Posts by David 132

Microsoft sues coronavirus phishing spammers to seize their domains amid web app attacks against Office 354.5

Re: That much downtime?

It depends how well El Reg’s CMS handles 64-bit negative numbers...

That much downtime?

Article headline at the time of writing this: amid web app attacks against Office 265

Now, I know they've had a lot of downtime, and I've variously heard it referred to as Office 364, Office 360 and so on, but a whole 100 days? At that point, probably safer to host your data on a stack of knockoff Chinese 5.25" floppy disks held onto your fridge with a magnet.

Yeah yeah, I should use the "Send a correction" link, but this was too funny not to call out!

Cereal Killer Cafe enters hipster heaven, heads online: Coronavirus blamed for shutters being pulled down

Re: might not just be about pouring milk on cereal

Or my mum's variant - melt mars bars, butter and golden syrup together in a large mixing bowl over a pan of boiling water. Stir in rice krispies. Spread the mixture out into 1-2" deep baking pans, chill in fridge. When the mixture is set, spread melted cooking chocolate over the top to a depth of 1/4", and then chill the whole thing in the fridge for a couple of hours. Slice into 2" squares and enjoy.

Mmmmmmm... I'm having something of a madeleine moment here...

Barclays Bank appeared to be using the Wayback Machine as a 'CDN' for some Javascript

Re: I'm smarter...

I hide messages in all my Reg forum postings. Encrypted, of course; I’m no dummy. Quadruple ROT13, to make certain.

MIT apologizes, permanently pulls offline huge dataset that taught AI systems to use racist, misogynistic slurs

It was classified along with the Fountain of Youth, El Dorado, and Bigfoot.

Things that theoretically exist, but have never been found.

Re: c****e

Next we'll be renaming seabirds.

Nah. Just throw rocks at them till they go away.

Leave no tern unstoned.

Laws on police facial recognition aren't tough enough, UK data watchdog barrister tells Court of Appeal

Re: Chinese propaganda?

Exactly. It’s China we’re talking about here, where as far as the CCP and State apparatus are concerned, everyone is guilty of *something*, even if it’s only the conveniently-vague “subversion”. Ergo the false positive rate of their system will be 0%, and anyone who suggests otherwise is in league with foreign agencies.

India bans 59 apps it says have privacy, national security problems. In a massive coincidence, they’re all Chinese

"fist fights"

" fist fights and booby traps"

...is underselling it just a little. Try "clubs bristling with vicious 5" nails", on the Chinese side, not to mention multiple Indian fatalities. Can't say I blame the Indian government for this; if anything, they're being VERY restrained.

Anyway, I'm sure someone will be along in these comments shortly to tell us how this is all the fault of Trump/Brexit/Boris Johnson/the capitalist system, right?

Detroit cops cuffed, threw a dad misidentified by facial recognition in jail. Now the ACLU's demanding action

Re: "the guard didn’t witness the crime personally, was relying on CCTV footage......

I’m only surprised that they didn’t then try to pin charges on him of “loitering with intent to use a pedestrian crossing”, “smelling of foreign food” and “looking at me in a funny way”...

Microsoft loosens Teams' necktie as platform courts your forensic accountant relatives

Re: Profanity Detection - needs work.

The only appropriate response to profanity filters is, pace Fry & Laurie, “Skank off, you pempslider!”

Good luck using generative adversarial networks in real life – they're difficult to train and finicky to fix

Re: An intelligent networlk

Hmm, I broadly agree, but there are instances where it is worthwhile. Peter Jackson and hus team did a pretty good job with the old B&W war footage when making “They Shall Not Grow Old”, and it really brings the images to life. If you’ve not seen the film yet btw, do it. Now. It’s incredible.

Australia's Lion brewery hit by second cyber attack as nation staggers under suspected Chinese digital assault

Re: Camra

Ale-Qaeda?

What does London's number 65 bus have to hide? OS caught on camera setting fire to '22,000 illegal file(s)!!'

Re: Were they the result of Spam?

Ok, that prompted a Rye chuckle from me.

ServiceNow slammed for 'tone deaf' letter telling customers contracts can't be tweaked as COVID-19 batters businesses

Re: We use Service Now where I work...

Oh diddums. Did the nasty stupid population not vote the way you, with your obviously superior intellect, knew they should?

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

An unresolved paranthesis creates a low-level tension (that will stay with you all day.

Re: I think he was glad when I left

Works for me - if my browser screen is to be believed, I just gave the post its first upvote.

Yep, I went back, re-loaded the page in a fresh tab and the lone upvote is still there.

Bring back the Moderatrix!

How do you run a military court over Zoom? With 28 bullet points and a ceremonial laptop flunkey, of course!

Re: If sentenced to a Firing Squad

Powerpoint -> Insert Bullets

Edit: I see commentard IGotOut beat me to the joke further down this page. Oh well. I shall leave this here so you can all sneer at my tardiness.

Wow, Microsoft's Windows 10 always runs Edge on startup? What could cause that? So strange, tut-tuts Microsoft

Re: Remember when...

It didn't help that the status tray icon didn't always disappear if something crashed. If you hovered over it, it would usually go...

You’ll not be shocked to learn that this behaviour still occurs in Windows 10.

For example, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve wondered why I’m getting no IMs from colleagues even though Skype-for-Business/Lync is still running... only to hover over its system tray icon, which immediately disappears, showing that the damn thing actually crashed minutes/hours ago but fooled me into thinking it was alive.

845GB of racy dating app records exposed to entire internet via leaky AWS buckets

“I’m just itching to meet you!”

“Let’s compare skin outbreaks... just pick a spot!”

Arm wrestle round two: Chinese outpost says it's fired the replacement CEO foisted on it by HQ

Welcome to China, ARM

What's that saying? "If you sup with the Devil, be sure to use a long spoon".

Hands up anyone who's surprised that this happened?

An Internet of Trouble lies ahead as root certificates begin to expire en masse, warns security researcher

Re: What time is it, please?

Yes, provided you're prepared for your smart fridge to make a few assumptions thereafter for your safety...

ERROR41: This pork chop is from a pig whose grandmother hasn't been born yet. Temporal violation on bottom shelf. Discarding.

ERROR42: Waitrose Lemon & Herb Chicken on middle shelf may not be safe to eat due to thyme dilation effect.

NOTIFICATION: The carton of milk buried out of sight at the far back of top shelf was purchased last week and is fresh. Enjoy your Millennium Eve party!

Re: Of course if they weren't so greedy ....

steaming media

Best (intentional?) typo ever.

Windoze 10: New levels of tedium reached with latest Insider build while 'stable' release still a bit wonky

If Windows 10 "forgets" something like this, what else is it "forgetting"?

Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!

Your preferred default browser?

Your privacy settings?

That you disabled Web Search from the Start Menu?

That you don't want it to spontaneously uninstall any of your applications it takes a dislike to, whilst silently shoveling a load of Candy Crush Soda Clash Dolby Disney XBox turds onto your start menu?

Re: Windows 10 2004. Certainly seems a bit wonky + Older Nvidia Driver Workaround.

What annoys me is that if modern Windows Update detects a blocking condition that prevents an update, it doesn't tell you what it is, and simply fails to show the update. Unless there's a logfile somewhere non-obvious that I'm unaware of?

I finally managed to get 2004 installed on one of my PCs last week; what had been blocking it was a long-forgotten copy of an old, out-of-date version of VMWare Workstation that was buried somewhere under c:\Program Files (x86). It wasn't even installed; the files were orphans from some backup.

Grrr.

Remind us again, why work for AWS? Petty Amazon sues marketing veep after he defects to Google Cloud

How very trusting of him

"...throughout his tenure at AWS, Hall and his superiors operated with the understanding that the non-compete clause was not actually part of his contract..."

A verbal contract, as the saying goes, is not worth the paper it's printed on.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of non-compete agreements and think they should be outlawed.

However, if there was one in his written contract, which he presumably signed, and all he has in his defence is "they pinky-promised not to enforce it!!", then I don't think he has a leg to stand on.

What he should have done is called their bluff at the outset, and struck out that clause in the contract before signing it. Or better yet, asked for a new version of the contract sans NCA "boilerplate".

IANAL etc etc.

When open source isn't enough: Fancy a de-Googled Chromium? How about some Microsoft-free VS Code?

Re: Don't forget Iron

Upvote for Pi-Hole. Excellent tool and every home network should have it.

Although, I have found that it breaks the Lowes.com website, which refuses to work properly unless I switch my device to an upstream DNS provider. It shouldn't need to be said that I blame Lowe's, who apparently can't design a website without structural advert-serving and snooping.

Developers renew push to get rid of objectionable code terms to make 'the world a tiny bit more welcoming'

Re: Context...

I was thinking of SMSing you a response - but that was just a pretext.

It could be 'five to ten years' before the world finally drags itself away from IPv4

Pity the poor Register, missing out. On Google and Thinkbroadband, the 1s are so much sharper, the zeroes are richer and fuller, and their webpages just feel more bright and modern.

Or alternatively all of the above is bullshite, and there is no discernible difference at all to the web-browsing end-user. Hence the stagnation of IPv6.

Travel-sick Windows needing a Systemwiederherstellung would be in Germany, right? Austria? Not necessarily

Re: You ain't seen nothing yet...

How could I forget that? The one and only time the Telegraph has had to be printed in Super-Ultrawide 32:9 aspect ratio a.k.a. "broadestsheet" and required Inspector Gadget-like extending arms to hold it open...

Re: You ain't seen nothing yet...

Honestly, I'm just surprised no-one has brought up the subject of Danube steamboat captains and their administrative arrangements yet.

Allow me:

"Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft"

Beer, because Friday, Germany, and sunshine.

Re: Schoolchild giggle?

Well, if anyone ever tells you German is not a sinister language, please accept this Gift from me...

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

“Splatter”

Linux-loving Windows 10 May 2020 Update squeaks in with days to spare before June

Fools, and I, rush in...

I installed v2004 on my main PC yesterday. Breaking a lifetime habit - wait for other people to encounter the bugs, David, no sense rushing in, you won't gain anything...

Well, so far, not too bad. Most things still work.

On the downside, see my rant elsewhere on this page about the *&^@! Web Search feature, which just won't take a hint and die already.

Oh, and I had the Winaero "Windows 7 Games for Windows 10" pack installed, in order to get my Freecell fix. Well, Microsoft silently uninstalled that (presumably, in order to protect me?) without so much as a notification, which was so very nice of them. I was able to reinstall it and it works just fine, so I can only assume that what they were protecting me from was card games that don't have adverts in them. At least they didn't try to reset my default browser choice for once.

Re: Oh, Thank God!

Be warned - if, like many other people, you have disabled the utterly pointless Web Search in the Start Menu - it's back in v2004. This latest release completely ignores all those CortanaConsent and BingWebSearchEnabled registry keys and system policies that you carefully implemented, and with a loud "fuck you, we know best" re-enables web search. Good job Microsoft, because when I hit the Start menu and type "show icons" I'm obviously wanting to search the web for icons inspired by my favorite Broadway shows - there's no possible way I'd be looking for the specific Windows setting on my local PC to show/hide specific desktop icons... *rolls eyes*

Anyway, rant aside, the latest way to disable the benighted web search is to set HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\[DWORD]DisableSearchBoxSuggestions=1. Which also kills command history on the Win+R Run box, but I guess that's acceptable collateral damage. And so the game of whack-a-mole continues.

Microsoft, get this into your heads - many of us do not want to search the web from the Start Menu, and certainly not using your pathetic Bong search engine. That's what browsers are for. Give it up already.

Man responsible for least popular iteration of Windows UI uses iPad Pro as a desktop*

In the case of Windows 8, it's dog-something, that something being a substance normally associated with the opposite end of the dog.

Re: Could make a good meme

Upvoted purely for mentioning the baby-eating Bishop of Bath and Wells. The great Ronald Lacey, who - trivia fans - was also the nasty Nazi in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark who gets the medallion burned into his palm.

And while we're on the subject of that episode of Blackadder, the portrait painter Mr Leonardo Acropolis was played by Philip Pope, who was Grasientus in Chelmsford 123. A factoid of zero interest to any of you, I'm sure, but it gave me a "I knew he looked familiar!!" moment a couple of years ago...

Non-human Microsoft Office users get their own special licences

Re: Coming soon...

Oracle once had per-motherboard's-surface-mount-decoupling-capacitor licensing, I'm pretty sure.

I call BS on your answer... Microsoft don't normally bother being so clear and concise, an actual response would be something like:

"Hello my name is _____, I am a Microsoft support specialist, I understand that you are having a problem doing <repeat customer's exact words here with no indication of actual comprehension>.

First, please run SFC /scannow and re-install all Windows files.... (long list of utterly irrelevant and pointless suggestions skipped for brevity)

Finally, f___ you."

Das reboot: That's the only thing to do when the screenshot, er, freezes

Re: Yes, Daily, or even hourly!

Give him credit, packing an entire application into only 4 bytes is pretty damn impressive.

Re: Yes, Daily, or even hourly!

Well, not entirely. Hardware-based remote control like Intel's vPro AMT system will give you full remote control/viewing of the target system via Ethernet or WiFi, regardless of OS & power state, provided it's been configured first. Super handy for remote Helldesk duties.

Re: Funny that

Now now, no need to loose your temper...

Re: Funny that

-fake lcd crack

Back in the days of CRT screens, the thing to do was to create a 5px x 4px .BMP using Paint, and set every pixel to the standard Windows teal desktop color apart from the top-right one, which was set to magenta.

Set the bitmap as the desktop wallpaper, stretched to the screen size, and Windows would obligingly dither the single magenta pixel into a very convincing simulacrum of a badly discolored and expensively distorted CRT phosphor...

Re: Funny that

I have an AutoIt script, inspired by an old Verity Stob article ("Cruft Scale") that idles for N seconds (where 20<N<240), then jumps the mouse pointer an inch to the left, before going back to lurking again until the next time. I put it on PCs I build for people. It only activates if a particular filename is found in User's downloads folder.

Microsoft drops a little surprise thank-you gift for sitting through Build: The source for GW-BASIC

You are wrong and should feel ashamed of your wrongness. Beta Basic on the Spectrum 48K was the ultimate expression of language perfection.

Runaway Latvian drone found meditating in tree after shutting down nation's skies

Re: Great

Oh, yew!

Linux desktop org GNOME Foundation settles lawsuit with patent troll

Re: COVID-19

I'm left wondering what do patent trolls tell their kids / grand kids that they do for the their day job and what do their kids think about that

I believe that, per the old joke, they tell their kids they play piano in a brothel... because there’s some shameful adult things you just can’t tell kids.

Re: I'm not sure

The article’s since been updated to confirm that $0 was paid to obtain the settlement. So it’s unalloyed good news.

Re: An excellent result

And oil’s so cheap at the moment too!

Sorry for the crude humor... I’m normally much more refined.

An excellent result

To be brutally frank, public hanging/drawing/quartering/schwedentrunk of the patent trolls would have been even better, but alas, we live in an imperfect world.

Congratulations to the GNOME foundation.