Posts by David 132

China claims it has stolen a march on 6G with colossal patent portfolio

Re: What's the point of 6G?

Jake, I'm inclined to agree with your sentiment, but think about your analogy for a moment. Creating documents and spreadsheets is a baseline capability these days. How would your DOS-based 486DX33 fare, say, playing a 1080p video stream, or transcoding that stream to h265? Go ahead, try it, I'll wait :)

Or to put it another way... "I don't see the point in these new cars. I can trundle the mile-and-a-half once a week to the village store at 15mph just as well in my Model T Ford as in any new car..."

UK Court of Appeal rules Tiny Computers' legal remains can sue Micron and Infineon over 2002 DRAM price-fixing cartel

Re: Mother fuckers....

I had to take ethics/antitrust training at my workplace a couple of years ago.

When my manager asked me if I'd taken it, my response - "Nah, I bribed a child-labourer North Korean government official to take it on my behalf by offering him exclusive kickbacks on our products" - didn't go down well. Fortunately he has a good sense of humour.

Traffic lights, who needs 'em? Lucky Kentucky residents up in arms over first roundabout

If you want a prime example of how not to drive...

...this just popped up in my feed yesterday.

Two idiots with a 10' tall U-Haul truck in an ~8' high underground parking garage, wondering why it won't go forward/backward/turn. As you watch, it gets worse and worse. I'm laughing, but tempered with a certain "these chucklefucks are allowed to drive on public roads, and they're not the only ones out there" dread...

https://youtu.be/Hhk7m1SSmRs

OK, so we don't have a flying car yet, but this is possibly even better: The Internet of Beer

Re: When I was helping the Mrs run a pub ...

But not too big, they still have to be porterble.

And yes, I did see what you did there. And you should be ashamed of yourself.

Re: Dreams dashed

10 mega-pints a second?

You lightweight. What are you, teetotal?

Re: "The device and software provide real time location, temperature, humidity, tilt,"

I wondered about that too. I can only imagine it’s to help detect when a keg has been shaken too much...?

Re: When I was helping the Mrs run a pub ...

Maybe just RFID for in-brewery inventory tracking?

Watchdog 'enables Tesla Autopilot' with string, some weight, a seat belt ... and no actual human at the wheel

Re: Hmm ...

“Oh yes, Father, when that bomb goes off they’ll hear it all the way to the North Po...”

(cut to Eskimo sitting ice-fishing, who looks up in surprise at a sudden distant boom sound)

China’s highest-ranked university creates school dedicated to integrated circuits

Re: Cream of the Crop or a Right Dodgy Lot at Best, Criminal and Traitorous at Worst?

It's AMFM. He - or it, I think it's a bot - turns up here periodically and vomits sub-Markov-Chain level textual slurry over the comment threads. Just ignore.

From cash machines to commercial kitchen appliances, Doom really will run on almost anything

Don’t show Apple this.

A product called the “iPadSX”?

How has this not attracted the Fruity Firm’s lawyers?

Something went wrong but we won't tell you what it is. Now, would you like to take out a premium subscription?

And I just remembered my dressing-gown pocket still contains that thing my aunt gave me that I don’t know what it’s for.

And some pocket lint.

Re: And you are surprised?

Sometimes, I think that's what the "submit" button is asking you to do.

“I clicked the Submit button. It was all alright. I had won the battle with myself. I loved Big Brother...”

Penguin takeover: We tried running some GUI Linux apps on Windows the official way – and nothing exploded

Like the Redmondian Clowns did when they decided a user typing "Internet" in the start menu should be diverted to Edge instead of IE.

In my experience, Microsoft have decided that if you type “Internet” in the start menu, you actually, obviously want to search the web for that word.

Searching the Internet for “Internet” is not quite as bad as googling “google”, but still risky.

Sure, your app is crap, but Windows won't tell. Promise

[the company]...considers its digital billboards "State of the Art."

The art in question in this case is probably pottery.

Origami... in spaaaaace: Inflatable folded objects discovery brings new meaning to blowing up buildings

Take THAT, planning departments

"Moreover, the reduction of gravitational force — and the absence of building regulations — in space would also facilitate the use of the new origami technology,"

So your neighbours CAN build that 3-story extension that blocks out your light and turns your back garden into a gloomy prison yard...

...as long as they do it in outer space.

What a loophole in the planning laws!

Greener Windows? Microsoft previews EcoQoS and Task Manager Eco Mode for would-be power-sipping devs

Re: Alternately

...and they’re being watched by their webcam to make sure they drag icons to the correct recycle bin, and it’s all perfectly legal under RIPA...

US aviation regulator warns of mid-air collision risk if Garmin TCAS boxes are not updated

Can I just say that I love the euphemism there...

“Actual loss of separation” is a lovely way of saying, “they’ll get butt-clenchingly close to each other”!

REvil ransomware gang claims it stole top-secret tech designs – including Apple lappies – from Quanta Computer

Can you put in an alternative wireless card, or does it play the usual Thinkpad game of halting at POST and warning you about a non-validated card?

Huawei wins big intellectual property case in Europe – against fashion house Chanel

I have to agree with Huawei here. Uurgh, now I feel dirty.

What's Chanel's concern? That people will think they've branched out into smart home Internet-of-Tat gear? Nope. For once, I have to agree with Huawei, and the judges here. The two logos are just not likely to cause confusion.

OTOH, the first thing I thought when I saw the Huawei logo was that it looks like links of a chain. Subtly referencing the situation with the Uyghurs in Xinjiang?

We need to talk about criminal adversaries who want you to eat undercooked onion rings

Re: We've contacted Corosi for comment.

That's an impactful contribution. Let's drive stakeholder synergy through meaningful inclusiveness.

Re: Internet enabled cooking things.

Presumably with more discernment than the dogs themselves will show - my labrador will eat anything at all provided it’s not actually green, rancid, and furry with mold.

No, wait, that’s unfair to him, I take that back. He’ll eat those too.

And my Westie will do the same, and then spend the next half hour obsessively licking the floor in a 3-yard radius just in case there’s any microscopic traces of flavor there.

Re: Deserve what you get ...

But you must at least admire my skillet making it.

Re: Deserve what you get ...

Well, you may mock, you luddite, but I have a connected smart fork. It’s really great. With its 5G interface and integrated JVM, it can instantly detect and inform me when there’s food on the end of it, and send me a picture of it no matter where in the world I am. Of course, there are compromises, because being an early adopter is hard - it can’t go in the dishwasher or indeed come into contact with water at all, and the battery life is about 5 minutes (which is a health benefit! Just means I have to eat faster!).

Oh, and I need to update its firmware every week or so and there’s the occasional problem checking in with the licensing server, but let’s face it, those are problems with regular forks too, right?

Yep, the future is here. The tines, they are a-changing.

Microsoft revokes MVP status of developer who tweeted complaint about request to promote SQL-on-Azure

Re: MVP...

"...Please reboot your system, run sfc /scannow, and do a half-dozen other things that are completely and utterly unrelated to your issue but which we suggest in response to every single query posted here..."

Re: Influencers

There was an Austrian chap in the 1930s/40s who was an influencer too, can't think of his name right now, Adenoid something? I think he disappeared into obscurity, probably fell foul of Twitter's code of conduct or whatever. Last heard of when he contested the North Meinhead, sorry, Minehead, by-election in the late 60s...

Microsoft realises constant meetings stress people out, adds Office 365 settings to cut them short or start them late

Combine it with another office fad, the treadmill desk.

All meetings to be held while all the participants run on treadmills.

I guarantee that meeting duration would be inversely proportional to the BMI of the manager involved.

Re: Question : Why do we have constant meetings

Because it's the techno-utopian mindset:

All problems anywhere in the world can be resolved through technology. We can patch around human nature.

Sysadmin for FIN7 criminal cracking group gets 10 years in US prison for managing card slurping malware scam

Re: Davis Lu, 51

There's a good explanation of infinite loops here.

After years of dragging its feet, FCC finally starts tackling America's robocall scourge

Re: People Still Answer Their Phones?

I agree, but I’m discombobulated by your use of the term “tellie”. That’s television, surely?

The phone is the blower, dog-and-bone, rap-rod (h/t Zaphod Beeblebrox for that one), but never “tellie”.

Or maybe I’m just an old fart and I’m not hip to how the kids talk now?

Re: I am not sure if this is possible ...

In this case, the scammers already appear to be coming from the U.S

Yep. In the last 24 hours alone, I've had robocalls that caller ID announced as "Oregon Golf Club", and "AT&T" and therefore waved through.

In the former case it was actually a robocall promoting Ziply Fiber (unsolicited, and I have no previous relationship with them) - utterly disgusting behavior and they're now off my list-of-people-I'll-do-business-with forever.

The icon is what I would like to deliver to these asshats. Grrr.

Texan's alleged Amazon bombing effort fizzles: Militia man wanted to take out 'about 70 per cent of the internet'

Re: My militia.com!

“The Internet. Where men are Real Men, women are Real Women, and little girls are Real FBI Agents.”

For blinkenlights sake.... RTFM! Yes. Read The Front of the Machine

Re: totally SHITE file transfer tool

Cock-up at the office.

Cock-down at OP’s residence.

South Africa's state-owned energy firm to appeal after court rules Oracle does not have to support its software

Re: Don't blame Larry

US Department of Department

Well, that beats "The Department of Administrative Affairs" as a silly name...

If you can't log into Azure, Teams or Xbox Live right now: Microsoft cloud services in worldwide outage

Re: CURRENT STATUS: Microsoft rerouted traffic to our resilient DNS capabilities

Hey now, be fair, it was only last year that they learned to put their DNS server ZX81 into FAST mode!

Re: Don't use DNS

Wuss.

Just ‘cos you’re incapable of remembering IP addresses for every site you visit!

Yep, you're totally unique: That one very special user and their very special problem

Re: When turn off/turn on fails

the DVD/CD eject button

on the new PC

A new PC with an optical drive? Ah now come on, can't fool me, April 1st was yesterday!

New systemd 248 feature 'extension images' updates immutable file systems without really updating them

All the best April Fools' Day pranks are plausible.

Spaghetti trees - yup, those crazy forriners, seems legit.

Barnards Castle putting up a bronze statue of Dominic Cummings - plausible too.

Systemd oozing its tentacles into yet another area while simultaneously completely missing the point and buggering it up - nooo, that could never happen. Ah who am I kidding. Utterly plausible.

Re: Errr but...

Harsh, but fair.

Re: Errr but...

WONTFIX: Doesn't happen on LP's configuration, therefore isn't a problem, therefore no further action needed.

(grrrrr)

Re: Errr but...

*shudder*

Don't mention resolved.conf in my presence. For the last two weeks since a systemd update, I've been battling resolveD, which insists on setting my local DNS resolver to 127.0.0.53 after every sodding reboot. But not actually starting any DNS service. Which means nothing works, although my Pi-Hole stack insists everything's peachy. I have tried everything I could think of, every tutorial, every hack and workaround, but still after each reboot it resets. Next step is to take off and nuke it from orbit.

Why the blithering f@ck is a service init daemon even running a DNS resolver, much less a crappy and non-functional one?

Sorry, rant over.

State of Maine orders review of $54.6m Workday project as it alleges delivery failure and threatens cancellation

Re: Been there

I can imagine if the gov org has an old mainframe system

I believe that at present they have a Maineframe.

Yes, I'll get my coat.

Mullet over: Aussie boys' school tells kids 'business in the front, party in the back' hairstyle is 'not acceptable'

Re: shaving your head

One imagines that if a pupil has an inappropriate hairstyle, they will be put in detention until they learn to beehive properly.

OVH reveals it's scrubbing servers – to get smoke residue off before rebooting

But what if it's, like, a really, really, good peanut-butter sandwich recipe? Like, ambrosia-of-the-Gods, secret-family-recipe-passed-down-through-the-generations good? Your guidance is confusing.

Microsoft 365 tries again at filtering swearing, bad behavior: Classifiers for seven languages offered

Re: Try harder...

Unfortunately that acronym is already being used by the Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society.

"Brussels is the capital of *******"

Re: Here comes my anecdote

VMS had, as I recall, an auto-versioning file system, which would also have solved your solicitor's problem.

LEASE.DOC;1 LEASE.DOC;2

LEASE.DOC;3 LEASE.DOC;4

...and so on.

NASA sets the date for first helicopter flight on another planet – and the craft will carry a piece of history

Re: Flightpath

Upvoted purely for your use of the phrase "metaphysical dichotomy" in the context of an artificial intelligence. Were you by chance thinking of that unfortunate incident with Hudzen, Kryten's replacement?

Yes, there's nothing quite like braving the M4 into London on the eve of a bank holiday just to eject a non-bootable floppy

For light reading, duh!

Is that better or worse than "I had a buddy who's good with computers look at it..." ?

Tired: Linux fans using the Edge browser. Wired: Linux fans using a Microsoft account to sign into the Edge browser

Oh, thank goodness.

At last. Thank $DEITY. Finally, Linux becomes a modern, useable computing platform. Thank you, Microsoft, for providing this vital piece.

Now, I can live my best life.