Posts by Emmeran

Professor freezes student grades after ChatGPT claimed AI wrote their papers

If the student has used any of the large cloud services to build their paper, then there is a pretty damned good chance one of the AI's has already absorbed it into their 'knowledge base'.

That student may have just plagarized themselves.

The crime against humanity that is the modern OS desktop, and how to kill it

and leave my damn Font alone

We don't need a new font. Please stop. I use Time New Roman, my wife a different.

I will not be changing the font my eyes like to read so stop it and go get a real job.

Facebook and Apple are toying with us, and it's scarcely believable

I have a certain respect for Apple

I bought my Ex-Wife an iPad.

Best decision I've made in my entire life.

Go see the Genius Bar and leave me alone.

What happens when the internet realizes the stock market is basically a casino? They go shopping at the Mall

Don't forget that these are real people being hurt, people who have multiple house and boats which depend on them.

Things aren't always as they appear

There's a lot of social movement aspect going on with this so it's not just a greed play, I mean who doesn't hate people who spend their entire day figuring out ways to make someone fail (short sellers).

The Shorters made a big mistake also, GameStop was profitable and didn't carry any debt so the short positions against it didn't make any sense unless someone was trying to drive the stock down to orchestrate a buyout and dismemberment. This brought it to the attention of a lot of people including the Reddit crowd.

Now people are crowd sourcing against the short sellers and a lot of them are spending a couple of bucks and calling it a donation; basically buying a ticket to piss on Wall Streets shoe.

The conversation in my house went like this:

"Honey I blew my beer money in the markets this morning."

"That's nice dear, please don't forget to take out the garbage today."

Finding remote working a bit of a grind? Microsoft staffers feel your pain

Ahh this is beautiful....

The ones bragging about disruption and change not whining desperately that things have been disrupted and changed.

Those who happily insulted older workers for not being quick to change now find that they themselves don't like change.

This is the new reality folks please try to learn to deal with it and keep your whining to yourself...

Apple hits back at Epic, says Fortnite crew wants a 'free ride' on fees: Let the app store death match commence

Epic needs to follow the SEMA example

SEMA got past the automakers walled gardens, I have no doubt that their approach can be used to breach Apples monopolistic and thieving policies.

Insane homeowners association tries to fine resident for dick-shaped outline car left in snow

Apparently someone has unmet needs

If you are seeing "Penis" shapes where ever you turn you obviously have an unfulfilled craving.

Try the local dive bar or rent a willing body off the internet - just keep your fantastical cravings outside of our parking spaces.

Pandas so useless they just look at delicious kid who fell into enclosure

Re: they have been even known to sit on their new born offspring

and pigs have a survival strategy, they shoot out 10~15 piglets at a go; nobody misses the odd smooshed one. Also they, much like turtles, eat anything that gets within range or moves slower than they do. Many a goose on our farm lost their head trying to steal food from the pigs...

National Enquirer's big Pecker tried to shaft me – and I wouldn't give him an inch, says Jeff Bezos after dick pic leak threat

My first thought was

Being the same age as Bezos my first though was: Whatever, I'm a 54 year old man, nobody is interested anyway.

It would have been more effective to threaten to post nudies of Trump wrapped in an Amazon Logo.

On the seventh anniversary of Steve Jobs' death, we give you 7 times he served humanity and acted as an example to others

Re: He's not the messiah...

I thought Odin did that first, everyone else was just a copycat.

Wait, how did Jobs slip into my reply???

Surprise, surprise. Here comes Big Cable to slay another rule that helps small ISPs compete

To get real competition municipalities need to re-take ownership of the last mile. When you don't own your infrastructure you are at the mercy of monopolistic corporations and their pet legislators.

Nah, it won't install: The return of the ad-blocker-blocker

Be braver

Buy a car and force them to remove all brand markings and labels from the exterior before you will accept delivery. I did that and the vehicle looked a lot better...

Microsoft still longs to be a 'lifestyle' brand, but the cupboard looks bare

Re: Tools vs Toys

Nah - I drive an SRT-4 cuz I like it.

But my point is Microsoft already has a "Style" and the worst thing they do is "update" the MS Office interfaces and piss people off. We really just want to work.

Tools vs Toys

When I buy tools I buy only top quality and for me that means DeWalt, Snap-On and the like, you can keep your cheap "DIY brands". When I finally made the jump to Android I bought a Cat S41 and when I buy IT tools I buy Microsoft.

I have a lifestyle for you Microsoft - its called "Professional Grade", quit screwing around trying to be Apple and focus on the heavy lifting. When I drop my Cat phone on the table during a meeting all of the men with frilly Apple/Samsung phones cringe and just wish they had thought to act like a man instead of carry around delicate little frilly things.

Lifestyle this - I build things that last.

US Supreme Court blocks internet's escape from state sales taxes

Re: Yo! Yank ... Er ....

I think the common sense answer is that you tax at the delivery location. Quick (and extremely simple) example is that Grandparents send a gift to little Tina for her birthday, you then tax that transaction like they had purchased it locally and delivered it in person.

This is how many states deal with the transaction tax on major purchases like vehicles, you have to pay the tax to register it here and you can't drive it if it isn't registered here (with obvious exceptions).

Re: Er ....

And thus a new industry is born. All of you bit-whackers should be dancing in the streets right now...

Oddly enough, when a Tesla accelerates at a barrier, someone dies: Autopilot report lands

The forgotten part of the story

This particular "Apple Engineer" had repeatedly commented that Tesla's Autopilot didn't work well on this portion of the 101 yet he insisted on personally testing it every time a new software release was pushed out.

Somewhat just rewards for self-testing.

Off with e's head: E-cig explosion causes first vaping death

Hash just burns hotter

Let that be a lesson to you all.

Hey cool, you went serverless. Now you just have to worry about all those stale functions

Re: Each new deployment method

Even better, the DevOps/FaaS crew usually passes of the maintenance portion to a crew of "mature" developers who suddenly have the responsibility of keeping that mess running. Meanwhile the DevOps crew crows with success and begins a new pile of hot mess never looking back at the business crushing horror they have left behind.

Date engraved onto net neutrality tombstone: June 11, 2018

It's a moot point in some places

Many towns that still retain their public power grid and simply becoming their own internet providers and negating the corporate markup all together. Yes I know that is about as Socialistic as public roads and fire hydrants but it works well and costs a lot less.

Just a reminder that it's good to own your own municipal infrastructure, it's like owning your own house and vehicles - you are beholden to no one but yourself.

Windows Notepad fixed after 33 years: Now it finally handles Unix, Mac OS line endings

The final death of the teletype.

I lament the lost TTY,

how we yearn for your 3 row keyboards

and the glory of 8 level baudot tape.

Glorious hours of hitting CAR RET, CAR RET

followed by a lovely LINE FEED.

Long lost is FIGS & LTRS keys and

voluminous piles of chaff.

Ask not for whom the BELL dings

for it dings for thee Teletype Model 28 ASR.

Congratulations, we all survived Star Wars day! Now for some security headaches

Close shave

I applied for that Leominster, MA job; apparently I was very lucky not to get it.

Grab your lamp, you've pulled: Brits punt life-saving gravity-powered light

Oh look

Someone reinvented the cuckoo clock. And for our next trick - the waterwheel!

Pentagon sticks to its guns: Yep, we're going with a single cloud services provider

Ludicrous

Like the Fed can't build their own secure cloud. Outsourcing DoD cloud needs is flat out stupid, multi-sourcing it would be even worse.

For the price of one Carrier the DoD could build the world's largest and most secure Cloud and thereby guarantee our sensitive data is safe. Some things should never be privatized.

Sysadmin’s worst client was … his mother! Until his sister called for help

iPad to the rescue

I spent a decade trying to help my wife (Ex) work with a computer. Finally I wised up, bought her the first iPad and pointed her at the Apple Store whenever she called.

While I hate to see Apple products on my support list at work they seem to be the perfect solution for the "less technically inclined" family members. Kind of like the iTunes/iPod/iPhone combination, buy it and play it from the same place, annoyed me but worked for my wife and daughter.

(To this very day I still swear that iTunes was the true genius of the i-Fad decade)

No Falcon Way: NASA to stick with SLS, SpaceX more like space ex

Re: It's about government control

You're dodging the fact that the ancillary research (such as RNA changes) done by NASA is what really matters at this point; commercial companies just won't invest in that.

In the end (through a foggy, fished lens) I see NASA evolving into a regulatory agency for safety and welfare and the fact is we'll need that.

NASA is a development lab

You can't dismiss the fact that NASA is primarily an R&D lab. SpaceX wouldn't exist without the government funded research and development that has happened and continues to happen there. SLS might be the last great NASA rocket but the BFR concept wouldn't exist without the work that's been done on SLS.

Until we have an assembly facility in orbit we will require ultra-heavy lift and we will continue to publicly invest via NASA in developing cutting edge technologies up until the free market enterprise companies actually and fully surpass the public effort. That time will come soon but it isn't here yet.

SpaceX thus far has shown some evolutionary parlor tricks but they still haven't done anything truly revolutionary or taken on any huge gambles like NASA has.

What the @#$%&!? Microsoft bans nudity, swearing in Skype, emails, Office 365 docs

Re: Offensive moi?

^^ Ah the potential for maturity is strong within this one ^^

A real Pro can cuss you out without using profanity!

As if y'all didn't see this already: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/22/craigslist-personals-shut-down.html

As fun as this is to poke fun at

We all know why they had to do that and thus because of some nitwits out there who cannot control themselves or learn a vocabulary somebody has to act like the adult in the room occasionally.

Some knucklehead got banned for being a mannerless jerk on-line and then sued Microsoft for the ban, so now it's in the T&C.

See, this is why we can't have nice things.

Five things you need to know about Microsoft's looming Windows 10 Spring Creators Update

The amazing thing is the "Timeline" feature. A major software company has decided to give you a glimpse of how much information they and everyone else is recording about you.

Windows 10 to force you to use Edge, even if it isn't default browser

Re: Fucking idiots

Exactly why the best decision I ever made was buying my Ex-Wife an Apple device.

Elon Musk invents bus stop, waits for applause, internet LOLs

End of the line

Anecdotally enough I live at the End of the Line (heading west) for the Boston Public Transport system. Literally the last stop out of Boston by train & bus. The bus shows up here twice a day, at 5:30am and at 6:30pm, and it's a fight to keep that in service.

There just aren't enough people out here to warrant the expense. From the center of Boston the train will cost you $10 to get out to Worcester and an Uber from that point is $40. The bus from there is cheap but any crimp in your transport timing leaves you out of luck and calling Uber. Train/bus takes three times longer than by car. So much so that when I got my DUI (yes I know but one and only) I paid someone to drive me as it was faster and ultimately cheaper to hand cash to someone on disability to drive me around.

I do live in the boondocks and live here on purpose but just to support your post those are the facts.

Sysadmin left finger on power button for an hour to avert SAP outage

Jeremy spoke in class today

This same sort of thing happened to a friend and co-worker and we did indeed make him stand there holding the button in until we could the users out and the apps shut down.

I still recall that forlorn look on his face as he stood there alone in the data center, it brings a smile to my face.

Boring. The phone business has lost the plot and Google is making it worse

I have to upgrade this year

I've been on a Windows phone for who knows how long mostly because it just worked. I'm not going to the AppleWorld so it looks like my next phone is a Cat S41 Android.

The thing is Android is so messy and annoying. I really don't need my phone to do much but it needs to be business like and organized - but most of all shouldn't be frail and lacy like an iPhone.

UK.gov: Psst. Belgium. Buy these Typhoon fighter jets from us, will you?

Re: f-35 - air inferiority fighter-bomber

The F-35 is a drone with a seat for an ego, we'll forgo the ego spot in future renditions.

Bloke sues Microsoft: Give me $600m – or my copy of Windows 7 back

Re: Downgrade rights

Yup - all he had to do was click on that "Downgrade" button that shows up on the fancy Blue Screen (as soon as the memory dump finishes).

Re: Don't forget to sue them for time lost...

Doesn't work. It's a video driver problem with the NvideaMobility chips from a certain model. You can eventually force W10 to sort of work but each update Tuesday blue screens it again. I've spent years struggling to force it to work with no luck on my 27" AllinOne Asus.

I eventually gave up and went to Windows 7 (even though it came with Win 8.1), I bought my only copy and wrote the whole episode off to bad luck with early Chinese products.

Talk down to Siri like it's a mere servant – your safety demands it

A picture/video is no longer proof positive and people actually hold conversations with their household appliances; my how we have devolved.

Then only thing under voice control in my house is my dogs and even that is questionable sometimes. My kids can only be managed with router config tricks...

NYPD head of IT doubles down on Windows smartphone idiocy

From dumb to dumber

To begin with going with Windows phones was technically savvy but dumb based on MSFTs long term planning. Shifting to the egg fragile iPhone is even dumber.

Looking at the nature of the job they should be focusing on a tough phone like the Cat S60 (or the equivalent). I'm finally giving up my Windows phone this year and it will be the Cat I'm switching to.

Disclaimer: As a middle aged guy who has to wear reading glasses to use any damn handheld device I find them less desirable than I did just a decade ago. That process of: pick up phone, put on glasses, interact with phone, take off glasses is just annoying.

Scary news: Asteroid may pass Earth by just 6,880km in October

My brother had a car + tree situation like that.

Bruce Willis looks like me

Only far, far richer. Oh and he's shorter also, but otherwise he's a dead ringer for me.

So who exactly was to blame for Marketo losing its dotcom?

Crappy inventory and audit procedures

Fire CTO and move on.

The ultimate full English breakfast – have your SAY

Re: Proper Full English

"FFS buy a bloody kettle! You *cannot* make tea in a pan on the stove! Bloody heathen!"

Southern sweet iced tea *must* be made on the stove. You definitely need to get out of your northerly climes a little more often.

Typical Brits, can't even do breakfast right

Where's the sausage gravy? The Chickenfried steak? The pancakes for gosh sakes?

And have you never heard of hash browns? Ketchup or brown sauce - have you never met tabasco?

No wonder you're all so limp and pallid...

User filed fake trouble tickets to take helpful sysadmin to lunches

Back in the OS/2 days of the 1990's

My best buddy at work would map his print spooler to the hot chick in accounting's PC. Needless to say every time he want'd to chat her up he'd kick off a large "test print job" bringing her machine to it's knees. He was always waiting by the phone for her call.

They are married with two kids now...

Fan of FBI cosplay? Enjoy freaking out your neighbors? Have we got the eBay auction for you

Re: Retro

Seriously though... you couldn't sell wood paneling to anyone in 1989. Casts doubt on the whole shebang.

Breathless F-35 pilots to get oxygen boost via algorithm tweak

Re: have a bake sale

Do. Not. Give. Them. Ideas.

Nearly three-quarters of convicted TV Licence non-payers are women

Socialized TV

Every time I start to admire the Brits something as silly as this comes up. I love me some good socialized roads, safety, education and health care - but socialized entertainment?

Surprised you guys didn't find a way to socialize and tax random happy thoughts.