Posts by Doctor Syntax

Microsoft deletes Windows 10 nagware from Windows 7 and 8

Re: so difficult in fact that Debian have been doing it

"I think the MS install base is a little larger than the Debian one, and also has less consumer users."

The scale effect might come into play with download speeds and to some extent the speed of checking for updates. But as Stuart said, the installed base is very diverse: from the Raspberry Pi upwards to larger server installations. I think we can reasonably conclude that scale wouldn't shake out many if any hidden quality problems. And having installed updates on both Windows and Linux I know from experience that the latter are still faster even if you disregard the download speeds.

Re: Windows 10 Software condemed by Which

You just posted this without bothering to read the previous comments, didn't you?

Re: Windows Update is unbelievably shit

"Fixing it is a dark art."

When I had to do this some week ago it seemed to consist of finding various interweb postings saying apply KB$Number and then finding a chain of MS support pages saying KB$Number-you-were-looking-for has been replaced by KBAnother-number-to-look-for.

If it wasn't a dark art it was certainly an Adventure.

"On the BBC News website, they're reporting that Which? have condemned Windows 10: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37431343"

I liked the quote at the end: "On the whole, Windows 10 has been received well, and was a notable step up from the previous Windows 8, which did not go down well with many users." I'd call that damning with faint praise.

Zombie Moore's Law shows hardware is eating software

Re: Nothing wrong with the chips.

"The reason for this is that development tools have become unbelievably productive."

Which enables features to be added easily. Making decisions as to which features should be included is extra work. If it's easier to just put them in anyway you get bloat and its associated performance costs.

"Besides, although it's widely said it's not completely true. Modern high FPS animated UIs are intrinsically compute intensive, as are many cloud based data workloads. Web browsers, too, are surprisingly compute heavy - layout and render of modern HTML is non-trivial, and that's even without taking Javascript into consideration."

In other words it's Shiny that's the problem.

New Gnome emerges blinking into the sunlight

*nix?

Isn't Gnome 3 still tied to systemd? Surely that makes it Linux only.

Re: Old dog

"I've made an honest effort to use the KDE desktop so I could learn about all this modern bling. However, I just don't 'get it'.

What is the point? Can anybody explain it to me"

Simple. KDE doesn't attempt to double guess what you what you want to do, where you want to put things on your desktop or what init you're using. It just lets you set things as you want and get on with it.

For myself, I set Folder view with a Desktop folder, icons aligned to grid but not locked in place*, kill the annoying bouncing cursor, turn off the magic top left to stop any window located there maximising and select classic menu. Depending on the size of the screen I might autohide the panel (task bar). And of course, I have multiple workspaces set up - who doesn't?

*This gives me the freedom to arrange icons how I want them. I keep a lot of stuff on the desktop** but this allows me to organise it; a number of desktops I tried don't seem to support this.

**I subscribe to the view that an empty desk is a sign of an empty head. And yes, I've always treated physical desktops the same way although with them stuff seems to wander about of its own accord. On KDE I can make it stay put.

TV industry gets its own 'dieselgate' over 'leccy consumption tests

"One of these two is a constructive statement."

With dieselgate fresh in the memory I'd have expected the CTA to have taken the moral high ground - which in this case would probably be the fence on which it could sit. Otherwise, if NRDC is proven right when the shit hits the fan they'll be standing right in line to get their share.

Anti-ICANN Cruzade continues: Senator Ted still desperately trying to defund US govt

Routing round breakage

AFAICS under the IANA contract ICANN does two main things.

It maintains the register of protocol numbers but the authority for that comes from the IETF and IRTF with the IAB as final arbiter ( https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2860 ). According to that RFC the agreement can be ended at not less than 6 months notice from either side.

It maintains the root DNS server.

The servers are mirrored by other servers.

It would appear feasible for the mirror operators to come together and decide that the governance of IANA is in such a parlous state as to justify their selecting one of their number to be the primary copy, at least until the situation is resolved, and for the rest of the mirrors to mirror that. In practical terms there would be no effect until either ICANN or the new primary made changes not tracked by the other. At that point it would be up to lower lever servers to choose which to follow and it wouldn't be a difficult choice - go with the mirror set. In effect it would be the internet de facto taking control of itself in order to route around breakage.

The US government can then continue to squabble amongst itself as long as it wants.

Apple seeks patent for paper bag - you read that right, a paper bag

Re: Folds or Gussets?

Were they a comedy group? Follow-up to Hinge and Bracket?

Re: US Patents - The Sitcom

"There are a couple of ways to manage patent applications:"

3. The patent office follows whatever process it wants but if a patent is invalidated all royalty fees collected against the patent are to be refunded and the office is jointly and severally liable with the patent "holder" for all refunds, damages and costs.

Re: Grammar police alert

'You see, I extrapolated "Apple's" to "Apple has" not "Apple is"'

So did I. The context should determine it.

AFAICS the original was correct.

It just goes to show that where patents are concerned there's an infinite amount of piss to be taken.

Zuckerberg to spend $3bn+ to rid world of all disease by 2100 (Starting with Facebook, right?)

Maybe this is a reaction Microsoft's statement recorded elsewhere ( https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/09/20/2111240/microsoft-will-solve-cancer-within-the-next-10-years-by-treating-it-like-a-computer-virus-says-company ) that they'll "solve" cancer.

Apparently they intend to treat cells as computers and reprogram them. Should work well unless too many BSOD at the same time.

Lenovo denies claims it plotted with Microsoft to block Linux installs

"So basically you are saying the same thing as the judges: monopoly (by M$) is good!"

No. I'm saying these are two completely different cases with different facts.

I read the previous report. It turned on reimbursement of the cost of the licence for an unwanted piece of software which had been removed.

This, should it come to court, turns on the locking of the device to prevent the removal of the unwanted software. In the report here there's no mention of wanting reimbursement for the licence and if that continues to be the case then the complaints are quite different.

I doubt, however, that you'll want to prevent facts getting in the way of a good rant so please continue.

"EU Judges are already on M$'s payroll, and have ruled that, see here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/09/sony_wins_case_over_preinstalled_windows_software/"

That is a somewhat different situation dealing with a refund of the cost of the licence when the installed Windows was blown away to install something better. Locking the thing in place is a different matter. Cases are determined on facts and the facts in this situation are very different.

Lethal 4-hour-erection-causing spiders spill out of bunch of ASDA bananas

Re: insect pedantry

"Crustaceans aren't insects either and there are plenty of those that I wouldn't want to find in my nosh either"

There are several that are quite good nosh, however.

"So even if they only spent 1 second for each banana that would equate to roughly 277,778 man hours."

And that's only the bananas. Then there are all the apples, oranges, pears... And don't forget to check each grape.

Apple guilty in iPhone ringtone patent rip-off battle with Sony, Nokia

15 out of 16 patents despatched. Not a bad ratio.

Wow, RIP hackers ... It's Cyber-Lord Blunkett to the rescue for UK big biz

"I'm not a Brit, so I have to ask: does that mean he's like the Meta Baron or something?"

He's an ex-local government politician, ex-MP with form, particularly when he was Home Secretary. I don't know how it fits with your admin but back then it included, police, prisons, forensic science and spying on the populace. He seemed particularly keen on the last. He is also blind which explains some of the previous comments.

Would I trust anything with the former leader of the People's Republic of South Yorkshire at its head?

It must be this Brexit stuff taking us back to the 70s again.

Greybeards beware: Hair dye for blokes outfit Just For Men served trojan

Just For Men parent company Combe

Corporate nominative determinism?

Victoria Police warn of malware-laden USB sticks in letterboxes

Re: Live Linux?

"You'd need a very custom live system to prevent the possibility of something on the dodgy stick attacking and backdooring the hardware firmware in a subtle way and then taking it from there."

Raspberry Pi running from write-protected SD-card.

Re: What size?

"Linux, I believe, is vulnerable."

Linux can be run from a live CD. Good luck with infecting that.

Are you sure you want to outsource IT? Yes/No. Check this box to accept Ts&Cs

I wonder what the impact of these clauses would be on the customer's public liability insurance in situations such as customer data being leaked.

Will US border officials demand social network handles from visitors?

Re: So what if I do not have one?

"The material in question is the content of my brain"

Have you checked how much of it's still there? My time line must be similar to yours and I'm not sure how much of the original BSc Botany I could dredge up.

A-dough-be: Photoshop flinger pumps profits 50 per cent

Re: The Extra Cost

"People always tell me that the subscription price is great value."

The sorts of figures Adobe is reporting here should give them pause to think.

Latest F-35 bang seat* mods will stop them breaking pilots' necks, beams US

Re: Handling the G's

"That and the fact of building an ejector seat that could shoot someone through the rotor blades without turning them into mince is ... tricky."

But remember the synchronised machine guns on WWI fighters that fired through the propeller.

Margaret Hodge's book outlines 'mind boggling' UK public sector waste

One tiny contribution of hers to waste in the NHS: according to her biog in wonkypedia she signed an early day motion in favour of homeopathy.

Re: nonchalant attitude to spending

"Sounds EXACTLY like my local Labour-run council."

Maybe you live where I live.

Uncle Sam rules on self-driving cars

"Self-driving cars have remarkable potential to make a significant dent in the $160bn worth of time and gas that Americans lose stuck in traffic every year"

So self-driving cars don't get stuck in traffic like ordinary cars? Are they made of dark matter or something so they can just drive through?

Going, going, done: Trio of prolific auction fraud fraudsters jailed

“Between October 2014 and December 2015 Anitescu opened 26 bank accounts each in a separate identity… Grigorescu opened 12 bank accounts"

So much for identity checks by banks.

Online scammers speed up: Hit gold every 15 seconds

Re: Test no.1, "Have I heard of you?"

The cure to 99% of phishing is to ban HTML email and its causers. add a PKI infrastructure to mail servers and extend SMTP so that signing becomes the default on email. Mail that fails signature check gets bounced at the recipient's server.

The best thing the FFA could do would be to get the banks' marketing departments to train their customers not to get phished, the opposite of what they do now. The next best thing (by a slim margin) would be to get them to fire their marketing departments.

Brits: Can banks do biometric security? We'd trust them before the government

Re: A rational explanation ...

"A bank might spam you with unwanted crap"

Unfortunately the banks' spam resembles phishing spam quite closely. They're training their customers to be robbed. The disconnect between their marketing and any staff with an inkling about security makes it difficult trust any scaheme the former come up with.

Quantum comms succeed over metro-scale fibre networks

"Bob creates an entangled pair, B and C;

Bob sends B to Charlie and keeps C;"

How does Charlie keep C? Photons tend not to hang about. They shove off at...well, quite fast, really.

ROBO-PLOD! 'Droid snatches scumbag's shotgun in standoff

Ray B Bunge

Spelling error in surname?

HP Inc's rinky-dink ink stink: Unofficial cartridges, official refills spurned by printer DRM

Re: My printer not HP's

"Why should HP or any other manufacturer prevent me filling MY machine with liquefied dog turds if I want to, what has it got to do with them?"

You might send it back for repair?

"HP are surely protecting their livelhood."

Not very well.

In order to sell printer cartridges they first have to sell printers. Their reputation has suffered over recent years. If they don't do something PDQ they'll not be able to sell printers. Nor PCs. Sitting around selling not very much isn't going to give them a livelihood in the long term.

When this story broke on /. (over the weekend, elReg!) the comentards there were quick to blame Carly but she's long gone. It must be the entire corporate culture there.

It's simply beyond belief that this is the husk of a company with a once unbeatable reputation for quality.

Fortunately when I bought a colour printer recently I made a conscious decision not to buy HP. My old-school mono-chrome HP just soldiers on, of course.

HP really needs to haul itself out of this pit if it's to survive. This lark might yield a good quarter now. It will just result in a lot of bad quarters and years ahead.

Conviction by computer: Ministry of Justice wants defendants to plead guilty online

Re: Ive got a solution...

"Just because they've changed the name from Employment Exchange to Job Centre (note the capitals) doesn't mean that it isn't still an employment exchange."

It's called "getting rid of the difficult bit in the title". Yes Minister, series 1, programme 1.

"15th-century paper-based filing systems"

C15th records are likely to have been on vellum and still useable* over half a millennium later which is unlikely to be the case for any electronic medium.

*provided you can read abbreviated Latin in C15th handwriting.

Re: Ive got a solution...

"the employment exchange, by using warrants not tickets."

Employment exchange? That dates you. They've been Job Centre, or is it Job Centre Plus (or maybe something else now) for yonks.

My brief encounter with them when they were still Employment Exchanges gave me the distinct impression that their staff's default mode of thinking was paying money to the permanently unemployed and thus institutionalising that status. Certainly the erk I dealt with - who was possibly on the wrong side of the counter - had to have it explained to him that not being able to sign on on a certain date because I was travelling to a job interview didn't mean I was unavailable for work that day.

Re: Ive got a solution...

why should the BBC be forced into giving up a once lucrative show such as Top Gear?

FTFY

Emacs and Vim both release first new updates in years

Rand editor

Does anyone remember the Rand editor? It was the editor provided with Interactive Unix on the Onyx Z8000 boxes long ago (for some reason we didn't have the "games" tape which had things like the C-shell and vi on it). It was used with VT100 terminals but had the interesting property of being able to panic the machine when one particular key (I can't remember whether it was ESC or Break).

Icon just in case it was ESC.

Re: An interesting game of catch-up?

" I just want a text editor so it's vi all the way."

That'll be nvi : https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi/

Once upon a time I remember coming across some forum post saying that the poster preferred vim because nvi hadn't had any updates for years. Clearly he didn't grok that that's why some of us prefer nvi intended, according to the man entry, as "bug-for-bug compatible replacements for the original Fourth Berkeley Software Distribution (4BSD) ex and vi programs."

Re: So neither...

"is quite ready as a stand alone OS yet?"

I'm waiting for systemd and Emacs to come to blows as each tries to take over the other.

FBI overpaid $999,900 to crack San Bernardino iPhone 5c password

Re: Not really comparable

"No, the actual risk is not strictly zero"

And in any case forensic examiners are not miracle workers whatever TV fiction might say. It's the art of the practical. In fact a test which is intended to be non-destructive is by no means the norm. e.g. "I can't show you that particular fibre. It was squashed between two diamond anvils but here's its IR spectrum."

The perimeterless, ever-shifting enterprise: What would a real, red-blooded IT team do?

Re: That horse left the barn a while ago.

"how much you've grown in the last quarter"

Some really expensive sue-balls turning that growth negative might have an effect. At some point there's going to be one big enough to take a sizeable business down and raise insurance rates for those who haven't taken sufficient care. Insurance might be the key; if real security is cheaper than premiums security will be the answer. I wonder if all that user-owned IT will actually be covered in many cases.

Re: "They have their own empires to build"

"But I'm also willing to bet that all that empire building is going to look a lot less good for the first manager responsible for getting a hundred million or so customer details leaked because he chose a cloud solution that got hacked."

Maybe the appropriate recourse for the IT dept. would be to hire a pen tester to go after the empire-builder's cloud so the data gets leaked back to IT who can then notify the manager responsible with some examples of the data.

I suppose they could tell him that it wasn't a public leak. Eventually. When he'd completely emptied his alimentary canal.