Re: All bad… but
Nooooooooo!
Posts by Excused Boots
491 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jun 2017
If Google is forced to give up Chrome, what happens next?
US Transpo Sec wants air traffic control rebuild in 3 years, asks Congress for blank check
Sunday 11th May 2025 17:35 GMT 
Re: Wait....isn't this exactly what MAGA and DOGE are against?
I've upvoted, but I do fear that the sarcasm may well be lost.
But I must say I thought that the accidental typo 'indivisual states' was most appropriate. Presumably these are states that can't see each other. Just what you need for an ATC system!
Friday 9th May 2025 20:09 GMT
Re: Do they understand what's needed?
"You just know that some of the chancers/self proclaimed geniuses will have stuck their noses into this despite having zero clue and this not being a realm where their bluffs can work."
Cough...'bigballs'...cough!
But it's all OK, he'll know everything there is to know about 'agile techniques', so it'll be done fast and quickly (three years, hah six months max, promise), yes stuff will break (and alas in this case there will be mid-air collisions and lots of people will die; but that's a small price to pay for Musk to make more money! Yes?
Cynic, me, absolutely not, why would you even think that?
Feds disrupt proxy-for-hire botnet, indict four alleged net miscreants
Saturday 10th May 2025 16:55 GMT
Yes indeed it is, also as the people reported as being responsible are Russian and are, presumably, living in Russia, not too sure how effective such a thing can be.
Ring...Ring...’Hello is that the FBI? My name is err Vlodimir Futin, and the people you are citing are dead, can you send the reward money to....?’
But joking aside, there is another issue here, Look at it from the perspective of the end user, they see, presumably, a working internet connection, why would they ‘bin’ what they see as a perfectly working system and, presumably, pay money for an ‘upgrade’ which will do what? Again from their perspective!
Do the ISPs have a responsibility to offer free replacement devices? What if they are, and offer to replace any and all vulnerable routers, but what if a subset of their customers which said devices simply don’t respond? Can the ISPs simply cut them off, to protect the rest? What’s the legal position here?
Nip chip smugglers by building trackers into GPUs, US Senator suggests
People find amazing ways to break computers. Cats are even more creative
UK Ministry of Defence is spending less with US biz, and more with Europeans
37signals is completing its on-prem move, deleting its AWS account to save millions
Saturday 10th May 2025 15:57 GMT
Re: Can never be a consultant
Well at least you had a few moments of feeling smug; but as you discovered, it’ll do you no real good, you’ll still be ignored.
From the management’s position, the MSP and their suited and booted reps are paid more than you and so hence ‘must’ know better!
I know I have posted this before but I think it is worth repeating; some years ago I was on an official MS sponsored Azure training course. The trainer, an MS employee, made a somewhat profound statement during the course; ‘cloud (in this case Azure but I suspect it applies globally), is never, ever, ever cheaper than on-prem. You will NOT save money (medium to long term) by going all-in on cloud. Where it is useful is for startups, those who favour op-ex against cap-ex, and for those companies where demand is very variable - see scale up and scale out’.
Which I think does make a lot of sense. Yes there certainly is a place for moving workloads to ‘the cloud’, but not every time.
VIPER rover banished to storage as moonshot plan sputters
Friday 9th May 2025 20:45 GMT
Re: Hard Science is not a MAGA thing
"If Chump and VD Vance carry on, the US brain drain will become a flood and all that research money that they want to take away from places like Harvard will be irrelevant. There will be no one left to carry out the research."
And that, of course will be a real shame, the leadership and contributions to science made by US institutions has been profound over the last century or so.
I am reminded of the testimony of RR Wilson, the then Director of Fermilab who was appearing before a congressional committee to request the funding for the, then 'state of the art' accelerator. To paraphrase, he was asked by a Senator what such a device contributes to the defense of the United States, his reply was along the lines that it didn't, except the existence of such an institution made the United States more worthy of being defended!
https://history.fnal.gov/historical/people/wilson_testimony.html
Of course, in the great scheme of things, it doesn't really matter long term, the thirst for knowledge is part and parcel of being human, others will step in, probably the Chinese, or Europe. The human race will stumble slightly in trying to understand reality, but we will move on and get there eventually.
And maybe this is normal, maybe the time of US dominance is over, maybe it has simply run its course, all empires, eventually fall. 150, 160 years ago, Great Britain, wasn't just a superpower, it was a hyper power. It literally controlled a quarter of the surface area of the planet, it dominated the seas completely, it was untouchable, all powerful; now all gone, all in the space of a few decades.
Oh, but I will disagree over the replacement of the USD with the Yuan, it'll be the Euro.
PowerSchool paid thieves to delete stolen student, teacher data. Looks like crooks lied
'I see you're running a local LLM. Would you like some help with that?'
Amazon touts Vulcan – its first robot with a sense of 'touch'
Trump wants to fire quarter of NASA budget into black hole – and not in a good way
Saturday 3rd May 2025 16:20 GMT
Re: Xeet from Donald J Trump, President
Actually didn’t Elon once claim that "he would like to die on Mars, just not on arrival”?
Realistically though, despite all the grandiose claims, we are decades away from a crewed landing on Mars - the technology required to do this, although theoretically possible, simply doesn’t exist.
What ‘may’ be achievable is a crewed ‘flyby’ of Mars, the trip will take some 18 months, the opportunity to do this happens every 15 years or so (the next opportunity is in late 2032), and could allow the US to make the claim that they have ‘sent a Man to Mars’. Throw enough money at it at 2032 is just about possible.
Won’t happen of course, especially in light of the latest announcement.
Zuck ghosts metaverse as Meta chases AI goldrush
British govt agents step in as Harrods becomes third mega retailer under cyberattack
Friday 2nd May 2025 18:40 GMT
Re: We can't continue to regard these simply as "IT Problems"
"It's possible - though not necessarily easy - to quantify this sort of thing in a way that the bean counters can understand."
Yes, but I do think it is far, far harder than you imagine. The very instant you talk about statistics, ie the probability of ...., their eyes glaze over and you have lost them! Sorry, you aren't wrong but it is simply them way they think.
"Thus in an average year, we lose $5m to cyber attacks. That immediately sets a ballpark for the kind of money it would be reasonable to spend on defence."
OK now the problem here is a lack of understanding of statistics and risk, so, for example you present this and the bean counters say "but last year was an average year and we didn't lose $5m ao you obviously done't know what you are talking about", moving on....
Three Brits charged over 'active shooter threats' swattings in US, Canada
Friday 2nd May 2025 16:56 GMT
Re: Only in United States Of America
Yes, OK I sort of see the argument for blanket immunity; but it does suppose that the officer isn't some under-trained, trigger-happy moron who simply blasts away without first engaging brain - 'is what this person is doing, really threatening and I (and others) are in imminent danger; or could it just be an normal, expected human reaction to a stressful situation'?
Yes, maybe, maybe, an officer pausing, not opening fire immediately, might put them in slightly greater danger - is that not part of the job though?
Disney Slack attack wasn't Russian protesters, just a Cali dude with malware
Friday 2nd May 2025 16:12 GMT
"Ryan Mitchell Kramer has agreed to plead guilty to one count of accessing a computer and obtaining information, and one count of threatening to damage a protected computer, the US Department of Justice said Thursday."
Just out of idle curiosity, what is a 'protected computer'?
It does strike me that if said computer is 'protected' then any threats are meaningless and can simply be ignored, or the threats are credible, in which case the computer isn't really protected at all?
Enquiring minds and all that......
Techie solved supposed software problem by waving his arms in the air
TAKE IT DOWN Act? Yes, take the act down before it's too late for online speech
The one interview question that will protect you from North Korean fake workers
Duolingo jumps aboard the 'AI-first' train, will phase out contractors
Fujitsu and its no public sector bids promises... what happened to them?
Tuesday 29th April 2025 21:35 GMT
Actually, you have to, grudgingly, give a tiny nod to Fujitsu; they promise to not voluntarily submit a bid for any public sector contracts. And they probably won’t, unless of course said public body approaches them and ‘begs’ them to bid, because, well, we don’t understand any of this, since we are completely staffed with English Literature graduates*, yes I think we do employ some people who might know ‘computers’ but thay are paid a tiny fraction of what we are, so we can't possibly trust them! So really, please, please could you bid because we don’t know what we are doing!
And Fujitsu, reluctantly, replies with, OK fine, we really don’t want to take your money but as you seem desperate, we are prepared to help you out, just this once mind, oh, and it will cost an extra 40% as you have forced us to embarrass ourselves by accepting your money!
And for anyone, thinking, but said public body could easily employ some programmers to do ‘xyz’; yesaboslutely true, but meanwhile back in the real world........**
* nothing against Eng. Lit. graduates, but really, know your strengths and weaknesses!
** Think of it like this, you employ good programmers to implement a system which will cost a tiny fraction of what Fujitsu are quoting, if it all works, great, but will you get any praise for it; but suppose it all goes ‘nipples north’? You get the blame. On the other hand you outsource to a known big IT supplier and it all goes wrong, you have a possible get out. Avoidance of blame, is the way the civil service operates.
Windows profanity filter finally gets a ******* off switch
What the **** did you put in that code? The client thinks it's a cyberattack
Nationwide power outages knock Spain, Portugal offline
Monday 28th April 2025 17:08 GMT
Re: Not enough intertia...
Well firstly I'd take anything produced by any AI /LLM with a truly massive pinch of salt. Secondly '100% renewable power' doesn't actually mean what it implies.What it means is that in theory, for a (short) time, renewable energy generation, ie solar, wind, could, theoretically have provided the entire requirements for that period. ff course the second that the sun goes down and/or the wind stops blowing then all bets are off!
And that's fine, small steps, yes?
In theory, 'renewable' energy sources 'could' provide all the energy requirements of the human race, but like I said, 'in theory'. In reality it's not always there when you need it, sorry about that and methods of storing energy are cumbersome, inefficient and expensive.
Which brings us back to the obvious, which is nuclear (be that fission or (hopefully in ten to twenty years)) fusion power. Renewables do, absolutely do, have their place. Now in an ideal world imagine a massive solar collector farm in northern Africa, and another in Australia and another in central America, plus massive wind turbine farms in the North Sea etc, all connected to a world-wide grid, that distributed energy to where it was needed.
Alas we don't live in an ideal world, the chances of a rogue government cutting off supplies because of 'reasons' is approaching 100%. Maybe one day; I'm an optimist!
Windows isn't an OS, it's a bad habit that wants to become an addiction
Monday 28th April 2025 15:28 GMT
OK now here is where all the downvotes pile in. The vast, vast majority of posts on here are referencing replacing home devices with Linux rather than Windows, and that is fine, possibly a few outlier where someone uses some oddball software package which has no Linux equivalent, but email, web browsing, (most) games, can easily, well fairly easily transition to Linux version of choice!
All fine, except you are missing the elephant in the room; which is corporate users. Look; Microsoft don't give a shit, not the tiniest shit about home users; all move to Macs or Linux, fine, they don’t care!
Outlook and its integration with Exchange is the killer for corporate users. Is there (and I freely admit, I don’t know so hopefully someone on here can enlighten me) a direct, Linux compatible, feature complete replacement for Outlook? Because like it or not, the Outlook / Exchange combo is, absolutely is the de facto standard for companies, and possibly Teams (shudder!)
Now before the downvoters wade in on the grounds that I am obviously an MS fanboy, no, I have Macs at home, I’m typing this on a MacBook, at $work, I have replaced a couple of Windows machines with Ubuntu where appropriate - but Outlook and Exchange is the blocker on the corporate desktop.
From 112K to 4M folks' data – HR biz attack goes from bad to mega bad
Techie diagnosed hardware fault by checking customer's coffee
Sunday 27th April 2025 19:19 GMT
Re: power, and the power to fix it
“Damn, those "wonky US power grid" stories are pouring in today! A flood of unheard proportions! Being off be 20% or more seems to be the norm... Here in Germany +-6% sets off alarm cascades, more can end up in national news, questioning our infrastructure at large, and US don't even shrug at +-10%...”
I know what you mean, I listen to a couple of tech related podcasts (US based) and sometimes they discuss emergency generators etc. And I always think, ‘just what the heck is happening to the power systems in the US that you need these things’? I’ve forgotten the last time we hd a power outage in my part of the UK, I think was a substation issue and it literally lasted five hours. Now I understand that in the US you have hurricanes and the occasional tornado to deal with. Fine why don't you mitigate against that, bury the cables underground*
* OK yes I am not a qualified electrical engineer and there may well be very good reasons why it can't be done (technical reasons; not too expensive).
Sunday 27th April 2025 19:08 GMT
Re: Extensions to extensions to extensions
"Aside; I'm surprised by the number of mechanical engineers, who think that simply adding a fan, will cool the equipment”
Indeed, I assume that they think that it works in the same way it obviously works for us. But we sweat, some of it vaporises which moving air removes; so to keep equilibrium, we sweat more and this removes heat from us (see latent heat). Now computer equipment doesn’t sweat so that won’t work, at best the hot components heat up the air next to them which if it can be removed by a fan then fine. But the hot air needs to go somewhere and be replaced by colder air. And so on.
Why don’t supposedly clever people get this?
Trump’s 145% tariffs could KO tabletop game makers, other small biz, lawsuit claims
Sunday 27th April 2025 18:50 GMT
Re: Pass it on
"But right now you order stock from China, it takes a month to arrive, the tarrif on arrival might be 10% or 145% or it might be a $1M if the ship was built in China.”
And therein is the issue, it’s the instability, open day the tariffs are 100%, the next day they are 150% and the day after they are 30%. Businesses can cope with whatever you throw at them as long as it is consistent. It won’t be tariffs that kill small businesses, it’s the uncertainty. The not knowing what the situation will be tomorrow, because it does look as if Trump has no overall policy but just wakes up each morning and throws a couple of dice, the outcome of which determines what he posts on Truth Social and so becomes official US policy.
Sunday 27th April 2025 18:33 GMT
Re: Damn.
"Well.. why not.. find them again?”
Well yes there are plenty around, they just aren’t in the United States, so are you advocating for mass immigration?
"It wasn't the GOP that got US schools churning out students who can barely read, write or do basic math.”
OK maybe, but it’s not really relevant now is it? The reality is that now, right now, the US simply doesn't have the people with the required skills to operate the factories and manufacture the devices. Just like the UK, the US moved to being a services-based economy rather than a manufacturing one, decades ago, and if you want to change it back, then it will take decades, not years, certainly not months. to do this.
"graduate with worthless degrees and $250k+ in debt. Probably why the GOP is looking at education reform to get back to basics and ensure American kids do have a basic education”
Fine, yes I agree there are some fairly eyebrow raising degree courses (I heard of one on Golf Course studies*);
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/subjects/golf-management-courses/applied-golf-management-studies-bsc
But again even if the GOP implements reforms ’now’, and said reforms actually work (by no means a given) how long will it take for those changes to filter through? What are you going to do right now, tomorrow, next year etc?
If it were desirable to encourage more manufacturing in the US, and that really isn’t obvious, then surely the way to do it is slowly, encourage it, tax grants (but tied to actual, demonstrable results), federal or state funding for degrees in ‘certain’ subjects, physics, chemistry, engineering etc. Study these and the course fees are covered?
The problem, of course is that these are all long-term projects, any administration that starts them won't be around to bask in the glory of the results - and that doesn’t seem to be the way that the western world works, alas.
So where are we? ‘Beautiful tariffs’, which do what? Long term (but see above), may, may encourage US manufacture but in the short term will, absolutely will result in empty shelves and small companies going out of business. It’s the classic example of trying to give a simple solution to a complex problem.
And this is where the downvotes start - Trump is, absolutely is, going to back down. He’ll have to. The sheer damage it will do to the American economy will force his hand, or possibly push his cabinet to invoke the 25th! Now, no doubt this back down will be presented as a great success, how all the other countries have capitulated and agreed; what turns out to be some minor concession.
* Yes, OK there may be some requirement for people with degree level expertise on the design of Golf courses, but I doubt there is a massive demand for them!
Signalgate lessons learned: If creating a culture of security is the goal, America is screwed
Europe hits Meta, Apple with €700M in fines for flouting DMA
Developer scored huge own goal by deleting almost every football fan in Europe
Elon Musk makes another cut – to his time at DOGE
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 16:20 GMT
Re: Sooner than later ..
The thing is, from my perspective as a right-pondian, there doesn't seem to be a Republican Party any more, it's more the Trump party. Every member now fights among themselves to be the most obsequious to DJT through fear of being out of favour. Were historically the GOP not seen as supporters of Free Trade, what's happened then?
The mid-terms next year will be make or break, Trumps hold on the party is such that right now, nobody wants to be on the wrong end of a late night tweet or whatever. But at the same time it is probably very brittle, a disastrous result for the Republicans, they lose control of the House, possibly the Senate too, and I think the dam will burst. Someone will call out the Emperor for having no clothes and it will snowball from there.
The US needs a good, strong Republican Party; just as it needs a strong Democratic Party, maybe even the start of a third party, but not one totally being held hostage by one man.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
