Posts by GrapeBunch

Grab an ARMful: OpenIO's Scale-out storage with disk drive feel

Cooled by Lake OntarIO, patent pending.

Sexbots could ‘over-exert’ their human lovers, academic warns

Re: Kill arachnophobes

"Note: Re-reading that, it sounds horribly aggressive and insulting, and it isn't meant that way. Imagine the sort of ribbing you'd get in the pub, if you would. Maybe one day we'll have an icon for that."

How about that glass of beer, but tête-bêche? By recycling an existing image, we are conserving electrons. That is the first law. By Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, the beer itself would be more strongly attracted to the table than to the glass. But in Canada, at least, putting an empty glass upside down on a table in a drinking establishment means that you are willing to fight anybody in the house. So for ribbing the glass must stay full. Or, there is no table, and therefore no fisticuffs.

But what I really want to know is, where may I purchase this arachnophone? O, to hear the symphony of Metebelis III!

I think that the subject in the headline has been dealt with in Fiction and in Science Fiction, but because it would probably get a book banned in many jurisdictions, authors have chosen to deal with it euphemistically or even symbolically. One such described a relationship between a male astronaut, and a female companion who had chosen an operation which made her more On-Off, less cyclic; to help with the exigencies of long periods in Space. Before long, he was wondering if he was wise to refuse this same operation. She was way too much his energizer bunny. As she wasn't a robot, he could not simply turn her off when he had had enough.

Ham-fisted: Chap's radio app killed remotely after posting bad review

non-RAM memories

I was a mostly happy customer of a company whose originator was also CEO and chief programmer. I sent a terse email regarding a particular issue to tech support, to discover that the boss also sometimes manned the tech email. I think he got my complaint, which was fact-based, mixed up with another person's complaint which was mostly rant-based. But in the end we worked it all out. He was quick to take offence, but also quick to make amends. Aaaaah, the good old days. But events bore out the conclusion that a company founder should not moonlight as tech support.

Los Angeles to extradite bloke from Nigeria after scores of city workers fall for phish scam

Vis-a-vis Los Angeles, it's the Nigerian man's (alleged) fault that the info was stolen, but vis-a-vis the victims, the punters, it is the fault of Los Angeles. They insufficiently cared for the info. Sometimes the obvious thing is the important thing.

Jimbo Welshes on pledge to stop fundraising

ABS (power$) = ABS (corrupt$)

Oops, sorry for the syntax error. Feel free to send cash.

Stupid law of the week: South Carolina wants anti-porno chips in PCs that cost $20 to disable

The real effect

would be slightly to expand human trafficking there. But the larger effect is to annoy people who would never even think about human trafficking or maybe even porn. To punish the innocent, that's a popular meme.

'Upset' Linus Torvalds gets sweary and gets results

Re: I wonder about the devs

" easiest way for the Trotskyites to destroy the country is to get people to vote for governments that put people like Gove in charge of education."

Comrade Lenin wrote something similar to Comrade Pankhurst. It is in the interest of the devs of dictatorship (e.g., of the proletariat) that democracy be seen to fail, in just about any way.

Bugging

Some divide the tasks between "coding" and "de-bugging" but a good programmer liked to characterize the first as "bugging", adding errors to the code. Over lunch "What did you do this morning, Victor?" "I intensively bugged the code base." In my slight experience, it can be better to throw out hoary code and work from specs. Surprisingly often. Examples coyly withheld.

Sysadmin 'fixed' PC by hiding it on a bookshelf for a few weeks

Re: Suppliers

Very similar. About 35 years ago, annoying telephone inconsistency. Followed the repairman all around. We got outside the house to where two wires had been spliced and covered up with electrician's tape (could it possibly have been a telco repair man? or an earlier building owner?). Water, oxidation. Fixing that did the trick.

Kids, look at the Deep Learnings! (We’re just going to slurp your data)

Re: No privacy at any price

My impression of DuckDuckGo is that the results look like they are headed by entities that have paid for the privilege. Since we've had Naked Lunch and Dhalgren in this thread, let's not forget TANSTAAFL. I use DDG only for searches that contain the word temor or something like that, because I'm afraid.

Uh-oh! Microsoft has another chatbot – but racism is a no-go for Zo

Re: forging an emotional connecti

"Presumably the "bots" being Microsurfs"

Like that 60s pop group from California, the Beach Sperms.

Is your Windows 10, 8 PC falling off the 'net? Microsoft doesn't care

Re: Reboot pray repeat

Germans "experience schadenfreude when they find out that English didn't have a word meaning schadenfreude until it was borrowed from German."

Dunno. Depends upon your weltanschauung.

Icelandic Pirate Party sails away from attempt to form government

Come on, Iceland (the nation), we love you.

Brutus:

There is a tide in the affairs of men.

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.

Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

It's impossible to do a double-blind study, but I wonder if the principals watched Monty Python before their meeting, perhaps Iceland would have a government at the end of it. So, grasp the nettle, eat the fermented shark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvKIWjnEPNY

Like sports teams

Back in the day, I thought Canada should trade then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to Nicaragua straight up for President Daniel Ortega. Mulroney would have calmed Washington from backing the Contra terrorists, and Ortega would have done fine with Canada. "What is the commotion, gentlemen? Canada is a fortunate country with only minor problems."

Trading Trump plus 50 billion to Iceland for Birgitta Jónsdóttir? Personnel-wise, it's sad for Iceland, but 50 billion is 50 billion.

Marc Andreessen has a pretty creepy relationship with Zuck

Re: “Does that mean the cat’s dead?” Zuckerberg replied.

Here's a famous (if you like chess) German guy with a similar name:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Anderssen

So where the protagonist of this article has ree, the chess master had er.

Er, there is a Dutch grandmaster named Hans Ree.

Ransomware scum offer free decryption if you infect two mates

MLR

Every meme deserves an acronym.

Russian hackers got Trump elected? Yeah, let's take a close look at that, says Obama

Re: Perhaps the US should require any presidential candidate to prove their sanity

Where I come from, the problem was not psychopaths, but a sociopath, who ruled the country for far too long.

My name's Jeff B and I'm here to say: Canada's getting an AWS region around the way

Re: Canada is part of Five Eyes

US tax authorities snoop around in Canada, and Canadian banks comply. US citizens or computers on US territory may have a degree of protection from US Government snooping as afforded by the US Constitution. Anybody else and anywhere else is prey, 24 / 7 / 365. And the Snowden revelations showed that they aren't shy. And they understand German. But if it's site raiding that one fears, then, yes, you'd rather have an RCMP mediated raid than stand face-to-face with a bellowing foaming heavily-armed cyber-SWAT. "Take your hands off the keyboards. Put your passwords on post-its. Peg your post-its to the screen. Just like you do anyway. Put your hands on the ground. NOW!" But getting away from the apart I'm enjoying too much, location outside the US, on its own, is no boost to digital privacy.

Has Samsung, er, rounded the corner with Apple court win?

Re: hyphenation

Samsung + chicks on cellphones (the headline photo) = editor getting hot under the collar. "Soft hyphens", he exclaimed, "flaming Hell with that!" and made them all harrrrrrrrd hyphens. (Note: the previous sentence is not licensed to be spoken in R.P., Oxbridge, or BBC accents. If you are Scottish, a Pirate, or a native of New Brunswick, Canada, you will probably be OK. If you choose to be.)

Facebook Fake News won it for Trump? That's a Zombie theory

Re: Just what is Facebook?

" If you want to comment on a story on a news site, maybe your local newspaper, you log in with your Facebook account, and there's no alternative."

I'd characterize it as something quite different: clickbait. Once you indicate your interest in commenting by clicking, the comment-companies want all sorts of more information about you, before they let you actually comment. To paraphrase General Jack Ripper, they crave your essence. I deny them.

Re: At the risk of being negged to oblivion...

"I'm reminded of 1992"

The Charlottetown Accord referendum of 1992. The Prime Minister, the Premiers of all 10 provinces, and the three major parties in parliament were for it. If they thought the referendum was a slam dunk, they didn't stint from campaigning for it. But when the votes were counted, a motley crew of opposition had carried the day, by almost 10% of the votes cast. Changed the landscape of politics in Canada. For a long while.

Although there were good things in the Charlottetown Accord, I voted No, not so much because of the opposition's objections, but because I thought that the State, be it bureaucrats or the Federal or Provincial governments, was proposing to steal too many of my rights. I wanted to disturb the pigs from the trough. Or at least the right to say that I hadn't invited them to be there 24/7/365.

I don't imagine that I ever would have voted for Trump, were it my civic privilege to vote in that election. Yet perhaps some did, for no better reason. Ditto for Brexit. So they saw it in Canada (not a country known for radical opinions) as early as 1992. And despite 24 years to strategize, the politocracy didn't solve the puzzle.

The Sun Also Rises

I was with AO until the words: "This slander ..." which made me think American intellectual filled with ennui. Whereas maybe he wanted to us to regard the electorate as filled with ennui. Still, a good read. Thanks.

HBO slaps takedown demand on 13-year-old girl's painting because it used 'Winter is coming'

Winter Is Here

This is proof of prior art of my trademark phrase for a drama set on a world a bit like our own, but most everybody's gone PTSD or Psychopathic because it really is boring to be stuck in the Iron Age for thousands of years.

The small company which produced my first computer trademarked the phrase "user-friendly" circa 1979, but I guess it didn't stick.

Of Our Discontent.

Stealing, scamming, bluffing: El Reg rides along with pen-testing 'red team hackers'

Advertising

is a red team attack on you.

$17k win for man falsely accused of a terrible crime: Downloading an Adam Sandler movie

Re: 55 hours of legal time?

"Or did his lawyers leave the clock running while they took a holiday?"

No. Due diligence required that they watch the film. And then recover from it.

Could this be you? Really Offensive Security Engineer sought by Facebook

The kind of research that will earn teenagers a couple of years in the slammer, if done under the corporate aegis, will earn them respect and a handsome salary. What's not to like?

Canada asks citizens: How would you like us to spy on you?

Sure, they ask you, but entry is always gained via Annoying Spying Sphincter technology.

Local TV presenter shouted 'f*cking hell' to open news bulletin

Geordie diaspora

This will only increase their viewership. Grandma was born in Tyneside but I've never been to Newcastle area, nor imagined that they had local news broadcasts. Never wanted to imagine.

Icelandic Pirate Party asked to form government

Re: Excellent!

"(Insert appropriate citation from Shakespeare's "Henry V", whatever it is)"

Paraphrasing, I'm sure ...

"There are homeless yet asleep but not abed in the streets of London and New York who forever will wish that on this glorious day they could have joined with we pirates on our volcanic isle. They will recount our exploits to their children and bless this day. For Birgitta ! And Iceland !"

I don't have a proper Icelandic name, but with liberties taken, feel free to call me GrapeBunch Eriksson. Yes, my father's name is almost Erik.

Exclusive: Team Trump's net neutrality guru talks to El Reg

Re: The competition fallacy

Neighbouring Canada has regulation (CRTC), and the result is also vaguely dissatisfying (going by my own experience and hearsay). We expect to pay more, because Canada, and we do. Here, owning cable TV or ISPs or a cell network is a "license to print money".

Sysadmin figures out dating agency worker lied in his profile

Re: Well...

Here's an alternative scenario. Training Session: "Enter the data in the field, then use the tab key to move around between fields" (end of training session). Employee: A-D-O-L-F-<Enter>-<Tab>-z-&-7-U-w<Enter>

Same result as in the story.

Re: Enter == submit

The faceplant is that the employee, having failed once to login, did not look at the screen during any subsequent attempt.

Lenovo: If you value your server, block Microsoft's November security update

Re: Swedish chef of rouge monde

"Please correct my mistakes". A lazy person instead just gives a thumbs-down.

Swedish chef of rouge monde

I was called in to help set up a new desktop. Not as a tech consultant, but as a relative. On another table was a kaput 2013-era HP Pavilion, regraded to Windows 10. Its demise had been foretold months earlier by it taking more than an hour to boot up. But by then it was in repair mode loop, tested for hours. I thought I'd take a stab and the only thing I could think of was to change the boot order in BIOS, boot a PE USB and remove the suspected malware. A first attempt didn't change anything. The second, deeper, attempt caused the computer to make me enter a 4-digit code. I believe that was defeating the UEFI-thing, but what do I *know*? Sadly, it didn't boot my USB stick, but happily it did boot to Windows 10. It was obviously a damaged Windows 10, but at least I was able to remove about 1,000 unwanted entries with mwb. Also removed one protection service that the owner had signed up for, leaving two still there. Then I connected the Internet, which may have been a far bridge. 12 hours later, much had changed on the display, including improved screen resolution, but also a different colour scheme with a yellowish-greenish cast. I thought, oh maybe there was a piece of software that filtered out blue during night time, but couldn't find such a thing on the computer. Or maybe a hardware issue had developed. Don't know the conclusion, as my time at the venue was up.

Anyway, this story is too long. No smoking gun, but it does tend to support the thought that a UEFI computer was borked by a Windows 10 upgrade. But who cares? Perhaps more importantly, it instantiates (couldn't resist) a way that might make use of perfectly good computers without tearing them down for parts: change the boot-order so drastically that it makes you input the UEFI-breaking code.

Please correct my mistakes!

'Toyota dealer stole my wife's saucy snaps from phone, emailed them to a swingers website'

Re: Urgh - help desk horror stories

I wonder how many sexters have "ouch" moments because of the difference between Apple's "Camera Roll" versus "My Photo Stream". AFAICT, what's in the former stays on the device, what's on the latter goes to all of one's devices via the Cloud.

I also mourn the demise of Philately, a harmless outlet for collecting mania. So the salesman saw a risque pic. He probably already had a collection of risque pics--and better ones--including pics that claimed plausibly to be of a preacher's wife. There was no reason for him to do this, just as there is no reason for a dog to pee in the living room.

Google opens Cloud Vision API beta, world + dog asked to try it

OC Rap

Since google's business model is so different from that of a conventional software company, I wonder how good their OCR is. I guess messy slanted handwriting with the page unsquare and skew relative to the photo, would be the litmus test. Frankly, with conventional software, a few years ago, I didn't always leave happy even from a double-spaced typescript, much less a handwritten tax return from 1978.

Hackers waste Xbox One, PS4, MacBook, Pixel, with USB zapper

Great.

Even longer lineups at airports, the plods will be testing all USB-looking devices. I hope the testing equipment doesn't wreck proper USB devices. Though probably it will take copies of the files therein. For everyone's protection, of course.

UK's new Snoopers' Charter just passed an encryption backdoor law by the backdoor

Doesn't the UK already have form

... for fouling its own tech nest? Bletchley + Official Secrets Act and suddenly USA invented the electronic computer (hint: it didn't). The kind of thing that if achieved by a foreign power would be considered an act of war, or if by a compatriot, treason, when accomplished by one's own government seems to elicit sighs and yawns.

Re: The whole thing is total and utter baloney.

" > Nuke goes off in London "

Fred Hoyle's characterisations may have been wooden, but he was a genius (not just in Science but) in picking subjects that would still be of interest decades later:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Westminster-disaster-Fred-Hoyle/dp/0060120096

Re: Fuck!

"Fuck fuck fuck, fuck fuckity fuck. Fucky fucky fuck, fuckit."

Decoded, that means "Meet you by Gioconda at 2. Bring lunch." The perfect encryption, indistinguishable from noise.

Has Canadian justice gone too far? Cops punish drunk drivers with NICKELBACK

Re: Driving from the airport at Halifax (NS, Canada)...

I forget which Canadian TV comedy series had Nova Scotia police, road cops, acting very strangely. Was it Codco, Four on the Floor, 22 Minutes, ...? I even tried Royal Canadian Air Farce, but the search engine was unable to spew up the reference. Maybe your road sign is another instance of "Life Imitates Art".

Give BAE a kicking and flog off new UK warships, says review

Canada

Canada is abnormally stuck in to The Reg's stories today. We have form for buying The RN's cast-off vessels-that-don't-work. Just in case somebody's wondering "who in the world could possibly ...?"

Another Canadian uni hit by ransomware, students told to keep Windows PCs away

Carleton University. I visited in 1984, so this must be my fault. It had what you'd expect for a University in the cold cold Capital of Canada: (underground) tunnels connecting the buildings and strong departments of Journalism and Political Science.

Internet Archive preps Canadian safe haven to swerve Donald Trump

Re: Over reaction?

In the context of DRM or DMCA, the Internet Archive might already be fragile, if some leader had a mind to play hardball. Or maybe the DMCA, if not already there, will receive a small amendment in an obscure subsection of a farm appropriations bill. I don't think the Internet Archive is overreacting at all.

The True North, Strong and Free

at least, that's what our National Anthem says. "Personally", I'd be inclined to put the backup of the Internet Archive (for which many many thumbs up) in a country that was not so friendly to the interests of the USA. I guess they're counting on us continuing to be friendly to the traditional values of the USA, rather than the new ones come January 2017.

BOFH: The Hypochondriac Boss and the non-random sample

Re: BOFH plus kids =

AS: I especially like the Iodine-tinged lipstick. But getting back to bizniss:

" "She now works at a nice admin job managing real rocket scientists and sending stuff to crash on Mars."

So it's all your fault? "

Fault shared between Deimos and, Urban-Legendly, this: =============> ;

Three certainties in life: Death, taxes and the speed of light – wait no, maybe not that last one

The Reg, purveyors of Physics Porn since ...

c=f (?). What next, will they be telling us that Planck's isn't Constant? Fondle my Perimeter, Cassiopeia.

San Francisco's sinking luxury Millennium Tower: Tilt spotted FROM SPACE

Re: Not the developer's fault.

Oooh, oooh. This phenomenon will need a name. I nominate a location-appropriate wording: Frisbee Dewatering Tilt; because it doesn't always go the way you expected.

How to confuse a Euro-cop: Survey reveals the crypto they love to hate

Re: Crypto Comms

Just the opposite. LE loves low hanging-fruit, and yin.

Noise

If the purpose of encryption is to make the message indistinguishable from noise, shouldn't the ideally-encrypted message look like an SEO but content-free web page with advertising? It's not rocket science.