Posts by David 132

US Navy backs right to repair after $13B carrier crew left half-fed by contractor-locked ovens

Matron?

Cottage hospital?

Saw you immediately?

Dare I infer that this was not within the last 20 years or so?

Re: Rowies

Although as Captain Jack Aubrey reminded us in Master and Commander, in the Navy, “one should always choose the lesser of two weevils”.

AI's the end of the Shell as we know it and I feel fine … but insecure

Re: "any thought to security or bad actors"

All too many developers…

“Does it compile? Yes? Good to ship! What, it runs too? Bonus!”

Re: I generally avoid the newest shiny thing until it becomes unavoidable.

No need for Sark-asm.

Cisco president says dredging coding syntax from wetware memory wastes engineers' expensive synapses

Re: It is amazing ...

To quote the meme, ¿Porque no los dos?

Microsoft cuts the Windows 11 bloat for Xbox handhelds

Re: Wallpaper and taskbar?!

The desktop reloads a lot faster from blank.

ISTR that there was a bug in Windows 2000, that caused the boot process to take a lot longer if your desktop used a solid colour rather than an image. The reason was that the boot process waited for the image decoder routine to signal that it had finished, before the rest of boot continued. No image -> no decoder -> no “finished” signal, so the boot process hung waiting for a signal that never came, until the (30s?) watchdog timer triggered and booting was forced to continue.

Re: 2Gb available to games

I think my attempt at humour nay have either a) been too feeble, or b) whooshed over both your heads. I know the (apocryphal) quote is 640KB. I was attempting to update it for a world where the OS has (an extra) 2GB… oh, whatever. It’s not worth trying to explain.

Re: 2Gb available to games

Yes, I did a double-take at that too.

OTOH, "640MB should be enough for any game", right?

AI can spew code, but kids should still suffer like we did, says Raspberry Pi

Re: The AI coding fallacy

...or INTERCAL. Don't say "please" enough to the compiler - or say it too much - and find that you don't get acceptable results.

Microsoft's plain text editor gets fancy as Notepad gains formatting options

Re: Get out your copy of Petzold

Replying to my own post... as is my wont, once I started hacking away in VS I got way, way too far into it.

My little Notepad.exe replacement for Windows 10/11, which started life as yes, a simple wrapper around the Win32 TextBox control, now has:

• OS-native toolbar
• user-specified font
• dark mode support and optional custom ink/paper colours
• full-screen mode for distraction-free typing, with or without keeping the taskbar visible
• showing of non-printable characters (line break and whitespace)
• easy conversion of unicode markup (e.g. \uxxxx) to the equivalent character
• word-wrap by default
• line numbering
• bookmarking
• search (and Replace functionality is on my to-do)
• merging of files
• character/line counts
• realtime MD5 hash calculation for the text
• automatic insertion of newline '*' bullets for basic list creation
• high DPI support
• loading/saving of preferences
• No dependencies; fully portable; a single executable of ~300KB

I hate everything-but-the-kitchen-sink applications; I'm trying to keep this small and only give it the features that I find useful (YMMV). Currently I'm working to replace all the ugly Win32 MessageBox warning dialogs ("Exit without saving?" and so on) with more elegant (and OS native) functionality.

If anyone wants the source, and promises not to laugh, reply here and I'll try to throw up (that terminology is apt!) a Github page for it.

Re: Get out your copy of Petzold

Inspired by this article and motivated in part by your comment, I fired up Visual Studio this morning. 45 minutes later, starting from scratch I had a bare-bones text editor with load/save functionality; a couple of hours after that it had a toolbar, supported user-specified fonts, dark mode (or optional custom ink/paper colours), full-screen mode for distraction-free typing, showing of non-printable characters, word-wrap, bookmarking, search, merging of files, character/line counts, automatic bulleted-list mode, and loading/saving of preferences.

No, I haven’t implemented CoPilot, tabs, or anything else :)

What I’ve written is no Notepad++ by any means, but it demonstrated to me that the basic core of what Notepad is/should-be is very, very simple.

Re: it doesn't play well (read: at all) with the clipboard

OneNote? OneNote? What is this, 2010?

I think you mean "[Highlight] > [Right-Click] > Send To CoPilot To Be Analysed And Rewritten And Hallucinated".

Meta pauses mobile port tracking tech on Android after researchers cry foul

Oops, caught out

"We are in discussions with Google to address a potential miscommunication regarding the application of their policies," a Meta spokesperson told The Register. "Upon becoming aware of the concerns, we decided to pause the feature while we work with Google to resolve the issue."

In other words, "whoops, we got caught out trying to violate the spirit if not the letter of Google's policies".

Can there have been any thought-process behind this mechanism other than "how can we continue to ID users within Google's constraints"?

Hands up anyone who will believe Meta next time they claim to take users' privacy seriously.

Techie fixed a ‘brown monitor’ by closing a door for a doctor

Re: Does not sound like any kind of fix to me

“Never buy priests’ socks from an ordinary shop, Dougal.

They’ll shaft you every time.”

Barclays Bank signs 100k license Copilot deal with Microsoft

Re: 15,000 spare seats

Yeah I meant to type “month”; dunno where “year” came from. Blame lack of coffee/alcohol/cocoa/absinthe.

Re: 15,000 spare seats

"Your new bundle with CoPilot is an extra $30/seat/year. Of course, we're flexible and don't want you to feel pressured - if you don't want CoPilot, your alternative is this bundle, which omits it, as well as use of the letters on the left-hand-side of the keyboard except on Wednesdays, and is very reasonably priced at an extra $100/seat/year. Entirely up to you."

Firefox 139 arrives for non-Chromium browser fans

A website that won't open in Firefox - or insists that I disable ad-blockers before allowing me to view its preciousssss content - is, to me, akin to a retailer who only accepts $obscure_credit_card_X. Sorry, your loss, I'll go next door to a retailer who actually wants my business.

Re: Translation

“My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels”.

Re: I won't miss Pocket

Firefox: user fiddles with browser

Edge: browser fidd... ah, never mind

I won't miss Pocket

Obviously I can't speak for anyone else, but the Pocket integration was always the first thing I turned off on a new Firefox installation - along with CloseWindowWithLastTab, DoH, Sponsored Shortcuts, Recommended Stories ("Exceptional content curated by the Firefox family", blegh), Suggest Search Engines, and one or two other tweaks. Which might seem like a lot to have to change, but a) it's really not, compared to the bear-wrestling that I have to do every time I am mandated to use a new Windows box, and b) at least in Firefox, I can change these settings. Forced to use Edge recently, I was shocked-not-shocked to see just how much of its blatant user-monetisation behaviour was hard-coded and out of bounds.

OpenAI model modifies shutdown script in apparent sabotage effort

“You really are a smeg-head, aren’t you Rimmer?”

Ex-Meta exec: Copyright consent obligation = end of AI biz

Re: Innocent Meta

I think the point he was making is that any proper T is theft.

Re: Thieves.

To (mis)quote an old Fry & Laurie sketch,

"I thought I saw something dark, vivid, and unpleasant"

"It was probably just your imagination."

(wandering off-topic, I know, but their best line was: "It was a warm summer's morning and I stopped to pick a buttercup. ...why people leave buttocks lying around, I'll never know."

Europe warns giant e-tailer to stop cheating consumers or face its wrath

Re: So the bottom line is

That's basically my superpower. I have been effortlessly not buying stuff from Shein or Temu or Wish all my life.

Please, no autographs.

Re: SHEIN is like when you order AliBaba

Alan only forgot to add, "...and it's fulfilled by Wish.com, through their partners The Shanggouyen Tire & Bicycle Rubber and Electronics Manufacturing Co.".

Or maybe I'm thinking of all those sketchy listings for identical products on Amazon.

Re: Hmm, maybe not Amazon.

The Lancre Palace Guard chainmail armour approach? "One Size Doesn't Quite Fit All".

Re: Hmm, maybe not Amazon.

That's an old trick used by vendors on Amazon marketplace. Start off selling some cheap tchotchkes, accrue lots of positive reviews ("it does everything I'd expect a $1.99 'Hello Katty' knock-off pen to do, arrived promptly"), then swap products to something that has a lot more margin. As long as the listing ID doesn't change, the existing reviews and ⭐ratings will remain with it - bang, instant reputation for your $59.99 "20TB external SSD".

I thought Amazon had closed that particular loophole, but as Upton Sinclair so memorably put it, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Apartment living to get worse in 5 years as 6 GHz Wi-Fi nears ‘exhaustion’

Re: Run wires

For any readers in the Portland Oregon region - Surplus Gizmos is always awash with cheap fiber, switches, and SFP modules, not to mention surplus electronic equipment of the most esoteric sort (the fact that it's a mile down the road from several Intel manufacturing plants, an ASML site, and a half-dozen other semiconductor companies, is a clue). It's a veritable Aladdin's cave for the tech geek. I mention it because a good friend of mine works there.

Re: Just....

>and the network works now.

So you're saying it was a wireless notwork?

Re: Just....

Yeah, I've seen - and used - that stuff on interior corners when plastering them, but having every square inch of the wall covered in it was a new one for me. The previous owner of the house was, um, eccentric - very paranoid about security, to the extent of fitting a keypad-equipped deadbolt lock on an interior door leading to the bedrooms. Let's overlook that the door in question is a flimsy 1.5"-thick interior panel one that could be punched through by a toddler.

Re: Run wires

Life pro tip: not all things that are flat and droopy can be fixed by twisting them; am I right, fellow middle-aged guys?

Re: Just....

I am currently helping a friend with some home remodeling. His 1960s house has, in place of modern paper-backed drywall/plasterboard [delete as applicable depending on which side of the Pond you are on], something analogous but using a fine metal mesh (think chicken-wire with a ~2mm aperture) as structural backing. How he gets any wifi signal whatsoever, I don't know. The previous owner of the house had run CAT5 throughout; I am beginning to see why.

I hope you're not lording it over those of us using Acorn Econet?

Re: clustered

When the engine is cold it hardly blows. When the engine gets some warmth it blows hard.

On the third hand, could you please explain that principle to my wife, who, upon getting into our ICE-powered car on a cold morning, will always crank the AC temperature up to MAX, despite my patient explanation that until there is heat in the system, it doesn't matter what temperature she asks for above ambient, she's not getting it?

(And before I am accused of propagating Les Dawson-like "take my wife" humour, I'll point out that she's a former electronic design engineer who really, really should know better.)

Even a humble keyboard is now political in Taiwan

Re: "a warehouse in California"

I suppose it's a cunning way of saying, "we're not entirely JIT, we do have a local store of stock... <blink>BUY NOW</blink> (yes, those blink tags are sarcastic - Ed.) to SAVE and avoid tariffs!"?

Microsoft dumps AI into Notepad as 'Copilot all the things' mania takes hold in Redmond

Re: Mad

> Also, it'll take you a minimum of two hours to write anything because the AI assistant will constantly argue about your grammar, spelling, and content.

For some reason this comes to mind…

“Hi there! This is Eddie, your shipboard computer, and I’m feeling just great, guys, and I know I’m just going to get a bundle of kicks out of any program you care to run through me. I can even work out your personality problems to ten decimal places if it will help.”

What would a Microsoft engineer do to Ubuntu? AnduinOS is the answer

Re: pOS

Cthuntu?

Microsoft revives DOS-era Edit in a modern shell

Re: Could be Mandela effect

Obligatory XKCD

…and by pulling in 1GB of supporting NuGet packages, and only after insisting that you create/register-with a Microsoft account.

Re: "superseded Edlin"

I’m with you. Big Pico/Nano fan here since I discovered Pine in my university days, over 30 years ago.

And the Amiga’s “Ed” modal editor before that, which despite its name was more Vi-like.

Russia expected to pass experimental law that tracks foreigners in Moscow via smartphones

Re: '"But my other phone is also a Nokia clamshell, officer!"

Yay! Downvoted by the resident Putinbot! I am charmed and take it as a compliment, Comrade!

Re: No phone on you?

That's Putin's version...

Or depending on his whimsical, playful mood: "Come, see the magnificent view from this sixth-floor window..."

Re: '"But my other phone is also a Nokia clamshell, officer!"

>If you have ever been to Russia you would not consider messing with the border officers.

Then things have clearly become much, much worse as Putler's grip has tightened in recent years.

I was in Moscow about 20 years ago on business. Passing through immigration - which I don't remember being much worse than in any civilized country, with the possible exception of Heathrow - we were all given an official chit of paper that had to be presented at our hotel when checking in.

We arrived at our hotel and two members of our party realized that they had somehow bypassed the necessary line, and didn't have this paper. One, a fellow Brit, was shitting the proverbial bricks, with mental images of being deported to the Gulag or even forced to eat Borscht.

The other colleague, a Pole who'd grown up under the cruelty and idiocy of the Iron Curtain (and had many, many anecdotes to tell), was far more sanguine. He had them both go back to the airport, pay the necessary bribes^H^H^Hpenalties (in hindsight, I bet that made for an interesting Expenses claim) and within the hour, both colleagues were checked in and free to pursue a life of religious fulfilment, or rather, customer technology training.

VMware price hikes? Between 800 and 1,500%, claim Euro customers

>no one (well, VMware to the reseller) won't give a quote until 30 days prior to the renewal date

Which is such a blatant "get the customer over a barrel" move that I'm amazed trade associations, national competition regulators & similar bodies haven't been screaming blue murder about it.

"We won't tell you how much the ransom is until it's waaaaaay too late for you to do anything about it".

Yes, a prudent customer could pre-empt this by prepping for & rehearsing a move to an alternative, as a fallback solution... but Broadcom clearly count on all too many C-suites vetoing such "speculative" and "unnecessary" expenditure :(

Builder.ai coded itself into a corner – now it's bankrupt

Re: I suppose one could say that the whole thing proved to be...

...that gobbled up lots of VC funding.

Re: Time for "artisinal code" ?

Hand-Crafted With Love and Respect for Heritage Traditions!

Neptune OS is Debian made easy but, boy, does it need some housekeeping

Re: This sounds like Mint with extra steps

> there's a Justin Bieber distribution of Linux that apparently has a user base,

What fresh hell is this? --> note icon

Thank you for further demolishing any vestiges of faith in my fellow Man that remained :)

Freshly discovered bug in OpenPGP.js undermines whole point of encrypted comms

Re: Never roll your own encryption...

…and never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

Icon —-> Dread Pirate Roberts

Windows reports two CPU speeds because one would be too simple

Being bullied hertz.