Posts by Mongrel

Tom Lehrer: Satirist, mathematician, inventor of the Jello shot

I too learnt about him from my Grandad, the Elements song & Poisoning Pigeons were my favourite then but now recognise the awesomeness of I Hold Your Hand

If you're forced to use Windows 11, here's how to steal some of your time back

Re: Win11Debloat

I've been using O & O Shutup since Win10 to cut out the intrusive crap from the OS, WinAero Tweaker allows more customisation as well.

Torvalds' typing taste test touches tactile tragedy

Re: Strange keyboards are the bane of IT support

An alternative is to look for a Tenkeyless keyboard and a separate numberpad.

I have a nice wireless numberpad that has swappable switches from Epomaker that's very pleasant to use

The 'End of 10' is nigh, but don't bury your PC just yet

Re: TODO

They don't understand Windows and even the easiest distro is a step up from the way they use Windows

Trump nukes 60 years of anti-discrimination rules for federal contractors

Re: He's just shotgunning

My understanding is, especially as things stand right now, that voting it into law would only have been a bump in the road.

All they needed was someone to bring suit saying they are adversely affected by it and some courts that are willing to support that point of view

Mozilla CEO quits, pushes pivot to data privacy champion... but what about Firefox?

Re: "Why hope... Brave... has had this for a long time"

And aside from that, their consistent pushing of crypto-currency is what put me off of them

Have you ever suspected your colleague doesn't really hope this email finds you well?*

Re: your colleague microwaves seafood pasta in the shared kitchen

I had a colleague moan that I moved his Stinking Bishop to a sealed container, apparently it did funny things to the flavour.

Tesla steering problems attract regulator eyes for second time this year

Re: And you report on this because...

It's also about the frequency of the failures,

Ford or Dodge have a lot more vehicles on the road compared to Tesla, having a thousand Fords go catastrophically wrong is a tragedy but a tiny percent of a percent of the number of their cars on the road.

Ford in reverse gear over AM radio removal after Congress threatens action

Re: The only question remaining is ...

Last phone I saw that had a required wired headphones so it could use them as an aerial... Oh....

Biden proposes 30% tax on cryptominers' power bills

Re: How?

Visually it's easy.

Mining is mostly set up where it will fit, no controlled environments, and the site is packed to the rafters with free-range GPUs and screaming ASICs, that you can hear from miles away.

Musk tells Twitter advertisers: You're welcome back, but don't make demands

You mean the 'self-made' multi billionare who inherited a fortune from his fathers emerald mine?

Workers don't want these humanoid robots telling them to be happy

Re: Big surprise...

To me, the 'humanoid' seems more toy like. Getting advice from it just seems like it'd be much more patronising.

US officials probe Tesla's incredible detaching steering wheel

Re: They're not the only one - Nissan has the same problem

Not forgetting that Teslas are priced as a premium brand.

It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system

Re: Hooray for Avoirdupois and pounds, shillings and pence

Although, five or so years ago, I saw some thyroxine (IIRC) imported from the States still being measured in grains

New IT boss decided to 'audit everything you guys are doing wrong'. Which went wrong

I've always liked "Acting your Wage"

FTX collapse prompts other cryptocurrency firms to suspend withdrawals

It looks like his 'Coyly tweeting out the message..." is in fact a ploy to break deleted tweet detection bots.

https://twitter.com/ercwl/status/1592334689335144448?s=46&t=tmtTPu5GOxjQA4g0L6F55g

and

https://twitter.com/dystopiabreaker/status/1592331893378535424

This maglev turntable costs more than an average luxury electric car

I'd be prepared to accept that they could back up their claims in the lab.

I'd bet that, like most Audiophile gear, it'd fail an ABX test

Intel's stock Raptor Lake chip will do 6GHz and overclock another 25%, if it keeps cool

Re: Honest question

Well, fans in the side of the case were quite common before clear side panels became a thing.

I miss them

Tesla owner gets key fob chip implanted in his hand

Re: Why didn't he just hack...

It received the praise and recognition as an anti-parasitic, it's also being used as an animal de-wormer. The yahoos who 'thought' it was the Covid cure, based on contrarianism and Facebook, were mostly chugging apple flavoured oral ointment formulated for livestock

Calling it horse de-wormer in this context is perfectly fine

API rate limits at the core of Elon Musk’s decision to ditch Twitter

Re: Couldn't he...

It's start that way but with his personality it's be more like the Red Dwarf episode Rimmer World

Is a lack of standards holding immersion cooling back?

Re: Liquid cooling is expensive

Or maybe it wasn't necessary then but, with increased need for more heat sources that need cooling and a regard for environmental concerns, it's now reaching the point where it's becoming the better option in some cases.

China's blockchain boosters slam crypto as Ponzi scheme

Re: Ponzi scheme?

Not forgetting that they're not currencies either.

Nothing in a normal life is priced in them and you can't buy things directly with them, only cash out of whatever tokens you hold to dirty fiat or have an exchange do that on your behalf.

As they flail around for a real world use it's currently settled on speculative trading based on the Greater Fool theory.

Currency is meant to be spent not hoarded

Your software doesn't work when my PC is in 'O' mode

Re: Saw that coming

My time on the help desk made sure I never forgot the "Always start with the basics" rule and that when you started thinking "They can't be that stupid, can they?" you'd get someone along to help you re-calibrate.

Help, my IT team has no admin access to their own systems

Re: Miracle workers

Books?! We should never have given up scrolls!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ

Hear us out: Smartphone lidar can test blood, milk

Re: We now have smartphones with lasers

You can use them as 3d scanners to import shapes to modelling software; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTE7XbOJvgk

Are we springing into a Y2K-class nightmare?

Re: USA change its date format ...

If you only have cups in a recipe it's easy, just replace them with "1 volume measure of choice", problems turn up though when you have compactable items like flour or brown sugar. Do you sieve the flour first to start at a known state? Do you get the spoon out to press it hard into the measure?

As for measuring butter in teaspoons, that's just stupid if you want accurate measures in any way.

Server errors plague app used by Tesla drivers to unlock their MuskMobiles

Re: Physical key

At least metal keys only 'get worn or snap in the lock' (never seen that in 40 years myself) only affect one car at a time.

Even then you'll normally have two keys so you can use the spare to climb in through the passenger door until you can call a locksmith to extract the key.

Cisco requires COVID-19 shots for all US staff – even remote workers

Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

The Christian Scientists have a document (https://www.christianscience.com/press-room/a-christian-science-perspective-on-vaccination-and-public-health) that gets quoted heavily until they get to the "We're faith healers and have pushed prayer as a solution" paragraph that's quickly followed by the "members are free to make their own decisions" statement.

Danish artist pockets museum's cash and calls it art... and other stories

It's a vicious circle, when you have people who are willing to pay 120K for a banana duct-taped to a wall it seems 'art' is about what you can blag rather than what you can produce.

One-character bug gives away $90m in COMP tokens – recipients can keep 10% or consider themselves doxxed

Re: Are the tokens convertible to cash somehow?

And we're forever being told that crypto doesn't run under the same regulations as the rest of the financial world and that it's a good thing...

Age discrimination case against IBM leaks emails, docs via bad redaction

Re: Prejudice?

I'd say it sucks but it's entirely the fault of the lawyers (or their minions) who mucked it up. That's the documentation they presented to the courts, it was their duty & professional responsibility to ensure that it was redacted properly.

As for the point of redaction, again not a lawyer but happy to be corrected, it's not about prejudice it's about controlling the information your opponent sees. They ask for all information concerning X,Y & Z, there's some pre-trial 'negotiating' about what is & isn't relevant and the court orders them to hand over the X & Z information. If they foolishly include Y in the information packet, that's on them. If their opponent doesn't ask for A & B (which is where the juicy stuff is) that's the opponents problem, they're not under any obligation to hand it over or even mention its existence

Re: Prejudice?

IANAL but follow a couple on YouTube

If the item in question has been filed with the court, and not been specifically made private, then it's accessible by anyone who can log in and pay the fee.

Apple's iPad Pro on a stick, um, we mean M1 iMac scores 2 out of 10 for repairability

Re: Recycling is now criminal

Luckily our tip has a ReUse shop. If your stuff isn't in too bad a condition you leave it in a flagged spot and they chuck a cheap price tag on it an chuck it in the store.

Also, thinking about it, they have a cargo container for PCs, Monitors & TV panels so they may get sent out for refurb or part picking

I think Free Geek is the best example of how to recycle PCs & components.

First Coinbase, now Basecamp: Should workplaces ban political talk on internal corporate platforms?

I think the fact that all your talking was face-to-face was probably a major contributing factor.

People find dickish behaviour easier if there's a display separating them

Where did the water go on Mars? Maybe it's right under our noses: Up to 99% may still be in planet's crust

Re: Simple test

Pfft - Just declare a Bank Holiday

Housekeeping and kernel upgrades do not always make for happy bedfellows

Re: The secret to intelligent tinkering ....

I think it takes 'an event' to make most people think seriously about the question "What's the worst that can happen?" before they hit the button.

This scumbag stole and traded victims' nude pics and vids after guessing their passwords, security answers

Re: "Security" questions....

or that my first pet was called Z9%4ë

Is that you Mr Musk?

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says Trump ban means the service has failed

Re: by colluding to ban Trump, en mass

See also, the Paradox of Tolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Business intelligence vendor MicroStrategy reveals it’s bought a billion bucks of bitcoin

Re: "Dependable store of value"?

and you only sell them in small quantities

About $15m in advertising booked to appear on millions of smart TVs was never seen by anyone, says Oracle

Re: Naughty step

Either from companies I'm probably not going to be buying from in the first place or from companies that are so big that I'm not even a rounding error in their advertising budget.

TLDR: Don't care.

BOFH: Switch off the building? Great idea, Boss

Re: We

Our plank was a clue by four and was engraved (in cheap marker) with the names of all the people who needed it.

Apple aptly calls its wireless over-the-ear headphones the AirPods Max – as in, maximum damage to your wallet

Re: Case looks like a bra

I've found the problem to be that a lot of the people who buy them do so because it's an obvious way to show-off rather than for the sound.

If you walk into the office with an expensive pair of Sennheiser\Sony\Bose headphones, most people don't care as they're not up on the product stack. They could be £90 or £9,000 but only like minded people will recognise them.

Slapping on a pair of these and people will instantly recognise them as an iProduct and, at the very least, know they're not a cheap product.

Google tells court: Our rivals gave US govt confidential dirt on us to fuel antitrust case. Now we want to see it

Re: What this needs

It's not that we don't trust you but.... wait...nope, we don't trust you.

Max Schrems is back... and he's challenging Apple's 'secret iPhone advertising tracking cookies' in Europe

Re: They just don't get it.

Because most people don't appear to care and are happy to trade their privacy for a free Starbucks or a new chat app.

Remember, we're not the 'normal' attitude.

EA Games' Origin client contained privilege escalation vuln that anyone with user-grade access could exploit

Re: Huh

I've never installed it.

First time I would have brought something that did was near it's launch when it still had the "Oh, by the way, by clicking yes you've given us permission to rummage through your hard drive at will. KTHNXBYE" 'anti-cheat' functionality.

That combined with their rapacious acquisition and absorption of good companies (Bullfrog, Maxis, Westwood studios etc.) was the final straw, I've not purchased a new EA game since or any second hand one that requires Origin.

Big Tech's Section 230 Senate hearing was like Jack Dorsey’s beard: An inexplicable mess that needed a serious trim

Re: Fake victimhood

Now Tucker claims that the *only* COPY of the emails was lost on its way to him, perhaps deep state took it to hide the evidence, claims the Fox News liar.

Not forgetting the recent law suit that successfully defended him;

"The judge said that lawyers for Fox "persuasively" argued that "any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statements" Carlson makes, according to a court filing."

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-tosses-suit-trump-affair-story-fox-news-tucker-carlson/

Uber allowed to continue operating in English capital after winning appeal against Transport for London

I'd go with crappy but in different, not-equal ways.

Wondering how to tell the world you've been hacked? Here's a handy guide from infosec academics

The framework does, however, advise execs to ask themselves "are you really taking security seriously?"

The follow on question should be "Does the IT team\Infosec team agree"

Your latest security headache? Ed from accounting using his kid as an unpaid helpdesk

Re: Best Kept Secret

Well aware of lmgtfy but it's the balance between keeping the peace (especially family) and another lecture about not being sarcastic to colleagues

Re: Best Kept Secret

Doesn't matter, I'm the first line for friends, family and occasional co-workers and the number of times they ask a question then I type the exact same thing into Google and get the correct answer. "Oh. I never thought of that"

People don't want to know how to use computers, have no intention of learning and are enabled by their management. "I'm not good with computers!" is somehow a perfectly fine thing to admit to despite their job involving working on a computer all day because "That's what IT is for"