Posts by Doctor Syntax

Microsoft pulls the plug on WordPad, the world's least favorite text editor

It might not be lightweight but if your system installers and vendor maintenance techs don't know about LibreOffice or OpenOffice then you've got more to worry abut than them not being able to read .doc files.

Re: Word Processing in the Cloud

It's probably not on the syllabus so the teachers don't know how to use it. It was very striking that after KCL had its big outage and lost goodness knows how much stuff they got all arsey about people saving stuff locally. I suppose it didn't look good if users were doing a better job about looking after their work then IT did.

Re: in the ever increasing locked down corporate world

It tells you more about the skill set of corporate IT than it does about the S/W they're trying to keep out or in.

Code archaeologist digs up oldest known ancestor of MS-DOS

Re: CP/M was (still is) Great

Even better than CP/M was UCSD p-System.

Re: Bloat!

Don't forget that this was before MS got their hands on it.

Re: There's probably 1,500 disks or more

The disk he found had a serial number: 11.

What was the earliest S/N of a product anyone else has had? My entry is S/N 33 of Marathon which eventually became Informix (there are worse product name changes for products originally named "Marathon").

Ransomware payment ban: Wrong idea at the wrong time

Re: Wrong

And while the CEO may not be directly to blame that's where the organisation's culture starts. If the CEO fails to appoint managers who take sufficient interest in security then it's ultimately their fault. However the CEO needs the board's backing so directors must expect to stand alongside the CEO in the dock.

Re: The best defense is to avoid becoming a victim ö

"The computers are used as they came, fresh out of the box."

Then the quality of what come out of the box will need to be better. Not that that helps too much as the knob controls the monitor will still be a weak link

Re: "Such a ban would need to be universal"

And just bolt on an extra year or two jail time for trying it on.

X-ploited: Mandiant restores hijacked Twitter account after attempted crypto heist

Of course Xcretions are an ultra-reliabe source of investments tips for cryptocurrencies or anything else. Why would anyone look elsewhere?

Here's a list of thousands of artists Midjourney's AI is ripping off, creatives claim

Re: Disclaimer:

I looked at your "very relevant link".

It's basically argumentative, not authoritative, in that it's almost the sort of thing that a defence lawyer might argue before a judge. Almost, because it would normally be supported by citations from cases that provide precedent. It would also be subject to arguments in rebuttal by the other side. In the end it would only carry weight if a judge agreed with it - and that would include falling for the notion of equating a record player with an ML training set. And outside the US it would fail at the words "First amendment".

Re: I don't think copyright law can handle this...

"because they do have, legally, access to the images"

What T&Cs apply to that access. You may be legally allowed to view the image nd nothing else. You may not be legally allowed to copy and paste into some other work. You may not be legally allowed to scrape it into a ML training set.

Re: Don't put it on the Internet

You mean just like authors shouldn't publish books because somebody might copy them?

Re: Piles of styles

"I wonder how many artists could define their own style?"

Why should they be able to? The answer would be along the lines of Louis Armstong's definition of jazz. I doubt that even the most successful human forgers would actually define in much detail the style of those they imitate, they just paint like them.

Re: Piles of styles

But-but-but --- that would be money

Windows keyboards to get a Copilot key – but how quickly will users jump?

I look forward to the day when such keyboards are regarded as historical curiosities.

Freight giant Estes refuses to deliver ransom, says personal data opened and stolen

Re: Bravo to Estes for doing the right thing, but...why SS #s?

"I'm really curious why a shipper *needs* to have something as sensitive as social security numbers."

Possibly employee/contract driver data was taken as well as customer data.

Formal ban on ransomware payments? Asking orgs nicely to not cough up ain't working

Re: What we need is more innovation ;)

The weakest link tends to be human.

Re: A modest proposal

Even more effective - CEO and directors.

Re: "$1.5 million to rectify"

I think you may have missed the point of a ban. If it's illegal, and the ban reasonably well enforced, there's no reward for the attacker and no point in attacking.

Remember the point of bank robbery? Banks are where the money is. If banks had no money they wouldn't get robbed.

Xerox prints pink slips for 15% of workforce

Re: Xerox’s Heyday ...

As to AT & T Brian Kernighan in "UNIX: A History and a Memoir" says much the same thing on the basis of the view from inside.

X reverses course on headlines in article links, kinda

Re: Things Twitter/X is equivalent to in value

"Musk's bonfire of the staff means the new owner only needs to add back the costs they need without being burdened with the old corporate excesses of the listed Twitter."

It would be burdened by the law suits for all the old unsettled bills - or has he been paying them off in the interim?

Re: Is It Even Worth That Much?

I assume Fidelity haven't got any takers to allow them to get out completely.

Re: Is It Even Worth That Much?

"I suspect a lot of them leave their pages up even though they no longer post anything because they don't want risk angering their MAGA customers by deleting the page and calling attention to themselves"

Or they're maintaining a presence so that nobody can come along and impersonate them to their disadvantage.

NHS England published heavily redacted Palantir contract as festivities began

Re: Threats to the UK NHS

Well played, sir.

Re: The very point at issue?

Data legally collected for patient care may only be legally used for patient care. They seem to not have understood that.

Re: One can imagine

It remains to be seen how successful they've been in getting rid of the difficult but in the title.

Re: Transparency

I think the main lesson learned is that they have to keep quiet about it. This is about as far as they could get with applying it.

Windows 11 unable to escape the shadow of Windows 10

Re: It's not the hardware requirements!

"Problem is that companies don't like it when they have to lose hundreds of thousands of hours to their poorly IT literate workers relearning how to navigate a new system. This has always been the case."

And yet, in the long run, they will do this because as long as they're beholden to Windows, they will have to bend to Microsoft's whims. But suggest that they voluntarily take the hit once and enjoy consistency thereafter by switching to Linux and they won't do it.

Re: MS, bloat and crap software

The key thing here seems to be the addition of this "trusted" lump. If Microsoft trust it then I certainly wouldn't.

Re: Forget Windows - buy a Chromebook!!

It also seems easier to disable the "helpful" email scanning on Google than it is on consumer Outlook.

I'm sure Google will be glad it seems easier to you.

But as to the more general aspect - store locally on your computer and nobody gets to scan. It's perfectly possible. It uses to be standard and for some of us it either still is or the remote storage via NextCloud is no more distant than the office just upstairs.

Re: Fingers crossed copilot is optional…

"being obligated to pay a Windows license on EVERY machine they make"

Not every manufacturer. There are a few that will provide an OS-free machine. My and SWMBO's laptops were both bought on that basis.

I think some memory and peripherals would come in handy. There's not a lot you can do these days with just the amount of memory in the processor cache.

But, yes, the TPU raises the question "T" means "Trusted" but who is it that's trusting it? Not somebody I trust.

Re: RE: Start Menu

"I've been hearing complaints about Win10's Start Menu for many years, and I've never quite understood them.

WHY are you even depending upon Win10's Start Menu by this day and age? Why are you stuck in a paradigm from the 20th Century??"

My comparison is with Linux running KDE and the earlier versions of Windows. The latter were sort of (but not very well) organised on functional lines. My KDE menu is (a) fairly well organised on functional lines by default and (b) I have complete control over reorganising it by means such as introducing functional areas and shoving less used stuff to sub menus which i take it is what you mean by fly-out menus. A default alphabetical menu as default? Who thought that was a good idea? It's about as good an idea as writing a sentence by listing what words you want to use in alphabetical order and leaving them like that.

And, because it's a Linux box that has a lot of stuff installed by default and more installable pinning isn't adequate. Yes, some stuff is there but I need room for the multiple desktop manager, the running applications system tray.

Re: Forget Windows - buy a Chromebook!!

" together with ever more intrusive upselling and insistence on hooking you into their cloud services."

In this respect isn't switching to Chromebook jumping from the frying-pan (or frog-boiling pot) into the fire?

Re: Fingers crossed copilot is optional…

"expect W10 on such platforms to start performing like a dog"

Start?

"give people advance warning of hardware changes for Win12 after learning the lesson the hard way again."

If they've really learned their lesson the hardware change for 12 will be to drop the hardware requirement blighting 11.

"The start menu is worse"

That must be quite an achievement.

Driverless cars swerve traffic tickets in California even if they break the law

"Technology evolves rapidly and, at times, faster than legislation or regulations can adapt to the changes,"

What sort of excuse is that? AFAIK the operators have to have special permission to put them on the roads. This is something that should have been sorted out before that permission was granted. Maybe it is if trouble is taken to read the small print of the permit.

US reportedly pushed ASML to cancel chipmaking kit for China early

Re: I hadn't realized Washington had jurisdiction over a Dutch manufacturer

Just remember what happened to Godwinson.

Presumably the blocked exports from China are going to have to be filled by production elsewhere so ASML's sales just shift to wherever that is.

Navigating the truth maze in a world of clever machines and cleverer marketers

Re: I wonder

In that case you should have posed the question in the headline to comply with Betteridge's law.

Crypto-crook Sam Bankman-Fried spared a second trial

Do you really think he'd have been do amateur as to only back one horse?

Very likely contributions would be made all round. It's called hedging bets.

Re: Hold up, hold up....

"the money might have to be returned"

There is precedent for this. You have to go back to the events of 1997.

"whom you donated to"

Best to donate to everyone, just ot be sure.

Mozilla CEO pockets a packet, asks biz to pick up pace the 'Mozilla way'

Whatever.

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

"it can't be seen to be making a profit"

The term used is "surplus". That's not a profit, just as senior management's salaries aren't profit.

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

You have to look very carefully at non-profits. Salaries (let's not get into euphemisms such as "compensation") to those running it don't count as profits no matter how profitable it may be to those receiving them.

"Mitchell Baker's compensation"

What terrible misfortune has happened to him that requires he be compensated in this way?