Posts by Twilight

Trump announces $175B for Golden Dome defense shield over America

The final paragraphs nailed it. This has NOTHING to do with defense - it's ALL about making Trump and his "pals" rich(er).

Want Intel in your Surface? That’ll be $400 extra, says Microsoft

Windows on Arm works quite well... at least when running in Parallels on a Mac M-chip.

Re: Why would anyone want any Microsoft Surface?

My previous laptop was a Surface Book 2. It was actually quite a nice laptop. I can't speak to any more recent Surface Book (or other Surface products).

Trump nukes 60 years of anti-discrimination rules for federal contractors

Re: You only get out the effort you put in

Given that many people didn't seem to learn anything from 2016-2020, I would not count on them to learn anything this time either. Many people in the US will vote against their own self-interest seemingly just because some charismatic (or at least loud) politician tells them to...

FCC net neutrality rules dead again as appeals court sides with Big Telco

Re: The problem is local not federal

Local is one way to fix it. Federal is another. Either we get 1000s of different local zoning regulations changed or we pass one regulation at the Federal level. Local is probably the better solution but it is nearly impossible to accomplish.

Digital River runs dry, hasn't paid developers for sales since July

Not just digital products

Digital River does (or at least used to) have a decent sized warehouse and handled fulfillment of physical products (largely computer-related) as well as digital-only products. I wonder if they still do the physical fulfillment the same way and if those vendors are at least getting their physical merchandise back? My detailed knowledge of them is quite old (I consulted for them in the late 90s and my wife consulted for them in the 00s) so I'm not sure if they kept up the warehouse in the last decade (possibly they shut down direct physical fulfillment with the VC buyout in 2015).

Ah but it isn't a contract - it is a service agreement (that just happens to look exactly like a contract (albeit probably pretty one-sided)). Companies in the US (and possibly elsewhere) have been massively pushing the bounds of what is legal for a couple decades now. The bigger ones, at least, seem to just figure that they may have to, at worst, pay some fines if what they've been doing is determined to be illegal.

It often seems like the US is trying hard to turn itself into a cyberpunk corporate dystopia. Although none of the authors I've read seemed to predict exactly the shape it is actually going (Neil Stephenson in Snow Crash seemed to come closest).

By accounts that I've been reading, they are essentially operating like a Ponzi scheme and not keeping enough cash. Essentially they are relying on sales of following months to pay the vendors for previous months. Kaspersky (now banned in the US) used DR for payment processing - there is an unverified theory that Kaspersky may have been a VERY significant portion of DR income so losing those ongoing sales means they can't pay vendors.

Uncle Sam may force Google to sell Chrome browser, or Android OS

Re: Web crawlers

Precedent was set here in the early days of the web. Crawling was allowed unless robots.txt had a line forbidding it.

National Public Data files for bankruptcy, admits 'hundreds of millions' potentially affected

Actually it does. It is a corporation so technically a completely different entity from Verini. Unless gross negligence (or a few other very specific things) can be proven, Verini's assets are protected in the case of the corporation going bankrupt.

CrowdStrike unhappy about Delta's 'litigation threat,' claims airline refused 'free on-site help'

CrowdStrike absolutely was responsible for the outage. However, Delta absolutely has responsibility for the slowness of their recovery - it took Delta over a week to do what every other airline managed in a few days. That shows some serious lack of planning and/or incompetence on Delta's part.

CrowdStrike CEO summoned to explain epic fail to US Homeland Security committee

They had detailed disaster recovery plans... for their systems. Crowdstrike is a third party vendor and they don't need DR plans to cover that (cf Change Healthcare earlier this year).

Agile Manifesto co-author blasts failure rates report, talks up 'reimagining' project

I've been at multiple companies that claim to do agile. In my experience, the main reason it doesn't work is due to lack of buyin from middle and upper management.

Speed limiters arrive for all new cars in the European Union

Re: Good

And studies have shown that people going too slowly (impeding traffic) are MORE dangerous than those speeding.

The US tried this years ago (back when 55 was the max max on all roads in the US so it didn't need to adjust and didn't really work on slower speed limit roads). It was a dismal failure (and dropped fairly quickly).

Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Windows Recall

It just occurred to me that a lot of point of sale systems run Windows. Now, there will be an unsecured database on the pc with (potentially) all the credit card details (number, expiry, cvv, name) for anyone to have a little look-see...

Crooks threaten to leak 3B personal records 'stolen from background check firm'

Incorrect. Background checks regularly include address history and other things that you wouldn't expect (though it's been a few years since my last so I don't remember exactly what else anymore).

Dell customer order database of '49M records' stolen, now up for sale on dark web

Re: central data

Interesting. I am in the US, ordered from Dell several months ago, and have not gotten any sort of email from Dell...

Open source versus Microsoft: The new rebellion begins

Email was always the one part of EU privacy laws that baffled me. Just emailing someone could potentially be considered exposure but an email address has no purpose unless it is used/exposed.

Reddit gets a call from Nokia about patent infringement ahead of going public

Of course, our wonderful Senate is trying to increase bad patents and patent trolls rather than fix the system. Take a look at the pending PERA and PREVAIL acts.

Biden urged to do something about Europe 'unfairly' targeting American tech

Congress would better serve the American people (their job) by passing similar laws in the US to protect us rather than complaining on behalf of their corporate masters (Citizens United was probably the worst ruling in the history of SCOTUS (which then lead to even more corruption and more bad SCOTUS decisions)).

'Return to Office' declared dead

Re: There it is

I wouldn't say nothing. I think the other factor is the large number of semi or incompetent managers who can get by in-person but show how bad they are when having to manage remotely.

Asahi Linux goes from Apple Silicon port project to macOS bug hunters

Re: Yup.

We didn't at work. We updated to 14.1 (which appears to still have the issue if the article is correct (eg 14.0+)) due to the security patches (not sure why 13.6.1 (security patches back-ported) wasn't an option). However, afaik, nobody at work has run into this issue (possibly everyone had the ProMotion refresh rate?).

Biden's facing the clock to veto Apple Watch import ban after ITC patent ruling

Re: Its just someone wanting a slice of the action

I agree that is how patents are supposed to work. I don't agree that that necessarily leads to Apple doing something wrong.

At least in the US, a TON of (most?) patents should never have been issued (existing prior art, obvious to anyone working in the industry, etc). I don't know enough about Masimo's patents to say if that is the case here or not.

It took seven years but over-40s fired by HP win $18m settlement

Re: What's the logic here?

Common legal tactic (in the US at least). Agree to a settlement without admitting guilt (or, in this case, still claiming innocence). There is now the legal fiction that you weren't guilty of anything (if you weren't convicted in court, it didn't happen).

Re: Forget the legalities a minute

You're forgetting that "long-term planning" at US companies is now a MAXIMUM of 2 years. The older workers tend to be more highly paid so, if we replace them with new grads with little or no experience, the permanent (capital?) expenditures go down on the stock report so the stock price goes up... in the short-term until the move causes tons of problems for the company down the road (by which point there's a fair chance that the C-suite has already switched out (and the high-mid managers may have moved on as well)).

Stupid stuff like this happens ALL THE TIME at big US corporations...

Re: Fair, adequate and reasonable

The US is a representative democracy which means (in the way it is implemented in the US) the voters really don't have significant say in a lot of things - the elected officials have all the say. The only say the voters have is in who they elect. Compound that with the way the US media works (it's amazing how low the bar is to be considered "news") and the US has a mess created by the 1% (really it's more like the 0.1%).

USENET, the OG social network, rises again like a text-only phoenix

Nope. I used USENET up until Comcast dropped it a long time ago (10+ years iirc). At the time, I did spend a little bit of time looking around for an alternative but couldn't find anything that didn't cost more than I thought it was worth.

Zoom CEO reportedly tells staff: Workers can't build trust or collaborate... on Zoom

Re: Just... Wow

MS Teams is never the answer regardless of the question. We primarily use Zoom and Slack at work and, while they could be better, at least not everyone tries to avoid them if at all possible (which is what happens with Teams).

Microsoft’s Azure mishap betrays an industry blind to a big problem

Re: rm -r *

AIX was a very weird Unix version but it did do some things very, very well.

Healthcare org with over 100 clinics uses OpenAI's GPT-4 to write medical records

Good luck successfully suing a doctor for malpractice. I've recently been talking to a few friends in the medical and legal fields. In a lot of states, it's very hard to win a malpractice case for anything except the worst gross negligence.

Ford seeks patent for cars that ditch you if payments missed

Re: Ah.

I don't understand why auto makers allow dealers to do pre-sale modifications with third-party kit. It seems like it's just asking for issues and tarnishing the brand due to problems.

My current potential issue (that thankfully hasn't been an issue) is I bought an Audi with a Stasis chip (conservatively modified engine chip). Stasis was an official Audi partner. The chip was sent direct to Statis for reprogramming before I ever took receipt of the car. Stasis went under and, per Audi, if I have a problem with the engine chip, it is NOT covered by warranty -- even though I bought it through the dealer with Audi's official partner and the dealer stressed that it had the exact same warranty. I'm sorry but, at that point, it is an Audi problem (fortunately I haven't had an issue with the chip since Stasis went under so I haven't had to argue over it).

Re: Don't suppose the patent covers...

I don't really understand these back-cronyms for FORD - they've been around 40ish years and have never been accurate. FORD is (and has usually been) above average reliability and dependability.

Creator of Linux virtual assistant blames 'patent troll' for project's death

Re: Never do hardware development on Kickstarter

If you think Kickstarter is bad, try Indiegogo. Indiegogo directly promoted a project that was later proven to be a scam (took backers for iirc about $2m) and washed their hands of it and said they had no responsibility. I really don't understand how it was legal that they directly promoted the campaign and were still able to walk away (with their fee in hand).

US commerce bosses view EU rules as threat to its clouds

Per a couple of summaries of the US Cloud Act, it (this quote from Wikipedia) "provides mechanisms for the companies or the courts to reject or challenge these if they believe the request violates the privacy rights of the foreign country the data is stored in". So, it should be compatible with GDPR provided the cloud providers agree that any request about EU citizens is a violation (and will refuse to honor).

Re: Oh noes! So we may have to get our own cloud services up and running...

I certainly think companies can compete with US companies. However, AWS has 15+ (20+?) years head start. Even the other US cloud providers have inferior products. It would take a *MASSIVE* infusion of money for an EU provider to offer a service comparable to AWS.

Re: "ensure that non-EU suppliers cannot access the EU market on an equal footing"

I'm not following these arguments. By default, this may be the case (no idea). However, it is absolutely possible to set the cloud storage up in such a way that the data can't be provided (an encrypted copy of the data could be provided but that's not usable).

Wells Fargo, Zelle slammed by Liz Warren over rampant online banking fraud

Interestingly, Chase just started classifying Zelle (and Venmo) transfers as cash advances on their credit cards. They gave zero notice of this change in policy but are issuing refunds (once) to people that complain about it.

It's easy to have bank accounts at credit unions. However, the big banks really do have better credit cards (at least in my experience).

Another place it is nearly impossible to actually choose the bank (in the US at least) is mortgages. A huge proportion of mortgages are sold soon after being issued (and you have no control over who they are sold to).

Microsoft leaves the Office, rebrands everything as 365

I used to be locked into Office because I used a lot of Excel sheets with (VBA) macros. I never understood why nothing else (including MS Office for Mac) supported (Windows) Excel macros.

At work, I'm now forced to use GSuite and am actually quite happy with it except some places where they decided to keep Excel behavior (where it was particularly boneheaded like merged cells) rather than actually implementing it in a useful fashion.

Rather than take the L, Amazon sues state that dared criticize warehouse safety

Re: Key question

They are since the horrible Citizens United ruling.

Originally corporations were "people" only for the purposes of lawsuits (prior to that, you had to file suit against individuals and the leaders/owners could all point fingers at each other making it virtually impossible to prosecute). Then Citizens United decided that corporations are people for all legal purposes (but especially for giving massive amounts of bribes ^W campaign contributions to politicians).

You've heard of the cost-of-living crisis, now get ready for the cost-of-working crisis

I'm baffled by the article mentioning return to office to "boost productivity". Multiple studies came out over the last few years showing that wfh is MORE productive than working from the office.

The crime against humanity that is the modern OS desktop, and how to kill it

Re: Agree and disagree

Who has to search through menus? Just set up the start menu in a way that works for you. I rarely have to go more than 2 levels deep and almost never have a menu that needs to scroll. I use Start11 on Windows 10 to get the Windows 7 start menu back.

Re: windows 11 makes me cry

I would disagree. I like MacOS (except no focus-follows-mouse). From what I've seen and read, I do not like Windows 11 (I've kept telling MS "no, I want to stay on Windows 10").

However, I need a new personal computer before too long so may be stuck with Windows 11 :(

Microsoft: You own the best software keyboard there is. Please let us buy it

I have an iPhone but just found that SwiftKey is available. I may give it a try. Apparently Swype was available but got pulled when it was discontinued (so can't buy it since I didn't before)...

Generally I think iPhone autocorrect and predictions are pretty decent except for two issues that massively bug me:

* It almost always uses "ate" when I want "are"

* It almost always uses negative contractions when I want the positive ("couldn't" vs "could")

Patch now: RCE Spring4shell hits Java Spring framework

Guess that's a benefit of keeping printers for a long time. I have an HP but it is not on the list of affected devices.

Running Windows 10? Microsoft is preparing to fire up the update engines

For start menu, I highly recommend Start 11 from Stardock. It's very cusomizable (I use modified Windows 7 Style as I *REALLY* never understood the purpose of the later changes).

Waterfox: A Firefox fork that could teach Mozilla a lesson

XUL and single process were both security risks and there was good reason to abandon those models. Yes, I hated losing some of the addons with XUL but I got over it...

In unrelated weirdness, I have Chrome and Edge setup nearly identically with the same extensions. However, Edge runs GMail noticeably faster than Chrome does...

I still do run Firefox as well. I use each for different things.

ExpressVPN bought for $1bn by Brit biz with an intriguing history in adware

Well, I really hope this is on the up-and-up. My ExpressVPN annual subscription literally renewed 1-2 weeks ago...

Machine learning data pipeline outfit Splice Machine files for insolvency

Re: ???

I don't know about recently. Around 5 years ago, they offered a layer on top of Hadoop that added SQL (and iirc ACID) support. Based on the article and what I know, it seems like they offered a variety of products related to big data.

Water's wet, the Pope's Catholic, and iOS is designed to stop folk switching to Android, Epic trial judge told

Re: Pot calling Kettle

MMOs like WoW have a different sort of lock-in. They make minimal money off the software itself. They make all of their money off subscriptions (or sometimes in-game-store transactions).

Most music on iTunes is now DRM free. I do have some tracks that are stuck with DRM because Apple only let you "upgrade" from DRM to DRM free for a limited time (there are workarounds - easiest is subscribe to one of Apple's music-related services for 1 month at about $10-15 which allows you to download DRM free).