Posts by Doctor Syntax

Fusion won't avert need for climate change 'sacrifice', says nuclear energy expert

Re: Fusion quite possibly will never work but there are alternatives

The only viable places for that "at a single node" in the UK would be a Severn barrage

A Severn barrage would have adverse environmental impact.

Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? Consult our cynic's guide to desktop Linux

Re: "Ubuntu is an ancient African word that means I can't configure Debian.*"

I don't know. Why haven't you seen this before?

Re: Now Do an Article About the Top Ten Linux Apps

But...but...but you can't buy a subscription to those.

Re: My 1st attempt

"medium sized HD for Home and the big HD for general stuff"

Just curious - what sort of stuff goes under the category of "general stuff" as opposed to /home?

Re: "overly cautious approaches to updates and upgrades"

"so that I can understand what friends are saying when they send an email containing a new emoji."

I would take the view that if they need Unicode emojis they're probably not saying anything worth understanding.

Re: Humorously Scare People Away

"Linux is for people who like to break things."

As opposed to people who want things broken for them and therefore choose Windows?

No thanks. I want an OS that enables me to do things without breakage and that's Linux.

"ChromeOS excluded. All our older family members should run ChromeOS on ChromeBooks so that nothing ever breaks."

If all you want to do is use somebody else's computer via a browser, that's fine to do a limited number of things. However as one of the older family members that wouldn't suit me (neither does your blatent ageism). Self & wife run Devuan (an old MSI is on Mint + KDE). A couple of cousins-in-law are on Zorin.

Rather than an "interesting" system, Popl_OS I'd have included Zorin.

One thing about Mint and Zorin (maybe also Ubuntu but it's a long time since I looked at that) is that both really need a reinstall to update from one major version number to another so it's best to install with a separate /home partition. I wish this was the default install option.

By contrast IME Debian and Devuan have succeeded in making major version upgrade in place work for some time now. It does require manual juggling of repositories however.

Salesforce staff back an end to its relationship with NRA

Re: "How do we protect our 2nd amendment & our kids at the same time? "

"We don't need to get rid of guns, we need to keep a handle on nutcases."

It's the combination of both is the problem.

Here's one idea to think about. Make it illegal to own a gun if not carrying unlimited public liability insurance for gun ownership. Require issuers of such insurance to be licensed to do so. It then becomes up to the insurers to vet their customers for nutjobness. They have a better incentive to do it properly rather than some rubber-stamping public official. The requirement for the insurer to be licensed is to prevent someone setting up a shell company which can go bankrupt if anyone makes a claim.

For avoidance of doubt the real purpose of this is not to make shooting someone a commercial transaction but to ensure that gun owners receive substantially more than a cursory check and to impose financial deterrents (the annual premium for an assault rigle might be more than the value of your house).

Zero-day vuln in Microsoft Office: 'Follina' will work even when macros are disabled

Somebody publicised this on before notifying MS or possibly after notifying them but before it was patched? Or have I misunderstood?

"Sorry but in which reality is it a good idea"

In Microsoft's obviously.

Keeping your head as an entire database goes pear-shaped

Re: What could go wrong?

"My home backups take place ad hoc, since the backup server doesn't run 24/7. I power up the latter and run the script when I think of it."

I recommend a Pi, a large USB drive and NextCloud with the NC client software set up to sync all the directories where you might put things. The server has an area shared with SWMBO so that when I put together her class notes PDFs she can see them to email out to the class.

I still recommend backing up your /home partition or whatever other location your OS keeps your data on before doing anything drastic.

Re: Needs rebooting ?

"kept the transactional data during the day allowing much finer backups if required (they weren't)"

But this is why we do backups including the transactional logs. You do them in case they're required for production. A restore to a test system is a bonus. You always hope they never will be required but it's knowing you can do a resotre up to the last checkpoint or, preferably, up to the last commit that lets you sleep at night.

But few brains.

It's an interesting concept. What do you do in the event of a legal requirement to remove some data, for instance a data subject right ot be forgotten request?

It's the potential of destruction of media, or even the entire H/W that needs to be dealt with. Before I moved into IT I'd had the experience of my workplace being bombed (fortunately not very effectively) and burned (rather more effectively) so my subsequent thinking was more in terms of getting regular backups into a fire safe and preferably off-site.

Re: Not a database - the whole system

We keep coming across these things.

Backup consisted of an overnight copy to the hot standby at the other end of the site. I don't remember the details - maybe it was a change of permission that allowed/disallowed read access to the backup UID - but the backup would be terminated before the morning shift started. For a very long time the overnight slot hadn't been long enough for a complete copy and nobody had checked...

Fortunately this was belt and braces - there was also a tape copy but I'm not sure the tape formats were compatible between the two machines.

Only a problem if the posts are processed by something which treats them as shell commands.

Stephen, whether he liked it or not, was, in effect, the DBA for the system. After all, there was nobody else in that role. That applies to anyone else in that situation.

In that situation he needed to acquire the two essentials. No, not what you're thinking, definitely not those.

1. The required level of paranoia. (Extreme)

2. Detailed knowledge of what he's doing.

Note the order.

The database is the equivalent of all the paper records the business might have had otherwise. Operating on it is the equivalent of opening all the filing cabinet drawers and peering into them with a lighted candle in one hand and a jug of petrol in the other.

Re: Backups

"a hell of a lot of cash"

That would be a regular payment to DEC for DR cover, presumably with provision for occasional tests.

VMware customers have watched Broadcom's acquisitions and don't like what they see

Re: EMC, Dell and Broadcom - one of these does not go with the rest

"Oh well, someone else will come along and create a new virtual management landscape. Some day."

Fairly soon, I'd guess. There'll be a good few ex VMware developers on the job market. It's a pity that it corresponds with a downturn in tech share prices so it might be harder to get investment. However they can point to a burgeoning POBB market: Pissed Off By Broadcom.

Broadcom's stated strategy ignores most VMware customers

Re: But it's a winning strategy.

The IT departments might also have ideas and those might not align in the long term.

From an investment PoV I can see the attraction of a business that simply turns in regular income without too much fuss - I'm a pensioner after all. But for a reliable income I'd want that business to be able to be reliable in the long term and in a tech environment the risk of losing place must be considerable.

They're going to cut down on R&D. What good news to competitors. Not only do they now have a chance to leap-frog the market leader they have access to market-leader's ex-staff who might have a few ideas they weren't able to follow up. Some of those ex-staff might be even have been senior staff pissed off at seeing their budgets cut.

Also those 600 customers aren't in a vacuum. There will be other customers. potentially equivalent to those 600 they're ignoring which is a loss of profits in itself. They'll be going to competitors. Then a senior management at one of the 600 leaves and his replacement comes from outside that magic 600. The products he's familiar with are different and they'll be what he gradually moves his department to. Suddenly the business whose products are those you'd never be fired for buying becomes one that's circling the drain. Does it sound familiar?

Re: But it's a winning strategy.

Why would the profits be rising? OK, they make a one off cut of costs. Profits rise as a corresponding one-off. Then they don't. They've defined their market and are limiting any revenue increases to what that market wants to buy.

I suppose from top management's PoV it's Phase 1 of what will be a good strategy if they can pull it off. Phase 2, of course, is to become heroes a second time around by breaking out of the corner they deliberately painted themselves into with Phase 1.

Re: But it's a winning strategy.

"If their top customers are staying with them, those who generate most revenue, it won't matter."

The potential 600 + n customers who get as big as their top 600 will be going elsewhere.

I'm sure there will be investment managers doing the same as you - nodding and saying "Good idea. Cut costs." After a few quarters they'll be saying "Why is your customer base shrinking?".

I always thought CA was where software went to stagnate. The fact that Broadcom can "improve" on that is alarming.

Re: But it's a winning strategy.

"If the bulk of your customer base are sticklebacks with profits to match, you would be better going after the whales with profits to match."

The biggest whales feed on krill. Broadcom isn't aiming to be a big whale.

IBM ends funding for employee retirement clubs

Re: Warning: Old-Git Post

"ut at least one is still a functioning golf course"

I'm sorry to hear that. Golf - a good walk ruined.

Dutch public sector gets green light to use Google Workspace

Did they include the CLOUD Act in their assessment?

Global tech industry objects to India’s new infosec reporting regime

Re: Flood

For good measure CC to Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

Re: Flood

"Set-up an automatic rule on the firewall to send off an email with PDF attached for each port scan."

This, definitely. Sometimes it's best to let fools experience the effects of their folly.

It's a long time since I even bothered to look at where the scans on my home router were coming from but as I remember, at that time, it was mostly India.

That critical vulnerability might not be the first you should patch

Nice headline grabber.

But if it's not installed you won't be going to patch it. If it's installed then either its being run or a command away from being run.

Spam is back with a vengeance. Luckily we can't read any of it

"Span-filtering your abuse role account is simply cretinous."

It saves them from losing valuable customers due to complaints about spam.

"Suggest to phone scammers that they are immoral in trying to defraud vulnrable people"

Just ask them to hang on a moment while you deal with someone at the door. Put the phone to one side & hang it up 10 minutes later. That keeps them out of mischief for a few minutes. It also seems to get you on a phone spammers' black list.

"Well, a lot of automated confirmation emails are sent as "NoReply" (when you complete a transaction or some such)."

A good rule of thumb is that if you are in business and send out an email to a customer expecting the recipient to read it you should be prepared to read any reply. It's no more than courtesy to your customer, even in the situation you describe.

If you spam your customers you should certainly expect complaints and deal with them if only to apologise. Of course the snowflakes in marketing don't want tohave their bubble burst by being reminded of how unpopular their tactics are. Even less do they want the risk of of someone higher up the food chain deciding to review customer feedback and finding just how much they're damaging their employer's reputation.

Re: Spam = all time low

Why did you keep the address alive once the spam started?

Re: Spam = all time low

There's a difference?

Workday nearly doubles losses as waves of deals pushed back

They're hoping to add 1,000 new jobs in Dublin over the next two years. What's the employment situation like in Dublin? How likely are they to achieve that with their back to the office policy?

SEC probes Musk for not properly disclosing Twitter stake

Re: Egon Durban...tried to resign

"Or it’s the opposite way round depending on the lawyers."

More likely a golden handshake either way.

Drone ship carrying yet more drones launches in China

Meanwhile https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/27/mayflower_autonomous_ship_latest/

Quantum internet within grasp as scientists show off entanglement demo

Re: Can you split photons into 3?

Especially if you add blockchain, AI and use it for autonomous flying cars.

UK monopoly watchdog investigates Google's online advertising business

Re: "Another probe? Mountain View is starting to look like a pincushion at this rate"

In the accounts department it's written off as "the cost of doing business".

I don't think fines can be written off as a cost of doing business before tax. OTOH these cases seem to be civil cases and settlements are paid. They may be treated differently to fines.

But it's high quality. Mostly.

Experts: AI inventors' designs should be protected in law

Require the AI to sign the patent application i its own hand.

Re: If it floods the patent office

Given the US patent office's mode of operation it will take the fees, issue the patents. In the words of my late aunt, more muck to t'midden.

Re: 'Creative' Artificial Intelligence

Maybe not but always read the small print of the software T&Cs.

Re: 'Creative' Artificial Intelligence

He had the balls to demand it. He'd signed an agreement so the dollar was rightfully his. In the end the official had to give him the dollar at which point all the others who'd assigned patents demanded theirs. As there was no accounting mechanism to actually pay the dollar Fenman thought the official must have been paying out of his own pocket.

IANAL but there's always the possibility that if your dollar hasn't been paid the assignment is invalid. It would be an interesting situation if someone who'd assigned, not been paid and then been fired started suing the supposed licensees.

BOFH: Where do you think you are going with that toner cartridge?

Re: HP Laserjet 5

We had an early Laserjet in the lab. I don't even think they'd got round to adding numbers to them. It was still there when I left a few years later, of course and probably survived the IRA's destruction of the lab with their largest ever bomb some years after that.

Re: HP Laserjet 5

They needed to be worked on?

Re: Too Often...

This side of the pond US paper sizes are only known as what misconfigured printers expect. Everything is in ISO sizes. Possibly BoJo will have us switching back to quarto and octavo if he lsts that long although in his case foolscap would be more appropriate.

Broadcom to 'focus on rapid transition to subscriptions' for VMware

Re: Everybody want to be part of the rentier class...

"Customers have options."

"Not if we have anything to do with ti." - the tech industry.

As regards the LibreOffice database I agree with you.

However I get the impression that desktop database products as a whole are aimed at those who have finally realised the shortcomings of spreadsheets as databases and contrive to reassure by looking as much like spreadsheets as possible. Kex looks more like Access than does LO Base but from an old Informix hand this is damning with faint praise. In particular I'd prefer the approach of "dump controls for the columns of a single from the table(s) I've selected on a new form, provide a menu control for CRUD*, forward & backward and let me take things from there". And I wish they wouldn't devise their own database engines; just use Sqlite for a strictly one user, local data source or ODBC to link to any well-known engine.

* Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete.