Posts by b0llchit

Ah, I see you found my PowerShell script called 'SiteReview' – that does not mean what you think it means

Re: Easy way out

Ehm, yes? Isn't that the BOFH way?

Oh wait, you need to add an open window on the high floor towards the parking lot. Then it is pure genius.

Microsoft defends intrusive dialog in Visual Studio Code that asks if you really trust the code you've been working on

Trusting trust, again

Is this what you get when you trust VS Code or is there more? Is there any guarantee that VS Code is not inserting bad code in your projects when you make a build? Are your sure? Have you checked the entire chain of software to make sure? From bios to OS, from compiler to editor and more?

If not, you should read Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust. All these dialogs are treating symptoms. The problem is elsewhere and the complexity does not help. Maybe we should start at reducing the self-inflicted complexity and move forward from there.

Radioactive hybrid terror pigs break out of nuclear hellscape home and into people's hearts

The small population could be a sign of ninja. There could be Teenage Mutant Ninja Camels and that would be devastating indeed.

Re: bovine terror

Do they show glow-in-the-dark milk? And, what is the decay-rate of the chicks and Uzi's?

I'll be waiting for the bovine version so that this nuclear story can be milked a bit more. After a while, we will be pecking on the chickenwingnuts too.

Finally, the corn will pop from the radiated heat and the whole story will decay with a half-life of 13 days and 42 minutes. The result will be a living decay chain along farm lines until the last bacterial species have popped their shells.

Not for children: Audacity fans drop the f-bomb after privacy agreement changes

Re: Strike three

Besides libraries, the main problem of forks is the name. The old name is often trademarked and cannot be used. Said differently, it is the weight and traction the old name carries which needs to be transferred to the fork.

Examples include LibreOffice and MariaDB. The success of these was in large part due to major developer support and adoption by most if not all distributions. That caused the new name to carry weight and put the original (old) name in the shadows.

For a successful audacity fork you will need both a new name and the traction to carry the new name overshadowing the old name.

Strike three

The company has now three times in a row clearly shown a disregard for both users' and developers' interests. I'd conclude from that behavior that the stewards of audacity have no other interests than monetization and appropriation. A fork will probably be the only way out of this mess.

Things that needn't be said: Don't plonk a massive Starlink dish on the hood of your car

Your Mileage May Vary

...not including any fines caused by questionable positioning.

If you have the change to pay for this stuff, then I'd be surprised if you would be too poor to pay a regular fine of such kind. But, when you keep it on the hood, then I guess that YMMV should be taken more literally than usual and can be measured in both monetary and distance units.

Take note, el Reg Units department. Unit expansions and conversions are expected soon.

New mystery AWS product 'Infinidash' goes viral — despite being entirely fictional

Re: To Infinidash --

Please turn off the what-if machine.

IT management biz Kaseya's VSA abused to infect businesses with ransomware

...police seize 3D printers...

Well, they should also seize pen and paper because they are used for writing bad and violent notes by the bad guys. And all those paper planes blinding us when they are colliding with our eyes. It would be good to lock these dangerous materials away from general use.

Next we will all need a weapon license to buy a 3D printer and an extra fee is put on the raw materials. You are only allowed to buy raw materials with the license and the raw materials will be DNA marked with the license ID for tracking purposes. The collected money is for the copyright infractions every owner of a 3D printer surely is making all the time. The license ensures that we will kill each other in a registered and trackable way. This setup will work magic because only criminals will ignore the rules and will therefore be caught.

I'm wondering when someone invents 3D printing explosives for human consumption.

Devilish plans for your next app update ensure they never happen – unless you start praying

The devil's advocate

At least you know that you cannot do anything wrong with the devil. Being "bad" or "good" is a matter of perspective and interpretation. We should all accept the devil's way. When we do, we may get angry without remorse. We may also cause anger, which should no longer be a problem with the ways of the devil. Therefore, a paradoxically peaceful and violent harmony must exist when we all go the devil's way. See, it is the only way.

Amazon: Our carbon footprint went up 19% last year but we grew even more than that, so 'carbon intensity' is down

Re: Big is better (?)

I think we can all agree on that we need to sacrifice such jerks into the nearest volcano...

Please do this with 90+% of the world's population. That solves several problems simultaneously: a) it removes jerks with absolute disregard of nature and lacking any type of common sense, b) overpopulation and too high resource use and c) significant reduction of noise and light pollution.

Next logo design

Amazon is in the talks with several global designers to make a new logo. It is said to support more green colors and uses 45% less ink on the packaging cartons. The ink savings, together with the green color will save an estimated 3% CO2 equivalent on Amazon's account. Sources did mention some export of environmental impact because the carton needs to be pre-treated with some new chemicals for the green ink to stick. This carton treatment will probably be outsourced to the Asian carton production sites with the source trees being imported from Finish and Swedish forests, which should last at least 30 more years.

An Amazon spokesperson told us that they expect to be both CO2 and carton neutral by 2050. "We are always working hard to do our best.". Questions about how much CO2 and equivalents have been outsourced went unanswered.

Record-breaking Kuwaiti heatwave triggers inadvisable TikTok expletive outburst

Thou shalt not...

Well then,

Thou shalt not anthropomorphize the weather, he does not like it. Especially, the Kuwaiti weather shall not be anthropomorphized; he will be coming after you with all the naturally available powers. Also, he will exhibit bad behavior, such as heatwaves, storms and too many extremes. Now, be a good chap and talk nice about your weathery overlord.

Revealed: Why Windows Task Manager took a cuddlier approach to (process) death and destruction

Re: meh

Because it does no longer kill.

Kill and Destroy are known computer paradigms that will perform a specific job with a predetermined success rate. When you alter the paradigm, then you alter the success rate. This is where "what's in a name" actually makes the difference.

Just like garbage collection only works when you are actually working with garbage. Many bits never care about recycling because they do not consider themselves to be garbage. Hence, they stick around. Only a destructive kill would bring them back into the fold.

AWS launches BugBust contest: Help fix a $100m problem for a $12 tshirt

Re: There’s one born every minute

Soon you will have to pay a premium to fix their bugs! No good deed goes unpunished.

No, really, working for money? Are you kidding? Being allowed to write software for Amazon and its affiliates is a privilege for a select group and will come at a premium. Amazon Prime Bugs will soon be going at a rate of hundreds of dollars per symbol fixed. You, the programmer, must pay. This is the new Amazon Fix 'n Pay strategy and will be rolled out throughout the world soon. Remember, dear coder, faster bugfixing will soon come at an even higher premium, just like Prime delivery.

Dell SupportAssist contained RCE flaw allowing miscreants to remotely reflash your BIOS with code of their creation

Re: Just Wow! Say it ain't so!

...renders the hardware crap if you reinstall windows,...

Well then, don't (re)install windows and put something more sane on it. Then all will be fine. You say as much in "Friends don't let friends drive windows while breathing...". Therefore, no need to complain any further, just install The Right^(TM) operating system and be happy ever after.

Petition instructs Jeff Bezos to buy, eat world's most famous painting

Re: A very educational petition

All that money has come from creating value.

That is a euphemism for moving money from the poor to the rich.

It doesn't matter. If he can sell it all for 1% of the valuation, then that be almost two thousand million bucks! Now, with that cash, ignoring interest, he may go and spend at a constant rate of one dollar per second^(*). At that rate he may do so for the next 63 years! Well beyond any estimated time-to-death for that guy.

(*) note that spending 86400 dollars per day is more than a lot of very poor people have in an entire lifetime.

What job title would YOU want carved on your gravestone? 'Beloved father, Slayer of Dragons, Register of Domains'

When sounds do bother...

Here lies Alistair Dabbs - Never to be heard of again.

Cheers! (not you, you're dead, the other alive you)

Toyota reveals its work on an honest-to-goodness cloak of invisibility

Re: A fully functional cloaking device

don't you spell Cling on: r o m u l a n?

And, what happens to prey when the bird is no longer visible?

Stob treks back across the decades to review the greatest TV sci-fi in the light of recent experience

Why can't we have more sci-fi in the real world? Living in the future has two options: 1) we live in harmony, or 2) we are all in agony and soon die a horrible death.

As the HHGTTG already stated, either option is good. Especially when option 2 is acute, we'll soon be free of said agony because of the soon no longer being alive part. Now, take that beer and wait for either.

GPRS-era mobile data encryption algorithm GEA/1 was 'weak by design', still lingers in today's phones

Secure channels inside secure channels

Public infrastructure is never going to be secure. There are too many interests to intercept. Therefore never trust the default "encryption" and use an encrypted tunnel you control. You would not use a telnet session inside an ipsec tunnel. You'd still use ssh. Also, you send pgp email, even though the general smtp links are tls links nowadays.

The examples are all a secure channel inside a supposedly secure channel. The security starts when you are in control.

Bad Apple Safari update breaks IndexedDB JavaScript API, upsets web apps

A sarcastic view may be that Apple has not received a 30% cut of those using the IndexedDB feature. No pay means no game on iPlayStuff.

The problem is that my sarcastic and often pessimistic views (or sometimes paranoid views) are underestimating reality. That is the scary part.

<tong in cheek> <cross fingers> <sacrifice $diety preferred animal>

Deluded medics fail to show Ohio lawmakers that COVID vaccines magnetise patients

It was the 400 THz ... 700 THz spread that made her uncomfortable. However, the spread around 1.2 PHz outside did the real damage and her skin has taken a red tint and is starting to peel. Currently, the 20 THz ... 150 THz range touching the skin are causing serious discomfort.

Realizing this is getting out of hand, Coq mulls new name for programming language

Re: Just call it

That would really piss off the poor sods with one eye and a state of chronic oxygen deprivation. Are you making fun of those poor souls?

yes, yes, my coat...

See, no word or sound is safe from sexual connotations. I rest my case.

Re: Vin

So, you manage to do work on this graph? Can't imagine where on the graph you are when vin and vim become indistinguishable.

...and others getting harassed when they said they were working on Coq

This says more about those doing the harassing than those who work on Coq. There is no word or sound in any language that cannot be (ab)used to have some other meaning. Trying to please the zealots only results in more problems.

Or, we can just agree that one word remains: blank. Then we can have meaningful conversations like this:

Blank blank blank, blank blank. Blank blank blank blank blank blank, blank blank blank, blank blank blank. Blank blank blank blank blank. Blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank. Blank blank blank blank blank blank. Blank, blank blank blank blank blank blank, blank blank blank blank blank blank blank. Blank!

How many references to reproductive organs did you find in that text? <blank>

Ireland warned it could face 'rolling blackouts' if it doesn't address data centres' demand for electricity

Re: Lucky Ireland

And, don't forget, the rolling blackouts will be limited to the private homes and domestic corporations who all pay an energy premium for attracting those foreign data centers. The data centers have, of course, negotiated priority and will be running 24/7/365 regardless.

If this is the truth then I have failed miserably at writing sarcasm. Well, sorry then. The lights will go out automatically with the coat. It is a blackout coat ;-)

'Condolences on the death of your conscience' says card from Indonesian delivery drivers to local Uber clone after payments slashed

Re: Good on them

But the companies get away with it because the consumers take part in the race to the bottom prices.

When you see cab B offering half the cost of cab A, will you be looking at the work conditions for driver B before you use the cheapest one? And then, some of the drivers will accept just about any penny because that is more than nothing. With the company squeezing at one side and the consumers squeezing at the other side, there will be no fair system.

Even regulations cannot prevent grey or black offerings and illegal behavior when the chances are slim to none to get caught by officials and fines are pocket money for the big corporations. The gig-economy is just a new/another form of race to the bottom and we all cheer at the prices without actually looking at the cost. For every rich person you should ask yourself: "who and how many paid dearly for that person's wealth?".

FBI paid renegade developer $180k for backdoored AN0M chat app that brought down drug underworld

Trusting trust

Reflections on Trusting Trust should be mandatory reading for all "criminals"?

Not only software is a problem, but the hardware too. If you want some strong guarantees about the system you are using, then you must make both hardware and software yourself. At the same time, you then cross your fingers that you have not introduced any bugs.

Maybe, using an old typewriter, paper and the post-office is becoming more secure than your computing platforms. I guess you should use some kind of code. But then, OTP has a very long history and is very secure. Oh, yes, the RTT is lower, but that is compensated with the better security.

But in the end, it will be the users who make simple or stupid mistakes that cause them to be caught. That cannot be fixed with any type of technology. Or, can you already get an integrated brain replacement?

It's completely unsupportable. Yes, we mean your brand new system

Small steps

The article points out the very truth of all systems, IT and non-IT. Innovative at small scale is a maintenance problem if done wrong. Innovative at large scale is a maintenance problem if done wrong. Often, only when the innovation becomes general mainstream, then you have established procedures that keep things running and cost down.

The real kicker of problematic is people at a company dictating a specific system and or sub-system. How often I've seen the management level interfering with development and innovation by forcing the use of marginally correct or incompatible pieces. That is the nightmare of maintenance doubled down (and the techies get the blamed for all the problems).

The lesson all should learn is small steps are extremely important in making big systems. Planning not only the functionality of a system but the longevity and maintenance are all integral to the system and take time to make/build and describe/document. And lets not forget planing to handle failures and problems while running.

Thanks, boss. The accidental creation of a lights-out data centre – what a fun surprise

Re: Obligatory quote...

So, why hasn't this 'End-of-the-World Switch' been available?

I am certain many have the urge to press such button, even before it gets painted, with hanging wires and all, me included.

Access denied

The last data-center I was working at had a strict policy of non-interference. That meant, the "Boss" did not have the key to the rooms where both active and passive equipment were located. Only certified people were allowed entrance.

Flying dildo poses a slap in the face for serious political debate

A dick move?

How many remote controls do you really need? Answer: about a bowl-ful

Mother knows best

My mother used to say in the shop "Do you have something with one button? Just one on/off switch?"

Many, many moons ago I did not understand the sentiment and was almost embarrassed. Now, I am proud of her asking and sticking to the simple truth.

And now, today, does this technology of buttons, devices and impossible combinations actually make us happy? I guess that a simple working on/off switch would be a significant improvement.

BOFH: I'm so pleased to be on the call, Boss. No, of course this isn't a recording

...

You can check-out any time you like.

But you can never leave!

European Parliament's data adequacy objection: Doubts cast on UK's commitment to privacy protection

Consequences?

There are no consequences for the government(s) and institutions when they violate our privacy. The laws are just words om paper. Every time we hear about violations of the privacy laws by the government(s) or its institutions we only rarely see a pawn sacrifice. But there are no real consequences for the government(s) and its institutions. That is the real problem. They are immune and can simply continue one or the other way.

Actually, they learned something: That illegal path of action was revealed by a wistle. Lets use a different method next time so we do not get caught this way again. This cat and mouse play will continue forever unless and until real consequences will be put in place.

The common factor in all your failed job applications: Your CV

Different types don't match well

Techies are generally looking at the substance of things. They will look at context and details, broad, wide, narrow, specialized, generalized and then some. It is about content, not about the same thing with a new name, again.

Those who generally read/evaluate a CV are looking at the form of it. They cannot grasp any technical content and do not appreciate the depth and width of knowledge required for someone to be a good techie. Thus, they look at buzzwords and think they can determine the quality of a person by looking at how you format the letters and do not care what is written.

It is a petty that the non-technical type is more prevalent than the technical type. We, the techies, are a suffering minority.

Firefox 89: Can this redesign stem browser's decline?

Re: What does it take...

...to actually get the concept of privacy into people's heads? Anyone?

The fox in Firefox will eat chickens in the house. Unfortunately, most people are just sheep and are not as impressed by a fox.

Maybe Firefox needs to rebrand as Firewolf to eat the dissent and simultaneously rebrand as Firedog to steer the sheep in the right direction.

[I'll go find my coat now, thank you]

Space junk damages International Space Station's robot arm

You mean, those future (alien) archeologists and anthropologists? They already know the result: Mostly harmless.

The irony is that space will become wholly inaccessible to all of us if we do not resolve the space debris problem.

But that irony is not appreciated by humanity. We, as a species, are very busy to pollute and kill the world we live in. Then we go to space and continue the same behavior and pollute the orbit. Luckily we have not yet managed to go very much farther out. But everywhere humanity goes it seems to leave its garbage.

We should start by cleaning our local world and learn to leave no junk before we should be allowed to move anywhere else. Maybe humanity needs some alien foster parents to enforce the rules?

TCP alternative QUIC reaches IETF's Standards Track after eight years of evolution

Everything old is new again. Each generation reinvents the same parts of the same wheel using new vocabulary and a modern color. Next up we'd have computers talking to each other as a new fashion thing.

"Human: Computer, where is my computer? Computer: You have me in your pocket."

AWS Free Tier, where's your spending limit? 'I thought I deleted everything but I have been charged $200'

Old game

Simply reminds me of Hotel California:

"... We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like. But you can never leave!"

My guess is that you should avoid to play in the first place or else you will get burned in one or the other way.

The Audacity: Audio tool finds new and exciting ways to annoy contributors with a Contributor License Agreement

It is all about trust.

MUSECY SM LTD has in its 9 month or so of existence not proven to be trustworthy, Quite contrary, the recent frustrations in the community have shown a significant lack of trust and the company has done/published some very stupid things.

The organizations you mention have a very different history. While I would not contribute to all of them, most I deem trustworthy enough to trust them to uphold the best interest of the software they are the guardians of.

Sounds like he's desperately trying to drive people away from it.

No, he is are trying to appropriate (steal) other people's work without compensation. Then, he can take the code base private and put it on the balance sheet as immaterial property. The last step is to sell other's work for a profit by squandering the company to whoever and cash out.

Ubuntu, Wikimedia jump ship to the Libera Chat IRC network after Freenode channel confiscations

Re: "confiscated by the new freenode management."

Soon they will be on-the-frits-Node. Who wants to be there anymore?

Next releases of the major and minor IRC clients will remove or deprecate the freenode link(s) and replace it with prominent libera links.

Facial recog firm Clearview hit with complaints in France, Austria, Italy, Greece and the UK

Only one bad actor?

Clearview AI told The Reg it "has never had any contracts with any EU customer and is not currently available to EU customers."

Translation: We, Clearview, don't give a fuck about your complaints. You have no contracts with us and you were stupid enough to put something visible on the internet. Now, go away and sob somewhere else.

Ok, but that just covers Clearview. Lets talk about Google and Facebook and Amazon and Microsoft and Apple and all those others, shall we? Every single one of them gives us the same stinky-finger when we want them to leave any of our data alone. All these companies have made a living (and a fortune) from taking other's data. They all should be held accountable and the bosses/leaders should be held personally accountable.

After staff revolt, Freenode management takes over hundreds of IRC channels for 'policy violations'

The policy euphemism

...forbidding "inappropriate advertising"...

Hm. lets see...

Smartass@#chx> We moved to network XYZ

Bzzzt... disconnect. Ok, this is wrong.

Smartass@#chy> We have a secret. You know what we did? We did the same thing as many others and got smart. You know, that smart thing you can do. We all can do it. We can all be smart.

Pling! you see, advertising done appropriately.

Telling someone not to say A makes them say B with the meaning of A and we all know it. Only idiots try to use bad policies to limit expression. When you need such rules, you have already lost control.