Posts by Just Enough

Everyone back to the office! Why? Because the decision has been made

Re: Genius

Steampunk is modelled on technology at least a century too late for JRM. The guy really has a fetish for pre-industrial life. The landed-gentry part, of course.

Other pedantry; what is up with Dabbs' spelling of "Worst Neighbor" ?

Microsoft sounds the alarm on – wait for it – a Linux botnet

Re: Dear Microsoft.

Pathetic "whataboutism". Defence against things like DDOS attacks requires all agents sharing information. No one is immune or blameless. Finger-pointing like five year olds at school doesn't help anyone.

Tech pros warn EU 'data adequacy' at risk if Brexit Britain goes its own way

Re: Too late

"Given the UK has historically provided plenty of protections and has secured multiple trade deals I fear I must disagree strongly with your deeply pessimistic view."

And the history of the current Government? One that they can be trusted to abide by? Anyone can secure a trade deal. A *good* trade agreement (and I mean good for the country, not for Tory interests) is a different matter.

"You haven't incidentally provided any references to the UK failing to meet its own treaties. There are sadly many for the EU and its members failing to meet its - e.g. allowing Greece into the Euro"

The UK were among those members. So you've just contradicted yourself.

No, I've not read the screen. Your software must be rubbish

What error message?

I don't know how often I've seen this happen. User complains something isn't working, and when asked what the error message is, haven't a clue. It's not even registering with them that an error message is appearing, far less taking note of what it says and doing something about it. It just isn't working and IT support is clairvoyant and will know what the problem is.

Then once you stop them ignoring the error message, they say "Oh that. It's being doing that for months, I just click on it and it disappears." Like that fixes it.

Crypto outfit Qubit appeals to the honour of thieves who lifted $80M of its digi-dollars

Re: As someone who understand blockchain ...

Let me guess. You have "invested" in bitcoins and, like everyone else shilling for it, have an interest in sucking further suckers into the giant ponzi scheme ?

The Register speaks to one of the designers behind the latest Lego Ideas marvel: A clockwork solar system

Rubbish

It's rubbish. Totally not to scale. The arms for the outer planets should be several hundred metres long and the sun should be a giant beachball.

I want My nephew wants one.

Activist raided by police after downloading London property firm's 'confidential' meeting minutes from Google Search

Re: Loss of income? Inconvenience?

"the police appear to have done everything correct here."

Is it not usual practice to investigate before arresting? They could have even asked him what happened as part of their investigation. I think he'd would have happily helped.

Otherwise, what's stopping anyone naming a culprit on zero evidence and getting them arrested?

NASA warns Mars: We're about to laser your rocks and start stealing them

Re: New Reg Standard Required

"a piece of chalk"

A reference there for the kids. It's a little less than the diameter of a thruppence, and the length of an airwarden's whistle.

Microsoft solicits Clippy comeback – later reveals it had already decided to bring back the peppy paperclip

Clippy says..

"It looks like you are writing a publicity stunt for what you hope is a slow news day. Would you like some help with that?"

Dominic Cummings: Health secretary's 'stupid' targets delayed building UK test and trace system to combat COVID

Usual pointing out of basic factual errors on Register's NHS coverage

"delayed building UK England test and trace system"

"appointed to lead the NHS England Test and Trace service"

"The UK’s England's test and trace system eventually launched in May."

UK government opens vaccine floodgates to over-45s, NHS website predictably falls over

NHS England <> "The UK's National Health Service"

As usual on The Register, it needs to be pointed out that NHS England <> "The UK's National Health Service"

You would have hoped by now that The Register journalists would have got the message that the NHS in the UK is not a single entity and each country of the UK is handling COVID vaccinations differently. But apparently not.

Facebook says dump of 533m accounts is old news. But my date of birth, name, etc haven't changed in years, Zuck

None of their business

Never, ever, use your real date of birth. Not unless it's something like your bank where it may be a legal requirement. Other websites are only interested in me "proving" I'm an adult. Or rather, covering themselves if it turns out I'm not an adult.

The only possible downside to using a fake date of birth would be if they later ask you to verify your identity, by giving your date of birth. Then you'd need to remember what you said.

Facebook wants it to profile you for targeted ads, and also reminding all your Facebook "friends" something that is obviously not worth remembering themselves. I can live without both.

Ministry of Defence tells contractors not to answer certain UK census questions over security fears

Re: Without being too picky...

And is also unlikely to cover those whose work is based at G84 8HL.

Leaked memo suggests LG is thinking about quitting the smartphone biz in 2021

Best phone I've had in the last 20 years

My current phone is an LG. It's the second LG I've owned and the best phone I've had in the last 20 years. Solid, dependable, does everything I need. It's well past time I'd usually upgrade, but right now I can't think of any reason to. And the thought of switching to the bloatware circus that is Samsung doesn't appeal at all.

Mark Zuckerberg, 36, decides that having people on his website deny the deaths of six million Jews is a bad thing

Re: One year consultation?

So when she co-founded the Theatre of Black Women, she wasn't thinking of herself as a Black Woman? In 2014, when she was the keynote speaker at the Black British Womens’ Writing Conference, it was not because she was a Black British Woman Writer? When she was the keynote speaker at the Black Arts in Britain Conference in 2010, it wasn't as a representative of Black Arts in Britain?

When she lists all these things on her own website, it's not because she wants to be identified with any of this?

What's disgusting is you thinking you get to decide what she is, on her behalf, erasing what is clearly of significant importance to her.

Re: One year consultation?

Bernardine Evaristo is the first black woman and first black Briton to win the Booker prize. The book she won it for is mostly about the lives of black women. She founded the Brunel University African Poetry Prize and the Theatre of Black Women. She organised the Afro Style School for poets of colour. Being black and British seems pretty fundamental to her identity and her work.

Would you rather The Times had ignored all this?

Oracle hosting TikTok US data. '25,000' moderators hired. Code reviews. Trump getting his cut... It's the season finale

Key fact missing

The most important detail is missing from this report.

Will TikTok users still be allowed to be mean to little Donnie?

Let's face it, this is what this is all about. Trump hadn't heard of TikTok until it helped messing up one of his rallies. He did not care if it was spying on its users. He gives not a jot about security concerns. But it made him look silly, and Trump never forgets when someone hurts his delicate ego.

UK govt reboots A Level exam results after computer-driven fiasco: Now teacher-predicted grades will be used after all

Re: Teachers know a lot more than government ministers

There a fair amount of irony to be seen in someone who went to a private public school, with lots of fancy facilities, complaining about "special" arrangements obtained through wealth.

ZX Spectrum reboot promising – steady now – 28MHz of sizzling Speccy speed now boasts improved Wi-Fi

Get an emulator

These retro computers mystify me. Sure, they'd be fun for about an hour of nostalgia. But after that, what have you got? A £300 computer with a tiny, tiny fraction of the capabilities of your mobile phone.

And the nostalgia is always bitter sweet. It's never as good as you seem to remember it.

Get an emulator, run it on the computer you have.

What are you gonna do? Give me detention? Illinois schools ban pyjamas in online classes

August

"British pupils look like they will be returning to school in September"

British kids are already returning to school, in August. Because they're not all English.

With this Uber get-to-work-safe app, you are really spoiling us, ServiceNow

"On the move"

I've had the misfortune to work with Service Now databases. They're a turgid swamp that don't follow any database design principles.

If that's "defining enterprise software", then god help us.

Apple's at it again: Things go pear-shaped for meal planner app after iGiant opposes logo

"everything, everywhere" trademark

"trademark infringement does not require being a competitor of the brand"

Yes it does. No-one gets a "everything, everywhere" trademark. For it to be an infringement they have to demonstrate that the infringer is competing in the same market, so that consumers may be confused/deceived.

Ever wonder how a pentest turns into felony charges? Coalfire duo explain Iowa courthouse arrest debacle

Re: "the team said the plod were actually rather cordial"

"There's no definite article when referring to Plod and the word is capitalised because it's a proper noun"

Wrong and wrong. Two minutes googling would show you that "The plod" is equally and frequently used.

Dutch Gateway store was kept udder wraps for centuries until refit dug up computing history

Their Europe HQ was definitely Dublin.

I owned a couple in my time. They had the advantage of being a notch above the average business PC clone, without a ridiculous corporate mark-up in price. Nicely put together too.

UK's NCSC reveals Premier League footie clubs to be ripe pickings for cybercrooks: One almost lost £1m to BEC attack

EPL

EPL Football, you mean.

Just because the clubs there have sold their souls to multi-millionaires doesn't mean the rest of football is awash with money.

Microsoft accused of sharing data of Office 365 business subscribers with Facebook and its app devs

Non-denial

"we’re confident that our use of customer data is consistent with the instructions of our customers and our contractual commitments."

I've searched carefully, but I can't find the bit where they say they do not share their data with Facebook. Am I missing it somewhere?

Road trip on Mars: Thrill as Curiosity rover races up to 0.06 miles per hour. Marvel as it takes a mile-long detour

Re: Flat Mars-ers

Conspiracy theories appeal to a certain type of person, who generally consumes them all. So you can't really split them into separate groups. They all overlap almost entirely.

Someone must be bricking it: UK govt website for first-time home buyers snapped up for £40,000 after left to expire

404

No you haven't.

Only true boffins will be able to grasp Blighty's new legal definitions of the humble metre and kilogram

Re: Only true boffins...

I don't care much if they don't understand it. Just as long as they have taken guidance from those qualified to understand it. MPs cannot be expected to be experts in all fields.

It's once they start to reckon they know it all and "have had enough with experts" that the trouble starts.

Hey Mister Prime Minister ... Scott! Can you get off my lawn please, mate?

No room for him though

"choicer words if they found Boris Johnson wrangling the press on their property"

I would ask him what he was doing there, when the fridge was inside.

Spending watchdog doubts UK is capable of managing Brexit and coronavirus info campaigns at the same time

Re: It's obvious....

I can't imagine why Boris & Dom would want to delay. They, and their backers, are gagging for Brexit chaos because it'll provide cover for no end of "adjustments" to laws to suit themselves. Tweak to tax legislation here, little snip to employment rights there.. .. Just temporary, you understand, until everything is stable again. It's very important that millionaire investors are confident they can still make money, and equally important that workers work harder. Sacrifices have to be made for the good of the country.

However, you are right about Dom spinning it to their followers. If they'll buy "checking my eyesight", they'll buy any old bullshit.

Combined

The information campaigns will be combined. because COVID19 will provide the perfect cover for all Brexit related disasters.

Things going badly - blame COVID19 regardless.

Things not going badly - credit Brexit regardless.

The end really is nigh – for 32-bit Windows 10 on new PCs

Re: Linux desktop for decades

In what way is this relevant?

Microsoft doc formats are the bane of office suites on Linux, SoftMaker's Office 2021 beta may have a solution

Re: Trust Office

"your file is triggering virus warnings for some odd reason"

Sure. Lie to your customers that they may have an undetected virus infection. That's helpful and professional

NHS contact-tracing app is best in the world, says VMware CEO... whose company helped build it

Re: 80%

Yes. Let's give Facebook a justification for their current tracking and an excuse for expanding it. That couldn't possibly be abused in the future because of their past rigorous record of observing personal privacy and data regulations.

If there is one organisation I'm less likely to permit tracking me than the Government, it's Facebook.

Apple owes us big time for bungled display-killing cable design in MacBook Pro kit, lawsuit claims

Even those guys knew

"so common that Apple Genius Bar technicians were easily able to diagnose the cause"

Wait. I thought those guys were supposed to be geniuses? So it wouldn't matter if it was common, those geniuses would easily diagnose it.

Tinfoil hat brigade switches brand allegiance to bog paper

Re: The The

One of those band names created before web searches were given any consideration.

US prez Donald Trump declares America closed to those flying in from Schengen zone over coronavirus woes

Re: Hmm

That right, because only a stupid decision could make a previous stupid decision seem sensible.

What's inside a tech freelancer's backpack? That's right, EVERYTHING

Meeting Time : 1830 A.D.

Meeting notes on paper? Written with a pen? No mention of an ink well, or blotter. And who's topping up the oil lamp and putting coal on the fire?

Oracle staff say Larry Ellison's fundraiser for Trump is against 'company ethics' – Oracle, ethics... what dimension have we fallen into?

You have no ground to ask them not to do it, as a person on the internet, since they are doing this in their own time, using their own funds.

Hey GitLab, the 1970s called and want their sexism back: Saleswomen told to wear short skirts, heels and 'step it up'

Still missing it.

And you seemed to have completely missed my point.

"only hiring attractive women"

I am offended by your assumption that there is a universal measure of attractiveness. What what you, I, any of GitLab's customers, or their interviewers, might consider attractive differs. It is therefore impossible to make it a basis of a selection process. You are insulting all those alternatively-attractive, because they don't conform to your received norm of attractiveness. Please withdraw this statement immediately.

You've also managed to insult every existing GitLab saleperson by suggesting that they were hired based on their appearance and not on their sales acumen. Please withdraw this statement immediately.

Avoiding possibly insulting someone is hard if people are going to pick apart your every word, and decided they're going to be offended on someone else's behalf, isn't it?

Re: bah, humbug, and it's the 60s, not the 70s.

There comes a point in any email where you have to stop worrying who you might be inadvertently excluding. If you're non-binary, should you feel offended by not being mentioned or considered in this email? Well not any more than amputees, both those without fingers and/or feet, those with a high tolerance for heat, those suffering hot flushes, those with a phobia about emails, those who do not drink alcohol, those who have strict dietary restriction that make social functions a minefield, those socially anxious who hate functions, those who are house bound and cannot attend, and those who must return to their kidney dialysis on Tuesday evenings. All of these individuals are totally ignored, without a second's consideration, by this email.

All these people are different from most others. They know they are different. Sometimes that sucks. But they don't demand that the rest of us must forever look out for instances where we are not acknowledging they are different. Otherwise it would become almost impossible to say/write anything without constant caveats and qualifications.

Please note that when I write "say", I mean to communicate in some form, and am in no way excluding those of the mute community or those who, through personal belief, choose to not speak. And when I write "write", it is not my intent to exclude those who are illiterate.

You want a Y2K crash? FINE! Here's a poorly computer

Same as Audits

It's the same story as IT audits. Make sure there's something obvious for the auditors to find, and report on. Preferably something you've already told your boss about months ago. If the auditors don't find something to report, they're liable to inflate something irrelevant into an issue that they can report on. The last thing they want is to have nothing to report on, and nothing to justify their fees.

However, I'd hate anyone to think that this tale is just another example of Y2K panic where nothing happened. Nothing happened because a lot of time and effort went into ensuring it didn't.

Android owners – you'll want to get these latest security patches, especially for this nasty Bluetooth hijack flaw

Re: Have they started to employ Microsoft staff or what?

Yeah. The fanboy crowing that always follows discoveries like this is irritating noise.

No-matter what OS you worship, it is not immune to hacks and exploits. So the partisan jeering when one is found in another is rather pathetic.

Oh ****... Sudo has a 'make anyone root' bug that needs to be patched – if you're unlucky enough to enable pwfeedback

Re: I wonder what Phil Collins thinks...

Well, he's had 35 years to think about it, after this joke was first cracked. He must have a killer of a response by now.

They can't collect your bins or fix your roads. They let Google stalk visitors to their websites. Yes, it's UK local government

Re: Worse than I thought

Use a script blocker. Globally block, as a matter of course, the google and facebook scripts running on all websites. Otherwise you may as well be browsing with them peering over your shoulder, taking notes.

Ten years ago, people would have reckoned your tinfoil hat was on if you did this. But their presence and surveillance all over the internet is insidious.

Yahoo! hack! payout! nearly! approved! and! the! question! is! how! to! spend! 60! cents!?

"they promised to honour all of their existing accounts for life."

If if there's one thing you can depend on... it's a "for life" promise from a company!

UN didn't patch SharePoint, got mega-hacked, covered it up, kept most staff in the dark, finally forced to admit it

Not what happened

"blame the users for not doing their security training"

Where's it say they did that? The reference to the lack of security training was from a 2018 audit, before the hack, and is a perfectly legitimate point for a security audit to make, among a number of others.

"Why am I not surprised?"

Because you didn't read what was said or didn't follow it.