Posts by Michael Hoffmann

Ready for the Linux 6.0 splashdown? Here are some of the highlights

Re: Early version numbers......

You know what? You may absolutely right - and I can't even remember that. :'(

I now believe I never even owned a 286 - rather that 386 was the first Intel machine I owned after switching from an Atari... err, 2? 4?

Re: Early version numbers......

Moi! Was the first time I got to play with it. Installed on an 80286 IIRC.

I think I even sent in a patch for some obscure sound device my machine had at the time. Wracking my brain but can't for the life of me remember. Curse you, old age and post-Covid brain fog. :'(

CP/M's open-source status clarified after 21 years

Re: Ah, the memories!

Indeed. I made my first money in IT on CP/M. Owned an Apple 2 with the Z80 card and an Osborne-1 (which I had won at a trade show, I kid you not). Wrote mostly on dBase2, stuff like inventory management for a local car dealership and such. Those were the days, my friend.

Amazon fears it could run out of US warehouse workers by 2024

Baaaad idea!

We don't have the flying cars yet! Need those or how are you going to get around retiring replicants?

SpaceX reportedly fires staffers behind open letter criticising Elon Musk

Faces of SpaceX

Frequently watching the launches, you get used to a range of familiar talking-head faces commenting the events.

If any or all of those are different, we'll have an idea of at least some of the people who launched (ha!) the petition.

NASA's InSight doomed as Mars dust coats solar panels

Re: Insight?

I can say from first hand experience that some kind of "windshield wiper" would be the last thing you want to use on solar panels. Without some kind of washing fluid, that is. The wiping would be really abrasive to both wipers and the panel.

Could something anti-static work?

Most organizations hit by ransomware would pay up if hit again

Time for a Thieve's Guild?

Once again, Pterry may have been a visionary: just introduce a Ransomware Guild, with the proviso that they also enforce unlicensed gangs.

<company gets hit by ransomware>

"But we're fully paid up! What do we pay our fees for?

<guild, likely with better resources than most law enforcement agencies anyway, hunts down the freebooters and turns them into dog food>

Companies that pay their fee get a nice little icon on their website! Maybe introduce another EV system so your browser can show it right in the bookmark bar. May I suggest the silhouette of a person with dropped pants bending forward?

IBM's autonomous Mayflower ship breaks down in second transatlantic attempt

Size of vessel

I read the dimensions and of course, immediately thought that it has to be a massively scaled down model. No way would 130 people trundle across the Atlantic in a 15m boat.

Then I read that the real one was merely twice the length. Even accounting for multiple decks that just blows my mind. How they didn't all murder each other...

Google Docs crashed when fed 'And. And. And. And. And.'

All I can say is...

I. I. I. I. I.

Caramba!

MIT's thin plastic speakers fall flat. And that's by design

PET indeed

Having moved with pets and having them travel in air carriers in loud aircraft or sitting on even louder tarmacs, I've long wished for some technology that can add noise-cancelling to the already compact, nay, crammed pet carriers/cages. These could be ideal as they wouldn't take up space on the inside.

Provided they can produce the required frequency range of whatever sounds need to be cancelled.

Brave, DuckDuckGo to unplug Google's AMP where possible

Re: Firefox

Really? I installed it yesterday in 91.8 ESR and following the test link it seems to work flawlessly.

Re: Firefox

You've earned youself an ->

And because it's Friday, more than one!

Firefox

There is also a "Redirect AMP to HTML" addon for Firefox, for sake of completeness.

Does anybody know of a website to test that De-AMP and friends are working? All I can find are AMP validators, which is the opposite of what I want.

When the expert speaker at an NFT tech panel goes rogue

I guess Alistair...

... is now also a paid up member of the Shadow Cabal <dramatic music>, which already has such worthies as Kira, Collin, Share, whose YT channels are hilarious for how they expose the insanity of groupthink and the sheer shamelessness of the hucksters.

The Souls noob's guide to Elden Ring

I'm not alone!

I thought if I'd post my comment, I'd be laughed out of the forum, but I'm so gratified and relieved that I am NOT the only one who plays games in easy mode.

I never played DS and from all I've seen I would have zero interest in it. For the same reason Elden Ring has no appeal. Too old, too slow, too focused on "I want to play games like interactive books or movies". Dying 20 times to some obscure boss is like getting interrupted at the same page in a book over and over until you've forgotten what the plot was about.

IBM deliberately misclassified mainframe sales to enrich execs, lawsuit claims

IBM did not respond...

If they didn't reply, then let me have a go:

"These allegations are baseless and IBM will vigorously defend itself in court. That is, until our lawyers get together with their lawyers, resulting in a settlement that leaves plaintiffs getting nothing and the partners of law-firms on both sides shopping for new yachts and private jets".

Cryptomining groups fight fiercely for cloud resources

Criminals moving to NFTs?

In the last few weeks I've dived down the rabbit hole that is NFTs, the other new blockchain darling.

No, not to invest, hell no! But reading up just what a scam it is for the truly brain-damaged taken by the completely unscrupulous and the lowest dregs of humanity known as "influencers".

I would have thought it would become far more interesting for criminals to jump into: far fewer resources required, all you apparently need is an Andy Warholified cartoon of a chimp. Or something along those lines. Some idiotic cult phrases (to the moon! line goes up!) and you have the gullible beating down your door without having to do much of anything. No GPU farms, no malware battles in the cloud. Pull off something like Earth 2 and you even managed to invent something that currently can't even be categorised as quite a Ponzi not a MLM scheme, total legal greyzone.

Red Hat effort to shut down WeMakeFedora.org deemed harassment

Smacks of IBM

This has the stench of IBM lawyers all over it.

Chip world's major suppliers of neon gas shut down by Ukraine invasion – report

Re: Why do chips need neon?

A MSM article on the topic I just read had a throw-away sentence about it being used for clean production without further explanation. However this

https://venturebeat.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-supplies-90-percent-of-us-semiconductor-grade-neon-what-it-means-to-chip-supply-chain/

says it's for the lasers used in production.

BitConnect boss accused of $2.4bn crypto-Ponzi fraud has disappeared

Re: Is the SEC really his biggest problem?

Well now you made me walk to the bookshelf and verify:

It's definitely "very upset" and the rest of the sentence reads "and find the brief remainder of his life full of incident".

Re: Is the SEC really his biggest problem?

What you're saying is that one day he may hear a voice out of a dark alley saying "Mister Chrysoprase is VERY upset" and then find his remaining life to be short and full of incident?

Americans far more willing to hand over personal data

Re: Lacking information?

Alright, I'll be that guy: apart from a bazillion "inspirational quotes" sites, where did M.A actually write that? I'm trawling through my translated copy of "Meditations" and find zilch.

20 years of .NET: Reflecting on Microsoft's not-Java

Notably missing in action...

The MAUI layer above Linux. I don't care if they pick one, a UI and framework, GNONE, KDE, Qt! X11 raw! Whatever.

It's not there. What should that tell us about the level of commitment?

IT technician jailed for wiping school's and pupils' devices

What about the lawyer?

The lawyer actually tried to pull that old chestnut about "leet haxors will get hired as soopr sikuritee guru"?

Pulling shit like that nowadays won't even get you hired as the barista for the executive suite (the peons don't get baristas)

Geomagnetic storm takes out 40 of 49 brand new Starlink satellites

Insured?

Shirley, they were insured?

But crap, I would reckon they were some of the nice new 2.0 sats with friggin laser beams and all.

Alternately, if they *were* insured and they were still the old model, Musk gets an upgrade for his premiums and doesn't have to use the old shelf-stock.

Wait... you don't think it was insurance fraud and he triggered that storm?!

FBI seizes $3.6bn in Bitcoin after New York 'tech couple' arrested over Bitfinex robbery

Am I a bad person...

... after watching 5 seconds of that video and thinking "karma is a bitch"?

Hello Slackware, our old friend: Veteran Linux distribution releases version 15.0 at last

Re: my first distro

Just raising one to both of you.

Same, same: first dive into Linux was building from scratch the source downloaded via our blazing corporate 128kbps. The came Slackware as my first distro, which I ran for years.Heck, I don't think I touched Redhat or SUSE until the Noughts.

Google Cloud started running its servers for an extra year, still loses billions

Hope GCP survives

I confess, I *like* working with GCP!

Having used the "Big 3" extensively, I found GCP is really great to work with as a dev/devops guy. Whatever else I think about Alphabet/Google, at least they managed to put together a great cloud platform.

However, with Google's record of cancelling on short notice whatever doesn't bring in as much profit as ad flinging, I'm worried.

Trio of Rust Core Team members take their leave

Re: Seems like...

Yes, a lot of people have taken a shine to it, it seems, but I feel it lacks polish. Now it also seems a bit tarnished. Maybe if I scratched the surface?

BlackBerry offloads its 'legacy' patents – some of the stuff that made its phones hum

Impressive!

You managed that entire report without once using the word "troll".

Even though it looks like it could have been justified in just about every paragraph.

UK's new Brexit Freedom Bill promises already-slated GDPR reform, easier gene editing rules

Re: At the AC, re: chicken dinner.

Bring the ketchup, because have you ever tried rat without ketchup?

Idea of downloading memories far-fetched say experts after Musk claim resurfaces in latest Neuralink development

That quote!

"Absolute balls. This is god-level cockwaffle, typical of the manballs beloved of these ignorant dorks."

I don't have Twitter, but I may have to sign up only to follow this gentleman! Bravo! Bravo, I say! Brought a tear of joy to my eye, it did.

Bouncing cheques or a bouncy landing? All in a day's work for the expert pilot

Re: In the pilot's defense...

That'd be the one with Gert Fröbe famously declaring "there is nothing a German office cannot do!"?

In the pilot's defense...

... being a former one myself (of mere bugsmashers, mind you):

The "down" arrow is the one that points towards you, the "up" arrow away from you. Which correlates to yoke back, i.e. towards you, to go *up* and yoke (or stick) forward, away from you, to go *down*!

OpenShell has been working on a classic replacement for Windows 11's Start menu

Stardock

I'm such a reprobate that I effectively still, more or less, run any Windows I'm force to use into... XP!

I reactivate the Quicklaunch bar, install Stardock's Start* and then configure it so my UI has barely changed since then. Start menu on the left with as Classic a look as possible. Quicklaunch (no matter where you try to hide it Microsoft, I will find it, because apparently even your own people don't dare remove it completely and it's always in some package or sub-directory!) for the one-click stuff.

About the only thing I've happily accepted is Dark Mode.

Having had problems replicating that with Windows 11 - Quicklaunch is gone, though you can grab and install it from somewhere and Start11 only does the already discussed "move the taskbar" but still only give me the horror that is the new Start look - I will remain a refusenik.

This morning I spun up the machine and was greeted by a "would you like to upgrade to Win11" screen. With a huge, default Yes and a tucked away Fuck, No. Bastards. Had to warn my wife as she, like many, would do the click-through.

Throw away your Ethernet cables* because MediaTek says Wi-Fi 7 will replace them

If I had a dollar...

... for every friend, neighbour and family member complaining about their internet speed - while trying to use their single WAP in the house, tucked away in the furthest corner from all users, I'd be rich, they'd be poor and none of us would be on speaking terms anymore.

As it is, I refer them to the "professional installers" who put the shite in, after running a speed test and showing them the perfectly fine results with a device plugged directly into their Internet modem/router.

"But I don't want that ugly box sitting in the middle of the house! The installers said it would be fine to tuck it away!"

Well then, ask your amazing installers to also install the WAP model with the round-the-corner-bending radio waves!

European silicon output shrinking, metal smelters closing as electricity prices quadruple, trade body warns

But...

... Nuclear Fusion is just a few years away!

They've been telling me this since... <looks at calendar, then looks at birth certificate> oh gods, that long?!

'95% original' film star Spitfire could be yours for a mere £4.5m (or 0.05 Pogbas)

Nightmares...

... about some arse with money (or a consortium) buying it just to destroy it, Banksie style. For the media coverage, the faux "statement", the influ-tards and the clicks.

I wish someone could convince that this is a ridiculous thought, but in this day and age?

Dog forgets all about risk of drowning in a marsh as soon as drone dangles a sausage

Uhm...

"Man's best friend, though far from the dumbest animal, isn't that smart either. And if there's one sure-fire way to get a dog moving, it's the promise of a snack."

So, like far too many humans then?

<insert George Carlin quote here>

Vulnerabilities and censorship tools among hot new features in Beijing's Olympics app

Burner phones

As someone has already mentioned, burner phones is a good idea.

According to an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung a few days ago, the Dutch team is issuing burners for their entire team. The German team is advised that if they don't want to use burner phones, to do an immediate factory reset the moment they out of China again. With some demanding that they should follow the Dutch team's example.

Open source, closed wallets, big profits – nobody wins the OSS rock, paper, scissors game

Re: If you're a OSS dev, do you try to make it possible to get paid?

You save me from posting effectively exactly this:

The last 5 organisation I worked with or for in the last 3 or 4 years all pursued what you described: OSS was allowed by *license type*: as long as they could use the hell out of it, make money with it without paying *and without having to give back*, it went on the pre-approval list. Anything else went through legal and frequently denied.

Gently pointing out Linux and its license caused blank stares: in the heads of beancounters it has fully become commercial software "because we pay license fees, don't we?" (they meant subs to Redhat...)

Anonymous employee review site Glassdoor research: Tech companies dominate the best places to work

Re: I know my last company...

Why the hell would you do that from work anyway?!

Do they search for jobs on Seek and LinkedIn with their work systems (and logins!), too?

Google joins others in Big Tech: Get vaccinated – or you're fired

Re: Religious exception

IIUC, a not insignificant number of these nutjobs indeed do not even "believe" Germ Theory. So yeah, it's just bad thoughts and evil spirits.

Intel's mystery Linux muckabout is a dangerous ploy at a dangerous time

Re: Footnote

This sounds like it came from the Foul Ole Ron Book of Poetry.

Millenium, Hand and Shrimp, see if I don't!

Well written, almost poetic!

Now, for contrast, I'd like to see what Linus had to say about it. I'm always on the look-out for new swear words. Wish he still used his mother tongue more!

Is there a "pull request declined with most extreme prejudice and unkind words about the submitter's mother"?

AWS wobbles in US East region causing widespread outages

Re: Cloud is shit

Because we NEVER had business critical outages until the cloud came along, amirite?

Tech Bro CEO lays off 900 people in Zoom call and makes himself the victim

Glassdoor...

Interesting to see that their scores *were* actually astonishingly high: 4.1 is almost paradisaical by GD standards.

Then it falls off a cliff on Dec3 or so. Wonder how many who were still raving before that date are now among the 15%.

And this, ladies and gents, is why I'm never going perm again and staying in contracting from now on.

Dev loses copyright appeal over forensic software after judges rule suite was owned by his employer

Contract versus open source?

Disclaimer: not expecting actual legal advice, just a sort of general "should be fine" or "seek council right away":

In a similar situation on a much smaller scale, where my employment contract stipulated similar things regarding "you write it on company time, it's ours", however the tool I wrote was explicitly written under the Apache Software license - not just by my own decision, but by manager request.

I plan on removing company specific sections and putting it all up on Github, maintaining the same license. However, there is/was talk to embed the tool into a wider proprietary tool stack of (soon to be former) employer. There it may play a small but crucial role.

Who owns what, if anybody owns anything?

Why your external monitor looks awful on Arm-based Macs, the open source fix – and the guy who wrote it

I worry that...

... Monday's El Reg article will appear with

"BetterDummy author served with cease and desist by Apple Legal Eagles"

(yeah, it'll be snazzier when actual El Reg folks write it - but just as exasperating)

Hope I'm wrong!

What a bunch of bricks: Crooks knock hole in toyshop wall, flee with €35k Lego haul

Re: I was never into Lego

As a kid still living in Germany at that time it was Fischer Technik. Was that ever a thing outside Germany?