Posts by Doctor Syntax

Samsung reveals buzzword-compliant DRAM ready for 5G, AI, edge, and metaverses

suitable for 5G, AI, edge computing, AI on the network edge, the metaverse, “and even automobiles.”

Are they telling me it's no good in a laptop?

Two non-Gtk Linux desktops have put out new versions

Re: Variety is the Spice of Life...

"You will never get wide-scale buy in from the business community to use Linux on the Desktop due to the retraining costs and lost productivity every time a bad design decision takes the desktop over a cliff."

Taking the UI of anything, not just the desktop, over a cliff seems to be industry standard procedure yet Windows shops give Microsoft a free pass in this.

Satellite of love: Space broadband outfit Viasat acquires rival Inmarsat

"new IoT applications"

Worrying.

UK Treasury and Bank of England starting to sound serious about 'Britcoin'

Put the curse on it

Just get BoJo to declare it to be world beating. Then we can just ignore it.

Google's Pixel 6 fingerprint reader is rubbish because of 'enhanced security algorithms'

Re: Near Real Time

So long as he doesn't hold it wrong.

I suppose Google couldn't use that one - it's already been taken.

Rolls-Royce set for funding fillip to build nuclear power stations based on small modular reactor technology

Re: One million homes - I don't think so

"That's what facilities like Dinorwig are for."

Yes, I know. What we need is a supply of old slate mines to build a few more.

There's one local reservoir perched on a hillside with another, bigger one a few hundred feet below that could be used like that although the angling club that uses the upper one might be miffed if their water & fish suddenly drained away.

I also came across an idea for using weights in redundant coal mine shafts in a similar way although I wonder if the total capacity of that would be enough to do any good or even enough to make the installation pay for itself.

Re: Time for something new

Once upon a time computers occupied large rooms. In the early days they needed a good stock of spare valves to be kept on hand. Nowadays you can put a far more powerful one in your pocket. It's called technological development. You may have heard of it. It enables things to be made smaller, better and more reliable.

One of our problems is that the naysayers had their way for a long time. We're now way behind where we should have been in terms of development and in the meantime we've been shoving huge quantities of carbonaceous fossil materials up power-station chimneys for decades so that (a) our descendants won't have those available as non-fuel industrial raw materials when they need them and (b) people are, if you haven't noticed, starting to worry about the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Re: One million homes - I don't think so

I think the OP's point, however, is that demand can be subject to short peaks. It would need some form of short term storage to cover those. 1% of that million homes homes having an electric kettle switched on at the same time will take up a substantial percentage of the total output.

Re: Feels a bit late now...

"something we should have started doing 25 years ago"

More than that. The technology was there once the 1st generation of nuclear subs & aircraft carriers were built. By now we should have been several generations in.

Now that's a splash down: Astronauts spend 8-hour trip to Earth in diapers after SpaceX capsule toilet breaks

It's going to need a good clean before the next trip.

NSO fails once again to claim foreign sovereign immunity in WhatsApp spying lawsuit

If the foreign government argument stuck wouldn't that just be a basis for espionage cases?

New year, new OS: OneDrive support axed for old versions of Windows from 1 Jan 2022

Re: A remote personal file server is the way to go.

"An old, low power draw, headless laptop is ideal for this kind of thing."

Pi.

Calendars have gone backwards since the Bronze Age. It's time to evolve

Re: Start Date

Let me introduce you to the medieval Wakefield court rolls where the court year starts at Michaelmas and the years are given as the regnal years, e.g the 3rd year of Edward II. Unfortunately no regnal years coincide with the court years.

In the present case, simply require compliance the existing open standards, iCalendar and CalDev. No, that's not two competing standards, they simply handle different aspects.

Re: Oh don't start me on this one.

"Of course, it's in the interests of exactly zero office software suppliers to make this happen"

Depending on the meetings, this isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Re: Amen to all that

"Of course, it's in the interests of exactly zero office software suppliers to make this happen."

The solution, as ever, is to make it in their interest. All it would need would be a few large ITTs to specify open standards and working synchronisation across a few specified platforms.

Belgium watchdog reckons online advertisers should be data controllers under GDPR

"The global market for advertising via real-time bidding could be worth as much as $27.2bn by 2024"

Who knew that vendors would be prepared to pay so much to piss off potential customers?

You'll never guess who's been exploiting the ManageEngine service to steal passwords

Online password services exploited? Really?

<Gets up off of floor after being struck by a passing feather>

Pulling down a partition or knocking through a door does not necessarily make for a properly connected workspace

Re: Network woes

"That was resolved with a large drill cutting a hole through the wall"

A better resolution would have been to quote the signed off statement that the room would only ever be used for filing cabinets.

"The outlet in the boss's office was still live:"

i hope this wasn't discovered the hard way.

That hertz.

Truckload of GPUs stolen on their way out of San Francisco

Re: But how would the buyer know?

the warranties may have been invalidated but the smart thing would be to let the registration page take the details as normal but then follow those up to trace the distribution network.

NASA advised to study up on what open source, free software, and permissive licenses actually mean

Re: What free means

GPL licences are certainly not untrammelled and quite deliberately so.

One of the links ( https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?format=multiple&id=494520 ) dealt specifically with NASA attempting to release code in a way which they presumably intended to be open but with wording which just didn't fit any existing OSS environment. Looking at the licence quoted in the bug report it seems possible that a BSD-style licence might have met their intentions.

Re: BSD vs GPL

The essence of a BSD licence is that if the code is distributed in source or binary form the copyright notice be distributed with it - included in the source in the first case. The notice also includes the fullest possible disclaimers. That's not a release of copyright restrictions but it is a fairly minimal restriction.

Up to a point. But the BSD licence, for instance, doesn't meet the FSF's definition of the FOSS subset of OSS (which is the definition in the Haiducek et al paper that the article's about). However the supporters of BSD and similar ("permissive") licences will point out that FSF's definition of "free" is encumbered. They define a diferent subset of FOSS. These groups have viewpoints which are, if not exactly orthogonal, looking at freedom from different angles.

What's more the OSS definition isn't enshrined in statute or common law. The nearest it would get to becoming a legal requirement would be inclusion in contracts if required.

Professionally I've come across code which I could view (and even fed back the results of bug-hunting to its creators) but which was still proprietary and not even the whole of the application. I'd have to count that as open, at least to inspection, although in no way would I include it as open in FOSS, OSS, permissive or public domain contexts.

It seems that NASA has the old Github problem of people wishing to "publish" code without realising that "publication" has unavoidable legal requirements. Unless you actually add a licence to your "public" announcements your material is bound by default copyright restrictions.

Re: What free means

"costless, priceless, untrammelled"

Which?

Red Hat forced to hire cheaper, less senior engineers amid budget freeze

/. picked up this. One comment there was along the lines of there being nothing as expensive as cheap engineers. There is; MBAs at any price.

Re: Red Hat turns to running the company by spreadsheet

Martin is probably the only last survivor of his team.

Re: A plan for Red Hat...

Really good things never happen. However a more feasible possibility is that RH's agenda no longer dominates and we get back to something more Unix-like.

I'm looking forward to seeing RHEL becoming a clone of Rocky or Alma Linux.

Reg reader returns Samsung TV after finding giant ads splattered everywhere

Bought a Philips non-smart TV last year. It has an internet connection and is supposed to be able to get Freeview catchup. It's so dumb not even that works. We haven't turned it on for a few months so maybe there's been a S/W update but I'm not holding my breath.

Labour Party supplier ransomware attack: Who holds ex-members' data and on what legal basis?

Re: The Other Lot

"I wonder when my data will go walkies."

We don't know exactly what data was involved. If it included their copy of the electoral roll it may have gone walkies already.

Maybe the firm has an Islington office.

Say what you see: Four-letter fun on a late-night support call

Re: How to deal with calls

"funny on screen"

Try telling it down the pub, then.

Re: How to deal with calls

"I know the user you describe. The one who comes up with all kinds of random technical words they know and tries to jam then into the description."

Management.

Expired cert breaks Windows 11 snipping tool, emoji panel, S Mode features, other stuff

Re: Part of the OS

"The certificates are for testing the signatures inside executables."

OTOH the executable is the same as it was last week. The problem isn't the executable. It's not even certification. It's the expiry date of the certificate. The solution is to either ensure the expiry date is far enough ahead of expected lifetime when the executable's published or have a sufficiently robust system for enabling update to be installed well in advance and also take into account those systems that are not and will not be connected to the internet.

Different certs with different expiry dates. It's a certificate management problem. If the certs are due to expire you need to ship updates in good time. It could happen to any product that takes its eye off the ball. Being a new OS is no excuse.

Microsoft: Many workers are stuck on old computers and should probably upgrade

Re: Conclusion: MS has a lot of laptops & desktops that are unable to run W11.

Oh no they're not.

They remember the days, long before .docx and its friends, when they could regularly upsell you new versions of Office. Not because you needed a new version to write stuff, of course. Because anyone who'd updated sent you files your own copy couldn't read.

They want to get back to the old days when they could force you to buy a licence you don't want. And with Windows that licence means buying a new machine if the old one can't update. The H/W vendors, surprise, surprise, aren't objecting to this.

If there's any stupidity involved it's launching this in the midst of a chip shortage throttling H/W production.

"Why change it if it is good enough?"

Because Microsoft want to sell you a new Windows licence.

Re: a new device "would increase their motivation."

I think somebody didn't know how to spell "frustration". It's the only logical explanation.

My experience is long out of date but the general principle was that a freelancer supporting the customer's kit perforce worked on the customer's kit. You wouldn't expect a mechanic to service his own car instead of yours, would you?

"an OS that gets in your face instead of letting you actually get work done"

This. And the thing that's most effective at getting in your face is change for change's sake.

On Linux I can take an hour or so after a new install to tweak things to my chosen standards and then carry on with business as usual. The idea of being not only forced into the vendors One True UI is bad enough but having that changed every few years is appalling. By some judicious choice of Linux distro I can cruise along with underpinnings that reflect nearly 40 years experience of Unix and Unix-like systems and a GUI with a classic look and behaviour that's just subtly evolved over the last 20 years or so. It's driven by what I want to use it for, not a revolving door or UX "experts" or a marketing need to pimp the UI every few years.

Re: Or

"manipulation to persuade businesses to buy better hardware, because they can't implement an operating system that is efficient."

Another explanation is that new hardware means new Windows licences.

The two are far from mutually exclusive. In fact synergistic is probably nearer the mark.

"nearly nine out of 10 employees would actually take a cut in pay if they could choose their own work device."

What with ransomware and the like this seems a reasonable prediction. Was that what was meant?

There, that wasn't so hard, was it? South Korea makes Google allow rival payment systems in Play store apps

Re: Oh, please fo f**k off Google...

"putting themselves at risk."

But who was the "themselves" he was thinking of?

Kyndryl spins out of IBM, stock starts trading on NYSE – and shares tumble

"Just as happened with HPE Enterprise Services, it is hoped that Kyndryl flying the IBM nest will indicate to customers they don’t need to buy only IBM stuff from Kyndryl."

Does this help IBM? Did it help HP?

Waterfox: A Firefox fork that could teach Mozilla a lesson

Re: Open source closed devs

"Ordinary users want something that does what they need,"

So do I. In my case it's mostly local history research nowadays. I tend to have a lot of documents to hand. My Historical Documents folder alone is 10.8G with 783 files in 63 sub-folders and there are usually a good number of files and folders of work in progress on the desktop. An app-based approach isn't going to cut it - you can't navigate that lot with the Recent files... menu. So I use KDE which allows me control over layout of the desktop.

OTOH someone who wants a UI closer to that of their mobile would prefer Ubuntu's Unity desktop. I'd find it completely unusable.

SWMBO also has KDE but the few apps she uses are links on the desktop. It also has NextCloud client sitting there quietly synchronising a folder with my laptop so I can assemble her patchwork notes PDFs for her to email to her class. This works for her.

A couple of other relatives have Zorin which seems a good all-rounder for general users for a browser, office, PDF viewing, etc.

Re: Open source closed devs

"The problem you are describing, and pretty well I have to say, is the curse of too many choices."

In what way is this a curse compared to the walled garden binary choice: like it or lump it?

Re: root is the new Administrator

"Latest" sounds like a human assumption which still needs to be verified by the software.

In this case "latest" was the current version, newly downloaded, installed and run. The possible gap for it to have been outdated was minutes. The conclusion has to be that the update checker was comparing against the wrong thing.