Posts by Excused Boots

US gov't launches 'Tech Force' to replace IT staff DOGE fired

Nurse, mind bleach, stat...!

Meta's SAM bot keeps 'em separated as it isolates voices and instruments from audio clips

"When asked about safety, Meta only told us that if it's illegal without AI, you shouldn't use AI to do it.”

And in other news, 'Meta also claimed that if it is illegal to mug someone without a gun, then you shouldn’t use a gun to do it’!

BOFH: If another meeting is scheduled, someone is going to have a scheduled accident

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

And for the adventurous try a smaller scale version off this by dropping a spanner such that it shorts out a conventional 12V car battery; can be remarkably spectacular.

User insisted their screen was blank, until admitting it wasn't

Re: Nifty-Looking Desktop Computer Cases

Yes I’ve long thought about a computer in the shape of a sphere supported on three legs with all the inputs coming in from the bottom.

Could look cool, but alas, probably the worse possible arrangement from a heat dissipation view.

Re: Go, Look, See

OK here’s what you do, you tell the user;

Stand up and face the computer, now turn 90 degrees to the left, so that the computer is now to your right. Now fall backwards, the direction you travel is the same as the backslash as viewed from left to right.

Now the forward slash is the same but this time fall forward, flat on your face - it really isn’t that difficult.

What’s that? You can’t possibly do that, OK well I’ll have to cove over, and I do have a cattle prod, which will probably cause more pain than if you did actually fall flat win your face - your choice!

The CRASH Clock is ticking as satellite congestion in low Earth orbit worsens

Re: Straight face or tongue in cheek?

"Maybe they have a dream team assembled from SolarWinds, LastPass, and Cisco.”

Probably not quite that sophisticated.

UK moves to strengthen undersea cable defenses as Russian snooping ramps up

Re: The first act of war during WWI

"But I don't see how these things can be defended against a serious foe.”

No they really can’t, it’s all a game of bluff and counter-bluff, how far can you go until your adversary decides this requires a nuclear response?

Welcome to America - now show us your last five years of social media posts

Re: To borrow a phrase ... SAD!

Except one.

Re: Uncertain times ahead

Apparently visits from Canada to the US is down for ten consecutive months; what might that be? And it’s not just Canada.

I doubt that many Canadians, are trying to infiltrate the US, plan terrorist cells, etc. Probably they just want to visit, have a good time, spend money and boost your local economy. Fine!

Except now they are perceived as ‘not welcome, jog on’. I need to double check the reference but apparently the US is the only country in the world to have experience a big decrease in tourism this year. Why?

Rocket Lab ready to send a Hungry Hippo into space

Re: You Only Live Twice

You absolute bar-steward; now I can’t help but hear it!

Re: Lot of wasted energy there...

Yes, the opening did seem to look a little ‘urgent’ didn't it, but as long as it’s symmetric, there shouldn't be any net torque applied, so no rotation.

But, of course nothing is perfect, so there will be, but I suspect nothing that a brief bust of a cold-gas thruster couldn’t fix.

Re: Reusability and cadence

"Customers don't really care about reusability - they care about reliability, cost, and timeliness. And can it fit.

While reusability can cut costs it takes launch cadence to lower it further. SpaceX has Starlink; Blue Origin will have Amazon Leo. The Chinese launch providers will have the Chinese internet constellation. It's going to be tough for Rocket Lab to get that sort of launch cadence.”

Really struggling to see why this has been downvoted; it does seem a reasonable argument.

Hypothetically, I want to launch a 10 tonne payload into a certain orbit, what are my concerns? a) who can do it, b) how reliable is their launcher, and, and this is most important c) how much?

I don’t care if the launcher is reusable, I just want my payload in the right orbit at the right price.

It costs a lot more to develop and build a reusable launcher than a disposable one, you can only offer a lower price to customers if you are sure that it will work; as stated, the launch cadence needs to be high enough to recoup the development costs - can you actually, really reuse this booster over and over again? Because only then can you reduce your prices, safe in the knowledge that you will get your investment back later.

ICE-tracking app developer sues Trump admin after Apple spikes the software

Now I don’t think for a second that Apple or Google really want to pull these apps; they are just 'playing safe’, safe in the knowledge that someone is going to start a 1st Amendment lawsuit - which does seem to have happened.

Absolutely this is going to end up with your Supreme Court;* so years might pass before it gets settled. Either it’s fine, but too late, or it isn’t fine, in which case you now know the limits of your first amendment!

* your, because I’m British, but I do understand how your system works, or doesn’t!

Windows Insiders get a glimpse of Microsoft’s agentic future

Re: And we need this everywhere because?????

Tumbleweed......

Re: I want a OS that works

"Get your act together, or I'll migrate my network over to Linux “

Now, sorry to say this but MS really don’t give the tiniest of shits about you and your threats; do it, go to Linux, they really don’t care.

Unless you are a multinational corporation with hundreds of thousands of seats, and even then they won’t care as long as you are still using their cloudy services.

Re: having just asked CoPilot about me...

Quickly stick that in your CV/resume.

Any potential new employer worn’t bother to double check!

Home Office kept police facial recognition flaws to itself, UK data watchdog fumes

Re: If I understand correctly

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a method of applying makeup which totally confuses any sort of face recognition? A bit like the old ‘dazzle patterns’ applied to warships in WW2.

If also, does anyone know how best to invest in this business as I suspect it will be quite lucrative in the (near) future!

Vendor's secret 'fix' made critical app unusable during business hours

Re: Similar Story with FTP

True, but note that I didn’t suggest that they actually start deleting files and folders, but maybe try it with the -i parameter and abort if it looked like it was going to.

My bad, I should have included the ‘joke’ icon.

Re: Sneaky remote access

"and most importantly, lawyers didn't get a cent."

Which is always a win!

It's dead Jim!

Re: Similar Story with FTP

"I'd left a text file in there with a laundry list of about 120 items, including the above, that they'd need to fix before we'd even consider touching them."

So you had write access to the home folder root? And you weren't tempted to run a rm command, just to see what would happen?

Re: Arghhh

Hence the AC designation for posting.....

Re: Medical systems are a nightmare

"Was once asked by the reception manager to find a mono (single one ear) headset with boom mic, that had noise cancellation. Just think about that for ten seconds."

It really didn't take me ten seconds - 'Christ on a crutch'!

Because, probably 99 times out of 100, just blindly following a script; works. Of course, when eventually it doesn't and their 'advice' takes out your production DB and possibly your company as well......

Sorry about that!

Crims using social media images, videos in 'virtual kidnapping' scams

Re: Could be a nasty shock…

Well at least they’ll know to not pay the ransom demand!

So that’s something!

Sorry, but your glitchy connection might have cost you that job

"Or maybe it's BS”

No, absolutely it is BS!

"Another hint is there is no need to have a microphone that's bigger around than a stallions 'equipment’.”

Sorry, but I will be stealing that comment for reuse in some of the meetings I need to be in. Although I may substitute ‘equipment’ for a more direct term.

Re: I'm too glitchy for my job, too glitchy

I’m an AI, you know what it means;

And I hallucinate facts on the catwalk.....

Microsoft 365 boosts prices in 2026 … to pay for more AI and security

Re: Different planet

And this is quite true, it’s refreshing to see a post which understands the reality of how the corporate world works, and why the knee-jerk ‘move to Linux’ response to every problem does't really work.

If you are a home user, then yes, absolutely yes, dump Microsoft faster than a fast thing and move to Linux.

If you run a small business, a dozen or so users, then absolutely you should at least investigate the option of moving, it won’t be seamless, you will get push back from some of your staff, there will probably be a degree of retraining and not everything will work exactly the same. But get over the initial hump and you will be saving money and not dealing with random MS weirdness.

But, you run an Enterprise, tens, hundreds of thousands of seats, your entire business is now built around Sharepoint/ OneDrive, Dynamics databases, Intune (or whatever it is called today), access to resources is all controlled by Entra - suddenly it’s not so easy to ‘just move away’. Certainly it’s worth investigating but large corporates tend to work on a short-term basis. Short term it will cost $LOTS_OF_MONEY to shift. Long term, it will pay off in spades, but companies.......

Re: Just go back to Office 2021

Oh I think your previous effort was far more succinct and made your point quite eloquently.

“I don't give a single f@#$. F@%# Microsoft and f@$#% Nadella sideways up the ass with a chainsaw.”

I suspect you aren’t a fan then?

Re: Different planet

"Copilot: Sure, let me start downloading it"

I'm sorry Dave but I can't do that!

We'll beat China to the Moon, NASA nominee declares

Re: Current NASA situation

"SpaceX says they have moved propellants around internally, but there hasn't been reliable proof that they actually did or how.”

Maybe they have, maybe they haven’t. But we are taking about two separate vessels docking, all the interconnects working flawlessly and pumping propellant between them. This is an order of magnitude more complex than moving some propellant around internally.

And this has to happen flawlessly, not just once but, how many times, ten, fifteen at minimum? And if even one of them fails and damages the interconnect on the target vessel - it’s game over, scrub the whole thing!

Let’s be honest here, there is zero chance of this happening, the Chinese will absolutely get back to the Moon before the US can because they are going for a simple ‘footprints and flags’ exercise, basically repeating what the US did, sixty years ago! So why not let them?

Tech leaders fill $1T AI bubble, insist it doesn't exist

Oh damn, still got two years to wait!

Latest Windows 11 updates may break the OS's most basic bits

Re: WTF?

The literal definition of ‘single point of failure’!

Hegseth needs to go to secure messaging school, report says

Re: Hegseth is not the problem

"(Top tip: count the downvotes to see how many MAGA-lomanics read these comments!)"

Four apparently, at time of counting!

And technically no it is still the DoD, because that is mandated by Act of Congress - the administration can insist on calling it whatever that want, 'The Department of doing bad stuff to people Donald doesn't like' etc.

Legally it is still the DoD!

EU metes out first-ever Digital Services Act fine, dings X for blue check deception

Re: "It's a witch hunt"

"I expect a DEMONISING all-caps posting from TYRANT TRUMP next - "They treat us so badly", blah, blah, blah."

It'll take a while, he'll be too busy cuddling up to his 'FiFA Peace Prize' award to bother with such mundane stuff for a day or so!

Or even better, a European-based company sells a service to customers in the US, which is illegal under US laws, oh I don't know; gambling, various forms of pornography, etc.

And when challenged and threatened with legal action, can they say, 'well screw you Uncle Sam....we're not American so your laws are irrelevant'?

It works both ways!

100% tariffs on Europe, OK fine - remind me again who actually pays the cost of the tariffs?

Please don't tell me you actually believe Trumps BS about 'foreigners pay it'. Because if that's true how about 1000% tariffs on the US which, presumably Americans will pay for, yes?

Another open source project dies of neglect, leaving thousands scrambling

"Then one goes over and reads that linked to Reddit thread and sees the number of upvotes the OP got at the start, even though he is excoriated later on: .....,”

Alas, just a way of life, happens on Reddit, happens on here, happens on every single forum in the world which allows upvotes or downvotes; people tend to read a post and knee-jerk upvote or downvote depending on what they wish was true, or want to be true; often without bothering to understand the actual situation.

So in this particular Reddit post, imagine someone not fully conversant with how this works in the real world? They read ‘blah..blah..blah.. support being pulled without notice...blah..blah..blah....dreadful, how dear they...blah...blah...blah.

Which if you don’t know anything about Open Source, does, on the face of it sound reasonable. Same as if Microsoft suddenly decided that, say Windows 11 was going out of support tomorrow, because we’re all in of AI now and Windows is so yesterday - tough!

Most people or commentators won’t know the difference and will pile in with upvotes or downvotes accordingly. But these things do tend to sort themselves out given a bit of time; as you say the OP was excoriated later on.

Personally, I try to read the entire thread first, ask myself, ‘do I fully understand the arguments being made here’? And only then will I upvote (I very. vary rarely downvote) a post. I try to engage brain before knee-jerk voting.

"If open source eventuall dies, the better. It brought IT back thirty-forty years”

I’m afraid that this comment will result in downvotes piling in, and I can understand why. But, you certainly make a good point in the earlier part of your comments. FOSS enthusiasts do push the ‘freedom’ and ‘source code’ and ‘not being beholden to $LARGECORP’ for bug fixes and feature updates as advantages; and they are quite right.

Alas this all means little or nothing to most end users, and especially corporates, their eyes glaze over, until you happen to mention ‘free’ and then they’ll take interest!

But the old adage of ‘no such thing as a free lunch’ does spring to mind!

Landlord quirks leave thousands of flats stuck in the broadband slow lane

Re: A 'murican in UK?

"We default to US spelling these days for the sake of our international audience”

.... and piss off the parts of the world that don't speak American.

And also implies that El Reg considers that Americans are far too stupid to understand the slight differences in spelling.

I frequent quite a few forums (fora?) which are almost exclusively US based, but I always, always use ‘colour’, ‘flavour’, ‘neighbour’ etc. It has never occurred to me that anyone would be massively confused!

Aviation delays ease as airlines complete Airbus software rollback

"...intense solar radiation...”

of course that could just mean a bright light!

Re: compare with boeing

Which is why when any of my family are flying anywhere, one of the first things I ask them to check is who made the aircraft!

Re: Good luck

Indeed, although the dump tanks aren’t filled with water but they are water cooled.

From CERN’s own website "Each beam dump absorber consists of a 7m long segmented carbon cylinder of 700mm diameter, contained in a steel cylinder, comprising the dump core (TDE). This is water cooled, and surrounded by about 750 tonnes of concrete and iron shielding. The dump is housed in a dedicated cavern (UD) at the end of the transfer tunnels (TD).”

I recall reading a article written by one of the CERN engineers who claimed that ‘if we have to ‘dump’ the beam, the very, very last place on Earth that you want to be standing is at the end of the tunnel’!

Cabling survived dungeons and fish factories, until a lazy user took the network down

Although, on the other hand, you could now legitimately charge said client for a full days’ attendance on site to ‘fix’ the issue, rather than just an hour or so!

UK digital ID plan gets a price tag at last – £1.8B

Papieren Bitte!

Baikonur's only crew-capable pad busted after Soyuz flight

Re: Musk says

"Are you mad? NO ONE touches fElon's ketamine.”

Well other than Elon obviously!

Canadian data order risks blowing a hole in EU sovereignty

Re: obvious solution

Just get the DGSE involved.

What sink a couple of Canadian ships in harbours?

Or if they technically simply don’t have access to that data, because the parent company (in the EU) has removed the access to it from their Canadian subsidiaries. Then what can the Canadian Courts do?

US Navy scuttles Constellation frigate program for being too slow for tomorrow's threats

Now hands up, I’ve never served and hence have zero first hand experience of this; but it does seem to me that from the moment you design a new warship, tank whenever, by the time the first one is launched, rolls of the production line, technically it is obsolete, yes? And fiddling with the specs mid way just seems to exacerbate the delays.

So would it not be better to agree on, say a ship design, size, weapon systems* etc. and just stick with it - yes it may, technically, be obsolete the moment it is launched, but your potential adversaries are in exactly the same situation.

So once a design is locked down, production starts and isn’t changed, your potential adversary launches a ship which is ‘on-paper’ superior, except you have three of your design in service while they only have one, and it’s basically a prototype. In a shooting situation, who is going to prevail?

* yes, hence a degree of modularisation, you design it in such a way that the weapons system can be swopped out for something which is compatible. Which means that, hypothetically, ten years later it can be swopped out for ‘missile system 1’ which fits without modifications or ‘missile system 2’ which is superior but doesn’t fit, and needs a significant rebuild of the ship. So you have a choice, option two gives you superior killing power, but option one, means you actually have a ship on operational duty and not stuck in port?