Posts by Phil O'Sophical

Datacenters planned for Scotland could end up draining a loch of power

Re: Energy generation mix

Renewables are cheaper than other forms of generation

Not the way that UK energy policy prices them, they aren't.

Poop-peeping toilet attachment has a different definition of 'end-to-end' encryption

Commenturds, shirley?

London grid crunch delays new housing amid datacenter boom

When it comes to housebuilding, planning committees pay little attention to limitations on roads, sewerage, doctors, dentists or any other aspect of infrastructure, despite their grand words. Why should we hope for electricity supply to be the exception?

Dorset Council ditching customized SAP for £14M Oracle overhaul

Re: What the fuck are UK local authorities doing

The people who get themselves elected to councils don't do so because they want to help their local communitty. They do so because they want to show off how clever they are, and how much better they are than anyone else who might have been elected. Ergo, they can't possibly do things the same way as any other council, because then they wouldn't be making a unique difference.

Windows keeps obsolete strings forever to avoid breaking translations

Re: Using 6 words instead of 1

Yes, we had the same issue with asian countries. For software that was to be used by technical people (i.e. not "joe public") the Japanese and Koreans didn't care, they were fine with English.

The French and Canadians, on the other hand,...

Re: Oh FFS -

Presumably you made sure that a 20 character string in English that became a 50 character string in German (gotta love those compound words) didn't break your apps?

That's the difference between:

Internationalization (I18N): Making sure your code can handle translated strings without breaking screen layouts, etc.

and

Localization (L10N): Doing the translations into the desired languages (which may also require updating metadata about position of variable tokens within the strings)

UK digital ID plan gets a price tag at last – £1.8B

Re: System manages to already be broken before implementation starts

It worked OK for me, even allowing for having to switch from laptop to phone and back. It was a faff but it worked.

Cabling survived dungeons and fish factories, until a lazy user took the network down

The BNC was an early VCR connector rather than networking

It long predates VCRs. It's a smaller (Baby) connector derived from the wartime radio "N" connector, for military antenna cables. It's still in wide use today because both the 50ohm and 75ohm variants have constant impedance beyond 1GHz, so are very popular for professional radio installations (as are "N" connectors, for lower-loss applications).

> It was about the size of a garden hose but less flexible.

It had a minimum bend radius of around 25cm, IIRC. Didn't stop people trying to pull it into standard conduits, though...

ARCnet existed before Thinnet.

And woe betide the network admin who didn't throw away every bit of 93Ω ARCnet cable when upgrading to 50Ω 10base2. I spent the best part of a week trying to diagnose a problem between two clustered μVAXen, which would work fine until network traffic reached a certain peak, at which point collision numbers would go through the roof and everything stopped. The problem was eventually traced to a short leftover piece of ARCnet cable in an underfloor duct.

Re: Things that didn't happen

Standing on forks used to be very common. Sometimes they'd put a pallet on the forks, if you were lucky.

Or: https://thekilpatrickgrouppa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/forklift.jpg

FCC sounds alarm after emergency tones turned into potty-mouthed radio takeover

Ah, the joy of in-band signalling. The phone companies learned about that the hard way back in the 60s, haven't radio stations caught up yet?

ICANN distances itself from radical proposal – which it funded – to give nations a role in internet governance

Re: "a board dominated by African heads of state"

Very few European monarchs have any degree of real executive power, for the most part their role is as an impartial guarantor of democratic process.

The current fiasco in the USA is a clear example of how merely having an elected head of state does not provide any safeguarding of democratic process.

Canadian data order risks blowing a hole in EU sovereignty

Re: Hang on

It sounds to me that the problem is that OVHC does have physical access to the data held in France, they're just being told by OVHF not to touch it because of internal sovereignty rules.The Canadian courts are ordering OVHC to reach in and grab it anyway.

One option might be for OVHF to firewall off the Canadian subsidiary's acces, if that can be done quickly and in a way that doesn't break their customers' applications. A big if.

Vibe coding: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing (Sorry, Linus)

Re: Let's take what Dijkstra said with a pinch of salt

I've always felt that the real problem with BASIC is that it lent itself to being (over)simplified, so no two BASICs were the same, especially in the early home computer days when people were trying to cram interpreters into 8K and programs into 2K of memory or less. That certainly made it difficult to learn programming with it, since it was hard to impose style or rules on something so inconsistent. ANSI BASIC, with its decent structural features, isn't a bad language.

That said, there is nothing wrong with GOTO, when used judiciously and with purpose.

I'd agree, although the F77 computed GOTO was never my favourite construction, almost as bad as the Arithmetic IF...

Ukraine first country in Europe to get Starlink satellite phone service

Re: Ukraine to get first...

Why? just Why?

Least worst option at the moment?

Britain plots atomic reboot as datacenter demand surges

Re: it's hard to see how slashing regulations is going to cut down that timeline by much.

Environmental rules are like tax laws. Whenever someone finds a loophole it gets fixed by adding yet more rules, rather than by fixing the existing ones. The result is warts on top of warts that are ever more onerous to cope with, and inevitably add yet more loopholes. The only real solution is to start again, but no government will ever do that.

Self-destructing thumb drive can brick itself and wipe your secret files away

Re: 'Not by accident'

> But do you carry a PC in your pocket to plug it into?

Phone with a USB-C socket?

Re: Ooer!

IIRC FIPS-140 has some interesting details about anti-tamper switches an physical destruction at the more extreme levels of compliance.

Linux admin hated downtime so much he schlepped a live UPS during office move

Re: Those were the innocent days...

Yes 400 days uptime probably means 400 days without a kernel patch. Security? Who needs that on a mail server...

Self-replicating botnet attacks Ray clusters

Re: I just . . . what?

it doesn't have authentication built in. When clusters are exposed to the internet – as they frequently are – this poses a huge security hole

AI, designed and run by Real Idiots.

Cloudflare coughs, half the internet catches a cold

Re: Not an attack or malicious activity?

Probably used an excel .xls spreadsheet, and hit 64k lines.

Windows boss defends 'agentic OS' push as users plead for reliability

Re: The Masses Will Get An Agentic OS And Will Not Complain

here in the UK people voted for the Tories for 14 years

And all they got was 14 more years of New Labour.

Developer battled to write his own documentation, but lost the boss fight

Re: First time user

a compiler where the installation instructions don't match the GUI of the IDE into which it is supposed to be installed

I used to work with a truly excellent QA engineer. Every time she tested a new release of the product, no matter how well she knew it, she would take the documentatioin for that release and follow it exactly. She would then file bugs against the product or documentation as necessary.

Re: The person who writes documentation

In my experience the best way to do that is for the assigned writer to be part of the development team, sitting with the developers and using the product as development proceeds.

Good documentation is like security, it needs to be done with the product, not bolted on afterwards.

Louvre's pathetic passwords belong in a museum, just not that one

Re: lazy stereotypes

Have to admit to imagining response of high ups when been told about security flaws was along the lines of a Gallic shrug & a long drag on a Gauloises.

And the classic French reply of "Bof!" ?

Re: Nothing new

Why bother hacking passwords when you can just shin up a ladder to an open window and grab a few million euros worth of jewellery?

'Vibe coding' named Word of the Year. Developers everywhere faceplant

Re: Having tried vibe coding

I'd encourage you to look at what people did beforehand.

Sound advice for any 21-year-old in any situation.

Don't expect it to be listened to, though.

UK space sector 'lacks strategic direction,' Lords warn

No surprise

It's no surprise that "The UK space sector lacks the strategic direction necessary for success". The whole UK government lacks the strategic direction necessary for success.

You'll never guess what the most common passwords are. Oh, wait, yes you will

Re: How many systems allow unlimited login attempts ?

Limiting login attempts doesn't help when someone has broken into a system and stolen a hashed password file. You can have as many goes as you like to match the hash, and then use the result to login.

Tesla board wants to grant Musk $1T in stock, Norway wealth fund says nope

Re: Hybrid Theory

I wouldn't call a big V8 ugly.

Ministry of Defence's F-35 blunder: £57B and counting

In my experience people don't get MBAs to learn something, they get them because it looks like an easy way to put some extra letters after your name on a CV. As a result it's become so devalued that seeing MBA on a CV is now a negative indicator, except to other MBAs.

Network operator ponders building a new submarine cable – on land

Just needs Lesley Judd to, erm, manipulate it...

From Intel to the infinite, Pat Gelsinger wants Christian AI to change the world

Re: Hold your horses there, Pat

Christian faith specializes in creating fractures and factions that absolutely refuse to work with each other

It's a faith based on the idea that it cannot be proven, if there is proof then it must be false. AI will love that.

And then we'll have the Christian, Moslem and Jewish AIs all launching crusades against one another. Popcorn time.

England's local government shake-up promises to be a massive tech headache

Re: "More than 200 existing councils are likely to be abolished"

<8>decisions will be taken by officials with zero local knowledge.<i/>

Instead of the current situation where they're taken by local officials with an axe to grind and/or a pet project to promote, you mean? Either way, the change won't be for the benefit of the local ratepayers.

Robotic lawnmower uses AI to dodge cats, toys

Re: I really can't see them taking off (at least not in the UK)

Perhaps they couldn't find anyone to grass on the culprits?

Actor couldn’t understand why computer didn’t work when the curtain came down

It's not that scary, at least they said please!

This security hole can crash billions of Chromium browsers, and Google hasn't patched it yet

Re: That's a bummer

if has swap to use

Why on earth is a user-level app like Firefox trying to handle something so low-level itself? Swap is an OS issue, an app should just ask for the memory it needs and rely on the OS to provide it as it sees fit, according to the requirements of the whole system.

Smile! Uncle Sam wants to scan your face on the way in – and out

Re: I'm not planning to visit the United Hell Holes any time soon

I'm saying that the Democrats' alternative had so little credibility that people opted for a confident, arrogant demagogue because it was that or an unimpressive, almost invisible, lightweight. Trump would have stood little chance against (Bill) Clinton or Obama ar their peak.

Sadly, as others have noted, a lot of Americans, and seemingly a lot of American women, won't vote for a woman. That's a different problem, but until it can be solved the workaround is to offer a male candidate. It shouldn't be that way, but you have to play the hand you're dealt. The Democrats shot themselves in both feet by maintaining Biden as candidate for so long, and then dumping him when they had no obvious, competent, successor.

Re: I'm not planning to visit the United Hell Holes any time soon

So next time perhaps they can be offered a credible alternative? Trump didn't win that election, the Democrats lost it.

UK government on the lookout for bargain-priced CTO

Re: depends on circumstances

Voters want public services like Denmark but taxes like Chad.

But instead we pay taxes like Denmark, and get public services like Chad. That isn't sustainable either.

What we'd like is value for what we pay, which means civil servants doing the jobs they're paid for, and doing them thoroughly and properly. Unfortunately, as witness some of the posts here, they think they're doing that even when the rest of us (those who actually have to deal with NHS management, or HMRC, know from personal experience that they're delusional.

Reform can't fix that.

No, but there's no sign that any of the other parties are capable of it either.

You have one week to opt out or become fodder for LinkedIn AI training

Re: I'll be safe ...

Wait until the AI internet police investigate you for bullying.

I'd use the 'joke' icon, but I really wouldn't be sure it is...

Frustrated consultant 'went full Hulk' and started smashing hardware

grabbed his (CRT - this is the late '90s) and pitched the thing through the window

I sympathise. I feel that way 5 minutes after I have to use any Apple system. Their UI design just doesn't fit my brain.

MPs urge government to stop Britain's phone theft wave through tech

Re: IMSI is simple to use

Don't refuse access, just tell the user that their phone needs a free upgade, and if they bring it to the nearest Apple or Samsung store there will be a free surprise waiting for them...

New boss took charge of project code and sent two billion unwanted emails

Re: Email Swamping...

And always set the "Junk" flag on automated replies, so that a server which receives them won't send an automated response back.

Blinded by the light: Tesla fixes glaringly bright Cybertruck headlights

Re: FFS...

There's also the increasingly large number of drivers who leave their lights on Auto, which doesn't detect rain or fog when the day is still bright, and so fly along the motorway at 70 with only front DRLs and no rear lights at all.

Re: FFS...

I have those lights in my Skoda, and they do work remarkably well. As traffic appears ahead (travelling towards me or on the same direction) you can see the system cutting holes in the beam pattern. I've never been flashed yet while driving along busy roads, so they clearly work as required. I didn't order them, they came as standard, but although I expected it to be a gimmick I'm impressed by it, rather to my surprise.

The one place that they work less well is on a motorway, where the lights of oncoming vehicles are hidden by the central barrier.

The setup menu also has an option for left- or right- hand traffic, so easy to switch when abroad.

AWS outage turned smart homes into dumb boxes – and sysadmins into therapists

Re: Oh sh*t

Thuranus?

Re: A taste of the future.

Who needs an app for that? "Just let me warm my feet for a moment..."

AI does a better job of ripping off the style of famous authors than MFA students do

Dhillon told The Register he's unable to provide a quotable response to The Register's questions because the journal where the paper is under review forbids interviews with journalists prior to publication.

Maybe you could ask ChatGPT to write a response in his style?