Posts by Chairman of the Bored

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

Delaminated bow?

I had a solid fiberglass spinnaker pole used on a small sailboat delaminate badly. Size, strength, and flexibility are on the order of an English longbow. As the pole was out of manufacture, the local chandleries had no stock, and eBay didn't answer, I was in a bind.

What I did was rig up a jig to rotate it very slowly and wrap with 550 parachute cord under tension.

About every foot the cord is locked to itself with epoxy, I think 3M DP220 since it's reasonably flexible. Its worked for several seasons and I'm no longer extracting fiberglass from my hands.

Smack-talking overflow: Mining developer sentiment to understand the most popular APIs

Topics for investigation...

...I wonder what it would be like if one plotted 'Apparent Developer Happiness vs Time' over the life of an API.

My hypothesis is that you would see initial positive feelings because the API will probably be used in a community tightly coupled to the developers. Then if the API hits the big time we have high positivity as people fan girl over the new "shiny". Then will things turn more negative as developers realize an API is a tool, not a fad, and using tools effectively is hard. We then transition to a nostalgic sunset as the bulk of developers move on to the next shiny, while the ones who have used the API very effectively still participate...

OPPO's Reno 2, aka 'Baby Shark', joins the deepening pool of high-spec midranger mobes

Re: Lexicon otions

Endoscope? Brilliant.

Here is my marketing pitch for it: "Exclusively from [] ... The Intruder... The world's first smartphones telescope powerful enough to see Uranus.

Oh chute. Two out of three ain't bad, right? asks Boeing after soft-ish crew module landing

Re: Unconvincing

Aye. Heard an aero engineer say once the reason the Federal Trade Commission permitted the Boeing / McDonnell Douglas merger was to combine the engineering and manufacturing prowess of Boeing with the strong marketing and business capabilites of McD and create a defense and civil aviation superpower.

What we got instead was McD's engineering and Boeing's business capabilites.

Boffins don bad 1980s fashion to avoid being detected by object-recognizing AI cameras

Sometimes adversarial patterns work on humans, too

I have a red baseball cap emblazoned with the word

RUMP

No T of course. The orange one's supporters look puzzled for a second, think I'm one of them, and smile a little hesitantly. The Dems look at at, do a double take, and smile hesitantly. So I'm flying under everyone's radar and bringing somewhat good cheer to all...

I cannae do it, captain, I'm giving it all she's got, but she just cannae take another dose of bullsh!t

Warning!

The deadliest bullshit is odorless, and transparent. --William Gibson

This makes geolocation of a BS source difficult at best.

£1bn Brit court digitisation scheme would be great ... if Wi-Fi situation wasn't 'wholly inadequate'

Maybe I'm old...

...But if I wish to truly study a document and retain any information, I find it easier to do so from a printed page than a .PDF - no matter how nice the monitor.

I suspect I'm not alone in this.

So if I'm hoping a jury will exonerate me through careful study of documents, I'd prefer if they have hardcopy rather than a cheap govt issue policy laptop.

The safest place to save your files is somewhere nobody will ever look

Re: Endless recycling

File it? Oh, no... your empty deskers are doing it wrong. When I want a clean slate, I take all my crap, stuff it into interoffice envelopes, and mail it to staffers chosen totally at random. Maybe 50pct of the work ends up getting done, but that is better than average...

Re: Been there. Done that.

@macjules, when you say, "Horse .. water .. drink ..", I think what you meant to say is, "You can lead a horse's ass to knowledge but you cannot make him think."

That lithium-ion battery in your phone or car? It has just won three chemists the Nobel Prize

Three pints for three scientists...

...who have achieved more in their lives than most of us could dream. Literally billions of energy dense, non-toxic, containers to carry around energy for purposes vital through trivial.

FBI called in to investigate 2018 Mountain State mobile voting system hacking

Re: Welcome to the monkey house

A haiku for you then:

Why elect this man?

Sex, money, mountains of blow

Vicarious joy

Microsoft has made an Android phone. Repeat, Microsoft has made an Android phone. A dual-screen foldable mobe not due until late 2020

Attention correction?

I can see it now.... I'm talking to a key client. After a pregnant pause in the conversation after he asks for my firm's total commitment, I look straight towards him and say, "Absolutely." And immediately the AI decides to modify my expression with a double wink...

Spin doctors: UPS gets permission to expand drone delivery fleet in the US

Like skeet!

But with prizes!

I wonder if any attempt to patent this will run up against a prior art complaint from prison gangs using UAV deliveries of guns and blow

An unbearable itch to migrate your OS to the cloud? You might have a case of Windows VD

Tested 500,000 apps?

Or tested 500 apps a thousand times? I'm having a hard time buying that number from a OS vendor who frequently doesn't appear to even test their own patches thoroughly.

Saw an outrageous claim from my company about the effectiveness of a QA function and we found the following haiku on a board:

A number so large

Almost certainly bullshit

But soon we will know

Computer says no: An expression-analysing AI has been picking out job candidates for Unilever

Opportunity...

...so if it's just me and a piece of software, I wonder if gaming the software is in scope:

"Okay, AI. I'd like you to know that the rPi running in my coat pocket's got metasploit tailored just for you. I know where your back office is. I know what your comms infrastructure is. If you ever want to see proper maintenance and upgrades again, let's make a deal..."

Margin mugs: A bank paid how much for a 2m Ethernet cable? WTF!

Re: Civil service

Understand completely, but I'd say the ID10T is much more likely to be in my senior leadership than the system integrator. The integrator for govt work will generally be a third party contractor working a cost plus fixed fee contract... And there is probably language that allows a fixed percentage surcharge of 'other direct cost' language. Driving up costs by buying the base SAP crap on the main document and the charging ODC for every module and nitinoid license entitlement is pure profit. Sowing the seeds of future work packages through an incomplete deployment radically increases profit - especially if the integrator has to buy more licenses or add more bodies to the team in the out years. The integrator typically gets the contract to run the piece of SAP on behalf of the govt.

Unethical as hell, but standard operating procedure for the integrator. No wonder we are trillions in the hole. Bastards.

Re: Civil service

@Stoneshop, aye! "Value addled" ... A lovely turn of phrase that I shall hide in my viewgraphs going forward ... Have a pint

Civil service

Self inflicted wounds-

R&D lab I used to work at would have to buy electronics parts, and we got them from commercial distributors at competitive prices, and could take advantage of price splits on quantity. So far so good. A typical circuit board bill of materials would be about 150 line items at an avg cost of around $1 each.

But some genius reworked our entire organization with SAP ERP, and every single part gets individually entered into ERP, tracked independently, inventoried, and has to be issued from a warehouse - using electronic forms with multiple signatures. ERP labor per line item (or if you're really screwed, per part) is 15min. At an avg burdened rate of $100 per hour for everyone touching these, you burn $3750 just feeding the EEP database. Add in the back end warehouse ops and this doubles. And that's how your $1 part goes to $51. On a good day. For no value added.

Now that's integrity: Bloke sinks 7 beers, turns himself in. Cops weren't looking for him

Dated a gal...

...who's dad was a cop, and he had some awesome "stupid inebriated citizen" stories. My favorite is when a crackhead complained that someone had stolen some of his stash:

"How much?"

"Five hundred bucks!"

"Still got some?"

"Yeah! See?"

"Dumbass!"

...click...

Runner up... Cop and his partner are parked in a marked car in skid row, doing paperwork. Bum knocks on the window

"Gimme a ride home!!"

"Why the fsck should we?"

"I pay your salary!"

"BS! You don't pay ship!"

"You know how much taxes I pay on booze???!"

"Sir, I apologise. Where do you want us to go?..."

BOFH: What's the Gnasher? Why, it's our heavy-duty macerator sewage pump

Re: Great, I'm now that consultant

I guess a guy has to put food on the table somehow, so I know people have to engineer products that die quickly and deliberately. But I cannot see myself doing it, and for the most part I've been able to work with firms and organizations that have some commitment to quality. Been lucky, I guess!

Re: Great, I'm now that consultant

Plan for obsolescence? Absolutely! We can upgrade to a Danaher Motion controller, maybe a GE Automation controller if the problem is big enough. For UK firms, I've heard great things about Motion Control Products, Ltd but haven't played with their toys yet.

Great, I'm now that consultant

Designing hardware is like having kids. It was fun at the time, but now you're supporting the end product until you die.

Somewhere in my vast collection of abandoned crap is an Intel PROM burner and a matching 386 machine. Every couple of years I have to resurrect it to modify and burn firmware for a 1980's vintage antenna pedestal or two - based on a Z80 - last upgraded in, oh, 1996. Customers think it's too risky to upgrade to something modern, and I think it's far too lucrative to push the point.

World's largest heap of untreated nuclear waste needs more bots to cart around irradiated crap

Re: Too much information but ...

Bus size reactors... The sub reactors are pretty small in the scheme of things, IIRC in the high tens of MW thermal power versus 2GWish for the larger civil reactors. In order to get the power density up, highly enriched U is used, which makes things interesting for the nonproliferation chaps if done on the civil side.

You know SAP's doing a great job when a third of German users say they 'have no confidence in it'

Had all my strength SAPped

Worked for a billion-dollar-plus enterprise that went with SAP ERP tools. Theoretically the ERP solution is tailored to support and augment existing business processes and rules. In actuality what happens is that the organization gets distorted to match the ERP software design. It constantly reminded me about jokes from my ex-Soviet Bloc friends who said Russia is shaping the New Soviet Man with unbelievably uncomfortable train and airplane seats...

Tesla Autopilot crash driver may have been eating a bagel at the time, was lucky not to get schmeared on road

Autopilot?

She's gonna have to blow the computer!

Allowlist, not whitelist. Blocklist, not blacklist. Goodbye, wtf. Microsoft scans Chromium code, lops off offensive words

Johannes Brahms said...

"If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.” ...

Google security crew sheds light on long-running super-stealthy iOS spyware operation

Emails and contacts...

A lot of corporate iThing use cases do not involve use of Apple's email and contact applications but instead rely on Blackberry's sandboxed "Good App" or whatever it's called now. One wonders if this exploit worked on these or only the vendor-supplied tools.

Apple says sorry for Siri slurping voice commands of unsuspecting users

Re: No!

Wouldn't worry too much. As long as the train got into the station and everyone got off, it's all good.

Sueball claims Tesla solar panels are so effective, they started fires at Walmart stores

Obligatory lawyer joke

In an ironic twist of fate, an ambulance chaser's Tesla autopilot smashes him into an actual ambulance. It's a pretty horrific crash but the lawyer survives.

Lying on the stretcher he moans, "My Tesla! My Tesla!". The medical tech says, "Sir, unfortunately that's the least of your problems. Your left arm has been severed and we..." Lawyer interrupts him with an anguished cry, "My Rolex! My Rolex!"

Four more years! Four more years! Svelte Linux desktop Xfce gets first big update since 2015

XFCE usability

A pint, I think, is in order.

As the "go-to" computer guy in a family with several rapidly aging members, all of whom are starting to struggle a bit with cognitive function, XFCE on Xubuntu has been a real blessing.

All they want or need to do is email, browse the web, do their online banking, and do some light writing. I find it trivial to configure XFCE and a few other bits and baubles from Xubuntu to meet their needs, hide the dangerous bits, and keep things as simple as possible.

It is lightweight enough that even a modest laptop performs very well indeed. XFCE's look and feel is stable with time, critical for this population.

Outstanding software!

Our hero returns home £500 richer thanks to senior dev's appalling security hygiene

"security isn't my job" attitude

...I understand what you mean, and it's a good point. The rub is that in many large orgs - particularly government in my experience - your sensible position morphs into a management mantra that "Security is Everyones' Job"

What does that mean in practice? When the inevitable problems occur, the set {everyone} is searched until some poor bastard without any political clout or protection is identified, "investigated", and eliminated.

In environments like that I will use weasel words such as, 'While I employed best known practices, I'm a hardware guy. For the security angle you need to consult with Joe Blow...' It's a long sentence, but it must cover my entire arse.

Satellites with lasers and machine guns coming! China's new plans? Trump's Space Force? Nope, the French

Re: Clichés abiund

Of course the 500-plus rifle and 50 mechanized divisions the Soviets threw against the Axis pretty much saved everyone's butt. Some 30M lost on the Eastern Front. Have to give credit where it is due...

But.. French machine guns?

I'd make a crack about them having thousands of surplus chauchats "never fired but dropped once" but that's kind of like fishing in a barrel.

Please tell me they will use a Browning or even an old, reliable Tommy gun. Dear <insert deity> not another French submachine gun. Seriously.

Hacker swipes personal deets of 20,000 peeps from under Los Angeles Police Dept's nose

Turnabout?

Well, if the AG gets his way and becomes our back door man I fully expect him to get doxed. Right off the bat. And then I can say, "Warning! Prosecutors will be violated"

Capital One gets Capital Done: Hacker swipes personal info on 106 million US, Canadian credit card applicants

Crapital One & usury

A good point; this organization is a den of thieves. Problem is that this whole episode squeezes their customers even harder, the firm itself will be fine.

Book recommendation: Broke, USA by Rivlin.

$0.001 question- what am I going to do with all the free credit monitoring services I've been "given?". I've got three simultaneous BS services now, from three breaches.

He's coming home, he's coming... Hutchins' coming home: British Wannacry killer held in US on malware dev rap set free by judge

Re: So who at the FBI or DA got a promotion out of this?

No downvote because I agree the system is pretty jacked up, but where is your evidence the confession is coerced?

We have to be careful with hyperbole. It doesn't help ones cause.

I know coercion is used but I've not read anything in the Hutchins defense suggesting his counsel expressed concern about the plea... We all do stupid things when we are kids. Some of its actionable. Sometimes (usually?) a guilty plea means ... Guilty. In this case the good outweighed the bad when he had his day in court. Other than the two years he pissed away waiting, I'm rather glad with the outcome

When Harry met celly: NSA hoarder thrown in the clink for 9 years – after taking classified work home for decades

Should have just st set up an email server

Then he'd be good to go, right?

Li-ion battery 'price-fixing' case settled with bonus fury over lawyers pocketing eight-figures

Lawyers...

Mum worked for a civil counselor. Every time the yacht or airplane needed an upgrade, his multiple alimony payments got readjusted upwards (that's a thing in the US), or anything else would go bump in the financial night... He would go 'oh, crap" and have his staff start phoning clients to ask "questions relevant to their open cases" and bill the time. The calls were such BS that other than billable hours nobody bothered even documenting the content

Six staff times ten calls per hour per staff member... Billed in 15min increments with a half hour minimum... At $150/hr in 1980's money. That's $4500 per hour, less expenses. Corrupt tosser, but rich

Are we sure we want these bastards invoicing by the hour?

Rust in peace: Memory bugs in C and C++ code cause security issues so Microsoft is considering alternatives once again

Maybe some progress on the hypocrisy front?

I love the MS security people's inconsistencies and will truly miss them in the unlikely event MS starts using safer tools. Here you go:

(1) MS: stop using dodgy tools and unsafe practices! Pros don't do C++ anymore!

(2) MS: unthinkingly, reflexively install every (marginally tested) security update binary blob we vomit forth!

(3) MS; ignore the fact we used C++ to generate the untested dirty hac^H^H^H patch!

Rinse, repeat

UK Home Secretary doubles down on cops' deeply flawed facial recognition trials

Re: Oh fantastic

Aye, but you missed "no banging the right someone to get something" requirement

Loose tongues and oily seamen: Lost in machine translation yet again

Re: The human Rosetta Stone

Indeed. But when crushed the 100-odd psia system blows as well.

The human Rosetta Stone

Sometimes you don't need a gadget, you need a guy.

Like it or not, in the US most dirty dangerous construction work is done by people of questionable immigration status.

I had a new roof put on, and the workmen accidentally dropped about a ton of crap onto a brand new HVAC system. Instant destruction. Suddenly, none of the men could speak English. Furthermore, they pretended they didn't understand my Spanish.

Crusty old retired Navy Chief comes over, stares at me, and says, "[Chairman], dumbass, you're not communicatin''"

Me: "Oh, FFS. What do you expect me to do?"

Chief, to foreman: "If El Manajero ain't here in five minutes, I'm callin' Immigration. INS! I bet evry' swingin' dick here is back on the boat by Saturday!"

Me: "..!"

Suddenly everyone spoke fluent English. I saw El Manajero is less than five, and had the insurance firm on the phone in maybe ten.

Facebook: The future is private! So private, we designed some handy new fingercams for y'all!

Medical uses?

I might see some use cases for assisting surgeons. But I fail to see how it would be better than existing laparoscopic techniques.

Realistically? Use case is pr0n.

NPM Inc settles union-busting complaints on third try – after CEO trolled for ordering internal mole hunt

Re: Gifts

Awesome use of fruit basket! If memory serves, South Texas has these little black flies that like sweets and can materialize out of thin air. Must have been epic.

Gifts

Someone sent a package of Butt Paste (https://www.buttpaste.com) to a director at my last place of employment. The note read something along the lines of "You're a badly inflamed asshole. This might help. Cheers."

Funnily enough, that didn't go over well and interrogations ensued. Wish we had a name for the culprit though, because a turn like that deserves some free beer

Scumbags can program vulnerable MedTronic insulin pumps over the air to murder diabetics – insecure kit recalled

Watching the knee...

...for a knee-jerk reaction: "Oh my gosh! We must ban software-defined radios! Think of the children!"

What the cell...? Telcos around the world were so severely pwned, they didn't notice the hackers setting up VPN points

Re: Pretending Yanks

Agree there was no active CBW factory around; looks like the UN did take care of business after Gulf I. But there was a hell of a lot more than one sarin shell going walkabout. See:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

Frequently it seems IED makers would grab whatever they could scrounge from an ammo dump or on sale at the souk and make some bang out of it ... Sometimes not realizing that they were playing with a mustard shell instead of HE. Kind of an accidental CW attack.

Hundreds of servicemen exposed. Good luck trying to get long-term treatment through the Veterans' Administration...

Re: Pretending Yanks

So I guess you didn't read the Chilcot report, eh?

What happened here I think is a case of looking for signal in the noise so hard, you can see anything you want to see. Washington and London were both hooked into the same bullshit feed ... from the same sources ... and asked each other for confirmation. And got it. Intelligence sharing is only a good idea if you've actually got something unique.

Proud veteran of Operation Enduring Cluster Fuck...