Posts by Dippywood

US ban on China chip exports rebounds, causes 2,700 job losses

Re: Politics shouldn’t enter science and technology

Or, think of this, we could always license that jet engine stuff to them on the promise that they would only use such things for military purposes...

After all, they gave their word, didn't they?

Microsoft to stop accepting checks from partners

Some of our 'U's are missing...

I sure that it is only a matter of time now until some U's go missing, and certain words are Z-ised. That's Zed-ised, not Zee-ized, which would be wrong in at least two ways.

Intel finally takes the hint on software optimization

Been There, Seen That. Collect T-Shirt at Reception.

Around the early 2000's. Intel had a professional service division that offered exactly this service, as well as 'we will help you to migrate to Intel' and assorted other things.

Of course, this was not 'core business' and Intel Solution Services was wound up in 2008...

Systemd supremo Lennart Poettering leaves Red Hat for Microsoft

Re: The Opposite Of Defenestration

I'd go with fenestration.

Mars helicopter mission (which Apache says is powered byLog4j) overcomes separate network glitch to confirm new flight record

Re: I think we can consider this an air-gapped system

Indeed - the air itself is vacuum-gapped

Sorry Jeff...

...exploitation of the Log4j bug on Mars is a million to one..

With apologies to Jeff Wayne:

The chances of anything happening on Mars are a million to one, they said

The chances of anything happening on Mars are a million to one,

But...

Have you tried turning server cores off and on again? HPE wants to do it for you from GreenLake

Silicon-On-Demand

Too many cores for your wallet?

Ah, SOD it!

Miscreants started scanning for Exchange Hafnium vulns five minutes after Microsoft told world about zero-days

Re: Hobson's choice then!

...patch fast and then have your systems go down cos the supplier has burped out a bad patch.

Down == safe. Not the 'safe' you want, and possibly permanently 'safe.'

But safety first, recover what's left of the business later - it is the modern way.

How to ensure your tech predictions catch on in a flash? Do the mash

The ' loopy Scot retro-wavers the Rezillos' are still using Stingray to announce themselves...

...the end of which can be heard at the very start of this: https://ianbmedia.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/good-sculptures-in-brighton-as-the-rezillos-zero-in-on-concorde-2/

Cybercrooks targeting UK organisations started 2020 strong only for attacks to wither away by Christmas

Already?

"Compromising every web-connected server and service you can find gets tiring after a while – and by the end of 2021 internet criminals targeting British companies were as fatigued as the rest of us"

I know that lockdown has distorted our sense of time, but the end of 2021? I missed it - how can that be?

Under that pile of spare keys and obsolete cables is an IoT device: Samsung pushes useful retirement project for older phones

At the risk of being boring...

https://galaxyupcycling.github.io shows another introduction - from 2017, no less.

It seems that the project has taken a little time to reach fruition...

Pork-tracking website problems add extra crackling to US-Taiwan-China tensions

On Monday, the FDA ’fessed up to an error

Pork Bork!

Ericsson warns investors: This Biden fellow coming into the White House may look to resolve China trade dispute...

...so far no evidence has come to light that proves Trump's assertions.

Now why does that sound familiar?

Hey, over here, I'm talking... Academics help computers figure out which way you're facing when you speak

"Which could be useful for AI assistants as they'll know whether you're barking orders at them or the kids or the TV"

What's the point, not one of the above will pay attention anyway!

Excel Hell: It's not just blame for pandemic pandemonium being spread between the sheets

Re: Ye Olde English Proverb

The 'tools' are normally management...

TikTok wins reprieve as judge rules it can stay in American iOS, Android app stores for now

....all while managing the most severe public health crisis in a century.

'...managing...' - really?

Brexit travel permits designed to avoid 7,000-lorry jams come January depend on software that won't be finished till April

...won't be finished until April...

Which year?

England's COVID-tracking app finally goes live after 6 months of work – including backpedal on how to handle data

Re: (thanks to Cummings)

Make sure you drive to the test - and take the family along too...

Ancient telly borked broadband for entire Welsh village

Stereotype Time

Openreach engineer, Michael Jones -> Openreach engineer, Jones the Broadband.

Working from home on Virgin Media's broadband? Too bad. Outage hits English capital

Virgin Media Business offer SLAs etc. When I switched from consumer to business it actually cost just slightly less, and there's no in-contract price increases. Of course, if you want an email service, you are out of luck, but you can have a static address with a PTR record to run your own.

Having said that, it can still take an age to get something fixed, but at least you have a proper customer service person to complain to - on the consumer side the customer service is truly appalling.

If I had a decent alternative (my phone line under the ground is aluminium and noisy as hell, so I am stuck with cable) I'd move. The first company to make me a good FFTP offer will probably win.

Fasten your seat belts: Brave Reg hack spends a week eating airline food grounded by coronavirus crash

As a child of the 1970s, I have a fear of savoury dishes involving fruit...

There is a similar fear of desserts containing pasta...

I recall, with the requisite amount of revulsion, a strange concoction of macaroni and tinned custard. Ah, the '70's

What do you call megabucks Microsoft? No really, it's not a joke. El Reg needs you

If only EE was not already taken. Embrace/Extend

QUIC, dig in: Microsoft open-sources MsQuic, its implementation of Google-spawned TCP-killer QUIC

...called MsQuic

Oh.

I was hoping for NesQuic...

Never mind, no point in crying over spilt milk, and all of that.

Vodafone chief speaks out after 5G conspiracy nuts torch phone mast serving Nightingale Hospital in Brum

Viruses are tiny, microscopic, organic entities.

The minds of the arsonists are similar in all respects...

Australian digital-radio-for-railways Huawei project derailed by US trade sanctions against Chinese tech giant

Uncle Sam's crackdown sparks....

'..farce majeure event that cannot be overcome'

Samsung gives China wide berth over coronavirus woes, uses sea and air freight to ship smartphone bits to Vietnamese factories

Not as much stockpiling as you might think in anticpication of the new year

Vietnam also celebrates the Lunar New Year - Tet - so will have had a corresponding, although slightly shorter, holiday.

There, as in China, it is customary to return to the family home for the festival, and a similar migration to the cities has taken place.

So, components stocks might dwindle more quickly than some would expect.

Steve Jobs, executives shot down top Apple engineers' plea to design their own server CPU – latest twist in legal battle over chip upstart Nuvia

Re: I find this rather sad

If only it was 'slowly...'

Whoooooa, this node is on fire! Forget Ceph, try the forgotten OpenStack storage release 'Crispy'

Re: Thermal Incident

Pray tell, why is it that, no matter where a box has been, when you de-dust it the smell is often of curry?

Microsoft takes us to 2004 with new Windows 10 so you don't mistake it for Server 2003

That thing Santa left on the lounge carpet

Do you not mean "that thing Santa's reindeer left on the lounge carpet?"

I've had it with these motherflipping eggs on this motherflipping train

Re: Oh boy.. An egg...

Durian is something I enjoy when in Vietnam (sầu riêng there).

Yes, it has an odour.

Yes, you can smell it some distance off.

Yes, it reminds me of a gas leak.

Yes, it is delicious!

Can even be bought in various Chinatown areas here in the UK, and, for a while in North London, there was the Durian Centre.

What simultaneously sucks and doesn't? This new robot vacuum cleaner

Heavens knows what a pound will be worth by the time it is released.

About a pound, probably...

A spot of after-hours business email does you good, apparently

Re: My old work email account is still live

Living eventually results in your death. No need to subset.

Hey, I wrote this neat little program for you guys called the IMAC User Notification Tool

So Very Viz

Back in the day of the dinosaurs, when FAX modems were very new, and long before they had been standardised, I got hold of one that thought it was an EPSON printer. This, alongside a MicroVAX and a 3rd party IP Stack for VMS soon became an email->FAX gateway.

This needed a name, so FAXLAG (FAX Line Access Gateway) was born, with due credit to Sandra and Tracey.

Psst. Wanna brush up your supervillain creds? Get a load of this mini submarine

All those years after the other spares stopped selling

Glad to see the surplus Sinclair C5 handlebars went somewhere...

You monsters: Screen time murders your kid's imaginary friend – until they reach school age

Re: Celebrity Imaginary Friends

Pop!

Which is the imaginary friend of the other?

"I say, General old chap"

"Yes, Legal?"

"One of us doesn't exist, don't you know?"

"That's a trifle inconvenient, wouldn't you say?"

Buckminsterfullerene sounds like the next UK Prime Minister but trust us, it's in fact the largest molecule yet found in interstellar space

Re: Am I the only one thinking

Do you have a raison for that preference?

Cyber-IOU notes. Voucher hell on wheels. However you want to define Facebook's Libra, the most ridiculous part is its privacy promise

What could possibly go wrong?

Really, I mean how long will the list be? Which order of magnitude will be required?

Come friendly bit barns and fall on Slough: Equinix opens £90m data centre in London rust belt

Slough - Greater London?

I think not! Greater London. Slough doth reside in Berkshire...

Are you sure you've got a floppy disk stuck in the drive? Or is it 100 lodged in the chassis?

5 to 8-inch "floppy" disks in the flexible, bendable jackets...

Not to forget that one also had some with 'hard holes'...

VP Mike Pence: I want Americans back on the Moon by 2024 (or before the Chinese get there)

Re: Way ahead of you Mikey

Indian too...

Budget rocketry from Donald's pal, Kim, perhaps?

Croydon school rolling in toilet roll after Brexit gift deemed unfit for the Queen's Anus Horribilis

A Soft Landing...

Put them at the base of the 'brexit cliff' we are about to go over (apparently) and use them to cushion the fall...

Schneier: Don't expect Uncle Sam to guard your web privacy – it's Europe riding to the rescue

When the Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth...

Millions of years ago, when I was at university, there was a compulsory module called "The Engineer in Society" that sought to make students aware of the sociological impact that their work could have.

It seems these days that too many are unaware of such things.

Or perhaps they just don't care.

Ah well, maybe I am in a minority as someone who rues the day that such niceties have been lost - or actively dismissed by the likes of Google abandoning the "do no evil' maxim.

Silent Merc, holy e-car... Mflllwhmmmp! What is that terrible sound?

A new take on a classic game

Announcing Colossal Airport Adventure

YOU ARE IN A REGIONAL AIRPORT FILLED WITH WARREN-LIKE PASSAGES LEADING ONTO NARROW WALKWAY AFTER NARROW WALKWAY, ALL LINED WITH STUPIDLY EXPENSIVE SHOPS AND FURTHER DIVIDED BY QUEUE BARRIERS WITH RETRACTABLE FABRIC SWABS FOR A LONG, LONG, SNAKING 1KM – FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WITH NO PASSPORT CONTROL OR SECURITY CHECK TO ACCOUNT FOR IT.

find boarding pass

CANNOT USE BOARDING PASS WITH NO PASSPORT

find passport

PASSPORT IS STILL AT SECURITY

return to security

YOU ARE IN A REGIONAL AIRPORT FILLED WITH WARREN-LIKE PASSAGES LEADING ONTO NARROW WALKWAY AFTER NARROW WALKWAY, ALL LINED WITH STUPIDLY EXPENSIVE SHOPS AND FURTHER DIVIDED BY QUEUE BARRIERS WITH RETRACTABLE FABRIC SWABS FOR A LONG, LONG, SNAKING 1KM – FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WITH NO PASSPORT CONTROL OR SECURITY CHECK TO ACCOUNT FOR IT.

....

Ah, this military GPS system looks shoddy but expensive. Shall we try to break it?

VHS Tape Case as a Measurement Unit?

Nowhere near obscure enough - the VCR tape case of choice would have to be the Philips V2000 for maximum incomprehensibility. A technically superior unit of measure therefore destined to fail...

Twilight of the sundials: Archaic timepiece dying out and millennials are to blame, reckons boffin

Pocket Sundial

When sorting though my late father's belongings I came a pocket sundial - a nice embossed brass folding thingie with a compass embedded in to too.Of archaic interest, but at least it IS interesting!

Go big (with our bandwidth) or go home, Verizon: Texas mulls outlawing 911 throttling after Cali wildfire fiasco

The FCC again

FCC = F$%k Consumers Completely?

Just seems pertinent

I am just a mapper: Solar drones take to the skies above Blighty

Re: What goes up with the aid of a launcher...

As well they might - however the runway used was considerably more 'conventional' than the ones the navy pilots have with their launchers on. They get arrestors too, IIRC