Posts by alain williams

HP Inc settles printer toner lockout lawsuit with a promise to make firmware updates optional

Re: There should be a big label

in low-contrast print

That just shows you what a shitty company they are. Trying to create a legal defence for themselves while ensuring that, in practice, many customers will not notice.

Re: "We lose money on the hardware"

In the EU (& UK) there is an anti-dumping law, "It protects against damage to UK industry caused by the dumping of goods in the UK at prices much lower than the normal value." The definition of "normal value" includes page 3, point (4) in second column:

(4) By constructing a normal value based on the costs of production plus a reasonable amount to cover selling, general and administrative costs and profit

It seems to me that HP is in breach of this.

Why are they not taken to court ?

UK government to open £16B IT services competition after 6-month delay

Re: How about favouring British suppliers ?

But all of this will be ignored by the muppets in power.

If I really needed an illustration: Ferguson shipyard misses out on new CalMac ferry order

How about favouring British suppliers ?

Many advantages:

• Keep money in the UK, not export it to the USA

• Build up skills and infrastructure in the UK

• Grow UK service companies, make them better able to compete overseas

• Better security - when data goes overseas who gets access to it ?

But all of this will be ignored by the muppets in power.

Celonis slaps SAP with lawsuit claiming it's gatekeeping customer data

Oh, the joys of giving your data to someone else

Of course, once SAP [of anyone else] have control of your data, they will take every opportunity to enrich themselves.

This is much the same what Microsoft is doing by sucking all of your documents into its O365 cloud - it will progressively make it more expensive, and harder, to do anything else.

MINJA sneak attack poisons AI models for other chatbot users

Re: Mixing everyone's inputs into one bucket!

although my attempts to train ChatGPT to answer everybody only in iambic pentameter are moving very slowly.

I would be even more impressed if you could persuade it to reply in Haiku.

Not quite as useless as you think as it would make a reply that is short enough to be taken in by everyone, especially those with a tiny attention span.

Official HP toner not official enough after dodgy update, say users

I want my printer manufacturer to make a profit from me ...

I am happy for them to do that by selling me a printer at a price that does that.

When I need a new printer I look ink vendors' web sites and work out the printing price per page and chose on that basis. I do not care who makes the ink/toner.

I would be very happy to buy printer manufacturer supplies as long as they are competitive.

Summary: I am happy for the manufacturer to make a profit but not a killing.

Is NASA's science budget heading for a black hole?

NASA needs to add new boilerplate to mission statements

that each off-planet mission will, somehow, attempt to image Trump's ego from space. He will readily approve all of them.

However: given the size of his ego it will not be hard to find, I just hope that it will not crack some of the expensive optics.

More Voyager instruments shut down to eke out power supplies

Would it be possible ...

to rotate which instruments are switched on ? So: run one for a week, then power it down and run a different one for a week.

Or is it that once powered down some/all instruments cannot be powered back up ?

Oh Brother. Printer giant denies dirty toner tricks as users cry foul

Re: HP is the way to go?

Maybe the staff that HP shed have gone to Brother bringing with them the evil disease of toner games.

Trump says US should kill CHIPS Act, use the cash to cut debt

Re: Sounds like Fidel Castro

Is not Putin also known for long speeches ?

I Trump reprising his Apprentice role, but this time as student ?

How Google tracks Android device users before they've even opened an app

Re: GDPR

Because the UK's ICO is a chocolate teapot.

Windows 11 adoption picking up speed, but older sibling still ahead

I upgraded from Windows 11 years ago

Now I run X.org and will move to Waylan when Debian stable does so.

Microsoft unveils finalized EU Data Boundary as European doubt over US grows

But the words "EU data boundary" is great marketing misdirection and will, I suspect, be very profitable.

Profit slide at HP can only mean one thing: Hammer time

Re: Shouldn't they...

They will fire then but have a 15 minute wait time before they tell them that they are fired.

FDA clears Google watch feature to call 911 if you flatline

I am surprised that it does not ask you ...

if you want your heart switched off and on again.

Framework guns for cheap laptops with upgradeable alternative

Re: $899 is not cheap

Works very nicely with Linux Mint, used for a bit of web browsing and ssh back home.

But that was my point: most people do not need a powerful laptop; those who visit el-reg prolly need more than many.

$899 is not cheap

Compare that to something like an HP stream from Argos at £249 (they do other cheaper stuff).

Most people do simple things and do not need hefty machines. I want a cheap laptop when away from home, where I have a more powerful desktop.

uBlock Origin dead for many as Google purges Manifest v2 extensions

Most people are afraid that if they do/use anything slightly unusual (eg run a different browser) that, somehow, the magic computer pixie dust will be disturbed and things will stop working.

They accept that things are they way that they are but things still work - more or less.

Laptop makers stalled on repairability improvements

What reasons for not making something repairable ?

• It is cheaper to build

• Make more profit by forcing customers into expensive repairs

• Make another sale when the customer does not want to pay for an expensive repair

• Can make something smaller by not worrying about repairability

• CEO is a Trump supporter

Anything else ?

What do you think ?

HP deliberately adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls

Re: Liars

Unfortunately lying is not a criminal offence. It never will be. If it was members of Parliament would be some of the first arrested.

Open source maintainers are really feeling the squeeze

Expecting individuals (at home, in small offices, ...) to pay will not happen.

Expecting large corporations is another thing. It is them who benefit greatly from free software and giving a small percentage of what they save would not noticeably affect their bottom line.

Especially galling are large corporates ...

(some of who I have worked in) who depend on Open Source components and then complain about bugs or missing features. I have suggested that they pay for the bug fix or enhancement to be met with derision "who do I think they are - to pay for something that could benefit their competitors ?", or similar sentiments.

Sometimes I fave fixed a bug while being paid for them and with their approval. "Now let me send in a patch" to be told "not on our time" - so I do it when I get home.

They just do not understand that we can all move forward faster if we cooperate, payment of trivial sums (compared to what they waste elsewhere) is an anathema to some of them.

Bank of England Oracle Cloud bill balloons – but when you print money, who's counting?

As a British tax payer ...

I would much rather that BoE (or any organ of state) paid for services within our shores:

• generate employment here - which will be taxable

• use skills of people here which will:

•• encourage more Brits to become skilled up

•• enable us to better compete for such projects internationally

• keep sensitive data within the UK

Unfortunately: this requires joined up thinking - which is in short supply.

Meta's plan to erase 5% of workforce starts today

When are the other 95% going ?

Hopefully not too far in the future.

Microsoft 365 price rises are coming – pay up or opt out (if you can find the button)

Re: Pay up or opt out (if you can find the button)

So it is 'opt out' not 'opt in'. So is this not a form of Unsolicited Goods and illegal under the Inertia Selling rules ?

Eggheads crack the code for the perfect soft boil

Re: The puns, they hurt!

How much did they have to shell out for the talent to write them.

FuriPhone FLX1: A Debian-powered brick that puts GNOME in your back pocket

Furilabs is Chinese

They give an address in Hong Kong so I would not trust it. Part of the point of a Debian 'phone is to get away from spyware, what is the point of swapping a data slurp from Google with one from the Chinese government ?

UK biz dept overspent by £208M prepping to pay workers hurt in Post Office IT scandal

Porridge time

I still want to see some of the guilty at either the PO or Fujitsu spending a few years at HMP Slade. That after they have been bankrupted just as were some of the post masters.

If that does not happen then something similar will happen again.

Google Maps to roll out Trump-approved Denali and Gulf of Mexico rebrands

So when will Google be asked ...

to relabel Greenland as Trumpland ?

Fear of the unknown keeps Broadcom's VMware herd captive. Don't be cowed

Established vs new requirements

I do understand that if you have something that works it might be thought preferable to bleed a little rather than face death if a migration goes wrong - especially for systems where downtime is very costly.

But if a something new is being developed breakages are not so important, indeed expected, before it goes live. So escape from VMware should be much easier -- reskilling being a major cost, maybe also different hardware.

I wonder how many new projects are being built on top of VMware just because of fear of the unknown ?

Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever

Re: Lots of cheap windows 10 computers

I've used Mint Cinnamon for over a decade

Let me put in a plug for Mint with the Mate desktop; Mate is, essentially, GNOME 2 as the GNOME project went off the rails with GNOME 3.

Mint is what I run on my laptop, at home my desktop runs Debian with the Mate desktop. Mint gets much of its packages from Debian - not that an end user needs to worry about that.

Europe, UK weigh up how to respond to Trump's proposed tariffs. One WTF or two?

Re: Fuck Trump, his lies, bullshit, threats, blackmail and economic terrorism

Already done, etsy, redbubble, amazon. Just 3 from a whole page of search results.

We are stronger together

The way that bullies work is to pick people off one by one. When faced with a group they do not appear so strong.

Meta's pay-or-consent model under fire from EU consumer group

Meta should consent or pay me

I have never had a FB/... account and do not use their services. However they have a "shadow account" that contains my personal information, they store this outside of the UK & EU, I have not agreed to them having my information, them taking it outside the UK, they have not told me what they are using it for.

Either:

• Meta should seek consent before they use my information -- clearly documented in the GDPR, or:

• Meta can pay me £1,000 per year to keep this shadow information. To be paid into my bank a/c not as credit to some service that I do not use.

Infosec was literally the last item in Trump's policy plan, yet major changes are likely on his watch

No one likes regulation, but ...

without it organisations will do the minimum, especially if the cost of failure is borne by others - especially if those others are too small to be able to fight back.

Regulation has a cost but it also has benefits.

Too much regulation is bad, too little is bad. There is a balance, but finding it is hard and might only be obvious in retrospect.

Words alone won't get the stars and stripes to Mars

Re: Typical Trump – don't look there, look here

We do, but Trump thinks that everything revolves around himself. A modern day Louis XIV who is president not king.

I suggest that the first two explorers be ...

Trump and Musk. Let them take risks rather than letting others do so on their behalf.

Them leaving would also make this planet a much safer place for the rest of us. It is a shame that we will need to wait until the end of next year for the launch window.

BT unplugs plans to turn old cabinets into EV chargepoints

Is 1 charger for every 100 cars enough ?

According to DVLA there were 32,888,476 cars in the UK in Q2 2024 (warning: spreadsheet) so 300,000 charge-points is about 1%, assuming that they are all working and near to where EVs need to be charged.

(40,448,909 vehicles in total, including buses & lorries)

Brits must prove their age on adult sites by July, says watchdog

Like anyone would give their true ID to a porn site that could then track all their "views" !

That's ripe for hackers and blackmailers.

They appear to be doing it already - only yesterday I received an email from someone who claimed that they had control of my Windows PC and had seen the porn sites that I was visiting. They would inform my wife, etc, unless I paid them 10 bitcoin.

I thought that I had better pay up until I remembered that my PC runs Debian and that I am not married!

SEC sues Elon Musk for allegedly screwing investors out of $150M before Twitter takeover

Did Musk/Twitter ever pay its bills ?

In 2023 there were stories of Twitter not paying rent and being sued. How was this resolved, did Musk get away with non payment ?

Is this the sort of person who we want in the government of the USA ? Oh, look at the new president - he will fit right in!

UK unveils plans to mainline AI into the veins of the nation

Re: Britons: is the detection of potholes the problem, or the fixing of them?

I am on the local community group committee. We report pot holes to the Hertfordshire county councillor who just tells us that it is policy to not fill/repair them until they are big enough:

"Overall for HCC potholes it’s 5cm in depth and 30cm in width – at the higher end as per the article sent through, and of footways for trip hazards its 2cm."

So: how is AI going to improve that ?

Japan's wooden satellite exits International Space Station

What happens when they collide ?

Will the debris be less damaging/polluting than when a metal framed satellite it hit - thus reducing impact of Kessler syndrome ?

I suppose that the contents will still contain much metal, so the box/contents ratio might be important.

Encryption backdoor debate 'done and dusted,' former White House tech advisor says

Re: Treason

So: the experts have been proven right -- what a surprise. But I doubt that the politicians will learn and start listening to experts in other fields. One set of experts that I would like them to listen to are the climate scientists, some do, most pretend to.

The USA is about to get a dictator who will shut own and ignore all experts that say inconvenient things.

Trump's tariff threats could bump PC prices by almost half

Divide and be ruled

Not living in the USA I am more worried about what happens at home (UK) than in the other side of the pond.

The USA is a large economy and provides a lot of tech and buys a lot of our goods -- but not all of them by a long way.

Trump will try to tie other countries up with individual trade deals, do not do what he says and he will yank the trade deal away.

If the rest of the world unites we can force Trump to behave to everyone's benefit rather than what Trump thinks is best for him personally (and the USA secondly).

Nice in theory but getting countries to act together is very hard. A few will be seduced by Trump offering trinkets - this will seem good in the short term until Trump changes it when escaping his clutches will be hard. Forward thinking is needed - something that our politician are not known for

Re: Eh?

what did the US do to be saddled with the likes of Trump, Musk and co?

It is what they did not do: not listen to the what Trump was saying and think it through; not understand that Trump's low morals, lying, made up facts are not what is needed for a good president; not look at the reprobates that Trump surrounded himself with; ...

Do ? Listening to Fox news is a good start.

UK ICO not happy with Google's plans to allow device fingerprinting

Re: Google analytics should be under the spotlight

Look at the data collection policies of a lot of sites and they include the right to 'fingerprint' you and track you 'across various devices'

My point is that they should only be able to follow those policies once a user has agreed to them, just viewing a web page is not enough.

I love normal jam doughnuts but one of those is just a sugar rush. So best avoided in my opinion, I know others must like them but not me.

They are a short cut to diabetes.

Google analytics should be under the spotlight

as it, without permission, tracks users and abuses personal data.

But big money is involved so I expect Google to prevail - money usually speaks loudly.

We told Post Office about system problems at the highest level, Fujitsu tells Horizon Inquiry

I am surprised that Vennells did not say

"We took what Fujitsu said about bugs very seriously and engaged Rentokil to fix the issue. What do you mean the wrong sort of bug ?"