Posts by Doctor Syntax

Systemd adds filesystem mount tool

I'm running a non-systemd Debian here. USB drives etc mount just fine. Is this to fix an existing bug in systemd? If not I can't see a problem it fixes.

Re: I am spartacus

"enhancements"

I take it you're using the word in its widest possible sense.

Re: Can I just add

"A key one is security."

Remote logging.

Re: I've forgotten...

"the ability to respawn processes on failure."

Let's start from the assumption that a process should not fail.

If it has failed what should an admin do about it? It might have failed, for instance, because the process had lost one of its disks.

Investigating would be a good idea. In fact it's such a good idea that the correct sequence is investigate, fix, restart. In that circumstance is it a good idea to have some automated process restart it before the admin has chance to look at the problem? Apart from the impediment to investigating the cause of failure there's a chance that the automated restart might corrupt data. If the process fails on restart we have the prospect of systemd running round like an ADHD child repeatedly crashing the system.

Oh, yes, I could set up systemd to not restart that process. So why would I want to have it in the first place?

"I fully expect systemd to soon require it."

I fully expect systemd to fork it and incorporate it.

Re: Amok

When you move to a BSD?

Re: I am stupid

Sorry, bazza, I can only update once.

Microsoft's kinder, gentler collaboration war: Evernote, you're first

Re: $10 here, $5 there

"Imagine the difference if Wordperfect and Lotus 123 had become part of a product suite."

They did become parts of a suite. Different suites.

"a – seemingly – kindler, gentler Microsoft"

I'll have what one of whatever you're drinking.

Five-storey Blue Screen Of Death spotted in Thailand

Re: It sucks when it's your bank's ATM...

"Gold sovereigns hidden in the chamber pot under the bed is the way to go."

Under the bed, yes; chamber pot, no. Variation on throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Re: Fail unsafe...

"the lift is controlled by a windows based system, and has a reputation for crashing, leaving anyone in the lift stuck"

There are worse ways for a lift to crash.

Re: It sucks when it's your bank's ATM...

"Use Tupperware!"

Isn't that an app for sheep farmers?

Re: It sucks when it's your bank's ATM...

"Only to find out your country's undergoing hyperinflation and all the cash you buried isn't worth the paper on which it was printed."

Alternatively you might find that interest rates have gone negative so your buried money's worth more than it might have been in the bank.

German minister seeks facial recognition at airports, train stations

Re: Minority Report is coming true before our very eyes

What are these internet advertisements, Facebook and Microsoft accounts of which you write?

Paper mountain, hidden Brexit: How'd you say immigration control would work?

Re: Simple is best

"the 12 NI counties"

When I lived there it was only 6.

Re: @Charlie @AC 20-23 pages for EU citizens

"Not really, since that was the thrust of the Leave campaign."

That and "take back control". Of what I'm not quite sure, not that it matters because that's going to be another chimera.

Re: Irish angle

'especially when they ran away after they "won".'

Boris, in case you haven't noticed, is now Foreign Sec so having to do his best(!) to make it work(!) despite the fact that his response to the referendum result seems to have been "no hurry". Nigel, well, he wasn't ever in danger of that. He's wasn't going to have been in the governing party whoever won in 2015. His objective was to get the referendum; I doubt lifting a finger to make Brexit work was ever part of his reckoning.

However, I think Gove and minor lights such as Bill Cash should have been included in the Brexit chain gang.

"scrutinise applications for work in NI with a microscope."

Back in the late '60s when I went to work in N. Ireland there were employment restrictions for non-NI UK citizens. I wasn't aware of the details as my employer handled that.

Re: Simple is best

"http://smallurl.co/fXjiV"

That reminded me of the aftermath of an election many years ago. As usual nobody could be bothered to take down election posters. There were a fair number of DUP posters along my normal commuting route. As ever the pigments faded at different rates. Paisley senior ended up with a green face.

Re: Challenge to the commentariat

"This has to work (for some value of work) and it is the administrative detail - layers of it - that will determine the extent to which it works."

And it's down to those who thought it could work to make it work. Why should everyone who's said it couldn't - and still say it can't - be expected to waste their time (which is how they'll see it) trying to do what they consider impossible.

So there's no getting rid of Johnny Foreigner. The Leave voters are going to be really chuffed about that. And, as they're the ones tasked with doing the work, the Leave campaigners are going to be the ones who have to tell them.

UK.gov depts in post-Mad Frankie Maude landgrab over IT spending controls

"The Department for Work and Pensions alone was given the green light for £200m in IT spending in the last quarter of 2015, twice the amount it was granted in the same period in 2014."

I'm sure they'll manage to spend it. Whether we see anything in return is a different matter.

Beauty site lets anyone read customers' personal information

Maybe they should get a different QA

FTFY

Microsoft promises free terrible coffee every month you use Edge

Re: Fuck off MS (Marketing Sluts)

"so if one supermarket offers me green stamps"

I didn't know they were still a thing. Haven't seen them since the 70s or was it the late '60s? I had a couple of full books when they pulled out :(

Re: Edge?

"I'm amazed that techy people waste so much time worrying about whether they can remove software that isn't doing their machine any harm and that they can simply choose not to use."

Well, that outs you as a non-techy. Not that we had any illusions.

Re: Edge?

"They won't even let you remove Edge from the add/remove programs utility, like it is essential to the OS being able to run or something."

I wonder what EU competition regulators will make of that. They didn't like it when MS pulled that trick with IE.

Re: Wrong data

Interesting posting history you have there, jr. Registered 2 days, 39 posts and every single one in support of Microsoft. We notice that sort of thing here.

Re: outlook.com is fine

"There is no other email system in the world where you can do things like find an email from 8 years ago with only a vague remembrance of the subject in 4 seconds."

No problem. Email saved locally in email client. Local search finds it, even without being online.

My headset is reading my mind and talking behind my back

Re: Yellow 'sunglasses'

"I had a pair in the 90's that prompted occasional ridicule (probably to hide jealousy)"

No, just plain ridicule.

Re: Yellow 'sunglasses'

"t's also why we have yellow streetlights"

I thought that we mostly used to have yellow street lights because sodium lights were more energy efficient than incandescents.

Re: sunnies after dark ?

"a rear-view mirror with a photo sensor that automagically dimmed an LCD layer over the mirror when lights behind me were too bright."

I have one. It only works so-so. I'd rather have a dipping lever as on all the other car's I've had.

Re: sunnies after dark ?

I'm in favour of covering the front and rear windows surrounds with corner-cube reflectors so that the offenders get a little of their own back.

Re: sunnies after dark ?

"AR coating is good to have anyway for a whole lot of reasons."

The only AR coated pair I had a soft focus effect. On close examination the coating was finely granulated. I've gone back to uncoated.

UK's mass-surveillance draft law grants spies incredible powers for no real reason – review

OK, who expected anything different?

Re: Oh really

"Maybe, just maybe, there are several thousand ordinary human beings much like ourselves in there"

Are you telling us they're imprisoned?

Re: Hiding messages is easy....

"Good encryption is hard."

That's why we have libraries.

Re: Poor sods.

"Only if something is spotted does a person start looking, and sooner or later they have to get a warrant."

Sooner or later? What's wrong with sooner? And from whom do they get the warrant; a senior officer or a politician? We should have due process of law. The fact that it's a principle that's over 8 centuries old (remember the hypocritical celebration of that last year) doesn't mean it should be out of date.

"believe me, They are not interested in Us. I went to a privileged university with some of Them."

If You went to a privileged university with some of Them it makes us (with a lower case u) less inclined to believe You.

Re: Business as usual

'As for what to do about a person "known" to the security services, that's is indeed a matter of resources, etc. '

If they're failing through lack of resources does it improve matters to spend more time trawling through the communications of innocent people?

Re: Business as usual

"Eh? Who killed Fusilier Lee Rigby? Who blew up three underground trains and a bus?"

The same as a number of other atrocities. Have you noticed that when they're identified they always turn out to have been known to the security services but somehow slipped through surveillance? What should we learn from that? Maybe they're doing surveillance wrong. If so doing more of the same isn't going to work.

Windows 10 Anniversary Update completely borks USB webcams. Yay.

Re: MS is in decline, but Linux will never replace it

"Mind coming back on and telling everyone who you work for, so that they can avoid you?"

I think we can all make a pretty good guess who they work for and in what capacity.

Microsoft can't tell North from South on Bing Maps

Just browsing across the UK map at the initial scale shows that quite a few places unlabelled including Horsham, Maidenhead, Wellingborough, Macclesfield, Huddersfield and Hebden Bridge.

"ncluding the women (There's a story there that I'm not going to get into right now)."

Pictures, or it didn't happen.

New UK trade deals would not compensate for loss of single market membership

"In July unemployment was down (after Brexit)"

I think this tells us all we need to know about the quality of your thinking.

Re: This what made Britain "great"..

"Farage ... Incidentally, what is his involvement in Brexit these days?"

To be fair, he doesn't need one. Getting and winning a referendum was his objective, wasn't it? Sorting out afterwards? SEP.

Re: Brexit...

"If the tories played fast and loose with this they will suffer at the ballot box next time around."

Well, it's now up to the Tory pro-Brexiteers to come up with some workable plans. If they fail to do so then they'll have to tell their own supporters that they gave it their best shot & it wouldn't work. Such a statement, coming from the Leavers themselves, would take an awful lot of heat out of the situation. May would be able to say that Leave had had their chance. In those circumstances it would be a brave political party who could campaign on a Leave ticket.

Irrespective of that I won't be voting for them as long as May is in charge - she brings too much baggage from her time as Home Sec.

Re: Er...

"a lot of things are agreed with other WTO members at EU level and those will need renegotiating."

That's OK, we've got BoJo to look after that.

Re: The big picture

"Anyone with a reasonably brain could do this, it doesn't take an engineer or scientist."

Have you read what the scientists are saying about the impact on British science?

Re: TTIP to the rescue?

"The BoE will act in the best interest of it's share holders and guaranteed that is not the tax payer."

From Wikipedia: "The Bank was privately owned by stockholders from its foundation in 1694 until nationalised in 1946."

Re: TTIP to the rescue?

"once it's published - then it's up to us to ratify it,"

It won't be published until the stitch-up's complete.

Re: Really ....

"it was not worse in 18c Britain."

No, the large-scale urbanisation that Mayhew described hadn't got going in the C18th, at least not to the same extent.