Posts by alain williams 2650 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007
Hopefully MS won't fluff it this time so it will be. In the end it's about the software.
They already have fluffed it ... it runs Windows 10 S -- the version that restricts you to only running stuff from the MS App store.
I like the reported battery life, but not at that price. Anyway: I would wait until someone reports that Linux Mint runs on it.
If you wanted to see globally who was visiting where it would be easier to compromise the 8 DOH end points than to get into the thousands of ISPs all around the world. NSA, GCHQ, ... must be rubbing their hands in anticipation.
However if you live under a repressive regime having the NSA/... spying on you might be preferable to your own government. But expect $REPRESSIVE_REGIME to force their Mozilla users to use their own DOH end points.
Who do you trust least ?
What is the point of them ?
OK: I know that they are supposed to give the visitor extra confidence that they are going to somewhere trustworthy & all that, but how many even have a clue what the green padlock means ?
That is the problem: most neither know nor care. So why pay for something that few notice ?
Anyone have any data on what the economic impact of ...
Does anyone have any data on the economic impact of installing an operating system that is more resistant than what comes from Redmond? Tooling up to use a safe operating system might cost a bit more to start with (if some of the stuff that you use needs porting) ... but $250m pays for a lot of tooling up.
then why not start where some of the most (self) important people hang out. Please install this kit to monitor everyone in & out of Downing Street and the Palace of Westminster.
Surely the MPs would feel grateful knowing that Big Brother is viewing all the comings and goings and thus keep them safe!
or other places that have (embedded) kit running ancient versions of MS Windows - which, apparently, was the worry about the wannacry outbreak.
I don't know if they could make something that supports the Windows XP ABI; presumably - but when?
If they can then support it - they might have a viable business supporting free s/ware, much as does RedHat. OK: embedded kit vendors will still have to jump through certification hoops - but it might be cheaper than porting their stuff to the latest MS Windows, with the new hardware requirements. They will also get the added benefit of no spy-ware (sorry: telemetry, I'll get that right one day).
we can't change the past, but we can change the future. Make it so that the spooks and Home Secretary do what they are supposed to.
Impose penalties on the spook heads & Home Secs who ignored the law, removal of pensions would be about right. Then any of these in the future who think about ignoring the law will decide that their own financial security is more important than some illegal request.
It won't happen of course but it is measures such as this, rather than well intentioned hand-wringing, that will stop repeats of violations of human rights.
which will:
* kill English jobs. It might save the HMCTS some ££ but, overall, it will be bad for the UK economy. Why can't we have joined up a government thinking which tries to award its contracts within the UK (and EU, until Brexit). This would have created employment in the UK, which would help offset the 5,000 redundancies.
* be a security nightmare. Highly personal and sensitive data being sent somewhere and viewable by people who we have no control over. How long before a major leak ?
Muppets.
she said, rather frostily, 'because of security...'
Well, congratulations to someone at HMRC who understands that sending an email is like sending a post card - which can be read by anyone who handles it. I have been asked a large number of times , and refused, to email sensitive information; I ask what encryption they use ... generally they not understanding.
I have been using PGP/GPG (encryption for email) for years but most people do not support it. I suspect that the likes of GCHQ discourage it where they can - they like postcard-like email.
And how many of those installations get wiped because the computer was purchased for the purpose of putting some other OS on it?
I have bought several laptops in the last couple of years: that is what happened to all of them, installed Linux Mint.**
My main desktop I bought without an operating system in 2012. I installed CentOS. It is still going strong, had a few minor fixes like a new power supply. I'll upgrade the OS when CentOS 8 comes out.
If I could buy cheap laptops without an OS I would do that as well.
** One one occasion I bought 2 identical ones at the same time. One I booted & installed Mint off a memory stick; the other I let it run the MS Windows first-time start-up. The Mint install completed long before MS Windows was ready.
In about 1987 we borrowed a 6150 from IBM for use at a trade show. The 6150 was IBM's first AIX (their Unix) machine. It did not have a lot of disk so I removed about 1/2 the operating system so that we could make a decent demo of our application.
After the event we returned the machine.
A fortnight later I had a call from someone in Warwick. They wanted to know what I had changed the root password to. I told them, but was astounded that IBM were not going to just completely wipe/re-install the whole operating system - I would not trust a machine that had been loaned out to someone like me!
Also: did they not know how to break into their own machine at the hardware level ?
Some 25 years ago: a small amount of inattention and it was a machine in California, not the machine in Blighty that I powered down. Whoops! I sent a grovelling email & had to wait until they arrived the following morning.
Fortunately: a development machine so my only penalty was to be the butt of jokes for a while.
Michel Barnier is using any scare tactic that he can think of to try and hurt England in the Brexit negotiations, even if it ends up hurting the rest of the EU as well.
He claims that he is not trying to punish England, but this is exactly what he is doing. He does not display the desire to get something that is best for everyone but seems to want to make it as painful as possible - I suspect to discourage others leaving, eg Spexit or Grexit.
Still, we can't expect honesty from a politician.
.
The above is not a comment about Brexit being a good or a bad thing.
But having a domain means I can literally make up any nonsense and block it if they do ever spam it / lose it.
I do that as well - for the instances where they, reasonably, do need an email address. Running my own MTA means that I can reply to their email and the only address that they ever see is their-name@email.my-domain. Such configuration is one of the nice things about running MUA/MTA mutt/exim together.
if linus adopted this, we'd be on kernel version 300 by now
Really ? The kernel team go to great lengths :We care about user-space interfaces to an insane degree. We go to extreme lengths to maintain even badly designed or unintentional interfaces. Breaking user programs simply isn't acceptable.
Yes: they do change internal Kernel APIs which can break 3rd party binary drivers, but the simple solution is for the 3rd parties to put them up for inclusion in the kernel -- which should have been done in the first place.
There is a good reason for that: Semantic versioning - which says that a change in the major number means that there are incompatible changes from the previous version. Very sensible IMHO.
But we live in a marketing driven age where there is a belief that if the major number has not changed then the product/project is stagnant and, by implication, not being maintained. Since the kernel devs try very hard to not break backwards compatibility then the major number should not change.
The browser writers understood the marketing imperative a few years back, which is why Firefox is up at version 60.
Maybe Linus ought to make the next major number 11 - then those stuck on MS Windows would suddenly realise that Linux was better !
The calls come from abroad from different (random?) phone numbers
A good start would be severe restrictions on who can set the number displayed by CLI and what numbers they can set it to.
Just about the only non-people (ie organisations) who should be able to withhold it should be: child line, samaritans & the clap clinic.
You are if you should use Websites that have Google or Facebook scripts.
That is why you run browser addons like noscript and RequestPolicy for. You just never allow facebook or google analytics. Not perfect, but a great help.
I doubt it.
MS did release a tool that it claims decodes what is being sent, but since the tool is closed source ... who knows ? I'm OK with MS keeping much of its stuff closed source, but things like this absolutely demand open source. Fully specifying the byte-stream format would be another way of doing it.
Well,of course MPs would recognise that -- it is what they frequently do when they do not want to answer questions put to them by journalists & similar.
I suppose that it is too much to hope for a universal epiphany amongst MPs that we do not like it when they dodge questions.
They did it better in 1998 when they extended copyright by 20 years. This meant that 20 years later they were showered with yet more mouse gold. This time, extending by 50 years, means that they will not get any more bribes ^w research contributions for a looong time.
They should, at least, make the mouse pay!
PS: 20 years in 1998, actually a bit more complicated, but still.
Nonetheless, DT claimed that the Great British Public (bless their silly little heads) might get the two companies mixed up as a result of the pinkness
Reply saying that the Great British Public are clearly more intelligent than the directors of T-Mobile as they do not get the two mixed up.
"Device Co-op is not on personal identifiers. It is hashed," she said.
If you take a hash of a personal identifier that yields a unique hash, then it is a personal identifier. Just because you cannot (easily) reverse it to get the PI does not mean that it is not a PI. If push came to shove just look through the entire database hashing each ID.
Adobe is squirming, trying to evade the law; but they will still be breaking it.
@ eldakka
I don't think that your examples are due to discriminated against but evidence of social forces that encourage people to help other people. The ''cost'' to him of doing these things is far less than the cost to those who do have kids. When he becomes a dad then he will feel some of the benefits (although he would feel the benefits far more if he were a mum - society still believes that mothers care for their kids while fathers should go out to earn to pay for them).
You could, by your thinking, say that someone who is not carrying a bag is discriminated in a crowd of bag laden shoppers as it is expected that he will hold the door open for them while no one holds the door open for him.
My strong instinct is to agree with what you say.
However I am mulling that education is one field where one might soften a bit: accept someone in from a poor educational background (ie bad school) in the hope that your school (a good one) can fix past problems. But I suppose that you would only do that for pupils who, while having not attained good exam grades, you (somehow) deduce are bright enough to do well in your good school.
So: I return to your assertion: discriminate on the basis of assertained innate ability rather than exam results.
I applaud the LLVM code of conduct, short, easy to read & inclusive; summary: be nice to others.
I dislike the Outreachy Eligibility for being sponsored. The writers seem to have decided that white men are bad and so are excluded from sponsorship to a technical project. They seem to think that they can increase diversity by increasing divisions and discrimination by excluding some people on the basis of race & gender.
Somehow an organisation that promotes discrimination has succeeded in getting USA tax exempt status - this should be rescinded.
that will hardly compensate for the hours of time wasted (even at minimum wage levels), the frustration, the problems caused by not being able to print something important.
It is also not enough to discourage HP from pulling a similar stunt again.
Compensation should be a minimum AU$500; or more if the customer can show consequential loss.
HP is acting as John Deere does with tractors. Both are despicable.
It seems to me that Michel Barnier & pals want to make things as painful for the UK as they can, even if it means hurting the rest of the EU as well. International cooperation exists between many countries that are not part of the same trading/political block - they do this when they see the mutual benefits.
The Ukraine, Morocco, Norway & Switzerland are involved with Galileo so why should the UK be excluded ?
There is no real reason why the UK could continue to be part of Galileo (& pay its contribution) to the mutual benefit of the UK and EU.
Some politicians on both sides are plonkers.
via the spy-ware, errm I mean, telemetry nailed into the W10 machines.
How much of NHS specialist IT application could be delivered via a web browser so that they could run a secure Linux on those machines. LibreOffice would provide a good enough word processor for appointment letters, test result reports, ... ?
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