Posts by Allonymous Coward

Brit tech mogul Mike Lynch missing after yacht sinks off Sicily amid storms

Re: Just a reminder. Missing <> dead

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Re: Mike Lynch, often dubbed the UK's answer to Bill Gates,

Never heard that metaphor used to describe him before. Probably related to the usual lack of quality of tech coverage in the UK MSM.

All software companies do the same thing, and all guys who get rich from it are basically the same as Bill Gates, don’tcha know?

Thunderbird is go: 128 now out with revamped 'Nebula' UI

Re: Losing It

Using most desktop mail clients these days helps with webmail because it makes you appreciate just how much webmail UIs have improved over the years.

I use Thunderbird. It’s the best of quite a poor bunch in 2024.

Blackstone wants to plug hyperscale datacenter into former Britishvolt battery site

Re: Original battery factory would supposedly have provided 3000 jobs...

As part of Mr Lee’s good neighbor policy, all Rat Things are programmed never to break the sound barrier in a populated area. But Fido’s in too much of a hurry to worry about the good neighbor policy. Jack the sound barrier. Bring the noise.

Oracle AI buzz means Larry Ellison's worth $15B more today

Oracle’s nowhere on many radars these days.

I fully accept my small sample size, but I never hear of them on anything *new* - it’s all monetise-the-existing-base stuff like “we’re locked into Oracle DB and it’d be £££ to migrate, so here’s ££ for licenses & upgrades instead.”

Capita says 2023 cyberattack costs a factor as it reports staggering £100M+ loss

Oh dear.

See title —^

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be coders, Jensen Huang warns

Irrespective of the (in)correctness of Huang’s comments, I’d suggest that science, manufacturing or farming - and plenty else - have always been just as important as IT, if not more so.

In some ways they’re probably far more rewarding fields to work in, too.

For a moment there, Lotus Notes appeared to do everything a company needed

I quite liked it 25 (!) years ago

One of my first companies after graduating used Notes for email, “groupware” and chunks of their intranet by publishing NSFs online via Domino. I mostly interacted with it as a user, not an IT bod.

As a mail client it was… alright. Kind of a clunky UI (we were on v4 I think) but a step up in features from Eudora or whatever I’d been using as a student. A couple of years after I joined they replaced it with Outlook, probably instead of moving to R5.

The groupware stuff hung round for a while though. In fact that place had the best corporate document management system I’ve ever used, and it was built on Domino. We also had issue tracking systems, distributed file stores that used the underlying replication technology, all sorts of good things.

It always felt to me like a product that missed its true calling. The vision was great, but people didn’t see it or couldn’t get past the quirky UI. Or, maybe, they couldn’t get past the cost. Intranets and web technologies eventually put paid to the groupware, and Outlook/Exchange killed the email side.

Microsoft prescribes command-line surgery for HP Smart app malady

My PC running Debian stable works much more reliably with our HP printer than any Windows machine in the house does. And does so without installing any stupid helper utilities.

Wasn’t always thus, but whatever they’ve done with CUPS and drivers in the last couple of years has been great.

Just saying.

Musk floats idea of boat mod for Cybertruck

Re: 7,000 lbs?

It’s one Musk Ego.

Share your 2024 tech forecasts (wrong answers only) to win a terrible sweater

People finally realise computers were a bad idea.

Re: Bieber vs Usyk

Dwayne Johnson / Elon Musk cage fight

I would pay genuine money to see this.

Canonical intros Microcloud: Simple, free, on-prem Linux clustering

Re: ZFS includes block deduplication...

It’s been a while since I used ZFS in anger, but yes. IIRC the rule of thumb was “deduplication is expensive & you should be careful with it, but compression is cheap and you should just turn it on everywhere”.

Good shout out for Proxmox. I used to run it a few years ago, before changing gigs. Excellent product. For all I know the last place is still using it.

But the fact something like Proxmox already exists and is popular & cheap does make me wonder what the point of this Canonical thing is. Maybe I’m missing some point of differentiation, but yet again it feels a bit like Canonical reinventing the wheel (see also: bzr, Launchpad, Mir, Unity, Ubuntu Phone etc).

Canonical shows how to use Snaps without the Snap Store

We briefly looked at snap at work

When it was first released, or not long after. The use case was packaging server-side applications for deployment.

It seemed…OK as I recall. I don’t think anyone was concerned about anything in the tech itself being “proprietary” but there didn’t seem to be a clear story around distribution outwith Canonical-provided infrastructure at the time. I’m fairly sure people said it was possible, but examples of it actually being done were a bit thin on the ground.

In the end I think the effort petered out though indifference rather than any particular objections. We could also solve deployment problems with tools like Ansible.

I ran some variation of an Ubuntu desktop for about 15 years. I finally gave up and moved to Debian stable when I realised most of the things that were annoying me were “value adds” that… didn’t add value.

I sidestepped Mint for the same reason, so it’s not just an Ubuntu thing.

Distro hopping is boring, learning new things for the sake of change is boring. At the end of the day I just want a desktop that’s easy to maintain, stays working in much the same way over time, keeps itself up to date and runs the applications I need. The last thing would be hard to achieve with Debian, but tools like snap and flatpak (my preference) make it easy.

Re: Trollers must be haters...

Agree it may be excessive security-wise for quite a few users.

One user problem tools like snap (& flatpak, and PPAs, and…) *do* solve, though, is “why can’t I get version N+1 of app XYZ on my desktop?”

My desktop runs Debian stable so I’m very familiar with the I’m-running-a-3yr-old-version problem :)

I tend to solve it with flatpak rather than snap mostly because I don’t like all the extra fs mounts snap creates. If flatpak didn’t exist though, I’d probably hold my nose and use snap.

Canonical reveals more details about Ubuntu Core Desktop

Re: Oh, neat

I have never had to reinstall my system in 10yrs because btrfs had any kind of problem. Maybe I got lucky, maybe I didn’t stray into any corners that would break it, maybe I’m a better sysadmin than some. Doesn’t really matter. Everyone has opinions.

Like I say, YMMV but based on *my* own direct personal experience, people calling btrfs unstable in 2023 are spreading FUD. Though I do still prefer ZFS for other reasons.

The overall point is: given Canonical’s track record on pretty much everything other than Ubuntu (for which they do deserve credit) I’d probably trust something+btrfs before I trusted Snap.

Oh, neat

It’s been a while since the last random tech idea from Canonical.

Snap? No thanks.

And YMMV but my btrfs volume has been in use for the last 10yrs or so with no problems. Rumours of its instability are greatly exaggerated.

Mine’s the one with “bzr and Launchpad for Dummies” in the pocket.

Robot mistakes man for box of peppers, kills him

however, the human mind needs to be able to deal with unpleasantness in a way that prevents permanent scarring

I see you found an extra IT angle too. Well done.

X marks the bot: Musk thinks spammers won't pay $1 a year

Re: Thanks for the belly laugh, I needed that

I’d heard this too. I seem to remember it being one reason NZ got EFTPOS (Brit translation: direct debit) so early. I remember it being quite commonly used in the 80s/early 90s.

Not even the ghost of obsolescence can coerce users onto Windows 11

Computers I will probably upgrade to W11

1. Kids’ computers (because gaming, and screen time controls)

2. Errr…

3. That’s it.

Raspberry Pi 5 revealed, and it should satisfy your need for speed

Re: Pi on the moon

That’s a very niche reference. Have an upvote.

Google killing Basic HTML version of Gmail In January 2024

Re: POP3. IMAP ?

Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?

Re: POP3. IMAP ?

Could a swallow carry a coconut?

Twitter 2.0 signal boosts Taliban 2.0 through Blue subscriptions

Re: Half of zero is what, again?

Get rock hard abs with this weird trick

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

World's richest man posts memes as $44b Twitter acquisition veers off course

Re: Waah

I pretty much agree, but - semantic distinction - I would've said it's losing the opinionated subjectivity that used to be its hallmark.

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launches after three-year hiatus with secret US sats

Re: five million pounds of thrust

I always thought it worked like this: strap CN to bottom of rocket. He stares hard at ground. Ground moves away as fast as possible.

Re: five million pounds of thrust

Fair point.

It’s about 22.24 kN (kiloNorris) of force.

OK?

Elon Musk shows what being Chief Twit is all about across weird weekend

Re: chief moron

Finally we have a billionaire who uses his wealth to improve the world

“Finally”? William H Gates III would like a word.

Nichelle Nichols' ashes set for trek to the stars

Re: But… El Reg is hiring Variety hacks instead of keeping Ali Dabbs on the books?

Place has never been the same since the moderatrix left.

Elon Musk 'buying Manchester United' football club

Did you see that ludicrous display last night? The thing about Arsenal is, they always try to walk it in.

Adobe lowers 2022 forecast, blames Ukraine war, strong dollar

FIFY: Adobe writes crap software but the alternatives aren’t de facto industry standards.

Stopped using any Adobe software right around the time they moved to a subscription model, and never looked back.

A Raspberry Pi HAT for the Lego Technic fan

The Lego set is HOW much?

Rhetorical question. I’ll climb back onto my chair now.

EasyJet flight loadsheet snafu caused by software 'code errors' says UK safety agency

One thing I always find interesting (in a good way) is how seriously this sort of thing is taken in safety-critical fields like aviation. There was no harm done, but an incident was raised to AAIB and fully investigated, with some actionable findings.

A lot of places - probably including mine - the most it would've resulted in is a "lesson learned" along the lines of "Oh that's an interesting failure mode of the system, we should document that in Confluence and try not to do it". It might not have even gone that far.

Ubuntu 21.10 brings GNOME 40 debut and a focus on devs

All that and more.

Snap feels like just the latest in a long list of Canonical not-invented-here technologies. Along with things like bzr, Launchpad, upstart, Unity, Ubuntu Phone, and probably a few I’ve forgotten.

Brit MPs blast Baroness Dido Harding's performance as head of NHS Test and Trace

Re: Yes Boris isn't the perfect PM but...

You’re welcome to your opinion. I completely disagree. PR works well.

Source: I’m a citizen of a country widely agreed to have a better-functioning, more diverse & more accountable government than the shower in Westminster, at least some of which is attributable to use of PR. I also vote in the UK, in a safe seat where my vote is mostly wasted.

Re: Yes Boris isn't the perfect PM but...

Proportional representation would be a wonderful thing.

Re: Share the blame

If NHS X is duplicating functionality, then NHS Digital should have at least been able to make a case for their own capabilities and services.

Well, quite. Why does NHSX even exist?

Oh that’s right, it’s Matt Hancock’s IT boondoggle. It’s interesting how the same names and problems keep coming up over and over.

Re: Scientists and Science

One reason given for New Zealand's more successful approach to locking down is that they were a few weeks behind and had at least some evidence from the rest of the world about the best approach.

Devuan debuts version 4.0 – as usual without a hint of the hated systemd

I don’t use Devuan

But that’s just laziness. Ubuntu hasn’t *quite* annoyed me enough to switch yet, and my distro-hopping days finished a decade ago.

I still leave a torrent running for their ISOs though, and I’m glad they exist. Choice is a good thing, possibly one of the greatest things about this particular ecosystem.

How Windows NTFS finally made it into Linux

Agree with both the comments above. Article could do with a fact check.

UK gives military's frikkin' laser cannon project a second roll of the dice

Pew pew

See title.

GitHub merges 'useless garbage' says Linus Torvalds as new NTFS support added to Linux kernel 5.15

<looks over top of glasses>

Hmm. I see you’re familiar with the game. Well played. Well played indeed.

Of course, Mornington Crescent is only one stop away on the Northern Line. But if we’re on the Charing Cross branch and there’s no step-free access I’m not sure that’s a legal move. I may have to defer to the TMO on this one.

Are we playing the East Indian variation? If so, I think you’ll find stations that begin with a vowel aren’t allowed on days that begin with “T”. Unless you’re in transit to a mainline connection of course.

With that in mind, I raise you: Bank.

Brit says sorry after waving around nonce patent and leaning on sites to cough up

I didn’t know Gervase Markham had died. Sad to hear that.

Sorry to hear this other bloke apparently has cancer too, attempted patent troll or no.

Sometimes life feels too short to worry about boring things like computers or patent law.

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

What I want to know

Did he have a sea mine as well?

Leeds City Council swallows the Gartner glossary and orders up 'post-modern' ERP in £44m SAP replacement

Re: "it reserved 'the right to make substantive and relevant changes' "

Leeds City Council said in its tender that it required "the flexibility to retire and/or replace any number of the various components of the Solution over the lifetime of the contract" and that it reserved "the right to make substantive and relevant changes that relate to the transformation programme."

Translation: "We want a Big Solution. We're happy it may take 20 years, but even we accept we don't have a crystal ball about our requirements in 2042. So we want the ability to change the scope of the Big Solution at any point. This will not cause any problems, and will work better than letting a shorter contract."