Posts by Phil O'Sophical

Angry devs vow to flee GitHub Copilot as metered billing takes hold

Re: I wonder what Dave Plummer will have to say

Says someone posting as AC...

Carnival confirms ShinyHunters cruised off with 6M customer records after April breach

Re: Yay!

Cruise ships really have no more problems with virus outbreaks than any other places where people gather, and are usually much more thoroughly cleaned. It's just that they are required to notify any such problems, so they make the news more often.

6G: The next gen of wireless tech nobody's ready to pay for

Re: Why bother with 6G if mobile phone carriers are still struggling with 1G?

I've been in places with a very strong 5G signal, but almost no download performance, so obviously the backhaul network isn't up to the task. It serves absolutely no useful purpose to waste more money on 6G until they get working 5G (or even 4G) everywhere.

California may let Linux bypass age check

Re: One response: Strike.

Indeed, N Ireland has had voter ID requirements for decades, and it's never been found to make a significant difference to voting patterns (other than to reduce the numbers of dead people who vote :-) ).

Google is cannibalizing the web to feed AI

Re: clicking at the speed of light.

ITYM the other bad guys.

AT&T sues to ditch Cali copper phone lines to save billions

Re: Ham on wry.

hasn't the slightest idea of where you are.

Er, so you tell them, like you would tell a 911/112 operator? Plenty of stories about ham operators 5 timezones away who have still got help to the right place.

Burnham backlash: UK Digital ID plans in peril if Manchester mayor succeeds Starmer

Re: Where's the Popcorn?

It was said to be Maggie Thatcher's favourite TV programme, because it was so true to life.

Re: "It would be a surprise if the party had not chosen him"

The last Labour politician who had principles was Tony Benn.

SpaceX pitches itself as integrated interplanetary proto-monopolist in IPO filing

Re: Yeeeaaaah, Nah

It just feels like the IPO is there to personally enrich Musk from the wallets of the fanboys and the investors that sense a quick buck.

Why change a winning formula?

Backup script ingested an accidental asterisk and deleted everything

Re: Damn unlucky

Clearly a cause of enshittification

Re: Restored, which is good.

In 1981 we understood the need for such things, computers were less reliable and we didn't assume that somebody else would take care of any problems. I well remember Monday mornings as a part-time admin, booting the VAX under standalone backup and copying the "huge" 256MB system disk to the spare, with the source disk going into the fireproof safe afterwards. Could be nerve-wracking, it was always a comfort to press the write-protect on the source drive. I know one admin in the company who didn't do that, and then reversed the source and blank drive names in the backup command...

Britain's latest civil servant is a chatbot trained on GOV.UK misery

So, replace civil servants who never answer their phones with an AI that's happy to talk to you, but can't give a helpful answer. It's not going to change much,

I suppose the upside is that the AI doesn't get salary, expense account or pension.

US Army goes green-ish, wants soldiers munching on plant proteins

Re: But what about the emissions?

Until someone develops a drone that homes in on the emissions...

Doozy of a Patch Tuesday includes 30 critical Microsoft CVEs

QA?

using AI to find a ton more bugs than ever before. And that means a lot more work for all the folks applying and testing the patches.

And yet the obvious solution of testing their shit before they ship it still seems too expensive? Go Microsoft.

GitLab promises a different kind of layoff as biz pivots toward AI

Re: Predictable layoffs

Indeed, my mistake.

Quit VMware and you’ll emerge with more complex and less capable infrastructure

Re: Shouldn't this piece be clearly labeled with the FLUFF emblem?

It's from Gartner, doesn't that already give it "ides of March" auspices?

The latest innovation in UK public transport: Schrödinger's trains

Re: Speaking of information boards that say nothing

Try https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/, it uses the same information system as the station displays, but your browser will probably have less attention from the bork fairy. It's also very useful for learning which platform your train will leave from before it shows up on the displays, so you can avoid the rush.

Re: Schrödinger's trains II

telling me the train I had just traveled on had been cancelled.

You probably travelled on the previous train that was running so late that they cancelled the unnecessary scheduled one...

Lab worker built a fake PC to nuke his lunch

Re: Huh?

I guess that the bit the story is missing is that he stuck the picture of the screen onto the microwave, thus 'disguising' it as a PC and confounding the boss's attempts to have it removed.

London’s BT Tower to get rooftop swimming pool

Re: Considering

The 1960s telecomms equipment that has been removed probably weighed a good few tons itself, so they'll have some headroom. Even London gets minor earthquakes occasionally though, and sloshing might be a problem.

Memory godboxes could offer relief from the RAMpocalypse

Re: Software defined memory

That must win the award for the most misleading technology name of the year.

Custom PC worked in the lab, failed on site – and so did the angry client

Re: No network card, no ISP, what's the diff

IIRC this was about the time that home ISP's, even dialup ones, would give you 20 MB of web space to play with.

And that was enough to be useful!

BOFH: Nothing says 'business continuity' like a dry wooden broom

Re: Outages

Kill the wabbitt....

We've only gone and done it: Changed what you're used to

Re: Search problems

Yes, that is an extremely irritating change. Leave my browser alone.

5. There is an option to turn off images, in your account settings. The new redesign seems to ignore it.

GNOME may rule Ubuntu Resolute Raccoon, but X.org isn't roadkill yet

Seven different desktops to choose from?

And people still wonder why the year of Linux on the desktop isn't here yet...

I use it, but I've also used DECWindows, SunView, OpenWindows, CDE, Gnome, Amiga Workbench and many others, so I'm hardly a typical user. Expect an ordinary person-in-the-street to understand how to choose one? Forget it, MSWindows or Mac is already a difficult enough decision.

Unexpected item in Windows' bagging area

Re: 40p per bag seems a bit steep

And you too could be president of the USA...

Brit mathematician lets AI agent loose with credit card – cue password leaks, CAPTCHA chaos and more

Re: Cassandra

Hell has no fury like an AI scorned?

Or in its most simplified form finger signals.

Microsoft's turned Windows into a cesspool, but it wants to do better

Re: What's wrong at Redmond?

Name changes rarely work, look at Hermes -> Evri as just one example. People aren't stupid.

SpaceX rocket set for unintentional Moon landing – well, a piece of it anyway

Re: Small correction (that the 2nd stage didn't have)

Assuming you're not numbering from zero, of course...

Meta to power its bit barns with energy from space

Re: An impractical plan to bamboozle naive investors

Ah, but it allows them to show off their 'green' credentials, while building a large gas/diesel "backup" facility. They will then "temporarily" use that backup facility to power the datacenter until the clean energy comes on-stream, while knowing full well (and not caring in the slightest) that it's unlikely to ever happen. "We tried, it's not our fault our supplier couldn't deliver what they promised". Pure virtue-signalling.

UK govt dept sent a document 'in error.' Now it's being used in a £370M contract lawsuit

Just plain carelessness on the part of DWP

Is it too much to hope that DWP will finally realise that "inadvertently" sharing this sort of information isn't just a "no biggie, everyone makes mistakes" situation, but is culpable incompetence that merits disciplinary action and/or sacking for both the individual, and the relevant IT staff who set up the systems? If they had correct security procedures in place, with appropriate information classification and management, it would not even be technically possible to share such information with someone who didn't have need-to-know rights.

Trump to UK: Stop taxing our big beautiful tech corps or face tariff tsunami

Re: The Art of the Deal

There was a story in the papers today about a 2-year-old throwing a tantrum in the White House.

I was quite surprised to see that it wasn't Trump.

More ancient Linux device support faces the chop

I prefer "classic"...

US clarifies mobile hotspots part of foreign router ban despite rarity of American made consumer kit

Re: So are they impounding stuff from tourists on arrival?

Americans are going to be vanishing from the net at this rate

Reverse enshittification?

If malware via monitor cables is a matter of national security, this might be the gadget for you

Re: coax?

about 291mW. That will radiate. How far , possibly a mile.

Voyager 1 has 100x that power, and manages 15bn km, it all depends on the antennae...

France's 'Secure' ID agency probes breach as crooks claim 19M records

Re: Living and working in France...

If only Marx had lived in Nice instead of Manchester

He lived in Paris for a couple of years, but IIRC he was deported for writing about his political views.

Re: Living and working in France...

Sounds a bit chançais to me...

'Invisible mouse' made a mess of PC rebuild

Re: I have a Software equivilant

I think we've all been there, I know I have.

IPv6 carried half of internet traffic – for one day, according to Google

Re: IPv6 introduced new problems, so slow uptake shouldn't be curious or confusing

There's no shortage of knowledge. People clearly know what IPv6 can offer, and have decided that they don't need it. That leaves them with a simple choice: configure it anyway, when they don't need it or turn it off. Turning it off is obviously the less painful option.

Capita won disastrous UK pensions gig after acing performance checks

Re: Brown Envelopes

her there is no such thing as society, we are still feeling the damage and impact of her half cooked ideas, that everyone is somehow a small shop owner.

Thatcher's comment about society is always taken out of context. It was said during a debate on the NHS, when someone commented that if society wanted a better health service it would have to pay for it. Thatcher's reply was that when it came to paying bills there was no such thing as society, in the sense of an amorphous blob with bottomless pockets, since the cost will always fall on the individual taxpayers.

As for small businesses the current and previous governments have done a thorough job of destroying those. That's a cost which we still haven't fully seen coming through.

Re: The system is so broken, that we may as well just expect this and move on.

True PR tends to encourage people to vote more for minority parties, instead of tactical voting against the big party they like least. I wouldn't use France's current omnishambles as a positive example, though.

Re: The system is so broken, that we may as well just expect this and move on.

PR in 2024 would have given Labour 220 seats, the Tories 156, and Reform & LibDems 78 each. Do you really think that would have led to a workable government?

Re: Brown Envelopes

Outsourcing a large project that is beyond the capability of the in-house team shouldn't be a problem, provided the in-house team manages the project correctly. The problem is that the civil service has zero management skills in any area more challenging than booking lunch.

Re: after assessing its past performance

They've selected Crapita to manage their own pensions. Karma is a bitch.

Support tech caught by 'Technician Aura': the bug that only hides when you're watching

He was just starting the service when a call came in, which of course rang on the soundbar

"Oh Lord, hear our prayer.". Brrr, brrrr click, "yes? who is this? What do you want?"

Bullet train upgrade brings 5G windows and noise-cancelling cabins to Japan

Re: Wired Windows

The printed black speckled patch around the mirror is wire-free, to allow toll tags to work, but its not the best place for a satnav...

Raspberry Pi OS ends open-door policy for sudo

Re: The obviously correct decision

you can have multiple people allowed to be root without them having to know the root password, or each others either.

And the auditing built-in to sudo means that you know exactly which user screwed up.