Posts by Teiwaz

Microsoft unbundling Teams is to appease regulators, not give customers a better deal

More like a case of an abusive ex partner given a restraining order choses to hover 24/7 just outside the orders range in order to intimidate even more.

German state ditches Windows, Microsoft Office for Linux and LibreOffice

Re: It wont be technical issues which sink this

<quote>I'm amazed that the NHS hasn't, considering their size</quote>

I'm not, not knowing the senior management of the country is busy trying to sell it off to other corporations, seems perfectly logical for them to be encouraging NHS management to stay on a corporate teat.

No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her

Re: Now the SEC, and FTC have a taste of their own corruption

Judging by the mess these agenda driven school board nominees have pushed across many locations in the US, I think it's clear by now, competence needs to be looked at.

Indeed competence seems to be valued less and less in those who stand for election across not just the US, but many other democratically run countries.

The Post Office systems scandal demands a critical response

The issue of Horizon having bugs isn't the central issue. It's why Post Office investigations didn't question that so many Post Masters were suddenly committing fraud after a new system was introduced and just ran with the assumption the company was being defrauded and launched persecution after prosecution (not a typo, since PO mangers have been heard describing at least one former Post Master as a nasty person, despite being exonerated).

Doom turns 30, so its creators celebrate seminal first-person shooter’s contribution to IT careers

Last time I played Doom, I got motion sick, which I never got back when I played originally. I put it down to my age or the low resolution graphics of pixelated walls sliding by, but probably a combination of both.

I could barely play a level at a time last time I felt nostalgic to dig it out.

UK government denies China/Russia nuke plant hack claim

The government oblivious

digital Britain? With them in charge, we'd be safer with analogue.

12-year-old revives Unity desktop, develops software repo client, builds gaming environment for Ubuntu...

Re: What is there to say?

No. What the poster said was not assuming his/her ways were right and everyone elses wrong.

Merely that the right now view basic morality as 'indoctrination by liberals'

The worst atrocities were always perpetrated by those that assumed they were right and everyone else was evil. And that mindset is firmly with the right at the moment.

Fortnite banana can appear in court naked says judge in Epic vs Apple legal footnote

at the risk of being considered confused and failing to make any sense..

Salad is considered dressed when slathered in oil or somesuch.

Try that excuse buck naked and oiled up on the street though....

...oiled up like a wet banana...

84-year-old fined €250,000 for keeping Nazi war machines – including tank – in basement

Re: Most Brits have a fair idea of Germany before, during and after WW2.

Yep.

My recollection from the GCSE from the late 1980's (1988 - first GCSE year) was that what you learnt was very dependant on what modules the school/teacher decided to study.

History, in my region, the two modules were German History 1918 to 1939 and the History of Energy (History of Medicine was another option). Similar to in English lit. we were started out on Animal Farm as one of the texts, but we got switched to something 'easier' as the class as a whole struggled.

UK data watchdog sees its approach to government health tech during COVID-19 outbreak as 'pragmatic'

Re: "pragmatic"

Ask the Mail, it seems to be dogging her (not in the slang meaning).

the Mail? I wouldn't be so sure with that rag.

Windows 11: What we like and don't like about Microsoft's operating system so far

Re: Bells and broken whistle

Windows 95 style menus were crisper and faster to navigate.

I recall using Windows prior to the millenium where the menu could open and the verbose unsorted application menu covered almost the entire screen.

Audacity users stick the knife – and fork – in to strip audio editor of unwanted features

Re: Bodacious

Just riffing off that....

Bodasity?

Bodaudia

Bodaudio

Audilicious

Audiliciousity

UK gains 'adequacy' status on data sharing with EU, but making that stick all depends on how much post-Brexit law diverges

I give it less than three months

Before adequacy threatens to become inadequate.

UK tells UN that nation-states should retaliate against cyber badness with no warning

Danger precedent for Britain to be encouraging right now

"Any decision to resort to countermeasures without prior notice must be necessary and proportionate to the purpose of inducing compliance in the circumstances,"

If that mindset gets adopted globally over breaches in trade deals or other agreements...

Tiananmen Square Tank Man vanishes from Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo, other search engines – even in America

Re: Bing? Does that still exist?

Both the companies backing these services seem equally loatheble to me.

Bing seems to throw up slightly less porn on image searches than Google.

However, since I search with filters off on both, I regard Bing as being the least honest.

How much would you pay me to develop a COVID tracking app that actually works? Ah, thought so: nothing

Re: Tea....

Was that an actual "influencer" doing that video? Because I found her annoying to listen to for more than a few seconds.

'influencer' is still an 'influencer' even if the only influence they might have is to not watch anything else by them.

Still an overrated label, but I think the only people that get excited about it is advertisers.

Lockdown

You're probably not the only one...to feel they have failed to 'reinvent yourself' during the lockdown.

I have a feeling lockdown inferiority syndrome is only going to grow.

Personally, I failed to do much more than watch cat vids on youtube (mostly).

Man paralyzed from neck down uses AI brain implants to write out text messages

Re: The future

"Ono-Sendai corp"...sounds exciting and cyber-punky, can't wait.

But, in reality, if it's Google, they'll drop the project and leave you with useless junk in your head, Facebook, and they'll spam you and everyone you've ever known, Microsoft and an update one day will turn you into a vegetable or wipe half your memories.

File this next to Mars bars under 'things that should not be deep-fried': Marks & Spencer's Colin the Caterpillar

"Scottish" tat that normal Scottish people don't buy.

Oooh!

Do they have 'little drummer girl in a plastic tube?

Vietnam reveals state-run Alibaba-and-Amazon alternative, aims it at the EU

Re: Very Interesting

yet does everything it can to block free trade with a democratic ex-partner

It's only a wonder the Vietnamese weren't battering on the UKs door for a trade agreement, seeing how world beating we are...

The EU is doing nothing to block trade with the UK other than apply 3rd Country rules (which we voted for in leaving the EU and Customs Union). Doesn't seem that much of a slowdown on EU imports to UK, so they are trading with us.

How to ensure your tech predictions catch on in a flash? Do the mash

You may remember...

....the scary (and sexy) TV series U.F.O. with awe; the theme music less so.

I didn't catch the first run (born early 70's), but I recall catching one episode on rerun and the intro music when I was small, and the music made an impression much more than the episode (I think it might have been 'the Dalotec affair'). It wasn't until the release of Power Themes '90 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjaAiwro-og) that it came to my attention again. UFO never got as much exposure as Space 1999. Which apparently annoyed Gerry Anderson, as he lost the rights to Space 1999 to Sylvia in the divorce.

Twitter nukes AI-generated twits who backed Amazon and pushed anti-union rhetoric

Re: Bezos

Well, Bezos is no Hank Scorpio.

IBM creates a COBOL compiler – for Linux on x86

Re: COBOL

Yep, could do with a make-over to modernise it a little, just for presentation.

not all in caps (all in caps looks so retro, and not in a good way).

separate the Divisions into separate files (would look better, maybe a little more awkward to edit, maybe though)

Still nothing quite so logical and readable as COBOL.

Shedding the 'bleeding edge' label: If Fedora is only going to be for personal use, that doesn't work for Red Hat

Re: s/Red Hat/IBM/g

There is CentOS Stream now.

IBM/Red Hat might start to think Fedora excess to requirements.

Why sponsor two Beta Red Hat distros when they could concentrate on one to funnel users toward a paying licence.

Being asked to rate fake news may help stop social media users sharing it, study finds

Re: Fine until...

People will start to rate messages from bbc.co.uk, .police.uk and .gov.uk as fake news.

Well, to be fair, the latter one has been getting less accurate since the early eighties, the middle one has been iffy on and off and the former isn't what it once was either.

The stench of progress: Sweat may power your personal tech in the not-so-distant future

Sooo

How soon before our technology thrives on our salty tears?

.....and, erm, other fluids and secretions.

I don't expect we can ever expect earbuds that power themselves by havesting excess earwax buildup?

Huge if true: If you show people articles saying that Firefox is faster than Chrome, they'll believe it

If you say the same thing over and over again

people will eventually assume it's true.

I have doubts Firefox can make their message as ubiquitous as Google can though

Another Windows 10 patch that breaks printers ups ante to full-on Blue Screen of Death

This is rather roundabout

apple would have just come out and declared printers were old tech and announced they were discontinuing support.

What happens when cancel culture meets Adolf Hitler pareidolia? Amazon decides it needs a new app icon

Re: I guess sometimes you just can't win.

While not entirely in disagreement with your sentiment.

Corporations generally pay a lot for logo designs, in the hope that it gives a positive message and not a negative one.

A logo that looks, however vaguely like a possible Hitler emoji would very definitely fall in the latter category.

I'm not surprised they quickly changed it. Clearly they didn't check how it would be perceived by the public.

Palantir and UK policy: Public health, public IT, and – say it with me – open public contracts

Re: Home Office's dream of a State ID Card would be a reality

In N.I. you have to present an I.D. at the Ballot station.

Been that way as long as I've been a voter. Quite used to it, seemed odd that it's never been asked for since i moved island, still carry my drivers in every time I go to vote now out of habit.

The laptop you bought in 2020 may stop you buying a car in 2021: Chips are going short

Re: New British Chip Factory

Pickled Onion flavor Monster Munch and "Wor-c[h]ester-shire sauce" Crisps.

Yep,doubt the American palette would appreciate them

Used to be able to get 'Barry McGuigan' Nettle flavour crisps in Northern Ireland in the early 80's.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to step down this summer, AWS boss Andy Jassy to step up

Re: Bezos Earth Fund

Is that his plan to rename Terra ?

or Amazon Planet Services.

Europe considers making it law that your boss can’t bug you outside of office hours

'Boss can't Bug you out of office hours'

I was thinking of 'bug' as in hidden survielence, and thought, "Wow, employers during these Covid-19 work from home times are really paranoid about their people slacking off during the day".

Pirate Bay co-founder criticises Parler for its lack of resilience

If the politicians / media keep pushing their current agenda we are going to end up i' a very, very bad place.

Perhaps not in a worse place than if mis-information, lunatic conspiracy rabble rousing and hate-mongering is allowed to fester though.

Leave.EU takes back control – and shifts its domain name to be inside the European Union

But why?

The UK has left. I really can't see the Business case for any continued need for it.

Apart from perhaps to field any complaints from those dissatisfied with the end result..

Failed insurrection aside, Biden is going to be president in two weeks. What does it mean for tech policy?

Re: Democracy

the BBC was feeding its citizens line after line of BS

You were getting the hang of the country well then. Complaining about the BBCs biases comes from all the political spectrum usually.

OpenAI touts a new flavour of GPT-3 that can automatically create made-up images to go along with any text description

Is there actually a point to humans anymore?

From the perspective of the vastness of the Universe, there may well have never been a point in the first place..

Cyberpunk 2077: There's a great game within screaming to get out, but sadly it was released 57 years too early

Re: Forget the bugs for a second...

Its based on a 1980's pen and paper RPG. That's the aesthetic they were going for. Which they seemed to do quite well,

I remember those, they played as well as the most unstable member of the group allowed.

Sounds like they've attempted to catch the feel by including bugs and general jankiness.

PSA: The 2020 monolith is a dead meme. You can stop putting them up now. Please

Re: Three weeks of madness left

I wonder what the final count of monoliths will be at the end of 2020? Double digits?

I was kind of hoping monoliths would stick around 'til 2024 and stand for President.

It'll be a heck of a lot easier to un-install from the Whitehouse in 2028 or 2032 than the recent incumbent.

'We've heard the feedback...' Microsoft 365 axes per-user productivity monitoring after privacy backlash

Re: Half baked

Half baked is a very generous appraisal.

Barely warmed up, marinated overnight in cat wee and then strained through really old socks.

...Seems more accurate.

GitHub warns devs face ban if they fork DMCA'd YouTube download tool... while hinting how to beat the RIAA

test cases from the code that downloaded specific copyrighted music tracks, such as Taylor Swift's Shake It Off

Whoever thought that was a good idea. It's like leaving a note in a box of new kitchen knives suggesting a good test use would be to carve up your neighbours.

Google reCAPTCHA service under the microscope: Questions raised over privacy promises, cookie use

Re: Helping Google

> What the hell is a cross walk?

I assume it's one of those New York cultural gags, where someone goes 'I'm Walking here!' in an annoyed voice.

Return of the flying car, just when we all need to escape

Roll on 5G, I say

We'll be looking at barely a quarter coverage before something else, such as 6G will be touted, and it'll start over again.

AMD claims high-end Big Navi Radeon GPUs leave Nvidia's ray-tracing cards in the dust

Re: That's not a very high bar...

GTX 1080. They've had plenty of time to iron out the issues.

But then, they're probably itching to terminate support

That's not a very high bar...

Got to be better than my Desktop experience with Nvidia.

After several years, Wayland is still unreachable, the Plasma desktop is flitchy as hell.

Really a step back from my last build, despite a discrete graphics card this build vs. an onboard chip on last (AMD), and it was pre-amdgpu driver.

Trump's official campaign website vandalized by hackers who 'had enough of the President's fake news'

Though to be honest, pretty much anything can seem legit these days. It's sometimes hard to tell fact from fiction anymore.

It all seems fiction to me these days.

From the lightest of political spins to the grossest outright lies of corporate marketeers.

We're swimming in an excess of fallacy.

'This was bigger than GNOME and bigger than just this case.' GNOME Foundation exec director talks patent trolls and much, much more

Re: GNOME Shell

For multiple displays.

On Linux, a Tiling Window Manager is the only sane answer.

Congrats, Meg Whitman, another multi-billion-dollar write-off for the CV: Her web vid upstart Quibi implodes

Re: Kardasians

Only 'possibly'?

I'd rather have a molar donated to the Bureau of Identification than watch vapid reality types for even just the ten minutes.

GSM gateways: Parliament obviously cocked up, so let minister issue 'ignore the law' decree, UK.gov barrister urges court

Re: Here's a thought

The cabinet is already a hub of gets.

It's that time of the year when Apple convinces you last year's iPhones weren't quite magical enough, so buy this new 5G iPhone 12 instead

Re: Yawn, same as the all the others but faster

Apple might end up having to support the system or else face backlash for leaving users with an obsekeye big dumb screen.

Well, it'd be like apple to insist on selling it's users a big dumb screen that only connects with apple products they've ordained for the purpose.

Ideally, a big dumb screen should outlive a fair bit of more transient kit, provided the connectors are still in use.

I've often thought, even though we have lots more screens around us than a couple of years ago, mostly they're not helpful. Sitting on the sofa in front of a 'smart' telly with a 'smart' phone in hand, it's not smart enough to allow you to cast what you are doing on the phone onto the nice convenient big screen, or when at a desk or table with a laptop or desktop, utilise the smartphone as an additional control, input device or monitor.