Posts by David 132

Appliance-maker Liebherr chillin' with Microsoft, prototyping another Internet fridge

Re: ...and when it malfunctions...

Upvoted for "blue cheese of death"!

Re: All right then

'a) Is connected to "the cloud" '

De rigeur for any new technology product. How else can they monetize you, snoop on you, and render your fancy new e-fridge instantly obsolete as soon as they get bored of running the cloud service and terminate it?

Silicon Valley companies all seem to have the attention span of a concussed kitten, and an urge to chase the next OOH SHINY that would make a magpie blush.

Bloke accused of Linux kernel.org hack nabbed during traffic stop

One of their (many) excellent short films. I still like watching the great railway chase (after many viewings)

Indeed, although I think my favourite moment from all of them is Peter Kay's "Stand back! There may be a large rabbit dropping" from Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Sorry. Back to topic.

Good story image

It's from Wallace and Gromit - The Wrong Trousers, in case anyone's wondering.

Meet Deliveroo's ‘bold and impactful’ new logo. No, really

Philistines.

You're all completely failing to appreciate the new logo. The bold, decisive design reflects the company's core beliefs, while communicating the underlying playfulness and sense of whimsy. Vibrant colours say "this is a modern, go-getting company"; the particular shade used was chosen specifically for its ability to evoke feelings of warmth and...

..no, it's no use. I just can't keep writing this utter loblocks. 'Scuse me while I go off and retch copiously into a hand-crafted sustainably-sourced traditional Mayan birthing bucket.

Here, have this crude two-tone rendition of a V-sign to talk about while I'm gone. Job done.

Red-faced VESK scratches '100% uptime' claim after 2-day outage

Psh. It's very easy to claim 100% uptime, and justify it - you just have to be "creative" in your approach.

"We are proud to announce that we achieved 100% uptime between 4pm on July 9th and 11:27am on August 17th; between 2pm on August 17th and 9:04am on August 18th; and continuously since August 20th.

In fact, we are the only service provider who can boast of over 47 periods of 100% uptime in the last three months!"

What the hex is up with Jupiter's North Pole?

So, if nothing else, we've learned that NASA has AT&T internet service.

Yeah, and the roaming fees are killing them.

It's OK to fine someone for repeating a historical fact, says Russian Supreme Court

Re: But not as bizarre as ...

the machinations of the English Legal System processes when it comes to seeking redress for alleged victims of UK Parliamentarians.

And right on cue, here's a putintroll with, as usual, a masterful display of Whataboutery that would put an Ulster Orangeman to shame.

Well done, comrade.

Intel bags FAA pass to fly 100-strong drone armadas over US soil

Re: Oh dear

Some manufacturers / retailers would save up to 15% .

You wouldn't be very good at writing advertising copy, anyway... the correct phrasing is

"Save up to 15% OR MORE!"

Rules of mathematics? Common sense? Naaahhh...

Want a Windows 10 update? Don't go to Microsoft ... please

@john 104: You have to turn the service off to disable Defender....

Also worth mentioning - for the time being, you can also disable it via GPO. I say "for the time being" because Microsoft now seem to be actively deprecating/ignoring more useful GPO switches with each successive update, unless you have the Enterprise or Education SKUs. Lawd bless 'em.

Re: How is this a new feature

I thought it was "Make America White Again?"

No, it's "Make America Grate Again".

His one-man, Quixotic crusade against cheese-knives continues!

Ohhh...you thought it was your computer. Silly boy...

STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT - next you'll tell me there's no such thing as Santa or the Easter Bunny!

How can you be so meeeaaannn????

My fingers are in my ears (someone's ears, anyway) and I can't hear you lalalalalalala....

You have to turn the service off to disable Defender....

Yep - I know that, you know that, but for how long will that work? As it is, disabling the WU service is the only way to regain (some) control over automatic updates. We shouldn't have to delve into the innards of the OS just to get it to obey our instructions.

Peter, if Windows 10 stays true to form, I suspect you'll get a blink-and-you'll miss it popup that says

"We noticed that you disabled peer-to-peer updates. We've turned them back on for you. You can disable them again for a short time but we'll helpfully switch them back on after ten minutes to prevent you hurting yourself. Because you're too stupid to know what's best for you."

If you think I'm exaggerating... tried turning off Defender lately?

MedSec's 'hackable pacemaker' report autopsy: Bombshell crash claim in doubt

Re: These things (pacemakers) work in weird ways...

Thanks Herby for taking the time to post your actual, real-world knowledge of the industry. Always good to find chunks of fact amongst the purée of speculation!

Re: crooked dealings

Weeelllll.... keen though I am to see MedSec and Muddy Waters strung up by their figgins for this one (see my post above), I'm not sure that this would count as insider trading.

Insider trading, as I understand it (as an Internet armchair commenter, not a financial expert) is: making use of information that a) materially affects the value of the company, and b) isn't publicly available. So:

scenario a) Bob works for AcmeCorp, and knows that their widely-touted, under-development next-gen product is actually a crock of shit. He quietly uses that knowledge to short AcmeCorp stock.

or

scenario b) Alice, a researcher, does some digging into an AcmeCorp product that's already on the market, and discovers that it's actually a crock of shit. She uses that knowledge to short Acmecorp stock.

In the first instance, the information used is definitely "not publicly available" - as only someone inside the company would be aware of it. That's pretty much the canonical definition of insider trading, and Bob would get the book thrown at him.

In the second instance, one could argue that the info is publicly available - anyone with the time and interest to spare, could have taken an in-depth look at the product and figured out that it's a CoS... it just happens to be that Alice was the first one to do so. Alice is under no obligation to loudly announce to the world at large "hey, this product is actually a CoS, and I think AcmeCorp stock is overvalued" before she quietly places her own bets on the stock.

Short version: I think that what MedSec and Muddy Waters did is sleazy, and gives the impression that they're more concerned about making money than improving patient safety or medical security. But I don't think it's insider trading. Anyone care to demonstrate otherwise?

Re: Why not...

Resetting it isn't the problem...the problem is that reaching the reset button requires a very long rod and a very uncomfortable orifice. In fact most attempts end up just going through the motions... :)

I know which risk I'd accept...

If, heaven help me, I was in a situation where the physician said to me

"You have a cardiac problem & are at significant risk of dying or being enfeebled if you don't get treatment. We can implant this pacemaker...oh, but if we do so, there's a trivial chance that a malicious hacker (who's specifically aware of the model of pacemaker you have, where you live, and your routine) could interfere with it wirelessly and maybe crash it..."

...I think I know how I'd evaluate those risks!

And that's even IF we take MedSec's claims at face value.

For what it's worth, I think their whole approach of notifying a brokerage house first, rather than the manufacturer or even the regulatory authorities, is utterly scummy and they deserve to be smacked senseless by the FTC, the FDA, and probably for good measure the FBI too.

AT&T trash talks Google over Fiber fiasco: Leave ISP stuff to the experts

Re: AT&T hasn't even tried

@Captain DaFt - thanks for that link, I chuckled at it!

I confess I haven't encountered Lily Tomlin before - is it just me, or is she very much in the same mould as Ruby Wax?

Re: AT&T hasn't even tried

Does anyone else get the sense that AT&T now accept that they're universally loathed, and revel in it? It's like - they're not even pretending to be likeable anymore.

"Yes, we're assholes. No, you don't have any choice. Suck it up, losers."

Still got a floppy drive? Here's a solution for when 1.44MB isn't enough

Re: Embedded systems!

But does the BIOS and DOS see it as a floppy?

That was my thought too; my assumption, given the intended market, is that this is the case. In other words, any PC that can handle a floppy drive (even if it's a 25-year-old 386 connected to a CNC lathe or something) can accept this upgrade. This is not a mass-market consumer product - however for its intended niche, it sounds perfect.

But yes, I'd be interested to know how the BIOS and DOS handle the changed geometry; IIRC there were only so many "pre-defined" FDD types in the BIOS (720K single-sided, 1.44MB double-sided, etc etc) and no mechanism for drives to declare their own. If this thing needs drivers or TSR-type workarounds, that's a whole new level of validation and effort.

Life imitates satire: Facebook touts zlib killer just like Silicon Valley's Pied Piper

"Infinite compression - we simply declare it Somebody Else's Problem"

Newest Royal Navy warship weighs as much as 120 London buses

Re: 2 Years is Impressive

Considering that in Canada it's been years that we've ordered ships and they haven't even started cutting the steel yet.

You've got at least one, apparently :)

http://www.satirewire.com/news/feb02/warship.shtml

Re: 120 London buses

That's a bit hard to swallow...

A commendably swift response, but I fear you have tern'ed us off-topic, which is nothing to crow about.

Lawyers! win! millions! in! bonkers! Yahoo! email! snooping! case!

When the lawyers are getting $4million, a mere $5000 each for the plaintiffs pretty much is "nothing" - at least, for sufficiently large values of "nothing".

Screen flickering/Explorer crashing on Windows 10? (fix)

Re: Thank you all for your responses.

(addendum, because re-reading my last post after the editing window expired, I realized it could be misinterpreted)

I'd installed b1607 Anniversary Update, as pretty much the first thing I did on the unit. So the fact that the full reset/wipe option reverted it to AU was only, I guess, "interesting" in the sense that AU must have updated the Recovery partition - i.e, Reset/Wipe isn't a "reset to factory condition", rather a "reset to the last Windows 10 version you installed". It seems I have a low threshold for what I consider "interesting"!

My original post implied that AU had somehow appeared out of nowhere after the reset. Not so :)

Re: Thank you all for your responses.

Ok, back again with update. It's been a busy few days on the domestic front so my travails with the Surface have had to wait.

So, I reset it - interestingly, although it shipped with Windows 10 b1511, the "full wipe/reset" option restored it to Windows 10 AU/1607.

This "clean" installation seemed to have fewer problems - the NVidia dGPU now works, for one - and sleep/standby work too, probably related.

I've converted it to a corporate build, but in the most minimal way possible - joined it to a domain and installed Office 2013. Leery of possible problems, I've so far resisted my IT department's attempts to push McAfee antivirus/firewall onto it!

Things aren't entirely problem-free though;

- the CPU still randomly pegs at about 25%,

- Every so often after waking, the Wifi card will still silently fail - as in, it claims to be connected, gets an IP address (albeit slowly), but then can't communicate anywhere. Even pinging the local router doesn't work. I have to reboot to regain connectivity.

- The mouse pointer frequently forgets that it's supposed to be 200% DPI scaled along with everything else, and shrinks back to teeeeeeeny mode. Sometimes it's only one pointer that does it - so, for example, as I use the web browser, I get the normal size "arrow" but then hovering over links gives a tiny little "hand" (yes, I know sites can sometimes provide custom cursors. Not the problem here - I block all that.)

- Windows Hello isn't available; all the options are grayed out, with a note that "some settings are managed by your organization". Except, it's not my IT domain policy to blame; a colleague has a Surface Book, still running b1511, and Hello works fine for him. I can, however, use Picture Password a.k.a. happy-finger-painting-time... which seems less secure, somehow.

- I got a pop-up notification yesterday that "_____ has caused problems with the file association for ___files. The association has been reset to Windows Video". Unfortunately the notification vanished within half a second or so! ...so I have no idea which program, or indeed which filetype, was the problem. But what the hell is Windows doing, deciding for itself to reset my file associations?? This irks me - even if I want to associate .swp swapfiles with Notepad, or .CPL files with Firefox, or something equally daft, that should be my prerogative. Grrrrrr.

- Every so often, Firefox will hang completely, with a message popping up that a script has caused the page to become unresponsive. Telling it to abort the script doesn't change anything; I just get re-prompted. Killing Firefox.exe and restarting is the only cure. I'm more inclined to blame Firefox for this one, even though it always seems to work on my Windows 7 / OSX PCs - let's face it, the Firefox team have put all their work recently into crap like Pocket and Loop and Hello that no-one cares about, rather than memory management or speed.

Overall - probably about 80% functional.

I feel better now for having vented some wrath, even if no-one else reads this or cares :)

Re: Thank you all for your responses.

Currently resetting it back to "clean" using the Windows 10 built-in tools; I'd have vastly preferred to back it up fully and reinstall the OS from scratch, but I couldn't get the bloody thing to boot from USB. Tried disabling Secure Boot, checking the UEFI boot order... even mystical combinations of pressing the volume down button while powering on, which Random Internet Commentators assured me would work. Nope.

If the dGPU still doesn't work after this, I'll probably chuck the thing in the bin, or give it to a starving intern. Life's too short to waste my time working around other peoples' incompetence.

Did I mention that before I kicked off the reset, it suddenly decided to nag me about setting up Windows Hello every single time I booted up? For no apparent reason, Hello having been disabled by policy on my domain network?

Grrrrrr.

Re: Thank you all for your responses.

It was originally running Windows 10 (being a Microsoft Surface Book, as it is), before I updated it to Windows 10 AU.

Nope, not dropped or abused in any way (other than verbally, on an hourly basis).

I take great exception to the suggestion that I might have installed Norton AV. How dare you. I have standards. Sir, we shall meet on the field of honour!

Thank you all for your responses.

I didn't create this topic in expectation of any particular results; rather, I thought I'd throw my experiences out there in hope that they might be of interest or help to others (if only as a salutary warning :))

Here's the full litany of issues I have with this. Any suggestions would be welcomed. I should emphasize that I have installed all the latest drivers - the firmware/driver pack dated 8/4 from Microsoft's own site, and even, in desperation, the individual device drivers from the vendors (Intel Chipset INF, NVidia graphics drivers, etc).

- Sleep is now completely unavailable. powercfg -a reports that S1/2/3 states are not available because "The system firmware does not support this standby state". I have had to resort to switching the machine off at the end of every day. How 1996. Perhaps there's an ISA IRQ jumper I haven't set correctly?

- The Nvidia dGPU in the keyboard base resolutely refuses to work. Device Manager reports "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems (Code 43).". This might be causing the Standby problem above. Vague allusions on the web to early Surface Books (like this one) having defective hardware and being replaced under warranty by Microsoft, but I can find no concrete evidence of such a process.

- 50% of the time, when the machine boots up, the Wifi connection associates with our corporate WLAN but refuses to get an IP address. I have to switch to a different SSID to get a real (non-169.254) address. Ipconfig /renew, dis/re-enabling the adapter - nothing else works.

- Mouse pointer DPI scaling is erratic. My primary screen is set to 200% DPI scaling - the default - which makes the mouse pointer teeeeeny tiny. I've set the cursor scheme to "Windows Black (Large)" to make it a little more visible; every so often, however, the pointer will reset back to teenytiny mode. I've hacked a workaround for this - wrote a little AutoIt script that runs at user logon or whenever required, and opens the Mouse Pointer properties, changes the scheme to something else and then immediately back to the desired one. Ugly, but works. Ish.

- CPU keeps pegging at 25-90%. Most of the time the culprit is the "System" task (i.e, ntoskrnl.exe). A reboot is required to fix it.

- Random display corruption (dialog boxes or menus appear as totally black).

Overall, I'd describe this system as "limping" - Cruft Force 6, for those that remember the Dr Dobb's Cruft scale.

I pine for my old Thinkpad.

Re: Screen flickering/Explorer crashing on Windows 10? (fix)

Good points, but as I said - Safe Mode was also affected. Very difficult to run anything when Explorer keeps crashing & restarting (and stealing focus away from whatever you're trying to do) once every second.

I have now encountered a whole litany of problems with this machine, and might post more details on here when I have time. Basic stuff, like: randomly not going to sleep when closed / not waking up; CPU pegging at 100% usage for no reason; discrete GPU flat out refusing to work at all...

Let's just say that this combination (Surface Book plus Windows 10 AU) is the buggiest, most alpha-quality system I've used in many years. Considering that both hardware & software are from the same vendor, was it foolish of me to expect it to work well?

Windows 10 Anniversary on a Raspberry Pi: Another look at IoT Core

Re: To paraphrase Sam Johson

Even should one not be learned in the literate musings of Dr Johnson directly, most British above a certain age should at least be familiar with Blackadder III 'Ink and Incapability' episode which features Robbie Coltrane as Dr Johnson

Ah, upvoted for the reference. Living here among the Americans, I have carefully cultivated a reputation for wit and clever word-play - little do they know it's all a lie, I've cribbed it all from British comedy programs with which they are unfamiliar (showed them a clip of Rab C Nesbitt once and they were, um, bemused.)

Although, pace Edmund Blackadder, I haven't yet managed to use the words "anispeptic", "prasmodic", "pericombobulations" - or even "aardvark*" - in a business meeting.

Aardvark (n).: Medium-sized insectivore with protruding nasal orifice.

Phoney bling ring pinged by Tolkien's kin

Judicial activism?

"In a summary judgement, [Justice Beach] found that the knock-offs infringed “a substantial part” of the inscription, and offered them for sale at this no-longer active eBay store."

Wow, that's rough. Not only did the Judge find against him, but the judge then added insult to injury by selling the dodgy merchandise himself.

Do they not pay judges enough in Aus?

As for the IT angle? I doubt the defendent acted alone. There's probably a whole organization of people selling this jewellery... you know, a Tolkein Ring Network.

Update your iPhones, iPads right now – govt spy tools exploit vulns

The REAL story...

...is that apparently, countries including "United Arab Emirates... Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey... and Bahrain" are buying software from an Israeli company.

Guess the need to spy on ones own citizens trumps their very public hatred of Israel, huh?

Now gentlemen, let's all link arms and sing "Kumbayah"....? No?

A USB stick as a file server? We've done it!

Re: More of this, please.

Thanks, Simon. What I had in mind as a follow-up was a description of how the product fared after a month or two of use. All too often in this business, a product that initially looks shiny and impressive, turns out to be a PITA to live with.

"Every 10 minutes, it will drop the connection to OSX clients - this is a known bug, apparently, but the manufacturer has no immediate plans to fix it"

"There's a version 2.1 firmware on the manufacturer's site - but be warned, although it fixes $issue, it removes $feature"

...that kind of thing.

More of this, please.

That's actually a pretty cool-sounding product - and I'd like to see more of these hardware mini-reviews on the Reg.

Any plans for a follow-up once you've played with it a while, with additional real-world experiences/tips?

Kindle Paperwhites turn Windows 10 PCs into paperweights: Plugging one in 'triggers a BSOD'

Re: Drivers everywhere

"What did I tell you? One day Windows will need drivers for the case screws too."

Obviously never heard of a screw driver...

Privacy advocates rail against US Homeland Security's Twitter, Facebook snooping

Re: It's Not Surveillance If You Volunteer

95% breach test failure rate, you say?

I did Nazi that coming

"But then the DHS is not renowned for nuance, most famously indicated by the entry question asking whether you were ever a member of the Nazi government or have ever participated in genocide. "

On the other hand, those entry forms introduced so many people to the phrase "moral turpitude"...

You shrunk the database into a .gz and the app won't work? Sigh

the software will only restore to the original PC the backup was made from. No way to recover the data to another PC, stored in a proprietary format, and encrypted.

Seriously??

Wow. The stupid, it burns.

Have a pint.

Microsoft's maps lost Melbourne because it used bad Wikipedia data

Re: What about the Copyright?

I notice that there is a copyright “© 2016 Microsoft” notice on the map page. Now they tell us that they blame the source they stole from.

You remind me... I have in my possession a German map of London and environs, printed circa 1940 for Operation Sea Lion (the aborted invasion of England). It meticulously shows all roads - no M25, of course! - towns/hamlets, airfields and so on (these things were printed in their thousands, so it's not particularly rare or valuable).

And at the bottom of the map is a copyright notice, acknowledging that the map is based upon 1927 Ordnance Survey data.

I have always been most amused by this - surely only Ze Germans would acknowledge the copyright of the country they're planning to invade!

"OK mein Kameraden, we're going to invade them - our opposition will comprise many tank battalions, dozens of divisions of infantry, several squadrons of fighters and bombers.... and a phalanx of intellectual property lawyers.

"Ach! Nein! Ich brauche meine Mütti! Der Krieg ist verloren!!!"

Re: Swindon

If you are in Swindon, then no.

Upvoted, but as a former Swindon resident (Swindonista? Swindonite? ahwhocares) I feel slightly guilty doing so.

Swindon is a fine town with many interesting roundabouts and curry houses. Parts of Old Town are almost picturesque. The people are friendly (as long as you avoid Park North, Park South, Penhill, etc - just kidding, I have friends there) and the Railway Museum is always worth a visit.

Microsoft, Lenovo cross-licensing love-in: Android mobes knocked up with... Office apps

Re: more unwanted crud

The only uninstallable software should be stuff vital to the phone actually functioning.

I agree with your sentiment (and have upvoted you) but the pedant in me is compelled to point out that you probably meant to write "the only non-uninstallable software...". Or un-uninstallable, if feeling whimsical.

Das ist empörend: Microsoft slams umlaut for email depth charge

Re: Microsoft or Americans?

It's rare to meet a German that also speaks a second language.

Really? I'm not going to argue with you - more, politely disagree - but my own experience has been so different. Just about every German I've ever met spoke better English than many English natives.

And, contrary to stereotypes, they have a good (i.e, comprehensible to the Brits) sense of humour too.

As Noël Coward sang, "Don't let's be beastly to the Germans..."

Beer, because that's one thing we have in common --->

Five-storey Blue Screen Of Death spotted in Thailand

Re: It sucks when it's your bank's ATM...

It's enough to make you want to keep all your cash in a coffee can burried in your garden.

Even that's not safe from techno risks - I hear many coffee cans these days have old Java on them.

Update: D'oh, I see that "TRT" beat me to the punch with a Java joke. What can I say? My brain is slow today.

Irish Olympics' officials digital devices seized in Rio

Re: Irish hospitality: A thousand welcomes (at the same mark-up)

"Doggy practices" would be an entirely different charge...

Ruff justice, hounded by the law?

Charged under anti-terrierism legislation?

Collared by the police?

The police are following leads?

That's all I've got for now (thank goodness) but I'm sure there are others around here wittier than me who can do better...

Windows 10 Anniversary Update completely borks USB webcams. Yay.

Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

You jest, but have you actually seen the responses from "Microsoft technical support" on the MS support forums?

"Turn it off and on again" is about the level of it. They have a stock response which gets copied & pasted into ANY thread, along the lines of

"Thank you for contacting Microsoft support. I understand that you have an issue with <completely unrelated problem that totally misses the point of what the user posted>. Please try the following:

1) Run SFC /scannow

2) Defrag your disk

3) Change your desktop color scheme to be just a smidge less blue and a teensy bit more green"

(OK, I made that last one up, but that's about the level of usefulness they provide)

My headset is reading my mind and talking behind my back

Re: Custom earplugs..

Quite useful for wearing to loud prog-metal gigs - takes the volume down without distorting the sound.

But quite useless at a prog-rock gig - the three year warranty would have expired by the time the band were half way through the interminable noodling of their first track :)

Re: Sunglasses After Dark

Somewhat related: I remember seeing a documentary about Roy Orbison a few years ago, in which he admitted that the reason he always wore sunglasses on stage was that in 1964(?) when supporting the Beatles on a tour in the UK, he realised he'd left his regular glasses on the plane, and the only prescription glasses he had were the tinted ones.

Judging by the talking heads they interviewed for the documentary, it seems I wasn't the only one who'd always assumed he had weak eyes or some similar affliction!

Re: sunnies after dark ?

Combined with a focussed-EMP device to blow up the sound system of the car that drives round near my house with some dance crap at 5KW.

I refer the Hon. Gentleman to the obligatory XKCD, with a cleverer solution to this problem.