Posts by steviebuk

RIP Sir Clive Sinclair: British home computer trailblazer dies aged 81

ZX81, the RAM pack and a carboot sale

I first remember the ZX81 in the 80s when I was in middle school. Wasn't into computers but would get an urge at school to "Want to go home and type in programs for the ZX81". Didn't know what I was doing really. It was my brothers and we had to hook it up to the telly in the back room so couldn't use it much. Knew how to load a game from tape but never realised back then, that you could save to tape. There was a horse racing game in a book or magazine we had. I'd type it in whenever want to play it, never realised I could save it back to tape. I believe found a backgammon game on a magazine once, that was good and learnt backgammon from it (now forgotten).

Anyway. Never liked it that much but was all we had. I liked our friends version who had the raised keyboard. Eventually my brother bought the RAM pack for it. Which eventually got taped onto the ZX81 due to the wobble that would wipe your code. I never understood the code I was typing in and never knew how to fix the code that didn't work due to poor magazine printing.

I wasn't into computers much back then, not the Sinclair range. Always annoyed me (because I had no imagination) how the art work on the front looked nothing like the graphics. I have a very, very clear memory of either late 80s or early 90s being in the front room and finding an old Spectrum game in a case (we never had a Spectrum). Looking at the art work and saying to myself "This is why I don't like computers or games. That art work. When I turn this over to look at the back the graphics will be nothing like that".

Anyway. Years later wasn't until the 16 bit era that I really liked gaming.

Eventually I did get into computing due to Microsoft and Windows 3.11 but still have fond memories of the ZX81 despite knowing I never really enjoyed it.

Later on in life my mum did a carboot sale and I gave her the ZX81 to "get rid of". Sold it for £50. I giggled and said "But it didn't even work properly. You'd touch it and it would wipe the code". I didn't know then about the RAM pack issue or that they were becoming "retro". And it wasn't until Micro Men that I discovered the RAM back wobble was a well known thing back then!

UK.gov is launching an anti-Facebook encryption push. Don't think of the children: Think of the nuances and edge cases instead

Re: Same old bollocks

Not to mention that stick clearly wasn't theirs and had been provided to them but they'd obviously never returned that one to the owner either.

Same old bollocks

"Think of the children" and if you don't then you must be hiding something.

Considering I've given the police a hand full of USB sticks with encrypted CCTV footage on it of our sites and then never had those fucking sticks returned annoys me. So I'd no longer be allowed to encrypt them? But I do it for security incase they loose those sticks. "But that won't happen, its the police". Really? So I stopped providing the sticks and made them supply them instead. What happened with the first stick they provided me? I checked if they'd bothered to secure wipe it as it looked used. Oh look, no they fucking hadn't and I was able to restore someone elses old CCTV footage of a crime, that had never been encrypted.

McDonald's email blunder broadcasts database creds to comedy competition winners

Really annoys me!!!

"We take data privacy very seriously" oh fuck off!!! No you clearly fucking don't as made it as hard as you could for the guy to contact anyone that gave a shit. And consistently ignored his emails.

ProtonMail deletes 'we don't log your IP' boast from website after French climate activist reportedly arrested

Re: Tor

Not really as lots of VPN providers give you the option to buy their service anonymously.

Re: Tor

For Tor to be affective you need to be using a VPN as well so you encrypt your Tor connection. This is because so many Tor exit nodes are comprised and can be sniffed and monitored.

They've just killed protomail

I'm assuming lots of people will now avoid it and move elsewhere.

US Air Force chief software officer quits after launching Hellfire missile of a LinkedIn post at his former bosses

Reminds me of..

....Pentagon Wars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA

Exactly the same. This still continues to this day.

Rapid7 says Computer Misuse Act should include 'good faith' infosec research exemption

Patel

will want to include a ban on encryption, no doubt.

Facebook: Let us tell you WhatsApp – we don't want to pay that €225m GDPR fine

Re: Law enforcement

They will appeal and attempt to drag it out as long as possible due to having a copious amount of money to piss away on lawyers. The EU will give in and settle for 1 or 2 million. Or some brown envelopes will be passed round to "make it go away"

In Microsoft's world, cloud email still often requires on-premises Exchange. Why?

Re: Confused.com

Same as us. No on prem and all working fine.

Windows 11 will roll out from October 5 as Microsoft hypes new hardware

No

I like Microsoft as grew up with them but fuck this.

"Freshen up... or else...

The sting in the tail of Woodman's post, though, is the warning that "certain features require specific hardware; see our Windows 11 specifications page for more information.""

Considering its been pointed over relatively new hardware also won't be supported due to lack a TPM 2 chip.

Microsoft does and doesn't want you to know it won't stop you manually installing Windows 11 on older PCs

Re: Crashes?

You've missed out then. Aaron Margoses and Mark Russinovich haven't written great books about the sysinternal tools that go a bit into the workings (technical documentation) of Windows. But you also have David Solomon's even greater book that gives detailed workings of Windows system over the years.

Re: Crashes?

And if you use the sysinternal tools over the years and listened to all the old talks from Mark Russinovich, Aaron Margoses and David Solomon, you'd hear that a lot of the crashes in windows are from 3rd party drivers.

Start or Please Stop? Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'

No, you want it separate. As it allows them to then update it whenever they want. It was argued that Process Explorer should be buddled with Windows and possibly replace the shit that is Task Manager, but Mark Russinovich commented on this at one of his talks years ago, that the sysinternal tools being separate and not bundled with Windows means he can update them whenever he wants.

Tesla promises to build robot you could beat up – or beat in a race

Asimo

Has he not looked at Honda's Asimo. That was truely great. Had noticed not heard in mentioned in a while and it would appear because Honda completely canned it in 2018. So if they'd gotten that far and canned Asimo, then what is Elon thinking? Can't help but feel he talks bollocks just to get more investment.

Trust Facebook to find a way to make video conferencing more miserable and tedious

Never seen the point of this

I watch Tested on YouTube, have done for years when it was just Will Smith (not that one) and Norm. Then Adam Savage joined and it became even greater with his one day builds. Not many people took to Will for some reason but its not the reason he left. He left to start up his own business in the new VR world. What was it? It was/is essentially what Facebook have now done. VR for meetings or TV shows. Why? It really is a shit idea. People hate meetings. We've even developed standing meetings (never been to one) to stop them lasting so fucking long. Add the gimmick (and it is just a gimmick) VR they'll be even more dull.

What would you do in office? Require everyone joining to own a VR headset? Or the company pays then everyone has to share. You're require to put it on (sharing) after greesy ted who hasn't washed his hair in months just used it. And you can't clean it as the wipes are out.

Just no. Never understood why Will thought it was a good idea. But no doubt he'll end up making millions are FaceCloth will buy them out.

Internet Explorer 3.0 turns 25. One of its devs recalls how it ended marriages – and launched amazing careers

I don't remember

first time I started to use IE. But I do remember, in the mid 90s being at college for my first college course and in the study room they had Nescape on all the machines. I remember using that, I have very clear memories of watching the Netscape logo opening but don't remember when IE replaced it or when we starting using that instead.

Once again, Facebook champions privacy ... of its algorithms: Independent probe into Instagram shut down

Still surprised that Zuck

Has managed to keep control of the whole business all these years. But then if he owns most of the shares no one can do anything.

Only way to bring down FaceCloth is to stop using it, unfortunately it will never happen as some people, not me, fine it useful.

Fancy joining the SAS's secret hacker squad in Hereford as an electronics engineer for £33k?

Re: No comment

Too true. But also, I suspect they want this person due to off the shelf kit no longee being repairable and the reason we should all be for Right To Repair.

But really? Create prototypes for that shit money? Although better paid than me that person could take their prototype and sell it for alot more than 33k.

£3m for 8 weeks of consultancy work: McKinsey given contract to advise UK.gov on tech project business cases

Re: £3m quid to build "business cases"?

Yep and we say this time and time and time again at different companies I've been at. All the time ignored. It seems it the management handbook it says "Ignore what you're staff say, just hire a consultant."

Annoys the fuck out of me. I've seen one set of "consultants" come in to design a bin round app using the new low code bollocks that was being pushed and forced on everyone. They ignored staff and just got to work. It was released and pointed out "What about bank holidays? The round changes when its a bank holiday". Oh, didn't you know that? Maybe, just maybe you should of asked the staff that use the fucking old app every fucking day, instead of thinking you know best.

They were canned just after a year not before collecting their £1million payout. Their app was instantly scrapped and rewritten by inhouse staff.

Re: So…

The leads will be doing half days and spending the rest of the time "Playing golf" as I heard one consultant boast at one NHS trust.

One of issues with public sector IT?

Pissing money away time and time again on consultants.

As I've said before, been in one place where the consultant came in, asked us all what we thought the issues were and what could be changed, then took that info and palmed it off as his own work. As always the mangelment listened to the consultant but had been ignoring us for years saying the same old shit.

Black Hat security conference returns to Las Vegas – complete with hacks to quiet the hotel guest from hell

Re: lbry

You don't have to. Watch a video that yes, gets downloaded as you watch and then shared but you can, as I do, delete them all.

Re: Worth a watch

Its good. You can sync your YouTube account to it so it will automatically upload all your YouTube content to it. The lbry currency you can ignore. And yes, it has the conspiracy nut jobs but you can just ignore them. Client is a bit slow though. Dave Jones from eevblog is on it and likes it a lot. He explains it better than I can in his videos.

Worth a watch

Always worth a watch. The best one was the talk the guy did about his kit being stolen from his flat. Then he went on to trace who'd now had it as he had dyndns setup and they never wiped it. Really good talk that one.

Will they be on YouTube? Technically you're no longer allowed to put hacking videos on YouTube (a shit rule) my RDS session hijack example is still up. More reason to move to lbry I think.

The Register just found 300-odd Itanium CPUs on eBay

So thats what Wang were

Going to school in Boston Manor, and waiting for the E1/E8 to go home at the Great West Road bus stop (guaranteed a seat then as was before the school). The Wang building used to be on the corner. 1000 was the address number if I remember right. Never knew they did computers.

Ex-health secretary said 'vast majority' were 'onside' with GP data grab. Consumer champion Which? reckons 20 million don't even know what it is

He says that because

He's a lying cunt. Always has been. His app before being in government was a failure and all through the pandemic he's been lying. Not a fan of cummings but he was right that Hancock is a liar.

I feel guilty just making up small white lies to users when I've forgotten to do their ticket. Doing it blantently in front of cameras means you clearly give no fucks.

A bunch of apps will be able to bypass Microsoft's new store and use own update methods

Store

Bollocks. Hate the shitting windows store. Several Windows 10 releases ago one release appeared on a few machines at work. But how? All updates are done by WSUS and we don't allow new builds until tested. Turned out despite WSUS being on and windows updates only coming from there. If the windows store was allowed, there was/is a fucking button in there that you can click to bypass everything, even WSUS and do a new release update.

Store has been disabled ever since.

The cockroach of Windows, XP, lives on in London's Victoria Coach Station

I loved Windows 98se. Never wanted to move to XP. Tried it, wasn't keen but also turned out my PC wasn't that great. This was back in 2004. I think I may have lasted another year before I was finally confident enough about XP that I moved, then loved it :)

Stayed on it until Windows 7. Loved Windows 7. Still using it and only use Windows 10 on work machines. But I might have to bite the bullet soon as there are some quite useful "quality of life" things on Windows 10 that work well that are missing on Windows 7. Native ISO mounting for example.

NSO Group 'will no longer be responding to inquiries' about misuse of its software

The same governments

Moaning are the ones that want to end or a backdoor to end to end encryption, claiming it will only be used by "law enforcement" ignoring the fact, just like this issue, it will be abused.

Amnesty International and French media protection org claim massive misuse of NSO spyware

Its funny

All these politicians want an end to end to end encryption or at least a "backdoor" that "only law enforcement will have access too". Yet we've been saying for years it won't be only them that has access and this perfectly proves the point.

I no longer have a burning hatred for Jewish people, says Googler now suddenly no longer at Google

Re: This is confusing

I think it just says "If you thought like that but now don't, just keep quiet about it and say nothing." Although that's not very helpful as people might learn from what he's said and change their ways earlier than they may have. It appears the only time its OK to mention what you used to feel but now doubt is either in counselling, when you've got enough money you never need to work again or if doing a TED Talk.

It had to happen: Microsoft's cloudy Windows 365 desktops are due to land next month

Makes me want to cry

Loved computers since going to college to study in 90s. Most change has been nice and good. But this!! Makes me want to cry. I like Windows but don't like the direction cloud is going. Worried for a future job? Sure. But also that control is being taken away. I own all Columbo episodes on DVD. As none of the Streaming services I pay for show it, I've started ripping them all. Try doing that in 365. Will the overlords constantly monitor all instances? If they see any hacking, cracking or ripping software anywhere, will your sub be instantly cancelled?

I see this potentially failing. Maybe useful for some but the price. $31 a month for only a 4GB memory machine with a tiny amount of space. Fuck that.

Re: Umm...

No, the driving force is pure greed. Its like EA. Made more money from their in game gambling cards (Ultimate Team) that selling the game. Microsoft want some of that pie and hope once someone buys Windows 365, they'll have to continue to pay monthly or yearly so constant cash coming in rather than sell the software once and letting the user use it for several years with no extra money coming in from that user.

Makes me want to cry.

Re: The way forward?

And then cost a lot more after which they'll not be told about until the bill comes.

Teen turned away from roller rink after AI wrongly identifies her as banned troublemaker

Re: Using it wrongly

Yes it shouldn't be seen as a racial problem as its just a shit system it would appear and the idiots monitoring it should of then done a manual check.

The problem is, there have been facial recognition software that has been biased towards black people for some fucked up reason and might be same issue here.

Richard Branson uses two planes to make 170km round trip

Re: Green?

Much like Emma Thompson did when she "jetted over from America" to be in the global warming demonstration :) ironic. I think they'd rather she give some funding (maybe she does) than create more pollution with her air travel.

Re: Space Cadets

Star Trek invented the flip phone, the tablet, the voice activated computer. Star Trek IS science

;o)

I do like Star Trek though.

Re: Miserable and small minded

I think the fact Virgin Atlantic was asking the government for a bailout when Branson was pissing his money away on this, is the reason people take the piss.

The fact Bezo's Amazon are fighting its workers to have a right to be in a union and had posters all over one of their warehouses discouraging its workers from joining a union is why people take the piss.

The fact Bezo can more than afford to pay his warehouse workers decent wage but doesn't, is another reason to take the piss.

Robots still suck. It's all they can do to stand up – never mind rise up

Robert Miles

Worth a watch on YouTube. He talks about AI safety a lot. And the Specification Gaming episode was quite funny. A list is here

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/e/2PACX-1vRPiprOaC3HsCf5Tuum8bRfzYUiKLRqJmbOoC-32JorNdfyTiRRsR7Ea5eWtvsWzuxo8bjOxCG84dAg/pubhtml

I specifically like

"Road Runner Agent kills itself at the end of level 1 to avoid losing in level 2 Saunders et al, 2017 Trial without Error: Towards Safe RL with Human Intervention"

And

"Block moving A robotic arm trained using hindsight experience replay to slide a block to a target position on a table achieves the goal by moving the table itself. Chopra, 2018 GitHub issue for OpenAI gym environment FetchPush-v0"

So will it get to a point when, like Skynet, the AI decides "To make it appear I've done my daily task correctly, I'll just kill the human instead"

Pentagon scraps $10bn JEDI winner-takes-all cloud contract

And the lawyers win

Whoever gets the next contract, the other will argue over it and sue.

Why does The Register, keep randomly signing me out!

Another JEDI saga that doesn't need a sequel: Oracle petitions Supreme Court over Microsoft Pentagon contract

Like spoilt children

None of the big players will be happy if the other gets it so will just continue to sue in the hope the winner just gives up and pulls out

Watch the moment China's Zhurong rover lands on Mars, hear it truckin' for the first time

Re: Second view?

Yes. They dropped a wireless camera just for that bit. I assume its not just for show but helps them get a view of the lander as well as the bot.

Serco bags £322m contract extension for Test and Trace, is still struggling to share data with local authorities

Re: £22bn?

Probably due to paying overpriced consultants that will tell them want their own local team have been telling them for ages. But appears they only listen to the consultant. We had that at a place I was at. That's all the consultant did, talk to us, then palm our ideas off as their own. And then some other ideas they'd come up with, we'd been saying needed to happened for ages.

And then the rest goes on directors and exec pay I bet.

Can't be bothered to find anyone else

"the outsourcing giant said the new contract had been awarded after a competitive process run by the Department for Health and Social Care and the Crown Commercial Service."

Or the Department for Health and Social Care couldn't be bothered to do the work to find someone else, is more likely.

‘What are the odds someone will find and exploit this?’ Nice one — you just released an insecure app

Re: WhiteHat Security

Also sounds like he talks business speak bollocks instead of just speaking in plain fucking English so we can all understand.

What you need to know about Microsoft Windows 11: It will run Android apps

Re: Windows 10 like Windows 7

Same. Are charity worked for has a training room with old kit in. Doesn't need to be fancy, its good enough. All upgraded to Windows 10 just fine with SSDs slapped in. However, now, none of them will be able to use Windows 11 if a TPM2 chip is required.

It doesn't appear to be about security in my eyes, more like DRM.

Re: mspaint

The local account issue is fucking stupid. They are essentially saying "All you people out in the sticks or with no Internet, fuck you, you can't have Windows 11".

Dicks.

John McAfee dead: Antivirus tycoon killed himself in prison after court OK'd extradition, says lawyer

Re: Laws for thee - NOT me...

Ironic considering Trump was REALLY bad and far from "Draining the swamp" he added to it massively and became the Don of the swamp (as in the most corrupt person in it)