Posts by Doctor Syntax

Astroboffins discover Sun is surfing on 9,000-light-year gas wave that acts as Milky Way's stellar nursery

It's one of those things that raises more questions than it answers. Is it a static wave or does it undulate? If the latter, what's its period? How long did it take to form? How did it form? Lots of number crunching to come....

Ring of fired: Amazon axes multiple workers who secretly snooped on netizens' surveillance camera footage

Re: Punishment seems too extreme

Redeployed was Harold Wilson-speak for unemployed back in the '60s.

GSMA report: Sorry, handset makers, 5G is not going to save the smartphone market

Re: "It just so happens that there's something better."

"But the companies want to sell to everybody"

And if they don't regulators might make them.

"Last year, Gartner warned that the global smartphone market was actively shrinking"

I doubt it. A more appropriate phrase would be "getting saturated".

I can only image that business schools across the world are churning out MBAs who have been told that if you see sales doubling for three successive quarters it means your market is expanding exponentially and will always continue to do that.

'Buyer's remorse' drove HP's legal crusade to go after Lynch, High Court told

And think of the precedent it would set. "None of us would ever be safe again."

I suppose if you want to derive an adjective from "pretext" then "pretextual" is as good as any. And Miles comes from a profession which uses the word "tort" for something you can't even eat so he shouldn't be complaining.

Cogent cut off from ARIN Whois after scraping net engineers' contact details and sliding them to sales staff

But why limit it to just cutting them off from whois. Just shut them off from the net completely and see how much good their sales calls o them then.

Eggheads have crunched the numbers and the results are in: It's not just your dignity you lose with e-scooters, life and limb are in peril, too

Most of those with limited mobility would find them particularly difficult to use.

If at first you don't succeed, pry, pry again: Feds once again demand Apple unlock encrypted iPhones in yet another terrorism case

How about an arrangement like this:

Assuming that it's technically possible to unlock the phone then for each phone an agency wants unlocking the agency has to provide the phone of one of its senior staff or one of its political masters - a public interest third party gets to choose which. Both phones are unlocked and the complete contents of the agency phone get published. What's the problem with that? If they have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear.

What if everyone just said 'Nah' to tracking?

"Advertisers need eyeballs, and they'll buy them"

It's the intermediaries, the advertising industry, who are the problem. The more snake oil they can sell the more money they make but that snake-oil is their "service" and the people they're selling it to are the advertisers.

John Wanamaker is reputed to have said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." If he'd been alive now he'd have loved ad-blockers because they would have solved his problem. It's no surprise the ad-industry hates them - they want their customers to keep on wasting that money.

Re: We see that you're using an ad blocker

"Every time that happens I just ban the site from running javascript as well."

You're doing it wrong. Default to not running Javascript and use the ad-blocker warning as an indication not to unblock the script.

Samsung’s aspirational Galaxy Chromebook: Shell out $1k for a fast beaut (and remember to try Linux if you're into that)

Re: Get a Lappy With Free OS SpyWare? What a Deal!!!

The essence of Chrome-OS is that it's a thin client to work with Google's services. It makes no difference how secure the comms or the OS if that's what you're doing.

There must be a number of use cases for deploying a thin-client solution but any worthwhile ones must start with finding a remote service you trust.

Re: arguably the most aspirational Chrome OS device

...and shiny.

Re: "which is designed to reduce eye-strain"

Although in the distant past I used a Compaq luggable these days I wouldn't call anything with a 13.3" screen "designed to reduce eye-strain".

The Six Million Dollar Scam: London cops probe Travelex cyber-ransacking amid reports of £m ransomware demand, wide-open VPN server holes

Re: Outsourced and out of sight?

From the link: “We would need to employ people on a 24x7 rostered basis to monitor our network at this level since we can’t afford to have the network offline.”

So they understood the problem, but not the solution.

Re: Banks and building societies are, in my experience, the worst offenders ..."

I think phoning up costs too much money these days so they don't do it.

Re: The Lie

Assuming this threat is based on reality what were they doing holding stuff like DoB & NI number? Being asked for that if I wanted to change money would be a red flag.

"It is 2020, what was the customer data and critical systems doing on Windows boxes, rather than Linux with a snapshotted file system underpinning the storage?"

In a lot of cases I'd agree with you. That would be the consequence of running a monoculture and getting phished.

However it looks as if this was the consequence of a failure to protect their VPN against intrusion and the intruders have been able to take their time. By now they'd probably have acquired admin credentials on the Linux boxes. I doubt there's anything beyond a dumb printer in there that could be trusted by now.

Re: Patching +

I can't imagine why you got two down-votes for that. Banks and building societies are, in my experience, the worst offenders for training their customers to be phished.

Re: ICO hints that GDPR appears to be optional

That's normal behaviour for using the Beeb's own search to search for their own stories. You were looking for something from yesterday? Here's something vaguely related from 5 years ago.

We won't CU later: New Ofcom broadband proposals mull killing off old copper network

"It proposes to allow OpenReach to tack on these costs before a single road is dug up"

Tack them onto what? I have a nasty feeling that those of us who live in rural areas with perfectly good FTTC services are going to get stiffed in order to subsidise FTTP for other customers whilst having an unwanted and disruptive "upgrade" forced on ourselves.

Reusing software 'interfaces' is fine, Google tells Supreme Court, pleads: Think of the devs

Just form an orderly queue.

Re: Its late stage capitalism at its very finest

True, but if it's the latter they're burning money to do it and even if they're buying them up to replace the innovation they can't do themselves they'll smother the companies with their procedures and policies and end up still burning money but more slowly.

Re: "when no one can actually use it"

How do you use it without copying it?

Re: Its late stage capitalism at its very finest

Is it a sign of a moribund system or simply of a moribund corporation? I'd expect the latter. At some point its products, including the IP it tries to collect rent on, become obsolete and businesses which can innovate will displace it. Behaviour like this should be a warning to shareholders to look to their exit strategy.

If Oracle win I hope IBM lawyers turn up on their doorstep the next morning with a bill for use of SQL.

Microsoft engineer caught up in sudden spate of entirely coincidental grilling of Iranian-Americans at US borders

Re: silly parents

"It's almost like your logic is faulty or something."

I think the something you're looking for is "non-existent".

Yeah, says Google Project Zero, when you think about it, going public with exploit deets immediately after a patch is emitted isn't such a great idea

I wonder if this is a consequence of Google having been caught out before they could get all their stuff patched.

I spy, with my little satellite AI, something beginning with 'North American image-analysis code embargo'

Re: RISC-V

AIUI the actual technical contributions to RISC V come from all over the world, just as in this case. Putting it outside the US means that (a) the US doesn't actually have its hands on the |RISC V throat to choke it and (b) everybody outside the US can still contribute assuming their govts. don't try the same trick. The worst case for the foundation is that contributions stop coming from the US. The worst case for the US is the same. The worst case for non-US competitors is "meh".

Repeat that for anything else the US wants to choke.

Apropos this particular case, does it supposedly cover QGIS? The registrant for qgis.org is in SA.

Remind me again why RISC V upped sticks and relocated outside the US.

Re: Not just satellite imagery

Assuming you're not in the US this just reduces your competition when it comes to selling to the rest of the world.

That Pulse Secure VPN you're using to protect your data? Better get it patched – or it's going to be ransomware time

Re: Yeah but...

If the users don't patch when they're informed then such a term would be essential. After all those users are responsible. Even the one in the twitter thread, assuming they're still with the same MSP.

The Pulse Secure response can be summarised as "You can lead a horse to whater but some of them are mules." That's the problem.

Tragedy: CES squeeze forces frequent flier hotshots into economy hell

Re: While they sit in their seats

"humble BOFHs"

Humble? Humble? No such thing.

Having trouble finding a job in your 40s? Study shows some bosses like job applicants... up until they see dates of birth

Apart from being an issue for individuals this is a huge economic cost for the country. Freelance has been the way round this in the past. IR35 is just another of the levers governments are using to destroy the economy.

"part of their service is to reformat all of the CVs"

You really need to trust the agency hen. From the applicants' PoV they don't trust agencies doing that.

"I do wonder how much of a part the agency plays in this."

I remember seeing a contract ad that specified someone with experience of the client's in-house bespoke system. The system which I started writing about 20 years earlier. The system I spent the next 10 years on and off - but mostly on - managing, migrating and enhancing. I suspect they were actually looking for me. Never heard anything more about it.

Re: There comes a time

"anyone in the IT world who is over 50 (and possibly 40) should think about a second career"

IT was my second career. And after half a working lifetime in the scientific grades of the Civil Service I certainly needed the money.

Re: The reasoning behind this

in most companies chieftains only care about how many people they lead, because "more people = more important".

This is an artefact of promotion policies. The policies are laid down by management types and that, by and large, is a criterion for managers. Obviously managers don't want a criterion such as "able to do the job well".

Re: driving down costs

In that case he should be moving up the ranks PDQ. That assumes the employer recognises that there are such things and ranks and that they're important.

Re: Cost and Abusability

"Young workers are just willing to completely exploit themselves"

They also haven't had their manglement bull-shit filters trained so they're not going to laugh or worse at intelligence-insulting motivational* seminars.

* Motivation as in "I'm motivated to get out of this place for good".

Re: What jobs did they try to get?

"they may not be able to find a postdoc position that's suited to them"

From the University's PoV they may not want to risk taking on someone who might promptly quit because the right post-doc job came along. The real problem, of course, is that research offers too many short-term jobs as opposed to permanent ones.

Re: HR is the problem

What makes that a little difficult is that the pimp takes the tailored CV & submits it for something entirely different instead of asking for a new one.

Re: What jobs did they try to get?

I switched into IT in my 40s but that was a long time ago and having exactly the background, tech & otherwise that my employers thought they needed. ("Thought they needed" because they then moved me into a contract were the "otherwise" wasn't relevant.)

Pair charged with murder, manslaughter after IBM Aspera boffin killed in New Year's Eve laptop theft struggle

“I don’t understand how my brother got wrapped up in this. Probably hanging around the wrong people.”

It sounds as if he is the wrong people.

Xerox grabs $24bn from banking titans to fund hostile takeover of HP Ink

" if all parties concerned ... crashed and burned."

I'd guess that one of those parties - most likely the banks that are coming up with $24bn - put themselves in front of the queue and ensure they get the cash from selling off the remnants. And likely nist that when the remnants are sold off they get first option at financing the sell-off.

If I read this right they're saying savings and growth of $3 to $3.5bn at a cost of only $24bn in debt. How could anybody resist?

Re: Translation

That would be headcount reductions equal to the current total headcount of both companies.

Re: Enought already

"There are already too many large companies with too much power trying to gain even more power."

That's only part of the problem. If you have the two boards get together and do a straight merger - so many shares in the new entity pro-rata the shares in the old ones you have the problem you state. When you have something like this you have the additional situation that the new entity is saddled with stupid amounts of debt and likely going down the tubes as a consequence so the competition is reduced by two instead of one.

" if all parties concerned ... crashed and burned."

I'd guess that one of those parties - most likely the banks that are coming up with $33bn - put themselves in front of the queue and ensure they get the cash from selling off the remnants. And likely nist that when the remnants are sold off they get first option at financing the sell-off.

Smart speaker maker Sonos takes heat for deliberately bricking older kit with 'Trade Up' plan

Re: What great value does Sonos-phone-home add?

"Alexa/Google Home integration - probably doesn't need explanation."

No. Just needs justification.

From your explanation getting the merest squeak out of your speakers requires internet connectivity to work, which is fine until it doesn't, and Sonos' service to remain in place, which s fine until they go bust or someone like Icahn't buys them and shuts them down or a software update bricks them.