but you can easily replace said battery pack with four AA batteries.

Plus USB-compatible charger port. Win.

Re: Injunctive relief

Hopefully post a video on Youtube of the resulting fun.

'A massive middle finger': Open-source audio fans up in arms after Audacity opts to add telemetry capture

Fork it then

If you don't like what they do, then fork it.

US declares emergency after ransomware shuts oil pipeline that pumps 100 million gallons a day

Forn Parts.

The US Justice Department two weeks ago established a Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force to fight the scourge

Good luck with that, chaps.

Especially if said ne'er-do-well is operating from Forn Parts, where you cannot go without causing a Major Diplomatical Incident and Prelude To World War III.

‘Staggering’ cost of vintage Sun workstations sees OpenSolaris-fork Illumos drop SPARC support

And another stalwart bites the dust.

Hamba Kahle.

Accidentally wiped an app's directory? Hey, just play the 'unscheduled maintenance' card. Now you're a hero

hah, did a del *.* in the root of a DOS 3.30 workstation once.

Fun times.

IIRC DOS 6.00 and higher will ask you the location of COMMAND.COM if the system booted up and the command interpreter was missing. Not so with DOS3.30 and others, you get the dreaded "Bad or Missing Command Interpreter. System halted" message.

Which requires trundling off to find a boot disk, boot that up, and copy COMMAND.COM over (plus other gubbins like AUTOEXEC.BAT and/or CONFIG.SYS and other drivers).

At least it was simple to fix such mistakes back then.

One more interesting thing to note is that all DOS messages have been formatted for a 40-column screen, due to the existence of CGA monitors.

Gone in 60 electrons: Digital art swaggers down the cul-de-sac of obsolescence

Problem with Digital (F)Art...

...if the producer goes, your purchase also goes.

Or if DRM decide to give you a good shafting and make your purchases disappear.

Sites featuring the Jolly Roger *cough* will still be in demand for people wanting DRM-free content. Or who can't be arsed to create a backup copy of their puchases.

Just another way to make money. Arrrrr me maties!

The swift in-person response is part of the service (and nothing to do with the thing I broke while trying to help you)

Remote shutdowns

I'm part of the "shutdown the remote server by accident" club.

Oh that joyous feeling when you realized too late that you've selected shutdown (either via GUI or CLI) the server you're working on...

iLO was enabled on the remote server, however the VPN was down. Client still have to arrange for a portforward to enable the VPN.

Luckily an onsite tech was there to start the server up. Said server also hosts a couple of VM's...

Lesson learnt. Are looking at vays und means of makink ze shutdown button goe awaye.

Fancy a piece of sordid tech history? Fleabayer is flogging the first production Spectrum Vega+ console for £1,500

And what if they'll try again with a newer Vestal Virgin version?

Err... oops.

'Millions' of Dell PCs will grant malware, rogue users admin-level access if asked nicely

As if the current cryptomalware scourge and Covid19 wasn't enough...

Something went wrong but we won't tell you what it is. Now, would you like to take out a premium subscription?

Ahhh. Simon and his sidekick probably had a hand in this.

Strand Games recoded/remastered the original from source for Android and Apple devices.

Excellent qualitay. And none of this foolery in their apps.

BOFH: Postman BOFH's Special Delivery Service

Re: Agile/HotDesking

Yes, yes, it do violate several protocols, including the 4th protocol and the Geneva protocol.

Re: After

I gots a new PFY starting on Monday...

good times!

Back to work... NOPE

By Crom, I've got into the routine of monday = work, tuesday = at home (AKA being lazy in bed), wednesday = at work, thursday (repeat of tuesday) and friday = at work, bugg'ring orf early for a longish weekend...

If the decision is made to keep this schedule up, I'll be happy. Less money being spent on fuel and all that.

But if they decide to get us back to the orifice full time, then desperate measures need to be called for...

I need a new keyboard.

It happened in the general vicinity of "late night front garden job"...

We've finally hit Peak Bork: Microsoft man reveals home-grown welcome back BSOD at Redmond HQ

I was also about to say it looks like a WIn7 BSOD.

Unless I'm mistaken...

University duo thought it would be cool to sneak bad code into Linux as an experiment. Of course, it absolutely backfired

Re: Bad Actor/Good actor.

Agreed with your assessment 100%.

Once the "bad" code reaches production, then it'll be next to impossible to detect... and depending on its level in the hierarchy of the OS, will be either easy to forcibly eject/remove or it will be a real PITA to remove...

Nip these things in the bud before they get a chance to gain a foothold.

Hex

MELON MELON MELON

+++ Out Of Brain Error +++

+++ Insert Brain And Reboot +++

Overreaction?

Nope, I don't think there was an overreaction at all.

I think it is justified to ban the Uni as they proved to be untrustworthy.

And that will be a lesson to others. Play fair, submit good code, and all will be well.

But if you do submit code in order to undermine the stability of a system, out you go, as you're clearly not trustworthy, and every single bit of code you've submitted, be subject to scrutiny (or better still) termination and removal from the system.

Which makes me wonder - closed source, how safe is it? What will happen if somebody on the inside deliberately injects some code for a backdoor or create some unstable condition, will this be detected and removed? What exactly will happen in this sort of scenario?

Apple, you've AirDrop'd the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing

Re: Moot point if

Fartdrop? AirBiscuitNetwork?

Watchdog 'enables Tesla Autopilot' with string, some weight, a seat belt ... and no actual human at the wheel

I, for one, hope never to encounter any sort of idiot trying to make his car drive all by itself without a driver at the steering wheel.

These sort of idiots can remain as far and away as possible from me, I don't want to meet them, hear how they've bypassed a system and what they did. I'm. Not. Interested.

All I'm interested in is getting safely from Point A to Point B (and possibly a quickie detour to Hinkley Point C) without any incident, whether it be a road rage incident, accident or whatever incident it may be.

They are free and Most Welcome to have an explosive, orgasmic, Darwinistic meeting between themselves, I have no issues with that.

When news of that ill-fated crash was posted on El Reg, I suspected that these two clever guys somehow fooled the autopilot part of the Tesla into driving itself... but shouldn't the authorities have found evidence of the tampering? Like fake hands, weights etc to fool the system?

Re: Hmm ...

"You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof..."

If you have a QNAP NAS, stop what you're doing right now and install latest updates. Do it before Qlocker gets you

The idea of having "cloudy" services in order to provide a better NAS experience is not a good idea, it exposes your NAS directly to the Wild Wild Web.

I prefer to hide my NAS completely behind a firewall and have users VPN in to access their files.

That extra step (VPN) is just a safeguard keeping malware and ne'er-do-wells away from my data.

And, of course, backups.

'There was no one driving that vehicle': Texas cops suspect Autopilot involved after two men killed in Tesla crash

One of two things must have happened :

1. There was a driver, car was not on autopilot. Driver and friend wanted to see "how fast can this car really go?" and misjudged. After the crash, the driver could not get out and moved over to the passenger seat to try and get out from there, and also failed.

2. There was no driver, both have found a way to override all existing safety interlocks etc somehow (and tried to re-enact a Knight Rider episode), and one which the authorities do not want to reveal lest others will try out the same.

Unfortunately all electric vehicles carry a nasty payload - stored electricity, and in the event of an accident, said energy may want to go somewhere else...

Home office setup with built-in boiling water tap for tea and coffee without getting up is a monument to deskcess

Re: All that

And the troubles to get the heater element replaced...

The only thing that seems to be missing for this purpose is a built-in bog. Just imagine the productivity gains!

/slow clap

Nah, I prefer a simple desk. Due to space constraints (I rent a small room) the desk is a plastic fold-up desk and I have a canvas fold-up camping chair.

Should I need a bit of space, desk and chair can be folded up and stowed out of the way until I've changed my mind.

Need milk? Fridge in one side of the room.

Need the bog? Inna other corner of the room.

At least this is not permanent, only temporary for now.

How not to apply for a new job: Apply for it on a job site

Old farts

I'm an old fart (above 50) so the possibility of me getting something worthwhile is next to nothing.

Had a good run at it, looking forward to bowing out of IT within the next 3 years. Hopefully less.