Posts by Doctor Syntax

Banhammer Republic: Trump declares national emergency, starts ball rolling to boot Huawei out of ALL US networks

Re: National Emergency

"If their software has actually been shown to be coded to forward duplicate packets to a questionable target when triggered"

You've got some hard words in there: "if", "actually" and "shown".

Hours before Congress backs robocall blocking law, guess what the FCC boss suddenly decides?

"The goal of this decision is, of course, to kill the Stop Robocall Act legislation by offering a self-regulatory alternative, and then find ways to wheedle out of the agreement once the threat of actual laws is gone."

So the obvious line of action for the politicos is to realise that and push ahead anyway.

C'mon, UK networks! Poor sods have 'paid' for their contract phones a few times over... Tell 'em about good deals

"What do you think, readers: is the nation going to hit delete or toss it out with the takeout menus like so much spam?"

Probably the networks will hit the punters with a flood of spams first so this one just gets deleted with the rest. It'll be like surveys where you can determine what the survey answer will be by the way you lead up to the question. "Congratulations Bernard, you are the perfect balanced sample."

Supreme Court says secret UK spy court's judgments can be overruled after all

Re: This particular slippery slope

There seems to be another every time the HO looses a case in court. Expect the next Bill dealing with this area as soon as Parliamentary time can be found.

IT bod flings £1m sueball at Met Police for wrongly listing him as a convicted fraudster

I don't think that's unusual in civil claims.

Prez Trump's trade war reshapes electronics supply chains as China production slows

Re: Allow me to remind you

"But then in my line of work we cater for the domestic and international market."

As a matter of interest what do you anticipate the impact to be when part of your domestic market becomes part of your international market?

Re: China has the upper hand and Trump is too stupid to see it

"I'm sure once his advisors talk him off the ledge"

I thought his MO was to throw the advisors off the ledge.

Re: Allow me to remind you

And when we were young the right word came more easily.

Re: Allow me to remind you

"and the reason for that is that most people go fr the cheaper option rather than spend more for a local product."

If the local retailers source from abroad rather than locally the punters have no option. The only way round it would have been for your local sweatshop to set up its own retail outlets once M&S or whoever deserted them.

MI5 slapped on the wrist for 'serious' surveillance data breach

Re: Bungled security of what?

We'll just have to wait for the Who, Me?.

Microsoft emits free remote-desktop security patches for WinXP to Server 2008 to avoid another WannaCry

Re: All good here

Some of them just don't know any better.

Big Tech leapt on the blockchain bandwagon but its applications are stuck in cryptocurrency

"Descriptions for 16 of these 100 mention the word blockchain at least once, often in association with other technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing and the Internet of Things."

Of course they do. And very like synergy, leveraging and a good deal more besides. Buzzwords aren't limited to naming technologies.

RIP Hyper-Threading? ChromeOS axes key Intel CPU feature over data-leak flaws – Microsoft, Apple suggest snub

"Hyper-Threading is Intel's implementation of simultaneous multithreading (SMT)"

Looking at the headline I wondered why they'd banned Surface Mount Technology. The TLA space is getting overcrowded, we need to add another dimension.

San Francisco votes no to facial-recognition tech for cops, govt – while its denizens create it

Re: The way policy really works...

"Actually, I would add one more step, which is that any eventual 'permission' is granted only for a limited time and can only be renewed based on a study of the results"

I'd go a step further than that and require review of what was in place before the ban.

How much open source is too much when it's in Microsoft's clutches? Eclipse Foundation boss sounds note of alarm

Re: Nothing new...

"Do I like the default Ubuntu/Gnome experience? Nope."

So I use Devuan and KDE. Do I like the default KDE styling? Nope. So I customise it. Oddly enough the customised version bears more resemblance to W2K than it does to the defaults.

Re: It will

With all the surveillance and malware that that brings in train.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea.

"Fears of development monoculture seem overblown at the moment then."

When they don't seem overblown it's too late.

Amazon’s Away Teams laid bare: How AWS's hivemind of engineers develop and maintain their internal tech

"accepts certain weaknesses to achieve maximum velocity"

That explains a lot.

It's 2019 and a WhatsApp call can hack a phone: Zero-day exploit infects mobes with spyware

Re: Theres a big difference here

"but does involve uninstalling certain things."

Or not installing them in the first place.

“Under no circumstances would NSO be involved in the operating or identifying of targets of its technology, which is solely operated by intelligence and law enforcement agencies”

Rice-Davies applies.

Here's what Autonomy told its salesmen they were allowed to do

Re: Follow the money

The only good salesperson.....

FCC promises, yet again, to tackle robocalls. Translation: Expect six more months of waiting

Far be it from me to tell US Congress how to manage things but possibly they could try insisting that they have to approve (or not) his salary payment every month. The way in which Parliament started to gain power over monarchs was to get themselves into the position of being able to control the money (Provisions of Oxford, 1258).

Hi! It looks like you're working on a marketing strategy for a product nowhere near release! Would you like help?

"Toilet" is like "lavatory"

I'd offer "bog" as an alternative but having started out long ago in palaeoecology my main source of inspiration was an entirely different sort of bog.

Re: I use fishing.

"I can go fishing without a rod, reel or line."

So could me dad. Mmm....trout.

Are you from marketing?

Re: 2 types of MBA's?

"I was a techie right to the end but knowing MBA speak and its secret language helped me no end in cutting through the crap"

Having done the MBA doesn't mean that you have any ability to manage. I'd worry that with an MBA an employer may simply try to force you into management whether you're any good or have any inclination let alone ambition in that direction. If you want to continue to be a techie you might have to keep quiet about it.

"gym / out running"

Shudder.

Re: So...

"the fact they are the most hated department in the company"

They usually have strong competition from beancounters and HR.

"Marketing creates relationships with customers"

All too often it seems to be that they don't care what relationship they create as they're quite good at creating negative ones. Or would they blame that on over-pushy salesmen?

Firstly that the engineer with a product that is, seemingly, delayed by a year has so little work to do they have to stroll the corridors trying to find something to turn their hand at.

Ian describes it as "taking a break from the screen" which sounds like quite productive behaviour. Very often the insight into a difficult problem happens when taking a break or, as I've often found, on the journey home. I think the limited amount n information on the screen can inhibit looking at the problem as a whole; wandering off with the whole of the problem in one's subconscious but without that limited focus can be all that's needed to find the solution.

Other than that I agree, it was a very dysfunctional company.

Assange rape claims: Complainant welcomes Swedish investigation's reopening

I think his position will be that they were lucky to be honoured with his presence and this is a very ungrateful move.

Japan on track to start testing Alfa-X, fastest train in the world with top speed of 400kph

Re: Fastest train in the world?

"the wrong kind of electrons in the overhead wires"

Or the wires no longer being overhead. Alternately the wires being damaged by the carbonised remains of the toerag who tried to nick them.

Not necessarily NIMBY, more like NIMFR (front room).

Re: Well....

"If you are old enough to remember BR in the 1960's and early 1970's, you will know what I mean."

I also remember the late '80s. The railways may have been privatised but the same misanthropes were running them.

Re: It's not only their speed, it's their reliability

"the tickets give you both carriage and seat number for reservations"

That happens here. Then you find that some other train was cancelled and the passengers from that were allowed on "your" train first so by the time you defeat their efforts to close the doors while you're still trying to board you discover that it's standing room sardine class only. Yes, there's a seat with your name on it and much good may it do you.

UK Home Office: If we want Ofcom to break the law, that should be perfectly legal

Re: I am the law!

"Chas.II ... had quite a good time after the restoration."

I think he probably had a good time before it as well, once he got out of that oak tree.

Re: Ofcom declined to comment, while the Home Office had not responded by the time of publication

"a brilliant example to demonstrate why people vote the way they vote"

And not working things through comes into that. The actual anti-establishment powers here are the courts (so far) and the EU. The protest voters are removing the assistance of the latter and didn't take kindly to the Supreme Court telling HMG it had to follow the law in implementing their vote.

Get in line, USA: Sweden reopens Assange rape allegations probe

The Beeb's report includes a statement from Wikileaks that they hope the Swedish case goes ahead so that he'll have a chance to clear his name. I suppose that explains why he left Sweden for the UK and then jumped bail into the Ecuadoran embassy but I have to admit I find the logic a tad difficult to follow.

P-p-p-pick up a Pengwin: Windows Subsystem for Linux boffins talk version 2

"It's the lack of usable enterprise end-user software in the Linux environment that is the problem."

Did you actually read what I and others wrote?

Re: Embrace....Extend...Extinguish....Except.....

"No doubt this will gain limited traction amongst the dinosaurs, but so far as 'Linux' and 'FLOSS' are concerned it's irrelevant."

Couldn't agree more. From my point of view the Linux desktop does almost everything needed and for the increasingly rare occasions when it doesn't W2K in VBox is enough.

But imagine if you absolutely had to do something that depended on Linux in JJ Carter's setup....

Anecdotal evidence from other comments shows that there are poor sods working in those circumstances and they see that they are the target audience for this.

What's that? Uber isn't actually worth $82bn? Reverse-gear IPO shows the gig (economy) is up

Re: PT Barnum

Add in "sharing" so get round inconvenient regulation.

Re: Holland, Tulips, early/mid 1600s ...

Schools don't need to put more effort into STEM subjects, they need to put it into teaching history.

Re: @Time Waster - I'm not sure I see how they get to profitability

"places that actually have winter and weather"

Also place with narrow lanes, visiting walkers with little sense of self-preservation and visiting cyclists with zero to negative sense of self-preservation, occasional straying sheep and horse riders. The horse riders are the least of the problems, they're usually local, don't try riding several abreast and have a good view over the walls of what's round the next corner.

Amazon agrees to stop selling toxic jewelry, school supplies to kids, coughs up some couch change ($700,000)

Re: The Ways of the World

Says an A/C

Re: "I've been a customer of theirs since 1999 when they only sold books"

"It's kind of difficult to find lead, mercury and cadmium in books. I think you really have to find a very specialized print shop to get that stuff into a book."

Fillers in the paper and pigments in covers are two possibilities. Maybe coloured inks as well. Or polluted water in either paper or ink manufacture.

Re: If I were a betting man...

"I don't even know why Amazon let that happen to them"

Trying to do too many things. Sourcing and selling was one thing. Add in Kindle, Prime, market place, AWS, launching rockets...

Re: If I were a betting man...

"Amazon never used to be like this, they could and should definitely do more to clear this up or they're going to find people deserting them in droves for a clear and trusted market place where there's quality control in the supply chain."

Whilst I agree in principle the problem with this is that the sheer size of Amazon makes it difficult for such a competing market place to get established. After all, it's not going to be eBay is it?

NPM today stands for Now Paging Microsoft: GitHub just launched its own software registry

Re: Looks like NPM has been successful after all

"I'm afraid NPM Inc will become another good example "how-not-to" in business school courses."

Do business schools teach the meaning of the word "not"?

Timely Trump tariffs tax tech totally: 25 per cent levy on modems, fiber optics, networking gear, semiconductors…

Re: Same old, same old

"He wrote the book...and has obviously read it"

Those with whom he's "dealing" will also have read it and understand what he's up to. Who needs espionage when your opponent tells you what he's up to?

Essex named sexiest British accent followed closely by, um, Glaswegian

"Belfast NI"

It varies enormously. SWMBO's accent is a world away from Sandy Row or Newtonards Rd although, in fact, only a few miles. I think of it as a QUB accent. Whatever, I've spent the last half century or more with it very happily.