Posts by upsidedowncreature

VMware swings its focus back to low-end server virt, promises vSphere Standard upgrade

Re: How about some Cake?

I don't think Gloria Gaynor sang "fucking lock", but it's actually an improvement!

User swore hacker called General Failure had invaded his PC

Does General Failure outrank Kernel Panic?

60% of MD5 password hashes are crackable in under an hour

Every time I read a comment like this I think "no, 2008 was only a couple of years ago", then I feel really old when the realisation hits.

Server-room lock was nothing but a crock

Re: ETI

I remember ETI, my dad was a regular reader. He even had a couple of articles published. I wanted him to build the Transcendent 2000 synth, a friend of his built one which I was fascinated by.

Amazon rewards loyal Kindle devotees by closing the book on old e-readers

Re: Not a problem with my paper books

I picked up a copy of Overtaken by Alexei Sayle at a charity bookstall. Got home and was surprised to see it's not only signed by the author, but I think the dedication is to Robert Harris (Enigma, Fatherland etc). It is quite the most aggressive and unhinged dedication I've ever seen but as it's from Alexei Sayle I'd be disappointed if it wasn't.

"To Robert, Better than fucking Pompeii & Enigma & Archangel, but I like Fatherland from [presumably Alexei's signature]"

Elon Musk wants to build 50 times more chips than the world currently produces, using 'new physics'

Re: Yeah.... right...

Also "Moron sail"

Bcachefs creator insists his custom LLM is female and 'fully conscious'

Re: our bally language and we invented it 1000 years before

Bloody Ango Saxons, coming over here with their ship burial traditions and inlaid jewellry, laying down the foundation for our entire future language and culture.

Tech support chap invented fake fix for non-problem and watched it spread across the office

Re: Hilarious!

The bassist Leland Sklar famously has a "producer knob" on his instruments. When the producer asks for a slightly different sound, he'll adjust the producer knob and record another take, resulting in a happy producer. Of course the producer knob isn't connected to anything.

MI6 chief: We'll be as fluent in Python as we are in Russian

Re: The Battlefield of Tomorrow being AIMastered and Altered Today via SMARTR Play and 0Days

I ain't reading all that. I'm happy for you though. Or sorry that happened to you.

Cloudflare suffers second outage in as many months during routine maintenance

Re: lack of decent alternatives

Zendesk appeared to be affected when I checked, way ahead of you.

Microsoft's lack of quality control is out of control

Re: Microsoft gave up all pretext of caring about QA/QC ...

I remember running what were then considered large spreadsheets in Visicalc on an Apple ][ - I had to remove the top cover to avoid the machine overheating.

Campbell's CISO canned after lawsuit alleges hour-long rant against staff and customers

Re: He's not wrong.

Unexpected Alan Partridge!

China's CR450 bullet train clocks 453 km/h in pre-service tests

Re: Speed to time saving isnt linear

" a squaring of mass resulting in higher kinetic energy"

Kinetic energy is 0.5 * m * v^2, although I appreciate the point you're making.

RondoDox botnet fires 'exploit shotgun' at nearly every router and internet-connected home device

Can you share the name of your router manufacturer with the rest of the class?

Digital ID, same place, different time: In this timeline, the result might surprise us

Re: Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?

Is this a Big Special reference?

Shithouse by Big Special would be appropriate walk-off music for many politicians.

After deleting a web server, I started checking what I typed before hitting 'Enter'

Re: A technique I learnt in Japan

I do the pointing technique when I park my motorbike - chain through rear wheel, petrol turned off, steering locked. I probably look a bit weird but it really does help to make sure you've followed the routine.

Tom Lehrer: Satirist, mathematician, inventor of the Jello shot

Re: Set the standard

Musicians have to eat too. And with Spotify et al many of them are practically working for free much of the time anyway.

Empire of office workers strikes back against RTO mandates

Re: Cuckoo land

Unfair, cheese has more culture.

Torvalds' typing taste test touches tactile tragedy

Re: I have thoughts. And das Keyboard.

"Only" 35 or 30 kN? 45kN? Your office must be *very* noisy, and I bet you get through a lot of desks.

User complained his mouse wasn’t working. But he wasn’t using a mouse

Re: Confused Mouse

I've seen a user have trouble using the mouse because, instead of just moving it across the desk, they were "hovering" it a few mm above the surface.

HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback'

Re: Irate customers

Extra AND redunant? Reported to the Department of Redundancy Department.

Early mornings, late evenings, weekends. Useless users always demand support

Re: Not just IT

As the HR manager, would you have to report their misconduct to yourself?

You're going to do what to the feature? Microsoft defines what it means by 'deprecation'

There's a joke about executing in there somewhere, damned if I can find it though.

I don't mind what they mean by it...

I just wish people would stop saying "depreciated" when they mean "deprecated".

Eutelsat OneWeb blames 366th day for 48-hour date disaster

Re: Excel bug

Is it fair to call it an Excel bug then? Isn't it a Lotus 1-2-3 bug that Excel replicated intentionally?

Critical hardcoded SolarWinds credential now exploited in the wild

Re: "A critical, hardcoded login credential"

Solarwinds123!

I think that's what it was last time, anyway.

Facebook prank sent techie straight to Excel hell

Re: Rather different

Famous Yorkshire people weren't they? I remember Phil Oakey of the Human League was one, although I don't know how familiar he'd be to a global audience.

Screwdrivers: is there anything they can't do badly? Maybe not

Re: Screwdrivers can be used for anything

I used to have a trailer on my drive, which I secured to a nearby magnolia tree using a chain and padlock, through a "V" in the trunk. I sold the trailer but the chain is now deeply embedded in the tree trunk, and it ain't ever coming out.

What's with AI boffins strapping GoPros to toddlers? We take a closer look

Re: Yeah that is bound to work

Proper names too - Cholmondley, Belvoir, Featherstonehaugh.

Council claims database pain forced it to drop apostrophes from street names

Re: Input validation

Yes, but the secret phrase/PIN/password, whatever you want to call it, is stored somewhere in plain text, even if it isn't displayed in full to the customer service agent on the phone. Are you seriously arguing that's good practice?

edit: Yes, I've come across this system often.

Re: Input validation

I'd be more worried that it sounds like they're storing your password in plain text if they can check specific characters.

Linux Foundation is leading fight against fauxpen source

Re: "tragic for open source innovation"

I think demon driver was being sarcastic.

X fixes URL blunder that could enable convincing social media phishing campaigns

Sounds like a clbuttic case of a bad search and replace.

Crowning glory of GOV.UK websites updated, sparking frontend upgrades

Re: changes to things like police and military uniforms, and signage on official buildings

I'm just relieved both the Head of Design and the Senior Interaction Designer were involved, it would be awful if an important change like this were to be under-resourced.

Trident missile test a damp squib after rocket goes 'plop,' fails to ignite

Outside the environment?

Nearly 200 Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes grounded after door plug flies off mid-flight

It's not very typical, I'd like to make that point.

Windows keyboards to get a Copilot key – but how quickly will users jump?

Decades ago?

"The addition of the Windows key some three decades ago was the last time the company fiddled with keyboard hardware. "

Really? Didn't they add the fantastically useful emoji key in 2019?

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/emoji-key-featured-on-microsofts-latest-keyboards

Does Windows have a very weak password lurking in its crypto libraries?

How did you get that to display as "*****"?

It is 2023 and Excel's reign of date terror might finally be at an end

Re: Great. We're getting there

ISO 8601 FTW!

Airport chaos as eGates down for the count across UK

"The gates use facial recog technology"

ws t wrth sving a fw kystrkes fr tht?

Largest local government body in Europe goes under amid Oracle disaster

Professor Unwin? Is that you?

LG's $1,000 TV-in-a-briefcase is unlikely to travel much further than the garden

Re: Students?

We have the BBC which has no ads, it's instead funded by a licence (license? Never sure) that you have to buy if you have a TV. It's £159 a year so worth it I think, although there are those who think it should be abolished.

Lock-in to legacy code is a thing. Being locked in by legacy code is another thing entirely

Re: The other mechanism, of course, is the induction loop.

Sometimes flicking the side stand down is enough to trigger the loop. Remember to pull clutch in or go into neutral or you'll likely cut the engine!

Someone just blew over $190k on a 4GB first-gen iPhone

Re: What strikes us as odd...

It really hit home when Blue Monday turned 40 a few months ago.

Man who nearly killed physical media returns with $60,000 vinyl turntable

“ orthogonal layers of beech placed under extreme pressure to create an entirely new, solid and massive material”

Plywood, then.

Edit: I should have read the comments first, I see this observation has already been well made.

Techie wasn't being paid, until he taught HR a lesson

Re: Unique keys

I think I've mentioned it before, but in Mork and Mindy, Mindy's landlord was called Mr Wanker.

Pixies keep switching off my morning alarm, says Google Pixel owner

Re: Well that's weird

It’s been used (well, quieter acoustic versions have) in a couple of TV adverts in the UK in recent years.

edit: a package holiday company a few years ago and the current Apple Airpods ad.

If you fire someone, don't let them hang around a month to finish code

Re: Never risk it

I've been the person being called in to an unexpected meeting with HR - got the call on Sunday evening, the meeting was on Monday at 9:00. I dictated a list of systems and passwords that I insisted be changed, to protect myself. She said they had it all covered, but they had missed several.

Visual Basic 6 returns: You've been a good developer all year. You have social distanced, you have helped your mom. Here's your reward

Re: I liked VB5/VB6

Correct, but there were no curly braces - it was all End If, End Loop etc. In mixed case. Dear God.

Also indentation was completely optional so many didn't bother with it, making untangling nested control structures an unalloyed joy.

UK firm NOW: Pensions tells some customers a 'service partner' leaked their data all over 'public software forum'

What forum was the data uploaded to, and how did the upload come to light? The file must have been pretty big - about 1.6GB if it had 1024 bytes per record (please check maths!)- so it wasn't uploaded by accident. Was it malicious in intent? The company seem to be implying that it wasn't. If it wasn't, what goes through the mind of somebody uploading a file that size, containing lots of PII, to a forum? Fresh air, probably.