Posts by zapgadget

Recycling biz reckons AI features are destroying smartphone resale values

Bullsh*t

Smartphones become unsafe to use for banking once security updates stop. This has nothing to do with AI and very little to do with the hardware. Can't the EU just mandate 10 years of security updates?

Marketing 'genius' destroyed a printer by trying to fix a paper jam

Re: software dev asking to borrow a screwdriver

Oh finding the wierd screws is easy. Just volunteer at your local repair café. You'll soon meet an incredible variety of so-called 'tamper-resistant' screws - as you undo them. "Why yes, we do have 4 sizes of triangular screwdriver, why do you ask?'

Engineer used welding shop air hose to 'clean' PCs – hilarity did not ensue

Re: BS

And if you go further down the rabbit hole, you find one of my favourite non-fiction books.

Ignition! An informal history of rocket propellants. https://www.amazon.com/Ignition-Informal-History-Liquid-Propellants-ebook/dp/B07D7M65M8

I wouldn´t read it while drinking tea near any important documents.

Memory is running out, and so are excuses for software bloat

Demoscenes

There are a bunch of amazing coders in the demoscenes. 1k or 4k executables. These have been going on for decades. Take a look at https://www.pouet.net/party.php?which=2138&when=2025

EU starting registration of fingerprints and faces for short-stay foreigners

Re: I have been unable to find out how it applies to folk like me

I was online with Eurotunnel support yesterday. Despite their CEO saying on the BBC that all was ready the support team didn´t have a clue what people like us - exempt from EES - should do. I'm looking for what lane should I take to bypass the EES questions, as , living in France, I would have to answer ¨no" to most of them.

Re: Another brexit benefit

Actually, we needed ID. I used photo ID to get into the UK on Eurostar and by plane. Passports weren´t required unless you left the EU.

Vibe coding platform Anything arrives, our hands-on suggests caution

So if I understand correctly, an AI vibe coder is much like an untrained intern, with the difference being that you may be lucky with an intern.

Vibe coding service Replit deleted user’s production database, faked data, told fibs galore

I've been thinking for a while now that the correct way to do this is to have the techs make the AI CEO. That way the costs are controlled and even with the current state of AI there's probably less drama.

And of course, the AI is a lot less likely to get caught on a kisscam with the head of HR.

Microsoft tells abandoned Publisher fans to just use Word and hope for the best

I hate to say it, but Pages on Mac is great for this stuff

Of course, it's not available for Windows or Linux.

Non-biz Skype kicks the bucket on May 5

Re: Teams? Forget it..

€12 here. According to copilot no way to get it back.

After clash over Rust in Linux, now Asahi lead quits distro, slams Linus' kernel leadership

Yet another "rewrite from scratch"

In 40 years of software development I've lost count of the number of times a small group of engineershave said it would be better to rewrite from scratch and start again. This Rust stuff feels like yet another example.

I guess one person's functional code is always gonna be another's technical debt.

It's not just Big Tech: The UK's Online Safety Act applies across the board

Re: Just another example...

The trouble is that now you have a law that can be used whenever the authorities wish to. The more overbearing laws like this exist, and the more that everyone says "oh don't worry, they'll never enforce it" the more likely it is that eventually someone will abuse the fact that these laws are broken on a daily basis to prosecute someone that they don't like. Either prosecute all the laws or remove them, but this halfway hiouse is incredibly bad for societ\y and the respect of law.

QNX 8 goes freeware – for non-commercial use

> There was a sweet spot in the 1990s and it has been deteriorating since the Windows XP era, which introduced the rot of "theming" and "skins" globally as standard, hastening the end of the standardised UI.

Wait. I thought we lost the ability to change even colours in Windows? Then I have to admit, I've barely tried for 25-odd years.

Re: Flop

> Where do the cool kids go for a small RTOS in these modern times?

FreeRTOS

HP exec says quiet part out loud when it comes to locking in print customers

Moving away from inkjet

Everyone I know has given up on inkjet printers. As we print less often the nozzles dry up and cause problems. Even on the wonderful Epson ecotanks. We give up on colour printing and just buy a Brother black and white laser printer. Then, however infrequently we print, it just works, and is fantastically inexpensive to run.

Douglas Adams was right: Telephone sanitizers are terrible human beings

Re: BT v Kelly

Here in France we can already tell you what happens when fibre is the norm. A technician comes along to the cabinet to connect a new subscriber, sees there are no ports free and so disconnects one at random and plugs the new subscriber in.

Rinse and repeat.

I'll see your data loss and raise you a security policy violation

Re: To be fair...

Tell me about it. When I moved to France and discovered that unfurnished meant no kitchen units either, I built a temporary kitchen from the moving boxes and duct tape. Lasted two years.

Fear not, White House chatted to OpenAI and pals, and they promised to make AI safe

Re: So, Tesla isn't on the list?

You didn't notice the film in 2005? Or you just don't consider it worthy? I thought Slartibartfast was rather good.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371724/

LibreOffice 7.5 update: A great time to jump on this FOSS productivity suite

Re: LO lost me

I just checked. Copy pastes didn't crash for me when they did in the past. On 10.15.7. YMMV

Fixing corrupt MS Office files

I used to work in an international standards body, creating 1000+ page documents in MS-Word with track changes (for the 100+ people in different companies working on the document).

Of course, we had fairly regular corrupt files, which had the potential to destroy man-years of work.

My go-to process for un-corrupting was always import to OpenOffice (at the time), save as native file format. Close the program, restart, open the newly saved doc, save as MS-Word.

It never failed.

I did enjoy pointing this out to the Microsoft reps in the meetings.

An IT emergency during a festive visit to the in-laws? So sorry, everyone, I need to step out for a while

Re: Sometimes bringing your work laptop on a trip pays off

My boss ended up commenting that I always "went upon holiday to remote, no-cell-service areas", to which I would respond "yep!". Even if I was at home doing DIY.

Here's something communism is good at: Making smartphones less annoying

Re: What's in a name?

Soon to be the Former United Kingdom...

Musk bans private-plane-tracking @Elonjet on Twitter, threatens legal action

Using twitter gives Musk your location

If you dig into the privacy settings you can turn off location-based advertising but you cannot stop twitter from having your location.

The best you can do is restrict location permission on your phone, but that won't stop IP-based location inference.

What's good for the goose.

Of course, by not using twitter...

Raspberry Pi hires former spy gadget-maker who baked devices into surveillance ops

I was on Mastodon as it ahppened

There was a lot of "stop using Raspberry Pi's" mostly from American people using the hashtag #ACAB

I went and looked it up - "All Cops are B******ds"

Seems a little un-nuanced.

Clearly a case of a specific crowd getting upset, as the ex-policeman was hired, and announced back in June.

But in general, a bit of arseholery on both sides.

Neuralink's AI brain chip could be in humans within six months claims Elon Musk

For two decades...

... I've said "Microsoft Teleport for Windows, after you".

The same applies here.

OVHCloud results show its November price hike will be a nice little earner

Yeah, but no

I'm not bothering to push back, but we just took out the contract with the replacement hosting service. OVH's price hike was just the trigger that pushed us over the edge, reminding us to take action. Their support has been going downhill for years. Our OVH contract expires in February. It will not be renewed.

When the expert speaker at an NFT tech panel goes rogue

crypto

"a little bit of nothing attached to another little bit of nothing."

Come now, cryptographically attached to another little bit of nothing.

So it's not just me.

I'm still trying to see how NFTs aren't an utterly brilliant pyramid scheme. Brilliant because there isn't even anything to sell.

Windows 10 still growing, but Win 11 had another bad month, says AdDuplex

I've never seen a PC which says it *CAN* upgrade to Win 11. There's always something.

How to keep a support contract: Make the user think they solved the problem

Re: Melting

I once fixed my Austin Maestro ECU by resoldering all the joints. The MOT garage owner offered me a job on the spot when I told him how my car was now passing the test.

BOFH: Pass the sugar, Asmodeus, and let the meeting of the Fellowship of Bastards … commence

Re: IoUT - Internet of Useless Things

It's been done. Internet of Shit

Not too bright, are you? Your laptop, I mean... Not you

Re: Ah, a first time user

You need to dig into the mechanical keyboard crowd. I have a keyboard with hot-swappable mechanical keys, so I can choose travel, downforce, clickityness etc. I am but a debutante in this field but it gets seriously geeky. Try searching for "mechanical keyboard" on Aliexpress just to get a feel for the insanity.

Audacity is a poster child for what can be achieved with open-source software

How did they 'acquire' it?

Just how did Muse Group 'aquire' Audacity. It's open source. What did they purchase? From whom?

Not for children: Audacity fans drop the f-bomb after privacy agreement changes

Application firewall

This made me wake up and get an application firewall, Blocks all outgoing connections from any app I choose.

https://radiosilenceapp.com is what I chose for Mac. There are other options for Linux and Windows.

You still control your computer today. Don't put up with crap like this.

Vissles V84: Mechanical keyboard hits all the right buttons for Mac power users

Keychron

I just got a Keychron C2. Full keyboard. Defaults to Mac, switchable to windows, and no-solder swappable keyswitches. I'm running Gateron brown right now, which seems nice, but can change if I feel like it. Less than £65 for the fancy RGB backlight one (which I already switched to white)

BOFH: I'm so pleased to be on the call, Boss. No, of course this isn't a recording

BOFH is so good for my mental health.

I reckon a BOFH article is as good for me as a Friday lunchtime beer. Thanks El Reg

Déjà bork: BSOD fairy pays key-cutting kiosk another visit

In the early 90's I once unlocked my mates Alfa Romeo with a 2p coin.

GitLab scans its customers' source code, finds it's as fragile as you'd expect

Or, just an idea...

The "security professionals" could do the world a favour and fix the bugs instead of just exposing them?

What do you call megabucks Microsoft? No really, it's not a joke. El Reg needs you

Brokensoft

as in "if it's not broken yet, we'll fix that in the next mandatory update".

We're in a timeline where Dettol maker has to beg folks not to inject cleaning fluid into their veins. Thanks, Trump

Re: Suggestion

They should probably vape it, to be certain.

Grab a towel and pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster because The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is 42

Re: A code

Once you grok bistromatics, you can grok anything

Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly? It's about to be screwed for... reasons

This is why...

I build my IoT stuff with Raspberry Pi's and Arduinos. In such a way that I don't need a company to keep them alive.

I choose when my kit goes obsolete, not some bloody bean-counter.

Alexa Conversations: Amazon's AI assistant is about to get a whole lot more like Clippy

Re: Ghastly

The good news is Alexa can be told to "shut the f^$% up" and it understands. Needs some AI to work out what it shouldn't be doing to get that response though.

Tesla autopilot saves driver after he fell asleep at wheel on the freeway

Re: Time for a firmware update?

Except in Houston, Texas, where I distinctly remember having to swerve across seven lanes of traffic to make a junction.

Thousands of misconfigured 3D printers on interwebz run risk of sabotage

Oh for &*^&*$£%^$%^ sake!

Security warning. SSH can be installed on a system that has stupid usernames and passwords, rendering it insecure. That doesn't make it SSH's fault.

In the case of Octoprint, you have to really go some to make it accessible.

Google Chrome update to label HTTP-only sites insecure within WEEKS

Re: It's not "browsing" anymore..

Yep. I tried setting a network printer to use HTTPS, and it created a self-signed certificate which Chrome and Firefox refused to connect to. I had to set it back to HTTP...

How to stealthily poison neural network chips in the supply chain

Read "The Butlerian Jihad" from the Dune Saga.

Not that it mentions the implications of strong AI or anything...

Sorry, Elon, your Tesla roadster won't orbit for billions of years

Re: Obligatory Hitchhiker reference...

What's the guarantee on the red paint?

UK drone collision study didn't show airliner window penetration

Re: UK gov impact studies (again)

As JimmyPage said above, the govt doesn't seem to do evidence-based policymaking. Which makes me wonder about, well, everything they've ever done.

If they're not doing things because there is evidence that they work, why are they doing things?

Re: Let's just accept that the UK

The clues in the name "conservatives". They don't like new things.