Posts by JoeCool

OpenSilver throws Microsoft Silverlight devs a lifeline as end of support looms – or you could forget it ever happened

First, you need to find someone that thinks sharepoint is "the best" for some practical use

Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos fraud trial begins: Defense claims all she did was fail – and that's not a crime

Re: She's getting off

Or, the prosecution is using this trial to get a first guilty conviction and an allocution of mis-deeds, to be used in Sunny's trial.

Re: No honor among thieves

1) there is more than sufficient evidence for the court of public opinion

2) the defence knows they are dead on the facts. Their defence is an emotional appeal. You need a jury of peers for that.

How do you know ...

she didn't sell some shares ? And there are other ways of capitalizing as the CEO of a bleeding edge, media darling, VC darling, revolutionary, Silicon Valley tech startup.

Cashing out of that is probably impossible, short of a motivated takeover (and maybe that was hoped for after Walgreens swallowed the appetizer bait ?).

Don't forget, Theranos was NOT publicly traded stock.

Understanding Science

And this is a part of the point - Walgreens and Safeway actually probably do understand science, in order to run their medical services. However they (among others) were lied to.

Report details how Airbus pilots saved the day when all three flight computers failed on landing

737 Max too

I recall that this was an issue for Boeing as well - physical state signalling, on handover to the MCAS system.

Please, no Moore: 'Law' that defined how chips have been made for decades has run itself into a cul-de-sac

Re: What do we do with all this processing power?

At the individual / personal level, computing power is largely irrelevant.

But as a civilization, it is becoming a foundational utility. We build a data center, load it up with apps, feed in electrical power, and get out banking, commerce, transportation management, communications, and functioning power grids.

To be clear, the resource being used isn't cpu cycles or memory silicon, it is electrical power. It is specmarks per watt.

84-year-old fined €250,000 for keeping Nazi war machines – including tank – in basement

The question is, is that ammo functional, and for those weapons ?

If that's a Flak-88, the man has taste.

IBM insiders say CEO Arvind Krishna downplayed impact of email troubles, asked for a week to sort things out

Re: 4.2 billion emails a week?

I think it's called a distribution list, or as it's known on the intenet: spam.

IBM email fiasco complicates sales deals, is worse than biz is letting on – sources

Re: Bring back PROFS/OfficeVision

Fify ...

I'll never understand why lotus wasn't ditched long ago. It's a virus organization that only produced bloated non functioning enterprise apps that were all banished to the zombie graveyard.

In Rust We Trust: Stob gets behind the latest language craze

Re: Do...While

off the top of my head, C would use

x = (y==z) ? 7 : 3

Re: Do...While

The Do point is to ensure that the { body } is executed at least once. Without introducing a bogus while-counter or duplicate statements before the loop.

Amazon exec's husband jailed for two years for insider trading. Yes, with Amazon stock

Re: Only doing it once

There's an algorithm for that too - you open an account, make 1 trade which is a big win, for a stock that further investigation shows you are personally related to, then you cash out. ALARM ALARM ALARM.

'There was no one driving that vehicle': Texas cops suspect Autopilot involved after two men killed in Tesla crash

Null Hypothesis

Not sure this is an accurate use of the term, but why isn't the Null Hypotheisi that Elons' Tweet is wrong ?

Ex-Geeks staff lose legal bid to claw back withheld training costs from final paycheques

Re: What about the quality of the training?

This is the point in the judgement that I have a problem with. The Employer is setting the employment terms, and the employee is really in a take it or leave it position. Prior to accepting the contract, it would be difficult for the (potential) employee to argue the quality of training or true cost, in the event of leaving the job early.

City of London Police warn against using ‘open science’ site Sci-Hub

Motivation ? Sources ?

The article ends with a quote from the CEO of an IP protection organisation warning about the security of a competeing org's site.

I don't think that comment can be accepted as factual without corroboration from someone less potentially conflicted. It seems premature to conclude that "The Register fancies that last epithet about organisational security is as important as the general warning".

PSA: If you're still giving users admin rights, maybe try not doing that. Would've helped dampen 100+ Microsoft vulns last year – report

False equivalance

Admin rights aren't the same as Security rights or even System rights. On windows it's a whole mish-mash of restrictions. Want to modify your desktop ? Admin right ! that's the problem - you can't customize your personal work space without "Admin" privelege.

Theranos destroyed crucial subpoenaed SQL blood test database, can't unlock backups, prosecutors say

More accurately, Fraud masked as science

You can read the investigative reports. Tharanos were actively promoting an idea known to be un-workable. The perpetration of the fraud exends to everyone who understood the facts. That may include their lawyers and the board and the investorts, but someone has to be prosecuted first.

Can we stop megacorps from using and abusing our data? That ship has sailed, ex-NSA lawyer argues in new book

Re: "cumbersome to read, difficult to understand"

That's naive.

In places where privacy laws require disclosure, obscuring that disclosure is a clear solution for a corp to break the law. You can google cadillac farivew Anonymous Video Analytics for a recent example, but here are some of the headline statments:

" a user on Reddit ... posted a picture of a malfunctioning wayfinding screen ... . The screen displayed lines of code that appeared to reference facial recognition programs. "

“An individual would not, while using a mall directory, reasonably expect their image to be captured and used to create a biometric representation of their face, which is sensitive personal information ... ”

" the relevant information was buried in the middle of the 5,000-page document, was described in overly broad language, and when investigators did ask for a copy at the Eaton Centre’s guest services kiosk, they were met with confusion."

"Cadillac Fairview “expressly disagreed” with the findings of the privacy commissioners’ offices, and refused to commit to obtaining express, opt-in consent if it decides to use similar technology in the future"

Re: And of course...

" there's no reason why they'd sell or rent your data to a potential competitor."

That's naive. Amazon is a corporation with the sole goal to maximize profits. Selling stuff did not require them to create aws.

If there is a viable business case, they will use or sell that data. Amazon is competing with every. single. one. of its product vendors for a slice of the revenue - they're just doing it in a co-operative manner.

China turned back the clock. No one is saying you can't go out and run down that horse - just that western democracies are poorly set up to do it.

Putting the d'oh! in Adobe: 'Years of photos' permanently wiped from iPhones, iPads by bad Lightroom app update

Are you telling me

that you make an independent image back up before each app upgrade ? Didn't think so.

Back up is the obvious universal answer to all data issues, but it's for disasters, not app updates - that's just not a reasonable proposition.

Re: Class action suit in 3... 2... 1...

Forget that. I'm waiting for the APPLE lawsuit. Adobe just nuked the data security credibility of their ecosphere.

You're not getting Huawei that easily: Canadian judge rules CFO's extradition proceedings to US can continue

Re: This post makes the same mistake that the Chinese are making

In _some_ places the political parties can subvert or politicize the process of appointing federal judges, or have them run an election campaign at the state level.

This post makes the same mistake that the Chinese are making

The "Government" has no ability to turn her loose. In Canada the judicial system has independence from the government, and operates on legislated codes of law not in response to state kidnappings.

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

Sentence two

"Certain 32-bit versions of Windows Server running on x86-based systems can use PAE ... "

That's not describing a generally available solution

Getting a pizza the action, AS/400 style

Re: So the pizza shop got 56 separate faxes all the same.

A few duplicates 2,3,4,5 ... would be suspicous. 56 is clearly intentional.

Suspicious senate stock sale spurt spurs scrutiny scheme: This website tracks which shares US senators are unloading mid-pandemic

"... does not qualify as insider information"

Says the non-lawyer, non-stock trader.

There is a reason that some people in that position put their holdings in a blind trust.

Commit to Android codebase suggests Google may strong-arm phone makers into using 'seamless' partitioned updates

You shouldn't be surprised

"Astonishingly, over 9 per cent of Android phones use Version 6.0, which is no longer supported by Google."

There are a few reasons this is inevitable.

First is that Google itself doesn't support older devices; why would anyone else ?

Second is accumulating slowdowns. I have a 5 year old tablet that gets noticably slower with every major version update. I'd go back to 5 if I could, just to get the snappy start up back.

COBOL-coding volunteers sought as slammed mainframes slow New Jersey's coronavirus response

Re: Despair & worn out wires

Sure some wiring can wear out - check out electric ranges that have been in use fo 10-20 years. But mainframes are in slightly more protected environments.

You'll get your money – when this bank has upgraded Windows 7... or bought extended support

Do I have this right ...

A MS marketing message disguised as a security alert has pre-empted the secure banking app from running on the ATM ?

Almost sounds like a reason to sue their a$$e$.

If you're serious about browser privacy, you should probably pass on Edge or Yandex, claims Dublin professor

Re: GDPR

Firefox policy & practices is pretty clear to me. I don't need a splash page every time I fire it up.

The Settings menu | Privacy page is really nicely laid out.

Forcing us to get consent before selling browser histories violates our free speech, US ISPs claim

The answer is ... google "Citizens United"

Or just go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

You know the President is able to shut down all US comms, yeah? An FCC commish wants to stop him from doing that

The ultimate authority

"But what is the alternative?"

Democracy, obviously.

Meaning specifically that

- the law in this case is seen for the fact that it terminates free speach and a free press.

- that a free press is seen as the foundational requirement of a Democracy.

- that the citizens in that democracy are prepared to fight for it.

LibreOffice 6.4 nearly done as open-source office software project prepares for 10th anniversary

O365 does not have the upper hand ...

based on any technical merit or superior useability.

It's dominance comes from Microsoft's strength as a Enterprise vendor. The fact that they can sell the whole integrated MS catalogue to corps based on a smorgasboard relationship is what makes it so hard for anyone else to get a foot hold. even GSuite's success is based on getting to Google's collaboration/sharing services, and familiarity with the free versions.

Canada's .ca supremo in hot water after cyber-smut stash allegedly found on his work Mac ‒ and three IT bods fired

Feature of the copy software

It's in the story.

Internet Society's Vint 'father of the 'net' Cerf dodges dot-org sell-off during public Q&A

Flow of the article

Part way through is this:

At around 1550 local time, Cerf, as meeting chairman, was handed an iPad and the top question, of 172 asked, was: “What’s your opinion on the .org sale and what this means for not-for-profits?”

Should that not have been immediately followed with the clear statment that the question was ignored ? Why bury six graphs later:

He needn’t have worried because, despite the internet community actively voting to have the issue of the .org sale raised on stage and despite it being the issue of greatest current concern to the 'net governance world, neither the moderator nor Cerf asked it, nor even mentioned its existence.

Googlers fired after tracking colleagues working on US border cop projects. Now, if they had monetized that stalking...

Re: I find the argument bizarre

You are equating an internal corporate policy/process issue with an invented social-norms and criminal law situation. Nice combo of ridiculous and inane.

Power to the users? Admins be warned: Microsoft set to introduce 'self-service purchase' in Office 365

Shadow IT

Is a repsonse to Sh*t IT.

The end-run around you're objecting to is because you can't figure out how to manage desktops without deploying policies that are more intrusive than the monitoring conditions for registered sex offenders.

I love the kung-fu nature of this move. MS has spent years and buckets of money on all of these corporate management systems. Corporations have spent years and buckets of money managing their employees to the lowest common denominator, and building obstacle after barrier after obstacle. Now MS comes along and decides, that's just so counter-usefull, that they need to adjust that framework ( a tiiineeee little hole ) for the sake of getting stuff done in a normal lifetime.

Chemists bitten by Python scripts: How different OSes produced different results during test number-crunching

Re: Regression testing

Yep. I was going to post "let me google python unit test framework for you. huh look at that".

I appreciate, once again, scientific proof that programmign is indeed a skill that is not posessed by everyone capable of running a script.

Father of Unix Ken Thompson checkmated: Old eight-char password is finally cracked

Re: Hacking Ken

Are you thinking opening moves only ? doesn't have to be. Castling, end game scenarios, "isolation" exercises. And it could be a sequence of moves.

Stallman's final interview as FSF president: Last week we quizzed him over Microsoft visit. Now he quits top roles amid rape remarks outcry

And yet, no-one has. Maybe it isn't feasible, and GNU does indeed deserve more recognition than it gets.

Dropbox would rather write code twice than try to make C++ work on both iOS and Android

How are we equating C++ with Javascript

From the article:

"Dropbox may have made cross-platform coding particularly challenging by choosing C++ rather than C# or JavaScript."

If someone is using C++ to kill a problem that is reasonably solvable with JavaScript, then I'll go out on a limb and say that's a bad technology choice. But I cannot think of any case where a C++ code base would be better rewritten in standalone JS. This statement deserves a little more explanation.

I could throttle you right about now: US Navy to ditch touchscreens after kit blamed for collision

Re: Generation Moron rules the waves. . . and so much else, too.

Yes! my biggest question from the article: how did this make it past ANY design reviews ?

I also find it hilarious that almost all of the comments relate the story back to car control design.

Re: Touch screens

I upvoted because 90% of your post is exactly right. The place I have doubts is the Catalytic converter comment. According to the Internet "The normal operating temperature of a catalytic converter is between 550 and 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit with the optimum temperature being about 806 degrees"

Point #1, There's no way 1 to 2 minutes of idling is going to reduce the stored heat out of that range, by much.

Point #2 Stop/Start is primarily about reducing Fuel consumption. Converters are about reducing smog-producing particulates. Converters actually CREATE greeen house gassses.

ReactOS 'a ripoff of the Windows Research Kernel', claims Microsoft kernel engineer

Re: He may be right

OR ReactOS can post their audit results, showing the published/public sources of their reverse engineering, were mr. Rietschin detailed enough to list specific references.

Amazon woes and wins, IBM thinks it's solved employee happiness and Duplex phony phone calls everywhere!

Re: it really understands what is said

And that's why as an IBM employee, you need to be rigorous in your use of the Joke Icon - otherwise the AI will make a wrong conclusion.

Lenovo kicks down door of MWC, dumps a stack of sexy new ThinkPads

You missed out on the TP25 ?

Lenovo claims that the "island" style KB is mechanically the same as previous kbs, but in a more modern frame. Is your issue the keycaps, or the key-switch feel.

I'm a crime-fighter, says FamilyTreeDNA boss after being caught giving folks' DNA data to FBI

you want to own your own DNA ?

See Lacks, Henrietta

Developer goes rogue, shoots four colleagues at ERP code maker

Scumbag ?

There's quality reporting. Is El Reg scraping twitter for news stories ?

"At this time, there is no indication as to what caused the murderous outburst and they have appealed for witnesses to get in contact."

Clearly, it's because he's a scumbag. Don't the police research their shootings on the Internet ?

BlackBerry KEY2: Remember buttons? Boy, does this phone sure have them

Re: Phone cameras

Phone cameras have completely displaced compact "snapshot" cameras. So basically 100% of people that are carrying around a camera for casual photography are actually carry around a phone and using it's camera.