Posts by TheFifth

Tesla to disable 'self-driving' feature that allowed vehicles to roll past stop signs at junctions

Re: One benefit for the fuel companies...?

"We have a similar problem in the UK, with "timed" traffic light signals that stop traffic, even if no other traffic is crossing the junction...this is especially more wasteful, in the early hours, when few vehicles are travelling on local roads...."

This drives me nuts. The city where I live had a traffic light installing spree a few years back. It was like the council dropped them from the sky and installed them wherever they landed. They also put traffic lights around just about every medium to large roundabout in the city. These are all 24 hours a day too. I get that a particular junction on a roundabout may not be able to move during rush hour as cars will always be coming from the right, but 99% of the time, you sit at the lights staring at a completely empty roundabout.

I don't understand the aversion to part-time lights. I get that people may be initially confused as to when the lights are / are not operating, but the funny thing is, when the lights on the main roundabout near me are faulty, it seems to flow perfectly fine at any time of day.

Re: California roll

I have to agree, I know of no stop signs where I regularly drive. Hundreds of roundabouts and traffic lights (too many traffic lights!), but no stop signs.

The only ones I know of around here are out in the sticks, where it's single lane roads with high hedges either side. There is almost no visibility when pulling out of a junction, so they often have stop signs. None in the towns / city where I regularly drive*.

*I'm sure there are some around on the housing estates or on some odd, tight little junction. But none where I drive.

Linux distros haunted by Polkit-geist for 12+ years: Bug grants root access to any user

Re: CLI strikes again...

As someone who has also engaged in battle with the Xero API, I completely agree. When I was battling with it, the documentation was incomplete, most of it was auto-generated, and the examples included simply didn't work. I've noticed it's improving in that regard, but still has a long way to go. I've also had to rework the implementation many times too to keep pace with their constant shifting.

Google sours on legacy G Suite freeloaders, demands fee or flee

I've also not received any notification email to tell me they'll be pulling the plug. I've been considering de-googling my life for a while, but have been too lazy to do it. This is the push I need. Self hosting for me from now on!

After deadly 737 Max crashes, damning whistleblower report reveals sidelined engineers, scarcity of expertise, more

Re: "Aeroflot"

Aeroflot have one of the youngest fleets out there, with an average age of only 6.1 years (https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Aeroflot-Russian-Airlines). For comparison, British Airways have an average fleet age of 13.2 years and American Airlines 11.8 years.

Aeroflot have always been good when I've flown with them, they definitely don't deserve the reputation they have (maybe a couple of decades ago it was deserved). Also found Siberian (S7) to be good too. Russia still does have some major issues with its smaller airlines, but the main players are as good as any other major airline now.

Re: False

"One can design something like MCAS to work correctly. Just dont make the junior-mistake of depending on a single sensor."

I'd also add to this: include some sanity checks.

Maybe the obvious ones like "don't let MCAS continue to trim the aircraft into an obviously undesirable extreme out-of-trim condition' and "if the pilot is trimming against MCAS, don't keep re-trimming against the pilot".

These are just two ideas off the top of my head that I would have thought would top the list of requirements (along with multiple sensor inputs). Not sure how Boeing didn't come up with these.

Apple sues 'amoral 21st century mercenaries' NSO for infecting iPhones with Pegasus spyware

Re: Seriously?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_PX1cVuaVA

A tiny typo in an automated email to thousands of customers turns out to be a big problem for legal

Re: Not is such a tiny word

"where the context of the message is clearly NOT, but the actual word is there."

I see what you did there!

In the '80s, spaceflight sim Elite was nothing short of magic. The annotated source code shows how it was done

Re: Lave Station, requesting clearance to launch...

I loved the way the scanner worked. I found it completely intuitive and very easy to work with. Oddly, I had a friend who could not work it out at all, no matter how many times I tried to explain it to him. I guess his mind didn't work in 3D (like flat earthers' minds).

Re: Ah Elite !

It didn't come out until 1986 but the Amstrad had a really good port of Elite. I know this because I spent way too much of my childhood playing it!

Is your Apple Mac running macOS Monterey leaking memory? It may be due to mouse cursor customization

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

I'd agree with this. My MacBook Pro (2020 Intel) gets restarted once in a blue moon. Dependant on updates, it can go weeks without a restart. It's my main work machine (plugged into two external monitors) and it's running 8-10 hours a day, every week day. I just put it to sleep at the end of each day. I also use stacks of third party stuff and am constantly running a MAMP stack for web development.

I have noticed a few 'sticky' moments in Monterey though. Sometimes the machine will hang for several seconds and then free up. I guess this could be the memory leak issue and there's some swapping going on in background. When this happens I normally perform a restart just in case and all is well for a good couple of weeks after that.

If you are having to restart multiple times a day, there is definitely something in your configuration that is causing this issue (same for the others who have this problem). Finding out the common denominator is going to be very tricky I'd guess.

As System76 starts work on its own Linux desktop world, GNOME guy opens blog, engages flame mode

Re: I like Gnome

Gotta say, I've also been using Gnome for a few years and once you get used to it, it's perfectly fine. I quite like it (but then again I like absolutely minimal desktop clutter). My tip is learn the shortcut keys.

I use it pretty much the same way I use MacOS. In Gnome, hit the 'Windows' key and start typing, then hit Enter once the autocomplete shows what you want. In MacOS, hit CMD+Space, start typing, hit Enter when you see what you want. So much quicker than using a mouse. I can see how Gnome may confuse / annoy if you are wedded to using the mouse for everything, but personally I prefer the keyboard approach than clicking through multiple fly-out menus (as in KDE). I'm sure KDE has an equivalent keyboard workflow too, but Gnome works fine for me.

I initially installed Gnome because I'm using it on an MS Surface device, so needed a touch friendly interface. But I find it perfectly serviceable with the keyboard and trackpad too. I did try out KDE and Mate for a bit, which again were both fine, but too fiddly for when I needed touch input.

Fedora 35 is out: GNOME 41 desktop, polished UI, easier-to-install closed-source apps

Re: Gnome 40/41

I have Gnome on my Surface Go. I mainly installed it because it has the best touch UI, but once you get used to it, it's actually pretty nice whilst using the keyboard and trackpad too.

Personally, I pretty much use the keyboard all the time. If you take the time to learn how to navigate Gnome using the keyboard, you can be lightning quick with it and it's pretty efficient. Opening apps, switching workspaces, switching apps etc. is really quick. I do the same when I use MacOS. I use the keyboard mostly to get around and run apps. I never click an apps icon in a launcher.

I think using shortcuts is the best way to navigate around Gnome. Your hands never need to leave the keyboard and it's way quicker and easier than clicking menus or launchers. I would have thought CLI users would be all for that. Just because it's a GUI, doesn't mean you have to use a mouse.

Centre for Computing History apologises to customers for 'embarrassing' breach

Re: "We take security and your data extremely seriously,..."

I've seen worse. I had an enquiry from a prospective client who wanted me to fix a few issues on his website. After looking through it I found that the site had the FTP details for the main server, passed in hidden fields, on a public facing form! It was a Joomla site (honestly I could stop this sentence right here, but I'll elaborate) and for some reason the dev used a weird JS based FTP upload script rather than the more usual multi-part form upload. Even with that, you'd think they'd not pass the FTP details in a form field! I could find no rationale for the entire mess.

The same site also passed the root database credentials(!) in hidden form fields. This was on an admin restricted page, but still, what the hell?!?

I told the client I would rebuild his site from scratch, but I wasn't patching up that steaming pile of code.

Boeing 737 Max chief technical pilot charged with deceiving US aviation regulators over MCAS

Re: Some extra info

The pilots were faced with what to all intents looked like a trim runaway

That's the problem though, MCAS doesn't look like a trim runaway at all. That's where Boeing slipped up, they assumed pilots would recognise it as a runaway quickly. Unfortunately by they time they did recognise it, it was too late and they were so far out of trim, they could not manually recover.

A real trim runaway is easier to spot as the trim wheel starts turning fast and continuously in one direction. MCAS on the other hand inputs five second bursts of trim, so the trim wheel spins intermittently, which is something that is constantly happening in a 737 cockpit anyway. The Speed Trim System is constantly moving the trim wheel by small amounts. During takeoff is when Speed Trim makes most adjustments, so I can easily see how the MCAS activations could be confused as normal STS inputs by a pilot (https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/614997-b-737-speed-trim-system.html).

I've messed about in a training certified, full motion 737 simulator and that trim wheel is always moving intermittently. I can completely see how the pilot could miss what MCAS was doing as it's not like a normal runaway trim at all.

Other than that, I completely agree with what you said.

And as mentioned above, you don't fly a plane using the trim.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and we should feel fine

Re: Does it work though?

'three words for "the" depending on what object you're talking about'

I suggest you never try to learn Russian. There's no word for 'the', but instead the ending of almost every single word in the sentence changes depending on what object you're talking about.

And don't get me started on cases and the 16 different ways you can conjugate a verb...

Sir Clive Sinclair: Personal computing pioneer missed out on being Britain's Steve Jobs

Re: Elite

I dread to think how many hours I played Elite as a kid. Loved that game so much. Also played a fair few hours of Frontier and Frontier - First Encounters on the PC.

I had an Amstrad CPC as a kid and only briefly played with a Spectrum at a friend's house. However, over Lockdown I purchased a few retro computers to tinker with, so I now have two CPCs, two ZX81s and a Spectrum 48k. I restored them all to working order and replaced the leaky caps, so they're (nearly) as good as new. I've had lots of fun playing with the Spectrum, seeing how the other half lived! We may have taken the piss out of the colour clash graphics in the playground in the 80s, but I gotta say, it's got some really good games.

Ah those were simpler and fun times!

Oh the humanity: McDonald's out of milkshakes across Great Britain

Re: A number of sound decisions?

Just popped back into the same Sainsbury's today and the snack selection is a little healthier. Although still limited. The store still has loads of empty shelves though and where they are full, they are duplicate items. So it's shelf after shelf of same thing rather than the usual selection. Also they're putting a single row of items along the front of shelves to make it seems less empty at a glance.

Re: A number of sound decisions?

South West. Devon / Cornwall.

Re: A number of sound decisions?

Oh do shut up.

Do you honestly think it's easy for graduates to just walk into jobs? There may be lots of jobs around, but they are either zero hours or they are in the 'gig economy'. He doesn't have any experience, so most of the jobs related to his degree won't take him and the graduate opportunities in the sector are almost non-existent. Even the FT have published reports about how the graduate job market is a nightmare in the UK and there are far fewer opportunities for them than other EU countries like Germany and France. This is why graduates are ending up in the gig economy on zero hour contracts, it's not through choice or through want of trying.

And it's insulting that you suggest he isn't trying. He's applied for more jobs in the last month than I have applied for in my entire life.

It must be lovely in your world, where everything is so simple.

Re: A number of sound decisions?

We may have opened up first and have good growth (thankfully), but remember that our economy fell significantly more than the EU in 2020 (the UK fell around 9.8%, whereas the EU fell on average 6.1%, with Germany only around 5%). So let's not pretend that with a growth forecast of between 6 and 7% (dependant on who you talk to) we're suddenly an economic power house that has an unusual need for HGV drivers. We're still below pre-pandemic levels.

Northern Ireland has growth predictions of 6-7% too. I wonder why they don't have this problem.

Re: A number of sound decisions?

Lucky you. All the shops in my area, including the big supermarkets have empty shelves everywhere. Tried to buy a couple of bottled drinks and a snack in Sainsburys before heading off on a long drive. All they had was a few cans of off-brand energy drinks. No water, no juice, nothing. The snack selection was pitiful too. It's the same in all the shops here. And before the usual shout of "it must have been late at night then!", it was not. It was the middle of the day on a weekday.

I think it depends on where you are in the country. I'm guessing the further you are from distribution centres, the worse it gets.

Re: A number of sound decisions?

I think the fact that there aren't empty supermarket shelves and a lack of milkshakes or bottled drinks at McD's across the EU (or even in NI!) points to the fact that the shortages are likely not equal. Every country has drivers isolating due to Covid and also have the same supply problems that the whole world is suffering from. For some reason though, it's only GB that has the army on standby to deliver food (note it's not the whole of the UK!).

I wonder what the difference is? What could it be that is unique to GB that doesn't affect the rest of the UK or other countries around the the EU?

Re: A number of sound decisions?

Yeah, no.

My Nephew is one of these 'fully employed' people. He turns up to his place of work at 6am, along with about 100 other people. The boss says he has work for 20 people today and picks randomly from the 100 and the rest are sent home.

But hey, they're all 'employed' on a zero hours contract, so 'Yay! full employment!'.

Internet Explorer 3.0 turns 25. One of its devs recalls how it ended marriages – and launched amazing careers

I remember the release of Netscape 6, which was the product of this code rewrite. I desperately wanted to like it as I'd had enough of MS and believed in what Mozilla was doing. It was however deeply disappointing being slow and buggy as hell. I did persist though and by 6.2 it was usable. Unfortunately by that time IE 6 had been released, which looking back was obviously terrible, but at the time it blew Netscape out of the water.

Thank $DEITY for Firefox a short while later! Still use Firefox today as I prefer its developer tools to those in Blink based browsers.

Beige Against the Machine: The IBM PC turns 40

Re: Progress?

Never used WordPerfect for Windows (only DOS a couple of times), but as far as Word goes, I think it peaked at Word 6 and has been going downhill ever since. I used version 6 throughout my time at Uni and it never let me down. More than enough functionality for what I needed and no stupid ribbon cluttering up the screen.

Frankly, I used to use View on the BBC Micro and ProText on the Amstrad CPC (both in ROM) and found them perfectly usable for writing simple essays. Didn't get in the way and let you get on with your work.

These days, if I need to just write and not be distracted, I use OmmWriter. Simple, black screen, no distractions. Then I'll take the text from that and put it into LibreOffice for some final formatting. It's a far less frustrating work flow for me.

Re: 5150

And also a EVH signature Peavey (and later Fender) guitar amp.

Software bug in Bombardier airliner made planes turn the wrong way

Re: At least..

Or another plane taking off from a parallel runway...

Scam-baiting YouTube channel Tech Support Scams taken offline by tech support scam

Re: not for publicity

I'd agree that this must have been a very well orchestrated and targetted attack. Jim is not your average scam baiter. I don't think scam baiting is a good way to describe what he does. I'd describe scam baiting as when someone just wastes a scammer's time for hours on end, whereas Jim's videos contain very little of him actually talking to scammers.

He only talks to them long enough to reverse the connection and infiltrate their network. The majority of his videos talk about what he finds when snooping around their computers and how he figures out the personal details of the owners, and the location of the call centre, so he can report them to the police. He also gets their phone lines shut down and calls back their victims to stop them sending any money.

I'd imagine this is why he was targeted. He costs them far more than the average scam baiter does and, sometimes, he gets them shut down. At the very least he has a direct impact on their income by interrupting in-progress scams and warning the victims. Your average scam baiter does not do this. He's more of an investigator, which is why he's helped the likes of the BBC with research.

Maybe working with news outlets has increased his profile enough for him to become a target.

Happy 'Freedom Day': Stats suggest many in England don't want it or think it's a terrible idea

Re: SNAFU

Would that be the Danish study that the CDC summarised as this:

"(the study has) been improperly characterized by some sources as showing that surgical or cloth masks offer no benefit. A community-based randomized control trial in Denmark during 2020 assessed whether the use of surgical masks reduced the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers (personal protection) by more than 50%. Findings were inconclusive, most likely because the actual reduction in infections was lower. The study was too small (i.e., enrolled about 0.1% of the population) to assess whether masks could decrease transmission from wearers to others (source control)."

Re: SNAFU

"Go read the studies that have already been done on mask effectiveness. They don't f*cking work."

I'm so fed up with hearing this line pedalled again and again.

I think you need to catch up on your reading, because the majority of studies now suggest that they DO work. Not perfectly obviously, but they do have an effect.

From what I've read, previous research (which you seem to be relying on) wasn't testing the protection afforded during a pandemic, when there is a massive amount of the virus circulating. Many looked at the additional protection given during a normal flu year, where the difference is tiny because the probability of getting the flu in the first place is far lower. So even the 'masks don't protect the wearer' line is incorrect when there's a pandemic going on (that's my understanding of what I've read anyway).

The CDC have been maintaining a page that summarises the most recent research here:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html

It currently summarises 65 separate research projects. However, as I'm sure you won't read it, here's an extract from their conclusion:

"Experimental and epidemiological data support community masking to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The prevention benefit of masking is derived from the combination of source control and wearer protection for the mask wearer. The relationship between source control and wearer protection is likely complementary and possibly synergistic, so that individual benefit increases with increasing community mask use."

Audacity is a poster child for what can be achieved with open-source software

I agree, they can do whatever they like. But it might be an idea to not to be so 'pearl-clutching' about privacy when you don't have any respect for the privacy of your readers.

Audacity doesn't share anything by default and as you say, it runs on your computer, so you can choose not to install it. But most importantly you have the ability to turn telemetry on and off, so they aren't doing 'what they want' with your computer. You still have control and you can also check exactly what it sends as the source is open.

Beyond not reading the content, I see no such option on fosspost.org. As soon as you arrive at the page, you're being tracked in a far more insidious way than Audacity does. As I say though, I completely understand why websites do this, but it was just the sheer level of hypocrisy that rattled me.

From a personal perspective, I develop web applications for a living. Not normally customer facing stuff, but when I do, I try to steer clients away from using Google or other third parties for tracking. Most of them just want to know how many 'hits' each page has anyway, which server side analytics can cover without stuffing the page full of javascript or sharing customer data. If they need to track a customer 'journey' I can normally put something in place that can do that for them without resorting to sharing data with a third party. Google Analytics is often overkill for the features people will use or need, but they've heard of it, so they want it. Obviously I know doing this is a drop in the ocean, but at least I'm trying.

Web pages don't have to be a lost cause and I don't think we should accept that they are. Why should we accept being tracked online any more than we accept it offline? You can make the excuse about improving the experience for users (which I've never seen it used for) or just be honest and say that it brings in money that is needed to keep the lights on. That's fine, but it should be done in a privacy preserving way (if at all possible).

Audacity have said they will not use Google, Yandex or any other third party (admittedly after a backlash), won't share the data with third parties unless legally obliged to do so, and will default to telemetry off in the app. Ironically, this data might actually be used to improve the project, unlike the generic 'help us provide a better experience' statements in website privacy policies.

The 'For legal enforcement' is a bit of a worry, but I'm betting that's been put their as an arse covering exercise by the lawyers and I'd also bet that it's nothing more than the data they are collecting for the app analytics mentioned above. Everyone has to abide by the laws of their particular jurisdiction and being a FOSS project doesn't remove that obligation. But if that worries you, just leave the telemetry button in the default opt-out position. Honestly though, it's open source. Anyone can check what is being sent and I guarantee that if it's sending anything more, it will be spotted in a nanosecond.

If fosspost.org genuinely stood behind the 'holier than thou' attitude they display in their post about Audacity, they could easily remove all of the tracking on their site and replace it with logging that doesn't leave their server.

I completely understand that it's a complex subject with nuance, legal requirements and budgetary considerations. But reading the fossproject.org post, you'd think it was a black and white matter. It's just ironic they don't hold themselves to the same high standards they hold everyone else to.

The hypocrisy just left a bad taste, so I felt I had to comment.

First, let me say that I don't agree with tracking within Audacity.

However, I find it somewhat ironic that fosspost.org are complaining about it when a quick look at the source of their website shows links to Google Syndicate APIs, Google Fonts, one pixel tracking images and various other tracking scripts from Wordpress.com.

A quick read through their privacy policy includes:

We have Google analytics and WordPress.com tracking scripts set up on our websites.

Along with the reassuring words:

Some of your information are shared with 3rd-party services such as Google Adsense, Google Analytics, WordPress.com and some other plugin developers or service providers we use. Those services use this data to display certain ads for you or track where you are coming from or enhance your experience on our website.

And finally, the classic:

All logs, emails, comments forms or any other data collected about you when you visit our websites are stored indefinitely.

Maybe look a little closer to home first fosspost.org...

To CAPTCHA or not to CAPTCHA? Gartner analyst says OK — but don’t be robotic about it

Re: Unfortunately no.

It is possible to make this method screen reader friendly by defining the tab order for input elements on the form. If you ensure that the submit button is before the spam check field, you can make it so that a person tabbing through the form will reach the submit button before the spam check field. So many won't even realise the spam field is there. Also, setting tabindex="-1" should remove the field from the default navigation flow. All this may be dependant on browser / screen reader, but I've used in the past and it seems to work well.

Also, I find that you can make the label for the spam input element something like 'Bot check, please leave blank' and it is still not picked up by 90% of email bots.

Another trick is to keep the time the page was rendered in the session and when the form is submitted, check how long it was between page render and submission. Bots tend to submit far quicker than any person can type, so if the submission was in under 4 seconds (or something like that - depends on the form), you can normally safely ignore it. Personally I include the time to submit in the posted content, so I can tweak it if some spam is getting through. Normally a 4 to 5 second cut off works.

Between these two methods, I can normally filter 99% of spam submissions without a captcha.

Everything Apple announced: Tor-ish Safari anonymization. Cloaked iCloud addresses. Cloud CI/CD. And more

Re: Still no paid upgrades in the App Store...

I have a dev friend who did what I think you mean, but Apple refused to publish the second app as it was considered too similar to the first and therefore confusing to customers. So he had to undo all the work he'd done on the second app and crowbar it into an 'in-app purchase' update to the first, which he said was such a horrible user experience he ended up canning the whole project.

Personally I just removed the first version of the app from sale and released a version 2. It meant existing customers had to purchase again at full cost, which isn't a great way to retain customers and creates ill will, but it was the only way around it. Although, if they contacted me I did give them a 'deal', but officially that goes against App Store policies, so I can't advertise that as it risks me being banned from the store.

All in all, the way Apple want you to do it is not the best for customers or small devs.

Still no paid upgrades in the App Store...

I notice that one of the most requested App Store features is still missing in action - the ability for third party devs to offer discounted upgrades between major versions of their apps. Third party devs have been asking for this ability since the App Store first opened. Apple seem to think that every dev should just get paid once and then offer free updates forever.

Later, Apple did allow for in-app purchases, but this can be a horrible user experience and it can be harder to persuade someone to purchase new features within an app they already own, than it can be to get them to upgrade to a whole new version.

So version two of your app could in theory offer more features that can be unlocked via an in-app purchase, but users often resist this and see it as a subscription in disguise. Also, it means you either need to charge a fee for the base product, and then expect users to pay even more money after they've just bought the app (not a great user experience), or give away the base app for free and then charge in-app purchases to unlock features, something that isn't always feasible with some app types.

I've personally had this when version two of an app I sell was a ground-up rewrite, with a completely new interface and feature set. There wasn't really an easy way of dividing the new functionality out from the existing due to the way the new interface was designed. The whole point of the new features and design was to tightly integrate everything and make it very easy to use. Splitting it up and placing some features behind a pay wall just wouldn't make sense. I've spoken to several other developers who feel the same. They've tried the in-app purchase approach to adding features, but the over all user experience is poor and the return on time invested just doesn't justify doing it.

In-app purchases are fine for in-game add-ons etc. but when it comes to upgrading between major versions of an app, with major feature improvements, it's clunky at best.

It seems every app store provider wants devs to use a subscription based model to maintain an income whilst developing their apps. I however will resist this for as long as possible. I've actually gained customers who have told me they moved to my app specifically because my competition has gone over to a subscription model and my app is pay per version based.

Re: Forced unlock?

I'm guessing showing your ID will not actually unlock the phone. That's how Apple Pay works anyway. If you authorise a payment with your fingerprint or face ID, then it only authorises that payment. You have to reauthorise again to actually unlock the phone. So it shouldn't be possible for them to browse your phone if you pass it to them to show the ID. Just guessing obviously.

Conservative Party fined one-third of a luxury food hamper by ICO for nuisance email campaign

Yup me too. There is no way in heaven or hell I'd sign up for Tory propaganda, so they've obviously purchased a list from somewhere. There's no other way that they could have got hold of my email address.

Interestingly, it's an email address I only use for 'official' things like the NHS, doctors, dentist, DVLA, passport etc. I have a specific email address that I use to sign up for random stuff online and that gets a tonne of stuff I never signed up for. The email address they sent to gets very few messages from mailing lists, so it's interesting it arrived at that one.

I'm glad others complained. I was going to, but was too busy at the time and then completely forgot. Just searched my inbox and I still have the message saved as I did plan to report it.

Apple is happy to diss the desktop – it knows who's got the most to lose

Re: The sorry state of Apple's garbled App Store Update Page: High Sierra.

Dude, calm down. You may want to read the thread you are the OP of before directing me to read a thread on the Apple discussion forums.

If you notice, I'm directly replying to 'Richard 12', who said:

"Every Apple update burns an entire day of my time.

Some of them have burned two - 48 actual hours.

Yet Windows Update hasn't taken more than 20min of my time for a decade.

Yes, sometimes they go wrong. But the above macOS update times are all when it went right."

I was just letting Richard 12 know my experience (as others have also done) and letting him know that what's happening to him is not the norm. I'm just trying to give him a pointer that maybe he should check if his hardware / software install is OK if updates are taking 48 hours. So it wasn't directed at you at all.

I actually largely agree with what you have written as my Mother has an older iMac that relies on High Sierra. Unfortunately MS are also 'end of lifing' versions of Windows 10 at an even greater pace. Windows 10 versions 1909, 2004, 20H2 and 21H1 only receive around two years support before they reach end of service and are no longer updated. Granted they do have long term support releases (1507, 1607, 1809), but that's for Enterprise only. Unfortunately, whether we like it or not, both MacOS and Windows are going over to being rolling releases and once they are out of service, we are out of luck. Doesn't mean we have to like it, but that is the way things are going.

Ironically, as if to prove the point I made in my first post, after posting that comment I remembered I hadn't used my dual boot Surface machine in about six weeks, so thought I should probably update the Linux and Windows installs on there. I first updated Linux. Two bash commands later and around 10 minutes I'm fully up to date. I then booted to Windows, which spent 45 minutes stuck at 74% installing a 'Windows Cumulative update', finally it finished and then restarted, which took another 10 minutes on the blue 'installing' screen. I went back to update again, it said 'You're up to date', but I clicked the 'Check for updates' button anyway. Up pops another two or three updates. I install those and restart again (thankfully only about 15 minutes this time) and then check updates again. Yet another update! Only a small one though and thankfully that was the lot.

Re: The sorry state of Apple's garbled App Store Update Page: High Sierra.

Whilst I agree MacOS is getting worse, I think you must have something wrong with your hardware or OS install. Updating is one area where I don't get any pain from MacOS. It's always been pretty smooth for me and the longest updates are normally only 20 minutes or so. I've never had a Mac down for a whole day, even when updating between major OS versions. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've had various Macs since 2006, so it's a reasonable sample size. Note however that I never update until a few days after a major update has been released. Always let the dust settle a bit first.

Windows on the other hand has led me down update hell many times. I have multiple Windows machines and I've had issues on all of them at one point or another. I've lost count of how many times I've set an update going and ended up leaving the machine on all night to finish, only to find when clicking the 'check for updates' button the following morning, there are a bunch more updates to install!

That's what I don't get about Windows update. You tell it to search for updates, it brings back a list, you install all of them and maybe you perform a restart. Then when you check again there are more updates. You install all of those and maybe restart. Then you check again and there are yet more updates. I have a desktop Windows machine that only gets used once every few weeks. Sometimes I have to install updates and restart the thing several times before Windows decides there's no more updates to install.

At least with MacOS, no matter how long it is since the last update, it always seems to do it in one go. I can't remember ever having to perform an update more than once to get fully patched.

Parler returns to Apple's iOS App Store with Hive mind to moderate hate

Re: They still need humans to respond quickly

"begin posting conspiracy theories about how the "new Parler" is being operated by Hillary Clinton out of Cuba designed to entrap the alt-whites"

That's actually a pretty good idea! If they believed Hillary was operating a child sex trafficking ring from the basement of a pizzeria that didn't have a basement, surely it won't be too tricky to convince them of this?

Brit MPs and campaigners come together to oppose COVID status certificates as 'divisive and discriminatory'

Re: Not "divisive and discriminatory", but essential

Agreed in part, but my point is that it should all be one system, rather than wasting money on a separate internal and international one. By saying 'internationally recognised' I meant a single system that can be used internally and internationally. If you look at the post I was replying to, it was saying that the money could be better spent elsewhere, which I agree with. But my point was that we have to spend some money on an international system anyway, so if we really need an internal one, why not make a single system. Maybe I didn't make it clear I was specifically replying to the points in that one post.

The point of an internal system would (I hope) be that it will (might?) allow us to return to normality before the epidemiological situation suggests we should, without causing another spike in cases.

So it will (should!) by definition be a short lived thing. Therefore it would be better not to waste money on developing an internal system that won't be used for long (I hope), when we will also need a longer lasting one for international travel. They may as well be one in the same.

I wouldn't agree that it has no place internally though. I don't think it should be used for the local pub, or shopping etc. But when it comes to possible mass-spreader events, like indoor concerts or sporting events, then maybe it's a good idea if we want a quicker return to normal. I know it wouldn't be a perfect solution, as it's not evidence of definite immunity, but controlling a virus is all about several small measures that add up to a greater protection than each individual measure gives. We can of course just say 'no mass events until we reach herd immunity', but the very same people who shout the loudest about not wanting to be vaccinated, let alone carry a vaccine passport, would be the same ones who would shout the loudest about a continued ban on mass gathering events. They're also the ones who flaunt any social distancing rules and cause more spread (if the recent anti-lockdown protests are anything to go by).

Sometimes we have to look beyond our own selfish wants and do things for society at large. But of course we still have to keep an eye on these systems and ensure they don't creep into everyday life beyond this pandemic. Again, why I originally say it shouldn't be some massive new database with lots of juicy, linkable and identifiable data.

* You'll note I'm not 100% comfortable with how the Government is selling this based on the number of (bracketed) asides I've added. But I also understand that if we want to return to normality sooner rather than later, there will be some (short term) trade offs required.

Re: Not "divisive and discriminatory", but essential

I agree in the most part, however if we want to travel abroad it's likely that many countries will require evidence of vaccination. Some countries already require polio or yellow fever vaccination certificates (among others), so why would Covid be any different? Proving vaccination status is not a new thing.

So no matter what the local politics or opinion is, I think the UK is going to require some sort of internationally recognised Covid vaccination certificate, be it electronic or on paper, or we won't be able to travel to half of the world for the foreseeable future. I'm sure there would be an even bigger uproar if the government didn't come up with any sort of a plan and Brits couldn't have their two week holiday in Benidorm.

Not sure it needs to be some massive new database with lots of juicy, linkable and identifiable data though.

We seem to have materialized in a universe in which Barney the Purple Dinosaur is designing iPhones for Apple

You've hit the nail on the head saying it's "like trying to work with one hand tied behind your back". Even the simplest things take ten times as long as they should.

I agree that the MacBook Pro isn't that heavy, but when we're visiting the in-laws, my Wife tends to buy a ridiculous number of gifts, so our flights over are with bulging bags and right on the weight limit. Those few KGs can make all the difference.

Also, it's just another thing to carry that would be nice not to have to. As I say, the Surface Go does a passable job filling the gap, but having something more powerful would be brilliant.

I completely agree. M1 MacBooks can already run iOS apps, so I don't think it's a massive ask. Having the option to run full MacOS on the iPad Pro and revert to a different skin when in table mode would be great.

I have a 10 inch iPad that I use purely for media consumption. Having owned Android and Windows 8/10 tablet devices, the iPad is (in my opinion) the best of the lot for casual sat on the sofa use. Not to sound cliched, but 'it just works'.

Being freelance and having a few long term clients I support means I have to have a full computer with me pretty much everywhere I go, even when on holiday. It's only for emergencies and it's thankfully only happened once, but if the proverbial hits the fan, I need to have a full computer with me. So I normally end up lugging a laptop (with the requisite enormous charger, case etc.) and an iPad with me wherever I go. Not ideal on a plane.

I ended up buying a Surface Go and putting Linux on it (Windows is terrible for touch, Gnome is way better). It's passable as a media consumption device, but at least it's a full computer when needed. It's small, neat and light, which is exactly what I was looking for. The downside is that it's a little slow and has less than stellar battery life. You really notice the battery life when using it like you would an iPad. The iPad just keeps going, the Surface seems to want to be plugged in more often than not.

So come on Apple, give us the powerful, dual purpose device we've been waiting for (I've been waiting for at least). I don't mind if it's not purple.

Airline software super-bug: Flight loads miscalculated because women using 'Miss' were treated as children

I think you should probably read my comment properly, it don't think it says what you think it does.

You are correct that I don't care about gender or religion, which is why I specifically didn't mention them. The developers were likely a team that consisted of a variety of genders and religions (hopefully). The issue at hand here is cultural and likely shared by everyone in the team.

I don't talk about banning anyone and even say that it doesn't mean companies won't (and I meant to imply shouldn't) outsource to this country. They still should if they want to, just make sure they specify more precisely what they need in order to avoid these cultural differences causing issues.

I only say that the industry would likely be interested to know the country where the code was developed so they can ensure that any specifications for development sent to that country in the future avoid this error again. I don't care where it was developed, it could be the US, UK, India, China or Timbuktu for all I care. The fact is that the spec for this development didn't take into account the cultural differences between where it was specified and where it was developed and therefore this error crept in. Disseminating this information will prevent it happening again.

I would think it would help safety to know this as other companies may also be outsourcing safety critical software to the same country. Knowing the assumptions that a particular set of programmers may make would likely be a good thing.

If past aircraft accidents have taught us anything, it's that they are caused by a series of small events or defects all coming together. The holes in the Swiss cheese lining up as it were. Knowing that developers from X country will make this assumption is the kind of thing that would be taken note of in the industry. Doesn't mean they won't outsource, it just means they will be more precise with their specs.

It just closes one more of those tiny holes. So I'm not sure keeping shtum about where the software was developed is really in the spirit of openness that air accident investigators try to foster.

Pentagon confirms footage of three strange craft taken by the Navy are UFOs (no, that doesn't mean they're aliens)

Re: Can't it be both?

- And their language? You only need 50 different case endings if you have 17 different sexes and a larval stage

As someone who has been trying to learn Russian for almost 10 years, I completely agree with this statement.

Director, deputy director, CTO of Free Software Foundation quit after Stallman installation

All of those links are about renaming streets and a school. Nothing about removing him from the history books.

The only people I've seen who actually want to censor history are the anti-woke brigade. As soon as any of the UK's real history is discussed, warts and all, they claim it's pandering to BLM and the 'woke agenda'. Just look at some of the social media comments about the recent "Britain's most historic towns" series on Channel 4. I saw some pretty horrid abuse thrown at Prof Alice Roberts on Twitter for including references to the slave trade in the series. They seem to want to brush all that under the carpet because it was 'years ago'.

From what I can see, far from wanting these people removed from text books, people want the unquestioning admiration of historical figures stopped (i.e. buildings and streets named after them, statues etc.) and the actual real history to be taught more, not less.