Posts by Phil O'Sophical

Battery electric vehicles lose their spark in Europe as hybrids steal the show

Re: Don't bother commenting

Didn't ask me for a subscription, the article was readable without it.

Australian billionaire wins right to sue Facebook in the US over scam ads

Re: Communincating with Facebook requires a Facebook registration

I was told that Facebook would prosecute me if I tried to setup an account again - I have never been able to communicate with Facebook about this because you must have a Facebook account to talk to Facebook

So set up the account, let them sue you, and use your day in court to explain why.

Cops cuff 22-year-old Brit suspected of being Scattered Spider leader

If it was a small private jet it probably couldn't have reached Guantanamo in one hop. Unfortunately.

Techie installed 'user attitude readjustment tool' after getting hammered in a Police station

That should teach students the importance of cleaning up after themselves.

The kind of door you can't leave open for more than 22 seconds before you have alarms blaring and guards coming to see what you're doing.

We had doors like that in our office. It's amazing what a strategically placed whiteboard magnet and some blu-tack can do.

Stanford Internet Observatory wilts under legal pressure during election year

Re: No one does like being caugh lying.

In older times "free speech" meant you are able to express your opinion without fear of beeing punished for it.

No it didn't. It meant that you could not be prevented from stating your opinion, i.e. thrown in gaol to stop you saying something.

You've always had to face the consequences of your speech, if what you said was, say, slanderous or inciting illegal behaviour, etc. You had freedom to speak, not immunity from what you said.

BOFH: An 'AI PC' for an Acutely Ignorant user

Prove it!

We need a volunteer to literally crawl over broken glass to fix this network

Re: Death by pigeon?

I think William Walker has you all beat, even without an IT angle.

Wells Fargo fires employees accused of faking keyboard activity to pretend to work

Re: Whatever happened to measuring output?

Ah, the so-called perverse incentive

cf the "Cash for ash" fiasco.

UK Labour Party promises end to datacenter planning 'barriers'

Re: Also

North Sea is into diminishing returns. If they want to cut energy costs then they need to change how the energy market works. Bringing more oil to market isn't likely to massively change that

Agreed, but while pursuing some sort of joined-up thinking on energy (if only!) that would phase out fossil fuels, it's better to use our own oil than to shut down local production and rely on expensive imports. Didn't we learn that lesson with cars, TVs, etc?

Re: Also

But none of it really sells a vision of where they want to take the country though.

None of the parties is bothered with vision. There was a time when they had a clear idea of where they wanted to take the country, and were able to explain and defend it. Now they just run focus groups to see what people would like them to think, and say they'll do that. No vision, no principles, no clue.

The party bosses aren't leaders any more, just followers, and no-one wants to vote to choose followers.

Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy'

With sudo you don't need to give anyone root password because their own password suffices if they're in the sudoers file. That means hat if their password has been obtained by somebody else - possibly because they reused it elsewhere - then there's no additional layer of protection. None. Whatever access they have through sudo is now open to that third person.

Which is also true if they've been careless enough to lose the root password. That's a more likely scenario for someone who only occasionally has to use it, and so puts it on a post-it or similar. They are hopefully less likely to do that with their own password, which they use frequently enough to remember it.

The big advantage of tools like sudo is the audit trail. If someone logs in as root using the root password and commits mayhem, you have no idea who it was.

If, on the other hand, someone uses sudo to become root & cause trouble, you know who did it.

In any case, Poettering seems more to be referring to the concept of SUID, and the related setuid() function, which isn't the same thing as sudo. It's more often used to allow specific binaries to run with elevated privileges. He seems to be suggesting that instead of giving the binary itself the privilege (via what is essentially a filesystem permissions bit hack interpreted by the kernel), the user would "ask" systemd to run it with privilege. It's just more systemd empire-building, removing control from the kernel & putting it in systemd. As noted elsewhere, we're rapidly heading toward systemdOS, any day now he'll reinvent containers.

At Apple, AI stands for 'Apple Intelligence' – and it's coming to everything

Re: Electricity Usage

Maybe we need a special AI tax? (only ½ joking).

BT chief blames regulations for UK lagging in next-gen network rollout

Re: "regulatory support"

And taxes, lots of taxes.

Russian hacktivists vow mass attacks against EU elections

Re: ha

Hmm, let me see

When I was in France I paid €39/month for a flakey 3Mbit/s service, with fibre promised "after 2025", and €19.99 for 4G mobile service with, IIRC 50GB/month, of which I rarely used 2GB.

In the UK I pay £38.99/month for rock-solid 100/20 fibre with a fixed IP address, and £7/month for 4G mobile service with 5GB/month which meets my needs just fine.

Your point is?

Nokia demos upper 6 GHz band for mobile, but UK wants it shared with Wi-Fi

Re: Red triangles

Bass got there first with a red triangle. UK registered trademark nº 1.

London hospitals left in critical condition after ransomware attack

Re: "our IT arrangements are as safe as they possibly can be"

Indeed. If you run a bank you don't keep the keys to the vaults in a cupboard on the wall and send memos to the staff reminding them to be careful. The keys are securely stored, with precise rules about who can access them, and a process in place to enforce those rules. Anyone breaking the rules gets fired.

Until IT companies realise that data is as valuable, and needs the same protection, these stories will continue. There's nothing new or unusual about doing this, the security services have such processes and the IT equipment to implement them is already widely available.

Windows 11 tries to escape Windows 10's shadow with AI muscle

Microsoft is set to launch Copilot+ AI PCs this month, aiming to boost adoption of the little loved Windows 11 operating system.

I would have throught that removing Copilot altogether would have done more to boost adoption...

Snowflake denies miscreants melted its security to steal data from top customers

Vote with your wallet, folks.

People do, they buy the cheapest stuff they can and are then surprised when it turns out to be insecure crap.

Windows 11 24H2 might call time on that old NAS under the stairs

Re: Drop SMB

Windows 10 NFS is soooo slooowww compared to SMB, although nobody seems to know why. Crappy client code?

Re: Stop sigh.

Not "Keep calm and brake"?

Recycling old copper wires could be worth billions for telcos

Re: Financially viable?

the biggest challenge for telcos is legally, safely and economically stripping the insulation, as the ratio of insulation to copper isn't very good on telephone wires, but at least in high volume that can be automated

Or more likely outsourced to China, where some poor villagers will burn the insulation off on bonfires and then return the remaining copper slag for refining.

Re: Financially viable?

Considering how tangled and twisted this stuff is in the ducts, the odds must be good that pulling it out will fracture some of the later fibre cables. At what point does the income from recovering the copper outweigh the cost of repairing snapped fibres?

Thanks for coming to help. No, we can't say why we called – it's classified

Re: "Or struggled to serve a classified client?"

I thought you were going to say that someone ran a French 1500v train onto the Italian 3kv rail. I suppose that would have been more of a Who Me story...

Then again I know of at least one French mainline station where they had to take an angle grinder to the concrete platform edge, after discovering that the new (German ?) trains theyd bought required a few cm larger loading gauge than the older ones...

AI future: Nvidia boffin hopes 'everything that moves will eventually be autonomous'

Re: Bollocks

D states that there's an engineering solution to every problem.

Isn't that called a "hammer"?

A thump with the pointy end of a screwdriver will fix this server! What could possibly go wrong?

Re: 486 DX/50

So I did it again, put a dent in the desk, and he said "That was fine - try it now". Bugger me if the disk didn't start working....

Quantum 105MB SCSI drives that came with early SPARCstations were notorious for that. If the box wouldn't boot after a powerdown the "cure" was to lift the front up 4" or so, and let it drop it back onto the desk. It usually booted then, but we learned to specify the 200MB drives...

Bad vibrations left techie shaken up during overnight database rebuild

date?

I didn't think 56k modems arrived until the late 90s, at least for 2-wire dialup.

Research finds electric cars are silent but violent for pedestrians

Re: I call BS! This research is anecdotal at best, intentionally slanted at worst

on long road-trips, kids have a new game: Spot the Tesla Driver Doing Something Stupid

You need a long road trip for that?

Re: I hope they require a standard sound

Crazy Frog?

So you need a sound generator loaded with the noise of dogs barking. Maybe the odd horn and "Tally Ho!" as well?

Imagine leisurely strolling across the street, headphones in, Taylor Swift blasting, only to be abruptly acquainted with the hood of a Prius.

I doubt such a pedestrian would even hear a tractor rumbling up behind them. Perhaps they could learn to open their eyes instead?

Another week, another leak for Boeing's Starliner crew capsule

Re: Reminds me of one of my favourite Larson cartoons.

Never mind if you don't quite get the hardware right, we can fix it later with a software patch?

Computer sprinkled with exotic chemicals produced super-problems, not super-powers

On call?

I can't help but think that there's a "Who, me?" story waiting to be told from the floor above.

AT&T formalizes deal for space-based cellular service on unmodified mobiles

Re: So, 64 square meters at 500km

So, how long until a "space Banksy" shows up and graffitis them?

Forget feet and inches, latest UK units of measurement are thinking bigger

Re: Incommensurate units

I've always been puzzled why large wind turbines rotate on a horizontal axis, which always requires a tower taller than a blade length with the inevitable flex issues. Wouldn't it be simpler to put a cage of blades on a vertical axis, with the generator at ground level? No need then to have it pivot to follow the wind, either.

Tax helpline callers left on hold for nearly eight centuries

Re: Not fit for purpose

Not a single issue could be solved by using the website.

This is the problem with most 'digtal helplines' - they are heavily structured into what someone expects the most likely queries to be, despite the fact that those are the queries where the websites usually do contain the necessary info and forms.

People need to ring helplines when their problem is out of the ordinary and can't be solved on the website, which is exactly when these helplines fall down.

Global EV sales continue to increase, but Plug-in Hybrid momentum is growing

oaraklek

I presume (s)he fat fingered the p & l keys, since o and k are beside them on a qwerty keyboard. Just as I frequently get snd and fpr when I want and or for.

Re: Plugins are a fudge, changing the drivetrain is key

I agree about the Nissan series hybrid ("range extender") model, it gives the smooth EV driving experience and good petrol economy without the public charging hassle and cost.

I disagree with you about PHEVs, though. I have one, and it covers my local driving needs on pure electric (charged at home, using it on petrol is cheaper than public charging points), and for long journeys it's an economical hybrid. It does have the disadvantage of all parallel hybrids, a complex transmission, with a DSG gearbox that is occasionally not as smooth as I'd like. The Nissan model eliminates all that. A PHEV with 40-50 miles battery range and a series architecture would be my ideal car.

Brexit border system outage puts perishable goods transport in peril

Re: Laurel & Hardy in "Nothing but Brexit "

Sadly none of that is really down to Brexit, it's more down to incompetent civil servants and penny-pinching beancounters, who operate without any adult supervision. I'd be very surprised if that changes after the next election.

Re: At least the lettuces should be fine

What have the romaines ever done for us?

Re: "dozens of lorries were being held at the government's control post... for up to 20 hours"

As a continental, I can say only one thing positive about Brexit: Good Riddance.

Funny, the Brits say the same thing about the EU. Agreement!!

Dublin debauchery derails Portal to NYC in six days flat

FIFO with a really looooong data queue.

Reminds me of Bob Shaw's 'slow glass'.

I find the inorganic stuff a bit crunchy.

Destroying offshore wind farms is top priority for Trump if he returns to presidency

Re: What's your point?

please ensure Trump thinks *before* he talks !!!

That presupposes he has anything above the waist to think with.

Blue screen of death or Eurovision's Windows95man performance – what's less annoying?

Re: "Not available in your country..."

You'd have been mortified to learn PAL video cassettes can't be played on NTSC equipment.

Not at all, which is why I had (still have somewhere, I think) a multistandard VCR to play 525-line NTSC tapes in the UK. They were available in the US as well, popular with european expats. The bigger problem wasn't the VCR, but finding a TV that could handle the 625-line PAL output. Probably why they used a projector, they tended to be more flexible. DVDs did make it easier.

Re: Hmm.

Australia has even less justification for being there, but the Eurovision "song" context is no longer about the songs. It's just a circus, and is more about the spectacle.

Re: Who's the target audience?

Oh dear...

I think jdow is still around on whatever replaced BIX.

How I feel ----->

Re: "Not available in your country..."

I have American friends in California who used to eagerly await their mailed VHS tape of Eurovision, they then had a party/BBQ and showed it on a big screen...

(where's the "no accounting for taste" icon?)

One bank's brilliant upgrade was another bank's crash

Re: "Users would type into an X-terminal"

Maybe xterm rather than X-terminal?

Tesla devotee tests Cybertruck safety with his own finger – and fails

Re: Similar but very different:

Which is why I was the only male in the sewing class

A skill that probably comes in handy when you stick a chisel in your hand :)