Posts by Hawkuletz

Techie turned the tables on office bullies with remote access rumble

Re: Neat trick

From way back when (sometime in the past millennium; I actually have this actual book) when he was interviewing applicants for the Operator position (having moved up the ladder to Bastard System Manager from Hell)

"Excellent. What is a killfile?"

"Uh. It's a list of usernames/topics/news items etc that you wish the news- reader to automatically skip so you don't have to wade through rubbish"

"Uh No. Remember I said pertaining to Operations. A killfile is in fact a file with a list of names of people you are going to kill."

"Oh. Of course."

[...]

"Excellent. You passed the final test. You start tommorrow. Please leave by that door so as not to disturb the other applicants."

BZZZZZEEEERETTT!

Electrified Door Handle. Gets them every time. I think it's the "Complaints Dept" sign that draws them to it like moths to a globe...

I push the body out onto the fire escape.

"NEXT!"

IT team forced to camp in the office for days after Y2K bug found in boss's side project

Surprised that no one mentioned jwz's prank (that seems quite close to the spirit of the story if not the fact)

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/02/pre-millennium-tension-the-dali-clock-y2k-easter-egg/

Ignite awash with agents as Microsoft triples down on AI

I suspect the bottom layer will still be (barely paid) humans. :(

Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for pretending UK's Online Safety Act doesn't exist

Re: Geoblock the UK

Only for the age-verified users, of course!

Microsoft Copilot shows up even when it's not wanted

Re: Which is every single time

Good while it worked.

As stated in the article, it seems that copilot decided to ignore that lately: "The bug reporter also pointed to a post on Reddit describing how Windows Copilot had re-enabled itself on a PC after being disabled through a Group Policy Object setting."

The current whack-a-copilot approach is a bit more convoluted https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/manage-windows-copilot#remove-or-prevent-installation-of-the-copilot-app

Of course, until they change their approach again and try to shove it down our $ORIFICE by a different path >:(

The Doom-in-a-PDF dev is back – this time with Linux

Re: Coolness aside

I was about to say the same, all of this is Forth down there.

But perhaps what JS adds is interactivity?

OTOH, running the virtual CPU in the underlying Forth and using JS to interface with it might bring the performance up (depending on which interpreter is faster / more optimized)

The sad tale of the Alpha massacre

And some years later (but almost ten year ago) Steam did the same

https://www.theregister.com/2015/01/17/scary_code_of_the_week_steam_cleans_linux_pcs/

Intel losses hit $16.6B in Q3 and Wall Street is … loving it?

Typo? Beer-o-clock too close?

"While the loss was obviously now what Intel wanted, revenues for the quarter came in at the upper end of forecasts at $13.3 billion – up four percent from last quarter, though still down six percent from last year."

Was it now? Well, all good then!

64% of people not happy about idea of AI-generated customer service

The problem is that increasingly there is no other option, given that nowadays almost all big companies do the same.

Not to mention the situation when it's a manglement decision to use a certain provider (that of course has those "a"."i". things in place), but it's the low-end wage worker who has to deal with their "support".

Angry mob trashes and sets fire to Waymo self-driving car

Related to Chinese New Year and the robot trying to drive on a crowded street?

Now, I know that maybe jwz is a bit biased against ROtM, but he might have a point.

The incident happened in China Town, on an extremely crowded street, during festivities related to Chinese New Year. A human driven vehicle might have avoided trying to drive through a crowd. The robocar might not. Thus, conflict.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/02/burn-robot-burn/

US regulators set the stage for small, local nuclear power stations

Re: Doesn't make any difference

I would suspect that Yet Another Anonymous coward might have been referring to coal burning. Coal - as most everything else that comse out of the earth - is not pure, and thus it alwsays contains some radioactive nuclei. The ash resulted from burning that coal can also be radioactive, see e.g.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/

or

https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html

Another Windows 10 patch that breaks printers ups ante to full-on Blue Screen of Death

Re: "in some apps"?

You had *disks*?! Luxury!

R Tape Loading Error , 0:1

The Novell NetWare box keeps rebooting over and over again yet no one has touched it? We're going on a stakeout

Somewhat similar problem (funny enough, also with a Netware server)

However, the server in my case was (supposedly) protected by an UPS (Smart UPS 600VA). The UPS did a good enough job protecting against power failures (I tested it several times by unplugging its power lead - no trouble). However, when the server monitor (CRT, remember those?) was powered on, it would *sometimes* cause a reboot. Since the console was rarely used, the monitor was kept switched off and only powered when actually needing to use the console. Luckily for us it was a clear direct cause. Increasing the UPS sensitivity (the voltage threshold) did cause the UPS to switch to battery when monitor was switched on, but the reboots still happened.

Powering the monitor from a socket immediately upstrem from the UPS wouldn't help, while powering from a completely different socket would apparently make the problem go away (but introduce a tripping hazard in the form of an extension cord). In the end, it was simpler to instruct everyone to avoid switching the monitor off.

Just updated Windows 7? Can't access network shares? It isn't just you

Re: I haven't updated my win 7 box in _MONTHS_

I, for one, stopped updating my home W7 box around the time when W10 was forced down on its users. I reckon in the event of an exploit it would take me less time to reinstall and restore, compared to the time lost with updates, reboots, loss of performance, loss of functionality etc. However, I am slightly cautious about what sites I visit, I mostly block JS etc. I am aware that this approach is not an option for company/work computers, or for computers used by less cautios people.

I do have a Linux machine that I use for most activities besides gaming and what little win32 development I still do. But I know from experience that Linux is still not yet ready for "the masses". And I'm afraid that when/if it will be, it might also be approaching Windows levels of un-usability. (Firefox is a good example of this tendency)

It seems to me that quite a lot of software - and Windows is a good example but far from the only one - tends to become increasingly user-hostile. Recently, when configuring a new (w10) computer for a friend I lost count of the number of hoops I had to jump through to avoid cortana, spying, edge etc. Not to mention additional hoops to uninstall the shovelware from both the manufacturer and MS.

Everything you need to know about the Petya, er, NotPetya nasty trashing PCs worldwide

Re: The real blame goes to..

Affirmative, it was his son.

Re: The real blame goes to..

Speaking of NSA, let's remind ourselves about the first great Internet/Arpanet worm.

From Cliff Stoll - The Cuckoo's Egg

I knew Bob Morris was on his computer at 6:30 A.M. Thursday morning. I could see him logged into NSA's Dockmaster computer. After posting a message to that machine, I called him on the phone.

"Hi, Bob. We've got troubles. A virus is spreading over the Arpanet, and it's infesting Unix computers."

"When did it start?"

"Around midnight, I'd guess. Maybe earlier-I just don't know. I've been up all night trying to understand it."

"How's it spread?"

"Through a hole in the Unix mail program."

"You must mean Sendmail. Hell, I've known about that for years." Bob Morris might have known, but he had never told me.

WhatsApp app in flap over chap's snap of URL mishap

Just checked - it requests the URL using the phone IP address. What's more, even when using web access from a computer, the requests still come from the phone IP.

Helium... No. Do you think this is some kind of game? Toshiba intros 8TB desktop drive

Re: Longevity

However, the challenge is not to keep Helium in as it is to keep air out. After all, Helium would only escape if there some pressure differential between the inside of the drive and the atmosphere. If air can't get in (airtight seal) surely the drive will not experience a vacuum caused by escaped helium.

Epson: Cheap printers, expensive ink? Let's turn that upside down

Re: Epson Printers: Clean heads once a week, drain tanks

About 15 years ago Epsons had the printing head fixed (as in not user-replaceable). If you somehow didn't use your printer for more than let's say two weeks, you had a good chance of clogged nozzles. This was not repairable under warranty - and the heads would cost as much as the (expensive) printer. I wonder if it would be the same now - I have avoided Epson ink jet printers since then. It seems that 'burning' HUGE volumes of ink might be the attempt to avoid the previous problem.

On the other hand, at that price, a color laser printer might be better. Yes, toner is quite expensive itself, but not as much as ink and doesn't come with all the other issues ink has.

Small change to Medium takes large axe to passwords

Since almost all online services allow one to use email for password reset (that includes El Reg, I just tried), how is this less secure than the password reset by email?

Scientists find safer way to store hydrogen

Exotics

From an old book about rocketry (published in 1972), begining of the chapter "Exotics":

Fifteen years ago people used to ask me "What is an exotic fuel anyway?" and I would answer "It's expensive, it's got boron in it, and it probably doesn't work."

(the book is Ignition! by John D. Clark)