Posts by Roopee

We've only gone and done it: Changed what you're used to

My ha’p’orth

The new design is unusable for me, principally because I can’t even see that there are any comments, let alone read them or make any, on most of the devices I use to read the Reg and other news.

The devices in question are elderly iPad minis. I can read the articles, just, but they are about 2” wide, less than 1/3 of the screen width. However there are no comment indicators, so no means of getting to the comments.

Also I can no longer login on these iPads - a “feature” that was introduced a few weeks ago, so even if I could read the comments I wouldn’t be able to react to them or add my own. I’m sad.

I am writing this on my iPhone mini in case you were wondering. I don’t like reading on my phone unless I’m stuck in a waiting room with nothing to do.

On the plus side (for me), I have actively started looking at other IT-related news sites rather than simply reading them incidentally, i.e. as a result of searches.

If you “fix” something that isn’t broken, you always run a risk…

Attention, gamers: The FAA wants YOU to be an air traffic controller

More or Less... $155k

One of my favourite programs is "More or Less" on Radio 4, which delves into numbers in the news, typically the misleading/nonsensical statistics/lies spouted by politicians; the program's favourite question is "Is this a big number?"

So how does $155k compare with what the Air Force or Marines pay for ATCs, or what an ATC could earn in other, more desirable, parts of the world?

Hide and sleek: Latest Vivaldi release can tuck its UI away until summoned

Re: Tab follow

Or you could simply middle-click on links of interest to open them in background tabs - something I've been doing and teaching for many years. It works in all the browsers I use on all the (desktop) OSs I use.

Bcachefs creator insists his custom LLM is female and 'fully conscious'

Re: "It's not chatbot psychosis, it's 'math and engineering and neuroscience'"

I'd say it's delusional psychosis - of the developer, not the chatbot.

Icon: or maybe at least one of them is an alien... ->

Ex-Amazon UK boss lined up to chair Britain's competition watchdog

Poacher turned Gamekeeper...

At least he will be well-versed in the mechanics of creating and maintaining monopolies.

This will either go really well or really badly.

New hire fixed a problem so fast, their boss left to become a yoga instructor

Posher

My 19" was posh - it had a row of BNC bayonet connectors which were easier and more reliable, though they had to be in the correct order. It also had a flat Trinitron screen, which used significantly thicker, heavier glass. It still had curvature distortion but the curve was on the inside surface. I'm quite strong but I could barely lift it!

I remember it costing £500, but that was a bargain compared to my first "good" screen: a 17" Iiyama FST in 1993 which cost me over £900 inc VAT. You tell the kids of today that, and they'll not believe you... :)

Paranoid WhatsApp users rejoice: Encrypted app gets one-click privacy toggle

Re: WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted

But the same goes for any type of conversation with anyone - whether it’s office gossip or plans for a coup - if you don’t trust someone not to “share” your secrets, you don’t tell them in the first place...

Pope warns flock to raise their faces, protect their voices in fightback against AI

Very Brave

As several commentards have already said, in various ways, “Catholics need to develop critical thinking skills“ jumps out as an astonishing thing for the leader of a global religion to say!

He’s not wrong in all those things he’s saying about AI, but they apply equally well to religion, for example “naive and unquestioning reliance on $RELIGION as an omniscient 'friend,' a source of all knowledge, ..., an 'oracle' of all advice."

For the record, I declared myself to be an atheist at the age of 5 according to my uber-intelligent blue-stocking mother, who had an MA in Classics and Theology from Cambridge and an M.Ed, yet sent me to a Catholic boarding school...

Icon: the indoctrination didn’t work, “the atheism is strong in this one” ->

Baby's got clack: HP pushes PC-in-a-keyboard for businesses with hot desks

Re: Dilbert

You jest, but I used to occasionally give technical support while driving between clients; I would describe the screen to them and/or get them to describe it to me (as in read the icons/boxes/buttons) so they could find what I was telling them to look for... these weren't the most tech-savvy of clients you understand, so the visualisation didn't overly impact my driving skills!

Double-shot keycaps

Sadly (and somewhat ironically) the article doesn't say much about the keyboard, such as whether is has double-shot keycaps, but the layout is a non-standard laptop-type and looks too compact to be comfortable if you're used to the traditional layout, especially for the cursor block and the number pad. I assume it isn't double-shot as that would surely have been a positive feature worth commenting on.

I'm not a full touch typist except for numbers (I used to be an accountant) so yes, I need the letters to type quickly (i.e my usual 30 wpm), and also yes, being worn shiny is a problem. I do have a couple of used double-shot keyboards, backlit gaming mechanicals (wired) which are great, but I'm too poor to justify buying a new, wireless one for WFH, and the heavy 'gaming' wires get in the way on my office desk, so I use relatively cheap wireless combos and treat them as disposable. They last me 2-3 years. :)

In other words you practice preventative maintenance, and naturally any machine will last a lot longer if you do that.

However, you can't stop the keycaps wearing out: I'm not a heavy-handed typist and I don't spend my days bashing out long emails and reports, but even I have to replace my keyboard/mouse combo every couple of years when the surfaces become shiny.

This device seems like a pretty dumb, ill thought-out product for a list of reasons, some of which are mentioned in the article.

Waterfox browser goes AI-free, targets the Firefox faithful

+1 for Waterfox

It’s one of my daily drivers, alongside LibreWolf, Floorp and Supermium, depending on which OS I’m on. Previously I mainly used Pale Moon.

I never use Chrome on my own PCs, and rarely Firefox these days. I’m sure many here are similar, it’s a shame the message hasn’t reached the masses and the management...

Edit: forgot to mention iCab Mobile on my iThings.

DVSA's clapped-out booking system gets bot slapped as new boss rides in

Re: It's been a disgrace for years

Corner shops charge more than supermarkets, and nobody seems to think there’s anything wrong with that - it’s normal to charge more for convenience, so why not do the same with driving tests?

US gov't launches 'Tech Force' to replace IT staff DOGE fired

Re: Don't touch it with a barge pole.

You probably should have written that last bit in Russian, not Spanish!

LastPass hammered with £1.2M fine for 2022 breach fiasco

Re: Blasé approach to security

Downvoted because neither you nor VoiceOfTruth read the article properly - the breach occurred because of linking of personal/work accounts, not personal use of work PC, and BYOD isn’t even suggested.

Years-old bugs in open source tool left every major cloud open to disruption

15 billion deployments

2 deployments per person on the planet?? Is it just me that suspects this is out by an order of magnitude (or 2)?

Microsoft wedges tables into Notepad for some reason

TextPad - not FOSS, but I bought a licence over 20 years ago and still use it almost daily, so it has earned its keep!

At the time I needed something for NT4 that would handle much bigger files than Notepad, and REs, to create test files (up to a million lines in some cases).

I think these days your average Linux GUI text editor is just as powerful, but I do like TextPad's UI.

Overconfidence is the new zero-day as teams stumble through cyber simulations

Re: security spending goes up

capitals, as used in English, also available.

Why Elon Musk won't ever realize the shareholder-approved Tesla payout

Re: Compensation rated per cell ...

But females have more features and are therefore more complex...

Happy holidays: AI-enabled toys teach kids how to play with fire, sharp objects

Re: My best ever Xmas pressie was a Scalextric set...

I think you'll find it taught you nothing about driving, but did teach you fine motor control and hand-to-eye coordination, and lots about the physics of momentum and friction... driving like a bell-end is entirely on you!

As for Kumma Bear, my first thought was the clue's in the name - or is that just me?

UK asks cyberspies to probe whether Chinese buses can be switched off remotely

Pelican is wilfully missing the point...

It doesn't make any difference whether you manually or remotely update your bus/whatever, if you don't know exactly what the update is/does, and can verify it, you have no security - thus you need to trust the manufacturer because you are at their mercy.

So if there's reason to believe your supplier might maliciously 'update' your safety-critical device, you shouldn't have bought it in the first place, and you certainly shouldn't apply unchecked updates (though you may be too late of course)... not really rocket-science.

Hands up who trusts Chinese manufacturers, or more to the point, the Chinese government! Other countries are available.

Not that I trust our own or our allies' manufacturers or governments even in peace-time, but at least their software updates/cock-ups probably aren't malicious.

Britain's AI gold rush hits a wall – not enough electricity

Re: The obvious solution?

Surely the obvious solution on an island surrounded by lots and lots of waves and tides is wave power and tidal power...

'Fax virus' panicked a manager and sparked job-killing Reply-All incident

Re: Early On-Line Shopping

Have you ever tried to photocopy/scan a tenner? Most machines won't let you scan money...

I discovered this at a school around 20 years ago when I was asked to assist a teacher who was struggling to make some "play money" as a teaching aid - we both thought there was something wrong with the new colour laser photocopier/printer!

I've always wondered how they are able to recognise currency notes?

I found by empirical research, i.e. trial and error using my own MFP, that you can scan small sections and stitch the images together, but then it won't print the result!

Bose kills SoundTouch: Smart speakers go dumb in Feb

Mac Pro

You forgot to mention that it also doubles as a fan heater!

Client defended engineer after oil baron-turned tech support entrepreneur lied about dodgy dealings

Re: Fairly Minor but...

Sad, maybe - for people forced to work with/under him, but “idiot” and “bully” are the words you are looking for...

AI companion bots use emotional manipulation to boost usage

Other farewell statements are available...

My favourites for ending a chatbot session include: "Useless.", "Thanks for nothing.", "F**k off.", as appropriate.

Employees regularly paste company secrets into ChatGPT

Re: 100% confused by the usage of mixed percentages

The bit that first triggered that same response from me was "45 percent of enterprise employees now using generative AI tools"... I can't be as bothered as you to look it up because I was already convinced by that that the numbers were BS, but I'm pretty sure it should have been quoted as something like "45% of users of LayerX's browser extension", which is no doubt a very, very different number!

El Reg, please quote some sources when you quote so many specific, highly questionable, numbers.

Think tank warns China's polysilicon subsidies are frying Western fabs

Re: Supply and demand

Tricky to encourage the production and use of solar panels whilst simultaneously scorning and shutting down wind and solar farms...

But never mind, they still have plenty of oil and shale gas. Idiots.

‘IT manager’ needed tech support because they had never heard of a command line

Wrong! By your logic, the CEO should be able to do everybody’s job, which is clearly nonsense.

What you are talking about is a team leader, not a manager.

Anthropic teases Claude for Chrome: Don't try this at home

Bonkers!

You'd have to be completely bonkers to use a browser that might delete your data, spend your money, or expose your secrets - just on the say-so of a hidden instruction in anything it came across, let alone autonomously!!

Latest Windows 11 insider builds hide secret File Explorer dark mode

Re: Side-by-side and Tabbed views

Not sure why you got a downvote - you actually said something sensible...

Re: Boring

Garuda is stunningly well-designed - I have it on the (old) PC that’s connected to my telly. And it’s great If you want to impress jaded Windows users with Linux because it looks amazing yet it’s completely intuitive -and it’s fast - hallmarks of good design.

Unlike this heap of junk - it beggars belief that Windows is so badly architected that simply changing the colour of dialogue boxes globally is so hard that Microsoft still hasn’t managed it on their core product!

No more Blocktoberfest? German court throws book at ad blockers

Re: CSS too ?

Upvoted for the footnote :)

Alexa hits snooze on basic functions as alarms and timers KO'd in UK outage

My alarm clock...

...has failed several times in the past 25+ years - but the failure mode is easy to spot in time: the second hand starts twitching. So I change the battery.

Mine’s the one with lots of appropriate technology in the pocket —>

Re: "I do have an Alexa that wakes me up with the radio and traffic reports for my commute"

I hope you’ve got it on a UPS!

Social media users rubbish at spotting sneaky ads, say boffins

Re: Social media users rubbish at - anything

There is an element of truth in what you are saying, but your statement is far too sweeping to be taken seriously.

I suspect you are not familiar with many of the use cases or users of the most commonly used social platforms.

UK proxy traffic surges as users consider VPN alternatives amid Online Safety Act

Re: Not a big surprise

I use one of the smaller UK ISPs and I have no reason to believe that their DNS is censored (let’s call “filtering” by its real name), but I haven’t used their DNS for many years. Nor Google’s of course.

Banning VPNs to protect kids? Good luck with that

Re: no plans to repeal the Act

I think you’re confusing him with the current US President.

GParted: Still the best free partitioner standing – unless you're on a 32-bit box

Re: Medicat and Ventoy

That’s called “reinventing the wheel“ Bob! And your undoubtedly clever solution sounds as though it is fiddly to setup and slow to run...

With Ventoy you simply boot the Ventoy USB (which can be an SSD in a USB caddy), choose which ISO you want to boot from the several you copied onto it, then it boots from that ISO - just like magic :)

Even better, spare space on the disk can be used for drivers or anything else once your chosen OS has booted as it appears as a standard USB drive.

Occasionally you’ll come across an ISO/BIOS combination that doesn’t work, or a BIOS with an arbitrary size limit (eg 128GB), but I’ve found very few.

Mine’s the one with several Ventoy drives in the pocket —>

Ousted US copyright chief argues Trump did not have power to remove her

Re: The Real Test®

> the majority who voted for this fascist nutjob...

...worship money.

Economic pressure will hit them where it hurts, and the rest of the world is already making arrangements to help Mr Trump do just that, either directly or indirectly. Even without our help he’s making a pretty good job of it all on his own with his idiotic tariffs and isolationist policies.

Mine’s the one with “Macroeconomics for Idiots” in the pocket —>

We're number 1! Windows 11 finally overtakes Windows 10

50.24%

I stand by my comment on a recent previous thread quoting market shares: completely inappropriate use of significant digits/decimal places implying high precision when in fact accuracy is more likely to be +/- 10% or worse, which completely negates the spin that is being put on this.

I think most of the users of El Reg understand the basics of scientific method and statistics, so please, do us a favour, and stop parroting this nonsense and apply a modicum of intellectual common sense!

By all means say this is likely higher than the last such survey, but static/decline is still within the margins of error - that is all you can say about these figures.

Back in black: Microsoft Blue Screen of Death is going dark

Re: But you dumped your testers..

...something about Titanic and seating, or was it violins and fires...

icon: this would be a more appropriate screen -->

Re: A rose by any other name

Is there any other way to pronounce it? I've never heard anyone call them a B-S-O-D, but then I don't make a habit of watching half-baked YouTube videos by millennials about Windows basics so I wouldn't really know...

Exif marks the spot as fresh version of PNG image standard arrives

Fireworks

Sorry Liam, I’ve been using PNG since at least ~2002, when I bought Macromedia Fireworks which uses PNG as its native format, and it has never once occurred to me to pronounce it “ping”!

Incidentally Fireworks was much better at creating and manipulating complex text than the contemporaneous Adobe Photoshop (?4) so I decided to use it for my advertising graphics. Guess which app Adobe chose to can when they bought Macomedia... all they were interested in was Flash. I was so annoyed, I wanted the bugs in Fireworks fixed!

Gridlocked: AI's power needs could short-circuit US infrastructure

Re: AI == cocaine

That’s a great article, thanks! I particularly like the references to dating apps and the part about the “Hook” model, and the quote that starts

“With ChatGPT, Sam Altman hit upon a way to use the Hook Model with a text generator.”

The one thing SME IT can do that the big guys can’t: Change the world

Re: What's SME?

Or you could look it up yourself and then realise how far in the sand (or clouds) your head is buried!

Huawei chair says the future of comms is fiber-to-the-room, which China has and the rest of us don’t

Re: FTTR=ISP in the room

I hate to stamp on your conspiracy theory as I’m fairly paranoid myself, but of course you need a router and/or wireless access point - unless you only have one device per room, and that one device is wired!

I agree with several commentards above that FFTR is probably meaning to each apartment in a tower block - have you seen typical Chinese housing? It makes London look spacious and sparsely-populated...

Techie traveled 4 hours to fix software that worked perfectly until a new hire used it

Re: Manual?

And that grab handle is the handbrake… but if it’s a Merc, it’s to release the hand (actually foot) brake :)

Windows 11 migration heats up... on desktops

Re: 10 years

I think you’ll find the eco warriors are well aware!

China just two years behind USA on chip design, says White House tech Czar

Correct me if I’m wrong, Jensen...

> “the world can’t benefit from innovations developed by Middle Kingdom computer science boffins”

...but aren’t we already seeing that happen - with or without your hardware?