Posts by Doctor Syntax

How experimental was Microsoft's 'experimental banner' in File Explorer?

I thought multiple tabs in file manager was one of the latest catch-ups. Taken long enough.

Re: So you are saying ...

"FOSS) Fix it myself or hire a programmer at a competitive rate to fix it."

Can't remember having to fix anything. It must be pushing 20 years since I wrote a line of C and that's because I was being paid. This stuff Just Works these days.

"Proprietary) Beg the monopoly supplier to fix it. Buy the next version and hope the fix is included and new breakages aren't."

Well, if you want to beg Microsoft to fix things, good luck. Personally, I'll stick with the FOSS route.

Edit: I'll just throw this in. One thing I did like about Windows back in the day was the cardfile program. It's one thing they dropped along the way. I don't think it can be made to run at all in W10. And that is one thing I have just written for myself - using Lazarus. If I had any reason to I could port it to Windows.

Y'know, I think you might have cracked it.

Added functionality doesn't get there accidentally. Somebody has to write it and, bugs apart, that's likely to be deliberate. This is a little too elaborate for a bug. Unless whoever coded it was sneaking something in for their own gratification we must assume they were told to. Telling them to do so must surely imply that usage was at least considered.

Where then is the scope for accident? Possibly exposing it at this stage? Hmmm...

Brit data regulator fines five cold-calling fiends £405k

What's the betting that these "firms" will go bankrupt

Which is why I advocate a PAYG (for the callers) of compensating the callee. Dial 1461 or similar and receive as small fee for taking the call, greater if you're TPS registered, taken from the caller's account. The going bankrupt before paying up trick becomes a matter for the telco's credit controllers who won't let big bills rack up.

Yes, it would require some monitoring to stop the bright spark who tries to get money from anyone who calls him regardless of who it was.

An yes, it would take some work and expense upfront by the telcos to set up the required systems. In fact, if OFCOM started proposing this I think the telcos would manage to solve this so far insoluble problem fairly quickly.

Are we springing into a Y2K-class nightmare?

"Russia will be further away."

Have you consulted Alaskans about this?

Re: The same will probably happen in the UK

That self-styled Unionist BoJo is making considerable progress on that front without horological assistance.

Re: The same will probably happen in the UK

GB time is also based on a meridian that's so far east it's almost off the island altogether so the winter mornings are darker as you go west as well as north. Permanent summer time might be acceptable in London, less so in Londonderry.

Devil-may-care Lapsus$ gang is not the aspirational brand infosec needs

"Why the crooks are ramping up their attacks so quickly is still unclear."

As is the reason why other crooks rob banks.

An open-source COBOL contender emerges

Re: Nostalgia

"But I really don't understand why one would develop a compiler for such an inferior language. Just emulate your AS400"

Why lose performance emulating something instead of compiling to native code? The COBOL code carries out the business that pays the bills for the company. There's nothing inferior about that.

Re: "guaranteed a job."

It's quite remarkable that... CICS is still so widely deployed - especially at a time when so many systems are being rewritten for no better reason than to be "modern".

Perhaps in this context modern means without CICs.

As one of the dying breed who can remember old-style toilet rolls I don't think there's much of a difference except in the size of the sheets.

Boys outnumber girls 6 to 1 in UK compsci classes

Re: Bring back the girls!

What do you suggest? Compulsory membership for girls?

Although the report isn't alleging anything it's very likely to be waved by some of the usual suspects making such allegations so the point of choice is worth making.

The right to repairable broadband befits a supposedly critical utility

The finger pointing issue is a more general problem than utilities provision. I know of 4 instances in recent years of retaining wall failure and these seem to run on for years. One has left a house teetering on the brink of a landslip - and a closed road - for well over a year. In each case it seems to be the local council arguing responsibility with insurers.

We need legislation to ensure that, in the event of stand-offs between service providers (in the widest sense of the term) the individual has the right, after a reasonable lapse of time, to put the parties on, say, a week's notice to finally resolve the issue after which the costs of rectification and any additional costs, loss of service, etc, will be split equally between them. Providing those additional costs are made sufficient (maybe throw in some statutory compensation) to make attempts to game the system too expensive, the parties should have sufficient incentive to resolve things quickly. Perhaps as an additional incentive the extra costs should come out of the management bonuses rather than shareholders' funds.

As to the suddenly dumb "smart" devices - well, if you will buy such things..

Salesforce sued in attempt to block release of Capitol riot info

They seem to have come close to that: The RNC has tried to stop that from happening and made Salesforce a defendant, along with many select committee members.

Re: All parties

It's called hypocrisy, and it is shameful standard practice when you are supposed to represent The People.

Germany advises citizens to uninstall Kaspersky antivirus

Re: Just don't use ANY anti-virus

If you use Windows and you don't use any ant-virus then it doesn't matter whether their labs know about it or not, any malware will be damaging.

Arm to drop up to 15 percent of staff – about 1,000 people

Re: Haas, who has been in the chief exec's chair for about a month

So you're saying it can be de-Softbanked with no harm done?

Re: Haas, who has been in the chief exec's chair for about a month

"He's a salesman at heart,"

That explains a lot. They usually have a disconnect between what they sell and what's available to be sold.

Re: stop work that is no longer critical to our future success

"What if you get rid of that person?"

You have a problem with the next HSE inspection.

If they've been made redundant the present tense doesn't apply: they've left and it wasn't their decision hence going to competitors wasn't their purpose. If the former employer then starts to throw their weight around they're just making a case to be taken to an employment tribunal and subsequently to the cleaners. However I suspect your use of the term "General Counsel" means you're from parts where there might be less protection for the victims.

I suppose Arm's loss will be RISC-V's gain.

Re: Haas, who has been in the chief exec's chair for about a month

It depends on his view of long term. That might be until the IPO is done and dusted and it's time to collect bonuses and go to improve the profitability of another unfortunate company.

"They are not going to layoff their skilled and experienced people"

Just their more expensive ones - CEO & the like excepted of course. Those wouldn't also be the most skilled and experienced, would they?

"many will probably be legally blocked from using a lot of their accumulated knowledge"

Would that really be the case? I'd have thought it would be difficult to argue that the knowledge you've just declared redundant is valuable. At the very least it would be ammunition in an employment tribunal and would likely earn a bigger payout.

Microsoft slides ads into Windows Insiders' File Explorer

Re: Killing off their own golden goose

I'm sure if enterprise and business customers choose to pay enough extra they can have ad-free options.

This time round.

When they get their forced upgrades to W12 it'll cost more again.

Maybe it's the point where a few more Windows users decide enough is enough.

Russian demand for VPNs skyrockets by 2,692%

Pro tip. Quoting statistics to 4 significant figures doesn't make your press-releases look more credible. Just the opposite.

Research finds data poisoning can't defeat facial recognition

Re: Data overload

Also the same image, real or fake, with multiple times with different identities attached and multiple faces with the same identity.

I wouldn't even call what they were doing poisoning. It doesn't force the signal to noise ratio into oblivion.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine tears open political rift between cybercriminals

Re: "Is the West OK when the gun points the other way?"

But not usually at the same time.

Re: "claims of Western warmongering"

"it's just them trying to gain the high moral ground."

I don't think they have any alternative. While Putin's there if they're not for him they're against him and if he's not there they're in trouble anyway. They've got to prop him up for their own sakes.

Re: Thick as fucking mince

"For them to still claim that this is the result of Western aggression makes them either thick or liars."

I think they're looking after their own interests, or think they are. They've flourished while he's in charge and rely on him continuing to be there. They probably expect him to be ousted if the invasion fails and that the price of Western help putting the Russian economy together is going to include their being rooted out.

Startups bag billions to fill gaps left by chip world giants

"applications move to probabilistic computing models, in which processing and decision making is based on inferences drawn from large piles of data"

Back when I was doing these things it never occurred to me to decide where to address an order based on inferences drawn from large piles of data. I took the simple route of dispatching it to the address given with the order. This might be wild supposition on my part but I think that's still how it's done today and that that's how business collects money from customers. That raises the question of what extra value is added to a business by making inference and whether that added value, if it exists, justifies the expense of making the inferences.

UK criminal defense lawyer hadn't patched when ransomware hit

It seems tht once they were aware of the situation they acted appropriately. But it always seems to be the case that although there's no time and/or budget to fix things before the disaster strikes there's always time and budget to fix things after - including budget to pay a fine.

Ford to sell unfinished Explorers as chip shortage bites

"probably lessens the life of the starter, battery, and engine"

SWMBO as an Ignis which has this feature. It's allegedly a hybrid in that it has a small second 12V battery charged by a generator/motor coupled to the engine by a toothed belt similar to a cam belt. It's this that provides the start/stop facility so it doesn't affect the ordinary starter or primary battery.

That ancillary battery doesn't have much capacity. I habitually drive over a hill to get to the next village. If I take the Ignis the battery will be fully discharged by the time I get to the top and fully recharged by the time I get to the bottom.

The stop/start isn't enabled unless there's enough charge in the battery. I'm not sure how it affects the life of the engine, my concern might be the other way round. A few years ago I looked at, but didn't buy,t a car with stop/start but AFAIK just an ordinary battery/starter arrangement. I wondered how well it would work with 100,000 on the clock.

Re: liking the new normal

"The general public is now completely conditioned to everything being a subscription or monthly credit payment of some sort."

With rising inflation the public might start looking at expenditure a little more carefully and unnecessary subscriptions are the easiest things to cut out. The subscription model could soon be one whose time has gone.

A smarter bit of marketing would be to let the buyers choose which bits they don't want. I'd choose all those that try to double guess what the driver wants to do.

Canonical: OpenStack is dead, long live OpenStack

"When multiple companies strenuously deny something, it tends to cause more suspicion than it allays"

Never believe anything until it's been officially denied. Yes Minister

We have redundancy, we have batteries, what could possibly go wrong?

Re: One step too few

Oops. 1904

Driver in Uber's self-driving car death goes on trial, says she feels 'betrayed'

"It will be difficult for Italy's data security agency to force the company to pay up, but the decision could deter Italian companies from using Clearview's software."

GDPR has options for holding officers of the company responsible. I think an extradition request for the CEO, CFO and directors for non-payment of the fine would produce quick results.

Re: Who cares....

"Turn it into a T to make their shareholders take down the entire C-level bunch of prats with pitchforks, burning tar, & bags of feathers."

The shareholders are equally reprehensible for investing in this antisocial crap. Don't let them escape the the tar and feathers.

114 billion transistors, one big meh. Apple's M1 Ultra wake-up call

"Above it all, the stratospheric mysteries of supercomputing hung like the PCs the gods themselves ordered from the Mount Olympus edition of Byte."

My recollection is that by 2001 Byte's glory days were well behind it. That in itself was an indication of things to come.

"a new budget iPhone"

This must be some meaning of the word "budget" with which I was previously unfamiliar.

Re: Blame the web for that...

"requires you to be tethered to a remote server that may be at the end of a still slow connection"

Too true. A colleague in our Civic Soc. usually sends our lecture posters as PDFs to somebody's farcebook page. She was recently told to use some web page to convert it to a JPEG. Really? Somebody thinks you need a remote server to convert a PDF page to a JPEG?

Re: Hyperbole...

RaspberryPi marketers have it right... all that we really need is Sufficiency products in stock, unfortunately.

Re: I'm holding off

Don't worry. The next generation os S/W will be along soon to soak up the performance of the next generation of H/W.

Re: Hmmm..

"He didn't once stop to ask what benefit anyone using the tech would receive."

Didn't you ask him?

Re: "they can still watch cat videos. Or prOn. Or both"

It's good that you quoted the URL in full. It ensures I'm adequately informed without needing to follow it. Thanks.