Posts by MiguelC

Dilettante dev wrote rubbish, left no logs, and had no idea why his app wasn't working

Re: The Worst...

What about IF YEAR > 50 MOVE 19 TO CENTURY?

This hack created a million jobs between 1997 and 1999

Chip bans? LOL! Chinese web giant Tencent says it has enough GPUs for future AI model training

Re: Americans suffer from small car claustrophobia

If everyone else on the road drove a Hummer would you feel safe in your Fiat 500?

Americans usually have no problem driving in Europe in European-sized cars (well, stick shifting might still be a problem, but that’s also changing here)

Europe plots escape hatch from enshittification of search

Re: UDM14

I believe the OP meant if/when AI would become reliable.

The answer is, obviously, not a chance in hell/never ever.

VPN Secure parent company CEO explains why he had to axe thousands of 'lifetime' deals

They offer a discount if you re-subscribe? And you would trust a company that does something like that because?

So your [expletive] test failed. So [obscene participle] what?

Re: Been there, done that... who hasn't?

As I've recounted here before, I was once tracking a mainframe bug report (a bit over 25 years ago) and got a message on my terminal stating that "if you reached this point you're fucked".

Although the original coder was no longer working with us, I eventually confirmed his prescient statement.

People find amazing ways to break computers. Cats are even more creative

Re: Power cables

My shepherd dog once tasked herself with slicing a 20 meter 3-phase extension cord into much more handy 5-10 cm pieces... luckily it wasn't live (I mean the wiring, but the dog pretty much played dead when I found out)

Curl project founder snaps over deluge of time-sucking AI slop bug reports

Re: It's the bug bounty

Under whose power?

No one would ever consider paying. Even if they get banned unless they pay the 'fine', what's the difference between that and directly banning them?

Microsoft to preload Word minutes after boot

Well, with O364 under Win11, Excel recently started to hang every time I applied any kind of formatting (bold letters, table outlining, etc.), sometimes requiring me to kill the process and restarting from wherever I was.

Some online searching found me the solution: change the default printer do PDF. Applied it and didn't have a problem anymore.

Ah, evolution.

Trio arrested in £3M UK bribery probe over Microsoft datacenter build in Netherlands

Re: Blu-3 said it was "currently supporting an external SFO investigation and is fully cooperating with the agency. We take matters of this nature extremely seriously and are committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and ethical conduct across all of our operations."

A £3M bribe couldn't be approved at mid management level, right?

Chinese carmaker Chery using DeepSeek-driven humanoid robots as showroom sales staff

Re: Yeah, I like Parus major

Make them like ED-209 then.

"You have 20 seconds to complete the purchase"

"You have now 15 seconds to comply"

...

Ghost in the shell script: Boffins reckon they can catch bugs before programs run

HotOS XX conference?

I'll wait 10 years for the really hot one

Techie diagnosed hardware fault by checking customer's coffee

Re: Please do not all power on at once

Power on or off... It was the late 90's and I had twin 21-inch Samsung CRT monitors at the office. I learned the hard way not to power them on or off at the same time. The few times I did that, I managed to trip the whole floor. And each of those times several angry looks followed my walk of shame from my post to the electrical board to switch it on again.

Trump blinks: 'Substantially' lower China tariffs promised

Re: Dementia

Intelligent life in his cabinet is as elusive as bacon in a vegan's fridge.

Peter Hegseth, Pam Bondi, RFK Jr, Kristi Noem, Howard Lutnick, etc. - Kakistocracy in a nutshell

India gets Google to unbundle Android and the Play Store on Smart TVs

Re: $2.4 million

AI Overview: "It takes approximately 0.000000094 seconds for Google to generate $2.4 million in revenue. This is calculated by dividing $2.4 million by Google's revenue generation rate, which is roughly $25.5 million per minute."

Can you spot the itsy bitsy arithmetic error?

HP settles fake discount lawsuit for just $4M. Don’t expect much of a payout

Re: "a customer is more likely to purchase a $2,000 computer advertised at 50 percent off its regular price than pay full price for a $1,000 computer"

Customers are dumb like that...

As an example I'm pretty familiar with, supermarkets love selling at outrageous discount prices. They'll go to a wine producer and tell them they want to have an exclusive brand they'll sell for 5€, BUT they want to mark it at 15€ and have regular sales at 67% off. While it's a widely known tactic, and it's been reported in the media as marketing gimmick, I frequently hear people talking about those great buys they made - even people who should know better.

Krebs throws himself on the grenade, resigns from SentinelOne after Trump revokes clearances

Re: Next week :

Whoooooosh

(that's the sound of the plane turning back 1h away from the US coastline after dropping you there)

CVE program gets last-minute funding from CISA – and maybe a new home

Re: Leon

Do you mean Leon, the unprofessional

Static electricity can be shockingly funny, but the joke's over when a rack goes dark

Re: it's the shoes

As a junior dev, when business attire was mandatory I used those more comfortable rubber sole dress shoes. It charged me up quite a bit, and I would frequently distribute my energy around the office. A particular favourite was my IT director, which I liked very much to shake hands with. Sometimes even my colleagues saw the sparks!

Infosec experts fear China could retaliate against tariffs with a Typhoon attack

Re: Most dangerous?

I bought 2nd hand hi-fi equipment from a US store and local customs invoiced me for VAT am import duties as if I'd bought new from the maker, even though I had the PayPal slip proving the price I paid. I would have had to pay more in taxes than what I'd paid for it.

My belief is that someone wanted it for themselves - unreleased stuff is usually auctioned, but some goodies never make it, being reserved for those in the know...

Trump kills clearances for infosec's SentinelOne, ex-CISA boss Chris Krebs

Re: Brian Krebs

I wouldn't laugh, and I'm sure Brian wouldn't either

EU lands 25% counter tariff punch on US, Trump pauses broad import levy hike – China excepted

Re: EU to charge citizens 25% extra tax on loads of stuff and pocket a stash of their cash.

That we don't need or that we can buy from somewhere else - somewhere where tariffs don't apply

Microsoft lists seven habits of highly effective Windows 11 users

Re: My hot tip

Indeed, but you also have to pick their shit after them

Re: My 2 cents...

Are we colleagues, perchance? Just this morning I received the downgrade upgrade threat / warning notice

Asian tech players react to US tariffs with delays, doubts, deal-making

Alert! Alert! Serial downvoter spotted!

That really is the only reason this post might have a downvote.... any other option would be insane, right?

Re: Qualcomm

Although Kissinger made that statement in the specific context of the Vietnamese war (he was referring to Ngo Dinh Diem, the American-supported president of South Vietnam who was assassinated by his own military after the US removed its support), those words are right once again.

Even stopped clocks and stuff...

How do you explain what magnetic fields do to monitors to people wearing bowling shoes?

Re: Time to solve: negative

It's a known IT trope that most problems go away if you ignore them for long enough :)

North Korea’s fake tech workers now targeting European employers

Re: Simples

Then why not use to facilitator to go to the interview? Why even have someone in the DPRK?

And, at least in the EU, people have ID documents - they're forgeable, but not that easily.

Simples

One in-person meeting required to sign a contract before starting. Game over scammers.

To avoid disaster-recovery disasters, learn from Reg readers' experiences

Re: And theres

While in uni I recovered a dead hard-drive by buying an exact same model (and version and revision) and moving the actual disc from the dead drive to the good one. All that done in my room (it was clean, 'guv).

In those days with single platter drives it was risky but feasible. Now, with multiple platters, helium filled and sealed drives, good luck with that...

Forget Signal. National Security Adviser Waltz now accused of using Gmail for work

Re: Come on now...

I wouldn't, IF Musk was competent

Microsoft is redesigning the Windows BSoD to get you back to work ‘as fast as possible’

Apparently you can have any colour you want, it's just a registry key value

Tech trainer taught a course on software he'd never used and didn't own

In my first employment, as a junior dev, circa '97, I was working with an expert contracted for his extensive DB2 knowledge. He was supposed to set up a battery of DB tests on a Friday for me and my mates to follow up during the weekend (as this was a Y2K project and time was running short, we, the minions, would be there - but not the expensive contractor).

The bad news is that he managed to screw up every single test he was supposed to prepare by not allocating disk space for it as z/OS required - and then leaving logs of it for us to see. That meant he had just wasted the whole team a Saturday. By the end of that day I'd managed to redo - this time correctly - everything the expert was supposed to have done for us and our team got it's work done for others to pick up the next Monday.

The good news it that, on Monday, our manager heard us arguing about what had happened (I may have been expressing in not very pleasant terms how pissed off I was about all that sorry affair) and, after investigating it, called me apart and told me I wouldn't need to worry about it any more as the 'expert' was no longer working there.

Even better news is that I also got promoted a month or so later, with the way I handled that incident being a factor.

SK hynix has probably already sold most of the HBM DRAM it will make next year

Re: I am immune from all Trump Tariffs

Unfortunately tariffs have a cascading effect.

As an example, if motor vehicles are more expensive, then agriculture is more expensive. If it is more expensive in the US, US grocers will buy more from the outside where it is less expensive, adding to the existing demand and driving prices up for everyone.

This is the real trickle-down effect...

The passive aggression of connecting USB to PS/2

Re: Kudos for correct D shell terminology

People seldom know the "E" is there for the shell size (as is the "B") , so a DB-9 connector would be a large shell (like a DB-25) but with only 9 pins sticking out (or holes, for a female socket)

The size order being, from smaller to larger, E-->A-->B-->C-->D, makes it seem like the E shell was a later addition to the standard

Security shop pwns ransomware gang, passes insider info to authorities

They did lots of "hash-cracking"

Reads just like an old James Bond script

NCSC taps influencers to make 2FA go viral

Nice way of talking about boring subjects, and on top of that, the first video is really funny!

The only way it could get better is having two people working in tandem on a single keyboard for extra speediness

You know that generative AI browser assistant extension is probably beaming everything to the cloud, right?

Re: "run afoul of US regulations"

Don't worry, they'll get rid of those

Weeks with a BBC Micro? Good enough to fix a mainframe, apparently

Re: Memories

Often times these little skills indicate a healthy dose of curiosity, something much needed to solve IT problems

Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options, says Dutch parliament

I would gladly welcome The Register back to co.uk

Political poker? Tariff hunger games? Trump creates havoc for PC industry

Re: "President Trump's ongoing trade war ..."

Unfortunately, the weapon of choice for shooting herself ('wink) in the foot was a hand grenade, causing collateral damage to others...

Crew-9 splashes down while NASA floats along with Trump and Musk nonsense

Ihk eekh eekh, ikh ikh eekh

"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"

CISA fires, now rehires and immediately benches security crew on full pay

Re: "your ethical obligations"

"it's good to be the king"

Microsoft tempted to hit the gas as renewables can't keep up with AI

"AI's benefits will outweigh its environmental impact"

We'll all probably die, but AI will thrive from then on

User complained his mouse wasn’t working. But he wasn’t using a mouse

Re: Confused Mouse

In my early life, I taught some basic computer intro courses for people who -mostly- never had used computers before. Once there was a lady who complained about the difficulty in using the mouse as the cursor moved on the wrong direction(s). Sure enough, the mouse's cord was under her wrist and all went smoothly after showing her the right way to hold the device.

Then, it was because mouses were somewhat new (wireless didn't even exist at the time); now it's because those wired ones are somewhat old.

That 'angry guest' email from Booking.com? It's a scam, not a 1-star review

Clicking a link by instinct? It happens, I get that.

Running commands on your PC because the website tells you to? That's a total lack of critical thinking!

As Elon Musk makes thousands of federal workers jobless, tycoon pushes for $56B Tesla pay deal

Re: Tut tut.

Whoosh..... that's the sound of the joke flying high over your comment

Is NASA's science budget heading for a black hole?

Re: Flow Check

According to the budget cuts, there will be no means to lead

Things are looking down for cutting-edge cosmic observatories

Puntastic!

Athena Moon lander officially FOADs – falls over and dies – in crater

You were saying?

Cheap 'n' simple sign trickery will bamboozle self-driving cars, fresh research claims

Where I live some traffic lights are always at red during dead of night, unless a sensor detects a vehicle waiting for the light to change and then, eventually, goes green (this happens for intersections between main traffic axes and secondary ones).

If the waiting car isn't close enough to the sensor, or if the sensor malfunctions (something not that uncommon), then red never goes away.

Humans know what to do in a situation like that, self-driving cars would be stuck there forever