Posts by Sub 20 Pilot

Microsoft extends Teams into VMware and Citrix VDI

So MS are still fucking about trying to make Teams work on other platforms. This is the clusterfuck, laptop killing application that struggles to run on it's own fucking parent OS while running smoothly on a cheap Chinese Android phone.

At the same time the said OS, which I am tied to due to some work programs, is still a fucked up pile of shite which is added to every few weeks with more unneccessary crap and more bugs, adverts, telemetry, bloat instead of their engineers sitting down and sorting the fucking thing out.

Yes, yes I know software is difficult, like a lot of other things that us non software engineers do but why not stop adding shit and spend time and money making the bastard work.

Me and no doubt millions of others would be happy to pay an annual fee / subscription for a qulity professional product that allows us to get on with work and using the PC for it's intended purpose - not an unpolished turd that adds and moves stuff around in order to justify a fucking update and a price hike now and again.

For the hard of thinking- to save you posting an irrelevant reply such as 'use Linux' - I am not looking for free or cheap - I get paid for my work so happy to pay for others' work - I just want a fucking OS to do OS things and let me get on mith my work.

Xcel smart thermostat users lose their cool after power company locks them out

Re: Control issues

Not sure but suspect it is 3G. I was forced to get one in one property & they wanted access to my router so I told them to piss off. I assume that they are using 3G as 4G is very patchy around here.

They only want them installed so they can kill off meter readers, cut you off remotely and piss about with tariffs - to their advantage obviously, not the customer.

Big cloud rivals hit back over Microsoft licensing changes

Why is it that we have come to accept bullshit like ''this is being done to benefit the customer..'' and it is never questioned as the crap it unfailingly is. No huge multinational does anything to benefit the customer unless it happens by chance.

It is the same ''...the security of our customer is our primary concern...'' bullshit which the media always tend to print and never questions.

This does need to change.

Germany orders Sept 1 shutdown of digital ad displays to save gas

Re: FRA airport is very nearly in compliance with this law....

Not really any good. Laws of physics being what they are, if you turn down the flow temperature your boiler will run longer to provide the same heat. Sensible thing to do is turn down the TRV's and thermostat and wear a bit more. Disclosure - I have worked in the design and construction industry for 40 years and had several qualifications relating to low energy / heat loss design. There is a lot of possibly well meaning but mainly useless information out there due to the impending cost rises.

Re: FRA airport is very nearly in compliance with this law....

Same here, I go to people's houses in the winter and it is warmer than mid summer while they lol about in a t-shirt. I spend all year in shorts and a big percentage of that outdoors. Sometimes I have the heating on if stuck in front of my PC all day in a very cold snap. Each to their own but if people want to run their house like a bloody botanical gardens greenhouse then don't complain about the cost. Put a fucking jumper on.

Re: FRA airport is very nearly in compliance with this law....

My solution is much simpler. If someone is fucking dumb enough to buy a house next to an EXISTING airport, pub, concert venue, stadium, church with bells, farm with animals and machinery then it is their fucking problem.

NOT the problem of whoever owns or runs the said facility. Sadly, as I have seen over the years, the local authorities pander to these fuckwits rather than ask them why they bought a property next to the said facility before telling them to sod off.

Doctor gave patients the wrong test results due to 'printer problems'

My thoughts as well. While some people, usually ones in power, make immense fuckwitted decisions while totally misunderstanding any sort of tech, there are also people who are brilliant at what they do but technology confuses them.

It boils my piss when you get disparaging comments on here which are not warranted. You may be big & clever and know how to connect your printer but would probably take a dim view of your oncology consultant laughing when you ask him a basic question about your cancer treatment.

Not understanding ICT does not equal being stupid. As far as I can see this is the only industry that revels in this type of piss taking.

Google Maps, search results to point women to actual abortion providers

Re: for balance

Being male I can't begin to comprehend the anguish that a woman seeking an abortion goes through. I know of a very small number who have had to do this, for medical reasons and they were very close personal friends.

I would quite happily tie to a tree and set fire to any of these taliban style anti-abortionists if they had tried to intervene in the sad cases I know of.

It happens in the US today and my fear is that this medieval nonsense will be with us in the UK before long. All shit from there ends up over here.

NASA builds for keeps: Voyager mission still going after 45 years

Re: Technology Perspective

Sadly in 45 years if the current state of humanity is anything to go by, we will be doing nothing in space. If the whole world got together and put politics, greed and religion aside things could be different but we seem hell bent on heading back to the dark ages with laws being formulated by religious nutters of all flavours, a few select inhumane and psychotic billionaires trying to own everything and wars all over the place.

I have said it before but Covid has not been the problem, it could have been the solution. Humans are generally the problem.

Australian wasps threaten another passenger plane, with help from COVID-19

Re: archaic technology

It is NOT archaic. It is technology that works and as such needs to be maintained. Your solution is what is causing much of the carnage in software / hardware design.

Find a buggy complex solution to something that does not need to be changed.

Pitot tubes have one role and should be left to do so not fucked about by some microsoftian 'experience' solution which is guaranteed to break at least 90 % of the time.

Re: Incredibly delicate technology

Absolutely not. There are procedures in place for a pre flight walk around. Anyone who can not follow the standard airline-specific check list and relies on some automatic removal system should be sacked immediately.

There is a lot of unneccessary H & S guff in industry in the UK but this is pretty much the basic type of check that should be done exactly as specified on each and every flight as the consequences can be expensive / deadly.

Re: Incredibly delicate technology

This is one of the big items on a pre-flight check so any airline who almost took off without checking would have been in breach of a pile of in house regulations I suspect.

Also, not sure of how this lot did it but in my experience, these covers would be a lurid colour with a huge banner hanging down stating 'remove before flight'

Google promises to adjust search algorithm to favor 'people-first content'

Crap searches.

Not used Google as a search engine for a long time. Too many pages or irrelevant crap and too many US based results which seem to be the fucking default for anything in English regardless of your settings / location. search terms etc.

Results peppered with shite from amazon and ebay etc.

Whatever you look for there will be a bunch of results suggesting you buy it from one of these fuckers. Search for info on, say, ACL damage and get hundreds of offers to buy your next'ACL damage' from us etc.

For my work they are totally useless so I don't use search any more. Makes some things more difficult and means having to ask people for details but at least I am not letting these wankers make money and waste my time.

Hopefully someone will come along and do something that overturns the whole crumbling edifice of shite.

Chinese scammers target kids with promise of extra gaming hours

You seem to have accurately described law enforcement in the West or at least the UK and US, as well as China.

Pull jet fuel from thin air? We can do that, say scientists

The catch is that governments will find it difficult to tax without lying about why as it is not messing up the environment.

Also it will affect the trillion pound industries that fleece the world by supplying fuel resources currently.

I doubt this will be allowed by any Western government until they can find a way to secure the rights etc. for the incumbent parasite oil / gas producers.

Fully agree. They have nothing to say except stop using fuel / energy / transport / heating etc. No advice or strategy on how this can be done. I wonder how they live their lives, how they travel, that is, if they venture outside their little comfort zone.

I could say a lot about a well known Guardian contributor and all-round arrogant prick who is UK based and always slagging off tourism, travel, car use etc. Easy enough to spout rubbish about not owning a car while having access to other people's vehicles including his (ex) wife and PA.

Most have no idea or any inclination to understand what the issues are living outside a huge city.

Microsoft's Teams goes native on Apple, retains a human touch

Re: Hey, Cortana...

Mae hwn yn weddol hen ond yn dda !

Anti-piracy messaging may just encourage more piracy

Re: I have a few 80's records...

Not forgetting that every tape bought, in the UK at least, had a percentage added on for piracy so you paid a fine regardless of the use of the tape. Treat people like criminals if they must but don't complain when they do just what they are accused and fined for. The parasites never changed, just got worse.

There is a path to replace TCP in the datacenter

Translation.

Working system that has just done the job for 40 years to be superseeded by some complex, process intensive turdulence that does NOTHING except crash regularly, fail to do the job and requires patching every week until it almost works when it will be replaced by something even worse.

It works, leave the fucking thing alone.

Tories spar over UK's delayed Online Safety Bill

Re: Lets hope it

The current government appear to be a bunch of shits but if you think the left alternative is any better then I do despair.

Twitter sues Musk: He can't just 'change his mind, trash the company, walk away'

I am not and never have been a fan of billionaires. Of all the high profile ones, Musk would appear to be doing something useful. Tesla may not be the best EV but at least it has forced the major car manufacturesrs worldwide to up their game.

Again, Space-X has achieved more per billion than any state run organisation. If it results in state organisations pulling the plug on waste and political grandstanding and just dealing with the problems of space travel and satellite launches then it has done something useful.

Now to the ''social media'' billionaires. - Is there anything they have done except turn society against itself and turn the internet into a toxic sewer of influencers, advertisers, bullshitters ( but I repeat myself..)

In the early years I signed up to FB and used it to catch up with people all over the world. In the last few years I have used it less and less because there is nothing on it apart from adverts, trending shit of no relevance and more fucking ads. Twitter , tik tok, snapchat and the rest of the pointless SM crap I have avoided as I doubt there is anything there other than ads and self promoting idiots..

If we are to have a cull of tech billionaires then this is where we should start, not slagging off someone who has actually managed to produce something other than hot air and hate.

Hive to pull the plug on smart home gadgets by 2025

Re: Reciva Radios

Living in mid Wales - one of the bits of the UK that lies outside London and the like, I agree that DAB is fucking shite. Since the 1970's I have driven my cars around the area with the odd bit of interferance and drop out when listening to radio.

My current car has a DAB radio and it spends about 30 % of it's time with 'service unavailable.' or whatever and a deathly silence for bloody miles.

Progress, they call it.

Europe passes sweeping antitrust laws targeting America's Big Tech

Re: They are not equal...

They seem to be able to knock up laws and rules to control us, the general tax paying public, at the blink of an eye.

Nothing to stop them doing the same for the big companies. Jail for the top people who run these places if they try to blackmail a nation state or states by any means involving tech.

What is the purpose of entities like the UN, EU etc. if they are not dealing with this ? Sorry, rhetorical question. Most are bloody talking shops that suck billions out of the taxpayers while creating more red tape for them while studiously ignoring the parasites.

As an aside, if one of these behemoths did shut down services it would soon wake people up to what the rest of us have been aware of for years. The fallout would be spectacular, people would wake up to reality and whoever did it would hopefully be shafted out of existence.

For decades the UK gov has been trying to get people to work from home for environmental reasons. Most people were not interested until Covid forced the issue. Now huge numbers are happy with it so sometimes it takes external action to force an issue.

How can we make the VC world less pale and male, Congress wonders

This pointless shite is endemic in the UK. My stock question to anyone promoting this crap is : If you or your child need life saving cancer surgery do you want to be treated by the best in their field or by someone who ticks a fucking box because of their gender / colour / sexual preference. I have never been given an answer..

Halfords suffers a puncture in the customer details department

Re: Wassat, then?

As with most things in life, use the local companies as they will almost certainly be small outfits that pay proper tax and have knowledgeable staff ( or they would have gone under years ago.) I don't understand the obsession with using huge chain stores for everything. They are invariably populated by clueless staff who mostly don't give a shit what they sell you and then try to get you to sign up for a loyalty card or account or extra insurance etc. as this is where they make money.

As others have said - people get what they pay for.

China says it has photographed all of Mars from orbit

And this is different to the lies and bullshit spouted by the US and the rest of the West ?

Windows 11 22H2 is almost here. Is it ready for the enterprise?

For an OS that constantly requires gigabytes of downloaded upgrades and who knows how much wasted electricity worldwide to reboot / install / recycle etc. It is pretty laughable that they try to work out if you have a renewable electricity supply before inflicting crap on you.

If they had any thought for world emissions they would shut out 99 % of the crap that masqureades as a working OS and just let us pay for a system then bloody well use it.

Re: What is it with people ?

Some of us have specific programs that only run on Windows. No choice in the matter. Please get off your anally retentive high horse before you slag off people whose circumstances you have no clue about.

PC shipments sink amid steady waves of supply chain, war disruptions

I need a PC for work. I run a couple of laptops and a main PC but if I want to get a new one I am stuck with the pointless Windows 11 with it's ridiculous minimum spec. For that I get to spend a lot of cash on a machine running a crippled bag of shit with nothing in it in favour of the user and everything in favour of MS.

It took several years to get W10 to a position where I was happy to move from W7. One bit being the fact that I can not sit around for a few hours every week while my PC's reboot and update only to tell me that now my plotter will not work. Now I have to do the same again for an unstable, unusable shit show that has no accountability and insists I have a fucking MS online account or whatever before I can use it.

This is NOT progress. When this is addressed I would love to upgrade my machines if it benefits me. In other words, an improvement in security ( fking joke.) a marked improvement in speed of start up and getting to work ( not a Windows splash screen that hangs for 10 minutes while pretending it is working.)

This is up to the PC manufacturers. If they remain tied to MS' rules and restrictions then they have to take it as it comes.

HP pilots paper delivery service for Instant Ink subscribers

Re: Great Printer Reset

I would disagree there. I have an Epson laser which is still working after 15 years and gets used several times a week. Probably a few 100 A4 sheets a month.

I also have a HP plotter that costs a fortune to use - I print a number of A1 sheets per week. I am considering changing to a print service where I pay someone else per print as I will not be buying another HP plotter. Each one I have purchased over the last 25 years has been more expensive and of a crapper quality. Also the stupidly expensive ink cartriges do a 'self clean' now and again which uses a big chunk of ink and I get less out of them year on year.

I look forward to retirement where I can stop all of this nonsense.

Salesforce staff back an end to its relationship with NRA

Sad.

Frightening to read the comments from some of the deranged gun nuts on here. They make as much sense as the NRA drone that was interviewed by the BBC the day after the shooting, who basically blamed the school and teachers for not being armed. I have never been a fan of US governments, their world policy and behaviour, the culture of greed over everything.

I do feel sorry for the genuine american people that I have met over decades, the ones that are not fanatical about their preferred religion, the right to own stupidly OTT weapons that have NO purpose other than mass killing. The ones that do not push their crazy agendas on everyone else. The ones that work hard and want their kids to have a good life, good education and healthcare. I wish you all the luck in the world to overturn the sheer fucking idiocy your nation displays regularly.

Taser maker offers electric-shock drones to stop school shootings

Re: And the problem continues to be

Your statements are not incorrect but do you seriously think that is defence against letting any misfit oddball get hold of a gun and enough ammunition to decimate a small town ? If you do then you are part of the problem. I am glad that we seem to have a bit more sense over here.

Re: NRA accepts need for new legislation

I know that your post was sarcastic, but the day after the shooting, I was listening to the World Service BBC news and they had rolled out some fuckwit texan gun fetishist who was a spokesperson for the NRW. He was actually blaming the teachers & school admin for not being armed & was admant that there was nothing wrong with their gun laws.

Fucking unbelievable.

I have spent a lot of time in very dodgy parts of the world but would not want to live in the US for any money.

Here's hoping that the whole nation bucks it's ideas, if only for the benefit of the people I know that live there.

I know a lot of people living in other places, namely Russia, some African countries and some middle Eastern regimes where guns are the norm but they don't seem to be so fucking idiotic about defending their right to shoot 10 year old children.

Engineer sues Amazon for not covering work-from-home internet, electricity bills

Greed.

Never thought I would defend Amazon, but seems like the company and employee deserve each other.It was only going to be a matter of time in the US though and sadly this sort of crap will be over here with us pretty soon.

I know dozens of people here in the UK that were told to work from home, given a laptop & mobile to do so and still manage to whine about the fact that they don't get paid extra. Some of them were saving a 2 hr out & back commute per day, so 10 hours unpaid free time a week extra as well as the saving of fuel and wear & tear on their cars. Set against this maybe a few hundred £ in heat and electricity over a year.

One couple I know were saving about £2500 in fuel, based on 50 mpg per car and commuting in different directions, not to mention the wear and tear savings of 12,500 miles per car x 2. Also a virtual 'pay rise' of £35K between them due to the time previously spent commuting if they used their hourly rate. Still they whine that it cost an extra few hundred a year in bills.

These are just as parasitic as amazon and their actions will result in some big solicitors making a killing and everyone else having losing out. When the inevitable happens here and they are all back to normal they will see what they have lost.

Pricks, the lot of them.

Iran, China-linked gangs join Putin's disinformation war online

This site is starting to resemble the old communist press of decades ago. Anyone who dares criticise the US and ther policies will immediately get downvoted. It is a shame that a website which started in the UK has turned into such an US centric fanclub.

Time to look for another source of information I think.

Canada bans Huawei and ZTE from 5G networks, citing national security risks

Re: An apology

My sympathies my friend. Us here in the UK, or at least a lot of us are just as pissed off with the incompetents in charge making an U-turn and going against GCHQ's original recommendations on Huawei switchgear, at a cost of billions to the taxpayer eventually just because that arsehole Trump shouted at everyone to fall into line.

When the Chinese eventually take charge, along with backing from India us that blindly followed the US will be royally stuffed.

Confirmation dialog Groundhog Day: I click OK and it keeps coming back

Re: there are words which have only a minor difference in spelling

This one has always confounded me. Being part of a voluntary first responder team where clarity and time are of the essence, why have two words that sound so alike on a radio in bad weather. ''the casualty is hypoglycaemic / hyperglycaemic. Fucking bonkers.

Study: How Amazon uses Echo smart speaker conversations to target ads

Re: Get a grip

At least they are honest. Compared, that is , to the online multinational tat pushers.

Re: Get a grip

You are, of course entitled to your view, which I respect and will not argue with. My opinion, however, is that anyone who uses these spy speakers in their own homes are the ones that expose themselves to endless ads and manipulation, all to make the spy device vendor more money. One day, probably when it is way too late, people will realise this. It is not my problem as I don't use them, hence my assertion that you are entitled to do what you like.

I always insist on a printed receipt there and then. Any failure to give me one for any bollocks reason and I tell them to take the stuff back and give me an immediate refund. So far, this has always led to be being given a till / VAT receipt.

Fight the cunts at their own game or we all lose.

Absolutely correct. I actively seek out every opt out option and other devices on web pages when I have to use one to buy / book anything and unless I think I am in the clear, will not buy anything but send them a message to say why I did not do so.

About 99 % of the fuckers still send me advertising shite just after the 'confirmation' email, claiming, no doubt that I have agreed to this by some ommission. Only thing they guarantee is that I will not spend another penny, ever, on their site and will pass the info on to as many as I can.

May be me being petty, but this gross privacy invasion needs to be killed. A few years ago we in the West were laughing at the surveillance prevalent in the East. Now we actually pau to have it done to us.

Sorry but if you really are that stupid you should stay off the internet. If you seriously think that a physical shop checking you in is the same as a parasitic listening device recording every single sound in your private house / flat and using that to make even more money and sell you shit then I do sincerely hope that the rest of the world has more intelligence. But I doubt it.

Microsoft Edge's 'Secure Network' sounds a lot like a built-in VPN

Thus leaving MS with even more browsing details that others can not see and another opportunity to ''monetise'' - a hideous Americanism - people's data. Those people who have paid for the OS, or paid to use the OS for the pedantic. I look forward to retirement when I can dump their odious shite from every work machine.

IoT biz Insteon goes silent, smart home gear plays dumb

Re: Just checking.

Same here.

I use tech where it is needed and where it works well. I have yet to see a compelling argument for any 'IOT' rubbish. I have been told several times that I am a luddite for not using my phone to pay for things and for other 'transgressions' against progress which are mostly pointless and a way of dumbing down people even more than they already are.

There is a potential in some devices to assist people with a disability in one form or another but only if it actually works. Why anyone thinks it is a good idea to hook up most of your house gadgets, lights, bells, thermostats etc to the general internet via unsecure connections is beyond me.

Microsoft's huge Patch Tuesday includes fix for bug under attack

Re: Ah, the joy of being (fr)agile.

Sorry but Windows is a critical OS for most people and should work. They should not be fucking about with frills and shit as they have done for decades while their OS is as flaky as it is. If it is too complex that is their fault not other SW vendors. Simplify it, remove superflous shite, make it secure which is what we pay for. Then and only then start adding pointless shite and even that should be optional.

Microsoft hikes prices for non-profit customers, ends on-prem software grants

Re: "added 24 new apps and more than 1,400 features."

I have used Star Office then Open Office then Libre Office for over 20 years with no problems. Only MS 'app' I have to use is Teams and it is fucking shit. Endless problems starting and running it with random errors and a fan running flat out the whole time it was on or trying to work. And this is on a laptop running an OS by the fuckers that wrote the bloody thing.

I installed and ran on it a cheap Chinese Android phone within about 2 minutes and it works perfectly. So much for cohesion within Microsoft.

I do some consultancy work for a big outfit that demands the use of O365 or whatever it is called this week. I pick up the relevant documents via RDP, work on them in Libre Office then save in the rubbish MS file format before uploading.

1400 ''features'' but millions of unpatched bugs. Software companies need to understand that moving shit around and calling it a 'feature' is the exact reason why people do not want a subscription model.

Please, give me a working utility and keep it working. Don't change stuff for no reason and don't fill it with unneccessary shite. Do this and I will happily pay a reasonable subscription.

Windows 11 growth at a standstill amid stringent hardware requirements

Re: Why move to Windows 11 ?

I guess you must work for MS if you post such crap. An OS is just that, an operating system that lets my programs work on a machine that I have paid for. A shit, bloated turd of an OS using more energy to keep itself going than my car does in not an improvement.

An OS which I paid for and is full of fucking adverts for it's own company's products and a lot of shite that I never want is not an improvement.

Unless you are running NASA you do not need a PC with the minimum standards for this crap. This is not an improvement.

The only thing that looks like being improved is the income stream to MS and it is time they were removed from the planet unless they start to behave.

A tale of two dishwashers: Buy one, buy it again, and again

Best start to my weekend Mr D.

Having suffered the same shit for years, I am surprised that nobody has seen fit to tackle this.

I have never used Amazon or Twitter but have seen the same with other entities.

I had a dispute with British Gas over an overestimated bill for a rental property ( in the thousands ) so called them up. Got no sensible advice after 1.5 hrs of 'your call is imporant to us.. followed by a non native English speaker which took ages to understand the issue.) Not having a pop at foreigners here - I speak 2 languages fluently, get by pretty well in another two and can understand quite a lot in another 3 or 4 languages so not one of these people that thinks the world should only speak in English.)

It was not resolved but they kept sending emails asking me for feedback, which I ignored at least twice. In the end I responded, politely but accuately berating them for being so fucking incompetent. I have not heard a word since. No follow up emails, no calls. Fucking idiocy. I assume that email will be removed from their metric in case it messes up their happiness rating or whatever..

On the small number of times I have bought thinbs for a house refurbishment and reluctantly given my address as I needed the bloody stuff delivered, I get mail shots at least once a month. I bought £3000 of blinds for my house and every 2 weeks they post me a big envelope full of marketing shite for blinds. They don't sell anything else. Just blinds. Who is the twat in charge that thinks this is worth the expense of sending me a few pounds worth of glossy brochures every few weeks.

Anyway, have a drink on me. Hope France has nicer weather than us. I hope to get to the alps for fun and games, covid permitting, before long.

Microsoft gives tablets some love in latest Windows 11 build

Re: "to curate the canvas on your own"

Aye. A total clusterfuck of pointless marketing speak. Down 10 % of the cunts in a bucket and maybe the rest will shape up and give us a fucking OS that sits there doing OS'y things and not bloody interfere.

I even get these fucking emojis in professional work emails.

Covid in not the problem, covid is the solution. Humans are the problem. Sadly it is killing the wrong people.

Your app deleted all my files. And my wallpaper too!

I take it you have never had to work in a foreign country, in remote areas where an online connection is either impossible or achieived only via a SIM running at a few kb a second if at all, at a high cost.

There has NEVER been a time in which I thought it was a good idea to have all my files on someone else's computer, probably in a different country with no means of support or access if there was a problem. The only person affected financially when this goes wrong is me. It costs the provider nothing and there is no means of recouping my financial loss against them due to their T & C's.

Why is it so difficult to accept that people should have their files locally. Yes, back up to the 'cloud' if you want but DO NOT force everyone into having to store everything there.

We do not all live in the middle of silicon valley or London.