Posts by Doctor Syntax

NHS England warned about plans to extend Covid-era rules for patient data access

"NHS England Secure Analytics Service Pilot Directions 2024 "

It's "Secure" that's the weasel word here. Whose interests are to be secured and from whom?

Pentagon stumped by mystery drone swarm flying over Langley Air Force Base

Re: the most sophisticated agencies on earth could not track them once they left

"the most sophisticated military & associated agencies on earth could not track them to their landing places."

It's possible that some of what we're being told is a terminological inexactitude.

AT&T and Broadcom may settle VMware support case

argued that the telco giant should have known that VMware – like the rest of the enterprise software industry – is moving to subscriptions.

Should have known when? The relevant time would have been before they entered into the contracts. How would they have known that?

a price that is well below market

The "market" is Broadom's own so it's not exactly a market price set by competition is it?

Openreach reveals latest locations facing the copper chop

Link

The latest exchanges due to have their customers' service fail in the event of power cuts are listed here:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/10/openreach-name-next-79-uk-areas-for-copper-to-fttp-switch-tranche-18.html

Keir Starmer tells regulators to chill as Microsoft exec takes wheel of advisory council

The CPS's reputation at the time he was in charge there was an indication of how it might go. OTOH his predecessor in the party would undoubtedly have been worse.

Re: Hystery

I've long been of the view that when a process is devised and written down the rationale should be written down with it. It not only keeps that corporate knowledge from being lost, it also underlines the need for revising the process when the circumstances on which the rationale is predicated change.

The high level decisions are made by the politicians and we've had a long run of advanced Dunning-Kruger syndrome there. HS2 was, I realised when it was proposed, a solution to today's problem in a few decades time. Detailed regulation, OTOH, quite often comes from someone in the Civil Service or an agency who actually does know about the domain. There are obviously exceptions: I formed the view in about 1967 that the Ministry of Labour as I think it then was ran the forerunners of Job Centres staffed all too often by people who were on the wrong side of the counter and subsequent contact with their DWP successors at a higher level did not inspired a revision.

"Involved with" and !vested interest" are not only not the same thing. The difference matters.

Local or central government?

There's an advantage in having someone who knows what they're doing making the actual decisions.

The hard-copy versions are well worth reading, written as if they were the academically edited diaries of Jim Hacker they provide footnotes giving chapter and verse on some of this.

Or, on a monthly basis, the BSoPtCW

Windows 11 24H2 disk space hoarding a 'reporting error'

Re: Almost sounds like Apple...

The report is prepared by AI. The 8Gb is simply an hallucination.

Microsoft says tougher punishments needed for state-sponsored cybercriminals

"Economic sanctions are a lever allied nations love to pull when it comes to imposing costs on malign states, yet Microsoft seemed unwilling or unable to offer any substantial ideas for building on these."

Firewalls?

One-year countdown to 'biggest Ctrl-Alt-Delete in history' as Windows 10 approaches end of support

Re: Adiós!

I'm not sure PCs will go away. A long time ago computing meant a central server, mainframe or mini with terminals. That meant it was limited to those businesses which could justify that sort of setup or could have some standardised facility such as payroll serviced by a bureau. PCs extended it to businesses that couldn't afford that and individuals and, by their flexibility, to use cases that the central services didn't meet. Cloud and web have extended the central server option to anyone willing to pay a subscription and who accept, or perhaps are overlook lock-in. But fashions come and go so it's likely that cloud will come to be seen as just as inflexible as the centralised systems of old and the flexibility of the PC will see it return in some form or other.

Re: So? Suggestions please…

"or your hardware doesn't have the linux drivers then you are screwed!"

If it doesn't have drivers because the H/W's too new then they'll be along any time soon but then you'll not be in the wavering about upgrading 10 to 11 group anyway. If it doesn't because it's too old then how on Earth can you be running Windows because Linux has the reputation of supporting older hardware than Windows.

And you can always try running your irreplaceable Windows app under Windows of your choice in an isolated VM for safety.

Basically you have 3 choices. Put up with Windows until Microsoft finally screw you irretrievably. Use Mac if that does what you want. Look a how to make Linux work for you. But stop beefing about Windows and then complaining Linux isn't Windows.

Re: So? Suggestions please…

"suggest a realistic alternative to W10"

Anything from a typewriter and calculator upwards according to need.

Re: My migration plans to Linux

If you can install on it, try Pinta.

Re: My migration plans to Linux

Why would she want something that behaved so badly? As regards cosmetics, anything with KDE - there's a stack of themes that will make it look like any version of Windows you want. The menu is configurable so you can set up the completely mad W10 version in place of the nicely organised version. Of course she'll insist updates are broken because they can't possible have worked in that time.

Re: Making the decision for me --

In one of his books, more likely The Design of Design rather than TMMM, Brookes said the architect was the representative of the user. I get the impression that Jobs performed that role at Apple. It had to be good enough to get past him.

It's quite clear to me, on my very limited experience, that nobody has done that at Microsoft for a very long time if ever. Even things like an animated GIF rather than a proper progress bar while the actual progress figures go 0% for several minutes, 4% for 2 seconds, 99% for about 10 seconds and 100% for a very long time indeed seem acceptable because there's nobody in charge to summon the developer responsible, ask him to explain himself, tell him it's not acceptable and to go back and fix it.

What seems to be the case at Microsoft is that that figure has been replaced by a representative of the company looking to see how well this feature can be monetised. Different units are competing to get their product in on that basis. The fact that the overall product doesn't really meet merchantable standards doesn't matter; it doesn't need to; they have a monopoly with their customers' balls in a vice.

My one and only W10, which I keep more or less as a curiosity, has achieved that with this month's update. It will boot - slowly - to display the desktop but not respond. The lights are on but there's nobody at home. It's completely secure at last. Of course the dual boot Devuan is just fine.

The closest we can get to a momento mori icon seems appropriate.

Britain opens floodgates to US datacenter investment

It's not surprising to see governments rowing back on climate change. It was easy a decade or more ago to set goals - even in legislation - for targets way down the road. They were far away to be SEP. Although logically it would require government action, possibly unpopular government action to meet them but they were still far enough away to let them be SEP. Now we're getting closer. The action hasn't been taken. To even get close to meeting them action would have to be taken Right Now. Aspiration is no longer enough and inspiration is lacking.

Trump campaign arms up with 'unhackable' phones after Iranian intrusion

Re: My prediction:

The user supply-chain?

AI's thirst for power keeps coal fires burning bright

The appropriate move would be to slap a carbon tax on it (along with crypto-mining). Instead of that, what happens? HMG of any colour will dive right into it and demand more.

Boeing again delays the 777X – the plane that's supposed to turn things around

Re: He might as well say to Airbus

"If Trump wins in Nov, then he'll levy 200% (or more) tariffs on all Airbus models"

So how will Boeing cope with the retaliatory 200% levy in Europe?

Smart homes may be a bright idea, just not for the dim bulbs who live in 'em

Re: Eh, but...

"Light switches are fine-ish if all you want your lights to do is on or off. "

Oddly enough, that's exactly what I want.

Re: Not that you'd know this from experts on YouTube or most retail sites

"And of course, I'll never buy another Honeywell device again."

I made that decision based on the one that came built-in 3 houses ago. It was supposed to have a miniscule power drain so that the battery would last for years. They lasted a few months and when they failed defaulted to ON, particularly when we were on holiday or in the middle of the night in a heatwave.

The word "Smart" applied to any object is a warning. Take heed of it.

WordPress saga escalates as WP Engine plugin forcibly forked and legal letters fly

Re: Greed doesn't help

"you could get a copy from someone else who bought it."

Unless they change the licence of the new version which would be difficult unless htye can get agreement of all contributors whose code remains in that version.

UK ponders USB-C as common charging standard

Re: What next?

Posting history suggests UK. It's just a Farage of nonsense leading to everyone using coaxial connectors of differing barrel and pin diameters and random voltages, just ot be different.

Techie took five minutes to fix problem Adobe and Microsoft couldn't solve in two weeks

Re: PITT

I don't understand this thread. Does "Fast" have some special meaning in relation to Windows?

Re: As an electrician.

Around here there's the Beep of Death - the beep from the phone sitting in its charger cradle when the power goes off yet again.

Re: PITT

That's inflation at work.

Re: Windows Update still resetting things

"Why can't they just leave setting set?"

Because they know better than you. Applies to a lot of things. Search. Recall. Clippy. Etc. Etc.

Schools bombarded by nation-state attacks, ransomware gangs, and everyone in between

Don't expose sensitive data. You'd probably want to have it accessible from more than one terminal. You'd probably also want to have internet access. Keep the sensitive data on its own intranet isolated from the network that's internet-connected. Inconvenient? Possibly. More convenient than getting pwned? Certainly.

Top-secret X-37B space plane ready for daring new orbital maneuver

Re: Secret orbit changes

"evade foreign tracking for a while"

It would be a short while. It's up there in plain sight, you can't hide it in the bushes.

US lawmakers seek answers on alleged Salt Typhoon breach of telecom giants

It should be a two step process:

1. If it doesn't need to be connected to the internet disconnect it.

2. If it does need to be connected disconnect it and devise a workaround.

Tesla's big reveal: Steering-wheel-free Robotaxi will charge wirelessly

"And on those rare occasions when you have to use a public charger you plug the car in and go do something else while it charges."

First find one that's not being used. Maybe easy when EVs are a small part of the fleet. Not so easy if they replace ICEs completely. The EV's use case is local trips. The ICE's use case is any trip you care to make.

Re: priced keenly: below $30,000

"Most cars spend 23hours/day parked."

If the owner of a new car that gets used an hour a day trades it in after about 2 years the owner of a car that's used 24 hours a day would be trading it in after about a month.

Re: Snakeoil

"its not inefficient"

The assurance given in the linked article is bland to say the least. In fact it really does say the least.

"hit the roads"

And anything else in the way.

Apple macOS 15 Sequoia is officially UNIX. If anyone cares...

Re: The UNIX brand

"There are now very few companies that are really interested in UNIX as a brand."

The plot was lost about 30 years ago, sad to say.

BBC weather glitch shows 13k mph winds in London, 404℃ in Nottingham

Re: Neptune is jealous

Enquiring minds want to know when the get the "Who, me?".

Re: Sorry, this forecast is wrong due to a data error. Please ignore while we fix the problem

That sounds wrong. Or right.

Re: IT'S A CONSPIRACY!

The irony of all this is that the hurricane is "engineered" in that global warming will have contributed to it.

Re: Neptune is jealous

Well it depends on the size of the meters. The pressure meter* on the carbon dating system in the old Belfast lab was at least 6 inches across, the pressure meter on my central heating system is only about 1 inch.

*Weird thing - IIRC it went round about 3 times so it had an effective scale length of getting on for a metre.

Re: Only 13k?

We're a bit more sheltered - only 536mph. But the odd thing is that now - 13:10 the figures all look reasonable but there's a banner headline across the top of the screen saying that the forecast is wrong.

Microsoft admits Outlook crashes, says impact 'mitigated'

This new-fangled email stuff is really cutting edge. You've got to expect the odd glitch until developers get the hang of it.

The .io domain isn't going anywhere anytime soon amid treaty

"As the article states though, it does seem pretty unlikely they will actually retire it."

It would take a while. First the treaty has to be ratified - TFA says next year. Then it has to be formally handed over. Then - and this might be the big one - ISO has to change the standard. Only then does the 5 year retirement interval start.

UK Regulatory Innovation Office vows to slash red tape – but we've heard it all before

Have you got the faintest idea of where food comes from and how it's produced?