Posts by Kepler

Classic 7 is Windows 10 LTSC cosplaying as Windows 7

“champing at the bit“

Even if I didn’t like the rest of your comment as well, Chris (and I do), I would have up-voted it just for your use of “champing at the bit“. I learned just over 40 years ago that that is the correct expression, when I used the erroneous “chomping” and a sadly-now-late friend corrected me.

(A friend who had gone to college at Bob Jones University and then Harvard Law School. American readers, at least, should realize what an odd, unusual, and humorously inapposite combination that is.)

I did not believe him at first, but I immediately checked a dictionary and saw that he was right and I was wrong. And both the episode and a heightened fondness of the expression have stuck with me ever since.

AI-generated code is 'pain waiting to happen'

“ACTUAL understanding” (cf. “actual code”!)

“Without a solid understanding of the whole system, . . . .”

“. . . because they have no actual understanding or model of the world they're dealing with, . . . .”

Indeed, they have no true understanding at all.

What they have is an incredibly clever and sophisticated imitation of understanding. Which often is unbelievably good and powerful, and most of the time will serve just as well as the real thing for most purposes.

But not for all purposes.

And in this article and discussion thread, we are dealing with the exceptional cases. Which, though exceptional, are still quite substantial in frequency and importance. And in the context of coding, are not even all that exceptional.

dBase debased: Database titan fades to black after 47 years

Re: Ashton-Tate...

McMann & Tate.

Howard McMann (who appeared in only two episodes, and was played by a different actor in each), Chairman, and Larry Tate (whom we saw with great frequency), President.

Re: Impressive

Cool!

We've only gone and done it: Changed what you're used to

Re: You are still using a fixed width fomat...

Thumbs-up for your moniker, “Chuck”. If you were 30 years younger, you probably wouldn’t even have the handle here in the forums that you do!

I didn’t even notice that on my first pass. And it’s been decades since I last listened to Cheech & Chong’s 1973 album Los Cochinos, which gave us the name “Chuck U. Farley“.

(One of the fictional actors starring in the fictional movie Buggery on the High Seas, a trailer for which is heard at one point during the sketch "Pedro and Man at the Drive-Inn" (sic) — the longest sketch on the album.

Los Cochinos probably is best known for its “Basketball Jones” sketch and song.

Suddenly I wish that El Reg had a marijuana leaf icon, in addition to the picture of a pint!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Cochinos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball_Jones_featuring_Tyrone_Shoelaces

Re: No more standards converter

Amen, Jake.

What made me a wildly enthusiastic fan of El Reg back in the day were its irreverence and humor, and the fact that these people covering IT with the irreverence of a British tabloid knew their technology and their industry history far better than any of their more tonally serious competitors.

And of course, Lester was a major reason for all these qualities. May he rest in peace and his memory be eternal.

Re: no comments at all

I realize that some of what I’ve been seeing may involve a cache issue with my ISP.

Re: Disappearing Comments links?

Dave, David, Jake, and Roland, my thanks to all of you. In particular, for confirming that I am not the only one to whom this is happening, that I am not the only one encountering both negative results and inconsistent results, and that I am not the only one to be reminded by all this of Andrew Orlowski!

(Also grateful for the references in another sub-thread to the late and dearly missed Lester Haines. Over the better part of the first two of my now nearly three decades of being a devoted reader of The Register, Lester and Andrew were two of my favorite Vultures.)

The thought that the inconsistency as between articles, and the back-and-forth experience I’ve been having with regard to certain given articles, might be a cache issue with my ISP rather than yet another issue with El Reg‘s new Web design, occurred to me as well. But I haven’t taken the time to try to test this theory.

Gentlemen, you all have my gratitude. With your help, El Reg is building a Web site of extra-ordinary magnitude!^1,2

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1. Han, in Enter the Dragon:

“Gentlemen, welcome. You honor our Web site. I look forward to a Web site of truly epic proportions.

We are unique, gentlemen, in that we create our Web site ourselves. Through long years of rigorous training, sacrifice, denial, pain, we forge our Web site in the fire of our will.

But tonight, let us celebrate. Gentlemen, you have our gratitude.“

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070034/quotes/?item=qt0223429

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLEzuwuCuEA

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2. Dr. Klahn,³ in the “Fistful of Yen” sketch of The Kentucky Fried Movie — probably the single best, most precise and detailed, and funniest parody I have ever seen:

“Gentlemen, welcome. We are honored to have you among us. We are building a Web site of extraordinary magnitude. We forge our Web site’s spirit in the tradition of our ancestors. You have our gratitude.“

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqWpvvS-Qeg

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076257/quotes/?item=qt0417052

(Errors (especially word transposition) and omissions (in particular, of the first two sentences of Dr. Klahn‘s welcoming speech) in IMDb’s quotation corrected by me. Before making my own gratuitous but obvious changes, of course.)

I don’t see a way to force the words “Web site” into the message on Dr. Klahn’s answering machine (without also adding many additional words), but I feel the need to quote that as well:

“Herro. This is Dr. Klahn. I'm not home right now. Leave a message when you hear the beyep. You have our gratitude.“

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076257/quotes/?item=qt0417072

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10JZHuHZDos

(Fans of The Kentucky Fried Movie will recognize that I am omitting one other exchange in which the words “You have my gratitude” and “extraordinary magnitude” were used — and used in conjunction with a device (but not an answering machine!). So I have shown some small measure of restraint!)

If you have a beef with the pronunciation as transcribed and spelled out phonetically by IMDb, take it up in the next life with the late Master Han Bong-soo (R.I.P.)!

Although, after listening to the YouTube clip to refresh my recollection of the scene, I think that

“Hello. This is Dr. Krahn.”

would be more accurate than

“Herro. This is Dr. Klahn.”

It seems to my ears that IMDb changed the wrong consonant from an L sound to an R sound. This mistake is consistent with other errors made by IMDb on its page of quotations from The Kentucky Fried Movie.

And note that Master Han made fun of the welcoming scene — and perhaps also of the sketch as a whole — himself!

The English subtitles for what Han, as Klahn, says in Korean in the YouTube clip of the welcoming scene, above, make this clear. I learned this only a little while ago, while searching for a clip of the scene and then obsessively-compulsively trying to verify and correct (where necessary) my IMDb quotations (before deliberately altering them slightly).

But I always thought that he was a heck of a good sport, both for playing the part as he did and for allowing Abrahams, the Zuckers and John Landis to make fun of his accent as they did.

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3. Corresponding in my extended analogy to article author Matt Rosoff?

Or rather — and more accurately — to “our CEO Phil Mitchell, who initiated and shepherded this project along, CTO Matt Proud and his profoundly amazing team of technical wizards, and our EMEA deputy editor Jude Karabus“?

Take your pick on this oh-so-important question, or defer to Matt, as I do.

Re: Disappearing Comments links?

Correction: The Comments link and count have been restored to some articles but not others.

Re: no comments at all

45 minutes later, the Comments link and count have returned. In/to every article I checked.

(Albeit without the word “Comments”, which some might find preferable to and clearer than the empty cartoon speech bubble that at first blush, with tired eyes, looks more like a Rolodex card.)

Correction: In some but not others.

Leaving me utterly puzzled as to what is going on. But maybe the problem was just fixed?

Re: Disappearing Comments links?

45 minutes later, the Comments link and count have returned. In/to every article I checked.

(Albeit without the word “Comments”, which some might find preferable to and clearer than the empty cartoon speech bubble that at first blush, with tired eyes, looks more like a Rolodex card.)

Leaving me utterly puzzled as to what is going on. But maybe the problem was just fixed?

Re: Not sure if it's related but...

As I remarked just above just a moment ago, in reply to another comment pointing out the same loss/disappearance that you mention, Tom7, I’ve now officially given up on ever again seeing a new, updated version of the Reg Tariff.

Re: No more standards converter

In a similar vein, I’ve now officially given up on ever again seeing a new, updated version of the Reg Tariff.

Re: no comments at all

“no comments link, no comment counts, in fact, it looks exactly like a site that supports no commenting.”

Repeating the reply comment that I just posted a short distance above, in order to say “Amen” and amplify here as well:

I don’t even remember how I found this comment thread, but I just checked again, and it appears that all of the recent articles I tried still are being treated by El Reg as though they were written by Andrew Orlowski.

(For younger readers: Andrew’s articles typically inflamed reader passions and often had commenting disabled.

Andrew’s writings always were provocative and thoughtful, and I wish he were still writing for El Reg.)

Re: Disappearing Comments links?

I don’t even remember how I found this comment thread, but I just checked again, and it appears that all of the recent articles I tried still are being treated by El Reg as though they were written by Andrew Orlowski.

(For younger readers: Andrew’s articles typically inflamed reader passions and often had commenting disabled.

Andrew’s writings always were provocative and thoughtful, and I wish he were still writing for El Reg.)

Re: Not usable

Kudos regarding your final sentence, Gene. I’ve been browsing this comment thread off and on for a couple of days, in spare moments, and wondering all the while (1) “What would Lester have thought of all these changes?” and (2) whether anyone would even mention Lester.

May he rest in peace and his memory be eternal, and may he not now be rolling in his sadly and grossly premature grave.

What happened when AI ran into the cold hard reality of the legal profession

Does “deposition” have a different meaning in the UK?

The article’s point is entirely valid. But the type of filing in question would be a motion or a brief.

(Motions don’t always contain arguments and citations, but sometimes they do.)

A deposition is a proceeding in which a witness is questioned by both sides’ counsel, under oath and with cross-examination, outside of court — typically in front of a court reporter rather than a judge. Depositions usually are held in the office of either the plaintiff’s or defendant’s attorney, and sometimes are videotaped as well.

The word “deposition” also is used to refer to the resulting written transcript of all the questions and answers asked and given in a deposition, and any objections raised by counsel and entered into the record.

The chief purposes of depositions are to gather evidence; discover what a particular witness does and doesn’t know; assess potential witnesses’ credibility; help the attorneys on both sides to develop, sharpen and focus the case, clarify facts and factual questions and issues, and assess the strength of their respective cases (all of which falls under the general heading of “discovery” — something relied on far more heavily in the United States than in Britain or elsewhere); and preserve testimony for possible later use at trial.

Depositions do not normally take the place of live testimony given at trial, but they may help lead to a settlement before trial, or help to persuade the judge to grant summary judgment without holding a trial. Sometimes if a witness dies before the trial is held, his deposition can be read or shown to the jury and entered into the record at trial instead. And if a witness changes his or her testimony at trial, what he or she said in the earlier deposition can be used to impeach his or her credibility and discredit the revised testimony.

When I asked Google what “deposition” means in the UK, its answer was something that could be the same as the American definition — if the statement(s) were made orally and in response to questions — but that seems more likely to be the equivalent of what in America (and in the UK as well?) is an affidavit: “a formal, sworn, out-of-court statement given by a witness, used as evidence in legal proceedings”.

(There’s a lot of redundancy in the American approach. It appears that the UK lets witnesses make sworn statements in advance of trial without being subjected to questioning, and saves the actual questioning and cross-examination for the trial.)

Again, I agree entirely with the point of the article. But “deposition” is the wrong word — unless there’s a distinct usage in the UK that even Google did not reveal to me — and “deposition” was used repeatedly throughout the article in lieu of “brief” or perhaps “motion”.

So far as I was able to learn, even in the UK a deposition is something pertaining to evidence rather than to governing law, and involving testimony rather than legal precedents.

And the author of a deposition is a witness, not an attorney, barrister or solicitor. It is not a written legal argument submitted to the judge by counsel.

Meta U-turns on encryption push for Instagram as DMs go plaintext

“Meta” lies, AND reads our “private” messages

The people who run “Meta”,<1> Facebook, Instagram, and so on lie. They are never to be trusted.

In particular, Facebook and its bots routinely make obviously and demonstrably false statements when explaining Facebook’s censorship of posts and comments.<2>

And Facebook/“Meta” reads our ostensibly “private” messages.

Or at least used to. Or has/had its bots read them. “Meta” spies on its users, or at least used to spy on its users.

(And if it has discontinued this practice, how would we know? How could we be sure?)

How do I know that it does this?

Some years ago, Facebook/“Meta” censored a message that a friend had sent to me (or vice versa) in Messenger,<4> by blocking a link that had been included in the message — thereby making clear that Facebook/“Meta”, or one of its bots, had been reading our ostensibly “private” message thread.

Consequently, when Facebook/“Meta” announced “end-to-end encryption” in Messenger and started assuring me that “Only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share” any new messages, and that “no one else, not even Meta, can do so”,<5> I did not believe it.

And you shouldn’t either.

If not for my experience so many years ago of Facebook censoring a message that I sent or received in Messenger, and my more recent experience of Facebook repeatedly removing posts and comments and then lying to me about the reason for doing so, I might have believed what “Meta” says today about end-to-end encryption of messages in Messenger, or on Instagram. But the people who run Facebook and “Meta” have lied to me too many times for me to believe them now — to believe anything that they say whatsoever.

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1. Since when can a common prefix be trademarked?

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2. Easiest example — for the few among you who somehow have never personally observed Facebook’s or Meta’s management’s lips, or e-lips, moving:

Several years ago, Facebook invented its own non-standard and highly idiosyncratic definition of “spam” —

“tr[ying] to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way”<3>

— and started lying routinely about the elements of its own alternative definition having been satisfied.

(Lengthy elaboration on this objectively false definition, and my repeated experience of not violating it but being told that I had, in footnote 3 below.)

Thankfully, Facebook’s censorship of its users appears to have diminished substantially more recently. It now has been several years since the last time a post or comment of mine was removed.

But this used to happen to me at least once every two or three weeks. And never — not one single time — was any part of what Facebook said to me by way of explanation of its censorship true.

You’ll have to take my word for this, but there never actually was anything in what I had written that even remotely constituted a valid reason for Facebook removing my post or comment — no personal insults, no bad language, . . . nothing genuinely bad or wrong, or genuinely violative of Facebook’s “Community Standards”, whatsoever.

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3. Full quotation laying out Facebook’s idiosyncratic and radically non-standard alternative definition of “spam”:

“We removed your post

Why this happened

It looks like you tried to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way.

. . . .

This goes against our Community Standards on spam.“

(Emphasis added only in the final sentence. All other bold text present in Facebook’s original statement.)

On one occasion, all I had done was to share — to my own Timeline, for my own future access and reference — a post about the actor Bela Lugosi and the tragic later course of his career. I added no introductory remarks of my own, and every statement in the post I shared was true and fairly widely known. Nothing about it was misleading in any way whatsoever.

And, all this happened under a second Facebook account that I use not to interact with others, but (with a few exceptions) only to save items for my own personal use and future access and reference! Under which I have fewer than two dozen friends (as versus over 1,800 under my primary, real account), and turn down nearly all of the friend requests that I receive. How could I possibly have been seeking likes or follows under this account, misleadingly or otherwise? Under this account, reactions and comments from others are a distraction and a nuisance!

(My posts under the account in question are public, because I don’t take the extra trouble to make them all private, but I don’t actually want or seek reactions from others except for a tiny handful of friends. Whom I usually tag when I actually want a reaction or response.)

So Facebook’s claim that I was trying to get likes, follows, or shares at all was incontrovertibly false. As was its claim that I was doing so in a misleading way. As was its claim that this somehow constituted spam, or would have constituted spam if I had actually been doing it. Every aspect or component of what Facebook said was objectively and indisputably false.

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4. Whether I sent or received the message, it was from or to my primary, real account. Neither I nor my friend remembers any longer who sent the link in question to whom, and it thus far hasn’t been worth the time it would take for either of us to scroll back up in our message thread and find the link. We happen to exchange a lot of messages, so finding the message with the blocked link after all these years — and with no recollection of the date or even the year of the message — would take quite a while for either of us.

Because the link has been blocked, neither of us can tell any longer what the link was to. And of course neither of us remembers after so long. But it certainly wasn’t porn, or anything advocating violence, or anything else nasty like that.

Not that it would matter for purposes of the point I am making. Even if it was a link to a page full of obscene, racist rants by a Nazi advocating violence, in Messenger Facebook or “Meta” should not have known or had any way of knowing that the link was there!

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5. Full quotation:

“End-to-end encryption ensures [that] only you and the people you're communicating with can see or listen to what is sent in your messages and calls, and no one else, not even Meta, can do so.“

(Emphasis added.)

How Microsoft's legal eagles wrangled Happy Days for Windows 95

Just no escaping the Irish here

Braveheart is a terrific movie, AC, and you are denying yourself a splendid viewing experience by not seeing it.

But you count yourself “a pro-independence Scot”, and that’s more than good enough for me! You certainly get my up-vote.

(Ironically, and perhaps even hypocritically on my part — eschewing the analogue of my own advice — I never bothered to install the free copy of Windows 95 I got for being one of the half-million-odd beta testers.)

With Braveheart you have (beautiful) Irish territory being passed off as parts of Scotland, plus repeated gratuitous and ahistorical involvement of Irishmen (especially one in particular) on the Scottish side. The key Irish character is colorful, charming, humorous and entertaining, but as a(n) historical matter a total crock. As is (sadly) the portrayed defection of Irish troops at Falkirk from the English to the Scottish side.

With Rob Roy you have an Irishman playing a Scot.

And in the television series Highlander (which my late wife and I watched together and both loved), the beautiful Irish folk song “Bonny Portmore” — actually about Portmore Castle in County Antrim, and its large and celebrated oak tree that (according to Wikipedia) “fell in a windstorm in 1760 and was subsequently used” by the English “for shipbuilding” — was repeatedly used as background music in a manner that, I think, strongly implies that the song is Scottish.

(On several occasions, a version of the song is even used in which one line has been changed in a way that ties the song into our Highlander hero’s story. This modified version also was used in movie #4. Along with the song’s beauty, that modified line is the reason why I chose the song as one of several that were played at Mary’s funeral.)

So there just doesn’t seem to be any escaping the Irish in popular modern portrayals of Scotland and the Scots. What you complain of is everywhere, AC.

(Unless your complaint extends only to Irish land being passed off as Scottish, and not to Irish people (if actors count!*) or culture.)

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* A joke I steal from the movie The Producers.

Apple's last tower topples… and the others will follow

Re: simple words???

Like “yopu slur”?

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“Microsoft Word and Excel in Windows format on a MacPlus in 1987”

In Windows format, but on a Mac and in the Macintosh version of the program? In context, what do you mean? Just that you told your Mac to save spreadsheets in BIFF2 with the 1900 instead of the 1904 date system, and documents in RTF?

On a Mac Plus? In 1987? Even though the first Windows version of Word was not released until November of 1989?

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“I have seen Microsoft used and acused” (sic)

???

Accused of what by criminals?

The problem here goes beyond spelling.

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“I have yet to see an Apple product unless with a Ransomware Message on the screen!”

I have never seen an Apple product with a ransomware message. Not my own Mac Plus (delivered in early September of 1986), nor either of my iPhones, nor any other Mac I have ever used, nor the iPad I am typing on now.

But I know of a certain famous politician who also capitalizes random nouns.

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“Apple have consistently broken with then boring to much ahead.”

All your base are belong to us.

Re: Apple Hardware Lock-Down

The original Apple and Apple ][ computers were expandable and had open specs.

Right on, Old Dog. Jobs and Woz had sharply differing views regarding the desirability of open, user-expandable systems. Jobs’s view eventually came to dominate at Apple during most of the past 42 years (excepting perhaps certain portions of the 1990s), but Woz’s view defined Apple’s original approach and prevailed for many years early on.

Re: Expansion cards

Almost exactly 40 years ago, I added a 20 MB hard card to my Tandy 1000.

Which I loved!

On the same Saturday morning visit to my local Radio Shack, I also expanded the RAM from the 384 KB that I started with in April of 1985 to the maximum of 640 KB.

In the day, the ability to expand a PC or an Apple II was a huge advantage.

(As was Radio Shack’s ubiquity.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardcard#Tandy_1000

50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution

Cognitive Dissonance: What systems actually used CP/M?

I’m rather late to the party, but I only just came across this article. And it’s as good an occasion as any on which to get straightened out by someone regarding something I’ve been unclear on for decades.

I understand, broadly, that CP/M was a big success in the early days of 8-bit personal computing. The article explains this nicely:

‘CP/M . . . . became one of the first cross-platform microcomputer OSes, and revolutionized the hardware and software industries.

. . . .

Over the following few years, multiple floppy interfaces were built and sold for early 8080 and Z80 machines. CP/M was the de facto standard OS, partly thanks to how Kildall adapted the OS [by concentrating the hardware-dependent portions of CP/M in "a separated Basic I/O System (BIOS)".]

. . . .

According to Kildall: "CP/M was an instant success. By 1980, DRI had sold millions of copies of CP/M to manufacturers and end-users." It ran on over 200 different machines, and cost $70 a copy. By 1982, DRI's revenues were $20 million a year.’

(Emphasis added.)

So the strength of CP/M was its portability, and its resulting ability to run on most 8080- or Z80-based machines.

(With or without an S-100 bus.)

But what machines are we talking about here?

Most of the biggest-selling 8-bit personal computers that I know of were not (primarily) CP/M machines, and I don’t know what the CP/M-using machines are that apparently ultimately outsold them.

(At least in the aggregate — even if no one of them, by itself, was among the top sellers.)

* Most of the big-selling early 8-bit personal computers that I know of — such as the Commodore PET and its various successors, the Apple II, and the BBC Micro — used the 6502 or one of its later variants or descendants, and therefore required an add-in card with an 8080 or a Z80 — typically a Z80 — if they were to run CP/M and CP/M apps.

* And at least in the earliest years, even most of the biggest-selling and most prominent personal computers based on the Z80 did not use CP/M — at least not as their standard or primary operating system.

(Details regarding the use of CP/M on a TRS-80 Model I or III or a Sinclair ZX80 or ZX81 — let alone on an Apple II or a Commodore 64 — are complicated. And I believe that doing this always required supplemental hardware: on the 6502-based machines, a Z80 add-in card or cartridge, and on the Z80-based machines, an add-in card or whatever that would modify the underlying system’s use of memory in order to accommodate CP/M’s memory use.

Details regarding the use of CP/M on a TRS-80 Model 4 or a Sinclair ZX Spectrum — or even a Commodore 128 — are not nearly as complicated. Although with the C128 there still were issues — chiefly involving speed.)

So where — on what platforms — was CP/M dominant?

Especially by 1980?

(The C64 and the ZX Spectrum were introduced in 1982, and the C128 was introduced in 1985. Even the ZX80 and ZX81 were not introduced until 1980 and ‘81, respectively.

The TRS-80 Model III was not introduced until the middle of 1980, and it had the same memory map-compatibility issues with CP/M as the original 1977 Model I.

The Model 4 was the first TRS-80 model with the ability to run CP/M without modification, and it actually had multiple ways of running multiple different versions — customized or generic — of CP/M. It appears to me that Tandy probably specifically (re-)designed the Model 4 to accommodate CP/M (while retaining compatibility with the Model III). But it was not introduced until 1983.)

In response to my query, Google mentioned the Altair 8800 — but not the IMSAI 8080! — and computers from Osborne, Kaypro, Amstrad, Cromemco, NEC, Xerox, Epson, Zenith and Heathkit, North Star, TeleVideo, and Morrow Designs. I was already at least cursorily familiar with most of these, but could all of them (plus others omitted by Google) — collectively — have been bigger in aggregate unit sales than Tandy, Commodore, Apple, Acorn, and early Sinclair, taken together?

What do we want? Windows 10 support! When do we want it? Until 2030!

“a 3.0x reduction in firmware attacks in Windows 11 PCs”???

WTF is “a 3.0x reduction”?

Wouldn’t a “three times” reduction be a 300 percent reduction, taking us from our starting value, X — whatever it is — to -2X?

‘Cause a full 1.0x reduction would take us from X all the way down to zero, and then the remaining two increments of reduction — each exactly as great in absolute magnitude as the first increment — would get us to negative 2 (times whatever value we started with). Right?

What else can “a 3.0x reduction” possibly mean???

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P.S. I really want to use the Terminator/“Your foster parents are dead” icon, ‘cause I hadn’t signed into El Reg in a million years until just now (and therefore haven’t seen, let alone used, the icon in a long, long time), and by splendid coincidence Terminator 2: Judgment Day happens to be on TV even as I’m writing this. But the “WTF?” icon clearly is the one that this comment calls for!

Apple WWDC: There's no way iOS and macOS will fully merge as one

Re: Bringing iOS and macOS closer

“This strategy is almost certainly better than merging the two. Making macOS apps live with the limitations of iOS would kill their 'pro' market, and making iOS apps have to deal with all the complexities of a full fledged PC would create a lot of extra work for developers. This way developers who want the extra work of developing an app that works on both can choose to do it, and those who only care about iOS can target it and continue to ignore the Mac.”

Would someone please explain this to Steve Sinofsky — may he burn in Hell!* — with a CC to that pompous, loudmouthed jackass who now owns the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team?

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* Unless of course you also can go back 10 or 15 years in a time machine, and successfully explain it to him back then — before the son of a bitch ruined Windows 8!

If you can do that, and likewise prevent this double-sinner from also totally ruining Office — giving the finger to everyone who was quite comfortable using it the old way (WTF does he have against menus???) — then I will be happy to forgive him, and not consign him to the flames. I wouldn’t even bother making him do any time in Purgatory!

And so it begins: Veritas lays off UK workers, R&D bods hit hardest

Re: The end of a love affair

The more time passes, the more my pronunciation of “Tempus fugit” changes.

My up-vote was for your revealing account, and not for the sad facts you relate. How depressing it must have been for you, watching such excellent technology swirl as its owners flushed it down the crapper. (Or the loo, if you prefer.)

Re: The article’s title . . .

P.S. I still remember how thrilled — or at least intrigued — I was to read about Veritas, and its then-ingenious, drive-spanning file system, in an article in Byte magazine, some 20-25 years ago.

Back when Ambassador Kosh and Babylon 5 were still on the air, now that I think of it!

So sad to see ‘em fall on hard times.

(So thumbs-up for Veritas, and thumbs-down for what is happening to it now.)

The article’s title . . .

gave me chills. I immediately heard the voice of Ambassador Kosh!

(Do I need to give a “Spoiler Alert” for the icon I chose?)

Facebook admits: Apps were given users' permission to go into their inboxes

@Nathan11

“Irrespective of whether we leave the EU, the UK will still adopt the GDPR, so those protections will not be lost.

God bless you, Nathan!

I up-voted you just now just for using “irrespective” correctly, and not writing “irregardless”. That’s how low my expectations have fallen in recent years.

(Not that I’ve ever heard or seen anyone use “irrespective” incorrectly. But you know what I mean!)

@fnusnu: “anything I make PUBLIC”

“Peronsally, I'm fine with anything I make public being shared.“

But of course, Facebook Messages are NOT made public!

While one assumes they may be available to Facebook itself, and to law enforcement agencies that obtain a suitable warrant first, they are otherwise supposed to be between sender and recipient.

They are not like posts or comments made on a friend’s Timeline!

Re: “Was this information helpful?”

Am I wrong to hold my unidentified Facebook friend(s) partly responsible as well, in addition to Facebook and Cambridge Analytica? For giving “This Is Your Digital Life” permission to access my information? (And that of all their other Facebook friends!)

And to expect Facebook to identify the culprit(s) to me? Shouldn’t I at least be allowed to tease him/her/them just a bit for falling for this nonsense?

If anyone thinks I am, on either count, please explain. I remain happy to consider any additional points I may have overlooked.

(Such as how difficult Facebook and “This Is Your Digital Life” may have made it for prospective users of the latter to realize they were giving access to others’ information as well as their own.

I presently view that as a potential reason not to be mad at my unnamed friends, but not as a sufficient excuse for Facebook to withhold their identities from me.)

.

P.S. At least it wasn’t FarmVille.

“Was this information helpful?”

Here is what Facebook told me:

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“Based on our investigation, you don't appear to have logged into ‘This Is Your Digital Life’ with Facebook before we removed it from our platform in 2015.

However, a friend of yours did log in.

As a result, the following information was likely shared with ‘This Is Your Digital Life’:

Your public profile, Page likes, birthday and current city . . . .”

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(All emphasis added, bold and italic.)

Then came the paragraph already quoted in the article, innocuously mentioning the breathtaking range of additional information of mine that may have been shared by one or more of my Facebook friends.

As the article mentions, this Facebook page/tool tells users what categories of information might have been shared, but does not identify which specific items of information actually were.

Nor does it identify who among my several-hundred Facebook friends actually gave “This Is Your Digital Life” permission to access my information.

And then came the question in my subject line, “Was this information helpful?”

After checking “No”, being further asked “What went wrong?”, and then checking “Other”, I filled in the optional comment box as follows:

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“It’s not nearly enough. It doesn’t tell me precisely WHAT information of mine was shared without MY permission, and neither does it tell me WHICH (jackass) friend(s) of mine gave permission on my behalf to Cambridge Analytica and ‘This Is Your Digital Life’ to help themselves to MY personal information. I would like to know which thoughtful soul(s) to thank.

And after what he/she/they did, I certainly don’t think you can claim that identifying him/her/them to me could in any way violate his/her/their privacy!

So I would like to be told considerably more, and I think you owe it to me.”

What is dead may never die: a new version of OS/2 just arrived

Re: Wasn't the GUI taken from the Amiga?

Googling confirms that IBM did license something from Commodore, but I haven't been able to ascertain what.

And in return, Commodore licensed REXX from IBM! Leading to ARexx, one of the most popular, successful, elegant and sophisticated implementations of REXX ever, on any platform.

Googling "os/2 amiga" leads to multiple hits/sources that all use identical language:

"IBM also once engaged in a technology transfer with Commodore, licensing Amiga technology for OS/2 2.0 and above, in exchange for the REXX scripting language."

(No idea who first wrote this.)

(ARexx was first created in 1987 by William Hawes, and included with AmigaOS 2.0 by Commodore in 1990. It included a number of Amiga-specific features that allowed it to communicate with and be incorporated into third-party apps in a very easy, flexible and powerful way. This plus the intrinsic power and simplicity of REXX as originally developed by Mike Cowlishaw of IBM made it immensely popular with Amiga users.

OS/2 2.0 was released in April 1992.)

But whatever IBM got from Commodore and the Amiga, it was not OS/2's GUI. Certainly not its entire GUI.

OS/2's GUI consists of two main components.

The GUI itself is Presentation Manager. It's what's responsible for defining a coordinate system, drawing objects — including windows and pointers — on screen, controlling the mouse and receiving and directing input from it, and so on. It was developed primarily by an IBM lab in Hursley, England (but with some involvement by Microsoft as well), and introduced with OS/2 1.1 in late 1988.

The really cool object-oriented desktop shell that sits and works on top of Presentation Manager, but that many OS/2 users think of as OS/2's GUI (or at least as part of OS/2's GUI), is the Workplace Shell. It was developed by IBM's lab in Boca Raton, Florida, and it is built on top of IBM's very powerful System Object Model (SOM). Which in turn was developed by IBM's lab in Austin, Texas. The SOM-based Workplace Shell — which in turn is very nicely integrated with REXX — is by far and away the coolest thing about OS/2, interface-wise, and the one area where it actually offers capabilities that even the wonderful Amiga did not yet have. And it was introduced as part of OS/2 2.0 in April 1992.

So whatever IBM got in the way of Amiga technology licensed from Commodore (and I really wish I could find out what it was!*), the vast bulk of what constitutes OS/2's then-revolutionary and very impressive user interface actually was developed by IBM itself, in house!

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* The fact that whatever was licensed was licensed for OS/2 2.0 (and above) makes me suspect that it must have been some component, aspect or feature of the Workplace Shell. But certainly not the Workplace Shell itself, for the Amiga had no such thing, and the Workplace Shell is built entirely on SOM plumbing, which was entirely IBM's creation.

Re: Anyone still got their copy of "Inside OS/2"

Just love the fact that it's by Gordon Letwin!

Lester Haines: RIP

¡Vaya con Dios, mi amigo!

I was so saddened to read of your passing two days ago. Even though I do not normally drink during the day, I immediately went and poured one for you. And because I have the liability of being a Yank, I actually took the trouble to open a second can, so I could get all the way up to a proper pint!

(I did not throw the other 8 ounces away; I disposed of them suitably, and also in your honor. I am confident you would approve!)

I never had the privilege of meeting you, but I know you were personally responsible for so much of what I love about El Reg. As I wrote just a few minutes ago, to a much-younger friend to whom I have recommended The Register:

"[H]e was responsible for many of its humorous touches over the past 15 years, and for a lot of its general scientific bent as well. The combination of scientific rigor and general irreverence that I have so grown to love."

So ¡Hasta luego!/¡Hasta mas tarde!/!Hasta que nos encontremos en el cielo!

Is Microsoft's chatty bot platform just Clippy Mark 2?

Re: What!

"Some years later Apple 'appropriated' Xerox's ideas in the Lisa then and only then did Microsoft think they would have GUI too. Have you never heard of the court case, Apple sued Microsoft for copying their idea - they lost but for reasons other than it being an original idea by Microsoft."

That's partly but not entirely correct.

I do not have the dates handy at the moment, but:

Although Steve Jobs's first visit to PARC did take place before Bill Gates's first visit there, it is a matter of record that future Microsoft employee Charles Simonyi gave Gates a guided tour of PARC before Jobs ever spoke to Gates (or anyone else at Microsoft, but it was Gates to whom he first spoke) about Lisa or the Mac.

Even on that score, my memory of events is a bit rusty. I don't believe Microsoft was ever told ahead of time about the Lisa, nor asked to write software for it; just the Mac. The Lisa was pretty-much a closed system. But the key point is that Gates and Allen and Microsoft as a whole were already at work on a GUI-based "operating environment" of their own before anyone from Apple ever said a word to anyone at Microsoft about any of Apple's own desires and intentions in this regard. There's even a photograph somewhere that shows them working on it, outlining the details on a white board.

This might be the photo, but I cannot tell for sure at the moment, in a hurry:

Gates and Allen in the early days

Microsoft's original internal name for the project was "Interface Manager", and that might be what appears in the upper right-hand corner of this picture — I can't make it out.

(Looking again, I think it just says "window manager", in which case it is a reference to the functional component of the overall system or interface rather than to the contemplated name of the new product in its entirety. The word "window" looks faded or partially erased, which is why it's so difficult to read.)

.

Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews include both the photo and all of the pertinent dates (sometimes only approximate, but still pinned down enough to establish sequence) in their book Gates, which if anything is a mildly hostile biography, but in fact is pretty-much fair throughout.

(They take every opportunity to present facts that make Gates look bad, but at the same time they are careful to document everything and not overstate the case.)

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(Every other item on the white board in the photo makes sense in light of the detailed discussions presented in the book of what Gates, Allen and Simonyi had in mind for Microsoft, and for the suite of applications recycling the same interface that they were planning to offer, based on the word processor that Simonyi had written when he was still with Xerox PARC. Including the idea of enabling it to run on multiple processor architectures, and offering it through multiple vendors. There was a lot of talk about pseudo-code in that section of the book, as they hoped to write all their applications to an interpreter, and then just port the interpreter to each new platform supported.

Rather importantly — and I know it makes a difference — I do not recall whether this photo was taken before or after Jobs first spoke to Gates about the Macintosh. I suspect it was after, but the fact remains that Gates had already seen all the cool stuff at Xerox on his own, and was already at work on his own effort to copy Xerox before Jobs ever said a word to him about this stuff. I don't think Gates even knew before Jobs told him that Jobs had seen all the Xerox stuff too!)

Re: FryBot

"can someone please develop a Stephen Fry Twitterbot?"

I thought you Limeys already had one of those.

Wait, you mean it's a real person?

Done making the big stuff better? The path to Apple's mid-life crisis

A mind IS a terrible thing to lose!

"I wanted to write something like this to you two years ago, or whenever it was you semi-retired!"

Mr. Senile here is at once pleased and disappointed to see that he did write something like this (only much shorter!) two years ago (30 June 2014). Not only did I note — with sadness and disappointment — our disagreement over the Citizens United decision and the fundamental principle that would be violated were it overturned, but I also made three comments referencing bassists I like and whom you may or may not like as well (Stanley Clarke,* James Jamerson, and Bob Babbitt).

Does my having dug up and provided the URL of the article in which Lester dubbed you "the Joseph Conrad of IT journalism, or something like that" make up for my heretical views and my forgetfulness, if not for my long-windedness?

(Even though I'd quite forgotten all of that as well! Both the appellation itself, and the fact of my having remembered it and reminded you of it on the occasion of your departure.)

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* My comment re Stanley Clarke actually chided him for his flamboyance and spotlight-hogging — an ex-girlfriend who played the bass described him as a frustrated would-be guitarist — but the fact is he remains one of my favorites anyway. Probably my favorite after Jaco, along with Andy West.

At least I linked to different bassists — Jaco Pastorius and Tal Wilkenfeld, the latter accompanying Jeff Beck — this time!

But why are so many of the bassists I like dead?

And to ask you who your favorite bassists are!

And to ask you who your favorite bassists are, ETC.!

(Obviously I snuck a favorite guitarist in there as well.)

May Jaco rest in peace!

.

(El Reg's goddam 'net nanny or whatever would not let me include those last two sentences — now three — in my original post unless I omitted the links! And every time it inflicted the captcha screen, it deleted my entire post from the goddam browser!

Luckily, I somehow recovered my post and made a backup copy this time, before finally outsmarting the nanny-ware by splitting my post in two. I have encountered and complained about this before!)

What you MEAN, Rik, is something different from what you (repeatedly) SAY!

"Corporations, however, are not people — despite what the US Supreme Court might believe."

Rik, do you really believe it should be impossible to sue a corporation, rather than its owners and employees individually? Because that's what you're saying, and that's what's at stake in regard to corporate personhood or non-personhood.

Of course corporations are not actual human beings. However, if corporations are not legal persons, then they cannot sue or be sued! They have no legal rights or status at all! I don't think that's a state of affairs you want.

.

I have always liked your articles for El Reg. A lot. So it saddened me greatly to learn you were semi-retiring and would not be writing much here anymore, and to learn that you would instead be devoting a great portion of your time to seeking to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. A decision whose overturning — despite what those who would overturn it usually say — would require nothing short of the (partial) repeal of the First Amendment.

(Just as any amendment to allow Congress or the states to prohibit flag-burning would — to that degree — repeal the First Amendment!)

It is just amazing that so many Americans want to put muzzles on their fellow citizens, and do not even feel the slightest shame or embarrassment about this fact!

And likewise, that those on the Left who routinely decry corporate personhood — the legal personhood of corporations — are in this instance the very ones who let mushy, mystical, metaphysical nonsense blind them to the obvious and inescapable fact that a corporation, as such, cannot speak apart from the actions of actual living, breathing human beings! Who would also — necessarily — be muzzled if "corporations" are muzzled (as a contrary decision in Citizens United would have done).

(The person or people who wrote the script, the actors who read it, the person or people who filmed it, the person who directed the film, the person or people who paid for the film to be shown on TV, and so on. A "corporation" as such cannot do any of these things!)

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(I'll not even go into the fact that the corporation involved in Citizens United was formed for the sole purpose of engaging in speech! Speech directed at persuading the company's founders' fellow citizens! People who wanted to produce and distribute films expressing political views, and who wanted to be able to do so without having to risk losing their homes if some pinko with deep pockets (George Soros?) disliked one of their films sufficiently and decided to sue them. It was not a case involving lobbying or political advertising by some big, preexisting, profit-seeking corporation like General Motors, or anything like that.

The position of the Left appears to be that if people want to engage in political speech, they may not protect their homes and personal property via limited liability, the way people engaging in any other activity can and routinely do! You can protect yourself by incorporating, but you'll lose your First Amendment rights. Or you can keep your First Amendment rights, but run the risk of losing your home and having to file for bankruptcy if someone sues you. Which under the misguided and God-forsaken "American Rule" concerning the bearing of costs by parties in a lawsuit is all too easy to do. But you cannot protect your home and other personal assets and enjoy and exercise your rights under the First Amendment. That is the position of the Left on this issue.)

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You can take pleasure, I suppose, in being on the same side of this question as Noam Chomsky. I find his error on this subject as puzzling and mystifying as yours. How can people of such obvious intelligence and general good will be so wrong about this one particular topic?

Plus, y'all are barking up the wrong tree!

What you should be bitching about, and where you and other critics of the corporation as a legal phenomenon have a really good point/objection, is the fact that the corporate form limits the ability of victims of torts committed by a corporation's employees in the course and scope of their employment to recover from the corporation's owners, whose agents the employees are. Implicitly, the conferral of corporate status on a business enterprise limits the traditional scope of the legal/tort doctrine of respondeat superior. That, and only that, is the one aspect of the corporation's special legal status that cannot be explained simply as the result of contract — of voluntary agreement by those who choose to deal with corporations knowing in advance that they are corporations (because the word "Corp." or "Inc." or "Ltd." in their name alerts all prospective parties).

(A tort victim does not choose to deal with a company who injures him at all, and therefore has consented in advance to nothing!)

If that's not enough for you, then you also might take on the shameful and outrageous way in which corporate executives so often are excused from personal criminal liability for their actions on the corporation's behalf. Innocent shareholders' pockets are picked, while the actual human beings who were negligent — or worse — serve not a day in the clink. There's justice for you!

Fixing these messes and injustices would be the result of clearer thinking, and of de-mystifying the corporation. But additional restrictions on the speech of actual human beings would not.

</rant>

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(Sorry so long! I wanted to write something like this to you two years ago, or whenever it was you semi-retired!)

Microsoft GitHubs BotBuilder framework behind Tay chatbot

Do **Microsoft employees** have self-awareness?

“Explaining its decision to open up the BotBuilder framework, Microsoft says – without any trace of irony – that 'at this point few developers have the expertise and tools needed to create new conversational experiences[,] or enable existing applications and services with a conversational interface their users can enjoy'.”

(All emphasis added.)

Microsoft's collective head is so far up its collective arse, it isn't funny! When have Microsoft's customers ever encountered a conversational interface they could enjoy? Bob? Clippy?

(As I thought I'd noted elsewhere previously, but evidently did not, at least the cartoon search dog with the wagging tail was mildly cute! But still kind-of in the way.)

Until Microsoft's employees achieve self-awareness, I'm certainly not going to worry about any of the software they write ever doing so.

Re: Not up to the

(And if all the platitudinous, buzzword-compliant jargon and rubbish that gets spouted from SatNad's mouth — pretentious fluff that sounds nice but means nothing — isn't actually composed by a bot, I'll eat my hat!

Most likely a bot designed to appeal to the undiscriminating ear — and hiney — of Steve Ballmer.)

Re: Not up to the

I'd say the bots that wrote Tay did a perfect job of passing for actual MS coders!

Re: Great!

Definitely a link worth clicking on! Kudos, Ralph B!

(Despite the title, I did not see any of Itchy or Scratchy, nor even of Marge. But I was treated to a brief but highly apposite snippet of The Simpsons, and a lovely bit of Beethoven's 6th!)

'No regrets' says chap who felled JavaScript's Jenga tower – as devs ask: Have we forgotten how to code?

Actions Have Consequences

The reasons for NPM's decision and rule change are obvious and substantial. However, the people behind the decision should be mindful of a fundamental principle of economics:

Barriers to exit inevitably end up becoming barriers to entry.

This is true both in international trade and finance, and in antitrust/industrial organization/monopoly theory:

If, by churlish and niggardly enforcement of Section 7 of the Clayton Act, federal authorities (the DOJ and FTC) make it harder for unsuccessful competitors to sell their assets to rivals and exit an industry, forcing them to just eat their losses, future potential entrants will be discouraged from entering new markets in the first place, making those markets less competitive.

(What Dennis Moore said about redistributing the wealth comes to mind!)

And likewise, as the great and under-recognized economist Arnold Harberger has remarked (I'm going from memory here, so this is only a paraphrase), countries that try to keep capital in cannot do so if capital wants badly enough to leave, but they can with considerable ease, and without any intention to do so, keep capital out, by imposing restrictions on its leaving!

The lesson?

In the future, any developer who wants to retain for himself the option of withdrawing his modules if he wants to will think twice now about contributing them in the first place. This is an iron law that cannot be got 'round, and must simply be lived with.

The call made in this instance may well be the right one; I'd say it probably is. But it will have consequences in the future. That fact cannot be avoided.

Oh, sugar! Sysadmin accidently deletes production database while fixing a fault

Ouch!

"ironically while attempting to fix a problem with backup systems."

Reminds me of the time in the Summer of 1985 when, while attempting to make a backup copy of a paper I'd already been working on 'round the clock for two full weeks, I accidentally destroyed my only copy and had to start the damn paper all over again.

My goof? Instead of a blank floppy diskette, as I intended, I inserted the disk that already contained my only copy of the paper into my Tandy 1000's B drive, and then typed "Format B:"!

Oy!

Clear April 12: Windows, Samba to splat curious 'crucial' Badlock bug

A shame we can't trust Windows Update anymore

It's a shame we can't trust Windows Update anymore. Before Microsoft started using it to surreptitiously foist mislabeled and vaguely described or altogether misdescribed adware and spyware onto our computers, it was really useful for things like this.

US Congressman calls WIPO 'the FIFA of UN agencies' at hearing

A glimpse at ICANN's future?

And also a glimpse at ICANN's future?

(If not its present and (recent) past as well. ICANN writ large!)

Re: The FIFA of UN agencies?

Actually, now that I've actually read the article, instead of merely printing it out to read later, I have to admit that what WIPO's been doing really is beyond the pale, even for the UN. Strongly reminiscent of, and possibly even as bad as, what went on at UNESCO in the early '80s.

(Rusty on details, but an African potentate who was in charge then used all its money to build a personal palace for himself in Paris, etc. An unmitigated den of corruption, all in the service of a single individual who ran it with an iron fist.)

So it was kind-of the UN writ large. And very much like FIFA, of course.

'Contractual barriers' behind geo-blocking could breach EU rules

Hey, only WE get to do this!

It's interesting to hear the EU trying to block geo-blocking, seeing as the EU is also in the business of requiring it.

Chocolate Factory rolls out geolocation filter on search results

What really pissed me off about this development is that now everyone, everywhere must be spied upon (even more) by Google so that European governments can restrict the liberty of Europeans. Geo-blocking generally just sucks, regardless of who's behind it.

(Generally. Def made some good points up above about how it might occasionally make sense, and make life a good bit easier for companies in specific instances.)