Posts by swschrad

This PDP-11/70 was due to predict an election outcome – but no one could predict it falling over

Re: Performance Upgrade

$200,000 to launch. oh, you want the astronauts back? $500,000.

There's something fishy going down in the computer lab

I was more circumspect

I only changed all the MOTD-ish comments of the terminal software for the PCs on copies, not the master disk.

A Register reader turns the computer room into a socialist paradise

fixing the format C:/ issue

we had a lab, too, and the students were supposed to format a floppy early in their ways. every day, at lease one hard disk would be formatted. so I got Norton out and finagled the format command, so that it asked which disk. but only allowed A: and B:

eventually the instructor came around in a huff and asked why.

things improved a lot after that. and I didn't even get in much trouble. saved a LOT of 2-hour reloads, especially with Lotus on there.

You gotta be kitten me: Pakistan politicos feline silly after filter farce hits purrrfect conference

cat-ch it if you can

and speaking of can, this is probably why legislation looks like a week-old litter box.

It's May 2. Know what that means? Yep, it's the PR orgy that is World Password Day... again

password managers? on hard drives?

every time I've installed a password manager, the hard drive on that machine has died within months. no more.

Wells Fargo? Well fscked at the moment: Data center up in smoke, bank website, app down

Re: The BOFH Strikes Again

Halon has not been manufactured for years, greenhouse gas, you know. Nitrogen and CO2 are in vogue. all of which will still have to be ventilated before the pocket-protector brigade can go in and try to bring the center up one power cord at a time.

US states join watchdog probing CenturyLink's Xmas data center outage that screwed 911 system

of course, the FCC shuts down tomorrow...

thanks to a little "mine is bigger" argument between two branches of government, some 15 agencies of the US government are in the process of closing due to no budget. the FCC is basically shutting down everything except oversight of life safety and the sale of spectrum.

Techie basks in praise for restoring workforce email (by stopping his scripting sh!tshow)

also, pick your log disk carefully

several decades ago, almost four, I had to break a disk cluster on a VMS system. this is a job to beware. but it needed to be done to advance reliability. so, since there were more users than space on any single disk, had to divide them. didn't work well to split halfway down the first letter of last names, so I had to count instances and fork them left and right. test went fine. so one night, kicked off the script.

first AM when users started logging in, they couldn't. I couldn't remotely. so I used the admin credentials.

logging went to the system disk because, space.

until there was none.

deleted the log, drove in, job done, lesson learned. should have flipped the logging over the VAXcluster to another machine. learn, grasshoppers.

Eye eye! AI could stop blindness, Facebook's after math, and how to get started in the ML biz

AI? ewww

can I just use it until I need glasses?

Microsoft Azure: It's getting hot in here, so shut down all your cores

how Big Cooling works

it is highly likely that there is a big-ass installation of cooling water assemblies outside to dump the center heat. I humbly suggest that San Antonio also being nicely warm, the filters inside before the actual air conditioning chillers are slathered with algae, having cleaned them before in other places. guys, stagger your maintenance so they don't all clog at the same time, ok?

Spies still super upset they can't get at your encrypted comms data

Re: Tide, stop coming in!

too much snooping, too deep, and that's what happens, buttercup. you made the mess yourselves.

IBM bans all removable storage, for all staff, everywhere

so, no tape backups? no HDA replacements?..

after all, this is what service and maintenence IBMers do for customer sites, and they ARE removeable storage....

Capacitor maker zapped with price-fixing charge

no pun, no point

leadless comments are not a component of this dialogue. please respecify.

they're gotten othere before in this scheme

RTFA

this is the pun zone, pal

there is a mutual electrostatic rejection for straight charges here.

Re: Unfarad Business Practices

they coulomb understand that somebody would eventually shift polarity to protect the family joules. their resistance is futile. the EMF has them by the terminals.

'Your computer has a virus' cold call con artists on the rise – Microsoft

one of those schmucks woke me at 4 am for this

probably sent the weasel off on a curry break, for I railed at him with the knob at 11. or 12.

Prez Trump's $60bn China tariff plan to hit tech, communications, aerospace industries

Wisconsin can probably kiss Foxconn goodbye

multi-billion dollar LCD plant was going to be built in wisconsin. multi-million giveaway by the state to land them. well, I have my doubts that it will happen now.

Rogue IT admin goes off the rails, shuts down Canadian train switches

Hmmm, I wonder...

I wonder if this is the same guy who got FBIed for selling RFU Sunservers from our outift on eBay. If so, how'd CP hire him? If not, never mind, nothing to see here, keep moving. I expect he's got a career path at night drive-up manager at White Castle in the underprivileged area...

FBI tells Jo(e) Sixpack to become an expert in IoT security

next, The Ultimate Solution....

"Hi, we're the FBI. You can't manage your network, so we will do it for you. No problem."

Archive of 1.4 billion credentials in clear text found in dark web archive

I suggest the World Universal Password

which would be asswordP. they'll never guess. for servers, the combination admin/fired should work. let 'em guess THOSE....

Whew... Toshiba rustles up $5.4bn to avoid delisting

I have an even more pungent question

who in their right (corporate) mind would even consider buying Westinghouse Nuclear? no projects, bad purchases of incompetent contractors, a definite stink about them. the A1000 is under question, and the Chinese have a clone of the process underway, and the prospect of underbidding everybody. just because something is up for sale does not mean it's worth taking.

Fat-fingered Level 3 techie reduces internet to level zero: Glitch knocks out connections

major pain in ass, and you have to stay on top of it

it's not diversity if you are not reviewing the paths, offices, and facilities yourself.

and every time a maintenance announcement hits the mailbox.

costs a ton more.

but if you must have uptime, it's worth it.

Sprint, T-Mobile US's on-again off-again merger talks are now off

probably whose name and staff would survive

there was a rumor about that the week before the deal crashed, that ultimate control over the merged company was a sticking point. both SoftBank and T can't imagine backing off, right?

Amazing! Is WDC giving in to Tosh pressure?

WD, sell out

sell your share, get a supply contract for chips, run like a rabbit. keep your money, keep your sanity. and look for a second source because Toshiba is falling down the Westinghouse rathole.

Alert: AT&T customers with Arris modems at risk of remote hacking, claim infosec bods

gaping holes for remote ATT service, no doubt

as in "upgrade firmware," "let me check your credentials," and "your printer is jamming the network, try turning it off and see if you can surf."

No chips for you! Toshiba takes flash off the menu for WDC

not going to matter soon

as Toshiba is so hung out to dry that bankruptcy is likely.

Why do you cry when chopping onions? No, it's not crippling anxiety, it's this weird chemical

and rub hands on the sink afterwards

only thing worse is wiping your eyes after cutting onions, and they burn right out of your skull.

however, run a little water over the stainless steel sink, and rub your hands on it. apparently the nickel breaks the compound up.

Sputtering bit-blasters! IBM's just claimed densest tape ever record

wow, write-only memory has come a long way!

now you can write-only ten times more data than the world has on one reel!

Creditors urge Toshiba to consider bankruptcy – reports

what is Japan's equivalent of Chapter 7?

because with obligations like Toshiba's, once they are in the court, liquidation starts to become a real option for the creditors. in the US, three major creditors can flip a reorganization plan into the trash and start liquidation hearings.

Broadcasters, advocacy groups and nonprofits weigh in on Microsoft's magical broadband

2 meg, eh? that's a godsend (heh heh)

2 meg will get you on The Reg in about a minute and a half. similar money will get you higher power wifi, direct-link microwave or lightwave, lots of options. lots of power poles out there in Tumbleweed Corners to hang things on.

Oh my Tosh: Western Digital takes Toshiba to arbitration

assets are cheaper in Chapter 7

which is probably where Toshiba will end up at this rate. years of cooked books, nuke business meltdown (not the nukes, the business, due to brain-dead money tossing), and top-floor chasing after the next big thing that wasn't. even if they'd stayed with 50-inch TVs they couldn't mess up this badly.

they want to. they have a bid in.

unfortunately, it appears to be a bid based on fair market value, which makes it the lowest of the 4 or 5 reached in the first round.

Beaten passenger, check. Dead giant rabbit, check. Now United loses cockpit door codes

try 1234

and thank you for flying the >bang<

US spymasters trash Kaspersky: AV tools can't be trusted, we've stuck a probe in them

don't be, Kaspersky is top-shelf security

better than the holes and backdoors in your computer and OS. I just dumped the slop on my wife's machine and bought a nice new install of Kaspersky for it. I've had 7 packages over the years. Kaspersky doesn't bug me until it needs to, and it blocks ad weasels with dodgy certificates as well as the occasional accidental click on bad stuff.

Boffins reveal how to pour a perfect glass of wine with no drips. First step, take a diamond...

oh, for crap's sake, roll the bottle

why gouge the bottle and risk dropping a sparkly thing inside, amateurs and professionals alike have rolled the bottle a quarter-turn for multiple generations. no drips. these guys never caught on???

Gift cards or the iPhone gets it: Hackers threaten Apple with millions of remote wipes

where did you get a good browser for that Imsai of yours?

cause I could use one for my 1802

back the phone up early and often

and I see where glitches when upgrading to the next version of iOS can blow your data away, so, dittos

Why are creepy SS7 cellphone spying flaws still unfixed after years, ask Congresscritters

customer data does not hit SS7

the system only controls call set-up/teardown/billing. no user traffic ever hits SS7. the Kazaks can't get bank information from it because there is none in it. SS7 spits a bill stream to a telco's other systems to generate billing, it is not resident in SS7. I'm not going further.

uh, SS7 connects everything... VoIP, landline, cell, 911...

the core switching/billing protocol for all voice set-up/teardown/billing control is Signalling System 7. not just cell. if a call connects to anything public, on whatever mode, it hits SS7. the whole voice system worldwide is interconnected by SS7. VoIP has to gateway through it. cell. 911 calls. this is why you don't get a picture of a SS7 server. the security breach is going to be somebody's telco, probably some country like East Freaking Nowhereistan. the voice doesn't touch it, only the setup/teardown/billing. which in itself is data you don't want on the darknet.

Kaspersky launches a range of perfumes to, er, defend your odour

uh, folks, you DO realize it's a marketing stunt, right?

I doubt this is going to the counter at Macy's or Walgreens. although, maybe Fry's....

AWS's S3 outage was so bad Amazon couldn't get into its own dashboard to warn the world

eh, feller, nukes kill op-amps. get off my lawn!

while tubes, on the other hand, will just keep on working.

You're Donald Trump's sysadmin. You've got data leaks coming out the *ss. What to do

or, don't be a dick, so folks don't try to undermine you

but that hardly applies to the Really White House, does it?

Explain! yourself! US! senators! yell! at! Yahoo!

Presidente Grandissimo El Chumpo likes waterboarding...

so, hey, new reality show! Executive Producers Moran and Trump... "Making Yahooligans Talk."

more like "you pay us $5 billion to take you over."

Yahoo! is a mystery floating thing in the punch bowl.

I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the API key

uh, you never saw front plates, then, have you?

the load of ag tools often makes it next to impossible to start from a dead stop without flipping the machine backwards. hence, for a century, front plates to put extra weight on the front axle. this keeps the tractor on all fours, and when you gear down and start flooding in the diesel fuel, those big lug tires will actually turn. forget to raise the blades once without front plates, ass over teakettle. with them, you either go, spin a new ditch, or stall out. all safer alternatives.

soil sensors and mapping pests saves chemicals, too

and we all know how costly and dangerous farm chemicals can be. "apply to label" can be wasting and overusing them in much of a field. if the soggy sector pushes up more weeds, that's where you need to spot the label amount.

you missed the point in the middle

that they need to use proprietary buzzwords as the ISO standardized ones are not approved yet.

we'll always have GPS

it's really interesting to watch a smart tractor cutting perfect, PERFECT, rows with 12 plow bottoms. brother-in-law's place has the usual interesting end of row wiggles, but then after the turn, punch in the GPS, and you can concentrate on looking for obstacles, letting the tractor guidance cut perfect straight parallel furrows.

Ruh-roh! Rick Ruhl rolled out of Ham Radio Deluxe in software kill-switch aftermath

hey, if you're fragile, you test all the time

not like he couldn't afford the test strips. that goes back to basic arrogance.