Posts by AndyD 8-)₹

Cats: Not a fan favourite when the critters are draped around an office packed with tech

Re: Not Just IT...

If you see a cat looking at you and blinking slowly, it's because in the parallel universe, where the cat spends at least half of the time, blinking at things makes them vanish...

What does my neighbour's Tesla have in common with a stairlift?

Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted

"the most demand for electricity we’ve had in recent years in the UK was for 62GW in 2002...... Even if the impossible happened and we all switched to EVs overnight, we think demand would only increase by around 10 per cent."

So do your own 'Sums' : 30 - 40 million cars; 3 or 7 or 17 kWatt charging load .....

Re: Charging

There are a lot of problems with batteries. Present tense...But 2030 is in the future...

9 years seems a long time when you're 20 but you get a different (and possibly more accurate) perspective when you near 80!

State of Iowa told no, you can’t use $21m coronavirus federal aid to help fund your $52m Workday roll-out

Re: This is endemic in (local) goverments...

... they even have a special word for it - 'virement'!

Excel is for amateurs. To properly screw things up, those same amateurs need a copy of Access

Access is great... as a cheap front end to a proper database system.

... as long as the proper database is locked down solid with error-checking 'instead of' triggers and encrypted double audit trail logs that record user Id's

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

Thirty years ago...

... let me say that again - thirty years ago I wrote a report for a major bank, outlining the risks and drawbacks of using spreadsheets for almost anything!

This was a bank that had very rigorous very very thorough, very s l o w, but almost completely foolproof in-house software development procedures. My reportt was received 'politely'.

A few short months later they made swingeing redundancies across the IT department and brought in newer, faster fashionable techniques.

Hey Ho

Xen Project officially ports its hypervisor to Raspberry Pi 4

Re: Choice is good

Eh? What do you think KVM is?

Keyboard Video Mouse?

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

Re: The other question

.....Unless HM Gov is going to have a list of lorry number plates that are deemed "international transport"?...

they could have special plates to identify them - some acronym like ... TIR?

Someone please have mercy on this poorly Ubuntu parking machine that has been force-fed maudlin autotuned tripe

The track has proven popular...

The past tense of prove is 'proved' - although it seems to be dropping out of use, so I suppose the big-data driven dictionaries will soon omit it.

NCC Group admits its training data was leaked online after folders full of CREST pentest certification exam notes posted to GitHub

@DES blocksize

In the parallel universe I share with WikiPedia the answer on the crib sheet is wrong, but what do I know - I'm so old I even worked for the NCC before it was 'privatised'.

UK formally abandons Europe’s Unified Patent Court, Germany plans to move forward nevertheless

Re: advantages all backwards

@Wonderful Ideas

You can't patent ideas (or methods or algorithms OR computer programs) - only devices.

There are DDoS attacks, then there's this 809 million packet-per-second tsunami Akamai says it just caught

Re: And the next step...

"Don't forget all the internet-connected IoT crapware!"

just before reading this topic I got an email ad from a reliable supplier - for 'Smart WiFi / internet compatible" LED light strips!

UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

Re: Herd Immunity

"herd immunity" approach the government initially backed as a way to explain why it didn't need to go into a national lockdown. That policy was also well-reasoned and well-explained by a small number of very competent doctors and scientists who just happened to be XXwrongXX right, but obviously it is politically quite unpalatable.

Zoom's end-to-end encryption isn't actually end-to-end at all. Good thing the PM isn't using it for Cabinet calls. Oh, for f...

TLS

So there's nothing wrong with TLS - it's the zoom in middle!

I'll stick with SSH - key delivered by armoured carrier pigeon.

IT services sector faces armageddon as COVID-19 lockdown forces project cancellations – analysts

So I started putting money aside for a rainy day just in case checked the stockmarket lately?

NASA to launch 247 petabytes of data into AWS – but forgot about eye-watering cloudy egress costs before lift-off

Re: Just wondering

"if you don't need your data accessible then you can make it even cheaper with ... my bargain special offer write-only storage system"

Microsoft, Google, Slack, Zoom et al struggling to deal with a spike in remote tools thanks to coronavirus

Re: My SSH connection

... gives me the same access as being in the office, so where is the big tech goldmine?

Where it's always been: FUD - my last employer had an experienced team quite capable of supporting SSH but no - it had to be a CD with a Known Name on it for me to take home. I was tempted to set up a reverse SSH tunnel to spite them but a) BOFH would notice, and b) I was so chuffed at working from home I didn't want to rock the boat!

UK.gov sits down with mobile big four to formalise plans for rural shared 4G network

Re: This is probably a stupid question

Well I tried to tell you that there weren't enough lampposts in the countryside for 5G - kids today, they just don't listen <g>

Admins beware! Microsoft gives heads-up for 'disruptive' changes to authentication in Office 365 email service

IMAP server storage

well I travel around a bit and use several devices. Having had a couple of NAS's fail on me I see imap gmail (free!) as very convenient storage (I archive every year or so - time passes quicker with age).

Google have already decided what I'm going to think next week so security is not a problem <g>.

There's got to be Huawei we can defeat Chinese tech giant, thinks US attorney-general. Aha, let's buy stake in Ericsson and Nokia

While panicking about which foreign 5G is best/ safest no-one is considering the possibility that 5G is NOT the way forward (there aren't enough rural lampposts for a start!).

WannaCry ransomware attack on NHS could have triggered NATO reaction, says German cybergeneral

Re: NATO response

I do wonder if the bankers who profess total inability to track ransomware money might try a bit harder if faced by a squad of armed troops asking the questions.

In deepest darkest Surrey, an on-prem SAP system running 17-year-old software is about to die....

Well of course....

"In 2004, the council worked with Capgemini to implement SAP R/3 to run finance, HR and payroll" see above.

So now the options are £2 million for a hardware upgrade, and ongoing software costs a bit more than before ..

OR £40 million for all the current buzzphrase gaga stuff that sure as hell won't match current work practices - just like the SAP dinosaur shit didn't.

Anyone noticed a strong smell of brown-paper envelopes?

In the red corner, Big Red, and in the blue corner... the rest of the tech industry

Documented and Undocumented APIs

"we had a disassembler" ... iirc everyone with an early PC had a disassembler it was 'built in', which I think is how Peter Norton was able to rapidly bring out his invaluable PC-DOS Users' Guide (with the disassembled DOS/BASIC bios source code in the Appendix).

What was Boeing through their heads? Emails show staff wouldn't put their families on a 737 Max over safety fears

Re: How many other manufacturers?

"I had a refrigerator using pentane for years. Being flammable in a well designed fully sealed system is not a problem."

but when there is a problem it burns very very hot, somewhat similar to acetylene - and as recent history shows this can be disastrous. Organic halides otoh are mostly extinguishers of fires.

Two missing digits? How about two missing employees in today's story of Y2K

Re: Clipper

"Foxpro was not bad at all. "

... it's still not bad!

New UK Home Sec invokes infosec nerd rage by calling for an end to end-to-end encryption

Re: Strewth. Is there no end to the madness? The lessons learned are ...

My living memory includes:

Herbert Morrison

Rab Butler

Roy Jenkins

Jim Callaghan

Douglas Hurd

Kenneth Clarke

Jack Straw

plus a number of notable omissions

JavaScript survey: Devs love a bit of React, but Angular and Cordova declining. And you're not alone... a chunk of pros also feel JS is 'overly complex'

Re: Doesn't paint JavaScript in the best light...

"...or who even have a clue what Fitt's Law is?"

hah! pointing devices - that's when it all went wrong -

computer systems and interaction with same worked fine when output was read and input was typed. UPPER CASE ONLY even helped a bit with the typing (only slightly joking)

Log us out: Private equity snaffles Lastpass owner LogMeIn

Re: Or you could, maybe, possibly, perhaps...

... or ... remember a couple of simple passwords for unimportant sites, and one very long passphrase for a truecrypt'ed list of important passwords?

Why is the printer spouting nonsense... and who on earth tried to wire this plug?

Re: Not on the wall socket

""You also don't need to have a qualification of any sort"

Yes I came up against that - 'did you wire this (fused spur)'?

Yes

You just have to be a "competent" person to do that.

I've re-wired three houses and none have caught fire.

But have you got any qualifications?

'A' level Physics

That's not what I mean

So it doesn't count?

Dunno!

Den Automation raised millions to 'reinvent' the light switch. Now it's lights out for startup

Re: "Am I missing something?"

"Works out quite a bit cheaper than ESP8266 + relay + enclosure + power (YMMV)

Edit: Looks like they *are* ESP8266s under the hood. Nice :D"

"orks with Amazon Alexa Echo"

Shouts through letterbox 'Alexa turn off burglar alarm'

Re: What?

Quite. I would never make my home's systems dependent on some outside software server, it's asking for trouble. " You haven't saved the planet and/or enough electricty to run a small town by installing a Smart Meter then? <g>

Re: "need to know where it is so IP, then which device so port forwarding."

"needing only a dynamic DNS " ah ahah aargh AARGHH!!! hahhahhahhaHoHum..

High-resolution display output or Wi-Fi: It seems you can only choose one on Raspberry Pi 4

Re: Interference

<q>I know you jest, but oxidized copper wire can result in complex crystals known as black death

I hadn't heard of this one before...got any links? Sounds like old school telephone stuff which I have a bit of interest in myself --</q>

... and as anyone who has 'inadvertently' re-routed their POTS connection will know, it's carried (for miles) on copper-plated steel wires.

Bose customers beg for firmware ceasefire after headphones fall victim to another crap update

" 1 year or less would probably considered reasonable for a £5 pair of headphones"

not very long ago I bought a crystal set at an antiques auction. It came with a pair of headphones, they can't be less than 90 years old and they work just fine - why wouldn't they?

Socket to the energy bill: 5-bed home with stupid number of power outlets leaves us asking... why?

Re: Forget the risk of fire spreading through the holes in the wall

A Rawldrill and a lump hammer - never fails

UK Home Office: We will register thousands of deactivated firearms with no database

Re: "no requirement of 'registration' for deactivated firearms"

"Any metalwork teacher worth their salt could churn out sensible quantities of handguns on a small lathe or mill. This isn't magic knowledge. It's not hard once you've sorted out a pattern."

hmmm.. Google shed80 (not from home obviously)

UK ads watchdog slaps Amazon for UX dark arts after folk bought Prime subs they didn't want

To be fair...

I got caught (still not sure exactly what I clicked) and didn't notice for eight months; when I phoned and complained, saying I had never knowingly signed up for Prime, I was refunded in full within a couple of days.

Remember the 1980s? Oversized shoulder pads, Metal Mickey and... sticky keyboards?

Re: My scripts are not Y2.1K compliant

" Unix's signed 32-bit integer time rollover in 2038, sometimes called Y2k38" -

everyone, including Google, seems to have forgotten the IBM 360 date rollover - either Y2K or Y2K28 depending how crafty you were. When bytes were rarer than hens' teeth, IBM Assembler code used 16 bit date fields - 7 bits yy and 9 bits ddd (1900 start assumed).

I didn't make that up , honest.

Traffic lights worldwide set to change after Swedish engineer saw red over getting a ticket

Re: Show this to the Mexican police

"The Highway Code tells us not to enter a junction/yellow box junction unless the exit is clear." ... unless you are turning right - OK

Microsoft says .NET Framework porting project is finished: If your API's not on the list, it's not getting in

Re: "... back in 1977..." ..

Well having cut my programming teeth back in 1966 - I also instinctively dislike the hierarchical mess that backs .net applications, or even the 'runtimes' for VB et al - but it seems these pale into insignificance compared with the massive meshwork of unseen often redundant, error prone and possibly malware seeded 'scriptware' that backs up current web application.

... Oh and horses don't pull carts, they 'draw' = push them. <g>

We're free in 3... 2... 1! Amazon unhooks its last Oracle database, nothing breaks and life goes on

Re: More Unicorn Poop

"There are usually a few edge cases that no sane person would want to explore."

... and a lot of them involve NULLs

Careful now, UK court ruling says email signature blocks can sign binding contracts

Re: Signature versus signature block

So 'write', 'written', 'sign', 'signature', and 'power of Attorney' do not mean what 'people' think they mean - "first we shall hang all the lawyers... '

The NetCAT is out of the bag: Intel chipset exploited to sniff SSH passwords as they're typed over the network

Re: "most of us are trained in touch-typing"

my experience over the last 40 years or so is that most American IT professionals touchtype, some 'Europeans' can, but hardly any Brits!

Too hot to handle? Raspberry Pi 4 fans left wondering if kit should come with a heatsink

Re: Peltier cooling and funking great heatsink

"aren't people using these USB socketed mains outlets?"

Re: Heats always worth adding

" I think a fan is needed. A heatsink alone doesn't make much difference."

hmm 4/5ths power rule anyone?

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, where to go? Navigation satellite signals flip from degraded to full TITSUP* over span of four days

Re: You are right.....UK companies aren’t capable of doing this

Only we also gave Germany plenty of support to rebuild

No, that was America. And the UK received more in post-war Marshall aid than did Germany. Not a lot of people know that.

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

and to what extent did that compensate for the cost of re-paying Lend-Lease?

Idle Computer Science skills are the Devil's playthings

OReally?

"Oops. Deleting the ...nested directories thousands deep... took over an hour"

rm -r dodgydir

... over an hour??

'Software delivered to Boeing' now blamed for 737 Max warning fiasco

Re: 'Software delivered to Boeing'

regardless of who delivered the software and who spec'd it, if software controls the plane some (or all) of the time there MUST be a big button that says "Full Pilot Control" - and delivers just that!

p.s. I am very happy that I have never written software that could be a risk to life or limb. Like most programmers, the very worst I might do would only cost my employers money.

A real head-scratcher: Tech support called in because emails 'aren't showing timestamps'

Re: "WTF do you think you're doing?"

>At least I never had to sellotape a chad back in to avoid repunching a card.

... no need for selotape - you just pushed the chad into the hole and levelled it with your thumb nail - could last for up to half a dozen reads.

Re: "WTF do you think you're doing?"

>What's on paper is what gets typed.

Indeed it was - cos' the punched dech and coding sheets were passed to a second data entry operator who punch-verified it!

At IBM London in the 60's the card punches didn't have printers - if you wanted to read the code on the cards you had to learn how to 'program' a wire patch panel for the printer/interpreter.