Posts by Phil Koenig

Windows Update is a torture chamber for seldom-used PCs

Re: Security updates for unwanted features

There would be far fewer updates if they made all the new "features" of Windows opt-in rather than forcing them onto you by default...

The 'features' will continue to be forced down everyones throat until they change their business model from "User as product" Google/Meta style, back to the traditional "fee for service" model. (Which I'm told will happen on the Twelfth of Never..)

The only place that still exists in MS-world is in the corporate IT realm, where you pay real money every year for things like Windows Enterprise and server products. Windows Enterprise gives organizations the ability to neuter a lot of that stuff.

For the average non-corporate Windows instance, the free "ShutUp 10++" utility by O&O software has been my go-to for years.

The problem in this case, as "Dr Syntax" notes - is that if the OS has updated the app that was running at the time of the OS update, you can no longer use those hibernation images because the app is not the same as it was before the OS updates started.

If the open apps are 3rd-party apps, then that would not be a concern.

My still supported Mac Mini 2018 running Sequoia these days seems to take at least 3-4 restarts before it's done with a periodic update. (For this device now those are just security patches, no new features or anything like that)

Not a huge deal because it does not generally require user interaction in the middle of that process but not quiiiite as quick and simple as some are claiming.

(Pretty sure Apple also bundles firmware updates into some of those OS updates, so unlike PC machines that's not a separate task. A nicety of having only one hardware manufacturer. No GPU driver updates either because it's all bundled with the OS unless you're one of the few people using a eGPU.)

Google Chrome lacks protection against one of the most basic and common ways to track users online

Re: Does anyone else remember being able to turn off JavaScript and still have a working browser?

Lot's of us turned it off by default.

Try doing that now.

You obviously don't realize it or you would not have made this comment - but this is one of the best things that smartphones did for the WWW in general: push web developers into finally adopting "Responsive website design" that adapts to the user-agent and provides a usable display of page content whether the user is using a 30" desktop monitor or a 4" smartphone display.

And the nice little "stowaway" on that is that Responsive Design ALSO dictates that a user-agent must be able to display at least basic content whether or not it runs javascript or not.

So in fact, MANY websites these days will display a large proportion of their content with no JS at all on the browser. The BBC for example works great with no JS enabled.

So in fact, despite the best efforts of the tech tycoons in THIS particular area, smartphones actually helped make the WWW safe for JS-free browsing again. In fact more like what Tim Berners-Lee's original concept for the WWW was - at least for that little part of it. (To be sure, in every other respect it's worse now)

"A feature, not a bug". [Google]

If you ever hear Google crowing about doing something to protect your privacy, what that actually means is that at the same time, they secretly added 3 NEW things that destroy your privacy.

When it was obvious a few years ago that web users had gotten wise to the privacy depredations of browser cookies/local storage and enterprising coders had created handy tools to neuter that snooping, Google "changed course".

Out of the blue, they declared: "3rd-party cookies are so bad and so yesterday, we shall eliminate support for them entirely!'

But at the exact same time, they created NEW privacy threats. First in the form of "FLoC" - "Federated Learning of Cohorts" - which was basically just a new way to snoop that wasn't called "cookies".

But the techies and civil libertarians were not impressed, and a chorus of criticism arose from the ranks about this new privacy threat. Less than a year after "FLoC" was rolled-out, it was dead.

Undaunted, Google then took aim at content-blocking browser extensions, and declared that they will "improve" the extension manifest API to "Increase everyone's privacy and security!~!"

But of course Manifest v3 mostly just made it very difficult to engineer content-blockers designed to recover some kind of privacy online.

Nowadays, Google's Android OS users are being told that the reason that they are making life hell for those who try to opt-out of Google's android snooping tools and customize their devices to maintain a shred of privacy, is in fact to "Improve their security".

Oh, thank you! Sound familiar?

In reality, it's a ploy to try to maintain their app store monopoly in the face of worldwide demands to "open up" the mobile app stores of Apple and Google.

At least they're consistent...

Senator blasts Microsoft for 'dangerous, insecure software' that helped pwn US hospitals

Re: He is right!

For Microsoft, "backwards compatibility" is literally THE thing that keeps Windows in the dominant market position it is in.

WIthout that, the platform would be vulnerable to - SHOCK - competitors impinging on its formidable grip on the desktop computing industry.

So I suspect that is actually "Job #1" at Microsoft.

Which is also why there is little to no significant OS innovation any more on any of the entrenched major OS platforms: as "mass consumer products" these days, any major architectural changes would be like swapping the places of the brake and accelerator pedals in a motor vehicle: the masses would revolt and the platform vendors would have to immediately switch them back.

Re: "needlessly exposes its customers to ransomware and other cyber threats."

If you think Wyden is bad you should take a look at the rest of the members of the US Congress sometime.

He's actually one of the best ones when it comes to technology.

You probably think I'm joking...

Long live the nub: ThinkPad designer David Hill spills secrets, designs that never made it

There's no home, end, pgup or pgdown, something which other manufacturers have done away with too, but Lenovo stick with because they're essential if you edit text and actually want to do it quickly.

There's also no delete button - you need a two-key combo to do that.

When it comes to text entry, it's been clear to me for years that Apple really doesn't care much about text entry. They make some pretensions to it, and then bodge it up every time.

And that's from someone that happens to be typing this on a Mac right now. But I use them with 3rd-party keyboards and pointing devices that have more than one button, including devices which have their own "nub". (Whereas you can "emulate" a PgUp/PgDwn action with keyboard remapping tools on the Apple keyboards, but still can't fix the OS's handling of that. If you're at the top of a document and you use "page down", it will duly do what appears to be a "page down", but the moment you use the pointing device to touch the page at that point it will often FLIP BACK to the previous page position. UGH.

Re: While I love my thinkpad, I really can't use the nub

I have never owned a Thinkpad - and I have had a LOT of them - that had the combo Trackpoint/Trackpad where you could not separate disable the trackpad if you wanted.

Maybe I have been hallucinating..

Re: While I love my thinkpad, I really can't use the nub

I suspect it's one of those things that is just a little less intuitive and is mainly loved by those who have used it for years and have the muscle memory to drive it properly.

Not at all.

The problem with trackpads is you have to 1) take your fingertips away from the keyboard home keys to move the mouse cursor, and then when you need to type again, take them off the trackpad and move them back to the keyboard, and 2) you have to keep "stroking the pad" and constantly re-positioning your fingers on it to move it where you want it, especially if you need to move it to the other end of the screen.

Whereas the Trackpoint is pressure-sensitive: the harder you push it the faster it goes, and there is no need to keep "stroking" and re-positioning your hand constantly to put the pointer where you want, including all the way across the visible screen area. (Which I find very annoying, esp combined with how I have to keep moving my hands back/forth, back/forth between keyboard and pad)

But of course everyone has their preferences, and the great thing about the Thinkpads is that you have both choices available to you whenever you want. I think trackpads can be more useful for trying to "draw" lines as if you had a drawing tablet. That can be harder to do on a trackpoint or a smartphone because you cannot as easily move your hand back to a "static known position", eg when trying to draw a circle.

US sends 33,000 smart 'strike kits' to make Ukrainian drones even deadlier

Re: Unstoppable?

Stating that conventional weapons are capable of killing 'non-targets' and THIS autonomous weapon is 'no worse' does not make this weapon Good/desirable !!!

I never wrote ANYTHING about "non-targets".

I made 2 points:

1) For a FIXED/STATIC TARGET like a building used for offensive military activities, it is not actually "rocket science" to create a weapon which has the ability to navigate to a target fairly accurately without requiring continuous active remote guidance all the way to the target. Both the West and the USSR were producing cruise missiles like this since the 1970s. Ukraine fired some of their leftover inventory of them at Moscow a few times (they were originally designed as surveillance drones, but Ukraine converted them to carry explosives):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-141

These devices use navigation tech which does not rely on easily-jammed tech like GPS or wireless remote control, and can be programmed at launch time with a known, static target..

So in fact, a modern drone that uses these old tactics to evade adversary jamming by being quasi-autonomous during the final approach to a target is really not a heck of a lot different than military missiles that have been deployed since the height of the Cold War, in terms of "autonomy".

2) Where things get dicey is when you develop an autonomous attack drone which can autonomously PICK a target to attack while it's in the air. That's where you cross the rubicon into "robot warfare" and all sorts of ethical issues come up, because in such a case you are actually delegating the executive decision on WHAT to target to basically a robot.

There's no need for Ukraine to deploy something like the latter just to evade jamming by their adversary.

Re: Unstoppable?

The possibility of killing people who not involved in the conflict--or even killing people allied to your cause--is very real.

In case you haven't noticed, already many thousands of civilians and other non-combatants have already been killed in this war, only a small fraction of those due to drone activity. (And most of that was non-autonomous drone activity)

So in that respect, assuming that the target location was correctly identified and the drone has ways of finding it accurately despite jamming attempts (including inertial navigation, terrain-following, optical seekers, heat seekers and so on), then the accuracy or lack thereof is not any different than most other existing weapons including laser-guided missiles and bombs fired from aircraft by human pilots.

I do agree that when warefare gets to the point where it is becoming increasingly dependent on some level of autonomy on the part of the killing machines, we are potentially opening another Pandora's Box.

Especially in dynamic target situations where you are not targeting a static physical site with a known location like an ammunition dump, but a flying object or other moving object that the autonomous aircraft has to accurately identify and target.

Ukrainian hackers claim to have destroyed major Russian drone maker's entire network

Re: Gone back far enough?

The russian love fest continues from JE. Sure you are not Serb? You post as one.

I only come to read TheReg very infrequently.

But every single time I read some of the article comments he is there shilling for the Kremlin again.

And he must be the only person in the entire West that actually uses the Kremlin's preferred (and idiotic) propaganda name for the war. ("SMO" - "Special Military Operation")

You know, the one that where they had planned to de-capitate the UA leadership within a few days of invading the country. LOL. The fact that Zelensky is still alive and hasn't yet fallen "mysteriously" out of a high-rise window must be Putin's #1 obsession these days.

Windows 11 is a minefield of micro-aggressions in the shipping lane of progress

Then stop being the "Product"

Microsoft essentially stopped charging money for non-enterprise Windows licenses outside of the small amount they get from hardware bundlers.

If we want Microsoft to stop trying to follow Google/Meta down the path of "User as Product", then the product has to have an actual revenue stream that pays for its upkeep, instead of relying on conversion to other products, advertising revenue and the monetizing of personal data.

But companies like Google/Meta have successfully goaded people into the infantile belief that all services and software are "free", as long as everyone is willing to make that deal with the devil and become the "product" themselves.

Unfortunately I don't see any antidote to that mind virus on the horizon yet. The zombie army numbers in the billions now.

Google backs down after locking out Nextcloud Files app

Google and "breaking old stuff"

Google has a long history of removing useful functionality in Android with apparently little to no community input, using the figleaf of "technology must move on".

But when you analyze such moves, you often find that many of them were part of a 12+ year effort to systematically move core functionality out of the original, open-source AOSP codebase, and stick it into various close-source Google things (GMS, Google Play frameworks, and various other proprietary apps and services like Gdrive, Chrome, etc), conveniently armtwisting users to be dependent on Google's proprietary, closed parts instead, and further entrenching their market power.

Many of the features that were removed were used by "power users", and Google could have provided some way for such users to re-enable such functionality with perhaps some extra controls on them instead.

The fact that they rarely bother to do such things tells me how little they care about their users in reality, and that there is often a hidden corporate agenda at work instead, which looks nothing like their actual PR would suggest.

Boffins warn that AI paper mills are swamping science with garbage studies

Correlation is not necessarily Causation

I've been seeing simplistic so-called "studies" hitting the news for probably decades now, and it's getting worse and worse.

Cannot begin to count how many articles I've seen from so-called "reputable news organizations" that quote "studies" that claim things like "People whose home is within 5 metres of a gigantic industrial waste dump have high cortisol (stress) levels".

Well yes, neighborhoods that close to such facilities tend to be populated by people who cannot afford to llve somewhere more idyllic and constantly struggling to get by economically will definitely add to anyone's stress level..

I don't think we need "AI" to lower people's standards of strong science and factual integrity, but it certainly supercharges the never-ending supply of those who are always looking for shortcuts and sensationalistic claptrap that makes for eye-grabbing headlines.

Microsoft signed a dodgy driver and now ransomware scum are exploiting it

Re: Revole the certificate!

Are they trying to blackmail us into upgradjng or something?

How dare you suggest such a thing.

We now return you to your regular revoling tasks.

Ex-NSA grandee says Trump's staff cuts will 'devastate' America's national security

Re: Best Interests of the US

So you're saying if I cut your staff by 50%, remove the best and most skilled workers, eviscerate the budget, install an ignoramus political lackey as director who now prioritizes going after the Orange Troll's domestic political enemies rather than actually fighting and defending against the country's geopolitical adversaries and destroy the agency's overall morale in the process, such crippled organizations can magically rise above all that just by "working quietly"?

Please expand on this magical technique of yours.

Amazon, Meta, Google sign pledge to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050

Small modular reactors (SMRs)

What a dangerous joke of an idea that is.

Sounds like it was concocted by random TechBro's... oh wait: that's exactly who concocted it.

We cannot even consistently keep the current reactors safe with vast armies of engineers, technicians, analysts, safety regulators and administrators.

And these brainiacs want to put one on every streetcorner, presumably to be monitored by the guy whose main job is checking ID badges and cleaning the toilet???

CISA pen-tester says 100-strong red team binned after DOGE canceled contract

Re: What would Trump/Musk actually do differently if they were working for a foreign power?

Trump did actually say "I'm on the side of the world" recently. Maybe he meant it.

And we already know Musk is on Mars' side..

Billionaires have zero "national allegiance".

Their only true "allegiance" is to their money.

The world has no need for billionaires.

Re: Stolen Elections

Realistically, it's going to take weeks - if not months - before Trump's economic policies really start to take effect...

The impacts are already here. All those people who were shock-fired with zero notice will be chopping their expenditures, defaulting on monthly payments and loans, and the various businesses that did substantial business with the eviscerated agencies and their workers will have to either radically downsize themselves or just close down entirely. I've already seen reports of these things.

Re: New Orleans

New Orleans is darn near AT sea level...

Actually New Orleans is anywhere between 2 to 6 metres BELOW sea level. As the locals say: "It's like a big bowl".

They have pumps that have to constantly pump the water out of the city when it gets rainy there.

Of course, the pumps also have a habit of failing...

Sweden seizes cargo ship after another undersea cable hit in suspected sabotage

Make flags of convenience, inconvenient.

I'd suggest making the "Flag of Convenience" countries into Insurer of Last Resort for the ships they permit to sail under their flags. A hefty bill presented to the Central Bank of wherever might encourage more due diligence.

I like this idea a lot.

The shipping industry's corruption in this regard is getting very tiresome, especially in the current geopolitical climate.

That Magical Military Ship

a single military ship could just do that and nothing else

Please show me the magical ship that can continuously monitor every minute, 24 hours a day, every inch of a million miles of critical western undersea cables.

That would be one heck of a technical marvel.

Furthermore, if it really were the case that all these "incompetent ships" were constantly tearing up deep sea data cables, it would have been happening on a frequent basis for decades.

But it hasn't. And certainly not all mysteriously concentrated in maritime areas surrounding Russia.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

Citrix slated to axe its Technology Professional program

It's particularly obnoxious when companies have the audacity to claim that they are improving support when all they are doing is cutting costs.

It's disturbingly common these days. I propose a new descriptive shortcut: CUTSPEAK.

Google takes action after coder reports 'most sophisticated attack I've ever seen'

Re: Don't believe it if you are called

Why would he believe Google is calling him WITH A LIVE CALLER about a possible account compromise? Do they do that in real life?

Excellent point.

Google in particular is so completely averse to using human representatives for ANYTHING that you are forced to deal with endless web forms, chatbots, email robots and so on to get a resolution on almost ANY service they provide!

Google hiring actual humans to make outgoing VOICE calls to people?? That's hilarious!

US freezes foreign aid, halting cybersecurity defense and policy funds for allies

A child's understanding of the world

It's like the entire executive is now run by people with little more than a child's understanding of the world

Indeed, this mentality is rampant amongst the MAGA base and rhetoric from the people and organizations who cater to them.

Every once in a blue moon I am forced to expose myself to the discourse on Murdoch's Fox News right-wing US media juggernaut and it's like going back to high-school or even middle school in terms of the level of emotional maturity. Very hard to watch. ("NYAH NYAH UR STUPID!!" "AND DEMOCRATS ARE UGLY!!" Etc etc etc.)

Apple auto-opts everyone into having their photos analyzed by AI for landmarks

Re: When the industry only has 2 players...

google and apple are just as bad when it comes to user privacy, considering that both were part of PRISM

Pretty much all the large US IT players were part of PRISM so that's not saying much.

Google simply tells the truth as to most of the spying they do

Not at all.

If you dig very deeply you might be able to find a lot of the details but the majority of their public statements are extremely deceptive on such matters.

My axiom at this point is that whenever Google makes a public announcement that they are doing something to "improve user privacy", this change is inevitably accompanied by 3 OTHER things that actually DEGRADE your privacy which they DO NOT publicly mention. (And by "publicly mention" I mean announcements made to the general public, not arcane technical documents only ever read by coders and such who are already likely to be Google acolytes.)

As far as Apple "lying" - I would say that in that company's case it's more a matter of creative omission and simultaneously crowing about how much they supposedly care about your privacy. Their users tend to be much more credulous about such things so it's not a difficult game for them to play.

As for the homomorphic encryption and such - that stuff is not just not enabled by default, it also only applies if you keep all your Apple Things at the latest hardware and software versions. For example, it does not apply in my case due to the older Mac I am currently typing this on, which is prevented from enabling the "advanced iCloud encryption" stuff.

Explain to me again why Apple went from selling computers and stuff to mainly phones?

Probably because there is more money to be made in the smartphone market than there is in the PC market.

Pretty simple.

The hardware sales revenue globally is over double the sales revenue for PC hardware.

Furthermore, the software market for smartphones is almost completely funnelled through the two smartphone platform vendors, Google and Apple. Many more software purchases are done directly with the software/games houses for personal computers than is the case with smartphones, the latter of which both Google and Apple get a handsome cut of.

Lastly, smartphones are a "lifestyle" product that the vast majority of people these days around the world are carrying at least one of. Whereas in many countries in the world, very few people own a personal computer.

The End.

https://www.statista.com/outlook/tmo/devices/pcs/worldwide

https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/consumer-electronics/telephony/smartphones/worldwide

Re: The same argument about scanning for CSAM appiles

This technology is purposely designed to NOT be usable for detecting CSAM, because it does everything it can to eliminate...

Well, you really drank the KoolAid, hmm?

Given Apple's attempt to DO JUST THAT just a few years ago which created a global scandal (LINK), I wouldn't be so sanguine about their intentions or lack of thinking such things through, at this point.

Fool me once...

...it is possible to disable Google backing everything up to "the cloud" and keep my photos on my device and nowhere else.

Not to worry, every single Google app and online service tracks and collects your personal data like a bloodhound powered by the Sun of 10,000 datacenters, because that's how Google makes 80% of their annual corporate revenue.

The main difference between Apple and Google in that regard is that Apple's business-model is not so completely reliant on making money by selling products to 3rd parties based on that personal data of yours.

They collect it mostly for "user convenience" and making it semantically harder to switch platforms due to all that stuff that they "conveniently" keep of yours. Because Apple has successfully managed to transition their platform to a "lifestyle" rather than just a product or technology.

Data Abuse Duopoly

We have basically a mobile platform duopoly and both of them abuse user privacy.

But Google is well known to be basically the worst personal data abuser in history, at least for a commercial company rather than a nation-state.

So the choices are abuse, or absolutely egregious abuse.

Lovely state of affairs.

Everyone should remember the cyberpunk axiom: Data Wants to be Free.

Every bit of unnecessarily copied personal data is just another thing that can now eventually fall into the hands of malicious actors.

Whether that's intentional on the part of the party that surreptitiously absconded with it in the first place (eg adtech companies and malware) or unintentional due to corporate incompetence, excessive profiteering, laziness, nonchalance or corporate miserliness, the end result is the same.

When the industry only has 2 players...

People have been sold on how convenient it is for their devices to upload media to the cloud and how easy they've made it to "share" that content.

When the entire handheld platform industry is completely controlled by just 2 companies, no one needs to get "sold" on any particular feature before choosing to buy into that platform because there are virtually no other alternatives. Google is even worse when it comes to user privacy than Apple is. FAR worse.

In this case I agree with the OP: most people did NOT ask for Apple to be snooping around on their devices for data to upload to the Apple server farm without their permission. At the very least they should be PROMPTED for this action before proceeding.

Especially since Apple loves to crow about how they supposedly respect their user's privacy and their right to control their own data.

I have used handheld devices from a large variety of platforms over the years, and use and support both android and apple devices today.

Previously, I had all the iCloud functions disabled on my iPhone. But when I recently upgraded that device, Apple basically tricked me into enabling those functions during the device migration by presenting a dialog that implied that without accepting that login prompt, the App Store would not work. (Historically you could login to the App Store separately from a general iPhone/iCloud login, and this is still true, so that dialog presented was intentionally misleading in that regard)

So they started sucking all the data off that phone WITHOUT MY PERMISSION while I was doing that migration, and after frantically disabling all the cloud functions and selecting the option to delete whatever was "synced" I was still unable to disable iCloud entirely.

Then when I researched how to delete all the iCloud data Apple started failing to authenticate me to my account (a longstanding problem with them) and blocked me from doing so.

This stuff is absolutely "Big Brother-like" and there's no reason they don't give users more obvious choices to disable these functions if they wish to do so, other than Apple's commercial objectives of "capturing" your data and making it semantically more likely you'll feel "locked" to the platform as a result.

Tesla Cybertruck, a paragon of reliability, recalled again

Tesla and AC technology

Turns out the Tesla motors are three phase (AC) induction motors hence the inverter.

Good old AC machine engineering

Imagine naming an electric car company "Tesla", whose hallmark feature are its AC motors - after an inventor famous for advancing the art of alternating current production, distribution and usage...

Australia tells tots: No TikTok till you're 16... or X, Instagram and Facebook

Instagram IS Facebook/Meta

I suspect that if Facebook has fewer underage people than it did, it's because it's not the thing to do anymore. They're all on Instagram or Tiktok instead.

Facebook took over Instagram in 2012.

Zuckerberg & Co. runs both of them these days.

Re: who's responsibility?

However, I'm not sure you would care about those different subsets as you've already decided what the explanation for all these things must be.

Have you ever noticed how many people often accuse others of personal foibles that are not particularly evident with the recipient of such critiques, but the critic themselves happens to display it in spades themselves?

Given how long I've been doing the "visiting various businesses" thing, I can see the changes over time.

Now I could have given 100 other examples from various other realms of life as well, but when people's minds are made up, they're made up, hm?

Suffice to say, the impacts are everywhere and easily visible to those who pay attention and have been around since before the FB/YT/TikTok/etc era.

"Changes in etiquette" do not get hatched in someone's evil laboratory and imposed on us by Big Brother without our consent, they are a reaction to a change in public attitudes.

And those "changes in attitude" are precisely the things In talking about here.

Re: who's responsibility?

Tiktok, Facebook and Instagram etc. are how young people (kids) stay in touch with each other these days.

That's actually a big part of the problem.

In case you haven't noticed (and perhaps things in the UK are slightly different than here in the states), people under the age of about 30 these days (otherwise known as people who grew up with the WWW and algorithm-driving social networking), have all sorts of social problems from general social anxiety, fear of romantic relationships, fear of talking on the phone rather than some form of texting (thus taking away their "shield from emotional vulnerability"), etc etc.

All of these things are ultimately going to cause (and have already caused) a variety of avoidable social engagement issues. A veteran teacher I know in central Europe for example complains of the same things that teachers here complain about these days with with regard to high-school age students: lack of focus (eg continuously distracted by the phones and other online things), lack of sleep, lack of the fortitude to stick with projects, etc etc.

As an IT consultant I go to various company environments and in recent years here it's gotten to the point where half the staff has got headphones on at work most of the day and if you have the audacity to walk up to one of them to ask a question they often glare at you like you are illegally trying to pierce their hermetic personal bubble.

It's time that young people learn how to actually interact constructively with other humans in the flesh again, before the entire world ends up socially crippled.

Combustion engines grind Linus Torvalds' gears

EV Repairs

Wait until Linus finds out how expensive it is to repair that EV of his when he gets into a minor fender-bender.

That could turn the car repair industry into something far bigger than the car industry itself.

If Trump gets elected, get your tech buying done asap

Fully sold

Nevertheless, Trump's supporters seem fully sold on the tariffs ideal.

Trump's supporters would be fully sold on the idea of closing all the hospitals and switching to bleeding people with leeches when they become ill.

WinAmp's woes will pass, but its wonders will be here forever

Re: The good ol' days

I remember that version. Nice to see it's still working on Win11. (Which I have managed to mostly avoid so far but it will be inevitable before too long)

All I ever used Winamp for was for Shoutcast streaming. Is it still good at that? Should I completely avoid the 5.x versions?

Thanks

AWS boss: Don't want to come back to the office? Go work somewhere else

Re: Choices

Bebu:

...quietly moving to greener, better tended pastures...

Sure, but those pastures have to actually exist.

I've been saying for years now that companies would eventually get tired of everyone expecting to work remotely.

That time is now upon us.

From the employer's PoV, WFH works for some roles and people, not for others. This is not a big surprise. Companies will vary in how much flexibility they are open to on that.

But in the mid-term, I suspect those pastures will be shrinking in comparison to the pandemic emergency era. We shall see.

Re: It may be a security issue.

FIA:

Dell were touting their WFH policy until fairly recently.

I said at the beginning of the pandemic that a lot of companies would eventually figure out why WFH is not optimal for many roles and workers.

We all know why the workers like it. That does not automatically make it best for all companies and roles.

Over time, I think we will see fewer and fewer companies allowing it on a blanket basis.

But for people like the gentleman here who mentioned he was coding for 48 years - I think it's safe to say that they know how to pace their work and workload and if their role doesn't entail a lot of in-person brainstorming without having to stare at a silly screen to see who you are interacting with and what their expressions are and so on, then I think that's a good example of a role/employee which would be well-suited for it.

Not surprising, really

I've been saying since the beginning of the pandemic that business owners would soon get tired of all the issues with remote workers.

Remote working sounds like a nice idea for workers but there are a lot of downsides to it as well, many of which have nothing to do with workers being lazy etc.

Obviously business-owners are now figuring this out, even if they supported it previously.

California cops cuff suspect in deadly drone-assisted drug deal

Dinanziame:

knowingly and willfully operating an unregistered aircraft in furtherance of a felony narcotics crime

Weird combination.

Not really.

The implication is that if the aircraft were registered, it would be easier to track the owner's criminal activities.

The reason criminals typically do not obey such laws - including gun registration laws - is because it makes them hard to catch and prosecute them for their crimes. It is literally the primary reason why such items must be registered to begin with.

Both guns and aircraft can come in very handy if your intention is to commit crimes.

FTC drops hammer on unwanted subscriptions with 'click to cancel' rule

FINALLY!!

Smart homes may be a bright idea, just not for the dim bulbs who live in 'em

Doctor Syntax:

The word "Smart" applied to any object is a warning. Take heed of it.

Heh.

My version is: "Smart is not smart".

Among other things, it usually refers to something that spies on you and/or your surroundings. And oftentimes insecure as well.

We have too much of that already.

Cops love facial recognition, and withholding info on its use from the courts

Re: Multiple Dangers

AC:

It makes privacy laws a stupid joke...

That would definitely be one of the potential problems - but first you would need some privacy laws to make a joke of.

We are talking about America here, where privacy laws are so 1990's. Today we worship the Gods of Surveillance Capitalism, and they pay the politicians very well...

Pentagon stumped by mystery drone swarm flying over Langley Air Force Base

Re: 20 ft long and invulnerable

Just as good as that neat idea to arm airline pilots and other staff with firearms:

In the event of a terrorist attack, make sure to blow a bunch of holes in the airframe so when it goes down you can say it wasn't due to the terrorists...

Internet Archive wobbles back online, with limited functionality

Re: My question is... Why?

I seem to recall some sort of pitched controversy recently over their practice of keeping copies of music, videos and books.

The publishers of those things appear to be quite unhappy about it these days.

Other than that, the USA is about to vote for president in a few weeks (along with various other posts around the country), and I can think of some dirty laundry that certain candidates would probably wish was not easily viewable...

What I'd like to know is what kind of user details do they actually keep?

Discussion forum users?