Posts by Twanky

Micron expects COVID-19-hit Xi'an DRAM factory to reopen as normal soon

You'd think...

Bunny suits... don't give them ideas.

Yep, the fab plants are famously clean. Cleaner than operating theatre/theater clean - shame about the scrubs rooms. Viruses are slippery bastards, aren't they?

Microsoft patches Y2K-like bug that borked on-prem Exchange Server

Bad people

The real problem is you bad people who insist on running your own mail servers.

We've had the correct fix available for years but you refuse to comply. You. Will. Subscribe.

Microsoft.

Boffins' first take on asteroid dust from Japanese probe: Carbon rich, less lumpy than expected

This year's theory is the next decade's "quaint" mistake or even outright bunk

Many medical students are told something along the lines of: 'Half of what we will teach you will be proved wrong - but we don't know which half.'.

See: https://blogs.bmj.com/pmj/2014/05/30/50-of-what-you-are-taught-is-wrong/

'Half' is probably an exaggeration.

Woody Allen offered his take on this in The Sleeper.

Google joins others in Big Tech: Get vaccinated – or you're fired

Re: Facts is facts

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence I agree.

The claim that the anti-coronavirus vaccines have been tested to the same extent as previous treatments for other diseases is patently false. We have only just reached the point where a (whole) year has passed since more than a few hundreds of people have been treated - yet these vaccines have now been put into millions of people multiple times. Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures to set aside the requirement for the usual evidence.

Do I fear or expect that the coronavirus vaccinations will cause some sort of SciFi horror apocalypse? No. I thought when the authorities gave them emergency approval that they were unlikely to be net harmful. I also thought that they were unlikely to be long-term useful - when infected, we (humans, one of the host species) often produce batches of coronaviruses with changed characteristics (mutations) which change the way the next host reacts to the virus. So in the UK, we have had 'Wuhan original', 'new improved Alpha', 'Delta with extra stopping power' and now 'Omicron with added...' well, it's too early to tell what its got.

It's important to remember that coronaviruses do not 'do' anything. They don't reproduce, respire, feed - they have no machinery to do any of these things... and they don't mutate - we mutate them. Any vaccine based on 'this is the chemical signature of part of the virus' is on a losing streak already with coronaviruses.

So was it pointless to make the vaccines? Not in my opinion; they got us out of the initial panic. With a high (definitions of 'high' vary) percentage of vaccinated now in the population and death rates falling in the UK (I think death rate is a good surrogate measure for severe illness rate), it is not necessary to push for more vaccinations. I strongly suspect that much of the hatred stems from a 'we took the risk, why should you benefit?' attitude.

We have to consider what stopped the first wave (original) of coronavirus infections. In the UK deaths attributed to it faded away in the summer months of 2020. No vaccines ware involved. With an average lead time of about 23-25 days between infection and death (for those that die) we can say with confidence that infections were already declining by the time of the lockdown .The timing of the lockdown (announced 23 March) and other measures had no mathematically discernible impact on the course of the epidemic. Would other measures have had a greater impact? We'll never know.

So what stopped 'it' doubling every x days or pushed the 'R' number below 1? Nature. It's what happens with respiratory (and other) infections. Gompertz worked this out for the financial actuaries of his time.

If we look later in the year starting in October 2020 we see Alpha which then overlaps with Delta before they too fade away over the spring/summer months of 2021. Two measurably different infections which also faded away over the summer and followed classic epidemic progress curves - were vaccines the main reason? I doubt it. It's for the same reason that 'flu is much reduced in Summer.

It may be that vaccines have been helping to keep a lid on infections in northern hemisphere Winter 2021/22 - that's about as enthusiastic as I'll get.

In summary: In the UK, the 3 lockdowns did not work - so we should not try another one to see if it works this time. Vaccines were probably not necessary to turn the tide but they are possibly helping now.

Finally: This is why I don't think we should be pillorying people who have refused the vaccine. Encourage them, by all means. Emotional blackmail if you must. Coercion is unacceptable to me.

Re: OK, you can still come to work if you're not vaccinated...

Oh! Is that the way it works? I didn't know.

see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Then why are you attempting to refute my arguments? Are you trying to 'save' me?

I won't bother attempting to refute opinions such as 'Bill Gates is trying to microchip the world' or 'Covid is caused by 5G'. I'd agree that would be a waste of my time. However, attempting to refute the opinion that 'anyone who declines the Coronavirus vaccine is an idiot and deserves to be fired' does leave me a little hope that the holder is open to some reason. After all, they do seem to be basing their opinion on a 'greater good' argument.

Keep shovelling. Eventually you'll reach China or bury yourself in manure.

So you too are of the opinion that the data from China is total bullshit? (see: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/)

No, that is not what I am trying to argue.

I'm asserting that a maverick opinion - for example an opinion that vaccines are not always a good idea - is not to be ignored just because it is maverick. It needs to be properly refuted (or perhaps found to be valid) based on evidence. Some ex-medic offering a counter-opinion without evidence is not good enough for me.

Re: persons

Yeah, I do think it's a matter of freedom to choose.

I have chosen to be vaccinated. I strongly support other people who have chosen otherwise.

The post I was commenting on was emphasising that different people have different experiences to base their choices on. One potential experience being ignorance and abject fear - which could result in either choice.

My personal choice was partly influenced by my background in the pharmaceutical industry (or possibly despite it).

What was yours based on? Eminence-based medicine?

Re: people should be able to choose for themselves

Or remain retired/unemployed and enjoying life. Ta.

Finally something we can agree on: all choices have consequences.

I strongly doubt that many of our (mankind's) collective choices have been well thought through.

So you'd have told Dr Lown where to stick his advice?

Medical opinion changes over time.

Re: Unbelievably

Unbelievably

I find it quite believable. There have always been nutters, egotists, scammers, crooks and mugs. Why would this be different? FB and the like didn't manage to stop them before so again, why would anyone expect this to be different?

There is no doubt the vaccines for these bugs were approved far faster than usual. Six months or so ago I was saying 'unlikely to be net harmful'. I'd now say 'likely to be net beneficial'. It does not alter the fact that people should be able to choose for themselves based on what they've been told by people they believe or found out from what they consider to be reliable sources.

Personally, I consider Mr Johnson and Sir Keir unreliable as sources of medical opinion; likewise Prof Ferguson.

Re: I really don't get it

Person D who is in a demographic where the hospitalisation/mortality rate is not minuscule and knows people who have caught the bloody bug and shrugged it off and some that had a tough time - and would rather live the rest of their life to the full.*

Or Person E who is so terrified and knows so little they wear a mask whenever they step outside their front door - because net curtains.

It does take all sorts to make the world.

*I identify as 'D'.

(I didn't down-vote you).

Re: 'we shouldn't stigmatize the unvaccinate'

Yeah, 'cos the introduction of 'flu vaccinations for the over 65's in the UK made such a huge difference to the mortality rate. Not. (see: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/12735annualdeathsandmortalityrates1938to2020provisional)

Chickenpox vaccination? People used to hold chickenpox parties to try to make sure the kids got it while they were still young - an immunisation of sorts. I certainly wouldn't recommend it but that was the attitude.

Measles is different - it's a real bastard.

Re: OK, you can still come to work if you're not vaccinated...

Wot? No reference to Godwin? You're slipping.

Re: I'll bite :)

A Møøse once bit my sister... No realli!

As someone else commented; How does she know who she caught it from? Was the unvaxxed person the only person she did something memorable with, and if so, why?

I've know! She caught it before BoJo's excellent advice last night to be careful who we socialise with! If only she'd been warned earlier.

All this finger-pointing is hugely divisive.

Smart things are so dumb because they take after their makers. Let's fix that

Re: Market forces

...polish yesterday's turd...

...tomorrow's half-digested drivel...

...fill yer boots once more...

Umm. I'm suddenly not feeling very well.

(have an upvote)

China plans to swipe a bunch of data soon so quantum computers can decrypt it later

Re: Quantum computing and decryption

You promised not to share those pictures!

Re: Quantum computing and decryption

It nice to know the Chinese have bought in to the quantum snake oil, jut like everyone else.

No, Booz Allen Hamilton are slathering on the snake oil with 'Look, the Chinese are buying up all this stuff! Get yours while you can.'.

LG Electronics anoints new CEO, elevates exec who grew laptop biz too

The Chaebol's Customer Satisfaction Management Center has also morphed into a Customer Value Innovation Office.

Did anyone else think of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's Complaints Department here?

Oh, just me then.

UK.gov emits draft IoT and smartphone security law for Parliamentary scrutiny

Alternatively...

...we could just make it illegal to exploit the vulnerabilities in people's IOT kit - backed up by penalties including massive fines. Oh...

More seriously, if this kit is known to be vulnerable and a danger to national infrastructure then establish a white hat team to find it, attack it and break it, force it off that infrastructure. Maybe folk will get tired of buying kit that stops working soon after it's plugged in. Course, there'll be a few court cases...

UK Test and Trace finding consultant habit hard to break: More contracts go to Deloitte and Accenture

Re: When do you shut down the covid-industrial complex?

Many thanks.

I knew Victoria and NT don't have any common border. I certainly thought that traveling state-to-state (or territory) was open borders. Interesting that you compared it to Schengen where I was thinking England/Scotland border.

Cheers.

Re: When do you shut down the covid-industrial complex?

From the linked Guardian article:

...a 21-year-old infected woman who illegally entered the NT in late October after contracting the virus in Victoria and lying on her border entry form.

You have to fill in a border entry form to go from Victoria to the Northern Territories?

Can anyone tell me if this border form-filling is part of the pandemic response or just normal internal controls in Oz?

Joint venture: Uber Eats to offer weed orders in Ontario

Re: Uber is full of shit.

the insurance premiums that go through the roof once your provider finds out that you've decided to do a stint as a commercial driver in your normally private vehicle

I'm no fan of Uber or motor insurance providers but if you're waiting until your insurance provider 'finds out' that you've started taking private hires then whatever insurance you have will likely be invalid and any claim you make may be refused and you may well find it difficult to get any insurance in future.

Riverbed Technologies files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following pandemic 'headwinds'

I may be out of date here but isn't one of their main product offerings intended to improve site-to-site or site-to-datacentre performance? When suddenly all their customers' users are WFH rather than in their offices doesn't that kind of make site-to-site acceleration less relevant?

Amazon tells folks it will stop accepting UK Visa credit cards via weird empty email

Re: My email wasn't blank...

...if you saw my bank balance, you'd be able to see that maths isn't my strong point.

Does it involve the square root of minus 1?

mutters: I'm sure I had more than that

Workplace surveillance booming during pandemic, destroying trust in employers

During the pandemic?

Since well before 2020 someone I know quite well used to frequently work from home in a clerking role for our local council. The work involved checking documents and working things out before filling in forms on screen. They would spend quite a lot of time working on their own projects and periodically go and move the mouse or fill in a field on the work-supplied laptop. At one point they got commended for shifting more work than any of their other colleagues (WFH or office-based). They also were asked (very unofficially) not to make waves by showing up their colleagues.

Monitoring WFH or office-based clerks doesn't matter if the boss doesn't give a shit.

Earth's wobbly companion is probably the result of a lunar impact, reckon space boffins

Re: What I want to know is

Harmed? No - it's part of their invasion plan.

More blue string pudding anyone? I for one welcome...

He called himself the King of Fraud. Now this bot lord will reign in prison for years

Surrogate end-point

As several have commented: He convinced advertisers that he could get them more ad views than other, real ad-brokers. Because (they thought) they were measuring ad views rather than increased sales they were duped. In drug development the concept is often referred to as a surrogate end-point eg measuring a drug's ability to lower blood pressure but ignoring (or explaining away) the lack of improvement in death rate.

Con-artists hate being conned - it's a shame they're allowed to drag this sort of thing into law courts.

US Dept of Commerce sanctions NSO Group, Positive Technologies, other makers of snoopware

Sanctions - wrong fix.

The department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added Israel-based firms NSO Group and Candiru to its Entity List "based on evidence that these entities developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers."

So no warning to all 'government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers' that the very existence of NSO etc as businesses means that it is possible, with a bit of effort, to snoop on their phones or computers and not to trust the security of these devices. Instead of which we get told that NSO are the bad guys for making it possible.

It is possible to subvert these devices. If NSO etc don't do it then someone else will. The fix is to plug the security holes and/or not rely on insecure devices - no matter how inconvenient that might be.

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

That is about the number of people that would be expected to retire or quit every day.

Out of 10,000 you expect 34 to quit each day? Shirley you're wrong. 34*365=12,410 per annum.

'10,000 threaten strike, won't get vaccinated' turns into '34 refuse vaccine' when the cold reality of waking up unemployed hits

Yup. That's very strong, effective coercion.

Contrast the US Executive Order with the UK government policy: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/994850/PHE_Greenbook_of_immunisation_chapter_2_consent_18_June21.pdf

Twitter's algos favour tweets from conservatives over liberals because they generate more outrage online – study

Twitterstorm

Let me check that I've understood this correctly:

1) Someone posts something on Twitter (a twat tweets).

2) Some people who read it find it objectionable and bring it to the attention of others.

3) Twitter's systems react to the rapid increase in interest and assist the spread to many more.

4) The outrage is predominantly among those responsible for spreading the original post.

5) Twitter sells more advertising.

6) People who have used Twitter to spread the original (objectionable) post object to 'the system' causing a Twitterstorm.

(I'm aware of the irony of complaining about a social media echo chamber in El Reg comments.)

Real-time crowdsourced fact checking not really that effective, study says

Re: Professional Fact Checker

Fair point.

Perhaps a professional ISO 9000 consultant (insultant?) could verify that the Fact Checkers procedures have been correctly documented and checked for checking of facts against announced documented procedures?

Professional Fact Checker

So, how do I get recruited? If we're 'professional' is there a governing body? Who selects the governing body? If you already have accreditation can you go freelance? What is the accepted ISO 9000 procedure for resolving a situation when two academics (history, science, language, whatever) disagree?

FFS.

Assange psychiatrist misled judge over parentage of his kids, US tells High Court

Evil

Back in the High Court yesterday, Fitzgerald suggested that the reason Stella Morris (the children's mother) wasn't identified in Professor Kopelman's report on Assange's mental state was in case the CIA decided to injure or murder her or the children instead of the WikiLeaker.

That is just daft.

It does not really matter whether you think the CIA is evil enough to murder Mr Assange's children or their mother. Do you think they're incompetent enough not to have known that they're his kids without Prof Kopelman's report?

Re: Putting Assange aside.

Umm... I didn't realise AMFM1 could post anonymously.

UK schools slap a hold on facial scanning of children amid fierce criticism

Re: The comments

Yes, I read what you wrote. Among other things you seem to think that because of stuff the kids have some catching up to do and the best way to do that is to cut into their lunch break.

I agree cash over the counter is a crap idea - it wasn't done when I was a pupil which is a long time ago.

More recently our school's caterers wanted to introduce id/verification... we were lucky enough to have a choice of suppliers - so we changed caterers. Last I heard a number of other schools in the area have changed too.

Re: The comments

The vast majority of kids have no trouble asserting their identity and authenticating it with a pin. Those few who need help with this become known and are given help.

Adopting facial recognition or other biometrics to 'fix' this is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Using technology is not always the right answer.

And yes, I do know something about school meals.

First, stunning whistleblower leaks. Now a shareholder lawsuit lands on Zuckerberg's desk

Re: Sounds familiar...

"But my view is that what we're seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company."

And nobody ever does that sort of thing on FB. 'Cos that would be anti-social.

Protonmail celebrates Swiss court victory exempting it from telco data retention laws

Re: scan under-13s' faces in real time to determine their true age

I bet they can identify criminals too, based on the shape of their foreheads.

Is this the time to suggest retro-phrenology?

RIP Sir PTerry

Icon: obvs

Facebook's greatest misses: The five nastiest bits from recent leaks

Customers?

Facebook will therefore make serving those young adults its North Star even though the bulk of its customers aren't in that age band.

OK, I know this drum is getting a bit old but it's not worn out yet: Most FB users are not its customers. FB's customers are the ones who buy services from it.

Jeff Bezos wants to build a business park in space

He should take a leaf out of NASA's book

Subcontract the work to SpaceX.

Facebook sues scraper who sold 178 million phone numbers and user IDs

Re: 'Tis a strange beast, indeed this Fecesbook.

Opening Pandora's box:

Releasing all the evils of the world but leaving Hope behind trapped?

Yup.

Re: Hope they're successful

They'll be able to afford better lawyers than you - and possibly also judges.

Unvaccinated and working at Apple? Prepare for COVID-19 testing 'every time' you step in the office

Re: Well....

Meh. Viruses don't reproduce, we (re)produce them - and so does every other living thing. Similarly they don't spread, 'we' spread them.

I agree about the mutation though - sometimes the host makes an unusual batch which has different characteristics. Sometimes better, sometimes worse - depending on your point of view. We tend to take more notice of the worse.

Facebook may soon reveal new name – we're sure Reg readers will be more creative than Zuck's marketroids

STENCH

Society for the

Total

Extinction of

Non-

Conforming

Humans.

Thank you, 'Carry On Spying'.

NHS Digital exposes hundreds of email addresses after BCC blunder copies in entire invite list to 'Let's talk cyber' event

Re: "deleting the original invitation"

IIRC, by design, MSX message recall won't work if any one of the recipients has read the message. As MSX can't know whether off-domain recipients have read a message or not then recall never works when there are off-domain recipients. As someone else indicated, I can't think of a better way of drawing attention to a cock-up than attempting an MSX message recall.

Re: "deleting the original invitation"

Preview pain!

I love it!

Reg scribe spends week being watched by government Bluetooth wristband, emerges to more surveillance

Re: I'll be tracked almost everywhere I go...

France is doing enough Covid tests to check 5% of its population each week.

UK is doing the equivalent of 10%.

France is about to stop free tests for the majority of its people (not just elective tests for travellers).

Test more, find more.