Posts by Doctor Syntax

Back online after 'catastrophic' attack, 4chan says it's too broke for good IT

So having run a service that failed to attract paying customers (advertisers) it blames those potential customers for staying away.

Google goes cold on Europe: Stops making smart thermostats for continental conditions

Not really, it's just Google doing what it's always done - dropping things when it can't be bothered to continue doing them any longer.

Re: Nest... the dumbest smart thing we have

"I really didn't have time to do any research"

Not much research needed, just one question: "Does it use somebody else's computer that I don't control?" Yes is a big no.

Re: Again

"I can't see that any UK government will pass such laws for those reasons."

Which is why so many UK voters voted against their own interests. Just stick it to the man (in Europe) without thinking that the man might be on your side.

Re: Again

"I look forward to their eventual demise."

Google or just Hive?

Windows isn't an OS, it's a bad habit that wants to become an addiction

Re: Buy a second HDD

" I used to like linux because it was fun tinkering with the system. Now I use Linux because it's no fun having to tinker with the system."

Nice one, Joe. It illustrates what happens to us as we get older, what happened to Windows as it got older and what happened to Linux as it matured.

Re: Price of windows

I've used LO to convert several book texts from Office format to PDF. None of the difficulties related to opening the docx files but to the way in which Word had been used -

tabs and spaces to lay out tables rather than tables,

tabs and spaces to put text beside images instead of wrapping rules,

large images allegedly cropped but just masked, bloating file size (unfortunately LO also does this).

Did I mention Comic Sans?

DARPA to 'radically' rev up mathematics research. Yes, with AI

Dear ChatGPT. Find a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem that will fit in a page margin.

Obviously wrong. The letter that appears twice in Raspberry is r.

What the **** did you put in that code? The client thinks it's a cyberattack

Re: Be careful where you type

You mean if you don't find any you add a few?

"multiple"

That's the key word. Everyone assumes they don't need to do it because someone else will.

AKA "If it's everybody's job it's nobody's job."

Trump’s 145% tariffs could KO tabletop game makers, other small biz, lawsuit claims

Re: Sue him directly.

Fair comment, Jou so please treat my OP as information. Even in the UK I'm not familiar with the Scottish system (we have 3 different systems: England & Wales, N Ireland which follows England & Wales; and Scotland). However the civil/criminal split is central to all of them and to the US.

I don't know about the US but in the UK privately prosecuting a criminal case is rare. We have had an ongoing scandal the Post Office doing that.

Congress has the power to impeach him - no doubt he's already given adequate grounds. They don't want the insurrection they suffered 4 years ago. If the pitchforks and torches are being waved outside the White House instead they may feel able to do that, especially if they feel their own majorities are being threatened.

Re: And next, prices will increase irrespective of tarrifs

Indeed. Imagine you run a manufacturing company in the US. The prices of competition have just been raised by tariffs, Do you;

1. Just increase production to the limit of your existing capacity?

2. Increase production as in 1 but also invest (borrowing as needed) in increasing capacity?

3. Increase production as in 1 and increase prices to match what the competition now has to charge, taking a profit for as long as the situation lasts?

Now imagine you're a customer of that company.

Re: Damn.

"Setting up a new small batches mould production line takes many months at best, a year or two at worst. "

And probably requires import of machines, components and/or raw materials that have to be imported and will now cost more because of tariffs. When you apply tariffs to supply lines you don't understand things will get very bad very, very quickly.

Re: Sue him directly.

To sue is to make a civil claim. That doesn't lead to imprisonment.

New APNIC director general steps up to steer the internet for 4 billion users

"make registries interesting again"

That sounds like a threat. Just boringly working would be ideal.

Build your own antisocial writing rig with DOS and a $2 USB key

Re: CP/M? What about p-System?

For distraction-free editing have you ever encountered UCSD Pascal p-System editor?

My early trajectory was punched cards > CP/M > p-System so p-System was by far the most sophisticated S/W I'd encountered and I still wonder how much of what we take for granted now was invented there.

The menu never occupied more than one line at the top of the screen (I can't remember whether there might have been an additional help line) similar, IIRC, to Visicalc and to the Informix tools. In the editor that would scroll off the top of the screen so that's one distraction removed.

There were a couple of switches for autoindent (what else did one need for editing Pascal source) and word wrap, turn the first off and the second on and it became the editor on which I wrote my witness statements - nothing fancy like spill-chuckers to distract.

On entering edit mode the current line split at the cursor with the existing text to the right being moved up to the margin to leave a gap into which to type - far less distracting than having to type right up against the existing text. When the existing gap was used up it was extended to the end of the line by moving the existing text to the right to the next line. IIRC it would eventually clear the lower half of the screen so you were always typing into clear space.

On exiting edit mode the gap closed up and the menu line returned to the top of the screen. Until then, without the looming presence of the next text, it was as close as could be got to typing on a clean sheet of paper.

Re: Kernit can handle external communication

"I used to live on Kermit, for a time, back when 1200 baud was cutting edge."

In the days of glass TTYs for a while, as a bodyshopee I lived on Kermit running on a luggable with the usual tiny screen although at least it was 9600. For a long time I was quite happy with multiple small terminal emulators running under Windows or X11. Only since my eyesight has started to deteriorate do I need something bigger (on which subject could I enter my plea for el Reg to make the font in the editing box bigger - pretty please?).

If you can provide something that pretends to be a serial link Kernit can handle external communication including file transfer.

Amid CVE funding fumble, 'we were mushrooms, kept in the dark,' says board member

Re: Move it to Europe

On second thoughts, staying in Washington state puts them closer to the source of many CVEs so maybe it's more convenient.

Re: Move it to Europe

Risc-V would be a suitable example. The RISC-V Foundation moved to Europe (Switzerland in their case) because of fears of being subject to US regulations.

New Intel boss is all about ‘deleveraging’ the x86 giant

Re: De-laborating

I he doesn't who does?

Especially given that if there hadn't been a de-laborating of the wrong person a few months ago he wouldn't be where he is now.

Re: De-laborating.

When defenestrating opening windows are optional but it helps to have a glazier on speed-dial.

Re: Support Staff & False Cost-Savings

"The unfortunate thing is that companies don't ever know who their most valuable employees are. "

It's easy to find out. Stir up shit like this, offer voluntary redundancies and see who the first volunteers are.

Re: De-laborating.

"What is wrong with de-laborizing?"

It's not as impressive as de-laborizating.

Re: 108K+ employees?

Would like to have been able to give a second upvote for the last paragraph.

Re: Just fuck off.

Didn't you read OP's handle?

Signalgate lessons learned: If creating a culture of security is the goal, America is screwed

Re: "an insecure internet connection set up in his office"

If Trump were capable of it - which I'm sure he's not - he would be feeling at least a little embarrassed.

Re: Who is to blame?

He missed https://xkcd.com/538/

AI-driven 20-ft robots coming for construction workers' jobs

"... and here we have the living room. It comes complete with a 20 foot robot which walled itself into the room when it put the door lintel in place."

Hydrotreated vegetable oil is not an emission-free swap for diesel in datacenters

"Buss advised operators to consider other types of redundant power generation, such as smaller gas turbines, hydrogen fuel cells or large-scale chemical batteries."

How do these compare in overall fossil carbon footprint?

M&S stops online orders as 'cyber incident' issues worsen

I wonder if there was someone in M&S IT last weekend trying to get manglement to let him shut down everything there and then to stop the problem spreading...

I wonder how many of their customer still carry cash.

BOFH: The Prints of Darkness pays a visit

I'm surprised the BOFH would let the cartridges go - after all there must be a market for them.

Re: A simple question.

When are you scheduling the next refresh? A couple of years' time?

Re: Familiar!

"Or am I missing something?"

Either the small print or (unlike the leasing company's salesweasel) a not very bright manager in the company.

Re: Loved that lift.

What I want to know is were the chairs occupied when they were disposed of?

Re: Sheer genius!!

More likely to have a saltwater croc.

Re: Sheer genius!!

More likely in the printer contracts that can't be are hard to cancel.

Microsoft mystery folder fix might need a fix of its own

Re: Quality control - yes we’ve heard of it

If the cost of extending support is cheaper than replacing, expect them to sign up, especially if they're inthe US & are now going to be caned over tariffs.

"This one weird trick"

Just one? The whole of Windows is weird.

Re: Patching the Dumbai way...

Maybe it's what ChatGPT advised.

Hubble Space Telescope is still producing science at 35

That may be possible but there will be a limit on the resolving power of the optics. If the current CCDs meet that criterion then there wouldn't be any point.

Techie diagnosed hardware fault by checking customer's coffee

Re: Extensions to extensions to extensions

Long, long ago my University hall of residence had a large dance hall (it had originally been built as an hotel) and our 3-weekly hops (that dates it) were part of the social life of a good chunk of the south London student population. We had a home made lighting control panel that was powered from wall sockets; we weren't daft - sections of it were powered from different sockets. It had a number of switched circuits with a 2-pin socket across each switch. We had a few dimmers which could be plugged ino the sockets - switch on, light, switch off, no dimmer, no light, switch off and dimmer, light controlled by dimmer. One day a friend looking out of his window say a roll of cable fall off the back of a passing lorry (yes, really, the A23 was a busy road) and ran down to grab it. That gave us extra scope for our arrangements....

Back then musicians were all a bit low key but I heard that after I left one of the new lot with lots of flashing lights & what not were booked and blew the whole thing. The College electrician condemned the lot and had a professional lighting setiup installed, something that would never have happened otherwise.

It was a much better place than the dreary newer halls but now it's been flogged off and replaced by a block of flats on the same footprint, Bloody philistines in the College management.

Re: Never heard of Romex cables?

"In the UK it is rare for a domestic property to have 3-phase"

Unfortunately there's one just down the road. Back in late 2020 we had one of our regular power failures. Two phases of the main cable (buried no more than a foot or so below the surface because nobody wanted to trench into solid rock) started arcing - the vibrations could be felt standing on the spot.

They also damaged the gas main in the same shallow trench. I discovered that because I could smell gas coming up through the drain about 100 metres further up.

The electricity team wouldn't start work unto the gas was made safe and the gas wouldn't start without temporary traffic lights (the spakies weren't fussed about that). The transport bringing the TTLs broke down and by the time replacements arrived it was starting to get dark, 6 hours after the initial 10.am fault.

The electricity people had a temporary generator but it was only single phase. They were going to strap all the phases together on our side of the fault but couldn't because of the house with the 3-phse supply; the owners were away so they couldn't get in to turn it off. It was finally fixed about 3 am.

Re: dirty power

Yes. Back when there were political strikes in N Ireland the lab was close to a hospital & the power stayed on. Home was reasonably close to the major army base in Lisburn - also no power cuts.

Re: Also power-supply related

Been there, back in the 1980s. It was the same device it was a stabilised PSU but produced a huge spike to strike the arc. Same solution,

AFAICR the non-stabilised ones on the routine comparison microscopes were much more well behaved.

Claims assistance firm fined for cold-calling people who put themselves on opt-out list

It really shouldn't have needed much investigation - claims assistance firm therefore guilty as charged.

Re: What a surprise... oh wait... it's not

More likely ban directors from holding directorships in the future.

SSNs and more on 5.5M+ patients feared stolen from Yale Health

You'd have thought Yale would have been properly locked down.