Posts by DoctorNine

Can I get some service here? The new 27-inch iMac forgoes replaceable storage for soldered innards

Apple is trolling

At every turn, Apple are disappointing people. It's like they are trying to see how far they can go until people stop buying the i-things. On purpose. And amazingly, nothing seems to slow down the masses. Remove this feature here, add this incompatibility chip there, decrease functionality in another place, or remove ports people need to get their expensive equipment to work the other expensive stuff they already have.

"Go on... you'll buy it anyway!"

And darned if they don't. Boggles, really.

The Last of Us Part II: Never mind the Metacritic nonsense, Naughty Dog's ultra-violent odyssey is a must-play*

Call me shallow

I have to admit, sometimes I'll play an rpg just because the world is so artistically stunning. Maybe only the in-and-out if I tire of the plot (usually the lack of it). But I will spend a little coin for a ride through the universe.

Ohhh... A pony!!!!

After six months of stonewalling by Apple, app dev goes public with macOS privacy protection bypass

Re: Disappointing

Actually, the point I was making, was that if it's sending data from those libraries, dumping that data on the regular leaves less tracks with which to be tracked. Until the specific exploit is fixed.

Nothing in that Safari library is necessary to retain, except the bookmarks, because it will be regenerated when you reopen the browser.

As long as the person owning the machine issues the appropriate SU command, you can see it, and flush it. This is also useful for other nasties that might creep into Safari, which does in fact happen on a more or less continuous basis.

This is merely another example of mainstream OSs thinking that obfuscation = security, when it obviously does not. M$ is famous for this. I was hoping Apple would be less so.

Re: Disappointing

The funniest thing, is that the end user is going to detect peculiar behavior at the browser level simply by performance hits when the exploit is active. But Apple's current 'security' philosophy has removed the /Library tree from visible access to the masses. So they can't even go in there to flush Safari files if they are worried about a possible exploit. So dumb.

Details of Beijing's new Hong Kong security law signal end to more than two decades of autonomy

Re: Ah yes, the old "Endangering National Security" line

All correct. But I would say rather it was a good example. And they couldn't have that...

Brit police's use of facial-recognition tech is lawful, no need to question us, cops' lawyer tells Court of Appeal

Re: Wedge

Begging the question of how many people join the police, just to be able to give the public wedgies?

Things I ponder over a pint...

GitHub to replace master with main across its services

I like colors

I would have argued for 'green-listed' and 'red-listed' myself. I suppose someone could object to that. But to be honest, if you are tense about red or green, it then presupposes a whole conversation about traffic lights. And stop signs. And maybe even the choice of paint on certain Italian racing vehicles.

Apple owes us big time for bungled display-killing cable design in MacBook Pro kit, lawsuit claims

Just look at it...

If you tilt the Apple insignia slightly clockwise, it becomes apparent that it's not a delicious piece of fruit from which you have taken a bite, but rather a fat-headed man, with a noticeably long proboscis, whose mouth is wide open as he prepares to take a bite out of you.

This has always scared me more than a little. Put me off Apple products since I first noticed it in 2012.

ICANN delays .org sell off after California's attorney general intervenes at last minute, tears non-profit a new one over sale

Re: Sorry!

I will agree with your declaration that you are at a loss. Don't feel bad. The whole point of the thing was to obfuscate what they were about. Don't mind while we laugh though. It's entertaining.

ICANN suffers split-personality disorder as deadline for .org sale decision draws close

Opportunity Knocks

I propose we throw the whole lot of them out, and recreate a new domain registry owned by the UN. Any profit from registrations could fund famine relief around the world. And they could grant license fees based upon the value added of the organization requesting the domain.

Of course, since no plutocrat would get money that'll absolutely never happen...

Washington state governor green-lights facial-recog law championed by... guess who: Yep, hometown hero Microsoft

By rural analogy...

I believe this particular equine has already exited the stables. Latching the gate at this juncture will be less than effective in restraining it.

Hailing frequencies open, sir... America's Space Force hurls its first military comms satellite into Earth's orbit

Wiki Rules All

I think they really, really want their own religious vestments, but they have been foiled by the alacrity with which He of the Flaming Coif announced the new service. See this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniforms_of_the_United_States_Space_Force

How's this for a JEDI mind trick? AWS waves hand, has Uncle Sam 'reconsider' $10bn contract award to Microsoft

Who's your best friend?

Inasmuch as the real purpose of democratic government is to decide who gets to award fat government contracts to whom, I submit that this conflict may best be described as a catfight between two teens, both eager to establish credentials as Uncle Sam's bestie, in the hopes that the sweet milk of graft shall ever flow in their direction.

Of course, it's just an analogy.

Microsoft's Bill Gates defrag is finally virtually complete: Billionaire quits board to double down on philanthropy

Same as it ever was...

Bill Gates is neither demon nor deity. He's just a sack of flesh like the rest of us. Because of his choices in the business world he DID rake in a huge stash of cash. But he DID decide that he would use this stash to try to help the rest of his fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth out. He didn't have to do that. He WANTED to do that. So by definition, this is a social good. If he actually succeeds in his stated goal of ridding the world of malaria, no other thing he has done, as important as his computer work has been historically, will have had the same impact on our species.

Give the man some space, and let's see if he can. He may actually be able to do it...

Protestors in Los Angeles force ICANN board out of hiding over .org sale – for a brief moment, at least

Re: The whole thing ...

No. It was an ad-hoc geeks club from the start. With a particularly myopic and introverted membership. The idea of service and scalability was an afterthought. Now it's gotten so big to manage, that someone with sufficient greed has decided to invoke the magic of CAPITALISM! and try for a more or less hostile takeover. Which frightens the myopic and introverted geeks immensely.

Has the makings of a pretty entertaining feature film, really.

Internet jerk with million-plus fans starts 14-year stretch for bizarre dot-com armed robbery

Re: Second of his name.

Only junior if his father is senior. If separated by a generation, or if he has another familial relationship, then generally a 'second' is the appropriate appellation.

Remember the FBI's promise it wasn’t abusing the NSA’s data on US peeps? Well, guess what…

Re: Makes sense

"..One word: perjury..."

That isn't even a speed bump on the road for them. Clapper has perjured himself repeatedly, and even when given the opportunity to prosecute him for that documented fact, no one has done so. The statute of limitations timed before anything was done.

No, these people ARE the muscle of that 'deep state' that people want to pretend doesn't exist.

Brussels changes its mind AGAIN on .EU domains: Euro citizens in post-Brexit Britain can keep them after all

Re: Too late!

Well. You could always go with .xxx as it is. I'm sure you'd increase traffic.

British ISPs throw in the towel, give up sending out toothless copyright infringement warnings

Re: Entertainment is a problem

I tend to buy cd's and dvd's and blueray's, then rip them myself to a private server. That way I get what I want, can store it more easily, and still have the reference original if I lose my server content. I have very nearly decided to stop all streaming content entirely, now that they are splitting up the aggregators. I will NEVER subscribe to any Disney product, simply because of the way they make it impossible to buy physical copies of their content. They are close to being too big (or maybe already are too big) for me to support with a monthly charge anymore.

Stop using that MacBook Pro RIGHT NOW, says Uncle Sam: Loyalists suffer burns, smoke inhalation and worse – those crappy keyboards

A crazy idea

With all of their billions, how expensive would it be to hire a couple engineers, and return to the actual aluminum cased MacBook pro, and the old key design from 2012, but just update the processor, motherboard, and memory to current speed standards. That's all people want. Why not just give people what they want?

Jony Ives is gone. Steve Jobs is dead. The irrational tyranny of faux style has been cast down. Think Different Apple.

Apple hands keys for retail to HR boss amid flagging iPhone sales

Bad Decisions

I've noticed that whenever companies start thinking that they make markets, rather than service markets, they tend to not be in the markets very much longer.

I think the next iteration of OS X should probably be called 'Hubris'. The one after that, in sequential naming tradition, would then logically be 'Debris'. Because that's all that will be left over.

Google internal revolt grows as search-engine Spartacuses prepare strike over China

First, do no evil.

But later, it's fine. As long as you can make bucketloads of money.

/s

This just in: What? No, I can't believe it. The 2018 MacBook Air still a huge pain to have repaired

Re: Thanks but ..

They lost me when they tried to TouchStrip me right in the F keys...

We'll never dance again.

Wow. Apple's only gone and killed off Mac, iPad, iPhone family... figures for units sold to fans

How Apple can sell more phones

I have a great idea. Make another iPhone SE, but make it thicker, so you could have 2-3 days on battery standby. Oh, and as it would be thicker, no problem to add back in the 3.5 headphone jack. Since it would be extended life, you could call it the iPhone SE-X.

And we all know SE-X sells.

Supreme Court punts on Microsoft email seizure decision after Cloud Act passes US Congress

As has been noted...

Imagining that cloud storage, or cloud computing in general, COULD ultimately be secure, indicates too much faith in encryption maths, and too little appreciation for just how hard the robin will work for a fat juicy worm...

Electronic Frontier Foundation chap John Perry Barlow has died

"..Some rise. Some Fall. Some climb. To get to terrapin..."

Bon voyage, JPB.

Bless their hearts: Democrats want $40bn to spruce up America's bumpkin broadband

But really, though...

After reading this, I am pretty sure I'm either bilingual or have had both halves of my brain surgically separated, because that made perfect sense.

NSA ramps up PR campaign to keep its mass spying powers

Re: You only need to remember one thing...

It's been a sh*t show since it was unrolled, and Snowden told us how and why. Further evidence is merely redundant at this point. I would be more worried that the appearance of a moderating influence would be sold to the public, with no way to monitor or assure compliance with such controls, than I would be of continuing the legislation with no controls at all.

'Real' people want govts to spy on them, argues UK Home Secretary

Re: Ruddy Hastings

I'm afraid we all are starting to understand that 'the enemy' which the intelligence services are so keen on monitoring, was never really 'terrorists' anyway. It always has been us, the very people who they are supposed to serve and protect.

We are the enemy, by their reasoning, because freedom is chaos. And chaos is danger. They insist that such danger cannot be tolerated by the State. So the masses must be locked down, and only given the illusion of freedom, in as limited a dose as they think we can safely consume, without damaging the immortal State's certain control.

It is only then that they will be satisfied.

Hot HoloLens models 'shafted by Microsoft'

Re: The Las Vegas attitude...

I'm afraid the whole of humanity suffers under this curse, not just the West. A quick review of Chairman Mao's peccadilloes will reveal a host of 'beautiful sex receptors'. Other leaders in Africa and the Subcontinent are likewise ensconced with exploited underlings.

It's difficult to overcome programming that is hardwired into the archeocortex, but it can be done. We should be optimistic, and proceed with enlightened intent toward this goal.

Derogatory or prejudicial emotional reactions to this are simply unproductive. Reason works better.

Apple building data centre in China to comply with tough cybersecurity laws

And with a straight face too.

"..They also prevent the transfer of any economic, scientific or technological data overseas on either national security or public interest grounds..."

The irony of this particular justification is really quite juicy. LOL.

Trump tramples US Constitution by blocking Twitter critics – lawsuit

I wonder...

Isn't arguing about Twitter, by reference to The US Constitution, kinda like arguing about Jesus, and which type of saddle he used when he rode his dinosaur?

NHS WannaCrypt postmortem: Outbreak blamed on lack of accountability

Why so mad?

We've known, literally for years, that if the NSA et al. mandated backdoors and tools for convenient governmental hacking, that these nasty species would eventually migrate out of their walled gardens, and into the wild. I am genuinely flabbergasted that anyone with more cognitive capacity than the average house pet would even COMPLAIN that the inevitable result of these poorly thought out policies has actually manifested, and damaged things we hold dear.

Yes of course it did. Now perhaps we can rethink such troglodyte behaviour? Hmmm?

74 countries hit by NSA-powered WannaCrypt ransomware backdoor: Emergency fixes emitted by Microsoft for WinXP+

Curses! Foiled again!

So someone set a really nasty worm on all the old unpatched M$ boxes, huh? The ones running older legacy OS's that don't have modern 'security features' mandated by the government?

Gee... I wonder who would do that, and why?

Tosh's new workhorse drive: Not too desktop, not too enterprise

Is that overclocking or underclocking?

Did you know? The FBI investigated Gamergate. Now you can read the agents' thrilling dossier

Why, Reg, why?!?!!

Why did you have to squeeze the tar baby? Don't you have enough demand on your servers? Is this a clickbait scheme of which I am (blissfully) unaware? Just tell me, please...

President Trump tweets from insecure Android, security boffins roll eyes

Alternatively...

It may be that the Secret Service has identified a few tentative intrusions, and so recommended that this story come out, in order to use the device as a honeypot for all the steamed techies out there everywhere.

Fitbit throws fit, emits writ for outfit's non-hit, rather sh*t, 'Fitbit' kit

- insert punchline here -

After they killed off Pebble for no good reason, they kinda proved that EVERYTHING Fitbit is defective, whether INTENTIONALLY headed to the recycling bin, or merely taking a longer ride to get there around someone's wrist first.

Watch the world's biggest 'flying bum' go arse over tit in a crash

It's a ship.

They should have pumped ballast to the rear of the ship, like in a submarine. Seems like a malfunction of attitude control led to the collision.

Of course, I've seen a few individuals at the local pub who also had this issue.

Brit network O2 hands out free Windows virus with USB pens

Re: We need a double facepalm icon.

Staking the enterprise security structure on network users learning good computer habits, is like staking your own personal hygiene on users of a public washroom learning good sanitary habits. I guess you COULD, but most of us are a bit more risk averse.

F-35s failed 'scramble test' because of buggy software

Re: This is how the US is preserving its air superiority

The Marines would like to have a word with you in private, out back.

And it's not 'Shazam!'

US govt quietly tweaks rules to let cops, Feds hack computers anywhere, anytime

Resistance Is Futile

If you're down with ARPANET, you're gonna get the disease. Try to play like you didn't know this all along. Yes, the demons bring you many benefits. But don't act surprised when you find that the gifts you asked for have turned into chains. It was designed that way.

BYOD? More like CYOD as companies still set the parameters

The real deal

The main reason BYOD worked for C-Suite personnel, is that you get to have a smaller capitalization budget for upgrading new machines for the grunts. Employees mostly liked this because they get less straightjacketed by feeble machines built to lowest common denominator standards, and thus painful to use when trying to be productive. Enterprises have never relinquished their desire to direct employees' behavior and resources even when they are not at work, though. It's the nature of the beast. The evolution of the workplace has created the BYOD model in order to facilitate that. Of course corporations can't be trusted with employee personal data. Their goals and employees' goals are commonly diametrically opposed.

Burger me! Microsoft's chainsaw rampage through sacred cow herd

"Hey! Look over here! We have stuff happening! And it's IMPORTANT!!!"

Dot-com intimidation forces Indiana to undo hated anti-gay law

History resolves the mystery...

It's important to remember, that the US state with the largest number of KKK members in the 1920's wasn't in the South. It was Indiana. These industrious Indiana conservatives are merely upholding a longstanding tradition of state sanctioned oppression. If it was good enough for gramps...

Why Oracle CEO Larry Ellison had to go ... Except he hasn't

Force of will?

He didn't forge his company by force of will, he did it by pandering to the intelligence community and government agencies. And they rewarded him with billions in taxpayer money. The best thing for everyone, will be his exit from this whole field. Then perhaps the technology can grow naturally, without a CIA finger in the pie.

Kiwis unplug supercomputer after intrusion

Re: or most plausible

Mining bitcoin was my first thought, actually.

Titsup Russian rocket EXPLODES, destroys $275m telly satellite

Part of a plan?

So, first the Russians take Crimea, then the US starts sanctions. When the Russians talk about limiting ISS activity, stopping and heavy launch functions for the US/EU, then the US nixes GLONOSS base stations in CONUS, and now a Russian telecommunications satellite 'mysteriously' blows up on launch. I wonder if there could possibly be a connection?

Nah. Never.

Win gorgeous strap-on, enter whole new world with Reg compo

It's a start..

Combine this with the Ostrich Pillow and a diaper, and I'll never need to leave my desk:

http://personalusenyc.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/dezeen_ostrich-pillow-by-kawamura-ganjavian_2a1.jpg

Android engineer: We didn't copy Apple or follow Samsung's orders

Getting back to the real problem...

Well, as long as the current patent system is left to fester, then the deepest pockets will continue to run roughshod over the little guy with new ideas. Rather than each of us simply running our pro/anti-Apple script in this thread, perhaps we should all instead focus on altering this environmental condition, which is what allows such bullying in the first place.