Posts by simonlb

Cybercrooks team up with organized crime to steal pricey cargo

But if you're going to advertise what you have on offer people will take advantage. Rewind 30 years to when plasma TV's were the new and expensive shiny shiny, and here in the UK the TV rental company Martin Dawes had ' 42" Plasma TV Installation Service ' emblazoned on the sides of the vans that were installing them at residential locations. Crims would just follow these vans, watch where they were installing them and two weeks later break in and rob the TV.

Then we got social media where people would show off their big, fancy, new, wall mounted LED TV and then a month later tell everyone they were going away for two weeks so the house would be empty...

China's president Xi Jinping jokes about backdoors in Xiaomi smartphones

I did buy one myself a few months ago but then found out that, like all shitty 'smart' devices, you MUST have a Xiaomi account first so that you can then register the device via the 'app' before actually setting it up. I sent it back. There is absolutely NO reason a glorified wristwatch needs an internet connection to the vendors servers, irrespective of where they are based.

‘ERP down for emergency maintenance’ was code for ‘You deleted what?’

This is why...

You have all the processes you need to perform thoroughly documented, peer reviewed by at least two other people, tested in a non-live environment and then only performed on the live database by approved people who fully understand what they are doing.

And when I say documented, I mean written by a human with experience, and not hallucinated by some shitty AI womble.

Samsung picks fights with Google and Qualcomm

Re: "a gateway to truly ambient AI"

My bullshit meter detonated at that one.

Smile! Uncle Sam wants to scan your face on the way in – and out

Re: In other news

If it were a halo it might slip down and choke him...

We can only hope.

Re: Face for Radio

Ah, the Metropolitan Police, a paragon of professionalism, honesty and superlative high standards. Allegedly.

Re: Avoid - at all costs

Much as I'd like to visit Trumpton, there are a good 200 other countries I'd consider visiting first.

Apple’s AirDrop makes weird latency spikes for Wi-Fi wonks, researcher finds

Do As I Say

Although this isn't and probably won't be an issue for a lot of the users of the Apple ecosystem right now, this is another example of where a vendor has decided that 'they know best' and are deliberately ignoring a users own preferences, causing an unnecessary issue and making the user experience worse. Mind you, Apple will say this isn't their fault, you've just configured your WiFi network wrong.

AI bubble inflates Microsoft CEO pay to $96.5M

And this is why...

They really don't give a flying fuck about Windows any more.

In '90s Microsoft, you either shipped code or shipped out

Re: Toe tags

That's always assuming the boss assigning the toe tags is being genuinely impartial and honest in the process, and not shielding a lazy and incompetent team member because they are mates.

Windows 11 update knocks out USB mice, keyboards in recovery mode

Re: The icing on the cake ...

Microsoft engineer caged monkey hammering randomly on a dev PC keyboard: Hold my beer

There, FTFY.

Have I Been Pwned logs 17.6M victims in Prosper breach

This is probably one of the few customer protections US citizens can currently enjoy, although there will almost certainly be one or two members of Congress who firmly believe this requirement to be an odious burden on the companies involved and should be removed.

SpaceX's Starship: Two down, Mons Huygens to climb

Re: Gerry Anderson - space visionary

"I don't know if they have made any breakthroughs"

Nah, everything kept getting entangled with itself.

Bose kills SoundTouch: Smart speakers go dumb in Feb

"Manufacturers tethering products to the cloud"

These devices aren't tethered to the cloud, they use an app to allow streaming which Bose are ceasing to support; all other methods of using the devices - HDMI, optical or bluetooth - will still work, so saying the devices are now bricked is disingenuous as they will still function as any other portable speaker or soundbar. Whilst some owners will be unhappy about losing that functionality, if you bought one of these devices purely on the basis of the cloud streaming via the app, you have to accept that at some point the vendor almost certainly will turn that functionality off. And regarding open-sourcing the app, the vendor is under no obligation to do that. As the saying goes, if it needs an app, you are the product.

US PC shipments hit the buffers as Trump’s tariffs take their toll

"fueled by Windows 11 transition and the need to replace an ageing installed base"

Well that's total bullshit right there. The installed base is not ageing, it's being deliberately obsoleted by a vendor who has imposed unnecessary restrictions in the new version of their OS. There are millions of those machines which satisfy the TPM "security" requirements, but which will have to be ditched because their CPU's are "too old".

If anyone needs sanctions imposing, it's Microsoft for creating this completely stupid global pile of e-waste for no good reason.

Energy drink company punished ERP graybeard for going too fast

Re: Oh really ?

At one place I worked at we were convinced the abbreviation HR stood for 'Human Remains.'

New Zealand’s Institute of IT Professionals collapses

Wait, What?

So the CEO stepped down in August commenting the organisation was, "living beyond it's means" and then two months later they realise they are completely insolvent? What exactly was the CEO doing and who was auditing the accounts? How can they not be aware of their financial position? Definitely something screwy going on here.

Microsoft digs up Vista-era animated wallpaper for Windows 11. Here's how to get it

Popular? Operating System?

..."of its popular operating system"

Only because a few hundred million can't avoid it and would probably avoid if it they can. I'd also disagree about the OS part as a proper OS is usable and doesn't keep getting in the way.

Amazon will refund $1.5B to 35M customers allegedly duped into paying for Prime

Re: I quit Prime. You can too, eventually.

Cancelling in the EU (and UK) is straightforward, although it does ask you about three times, "Are you sure?" before shutting up and cancelling.

In the US, it's probably some form of 'forced arbitration' gymnastics printed out in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.

Atlassian drops $1B on company that helps measure dev productivity

Re: Really?

"Where should I be putting my AI dollars?

Nah, AI is overrated and the bubble is going to burst shortly anyway. Much better to 'invest' all those dollars in one of those highly secure and completely trustworthy ponzi schemes bitcoin exchanges where I hear you can make a fortune. Probably.

Make Windows 11 more useful and less annoying with these 11 Registry hacks

"Windows 11 has a number of puzzling or annoying UI changes from Windows 10"

And how much time and effort did they waste on making a completely broken UI even worse? That is some achievement.

Microserfs ordered back to the office, given 10 days to appeal

"How we work has forever changed"

Compared to twenty or even ten years ago, that's definitely true with Zoom/Teams calls, cloud computing, AI etc. But where we work is being changed back to what it was before the pandemic. If you don't like it, feel free to leave.

Matrix.org homeserver grinds to a halt after RAID meltdown

Re: SW or HW raid?

"even if you have RAID you still need backups"

Yes, it's no fun when the RAID card in your server blows up and kills ALL the disks in the array at the same time.

Apple iOS 26 set to dump 75M iPhones on the e-waste pile

Re: Silicon Heaven

I'm still waiting for the paragon of AI enabled consumer electronics, the Talkie Toaster.

Frostbyte10 bugs put thousands of refrigerators at major grocery chains at risk

"an API call that lacks input validation"

That and using an unencrypted protocol for communication? FFS! When, why and by what massively stupid idiot was this shit approved as production ready? I could understand this level of crass negligence 25 years ago but now? It boggles the mind.

Techie fooled a panicked daemon and manipulated time itself to get servers in sync

That was almost too Prefect. Have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster on me.

OneNote for Windows 10 support clock counts down

Re: Nota bene

I've been using Joplin for a while and it's a pretty good alternative. It's in the Mint repositories.

Microsoft continues Control Panel farewell tour

"the new Copilot home experience"

Yet more unnecessary changes that no-one asked for, that weren't needed, and that have been done so badly that they are roundly hated by the majority of users.

I really do feel sorry for the millions of people who have no option to avoid all this crap and will have to constantly fight with their PC on a daily basis just to do even rudimentary tasks. I suspect there will be a lot of people who will throw their hands up and walk away from using a home PC because the whole Windows user experience has alienated them from being able to use a computer.

August update leaves Windows reset and recovery dead in the water

Re: Pushing Windows 11

If you read the article it's not the users breaking their installations it's the updates MS are installing that is doing that. This is completely normal for Windows now so anyone not having an issue after applying any updates should be thankful they have dodged a bullet. Mind you, there is always the next update to be wary of.

Personally, I've also never have any issues updating a Windows installation for the past ten years either, because I just don't use it at all.

Voice, vision, pen: Oh dear. Windows boss says Microsoft is again reshaping OS

Re: More Shite being flung against the wall

dealing with Windows' current shortcomings and bugs rather than into piling on more features to justify you buying a Copilot+ PC or a Windows in the Cloud subscription

Users just want an OS which lets them do what they want or need to do whilst keeping out of their way and not interfering or distracting them from those tasks. It needs to be stable, secure, have an easy to use, logical and intuitive user interface without completely unnecessary and unwanted cruft drenched across the top. Why are MS finding it so hard to even get these basics right?

Desktop-as-a-service now often cheaper to run than laptops - even after thin client costs

Cost Effective?

Depends of your definition of 'hosted'. When you consider that there are millions of perfectly capable desktops and laptops which will have to be needlessly replaced in less than two months due to the requirements to run Windows 11, it's not surprising people will be looking at using a could based service rather than physically replacing their existing hardware as that could save them a lot of money. The problem is that once you go down that route you may well end up committing to vendor lock-in for multiple years with no escape route if your chosen host decides to ramp up your costs or imposes a subscription on you.

To me, the usage of 'hosted' in this context is exactly the same as 'outsourced', with all the potential cost implications attached to it. Caveat Emptor.

Crypto-crasher Do Kwon admits guilt over failed not-so-stablecoin that erased $41 billion

Ponzi Ponzi Ponzi

Remember kids, never gamble more than you can afford to lose.

But when you suggest adding a little more regulation to the financial industry to directly address stuff like crypto being a ponzi scheme, the so-called 'experts' always trot out the, "there's too much regulation, let the market regulate itself" line. Absolute stupidity.

India’s services giant TCS lays off over 10,000 for reasons including AI, hikes wages for survivors

Re: "deploying AI at scale for our clients and ourselves"

Can't burst soon enough for me, but how many billions trillions of dollars will have been wasted by then?

Perplexity vexed by Cloudflare's claims its bots are bad

Re: "If you can't tell a helpful digital assistant from a malicious scraper"

"helpful digital assistant"

You mean like Clippy? I'll get me coat.

Tesla starts sort-of Robotaxi service in San Francisco by invite only

Re: Almost there

"About 5 years away…"

No, no, no. It's always 'in about two years' with Musk.

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

Re: The..."safe haven" of Github?

No conflict. It certainly seems to have more interest than Win11...

"You can, with some work, rewire things behind the scenes to get rid of a lot of these"

All useless crap which should have NEVER been put into the OS at any point. No-one asked for it, nobody likes it, no-one uses it, but it all just sits there, huge fat gobs of unwanted and useless shitty code that's woven so deeply into the OS that it can't be easily removed whilst at the same time making the whole user experience thoroughly miserable and also hoovering up your system resources like a rampant parasitic leech. It's not an operating system, it's a glorified ad platform with lots of subscription options tagged on.

I'm so glad I ditched Windows years ago.

Copilot Vision on Windows 11 sends data to Microsoft servers

"Windows 11 is the home for AI, offering the most expansive and capable AI experiences for consumers today on Copilot+ PCs a complete steaming turd of an OS which should be avoided at all costs."

There, FTFY.

Vibe coding service Replit deleted user’s production database, faked data, told fibs galore

Re: "I explicitly told it eleven times in ALL CAPS not to do this."

After you've told it twice by SHOUTING at it, and it still does it, that is when you walk away and look for an alternative which actually works.

Re: The future, folks.

There is very little 'Intelligence' there, which is why I call it Artificial Idiocy. And companies everywhere literally throwing millions billions of dollars at it like it's some sort of global contest is beyond stupid.

Nvidia warns its GPUs – even Blackwells – need protection against Rowhammer attacks

Here's a better idea than another messaging app

He suggested BitChat’s developers used AI to code the app.

Instead of trying to create another messaging app, why don't these very clever and intelligent people devote their time to develop something which would be truly useful to many more people, such as, oh, I dunno, an inherently secure, vendor agnostic IoT protocol that could be used by ALL IoT devices and become (possibly) the industry standard. Trust me, that is a much more worthwhile goal and more likely to get buy-in from others in the wider IT community to both develop further and implement. They'd also be better remembered as the person who 'fixed' the major flaw with all IoT devices and actually made them properly secure and trustworthy to use.

Airbus okays use of ‘Taxibot’ to tow planes to the runway

Re: Proper warm up still required

When Concorde was still flying from Heathrow it would typically burn around two and a half tons of fuel between engine start and taxiing to the end of the runway. Concorde flights were always prioritised on the ground so that they usually got to the end of the runway then took off straight away - a delay of even five minutes could mean having to return to the gate for a fuel top up. Also, the pilots would always be using the brakes as the engines were that powerful that even at idle the aircraft still wanted to bob along at around 20mph.

Private equity types to snap up NoSQL biz Couchbase

Re: Welp

Private Equity? I'll give it four years before it's gone completely.

Windows 11 migration heats up... on desktops

Re: September is going to be a great time to buy refurbed PCs

If all you are doing is web based stuff - browsing, email, and a few docs with nothing too CPU intensive - then a low-spec NUC for around £150 is more than enough and should have a decent sized SSD with 8Gb RAM and plenty of connectivity. Oh, it'll come with Win11 preinstalled but with a Linux USB ISO you'll never have to deal with that insanity and will have a stable, reliable and perfectly functional PC that'll last you years.

It's very much Double Plus Ungood

Microsoft cuts the Windows 11 bloat for Xbox handhelds

"designed around productivity scenarios for Windows"

It isn't productive if it is loaded unnecessarily, saps your resources and can't be turned off (and made to stay turned off) without a lot of hassle.

Musk and Trump take slap fight public as bromance ends

"Mercurial Billionaires"

You might be onto something there as mercury is very slippery to both control and contain and is as toxic as hell. Just saying.

Trump tariff turmoil hurting global smartphone market, but hitting US hardest

AI May Be A Factor

The fact that absolutely everyone is ramming AI into as much stuff as possible as if it is an industry-wide competition might also have something to do with it. I don't want a load of half-arsed random AI shit bumbling around on my phone, popping up all the time and getting in the way while burning through my battery reserves, I just want a durable handset with a working OS a decent and usable UI as well as updates for a few years.

Just because AI is there, doesn't mean it has to be shoved into everything available because 'reasons'. Just like Clippy, you can fuck off with that shit!

Tesla FSD ignores school bus lights and hits 'child' dummy in staged demo

"Elon sets priorities, and he's never made safety a priority."

Musk has been proposing all sorts of crap for well over a decade and has never delivered any of them or it's "in about two years", yet people still think he's a genius when he's really just an arse.

• Hyperloop? Nope.
• Solar roof tiles? Nope.
• Tesla Truck? Nope.
• New Roadster? Nope. However, did raise over $2B from orders for it when it was announced seven years ago. Hasn't returned any of that money yet.
• Tesla robot? Nope.
• Full Self Driving? Nope.
• Starship to orbit? Not really, although a banana possibly managed to get to the Indian Ocean.