Re: So let me get this right.
"If it ain't broke, break it, then move it to Azure and make it an Opex revenue stream and tell customers it's new and improved"
Posts by David 132
5507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Mar 2010
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Windows Server Update Services buckle under Microsoft's metadata mountain
Ransomware curdles production at Coca-Cola's Fairlife dairy biz
Saturday 18th July 2026 06:45 GMT 
Re: ultra-filtered milk
What are Coca-cola doing with milk?
Much the same thing, I suspect, that Raven Sable, AKA Famine, was doing with the Newtrition Corporation in Good Omens.
"Two years of Newtrition investment and research had produced CHOW™. CHOW™ contained spun, plaited, and woven protein molecules, capped and coded, carefully designed to be ignored by even the most ravenous digestive tract enzymes; no-cal sweeteners; mineral oils replacing vegetable oils; fibrous materials, colourings, and flavourings. The end result was a foodstuff almost indistinguishable from any other except for two things. Firstly, the price, which was slightly higher, and secondly the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walkman..."
Billing software error sends billion-dollar AWS estimates
Tech support chap told angry customer to think inside the box – and solved the problem
Windows 10 refuses to die, and the security bill is coming due
Software bloat? This elevator needs an 8 GB Core i5
Big Blue thinks small, again, with POWER tower
Microsoft rolls out Windows Search updates and they're... quite good
Tuesday 14th July 2026 16:39 GMT
Re: Seems to be already deployed
"But it was a VERY low bar to begin with."
So very true. My experience of Windows Search in 10 or 11 is...
In an Explorer window: I type the partial (or even full) name of a file that I know is present in a subdirectory; it ignores the first press of the <return> key completely and I have to click the adjacent button to kick it into "life". Ten minutes later, if I'm lucky, it'll find the file.
From the Search box on the Start menu: it instantly returns web search results and Store results and completely irrelevant content, and also, if I'm lucky, maybe 50% of the time, the actual local files.
In a command prompt window, using DIR /s <searchterm>: near-instant results, showing all matches.
I dont't remember the GUI search options (where they existed) being so crap in Windows 2000/XP/7, but perhaps that's just nostalgia?
User crippled a network while trying to learn Nmap
Monday 13th July 2026 17:51 GMT
Back in the very early 2000s, at a large semiconductor company, I downloaded a well-known hacking toolkit out of pure curiousity. I was young and gauche (whereas now I'm just old and bitter).
After a few days I received a weary-sounding email from the IT dept, asking if I wouldn't mind deleting the BackOrifice installer. No fuss, no repercussions, just "please delete that".
More innocent times!
Monday 13th July 2026 17:47 GMT
Yep, I commented on an article yesterday (circa 2AM UK time?) and my comment didn't show up, completely vanished. So I posted it again. Now I fear it's there twice and making me look like an idiot (I don't need the Register's help to do that, dammit!)
Still, I'm sure the other commentards will make allowances and treat my faux pas with the forbearance, tolerance, gentle good-humour and forgiveness for which they're so well known... :)
Philips to replace bricked Hue Bridge Pro devices
Monday 13th July 2026 16:50 GMT
Risks
"The incident highlights the risks associated with smart homes and their devices. Support could be abruptly pulled, the device's origin might not be what you expect, or, as in the case of the Philips Hue Bridge Pro, a firmware update could leave a device hopelessly bricked."
You forgot my personal pet peeve... smart home devices that randomly decide to log you out, invariably at the most inconvenient time.
Dumb home: flick light switch, light comes on
Smart home: open app (of several apps because no two vendors' devices seem to share a common one); "sorry, you need to log in"; aaaargh what password did I set for this app several years ago?; make several attempts to remember it; get locked out; request reset email; wait 30 minutes for email to arrive...
Progress, eh? :)
Memory makers are slaves to the boom-bust rollercoaster, and the AI boom is the wildest ride of all
Monday 13th July 2026 10:45 GMT 
I hope the bubble bursts soon
Personally, I am resigned to not being able to upgrade any of my computers until at least 2028. And I'm not happy about it. It's bad enough that semi-decent gaming GPUs have been out of reach for a few years, but now memory, SSDs, and seemingly everything else is crazy-expensive. The whole "AI" AKA spicy-autocorrect thing can FOAD as far as I'm concerned.
An unnamed US county – perhaps in Ohio – paid $1M extortion demand to cybercriminals
KDE Plasma users face a dire omen of change: 6.6.6 arrives
Datacenter MacGyver saved the biggest football match of the year
Thief posed as Wi-Fi fixing hero, then stole priceless trophy
OpenMandriva claims disgruntled admin trashed repos after community bust-up
Police intercept tipsy teens after Waymo snitches for shooting Orbeez out of the car
Microsoft intros tech that rebuilds dead PCs without requiring local copies of Windows
Wednesday 8th July 2026 06:27 GMT
"May fail"
"Cloud Rebuild is in preview for now and Microsoft’s documentation warns that it may fail – as is the case with many of the experimental features Redmond adds to preview builds of Windows."
Although it may be a cheap shot on my part, I suggest that the words "experimental" and "preview" in that sentence should be removed in the interest of factual accuracy.
Secure Unix ancestor KSOS did type safety before Rust made it cool
Monday 6th July 2026 22:05 GMT
Re: "Clearly, executives back then had longer attention spans."
A single-page Powerpoint? Not to go all Four Yorkshiremen on you, but the execs you know are clearly better than the ones around here; I was going to say "a single Powerpoint bullet item", but that'd probably be too long-winded for them; a single smiley- or frowny-face emoji would be about right for their "executive summaries".
Zombie ‘who owns Unix?’ lawsuit comes alive again
C programmers commit fresh crimes against readability
Monday 6th July 2026 00:41 GMT 
I must be a real thicko...
...I tried compiling the Nixie tube code with both GCC 11.4, on my Linux Mint box, and - purely for shits'n'giggles - SAS-C 6.50 under my Amiga emulator. I wasn't seriously expecting the latter to compile, and it didn't, but surprisingly even modern GCC barfed at the code. Didn't seem to like the trailing //||\\ lines that represent the "pins" in the source-code. I removed those lines and the code compiled, but then it didn't do anything other than segfault.
Clearly I'm missing any or all of 1) a brain, 2) a decent C compiler, or 3) some non-default compiler options.
Applause to the IOCCC entrants, though; I am in awe of their ability to make functional code that is indistinguishable from line-noise and not do so in Perl.
Confidential computing's trust mechanism is broken. The fix may not exist
New humanoid robots from China look like creepy pop star action figures – complete with slightly dodgy lip-synch
Former Microsoft engineer shrinks Notepad down to size
Cloudflare to block cynical search-and-scrape bots from ad-supported web pages
Wednesday 1st July 2026 18:45 GMT
Re: Cloudflare
El Reg's account login page is one of those that sends me spinning around (like a record - if you get the reference)
They're just trying to prove if you're Dead Or Alive.
(And yes, I have been stuck in a perpetual login loop here before, leading me to wonder if a) El Reg actually wants any readers, and b) am I actually human?)
Zuck saves Meta bucks by reusing memory from old servers with a custom CXL ASIC
NASA tests AI medic for astronauts too far from Earth to call a doctor
Monday 29th June 2026 23:00 GMT
Re: I hope well trained AI
Else a sneeze might result in an amputated leg
Ah, a ditty from long-ago schooldays comes to mind (AKA "The Rhyme Of The Ancient Schoolchild"?):
"A horse stood on the bridge one night / Its knees were all a-quiver / It gave a cough / Its leg fell off / And floated down the river."
Space Shuttle Endeavour stacks up nicely for new California exhibit
Security boss thought MFA would be too much security
Friday 26th June 2026 18:53 GMT
Re: CYA
"No, I mean it sounds like Greek. It's not Greek."
" 'What sounds like Greek but is not Greek'? That's a good one, my lord!"
"It's not meant to be a brain-teaser, Percy!"
Friday 26th June 2026 18:49 GMT
Re: CYA
I think I've told this anecdotette around here before, but... having recently immigrated to the US, I followed in traffic a white pickup truck, on the tailgate of which was printed the slogan AAA Battery Installation Service.
I spent longer than I should admit thinking - and feel free to imagine this in the voice of The Simpsons' Dr Nick - "what a country! they even have people to install those little pinky-finger-sized AAA batteries for you!"
It was actually - of course - the American Automobile Association's vehicle battery installation service. Or at least, I hope so.
Friday 26th June 2026 18:41 GMT
Re: Not quite the same but...
I worked in the mid 2000s for a technology company in the South-West of England. We had regular fire-alarm drills - all muster in the car-park, in pre-arranged locations corresponding to the building number; team leaders verify those present against personnel lists - that sort of thing.
Anyway, I remember two occasions of "genuine" fire alarms.
The first was when a colleague spilled coca-cola over his keyboard; it was one of the legendary IBM Model M ones, so he casually washed it off under the tap, and put it somewhere to dry. Specifically, in the thermal test chamber that we would use to test cooling solutions (think of it as a large walk-in oven). He set the temperature for the chamber to a suitable level to quickly dry the keyboard... and then got distracted by something else and completely forgot about the keyboard merrily roasting at 200+ degrees C.
The melting, bubbling plastic eventually generated enough smoke to set off the alarm, and he was very embarrassed.
The second "non drill" fire alarm was when a very dopey and thoroughly unpleasant co-worker wanted some fresh air, so pushed the handle of the FIRE ESCAPE ONLY door and walked straight out from the office area to the car park. Which of course set off the alarms. When confronted later, her blithe and puzzled response was "oh, I thought that the sign just meant it wasn't the main exit door"; in fact, she was genuinely offended that we were all making such a fuss about it. Cue much head-slapping and muttering all round.
Icon --> what else?
They've read the scroll thing! AI helps decipher ancient document charred by Vesuvius
Friday 26th June 2026 16:10 GMT
Re: Yes but ..
"Claude, please summarize the Ts&Cs documents for a selection of major software vendors."
"Sure. Here is a simple summary.
Microsoft: 'We Own You Ha Ha Ha'.
Oracle: 'All Hail Ba'al The Soul Eater And Bend To His Dark Will'
IBM: 'Only Licensed To Those Under 35. If You Are Older, Report Immediately For Reprocessing Into Soylent Green.'"
Friday 26th June 2026 14:37 GMT
Re: Now then Mistress...
Looking at the scrolls already recovered it looks as if it was the library of some boring old git who went in for the philosophy lark exclusively
Or the Roman equivalent of those modern-day people who have bookshelves prominently populated with weighty and serious tomes like A Brief History Of Time that they have no intention of reading, purely to impress visitors?
Thursday 25th June 2026 22:36 GMT
Clever stuff
Other of the scrolls they were able to decode were found to read, in translation,
"We are looking for houses in your area to buy for cash..."
"Make Money Fast In Your Spare Time..."
...and of course, a selection of fast-food flyers from the eateries down the Via Pistorum, and political campaign leaflets for the Senate.
Flippancy aside, this is impressive - taking what is essentially a barbeque briquette and decoding it. I do note the obligatory-nowadays mention of "AI" and "machine learning", though :(
Blast from the past as GIMP 0.54 is revived in Flatpak form
Wednesday 24th June 2026 00:18 GMT
Re: Remember GIMP? He's back! In Flatpak form...
The first few Flatpak-based installs for various simple calculator apps all hovered about one gigabyte for the download and all required over three gigabytes of disk space to actually install.
Not a problem though, because these days RAM and storage are so ridiculously cheap...
...right?
...why are you all looking at me like that?
OpenAI Codex bombards SSDs with needless write operations, costing millions
Microsoft accidentally kills epic Outlook email threads
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