Posts by Doctor Syntax

CryptoQueen on the run from Feds, lawsuit after her OneCoin slammed as 'an old-school pyramid scheme on a new-school platform'

an initial coin offering that "never really existed, on a blockchain that never really existed, born from mining farms that never really existed."

One of the better ones, then?

Autonomy's one-time US sales chief can't remember if he took part in grand jury hearing

Re: Dear HPE

From previous evidence it didn't appear to have been in a poke, they didn't take time to look at it because they were in such a hurry to buy.

Re: Caught between two legal systems?

"the whole truth"

Or as much of it as he can remember.

This element of the oath always worried me. As a witness one can only respond to the questions asked. If neither asks for a relevant fact then the fact might not get into the evidence and if a witness were attempt to volunteer it the counsel who the fact doesn't favour might object.

Re: Caught between two legal systems?

"By claiming forgetfulness he could avoid breaking US law."

The judge might take his memory problems into account when deciding how much weight his evidence carries.

Re: Picture. Are they auctioning something off?

But the judge is in the UK.

Maybe they used a gavel to give the video-link kit percussive maintenance. But would that have been before or after it went faulty?

Re: Clarifications on the grand jury system...

The US and Liberia are the only common law jurisdictions to use it. The rest of us have replaced the closed door system with an open court with a judicial figure of some nature in charge (AFAICR it was magistrates in NI). Depending on the case reporting restrictions might be in place but members of the public can see what's happening and defendants not only know about the proceedings but can be represented.

It's a very interesting comparison between the two legal systems, especially as regards the operation of the grand jury. On this side of the pond we got rid of them some time ago in favour of preliminary hearings, usually, as far as I can remember, in front of a magistrate and in open court. I wonder what impression the US system is making on the judge.

Google puts Chrome on a cookie diet (which just so happens to starve its rivals, cough, cough...)

I've taken to using three browsers none of which are Chrome-based. One of them is configured to delete all history including cookies on closing. That one gets fired up for any site that seems likely to want to make a nuisance of itself and closed down as soon as the site's finished with.

Blame Canada! Zuckerberg subpoenaed to face Cambridge Anal. probe from Canucks

I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.

Why, so can I, or so can any man/But will they come, when you do call for them?

Shakespeare

Google jumps the shark from search results to your camera: Nest Hub, Pixels, and more from ad giant's coder confab

Re: make car reservations and buy movie tickets on behalf of users...

"The ticket duly arrived: Naples to London - couldn't even get the right feckking country."

Typical 21st century search engine - return anything rather than return nothing. The '80s did it better.

Re: I bought my Nest thermostat before Google bought them

"Seems you don't really understand the difference between security and privacy"

One thing I'd want security for is to protect privacy. If a vendor (any of them) goes straight for taking away privacy any security they may put in place against third party threats is somewhat devalued.

Late with your financial paperwork? Here's a handy excuse: Malware smacked your bean-counter cloud offline

"advising companies running CCH not to freak out just yet."

Will they advise them when it is time to freak out?

Portal to 'HELL' cracks open in street – oh sorry, it's just another pothole

Re: "The motor was able to clamber out of the Hellgate"

I was wondering about that. If the hole was the road to hell (which is supposed to be broaderr than the average York street) Hellgate is right. If it's a portal then in York terms Hellbar would be better.

Airbnb host thrown in the clink after guest finds hidden camera inside Wi-Fi router

Re: Some people would argue....

Regulation on providers of services exists to protect customers. Genuine businesses comply with that. Compliance is a cost of doing business. Undercutting by non-compliance puts everyone at risk by driving out genuine businesses who try to offer legitimate low-cost provision.

Re: Big disconnect

"I have never had any bad surprises so far."

How closely have you looked? Not just for nasties like hidden cameras but also to see if fire regulations are met. The latter could provide a surprise you'll not come back to tell us about.

Re: Some people would argue....

"To be fair to AirBnB I don't think they can be held responsible for people doing this"

Yes, they can be and should be. Whether they can meet that responsibility s another matter. If they can't it should be the end of them. It's as simple as that.

Re: To be fair to AirBnB I don't think they can be held responsible for people doing this

"Probably because there's no way they can really know. In this example"

The whole problem with their business model is that they're taking money for something for which they should take responsibility which they find difficult to do. Their response to the Irish incident suggests they expected to get away with doing nothing.

It's their problem and we should hold them responsible for solving it. If they can't or won't then their entire business deserves to go down the tubes for being built on an unsustainable model.

Put a stop to these damn robocalls! Dozens of US state attorneys general fire rocket up FCC's ass

Re: Lots of ideas about controlling ID spoofing

The same thing exists here. It gets ignored. From time to time, as reported here, ICO go after offenders and presumably their fines are increased if listed numbers are being called. Unfortunately the calling companies fold to avoid paying but they're now starting to get directors banned and at some point in the future I'm sure there'll be criminal convictions. I still favour a charge back onto the caller's bill with added charges if the celled number is on such a list. At the very least the problem would be contained by the telcos' credit departments.

Re: Fines?

Switch to a system where it doesn't matter where the provider is.

Assign a short code. In the UK we have 1470 to mask one's own CLI and 1471 to give the number of the last incoming call. AFAIK the remaining 147n range is unused. Assign a number to one of them*. Dial that after a call and it's registered as probably problematic**. If the telecoms company recognises the source as problematic (and don't forget they do know where the call came from because they use it to bill the caller) then they credit the callee with a fee for receiving the call and add the fee and a handling charge to the bill. If the call originated with another telecoms company, even an overseas one, they bill that company. That company can pass the bill on with another handling charge added. Double (or more) the fee if the number called is on a do not call list.

In theory the victims get paid with credits against their phone bill and it's cost neutral at worst for the telecoms companies because their handling charge at least covers the costs unless the callers default. Defaults would be the equivalent of folding to avoid the fines. The telecoms companies have credit controllers so defaults will be limited. A telecoms company which doesn't keep proper track of the calls gets handed the bill and will change its ways PDQ or go out of business.

In practice, of course, this would kill the whole thing stone dead as the costs to the robocallers would go through the roof. The telecoms companies will realise this and know that if they're obliged to prepare for it they'll never get enough handling charges to cover their up-front costs. So proposing to enforce this will incentivise them to clamp down on the problem before the proposal gets taken any further. Once they're incentivised I'm quite sure they'd be very effective. On the principle that there should only be once chance to self-regulate any subsequent slackening off and the whole thing goes ahead.

* Vary for whatever numbering system works in your area.

** There's a risk of fraud if some toerag were to try responding to legitimate calls so the telecoms companies would need to gather a few reports from different people before actioning them.

Re: Feral Pay Masters

"But what happens when the call comes from a hospital whose number you don't recognize...about your mum"

A bit more immediate than that - the local hospital ringing with your appointment time.

Re: Feral Pay Masters

"The one paying to have the phone call made are ignoring the fact that is has a contrary effect on the way their products are percieved and the company selling the phone call will certainly not reveal that fact."

You have just described the entire advertising industry and the marketing departments that pay them.

"a bipartisan bill proposed last year that gives regulators more powers to go after robocallers."

Clearly "gives powers" is the wrong approach. "Obliges" seems to be what's needed.

The Year Of Linux On The Desktop – at last! Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 brings the Linux kernel into Windows

Re: Question

"if...Microsoft provides (or offers to provide on demand) the full sources for the kernel version in question, including any customizations they may have made."

That's a bit of a question. The article says We're told people will eventually be given instructions and code on GitHub to roll their own WSL 2 kernels, if the supplied 4.19 one doesn't float your boat. but what does 'eventually' mean? Does it mean when they ship it (and the article says they're shipping it on the Insider programme already) or at some indeterminate time in the future?

Re: But why?

"IT bureaucracies that seek to have someone else to blame when things go bad"

Having someone to blame isn't the same as having someone to fix it. Either the bureaucracy does that itself or, given that it would be too much like hard work, outsources it. They're unlikely to outsource it to Microsoft but to a third party. The stupid thing is, of course, that the Windows supporting third party can't really go beyond what their latest MS certification course taught them whilst the FOSS-supporting third party can actually look at the source code. It ways more about the stupidity of large bureaucracies with more interest in off-loading blame than in supporting their employers.

"There is also constant pressure to make the software available on Windows... perhaps because it would allow the software to be used in university teaching labs"

What an indictment of University teaching labs.

Re: But why?

"everyone here who has relatives running Linux keeps a good eye on them and is ready to sort out issues."

People here who have relatives running Linux have them doing so because it's a damn sight easier keeping an eye on them doing that than when they were running Windows.

Please get that into your head: the Linux option is easier.

Re: Hmm..

I could visualise a switch where the legacy windows applications run under a real Windows Subsystem for Linux, i.e. a Linux kernel with a Windows compatibility layer and, of course, a proprietary UI. But although there would be a legacy support its real purpose would be as a client to all the Microsoft services. Not making people ponder whether they still need Azure etc but making sure they do need it all.

Re: Hmm..

...HP or ....

Re: Hmm..

Hubris, mere hubris.

Re: MS SOP: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

"The reason I and people like me use Linux is not about money, it's about control"

In my case it's because it runs a Unix-like user land. I really don't see the need to carry a Windows overburden to do that.

I do remember that in the old days Microsoft actually had their own Unix port, Xenix, and at the time it was fine. There was no indication of Microsoft wanting to apply EEE. Possibly it was a matter of them wanting their own server OS at a time when Netware dominated the X86 server world. When it no longer suited them they turned it over to their major distributor, SCO. Inititally the SCO product was also fine. There was even a specialist market in PC boards to facilitate various aspects of running SCO such as multiple serial port boards for character terminals. It was much later when that went to pot.

Often the case with big corporations is that the corporation itself isn't necessarily bad, it's the fact that they can change top management and be taken in totally different directions.

Marvell's Avengers, er, Aquantia Endgame: Biz gobbled up for $452m in robo-ride Ethernet bid

"a server and software combo designed to give self-driving cars a virtual world where they can play without harming any of those squishy humans."

And where nothing unexpected can happen. What could possibly go wrong?

Blockchain is a lot like teen sex: Everybody talks about it, no one has a clue how to do it

Re: Highly poisonable well

Also, don't use it to store PII that might be the target of the data-subject's erasure request.

"of the supply chain projects that got past sign-off, most remain in the pilot phase."

That sounds like praising with faint damns.

followed by the "Slope of Enlightenment", ending at the "Plateau of Productivity".

Or not as the case may be.

IT bod who does a bit of everything: You might want to specialise if that pay rise proves elusive

I can't help feeling that there's always going to be an advantage in being someone who knows several areas in detail rather than overspecialising. On the one hand you have value in being possibly the only one able to connect several of those silos to work together when they they need to and on the other you're not stranded when one of the areas goes out of fashion. OTOH you do have the advantage over someone who has sketchy knowledge of everything.

Be wary of emails with links to ... er, Google Drive? Is that right?

Re: Standard practice

"HR also regularly sends out announcements by sharing a link to Google Docs."

HR and marketing - the weakest points in any organisation*. They'll only send out this crap indistinguishable from phishing if they don't know what's wrong with them and if they don't know what's wrong with them they'll have know inhibitions in falling for incoming.

* Apart from senior management, of course.

Hate e-scooters? Join the club of the pals of 190 riders in Austin TX who ended up in hospital

Re: I do not like these scooters

Under the circumstances I took it to be a minimum limit imposed to keep traffic flowing.

"Serious injury is defined as something requiring at least a 48-hour hospital stay, fracturing a bone (except nose, finger or toe), severe bleeding, damaging an internal organ, or suffering burns to more than 5 per cent of the body."

Good to know that death isn't a serious injury.

Dutch chip-making specialist ASML rifles through pockets of rival XTAL: Nice IP. We'll be having that

"XTAL's attempt to file for bankruptcy before the trial court could end. If the company succeeded, it could sell off its intellectual property – even if it featured chunks of ASML's code."

I can't imagine much success if the property was largely at risk of being invalidated by the ongoing court case.

If the thing you were doing earlier is 'drop table' commands, ctrl-c, ctrl-v is not your friend

Re: Shortcut curious...

Sig I once saw (and sometimes use myself):

the flow

breaks up

Top posting

Re: The CLI is not your friend, in such situations...

"Write your destructive code so that it includes testing the condition that it is running where you intended it to run, before performing the destruction"

Which is another reason for doing it in a script. First write a SELECT* using the WHERE and HAVING clauses and run that. Only once your sure it returned what you expected do you edit that to the UPDATE or DELETE you intended. With a BEGIN at the front, of course.

*Just getting a count might be sufficient.

Re: It's all gone a bit Pete Tong!

"He wasn't to be disappointed."

Well played, sir. Our very own Simon couldn't have done it better.

Re: Not an IT guy but..

"Of course a script would be a more permanent solution, but sometimes you just have to run SQL on the production server."

In which case you do it in a script. It doesn't have to be a permanently saved. Your script starts with BEGIN TRANSACTION. You run the script then - and only then - your type your COMMIT.

It's a production database, belt and braces are not amiss.

'Software delivered to Boeing' now blamed for 737 Max warning fiasco

Re: Surely...

*It never fails to boggle my mind the number of posts online about "I've found a cheaper O2 sensor that seems to work" or "I use a different kind of CO2 scrubber that isn't actually rated to go in rebreathers and none of the major manufacturers have ever tested on but it's cheaper so I'll use it".

Nobody ever posts "I tried it and it didn't work"? They must all work.

In the meantime, remember the saying "either go to sea with one compass or three."

"Senior company leadership was not involved in the review and first became aware of this issue in the aftermath of the Lion Air accident,"

For some minute value of 'leadership'.

This seems to be a management insistent on getting what it likes to hear instead of what it needs to hear. One thing it needs to hear is "when you're in a hole, stop digging.".

Tractors, not phones, will (maybe) get America a right-to-repair law at this rate: Bernie slams 'truly insane' situation

Re: Really good?

"What do the cabbies have to say about that?"

They'll insist on an exemption - and get it.

Re: Clarity needed here

"In Rightpondia, manufacturers they can write whatever they want in the T&Cs but within the bounds of legality,"

The legality can depend on whether the transaction falls within consumer protection. I'd imagine a sale of a tractor to a farmer wouldn't. However in Rightpondia the tractor market is competitive so such shenanigans might amount to shutting up shop. If it wasn't they'd result in an anti-trust investigation.

There's an alternative line of attack. If the manufacturer doesn't want buyers to repair kit they bought, they, the manufacturers, repair it themselves (through agents if they prefer) at their own cost for the life of the item, life being as long as the kit physically exists. IOW a permanent warranty. Suddenly allowing right to repair might sound like a good idea.

AI can now generate fake human bodies and faces, OpenAI to share a larger GPT-2 model, and more

Misread the headline. It seemed like a shit project.

HPE court witness subjected to own LinkedIn page

Re: Ooops.

"I think HPE over paid not due to any fraud but due to them just paying way to much"

Alternatively it was the CEO splashing the cash just to show what a big-shot CEO he was.

Re: Finally

"a BOFH led how to find your own arse with both hands course"

The BOFH verson is how to find your own arse with a cattle prod.