Posts by David 132

Big browsers are about to throw a wrench in your ad-free paradise

We should draft a new standard that brings together all the existing standards.

And yes, you already know which XKCD that link goes to.

Critical hardcoded SolarWinds credential now exploited in the wild

Hardcoded credentials? Really?

In this day and age?

Who wrote the software, Chad the summer intern?

Obligatory XKCD, and obligatory icon -->

Viable fusion power in a decade? Tokamak Energy dares to dream

Re: Within a factor of two anyway

>I'm more worried about where the other 715MW of fusion power goes...

Maybe I've grasped the wrong end of the stick, but I interpreted the numbers in the article as "the reactor will generate 800MW of power, but need 715MW of input power to achieve & contain fusion, leaving a net gain of 85MW"...?

Opening up the WinAmp source to all goes badly as owners delete entire repo

Re: Damn Shame

On Windows I use Musicbee (https://www.getmusicbee.com) which can be skinned, takes plugins, and has a mini-player akin to WinAmp.

It's not ideal; I miss both the Coverflow browser of old iTunes, and the vinyl effects plugin I had on WinAmp (it would simulate dust, scratches, worn turntable belt etc). The former made browsing my music collection an experience like flipping through a physical record collection; the latter is harder for me to explain ("why would you want to make your music sound worse???") but it had its uses.

Parents take school to court after student punished for using AI

The "impact" of this is being made considerably worse by the parents, who have now by their actions ensured that any web search for the kid's name will forever return results about his cheating and using AI against the rules.

Have they never heard of the Streisand Effect? Did no-one take them quietly to one side and say "look, no matter how you feel about this, the school acted within their own rules, and by screaming & ranting about this you're just going to make it worse and make a mountain out of a molehill"?

One-year countdown to 'biggest Ctrl-Alt-Delete in history' as Windows 10 approaches end of support

Re: And we all know what that means...

Ridiculously improbable.

Igor's words would actually be, "Yeth marthter, from the tombthtone engraved CLIPPY like you ordered."

Everyone knowth every thelf-rethpecting Igor hath a lithp.

:)

Re: And we all know what that means...

>Clippy VII - Copilot, coming to a computer near you.

Will that be on pay-per-view, or payperclip?

Re: They don't care as long as they can force you to get a Microsoft login

You must be aware that half the GPOs are, these days, completely ignored unless you have the LTSC or Enterprise versions of Windows :(

Re: Making the decision for me --

Some person at Microsoft is reading your comment and thinking, "how come we don't use the space taken up by progress bars to show adverts? Who wouldn't love to watch an ad for cool, refreshing Pepsi instead of having to watch a boring green progress bar? Perhaps we could surprise and delight our users by unexpectedly changing their mouse-cursor to well-known corporate logos?"

Some time ago, as I commented here on the Reg at the time, I saw red when my one Windows 10 PC yet again rebooted overnight, destroying my day's work in the process, and I nuked its entire Windows Update subsystem, hacking out Registry keys with the fervour of a gardener dealing with Japanese Knotweed (albeit, rather more permanent success).

As a result I haven't been bothered by updates ever since; no crapware/shovelware being foisted on me unexpectedly, no nags to update to Windows 11, no sudden degrading of Windows components.

Yes, it's out of date and possibly vulnerable; you're all welcome to try and hack it. It's located at 192.168.0.1 - go nuts! :)

Re: And we all know what that means...

And with that infuriatingly and inappropriately chirpy "Copilot just got installed! Check it out!"?

Microsoft teases latest Windows 10 build despite looming end

Timebombs?

If I were of a cynical bent - and those of you who've read my previous comments here will attest that I am a wide-eyed optimist who consistently thinks the best of every player in our industry - I would suspect that this new Windows 10 build will have various timebombs in it, to spring increasingly annoying nag-alerts on users as the EoL date approaches, even if the PC is disconnected from the Internet.

An even more cynical person would suggest that these are already in place, having been added months ago under the guise of something innocuous.

Digital River runs dry, hasn't paid developers for sales since July

I seem to recall that at one point Microsoft used them for digital downloads too, although this was 15-20 years ago so I could be mistaken.

Essentially, Digital River are a caching and merchant-services platform for digital download products - games, applications, licenses, whatever.

Compression? What's that? And why is the network congested and the PCs frozen?

Re: Mental image

I believe I've posted this anecdote here before, but it's still funny and bears repeating.

An old, old friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, was responsible for writing drivers at a now-defunct network hardware company in the early 2000s.

Because the build/compile process could in some circumstances take considerable time, he wrote a script that would perform the build overnight after he left, then e-mail him the resulting compiler log, so that he could verify its success or otherwise before he even arrived at the office. "Work Smarter Not Harder", right?

Anyway, one morning he arrived at work to find the site IT team waiting for him in the lobby, metaphorically holding spiked baseball bats.

His overnight build process had failed and logged the result; due to the way he'd written the script, it had then tried to build the driver again, failed, logged the result... and so on, again and again and again.

When the logging process failed due to lack of local disk space, his script had proceeded to its next stage - and e-mailed the log file to him.

This being simpler times, his employer's email system had choked on a 4 gigabyte attachment, and keeled over. Hard. Bringing down e-mail for a large part of the company, worldwide.

Pint for my friend --->

Re: Mental image

"Viva El Presidente!"

*thwack*

"Ha! Missed BOTH my legs!"

My favourite exchange from the Young Ones.

Smart homes may be a bright idea, just not for the dim bulbs who live in 'em

Re: Abrilliant article that I will reference in future

Well, aren’t you a clever dick.

BBC weather glitch shows 13k mph winds in London, 404℃ in Nottingham

Older readers chuckle at the reference; younger readers have no idea what you’re talking about :)

Re: Only 13k?

And yet that temperature was never actually found.

Tesla Cybertruck recalled again. This time, a software fix for backup camera glitch

>Exactly, when you feel a thud, you've reversed far enough. ;-)

^ Found the Parisian :)

Re: Robo Cyber Trucks

But have you ever met a nice South African?

My Volvo will helpfully obscure 95% of its backup camera display, mid-reversing, with such top-priority unmissable messages as “connection lost with bluetooth phone”.

Grrr.

Re: Robo Cyber Trucks

> Shoot 'em off Jim !

Ahem. “Scrape ‘em off Jim”, I think you’ll find.

Everyone needs a hobby. Mine is memorizing the lyrics to cheesy 80s novelty hits.

All together now, “Hold a chicken in the air, stick a deckchair up your nose, fly a jumbo jet and then bury all your clothes…”

If Dell's Qualcomm-powered Copilot+ PC is typical of the genre, other PCs are toast

Re: Is it my age ...?

The Dragon 32 emulator showed the machine to be a riot of migraine-inducing shades of magenta/puce/cyan, and extremely blocky low-res graphics. So in other words, exactly the same as every other British built-down-to-a-budget micro of that era. Didn't try any development on it so I can't really offer an opinion on 6809 vs. 6502 or Z80, sorry.

Re: Is it my age ...?

Not that this is your fault, and it's grossly unfair and iniquitous that for some reason I hold you responsible, but... your comment has just sent me down the 8-bit emulation rabbit hole, and before I knew it, I found myself downloading a Dragon 32/64 emulator, playing its games, and reading far more information about that platform than is healthy.

I had already done the above for the ZX81, Spectrum, and QL, some years ago :)

Re: Function keys on a touch bar?

I didn't downvote you - everyone's entitled to their opinion, and wouldn't the world be boring if we were all the same? - but, judging by the downvotes, you do seem to be in a minority here :)

Re: Function keys on a touch bar?

And, in a rare and neat instance of Reg comments going so far into a surreal flight of fancy that they arrive back where they started, obligatory XKCD!

Re: the hot little jets of air it quietly emits

The laptop blows, but the OS sucks. So it cancels out. No hovering or hoovering, alas.

Smart TVs are spying on everyone

Re: Buy a non smart TV - if you can find one

>Or do the new ones automatically connect to any open network they can find?

I don't believe so (that would probably be a step too far for even Smart TV manufacturers - or am I too optimistic?) but I have heard that some models are now obscuring the screen with obnoxious "Finish setting up your TV now!" (or equivalent) pop-ups until they're connected.

Linus Torvalds declares war on the passive voice

Re: He's right, of course

>is there a technical term for a pointer that points to itself?

May I nominate, "an Ouroboros Pointer"?

Office 2024 unveiled for Microsoft 365 refuseniks

Re: But the important parts are not fixed.....

>…22.8 or 22.8.94, which is the 22nd September (1994)…

Really? Those wacky Germans. I’d have interpreted that as 22nd August, but what would I know :P

Fresh court filing accuses Oracle of creating 'maze' of options 'hidden' in 'contract'

>I found the previous owners had removed the heater/lamp from the bathroom leaving (I think) three red and two black wires dangling from the ceiling...

You were lucky. An old UK friend of mine bought a house, and the previous owners had not only removed the ceiling light fittings - bulbs, pendants, shades and all - but they had "thoughtfully" dealt with the problem of bare dangling wires by twisting the blue & brown wires together and wrapping them in electrical tape.

My friend got a shock - appropriate term - when he took possession of his new home in the gathering gloom of an autumn afternoon, and turned the first light on!

As for myself, well, the first house I bought I found that the sellers had removed, amongst other things: the loo rolls and holders, the wall-mounted toothbrush holder in the bathroom, the (cheap, vinyl) shower curtain, and pretty much all the lightbulbs.

By contrast, the first house I bought here in the States I got a ride-on lawnmower thrown in by the seller because he "didn't have any use for it".

Not sure where you get your information, or which part of the US, but here in the PNW it's absolutely the case that major appliances (washer, dryer, fridge, and yes even microwave) are considered part of the sale, unless the seller and buyer explicitly negotiate otherwise.

And as for sheds being considered moveable... nope, not in any property transaction I've been involved in or even heard of.

Re: Simple answer

It was in microdot form in the dot of the ‘i’ in the words “Sign Here” on the contract.

This is Oracle, remember.

Microsoft throws in the towel on HoloLens 2

Re: Half-hearted

Aaargh, this pattern used to drive me mad at my former employer.

They'd launch an exciting new platform/industry-initiative/protocol.

They'd get lots of industry partners onboard - peripheral vendors, OEMs, ISVs - with the usual "we think this is the best thing since sliced bread" canned quotes for the launch.

And then, a year or two later, when the product in question wasn't - contrary to the marketeers' more fevered hopes - an industry-dominating multibillion-dollar business, well, my employer would cancel it, leaving all those partners with unsold stock and unexpected revenue-stream gaps, and having to explain to their customers why the Next Big Thing was, in fact, the Last Silly Hype.

And my employer would do this again, and again, and again, burning more credibility and goodwill every time.

And they wondered why, over time, industry partners became progressively less willing to sign up to stan for their latest initiative ("it's going to be HUGE! Trust us! We TOTALLY won't cancel this one after 18 months!!!") - and why their own reputation as industry leaders just didn't exist any more.

(I suspect the smarter ones among you can hazard a guess at who the employer in question was, but I'm past caring.)

Re: Good riddance!

>Who wants to attend a meeting in VR with some Roblox type avatar?

...apart from Mark Zuckerberg?

After 3 years, Windows 11 has more than half Windows 10's market share

Re: But why not just make 10 better?

<xkcd>For $2000, I’ll build you one that goes to 12!</xkcd>

Bending the rules with flexible non-silicon 32-bit RISC-V chip

Re: Err

What, a smart e-ink crisp packet that when it's been emptied, can be reprogrammed to say "Prawn Cocktail" rather than "Cheese & Turnip" and be re-used?

Genius!

Re: Fine, no Crysis

It can maybe run “Guess the number I’m thinking of”.

US Army orders next-gen robot mule to haul a literal ton of gear

Missed opportunity

Why didn’t they call that first-gen S-MET “Big Trak”?

Starfish Space to tackle orbital junk for NASA with SSPICY Otter

"Spicy Otter"?

Like the Indian restaurant that had "Tarka Dhal" on the menu. Anyone querying it was told "well, it's like ordinary, mild Dhal, but a little 'otter..."

Yes, that's my coat, thanks. I'll take it and leave. I think that would be best for all concerned.

Bring the joy of train delays home with your very own departure board

Re: a very realistic product

Just up the road from me here in the US, there's a strip-mall, and the large roadside signs declare it to be named "Market Centre".

I pointed this out to my (USAian born-and-bred) grandmother-in-law once, and she confessed that she'd never ever noticed the British spelling, in over 30 years of driving past it; subsequent conversations with colleagues here have shown that no-one has any clue as to why it's spelled that way.

And I still get asked to "say something with your wonderful accent!" whenever I go grocery-shopping, but that's a whole other saga.

Re: Cool.

Mine were forever telling me "Don't take the cork off your fork".

Icon, because I didn't listen.

Public Wi-Fi operator investigating cyberattack at UK's busiest train stations

Re: CheckPoint's remarks

No, no. These are super serious security people with years of experience.

It was "swordfish".

That doomsday critical Linux bug: It's CUPS. May lead to remote hijacking of devices

Re: WTF is a WiFi router?

Oh, to facilitate them in listening to their "popular beat combos"?

Microsoft cash to help reignite Three Mile Island atomic plant

>...but a PPA does not mean they control the plant, just that they purchase the power.

It's almost as if the clue's in the name. Power Purchase Agreement.

Still, a clue like that is far too subtle to deter some commentards who are clearly determined that nuclear == explodey-boom-doom.

IBM scores $45M zinger from Zynga in patent wringer

Re: Software and business patents

Yeah, but it's Zynga... this is definitely one of those wasp vs. scorpion "can't they both lose?" scenarios.

Apple AirPods Pro 2 can be sold as hearing aids, says FDA

+++ Jelly Jelly Jelly +++

Out of Cheese Error

Hi Mum Is Testing

+++

Google Chrome gets a mind of its own for some security fixes

With Manifest v3, I'm not sure that UBO has any decent access to websites or the browser any more anyway.

I'm sticking with Firefox here.

The future everyone wanted – in-car ads tailored to your journey and passengers

Re: Based on Your Journey

PDX? Or merely a street-number coincidence?

Re: MBA's

>Marketeers, MBA's, and advertisement peddlers all belong on the B Ark.

No. Those on the B Ark ultimately survived.

I think you mean "Disaster Area's all-black Stunt Spaceship".

Set the controls for the heart of the sun, etc.