* Posts by Robigus

92 publicly visible posts • joined 12 May 2010

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'We had to educate Oracle about our contract,' CIO says after Big Red audit

Robigus
Pint

Re: Move away

I've done PostgreSQL migrations for some critical systems in multi billion pound companies. It's fine.

Saturnian moon Mimas: Crunchy on the outside, sub-surface ocean on the inside

Robigus
Coat

I clicked the link to this story because I thought the accompanying picture was a carburettor.

New glasses required.

Microsoft seeks Rust developers to rewrite core C# code

Robigus

En R. Gee

C/C++/Rust use less energy (when running as opposed to compiling) for the same unit of work than the higher level languages. I saw a table demonstrating where they consumed about 1/3 of the energy of C# and 1/75th that of Python - https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.thenewstack.io/media/2018/05/3730357d-results-energy-time-and-memory-usage-screenshot-from-research-paper.png

I would have thought that on Microsoft's data-centre scale, this would be well worth doing. Going the Rust route, rather than the usual C++ will give them memory safety, (if they leave the guards in place)

Atari 400 makes a comeback in miniature form

Robigus

Re: BBC B

I blagged a Dragon32 from the local college. My dad's mate "over-ordered" by 1 and I got to use it for the year.

Keyboard was very good.

Robigus
Pint

You had assembly? Luxury!

Being a peasant, I couldn't afford the games to go with a bequeathed Atari. I wrote my own in (hand assembled) assembler (Hello girls!). The sprites were the full height of the screen, as I recall, and had to be painted in sections. It was a while ago, but it seemed surprisingly quick. Lateral movement was faster than vertical repaints.

The tape decks were ruinously expensive for this quarter of Four Yorkshiremen, so I soldered cables to the motherboard and ran a household tape deck that I'd been using on my ZX-81.

My cousin, on the other hand, was to The Manor born and had games-a-plenty, which were quite impressive. Wretched keyboard aside, a good machine, I felt.

Google rings in 2024 with sweeping layoffs

Robigus

Genuine question; is that a thing?

Robigus
Pint

Freedom for Tooting, Comrade.

Google dragged to UK watchdog over Chrome's upcoming IP address cloaking

Robigus

Re: Child protection

Perhaps a system like 2024 spec vehicles in the EU/UK? Take your eyeballs away from where they are mandated to be (such as when overtaking a bicycle) and set off an alarm. You need this, because they say so.

Look away from adverts/leave the room and automatically crank the TV volume up to 11, so viewers at least have the audio pleasure of adverts whilst in the kitchen making a cuppa. Perhaps the phone in your pocket could mirror the adverts everywhere you go too.

Isn't our controlled future marvelous?

Intel stock stumbles on report Nvidia is building an Arm CPU for PC market

Robigus

With respect to power consumption, it may not mean much to desktop users, but if new environmental regulations come into force, then it will mean something.

Business' marketing divisions will get wind of the lower consumption devices being implemented will be able to spin that "Hey, we really care about the environment.", just as they do whenever they're forced into complying with new regulations.

Cisco: Don't use 'blind spot' – and do use 'feed two birds with one scone'

Robigus

The New Puritanism

I keenly await the Restoration.

Parts of UK booted offline as Virgin Media suffers massive broadband outage

Robigus

Re: Zen FTW

Likewise.

Top support and a static IP. Stick that in your pipe Virgin.

Moving the oldies to it imminently.

A new version of APT is coming to Debian 12

Robigus

Re: APT

Thanks for that.

It’s interesting that I know nothing about it, but have the impression it’s “crap”.

I contacted a friend of similar vintage and mentioned it. He thought it was “crap” too, at least, that was what he “remembered”.

It goes to show, I know not what, but it shows it anyway.

Robigus

Re: APT

I saw a crap leaning train.

Arm, Microsoft at pains to say this CPU arch can be trusted with real server work

Robigus

Few mention power consumption

Anecdotal evidence shows that ARM cpus have a much lower power consumption that Intel on the same workload (look at the comparisons with M1 vs i9).

I would have thought that this fact alone is enough to get the data centre flingers positively vibrating with excitement.

But why that VPN? How WireGuard made it into Linux

Robigus
Thumb Up

Painless

I run it in a Docker container on an RPi4 at home and in an X86 VPS - Very effective. The clients for Android/iPhone/Linux and MacOS work well too.

Colleagues inform me that it was trivial on Windows too. Unless looking for particularly arcane use cases, what's not to like?*

* Rhetorical. Don't bother.

MySQL a 'pretty poor database' says departing Oracle engineer

Robigus
Joke

Nuts to them all. MongoDB is web scale.

Why not MongoDB? It's web scale : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs

Google's 'Be Evil' business transformation is complete: Time for the end game

Robigus

Who'd be a priest of Neptune?

Robigus
Coat

"Beware of Geeks bearing grifts"?

Robigus
Holmes

Re: Better the devil, you know...

About 10 years ago I met with Manchester Police who wanted to see a mapping system I'd written. They told me a similar tale to that of your aquaintance. They indicated areas over a map where the policy was containment, and not to create any kind of crime-vacuum by removing a gang/family/Women's Institute* group.

* I made that up.

Analogue tones of a ZX Spectrum Load set to ride again via podcast project

Robigus

That loading noise

As a young spotty Herbert, I and my fellow Herberts would yell “Bagpipes!” when the loading noise changed on the loading screen. At that point, you knew that the monochrome image was about to be coloured. It was competitive. Call it too early and you’d receive a dead arm.

Like biblical numerologists looking for decipherable patterns, I would listen to the loading noise trying to discern the “meaning”.

One pre-pubescent Herbert mimicked the loading screeches and patterns into a cassette recorder to see if he could fool the machine. I recall the sum total was intermittent rolling blue and yellow lines around the screen edge.

Happy naïve days.

1Password unsheathes Rusty key, hopes to unlock Linux Desktop world

Robigus

Self host

Bitwarden, Docker container, RPI4, home hosted.

Bingerty bongerty boo.

Privacy activist Max Schrems claims Google Advertising ID on Android is unlawful, files complaint in France

Robigus

Kudos to him

That is all.

If you're a WhatsApp user, you'll have to share your personal data with Facebook's empire from next month – or stop using the chat app

Robigus

Being a refusnik is not difficult.

I don't have WhatsApp. I do have Signal.

Most of my family now have Signal. Those that don't can text me. Or ring.

Signal works fine on an e foundation phone. Firefox/Signal/Mail Client. That's all I need.

From the conversations I've had about privacy with friends - the general impression I get is that we like to talk about privacy and it's importance, but we are, in fact, prepared to do nothing about it. They'll keep their Facebook stuff (we can all find a reason why we "need" to). This won't change anything, but they're OK with that.

The ones who brought you Let's Encrypt, bring you: Tools for gathering anonymized app usage metrics from netizens

Robigus

Re: Not a wedge, just a service :-(

Perhaps if it's incorporated as a not-for-profit outfit (in the same manner as Signal operates in the U.S.) then it will keep it out of the hands of the perverts, as they can't buy it.

Android 11 lands with plenty more privacy preferences for Pixels and special Google friends first

Robigus
Black Helicopters

Sir dictates

Spokesman: "Sir, they're saying that this is a company data land grab"

Sir: "Hmmm, Miss Smith, take a note: Something something something - Privacy - something something something"

Spokeman: "Shall we pass that on to Weasel in marketing to complete?"

Sir: "Excellent"

The Honor MagicBook Pro looks nice, runs like a dream, and isn't too expensive either. What more could you want?

Robigus

Re: Decimated

Fair enough. The joke icon was perhaps a too subtle indicator of not entirely pedantic intent.

I was referring to its original meaning (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army) ). In a world of righteousness and relativism; anything can mean anything you want it too.

More importantly, other websites report that this laptop runs Linux very well.

Robigus
Trollface

Decimated

I read that Huawei's business has been decimated. Is that exactly 10%, or is it thereabouts?

What if everyone just said 'Nah' to tracking?

Robigus
Thumb Up

Re: PiHole

You don't even need a Pi to run it; I run it as a docker container on an old Linux PC that acts as a the household file server.

I agree with other's sentiment expressed here that the web is almost unusable without these protections.

Surveillence Capitalism can't be smothered fast enough.

Mozilla shaves down Beard to a luxuriant mustache, looks for new CEO by end of year

Robigus
Pint

This became darker than I intended.

Frankly as it's an open source browser that doesn't belong to one of the unhealthily voyeuristic self-respect euthenising behemoths of a whitened-teeth "connect and share" dystopia, it gets my vote.

As I just wrote that I have visions of Richard Attenborough holding a mask over a victims face in "10 Rillington Place" saying "Just relax, relax. Connect and share, connect and share".

Multi-account containers are excellent.

I need a pint.

If you're ever lost on the Moon, Ordnance Survey now has you covered for Apollo 11 anniversary

Robigus

My recollection of Haynes manuals was that any manufacturers special tool requirement could be substituted by a knitting needle and a house brick.

Microsoft buffs up its open-source halo to fine sheen with PostgreSQL GUI in Azure Data Studio

Robigus
Thumb Up

PgAdmin everywhere

Ever since it moved to a web-based interface, things have become much simpler.

Running it as a Docker container has meant it's anywhere we want it. Mac/Win/Linux and yes, Raspberry Pi.

Croydon school rolling in toilet roll after Brexit gift deemed unfit for the Queen's Anus Horribilis

Robigus
Trollface

Say what you like about the Germans

They look after their own.

What today links Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram – apart from being run by monopolistic personal data harvesters?

Robigus

And nothing of value was lost.

Return of the audio format wars and other money-making scams

Robigus
Pint

New phrase. Thank you.

same old shit + infantile spelling = disruption

I see this, you see this, my colleagues see this. Very few of us say this.

I will use your form of the phenomenon from now on.

Have a beer.

The eulogising of The Mother Of All Demos at 50 is Silicon Valley going goo-goo for gurus again

Robigus

Fighting the slide towards hagiography.

"Silicon Valley is much more Gwyneth Paltrow than it is Ayn Rand"

For that, have an early beer.

Ex-Cisco chief John Chambers: Tech biz bods are 'too arrogant'

Robigus
Angel

Irony

Arrogance? He calls his company "JC2" after the first JC who "died for our sins"*.

* Did/Didn't/Whatever and it's not Jeremy Corbyn. Or Clarkson for that matter.

Where can I hide this mic? I know, shove it down my urethra

Robigus
Happy

Penetrating Kim Jong-il's inner circle.

"His task in the late 1990s was to infiltrate Kim Jong-il's inner circle"

What's the point of a microphone up there? Surely a it's a job for a camera.

Skype Classic headed for the chopping block on September 1

Robigus
Angel

Now using Signal protocol

With more than 2 on the line, Skype has problems. But it's MS, so work think it must be used.

The new Skype, like WhatsApp, Allo and Facebook Messenger will use Signal's protocol, with Microsoft's added ... er ... magic.

So why not use Signal*? No slurping, open source, non-profit. As recommended by security nerds. Works a treat.

* I know, I know. Power, control, brand, the ability to read everything out of your phone and report to the Mothership etc

One two three... Go: Long Pig Microsoft avoids cannibalising Surface

Robigus
WTF?

"It's an office runtime for students"

I think I would have killed myself when I was student if I thought my life was going to orbit around Office.

Linus Torvalds decides world isn’t ready for Linux 5.0

Robigus
Pint

Say what you think, not what the joy-sapping bastards tell you to.

Linus' rambling about whether to increment a version number or not are to be celebrated in this PR filtered joy-less age.

Select few to watch World Cup in 4K high dynamic range colour on BBC iPlayer

Robigus
Meh

We tried it

We have a 200mb connection, TV's are on Ethernet (non of this wireless nonsense). Before the FA cup final, iPlayer asked if we'd like 4K, which we did.

iPlayer crashed, repeatedly. Mrs. Robigus and I went to pub, other Robigii stayed at home and switched back to 1080p. That was a recent Sony TV, I hope to be offered the option to try it on the Samsung (which is much snappier and agreeable than Android TV on the Sony)

Car-crash television: 'Excuse me ma'am, do you speak English?' 'Yes I do,' replies AMD's CEO

Robigus

Re: F1 is shit.

Are you me?

Microsoft has designed an Arm Linux IoT cloud chip. Repeat, an Arm Linux IoT cloud chip

Robigus
Thumb Down

It's about the platform and the data.

It's all about getting data fed into Azure.

Data is king, and we will take these devices and feed our overlords with all the data porn they possibly handle.

It's purely a gateway device to your personal information.

Welcome to the New Age.

Aw, all grown up: Mozilla moves WebAssembly into sparsely furnished Studio apartment

Robigus

Re: Fun naming files

and a TypeScript file to ti.ts?

Robigus
Pint

Ooh look

TypeScript too.

Jolly good.

Guess who's hiking their prices again? Come on, it's as easy as 123 Reg

Robigus
Alert

The Prophecy!

I knew something was afoot; I had a phone call from them last week. Having never spoken to them before, despite being a customer for over 10 years, a "customer something-or-other representative" rang me.

I prophesied to colleagues that "something's up".

I asked why they were ringing and the poor lady on the other end seemed as clueless as I did (after the scripted waffle had been read and I placed some direct questions)

Bad form.

Facebook is abusive. It's time to divorce it

Robigus

Re: Facebook has its uses ...

A sort of Facebook methadone?

Stealing, scamming, bluffing: El Reg rides along with pen-testing 'red team hackers'

Robigus
Pint

Great article. I'm sure that the same guilt would have enveloped many of us too.

As you're a beer man, have another.

'Toyota dealer stole my wife's saucy snaps from phone, emailed them to a swingers website'

Robigus

Surely he could just pray and $DEITY would fix it?

That's how it works, right?

Virgin Media boss warns Brexit could hamstring broadband investment

Robigus

Re: Pot -> Kettle

I used to love BTCC, then it all went wrong wheel drive. I have a note from my doctor to avoid that sort of thing.

Has it changed?

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