Posts by Doctor Syntax

Microsoft has reached $1M giveaway levels of desperation to attract users to Bing

This might be a radical suggestion but how about making it not try to double guess what the user is searching for? Honour phrases in quotes. Honour logical operators "and", "or" and "not". KISS.

Re: Recently I tried Bing as an alternative

Just access Bing via DDG.

Re: Doesn’t have the Edge

Possibly the other way around but you don't need Edge to use Bing.

Windows 11 continues to creep up behind Windows 10

Re: needs a dose of Gov

The most likely solution is that they'll just be kept running as is. They're not being used by the likes of elReg inhabitants. They're being used by people who think they're just PCs and will stay just PCs until the day they don't boot any more.

Their users don't care.

Re: Old machines

They won't, for the most part, be going anywhere.

Of those that are capable of being upgraded and are in the hands of businesses which care, some will have been upgraded and some will be being held off until the last minute because their users don't want W11 sooner than they have to have it.

The rest, which aren't capable of being upgraded, and which you see as landfill will be being used by those for whom the existing updates are a monthly nuisance and will be quite glad to see that stop. Their users are not going to spend good money to climb back onboard that bus once they've got off.

Unless Microsoft were to send out a bricking update - which I don't think even they would expect they could get away with - they will continue working. The only difference in their users' view is that they'll stop getting upgrades. Nothing else. Zilch. Nada. They continue to be PCs running W10 until their PSU caps bulge.

I take it that the $30 extended upgrade offer is a realisation by Microsoft that that's the situation but they can try to screw extra money out of some of the irreconcilables.

Millions of PCs won't become landfill. They'll just stop receiving updates along with, no doubt, somewhat fewer millions of PCs still running W7 also without receiving updates.

The hunt is on for the scum who stole Britain's largest inflatable planetarium

We didn't have a feast in the church hall in this part of England either. In fact, the idea of a harvest was a bit strange because we're not in arable country, the sheep were sheared months earlier and the cows were milked all year.

That doesn't matter. I think the legal term is "joint enterprise".

Re: Largest...

"I think that there might be one or two army bases in Herefordshire"

True, but it is on the other side of the country.

"was stolen by suspects allegedly driving a silver Land Rover Discovery on October 21."

It was stolen by culprits - or thieves if you prefer the term. If the police don't have any names lined up they don't have any suspects.

Easy rule: it's culprits whodunnit; it's suspects who you suspect dunnit.

Why the long name? Okta discloses auth bypass bug affecting 52-character usernames

Re: I wonder...

File it instead under "Reasons why email addresses are crap user IDs". Two other reasons are:

1. Email addresses are likely to be widely known. If I email people as [e-mail] then anyone who I've emailed, or has seen a forwarded email with that address can guess that that's my login on example.com's systems and possibly at other online sites then part of their work is done for them.

2. If I use fred@example com because example.com is an email provider, or even worse, an ISP, I'm stuck with them however I might wish to migrate because it's going to be a nightmare trying to change user IDs with every service where I've used that; it's even going to be a nightmare trying to remember all the places where I might have to change it.

Public sector cyber break-ins: Our money, our lives, our right to know

Re: Unpleastant truth

So where does the extra investment come from?

Oh, silly me. It's obvious isn't it? The magic money tree.

Are we thinking just public sector here or some level of private sector as well? It certainly ought to extend to those bits of the private sector that come under the heading of critical infrastructure and those handling contracted out public sector operations. Should it also extend to what the EU call gatekeepers? Or beyond to those holding large amounts of personal data?

Singapore to increase road capacity by tracking all vehicles with GPS

It looks like they're doing it wrong if businesses can ignore the guidelines and demand everyone return to office. Just tax every occupied office desk sufficiently to discourage even the most obtuse micro-manager.

Relocation is a complete success – right up until the last minute

"33a is bit of a push"

Nobody said the switch wasn't overloaded. Far from it. The "nice loud -crack- from the switch" tells the reality.

Cloud repatriation officially a trend... for specific workloads

Re: Why do ppl act before they understand the Problem, and the Solution?

More poetic version: it's the grit in the oyster that produces the pearl.

Re: Captain obvious

"We're currently spending a six figure sum to maintain a DR instance we don't (and hopefully won't) use and, naturally, that's rightly catching the eye of the beancounters."

I suppose they've already cancelled the buildings insurance, public liability insurance etc.

That position you just applied for might be a 'ghost job' that'll never be filled

Re: Ghost jobs ? How about ghost contracts ?

I've seen one of those. It looked, in fact, as if it was aimed at me. I didn't get it. I never did find out what was behind it.

Re: Solution 1

Have you ever been on an interview panel? You have multiple candidates fro a single position all meeting the criteria. You can't appoint them all, neither can you provide reasons which would be clear and objective enough to meet such a requirement as to why the unsuccessful ones would be rejected. It may be a matter of how they present on that particular day, how you think they'll fit into the organisation, how you think you'll be able to work with them etc. It would be a nightmare.

Re: UK

Not that it matters, he's not going to be next PM, neither is Badenoch however much she might expect it now. Neither of those two will be capable of moving the Conservative party back into a centre right position where it'll be electable.

Re: USA

If one of the purposes - or even an unintended effect - is to give a false impression of the company's financial state to investors then the SEC should be getting interested.

Re: Tle Law is A Ass

If the job is advertised publicly with the intention to fill it internally then ISTM it would be difficult to argue that any legal requirement to advertise it publicly has actually been met. It might be difficult to prove that the advertisement was fraudulent but it might be even more difficult to prove that it wasn't.

Microsoft tries out wooden bit barns to cut construction emissions

Re: It's what's inside the counts

Irrespective of the fuel used to convert limestone it's going to release carton dioxide. That's the object of the process.

UK gov report to propose special zones for datacenters, 'AI visas'

Re: when they try to hire skilled foreigners

I've never realised that we had a border with Mexico.

Re: We don't need AI.

Once you've died you tend not to hang onto your house just for the sake of it.

I and a couple of our neighbouring families are living in our parents' old homes. Another neighbours' house was sold when the husband died and the wife moved away to live with one of her children. As it happens there has been ongoing building round here so that our own daughter and grandchildren are able to live not far away.

Re: We don't need AI.

"Incidentally, rural types tend not to want any development - neither housing nor data centres. They also don't want pylons, solar farms, turbines or vehicles travelling at more than 20 mph."

A lot of rural people would like to see a few houses built that they can afford because so many of the existing ones are bought up by townies for weekend homes, holiday lets, etc.

Pylons? If they'd increase the reliability of our electricity supply round here, fine. Actually, being near a National Park we're not in prime pylon country but there are plenty of what the distribution industry refers to as low voltage lines going here & there for what good it does us.

Solar farms? Eating electricity isn't good for you; for eating purposes you need food and that comes from real farms.. However if you think 240V would be a good snack I'm not going to stop you.

Turbines? I suppose you mean wind turbines; f rural types don't like them how come they're putting them up.

Vehicles travelling at more than 20mph? Even in Wales 20mph limits built-up areas but as someone else said, the nature of some rural lanes is a bit limiting anyway.

Re: Yes, why not jump on the latest temporarily passing tech bandwagon....

That's the trouble with passing trends. There's one every couple of years. Don't you appreciate all the hard work our governments have to put in to make sure we're aboard them all? Not just aboard but also world leaders.

One of the areas of concern among current industry chiefs is said to be the "lengthy bureaucracy" and cost involved in hiring skilled people from abroad

I suppose those trying to hire workers for less politcally glamorous roles, say in medicine or social care, can put up with lengthy bureaucracy.

Windows 10 given an extra year of supported life, for $30

Re: what's the ulterior motive ?

"What will he different in a year?"

They'll have $30 from each of the punters who bought into it.

The alternative of doing nothing gets them nothing. The alternative of not requiring the extra hardware spec gets them nothing and upsets the H/W business who are wanting to sell to those who are prepared to replace H/W.

They're making the patches anyway for other long-term commitments so the marginal cost is just about zero. The people they'll get the $30 from are those who aren't very likely to splash out on new N/W. I'm not sure what MS get per OEM licence but maybe not very different from that $30 so they've monetised that segment of the market even if their buddies in H/W manufacture haven't. It's squeezing the last few $$s out of the market.

Why is the obvious so hard to see?

Re: Windows 11 is a mess cobbled in Redmond

Nah, vi's OK. It's Emac's that's arcane.

"browse albums by the cover art, ... cannot find a single player for Linux with this ability. Really?"

I'm not sure quite what you mean by that but by coincidence this popped up on a news link elsewhere today and seems as if it might be what you describe: https://www.linuxlinks.com/recordbox-simple-sweet-music-player/2/

Re: $30 Per Year is Cheaper Than a New Laptop

"The article says that 30 will only be for a year"

Could this be an indication that W12 is scheduled for the end of that year?

Re: Coming soon ...

"so that they can instruct people on how to use Windows 12."

Other verbs are available: indoctrinate and brainwash.

Re: $30 Per Year is Cheaper Than a New Laptop

Upvote for pointing out that it doesn't cease working. But your malware can arrive by email that will be passed through your firewall or by some malicious web-site or advert that will also pass through your firewall.

Re: who can't because their PCs aren't capable of running Windows 11

They are not shooting themselves in the foot. H/W has been good enough for a long time. New H/W wasn't selling in anything like enough quantities for the manufacturers and from Microsoft's point of view no H/W sales means not new licences. They make nothing at all by letting you upgrade W10 to W11. They make money if you want W11 and have to go out to by new H/W because that sells a new licence. It would be allowing all the older W10 machines to upgrade that would be shooting themselves in the foot.

So why, do you ask, are Microsoft now making this offer to those who won't upgrade? The answer to that is obvious; $30.

Follow the money.

Just as Microsoft doesn't want to upset H/W vendors by not having a version of Windows designed to promote H/W sales, so the H/W vendors don't want to upset Microsoft by selling Linux pre-installed.

Re: If

This is Microsoft. Once they've got you money they won't care how you feel about that.

Re: If

If they did remove the H/W requirement they'd upset all their friends in the H/W business and they wouldn't get all the licence money from the new H/W sales.

Financial institutions told to get their house in order before the next CrowdStrike strikes

Re: Delta versus CrowdStrike and Microsoft

I'm not sure that's what he means. But the more times I read the thread the less sure I am what he does mean.

Re: What server?

So, without being upgraded, it was performing the task for which it had originally been specified. That sounds like a case of getting right first time. Whoever set it up knew their job.

Re: Delta versus CrowdStrike and Microsoft

"A potential solution would be for companies to move to open source operating systems like Linux and employ a few hundred technical software employees to update their own operating system."

Could you explain this a little more

On the one hand you say "open source operating systems" in the plural but "like Linux". That in itself needs explaining as it appears contradictory.

But then it seems to be the company's own operating system. I suppose there's a philosophical view that an open source operating system is everyone's own but I doubt that's what you mean. It sounds contradictory.

Oh, hang on, I've just re-parsed that. Maybe you're telling me that you haven't the faintest idea about using Linux and imagine it must have a gross upgrade system like that of Windows you envisage alt he employees would be updating the OS on their own PCs and they'd have to be some sort of technical expert to do that. Ah, bless.

Dropbox to shed another 500 staff, CEO takes 'full responsibility'

The CEO's taking full responsibility would be including himself in the list of the departed. Anything else is just words.

Re: Two Thoughts

"what impressed me, let them keep their office equipment assigned to them"

With an ever shrinking workforce they have no further use for them and it would probably cost more to collect then and sell them 2nd hand than they'd get back. I doubt they'r doing out of the kindness of their hearts.

An awful lot of FOSS should thank the Academy

Re: bit hypocritical?

It's probably like everything else - the suits don't want to dirty their hands finding out what the techies are up to.

Tardigrade genes may hold secret to radiation treatments for humans

Re: Because of their size?

They're not that small, about half a mm, say about 20 time the size of a pollen grain. The damaging radiation is very much shorter than the visible part of the spectrum. Radiation can interact with electrons.

We know what Musk will probably dress up as this year: A victim

Re: Hmm

"god help you all if you're dumb enough to put him back in the White House."

And the rest of us as well.

Let me get this right. To get round this as not being electoral interference he presents it as a prize draw. On that basis he's prosecuted by a state as running an illegal lottery. As soon as that happens he's presenting it as electoral interference to take it out of the state courts.

Which is it? Perhaps both and he can do jail time on both counts.

US Army should ditch tanks for AI drones, says Eric Schmidt

OK, he's rich so must be good at something so he must be worth listening to. What was that something? Ah, yes, advertising. Selling snakes to snake oil salesmen.

Microsoft turning away AI training workloads – inferencing makes better money

Re: "we are literally going to the real demand"

"You take the money and do the job."

This is Microsoft. Only the first part is necessary.

"Investment analysts invited to ask questions during the call were curious to know how Microsoft is paying for the massive infrastructure build "

And the answer is...? AFAICS they didn't get one.