Posts by TheFifth

Kremlin accuses America of plotting cyberattack on Russian voting systems

There's a saying in Russia that essentially boils down to "even if they're corrupt, you're better off voting for the current guy as he's already stolen everything he wants. A new guy will make things worse by stealing more stuff" (that's how my Wife summarises it anyway). I guess it's the Russian equivalent of 'better the devil you know'.

My Wife spoke to her mother (who is in Russia) on the phone yesterday. She said the above reason is why most people she knows will vote for Putin. So I guess he will still get a lot of votes anyway.

IP address X-posure now a feature on Musk's social media thing

Re: Xitter indeed

I had exactly the same experience when I logged in for the first time in over a year a couple of weeks back. I had the pleasure of a video of a drug lord being murdered, a dad beating the crap out of his daughter for having an OnlyFans account and a fight on the Tube. I follow tech news, science news, retro tech and some comedians. Don't know how anyone can cope with Twitter anymore.

Palantir boss says outfit's software the only reason the 'goose step' has not returned to Europe

Re: They could have spent the money on legal migration instead and would have not died.

Annoyingly, we missed the 2 year route by less than a year if I remember rightly.

The newer five and ten year routes are far more complex though. There were a tonne of new requirement added, like income thresholds, 'Life in the UK' exam, healthcare supplements and several English tests, among a myriad of other little bureaucratic tweaks. When we started our route, there was a lot of fuss about how much more complex it had become. Even phoning the immigration helpline was no help at all. No one wanted to take any responsibility for giving advice and their stock answer was "you need to provide whatever it asks for in the question". As I am freelance, I needed to provide accounts. They insisted that you have accounts drawn up by a qualified accountant with a professional accreditation, but didn't say which accreditations they accepted. There were horror stories online of applications being refused for the accountant having the wrong accreditation. So I called to ask which were accepted and they just said "whatever is asked for in the question". Useless.

The English tests were a joke. My wife is a qualified English teacher and she still had to take them. The questions were of the level "can you point to five on this list of numbers?". The English exam cost hundred of pounds and was valid for two years. The Visas were valid for 2.5 years, so it was all designed to ensure you needed a new one for every visa (because when you're living in the UK, you're definitely going to forget how to speak English). You also had to show progress with your English, so each time you had to take a more advanced exam, which was obviously more expensive each time. It was ridiculous considering my wife has advanced qualifications in English, but they'd only accept the Micky Mouse ones that they wrote especially for the visa route. It's a scam.

The worst bit was that if you failed a visa application, even if you just forgot to provide a document, they could send her home. If you appealed and they accepted that appeal, they would move you onto the 10 year route (basically a punishment). If they didn't accept the appeal, tough. Thankfully we got through OK and always provided an excess of documents to them.

Re: They could have spent the money on legal migration instead and would have not died.

This 'they should have spent the money on legal immigration' line always makes me laugh. It shows how utterly ignorant most people are of how difficult and expensive the UK (and most other western countries') immigration system really is.

When I got married to a non-UK native, all of my family were shocked that she wasn't just allowed to live here. They were gobsmacked at the five year process that cost over £14k, with the constant threat of her being sent home if we didn't dot every i and cross every t to perfection during those five years. That was 10 years ago now. Looking at the way the prices have gone up, it must be well over £25k these days. The FLR and IFR visas are almost double what we paid at around £3k (you'll need four+ of these dependant on the immigration route), and that's excluding additional fees like the Healthcare Surcharge charge (£1,035 per year). Note these fees are per person, not for a family.

And if you are not the spouse of a UK citizen and have no work place to sponsor you, then you're gonna need tens of thousands of pounds in the bank as collateral and the entire process is going to take 5 to 10 years and cost a further tens of thousands of pounds. And note, you can't just use the money in the bank to pay for the visas as you must have said collateral available each time you renew your visa (every 2.5 years). As soon as the cash in the bank drops below the required level, your visa will be denied.

So yeah, that family that have sold absolutely everything they've ever owned to scrape together £1k to pay people traffickers should definitely have used the money to pay for legal immigration. It wouldn't even cover the first meeting with an immigration specialist.

Musk 'texts' Nadella about Windows 11's demands for a Microsoft account

Re: If he thinks that's bad he should try MacOS

OS updates aren't in the App Store and haven't been for a long while now. You don't need to have an account to get security patches or major version updates, they are shown in the system settings. A link on the web for a MacOS download may open the App Store, but it then just redirects to the settings app and doesn't ask for a login. That's my experience with the last few versions anyway, it may be different with older MacOS versions. There are also KB articles with each major MacOS release that have links to download the installer (or there used to be anyway, not checked that in a while).

Any app store where you purchase online software will ask you to create an account in order to allow you to redownload the software at a later date. Apple is no different here from what I can tell. Granted, an indie dev may allow you to redownload using a license code without logging into their site, but all app stores that provide access to software from different companies always require an account (the ones I've used anyway).

You can complain about that if you like and it might well be a valid complaint, but it's odd to make out it's an Apple specific thing. Seems pretty much industry standard at this point. If you don't want to use an Apple ID, download the software direct from the vendor. A lot of (maybe most) MacOS software is also available outside of the App Store.

Also, unless I try to use iCloud or any service that requires an account (not sure how a cloud syncing service would work without an account), I don't get nagged to sign in. Not like the constantly reappearing OneDrive icon and nag screen that pop up almost every time I update Windows*. Obviously if you open Apple Music and go to the 'Listen Now' section, it's going to ask you to sign in as you are trying to access the Apple Music streaming service. When is it nagging you to login?

I have a few VMs of older versions of MacOS that I use to test software. I run all of these without accounts and I can't remember ever been asked to sign in using an Apple ID beyond my refusal during initial setup.

* I'll admit I still only have Windows 10, maybe this has changed in 11?

Work for you? Again? After you lied about the job and stole my stuff? No thanks

The company I used to work for was actually pretty good (they were the only company where I was told to go home when I was ill and not to work through it), however, when work dried up redundancies inevitably came. Being a senior member of staff I was expensive and they could simply no longer afford to pay me (even though I had taken a pay cut to help out).

When I left, the job I was currently working on was given to me to complete as a freelancer. The client was one I had found and nurtured, so they gave the project to me as a parting gift. I was the third person into the company when I joined some 12 years earlier, so we'd been through a lot together. We parted on good terms and everyone all round felt sad about it.

The project was only a simple ASP based online data store. I completed it quickly as I knew the client was desperate for it. I sent the code in and duly invoiced for the amount we'd agreed before I left. I received back what can only be described as a bollocking, with them claiming they 'never told me to do the job yet!'. I can only assume they couldn't afford to pay me. After a long wait, they did however pay up.

Around six months later I received what can only be described as another bollocking because 'you haven't completed the agreed project and the client is demanding to know where it is! We were relying on you!'.

I pointed them to the email I'd sent six months earlier. I did not hear back.

It's a shame as it soured my memories of what had been a really good job and a (mostly) fun 12 years of my life.

X accused of taking money from terrorists by selling checkmarks to US enemies

Re: In the real world.

I used to enjoy scrolling through Twitter over coffee in the morning. I had a lovely curated timeline of retro tech, science and computing which was fun to peruse and often linked me to interesting, more in-depth articles. I never experienced the hateful, cesspit side of Twitter that many complained of. It seemed to me that if you were careful who you followed, with judicial use of the block / not interested functionality, you could create a pretty interesting timeline.

Within weeks of Musk taking over, my feed was infested with nut ball US right-wing politicians (which as a UK resident I had no interest in), anti-gay hate-mongering, anti-semitism, and of course Musk himself (who I definitely did not follow). It was just impossible to keep on top of it and get back to what I previously had, so I gave up and moved to Mastodon.

I hadn't logged into Twitter in over a year until earlier this week. There's a company I needed to get hold of (that's another long and frustrating story) and Twitter seemed the only way to do so. I logged in to send them a message (which I couldn't do in the end as only verified users could DM them), but whilst I was there I glanced at the timeline. The first post was a video of a drug lord being tied to an anchor and thrown overboard a ship by a rival gang, the second was CCTV footage of a father dragging his daughter around by her hair and kicking the s**t out of her for having an OnlyFans account, and the third was a very violent fight on the Tube. All these were posted by 'verified' accounts. I didn't look any further.

How in the hell could these posts possible be recommended to me given what I follow? Twitter truly is just a 4Chan clone now. XChan maybe?

Apple Vision Pro units returned as folks just can't see themselves using it

"The primary functions of this MK I AVP is to communicate a road map and to show Apple's commitment, whilst giving 3rd party devs something to play with."

I'd agree with this. I'm not convinced this was ever designed to be a mass market product. It's more of a tech demo at this point and shows the direction Apple are going. It's going to be many years before this is anything useful.

Until the headset is more like wearing a pair of glasses, I can't see it taking off. Perhaps if we get to the point where we have very high res, truly transparent screens, then it might be possible to make something for the mass market. Having cameras that project the outside world onto screens in front of your eyes is never going to be small enough to be practical and headaches / eye strain is always going to be an issue until you're just viewing the outside world directly though the screen.

It sure is interesting tech though, but it's years away from being practical in my opinion.

Apple makes it official: No Home Screen web apps in European Union

Thanks Apple...

Definitely seems like malicious compliance to me.

Could they not use Safari for PWAs and allow other browsers for normal surfing? Granted, this may not be seen by all as full compliance, but at least PWAs would still be working. I'm sure the courts would OK this if Apple committed to allowing PWA support in third party browsers at a later date.

When MS were forced to introduce browser selection screens into Windows, there was no mention of forcing the replacement of all the in-app, embedded browsers that used IE. Not the same thing I know, but at least there is some precedent for forcing third party browser support whilst keeping the first party browser for some system / app functions. Surely, in the short term, an agreement could be reached where third party browsers are allowed, but Safari deals with PWAs?

I know this won't happen though, as Apple doesn't want it to. They are making a point and the consumer is the one suffering.

I guess here in the UK we don't have to worry. Could this be that elusive Brexit benefit?

Apple has botched 3D for decades. So good luck with the Vision Pro, Tim

I don't get it.

With all Apple product releases in the last 20 years I could see the market. I may not have been the target, but I got it and could see that it would sell. The Vision Pro not so much.

I can see it will have niche uses in certain industries, like building walk throughs, or showing what a room will look like with changes to decor or fittings. Maybe simulation and training. Games too, obviously. But beyond that I really can't see the mass appeal. I notice that many of the big business apps out there are creating Vision Pro versions, but I'd bet that anyone in an office will use them for five minutes for the novelty value, but once that wears off they'll realise that it's just easier to use a mouse and keyboard. The thought of having a heavy weight strapped to my head for long periods really doesn't appeal to me.

From what I can see it'll be relegated to niche industry use and a gaming toy for rich kids. Maybe once the tech improves and it becomes more like wearing a pair of glasses it'll take hold. Long way to go though.

Maybe I'm missing something?

The New ROM Antics – building the ZX Spectrum 128

Re: Love it!

"Proper home computer, not that cheap Sinclair shit!"

Do we have the same parents?!? That's pretty much exactly what my Dad said shortly before we got an Amstrad CPC for Xmas.

How Sinclair's QL computer outshined Apple's Macintosh against all odds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNh-iw7gsuI

The week in weird: Check out the strangest CES tech of 2024

Re: Wehead, a bizarre head-shaped version of Alexa

A pre-production unit was reviewed on Short Circuit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDS5Re6RW0s).

I assume it'll become more bespoke, but the unit they had was just four Samsung Galaxy phones mushed together with an HP bluetooth speaker.

Mandiant's brute-forced X account exposes perils of skimping on 2FA

Re: Brute forced?

This is the first thing I thought about. I spend a lot of time developing web apps for businesses and one of the first things I implement is rate limiting against brute force attacks. It seems mad that Twitter doesn't have some form of automated system to detect them.

I understand that with a service the size of Twitter, it must be constantly receiving incorrect login attempts and password 'guesses' for high profile accounts, but surely a brute force attack that successfully cracked a password must have been battering the server for it to be possible in any sort of reasonable time?

COVID-19 infection surge detected in wastewater, signals potential new wave

Re: "the only figure that really matters is hospitalisations"

It is like flu *now*. It is true that the Alpha variant was nasty, and killed people. Subsequent strains followed the usual pattern for these viruses and became less dangerous.

It was the Delta variant that led to the most severe disease, so it's not always a downward trend towards less dangerous. Initially Covid became more virulent and more contagious as it mutated. It was Delta that led to scenes of scores of people dying in the streets outside of hospitals in India.

Although it's true that the trend is generally downwards, it's not impossible that we could be unlucky and a mutation that increases virulence could occur again. Hence why monitoring is likely still a good idea.

And unfortunately I know two people who died of Covid and also someone who has life changing issues after being in hospital with Covid for several weeks. He's not what I would call old either, only in his early 50s.

China's SpaceX wannabe recycles a rocket after just 38 days

Re: McDonnell Douglas DC-X

It was also designed to be cheap and use off the shelf parts. Unfortunately, as with many things NASA do, a change in the political wind can change priorities and budgets. Imagine where they could have been now had the funding not be axed.

Also, many of the DC-X engineers went on to work for SpaceX and Blue Origin, so they are benefiting from this knowledge.

Meta killing off Instagram, Messenger cross-platform chatting

Yay, interoperability!

I really hope the EU pushes all these services to interoperate. I currently have so many messengers installed on my machine because one client insists on using WhatsApp, another on Telegram, another LinkedIn, another Signal, another wants Slack, and on and on it goes.

I've just discovered Beeper, which is great for pulling all of these services into a single app. It's not true interoperability, but at least I don't have to hunt through five different apps every time a message comes in. Also, it behaves more like a proper native app than most of the other combination messengers I've seen, which normally are just Electron apps that display the messenger's web interface in a tab. Beeper is a good stop gap until I can use a single service that can talk to all of the others.

It's great until that one client who insists on only calling via WhatsApp and never by phone...

Duke Uni libraries decamp from 37Signals' Basecamp over CTO's blogs

Does Duke University Libraries have a contract with Nike to supply all their librarians with shoes? If they did, then maybe you'd have a point.

Ukraine cyber spies claim Putin's planes are in peril as sanctions bite

Re: "the civil aviation sector of terrorist Russia"

This is hilarious.

First you say you have a "a strong dislike of Ukraine's far-right politics and policies" and then you say "Who needs votes?" and prattle on about a volunteer army that was created by a right wing politician (Yarosh) when he withdrew from his party (Right Sector).

That's the same Yarosh who received 127,772 votes (0.7% of the total) in the 2014 presidential elections. The same Yarosh who after the 2014 revolution demanded to be appointed Vice Prime Minister for the law enforcement matters, but was rejected. He did manage to win a parliamentary seat in a tiny single member district in 2014 but, as with all right wing leaning candidates, was trounced in 2019. He definitely sounds like he's got his hands firmly on the reins of policy and power in Ukraine. This whole 'the revolution was driven by right wing Nazis' is again just a Putin talking point.

Then you list a load of stuff that happened in 2014 when they were desperately trying to pull together a unity government to calm the whole country down. So yes, people from all parties across the spectrum were given posts, far right and far left. I don't particularly like it, but in times of trouble, you have to try to create unity. It's not ideal, but needs must.

But do you know what? Come 2019, when the people had their say, they roundly rejected the far right. Right Sector, which itself is a coalition of several parties won only 2.15% of the vote and has no representation in parliament at all.

So maybe, just maybe (but not really) you could have made a point about the far right being in parliament in 2014. But they represented a tiny minority in a unity government lead by a reformer. From 2019 however that's just pure Putin propaganda. European countries like Poland, Hungary and even France (with Rassemblement National winning 89 seats in 2022) have much larger far right representation in government than Ukraine has now or has ever had, even in 2014. You don't see Russia invading France or Hungary to remove Nazis from power.

The far right have had no power over Ukrainian politics since 2019 and have had little before that. The fact that you had to change your tune from talking about "Ukraine's far-right politics" to "Ukrainian Volunteer Army" when challenged says that you are very aware of that.

Anyway, this time I really am out of this nonsense. Unlike you, I don't get paid to do this.

Re: "the civil aviation sector of terrorist Russia"

What a joke.

The fact that you say you dislike Ukraine's far right politics, yet defend Russia tells me everything I need to know. Either you are completely ignorant of Russia and its history or you are a troll.

I love Russia and I love the Russian people. I have spent a lot of time there. However, I also have a realistic view of the country and, after marrying into a Russian family, have made it my business to learn as much as I can about the culture and history of the region. I don't however love the Russian government and do not support them in any way.

As for Ukraine being far right, I think you need to brush up on your history. Historically the far right have failed to win any more than 5% of the vote in Ukraine since 1991. In 2019, the coalition of Svoboda, National Corps, the Governmental Initiative of Yarosh, and the Right Sector won only 2.15% of the vote. Only once, in 2012 has a far right party gained enough votes to be in parliament. This was true even during 2014, when nationalist sentiment was at its peak. Historically, since 1991, Ukraine has had lower far right influence than just about all Eastern European countries and massively so when compared to Russia. You're just parroting demonstrably nonsense Putin talking points.

Ironically, the regions with the most far right problems are the separatist ones. A report in 2016 by the IFRI (https://www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/rnv95_uk_likhachev_far-right_radicals_final.pdf) said that "Russia’s use of right-wing radicals on the side of the 'separatists' in Donetsk and Lugansk provinces was more important militarily and politically than the involvement of Ukrainian far-right activists in the anti-terrorist operation." and that in mainstream politics, far right parties have been pushed to the margins. They add "Nevertheless, the DNR and LNR regimes have themselves assumed a conservative, right-wing complexion and different types of xenophobia play a considerable role in their official ideology and rhetoric." So you may want to look further East than Kyiv for a far-right party that has influence in Ukraine.

And yet again I'll point out a 2015 poll of residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions showing that 75% wanted the entire Donbas region to remain fully Ukrainian. Also, when asked if Russian-speaking citizens are under pressure or threat, 82% said 'no'. Only 7% 'somewhat' supported Russia helping rebels in the east and 71% did not. This lines up with what my Wife's Ukrainian relatives (who live in the East) have told me. Note that these results are after Russia had already supported rebels in the east and many ethnic Ukrainians had fled the area. So the ethnic makeup of these areas had shifted markedly towards ethnic Russians, and still the results of this poll don't support your assertions. Yes the poll showed that the East supported closer trade ties with Russia, whereas the West supported trade ties with the EU, but no region supported conceding the East to Russia. Ironically, one thing they all agreed on was Ukraine NOT joining NATO.

Now I'm annoyed for allowing myself to get dragged into this again. I promised I'd waste no more time on it. It's just when I read utter nonsense that bears no relation to established historical fact, or to the Russia my Wife and I know (she knows better than me!), it gets me riled up.

Right, I'm gonna bow out again (or try to anyway). Keep fighting the propaganda fight comrade, one day someone might believe you.

Re: "the civil aviation sector of terrorist Russia"

"I'm not sure there's much point attempting to reason with you"

Honestly I wouldn't bother. I'm married to a Russian woman who lived in Ukraine until she was nine. She has relations who are Ukrainian who live in Eastern Ukraine who I have spoken with many times before and after 2014 and they've told me exactly what life was and is like there (hint: it's not what Putin is saying it is). I've also spent a lot of time in Russia over the last 15 years and have first hand experience of how the culture works.

I've tried time and time again to correct the objectively false things he spouts on here. I've tired explaining that what he claims is not what the people who live there are telling me and not backed up with evidence from any research or polling. He'll just ignore any points you make that he can't deny or that don't fit his agenda and will pick at any tiny element of your argument that he has some handy propaganda he can counter with.

I've given up and just don't engage anymore. I wouldn't waste your time or energy.

FAA stays grounded in reality as SpaceX preps for takeoff

Re: Stage Two

Common Sense Skeptic has a good video breaking down the launch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka5id7ZQKL4.

He also uses footage from Astronomy Live that shows the top portion of Star Ship tumbling towards Florida after it exploded. That could be an issue for SpaceX as it's a major chunk of spacecraft that is falling uncontrolled towards a population centre.

X's legal eagles swoop on Media Matters over antisemitic content row

Re: Throw away the key!

Please be satire. A few years ago sarcasm was easy to spot, but these days...

Re: Interesting wording

From the filing:

"Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big name advertisers. The end result was a feed precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers."

So basically they follow a bunch of hate and they follow a bunch of tech companies. Ergo, they get tech company adverts on their hate filled feed.

Twitter seems to be trying to claim that this is something that would never happen naturally (or rarely would), but this is just the way their algorithm works. Unless they are saying that no one who is into tech is also into hateful content, then it's hard for them to deny that these ad placements will sometimes happen. People with this combination of interests definitely exist (I've seen a few commentards who likely have a similar Twitter feed!), so it must happen.

Media Matters may have distilled the experience down a bit, as no one is likely to only follow hate speech and tech companies with no other content. So a real feed may have some cat memes mixed into the nazi propaganda (a little light relief I guess). But the fact is that they still placed ads against that content. That's enough for the advertisers to exercise their right to draw a line under their contracts. Twitter can claim they have robust measures in place to stop it all they like, but if all it takes to bypass them is to follow some hate and some tech, then those measures simply are not working.

Firefox slow to load YouTube? Just another front in Google's war on ad blockers

This is what I do. I block ads, but pay more out a month in Patreon than a YouTube premium subscription would cost me. I feel a lot better about where my cash is going though.

Just a note, the cut off for monetisation is a minimum of 1,000 followers and 4,000 hours of public watch time within a 12-month period or 10 million public YouTube Shorts views within a 90-day period.

YouTube will still put ads on those channels that fall below this threshold though, but not a penny will go to the creator.

So if the creators you watch are truly small channels, they won't be seeing a penny from the adverts you are watching.

Robot mistakes man for box of peppers, kills him

My Dad was a paramedic and retained firefighter, and my Mum was a nurse. This type of humour was dinner table conversation for me whilst growing up.

It's one of the only ways people who deal with the worst possible sights have to maintain their mental health.

I believe growing up like this has given me a far healthier attitude towards death and how harsh life can be. I have friends who are terrified by death and go white at just the mention of it. I believe openly talking about it is better, especially with a little humour.

YouTube cares less for your privacy than its revenues

"some of the smaller creators I follow have maybe 200 followers"

Just a note, the cut off for monetisation is a minimum of 1,000 followers and 4,000 hours of public watch time within a 12-month period or 10 million public YouTube Shorts views within a 90-day period.

YouTube will still put ads on those channels that fall below this threshold though, but not a penny will go to the creator.

So if the channel has only 200 subs, all you're doing is giving YouTube more income.

This is what gets me, it's the same 30 second un-skippable advert every few minutes. Without an ad-blocker, you'd go insane.

I used to use a PiHole, but it does nothing for YouTube ads unfortunately (didn't when I used it anyway). Also, just changed provider and their router doesn't allow you to change DNS settings. I had been using my own router to get around this, but the new provider comes in at the opposite end of the property, so my router has been repurposed as a repeater to get access to the front of the house. Will probably sort out a new PiHole once I run some new cabling.

My Wife has started to see the advert warning message in the UK. Thankfully I haven't yet, although I have a lot more defences setup than she does. Every time I offer to take a look at her machine and try to sort out the ad-blockers on it, she says she's 'too busy' right now. Up to her I guess!

YouTube made me use an ad-blocker

I now block all YouTube ads and also use SponsorBlock to auto-skip past sponsored sections of videos.

I used to not mind an un-skippable five second ad at the start and end of a video, or even a longer, skippable after five seconds advert. However, those adverts became longer and more frequent to the point where YouTube is almost unwatchable without an ad-blocker. Now the norm seems to be two 15-30 second un-skippable ads at the start and end, and also 5-30 second un-skippable ads every 3-5 minutes. When you're watch a video that is 45-90 minutes in length it become ridiculous, especially when it's the same un-skippable advert repeated every 4 minutes. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was seeing the same Microsoft Dynamics (I think) advert around 30 times in the space of a couple of hours.

And this massive increase in adverts has happened at the same time content creators are saying their ad income is in the toilet. I would likely put up with it if I thought the money was going to the creators.

YouTube won't get a penny of my cash. Instead I pay the content creators I watch the most directly via Patreon. Ironically I'm paying more a month than it would cost me for a YouTube premium subscription, but I'm far happier with where my money goes.

Word turns 40: From 'new kid on the block' to 'I can't believe it's not bloatware'

I completely missed the 16bit era of home computers and went straight from an Amstrad CPC to a 486. So I went from using Protext (in a ROM card) on the CPC to Word 6 on the PC.

I used Word 6 all the way through my degree and liked it. It was stable (for the time) and just did what I needed. I dabbled with the later versions of Word but every iteration seemed to get slower, more bloated and clunky. Word 6 was the sweet spot for me. I think I used it pretty much all the way up until OpenOffice was released.

These days I use Ommwriter for distraction free writing and then stick the content into Pages or LibreOffice for final formatting.

I'll probably get down voted for saying so, but I actually like Pages. It has its quirks, but on the whole it's super simple, not overly bloated and works well for what I need. It kinda gives me a 'simpler times' vibe.

X marks the bot: Musk thinks spammers won't pay $1 a year

Re: How long

Why would the Police call your landline number?

The Police will call whatever numbers they have registered for a person. A landline is still a pretty common thing to have in the UK and lots of people use it. A loan agreement will specifically ask for both a landline and a mobile number, so if it's a debt collection thing, they will likely be trying all possible numbers they have.

It was definitely bailiffs as they just left a recorded message for me to call back. I didn't call the number they left in the message, I looked up the company online and called their head office directly, quoting the reference number I was given. It was a large, well known and established debt collection company, so def not a scam.

Re: How long

I had this with a Virgin Media phone number I was issued. I never use a home phone, so it was only there because the best broadband / TV packages they offered came with a home phone.

It received a tonne of spam calls. They'd pretend to be Virgin Media and ask to speak to Mr XXXX and when I told them there was no one of that name here, they'd ask what my name was. I told them that if they really were Virgin, they'd know who was register on this number.

Next the debt collectors started calling. They were really tough to persuade that I was not who they were looking for.

And finally the police started calling on a semi-regular basis. It was at that point I just unplugged the phone.

I've moved away from Virgin, so I'd imagine another poor person has that number now and is receiving a barrage of spam, debt collectors and police calls.

First Brexit, now X-it: Musk 'considering' pulling platform from EU over probe

Re: Homeopathy or Supplements

Completely agree. Being a limp lunged asthmatic, Covid was the sickest I've ever been in my life. I caught the Delta variant of Covid (the one that caused the most severe disease unfortunately) pre-Xmas 2021, shortly after the four week lockdown was lifted and it started to run wild throughout the country again.

I had all the symptoms you describe along with a total loss of smell. After being asleep my blood oxygen levels were down in the 80s, which at any normal time would have meant hospitalisation. I found that if I concentrated on my breathing and took very deep breaths I could get it up into the low 90s. I was under strict instruction from the doctor that if those levels didn't come up after five deep breaths then I was to call an ambulance immediately.

Luckily, after around 10 days of being completely unable to get out of bed, I started to improve, but it took several months to feel 100% again. Thankfully I'd already been fully vaccinated. I dread to think how things may have gone if my body didn't have the head start on fighting that vaccination gave me.

Calling it "the great cough pandemic in 2020" is a pretty crass thing to say, especially when so many (myself included) lost friends and family to Covid. I'm glad that it was like that for you, you're one of the lucky ones.

Re: Homeopathy or Supplements

There was an actual study on the use of ivermectin to treat COVID patients. It was abandoned because of the statistically significant increase in the death rate.

Indeed. The dosage of Ivermectin that was required to have any measurable effect on Covid was so high that it was causing enormous side effects that were often more dangerous than Covid itself. Subjects left the study due to confusion, hallucinations, losses of consciousness, seizures, incontinence, blindness, and for some, death.

So yeah, they did prove that Ivermectin can have an effect on Covid, but only when taken at levels that are unsafe for those taking it. It's efficacious in the same way a flame thrower is. It'll surely destroy Covid, but it may not be that great for the patient.

EU threatens X with DSA penalties over spread of Israel-Hamas disinformation

Re: Free Speech

I get fed up with posting this, but again, no.

Pre-Musk, independent research and internal research at Twitter found that the algorithm would amplify right wing voices far more than left wing ones. Yes, they would 'suppress' illegal or threatening speech, but if the right wing outrage machine could have just held back on outright, provable lies and direct calls for violence against minority groups for five minutes, maybe they wouldn't have been 'suppressed' so much. They'd have you believe that they were being censored just for expressing a political opinion, however all evidence suggests that they were not and their actual political opinions were in fact being amplified more than left wing ones.

Right wing mouth pieces tend to post more outrageous content and are therefore more likely to garner outrage, which drives engagement, which the algorithm loves so it promotes them even more. This has been happening long before Musk took over and there is research to back it up. Some idiot gets a slap on the wrist for calling for "death to $thisWeeksTarget" and then cries about it on every international news organisation for a week, claiming they're being censored just for their political views. They're not calling for deregulation or lower taxes though, no, not 'those' views.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/22/22740703/twitter-algorithm-right-wing-amplification-study

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2024292118

Equal Employment Commission sues Tesla for racist discrimination, retaliation at Fremont plant

It's odd then that research projects that took place before His Muskiness took over found that the Twitter algorithm would amplify right wing voices more than left wing ones. Even Twitter's own internal research found this. This is the 'old' Twitter algorithm, not the new Musk approved one.

The theory seems to be that right wing mouth pieces tend to post more outrageous content and are therefore more likely to garner outrage, which drives engagement, which the algorithm loves so it promotes them even more. Twitter has always been an outrage generating cesspit. Yes, they used to de-platform illegal or threatening speech, but the right wing outrage machine would have you believe that they were being censored just for expressing a political opinion. All evidence suggests that they were not and their posts were in fact being amplified. If they could have just held back on the direct calls for violence against minorities then perhaps they wouldn't have been 'de-platformed' so much. The current right seem to have a persecution complex, whereas what is actually happening is they are being held to account for the things they say.

But no, Twitter was definitely a lefty safe haven that completely censored all right wing views. I guess all the research is wrong because right wing pundits 'feel' like they're being censored (whilst giving their fifth interview to an international news organisation that day).

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/22/22740703/twitter-algorithm-right-wing-amplification-study

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2024292118

Twitter, aka X, tops charts for misinformation, EU official says

Re: re: the objective reality

Only other people's genitals though.

BT confirms it's switching off 3G in UK from Jan next year

Re: Three

I'd be careful about going to O2. I've just left them because although reception was good pretty much everywhere, they have such low backhaul availability that that reception is next to useless in any built up areas. In Plymouth city centre it would show as having full 4G reception but if you tired to use it, it would not work at all. Even trying to view a simple text web page would take minutes to download and often not work at all.

The usable bandwidth would come in spurts. So it wouldn't work at all, then suddenly you'd get a couple of minutes of slow, but working data and then it would be gone again. All whilst having full 4G reception.

I found this to be the same anywhere there were more than a handful of people around. I guess it may be different in London, but in any built up area outside of there I found it to be next to useless.

Bombshell biography: Fearing nuclear war, Musk blocked Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

Re: "If Ukraine wants to fight a war with Russia"

Here we go again...

I am married to a Russian woman who grew up in Ukraine until she was 9 and has relatives who are ethnic Russian Ukrainians who live in the Eastern part of Ukraine. They tell me that Russian speakers were not being targeted in the their everyday lives pre-2014, when Russia used political instability to launch a land-grab (obviously I can't speak for all Russian speakers, but I'm just sharing what they have told me). I have no reason to question them because they are Russian speaking Ukrainians who live in eastern Ukraine.

It may be worth mentioning that a 2015 poll of residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions showed that 75% wanted the entire Donbas region to remain fully Ukrainian. Also, when asked if Russian-speaking citizens are under pressure or threat, 82% said 'no'. Only 7% 'somewhat' supported Russia helping rebels in the east and 71% did not. Note that these result are after Russia had already supported rebels in the east and many ethnic Ukrainians had fled the area. So the ethnic makeup of these areas had shifted markedly towards ethnic Russians, and still the results of this poll don't support your assertions.

I have spent a lot of time in Russia over the past 15 years and I have seen first hand the propaganda that is broadcast to the nation on a daily basis. I have a lot of first hand experience of Russia and Russian culture and have spoken extensively to ethnic Russian Ukrainians over the years and have been told their opinions on Russia, Ukraine and how their lives have changed since 2014. So I don't think I'm particularly naive.

I'd be interested to know where you are getting your information from about how life was and is for ethnic Russian Ukrainians. Is it the Kremlin, because you are parroting Putin's talking points pretty well.

And if you want to talk about outside interference in Ukraine, you may want to look up Putin's favourite trick he used on a progression of Ukrainian presidents. If a president was beginning to look favourably to the West, he would threaten to push the price of oil and gas up to an astronomical level. Then he would force them to sign a new deal, using a shady front company (often through Kazakstan), that would be run by one of Putin's goons (with the appropriate back-handers). This shady deal would then be used as leverage over the president any time they stepped out of line. It was a deal very like this that partly caused the sudden change in direction of the Ukrainian Government and directly led to the 2014 revolution. This is just one of the myriad ways in which Russia has been interfering in Ukraine over the years.

That however is all whataboutism. Bottom line is Russia invaded a sovereign nation.

Ukraine is a sovereign nation that has agency and can make its own decisions. It decided to look West.

The invasion has more to do with Putin's desire to leave a legacy and bolster his hold on power than it does with anything that the West is doing (he often likens himself to Peter the Great). It's rooted in idealistic and nationalistic nonsense, and a desire to rebuild the Russian empire and take back lands that Russia sees as theirs. NATO is just an excuse and if you think otherwise I'd suggest that you are either naive or ignorant to the history and culture of the region.

Ironically, if Russia had managed to take the whole of Ukraine, they would have multiplied their border with NATO enormously, not lessened it. Kinda goes against the whole 'buffer zone' thing.

Anyway, I promised myself I'd stop arguing with Putin shills online, so I'm out.

Re: So Musk has NOW entered the Ukranian war.......

And a US Secretary of State has no business speaking on behalf of the entire of NATO. You'll note that although he did say that, no such provision was included in the final treaty, so his words are legally worth nothing. If Russia thought this was important, they should have negotiated it into the treaty.

The Budapest Memorandum on the other hand specifically says that the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States are prohibited from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, "except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations", and also that they must respect the independence and sovereignty of the existing borders. Russia signed that.

Re: "If Ukraine wants to fight a war with Russia"

You've gotta love how people think Ukraine doesn't have its own agency and everything must be because of the USA. If you had any knowledge of the history between Russia and Ukraine you'd know that long before the US even existed, Ukraine has been trying to get out from under Russia's boot. It's been the same going all the way back to the Russo-Polish War in 1654.

As the second largest country in Europe (second only to Russia), Ukraine has the right and the ability to make its own decisions. Just because they choose to ally with the West, doesn't mean the West is deciding everything for them. Ukraine could have chosen to ally with Russia, but they didn't, and after hundreds of years of oppression by Russia, who can blame them? It was their choice.

But no, of course, it's just the USA and its chums. They definitely made Russia invade Ukraine...

And if you think the invasion of Ukraine had anything to do with Russia defending itself against the West and NATO and not about Putin wanting to secure his position and legacy by rebuilding the Russian Empire (among a myriad of other idealist, nationalist rubbish), then you are a useful idiot for the Putin regime.

Cage match: Zuck finally realizes Elon is full of twit

Sucker punch

Musk strikes me as the kinda guy who would turn up at Zuck's house, wait to be invited in and then sucker punch him as soon as he turns his back. All whilst streaming live on Xitter and claiming he'd 'won'.

Magento shopping cart attack targets critical vulnerability revealed in early 2022

Re: It happened to me too

I think half the problem with Magento is that it's just so tricky to get to run stably in the first place, many don't bother updating it. The attitude seems to be, if it's working for $deitys sake don't touch it!

From personal experience, dealing with Magento is a bit like defusing a bomb. It doesn't matter how careful you are, the whole thing can still blow up in your face with the slightest misstep. It feels like sometimes it doesn't even require a misstep, it just depends what mood Magento is in on that particular day.

What also doesn't help is that many theme and plugin vendors require very specific Magento versions, many of which are woefully outdated and insecure. I had a client who purchased a Magento theme / custom plugin set from a vendor and bought the installation package from them. I had setup a completely stock, fully updated Magento installation for them to use, only to find they had wiped that and put a very old and insecure version in its place (we're talking 4 or 5 years old). I tried to re-update it and the whole site exploded. On checking with the vendor, they said they only support one specific version and we'd have to pay again for them to downgrade to that version. Needless to say, I got them to refund my client's money.

Tesla steering problems attract regulator eyes for second time this year

Re: It did pass

I was also going to quote the same line. That's some grade A Stockholm syndrome right there.

"We love this thing that might kill myself and my family at a moment's notice".

On the record: Apple bags patent for iDevice to play LPs

For crying out loud Apple, stop dicking around with idiotic iPad / record deck / docking station ideas and just release a Surface Pro like device that runs full fat MacOS already. You have iPad Pros with the same (completely overkill for a tablet) specification as a MacBook Air and you have those ridiculously expensive Magic Keyboard things. How hard can it be to produce what people are actually asking for?

Aliens crash landed on Earth – and Uncle Sam is covering it up, this guy tells Congress

Re: Not impossible, just ludicrously unlikely

I know I shouldn't take these polls seriously, but there is a missing option (see title).

Agreed. I voted 'impossible', but I actually think it's just so unlikely that it's near as damn it impossible. Never say never though.

Vodafone offers '5G Ultra' to users of very specific phones in very specific locations

Ultra?

I've was on holiday in Limoges, France all last week. Whilst there, the 5G gave me 280-320Mbps throughout the city and that was with my three year old iPhone 12 mini, so not a special handset. Didn't matter where I was, the reception was universally great. Faster than my 250Mbps 'Super Fast' Virgin broadband at home!

Coverage was amazing compared to the UK. I only see 5G in one small area of my home city and it's not fast at all, peaking at around 50-60Mbps. It comes and goes too dependant on which way you're facing. You have to stand with the phone out in front of you and point it directly at an antenna to get 5G. Normally it's 4G all the way and being O2, that 4G is next to useless if more than five people are trying to use the same cell.

Weird how this is trumpeted as some big, unusual thing. Seemed to be the norm in France (maybe it was just the region I was in?).