Posts by msknight

Mozilla's midlife crisis has taken it from web pioneer to Google's weird neighbor

It is not asleep at the wheel

From my dealings and discussions, it has more resemblance to a driver hyped up on coffee, intent on driving Firefox off the nearest cliff at high speed.

Switch to hit the fan as BT begins prep ahead of analog phone sunset

I want to know the equipment...

...because I have firewalls, etc. at home and I don't want one of their routers. But there seems to be very little reliable information on what they will install in people's homes and how to interface existing equipment.

The last thing I need is for someone to come in, install stuff and then be faced with extra cost to get different equipment or re-configure my home systems before I can talk on the internet or use my phone again. And who do I call to tell them that my mobile phone reception is rubbish? Hopefully more information will come in time, as I have a relative in Salisbury who is less than impressed with their so called success there.

No customer left behind, SAP's Klein tells users angered by cloud-only decision

He won't leave customers behind...

...they'll leave.

Meet Honda's latest electric vehicle: A rideable suitcase

I think that Honda's wheel that you sat on looked more fun to use - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ZB_rGFyeU - shame that they had to double the speed of the video to get to normal play which makes me wonder how fast or far those things could go.

Musk's latest X-periments: No more headlines, old posts vanish, block gets banned

Re: Accessibility?

Block is the feature that I use to kill adverts. When I get an ad in my feed, I just block the user where it came from.

This is probably more to do with making sure people see ads, because I'm not the only one doing this, by any means.

China floats strict screentime limits and content crimps for kids

Microsoft have been floating parental controls also...

...however they've been sending the notices to the e-mails of the accounts... in other words, the notices have probably gone to the kids instead of the parents. Microsoft probably don't care... box ticked from their point of view, and the regulator is probably clueless as to what's happened.

I have tried e-mailing a copy to el-reg but apparently my e-mails have been blocked, so, meh.

On the record: Apple bags patent for iDevice to play LPs

Re: If you have money to through at patents...

Grateful for a link to these records to learn a bit more. I'm obviously not using the right terms on google.

I have to admit I can't get my head around how such a record would work in terms of response to scratching. Even with the magnetic clutch on my SL, it's difficult to decently scratch a record. Imagining adding in the latency of AD conversion, processing, etc. has got the old brain cells wondering, "How do they do that?"

Re: If you have money to through at patents...

Well, they've got what looks suspiciously like an SL-1200 in that image. Wonder if they've got/need permissions to include artwork like that in their patent filings.

Our AI habit is making us less environmentally friendly, Google admits

Why don't they ask AI for the solution?

Seems sensible to me.

After all, it's supposed to solve problems... right?

Google's next big idea for browser security looks like another freedom grab to some

The pooch is there to be screwed

"If you make your customer your enemy, you have profoundly screwed the pooch." ... but that's exactly what they want to do. The pooch is there to be screwed out of as much money as possible. That's why they see nothing wrong with what they're doing.

The problem is those who offer up what they do, who don't want money in return, will be impacted because those who want the pooch to bend over and take it, are in the vast majority; and lets face it, nothing comes for free these days. Every web renewal I have to weigh up the cost of my personal web domains and wonder if I can afford to keep them running in these cash strapped times.

Almost all classic US video games 'critically endangered'

Re: Even if the old software/ROMs were available

I gave up on things as well. The most recent example was American McGee's Alice whereas the protection system prevents me running it on the OS because the patches made the old CD protection fail. There is a command that can be run on Windows 7, I think, but even then it was a pain and I worry that the CD hasn't got much life left in it.

I did write a physical letter to Andrew Wilson of EA games, to make patches available on their web site for people to play the older games without having to cope with the copy protection, but I didn't get a response.

If the manufacturers/studios are not engaged then you have to resort to hacking anyway. Either that or the "no CD" hacks which, themselves, are a risk.

I think we should just resign ourselves to the fact that many games are just going to die because even though the companies aren't making any money from these titles any more, they still don't want other people to continue to enjoy the legacy of games. They'd rather we continue to spend money on the new stuff.

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

Re: That's a decent enough home office setup..

I had the debut carbon with an acrylic platter. Replaced the ortofon cartridge with an AT.

Now I've got an SL-1200 Mk7 and ported the cart over. £800-ish in silver from Richer Sounds. Enjoying it much more. Don't need the DJ stuff, but the non-DJ versions were going £1K+

Speakers, Castle Durham 900 bookshelf. Nice rich sound for not much cash on ebay. (£70 in 2016)

Mark Zuckerberg would kick Elon Musk's ass, experts say

Re: So who would win?

Have a beer. That made me chuckle.

Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries

Re: As luck would have it....

I do wish Boris had a removable battery.

Users accuse Intuit of 'heavy-handed' support changes on QuickBooks for Desktop

Dale Carnegie would be proud.

Author of, "How To Win Friends and Influence People."

Absolute mad lad renders Doom in teletext

Bad Apple was done on Teletext.

Admittedly running on a BBC Micro for audio - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22y_aiOx9CY

More UK councils caught by Capita's open AWS bucket blunder

"extensive steps to recover and secure the data."

Do they actually believe that anyone takes that seriously? Once data has gone... it's out the barn door, into the field, over the hills and looooong gone. Even John Wayne with the longest lasso known to the human race ain't going to be rounding that steer up.

Professor freezes student grades after ChatGPT claimed AI wrote their papers

Re: Self Referential

Here's a thought... why doesn't he just ask AI which students asked it to write their paper for them!

Search the web at least once every two years or risk losing your Google account

Re: They want your phone number

They've probably got it unofficially anyway. They just need to make it that you've officially given it to them, and then they'll abuse it even more than they already are.

Thin end of the wedge.

Once this starts, they'll increase the amount of use you've got to make of google services before they'll nix your account, to the point where you've got to use google search once a week. When that happens you might as well default your search back to google because it'll be too much hassle. They'll force people into a black and white decision in the end, and I'm willing to bet that if they push people that hard, they'll get an unpleasant surprise at just how many people jump ship.

We're already seeing this with the forced adverts on youtube to push people to take up a red subscription. I don't think that's working out quite as well as they'd hoped.

Logitech, iFixit to offer parts to stop folks binning their computer mouse

I agree. As a result of Luke Lafreniere's review of the Hyperion Fury (G402) eight years ago, I bought one, and then bought another, and another... I think I have six now and I don't believe one has died yet. Or possibly one where the cable went (as the braided cables were reserved for the G502) ... I have them on my main system KVM, another on my gaming station and another in my laptop bag. When they started to become hard to get, I got another two or three (checks spares box) ... yes, three. Great mice for the money. Love them to bits. Literally :-) ... if only the software came on Linux... (cough, cough)

YouTube's 'Ad blockers not allowed' pop-up scares the bejesus out of netizens

The easy answer is to download the video using yt-dlp or something like that. Then watch it locally. Problem sorted ... for now.

Capita looking at a bill of £20M over breach clean-up costs

Are they kidding?

"but reputational damage could be 'far greater'" ... what reputation? Who wrote that?

Users complain over UK state-owned bank's services as Atos eyes the exit

Re: Glitch

I had similar. Wrote letters of complaint and their customer service team just haven't got a clue. Even sent to the chief executive saying, "Don't pass this to the customer service team, pass it to the technical department".... and I still got a useless reply from the customer service team. Eventually had to get the Financial Ombudsman involved (don't ask.) and it's currently ongoing. So seeing this headline today is no surprise.

Musk tried to wriggle out of Autopilot grilling by claiming past boasts may be deepfakes

Re: All you need to know about Musk

It's the "legal way" that's in question. Why are things being restricted in this manner in the first place. I mean, I can understand some things due to some licensing and funding considerations, but this Jamie Oliver video (and others like it) beggar belief.

Re: All you need to know about Musk

Agreed. It's utterly bonkers. Even Jamie Oliver just released a video on youtube for Sweet potato & Sweetcorn platter and, guess what, not available in your country. I'm in the UK, he's a UK chef, operating in the UK... so why is it unavailable? Utterly senseless IMHO.

Microsoft goes meteorological in defining cybercrook groups

Totally get where you're coming from, but as the news outlets occasionally report on the big cybercrime stories I can't imagine anyone sanctioning the reporter saying, "Thieving Ruskie Dickheads broke into a school and lifted a lot of children's private... er.. information."

Deplatforming hate forums doesn't work, British boffins warn

Please reconsider the title

The title is that deplatforming doesn't work, when in the article it states that while it works it is not enough on its own.

The title of the piece leads the casual reader to conclude that we should just stop deplatforming because it doesn't work.

Brazil defies US, cozies up to Chinese tech on chip building

Re: Interesting

The problem regarding monopoly is that when China gets involved, (purely based on what I've read) then everything becomes Chinese. Their workers get shipped in, all the profits go their way and contracts with no disclosure clauses then tie up the other country from saying a damn thing about it. Signing with China really does seem to be the modern dance with the devil.

UK's Emergency Services Network unlikely to start operating until 2029

Re: Scandalous!

Otherwise known as being promoted out of harms way.

Twitter blocks Pakistan government account, boosts state-run media from Russia and China

The only policy that means a crap in twitter these days...

...is whatever opinion Musk has woken up with this morning.

The changes that have occurred, including allowing the tabilan to buy ticks and amplification, along with the blue tick destruction of my news feed means I barely go into twatter once or twice a week to check on messages.

Lenovo revs up a rackable Aston Martin … workstation?

I like it

I'd have one. (says the person who recently altered a Mac Pro G4 case to take PC parts.) - http://msknight.com/technilife/?s=mac+to+pc ... although I went with blue rather than red... 'cause I'm like that.

Gartner: Oracle probes orgs for Java compliance after new licensing terms

Re: Oracle is targeting users on Java compliance after new licensing terms

What about XCP-ng ?

Meta to add verification to Facebook and Insta under scheme that should avoid Twitter's Musk-stakes

And if they do a Twitter...

...by allowing the taliban to buy blue verification ticks then I'll abandon them just as I've abandoned Twitter too.

Meta cranks Zuckerberg's personal security budget to $14m while cutting everything else

Nah... they probably need the extra security to protect him from all the staff he just fired.

I thought about putting, "Joke alert," but concluded that it's not that funny.

Microsoft tells people to prepare for AI search engine that goes Bing!

Re: Goes Bing?

Exactly. It's now the most powerful way to get to Google that has ever been imagined.

Surprise! China's top Android phones collect way more info

Re: As an owner of a Xiaomi

Yes, it matters. In the recent protests that Chinese people made against winnie the poo, there was no military crackdown, but after it had all settled chinese authorities started vanishing people. This also included people who lived in the areas of the protests or were just going to the shops in the vicinity. There's a fair amount of noise about what's going on with people vanishing, mobile phones, privacy, tracking, etc. and chinese people are waking up to the realities of all this.

No more free API access, says Twitter: You pay for that data

Re: They just did this in the wrong order

Yeah, except for the fact that it's not him doing the revolutionising. It's just done with his cash and in his name - https://www.tumblr.com/numberonecatwinner/701567544684855296/elon-wyd - and so far, what's happening is bearing this out. The truth will only come with time, but in the time that has elapsed so far, Musk is looking to be a reactionary who doesn't plan or consider fully the consequences of the actions, before he takes them. Any investor seeing this and coming to that conclusion, will run a mile from any enterprise that carries his name, and has him in charge.

Version 5 of the Endless OS enters testing

Missing link

I did a search to find their site... both video links fail (one on youtube and one on vimeo) and the link to the codec licenses ends up with server IP not found. - that is the .com site. I believe there is a .org that might be working. By the time I try, the edit timer on this will likely have expired.

Elon Musk to step down as Twitter CEO: Help us pick his replacement

I nominate...

Zippy and Bungle.

Cloud customers are wasting money by overprovisioning resources

I have wondered about de-dupe

Something that's been on the back of my mind for a while is if customers are being charged for de-duped data. I mean, multiple copies of Windows servers must result in a heck of a lot of common data across instances.

Big tech's discarded techies won't sate the job market, says analyst

Re: If they want to solve the shortage of staff...

Some would say that it's, "catch up," with the private sector; in fact, not even catching up even - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-63400845

If they want to solve the shortage of staff...

...then they should offer a decent wage. In my area infrastructure engineer positions are paying less than the NHS.

Japanese convenience store chain opens outlet staffed by avatars and robots

The day a product tells me that it's delicious and wants me to it something up, is the day I get arrested for assaulting shelving units.

FTX disarray declared 'unprecedented' by exec who cleaned up after Enron

Re: New name for them

Please... don't... I'm already lining up another mug of coffee after reading the headline as.. "cleaned up after Elon."

Somebody close the door. Oh, too late, Elon already did.

Musk sells $3.95 billion in Tesla shares, paid eleven times more for Twitter

Is this going to be a new measurement of expenditure?

$44 billion = 1 Musk

$8 = 1 blue tick

Chipmakers cripple products to dodge US China ban

I do wonder...

...whether those speeds are artificially low and can be unlocked with firmware once they've reached their destination.

Oracle's Larry Ellison shares fears of bankrupting Western civilization with healthcare

Bronzed but wanting to live forever

Unless he's put on fake tan, surely he should be aware of the risk of sun exposure and how it might dent his plans for immortality... or does he have a solution to skin cancer than none of us know about?

UK regulator proposes price cap on Motorola as supplier of Airwave network

There has been a separate project for more than a year now, to identify key black spot areas and boost signal in those areas, but also accounting for power outage scenarios as well; so not just "do we need another tower here" but also, "How long does this new tower need to survive a power outage" etc.

People are coming out of retirement due to cost-of-living crisis

Re: Not great news for youngsters

It's not great news for anyone.

I'm in the south of england and infrastructure engineers with a laundry list of skills are being offered £20k-£30k. (outside London) I don't know where they're getting those figures from, but that's even less than the NHS and local government are paying.

Something is still seriously screwed with the IT jobs market and it's going to take a while to sort itself out, I reckon.