Posts by vtcodger

Xerox: Prepare to say cyan-ara, HP Inc. We're no paper tiger. We're really very serious about that hostile takeover

Re: I wonder why Xerox is so fixated on this HP merger.

the problem is that people just don't require hard copies much anymore.

Exacerbated in HP's case by the fact that getting a (reasonably properly formatted) hard copy from a PC or smart phone has been increasingly problemetic in recent decades. Especially in recent years when Microsoft's OTA Windows updates have had a tendency to deconfigure printer drivers. I've lost count of the number of times frustrated family members have eMailed me stuff to print for them. When you're reduced to using Linux to get your stuff printed, you should know that you're in trouble.

Gospel according to HPE: And lo, on the 32,768th hour did thy SSD give up the ghost

Re: fucking incredible

As someone points out upthread, it's probably the S.M.A.R.T. power on hours counter which is supposed to be used to tell you when the drive exceeds 43,800 hours of operation (5 years) and you might want to think about replacing it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-on_hours.

Note that 5 years was apparently considered to be an approximation of maximum reliable lifetime 25 years ago when S.M.A.R.T. was designed.

As I read it

As I read it, it sounds like the problem is in the SSD firmware, not stuff HPE did. If so, they have to get an update from the drive manufacturer. Then HPE might want to test it to make sure that the fix doesn't bork the user/system data/code in any configuration that HPE supports. Then they have to come up with bullet-proof instructions so users can update their system.

Might take a while. Makes one long for the days of yore when firmware was, like FIRM

Found on Mars: Alien insects... or whatever the hell this smudge is supposed to be, anyway

Intriguing

The possibility that there might be intelligent life on Earth is indeed intriguing. Investigations of that possibility would seem to be worthy of further funding. Ideally the research would be funded by a tax on stupidity, but there would appear to be technical problems with implementing such a tax. Perhaps as a workaround, we could tax sales of firearms and, ammunition, wrinkle removing and hair restoring potions, as well as cryptocurrency transactions and accessing facebook, twitter or any website associated with fashion, style, entertainment, or professional athletics.

BTW, notwithstanding the low gravity, mightn't flying insects on Mars require rather large wings? 0.1 psi isn't much air for a flying critter to work with. The only analysis I could find quickly is at http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=6761 It suggests that flying critters on Mars might want to look into rocketry rather than Earth style aerodynamic flight.

T-Mobile US hacked, Monero wallet app infected, public info records on 1.2bn people leak from database...

Re: "All three strains of the spyware slipped into the [..] store before being spotted and removed"

20 odd hours and no downvotes so far. But be assured, they're coming as soon as the Sunday AM hangovers fade and eyes can focus. FWIW, I sort of agree with you but let's be fair here. The problem isn't that the "techies" are poor at preventing security problems. It's that they don't know the job they have signed on for is pretty much impossible.

Absolutely smashing: Musk shows off Tesla's 'bulletproof' low-poly pickup, hilarity ensues

Looks like an F117

Reckon there's any chance it won't show up on radar?

We know what you want to write: Google injects more AI into G Suite

And thus ...

And thus did the phrase, "I'll have our bots e-message your bots" enter the language.

It won't be all that long before humans will be excluded from the process entirely and computers will spend the next 300,000,000 years chatting cheerfully and interminably with one another.

OTOH, it's not clear that anything of importance will be lost thereby.

WinUI and WinRT: Official modern Windows API now universal thanks to WebAssembly

Re: "WinUI 3.0 is the future of native UX development on Windows"

web standards

Isn't the whole point of Javascript to destroy those old fashioned, outdated, uncool, web standards?

quality

Quality is so, like, twentieth century. We've moved beyond that. (Lucky us)

Re: "WinUI 3.0 is the future of native UX development on Windows"

What was wrong with the clear, simple visual styles and clues from Win 3.1 3D update to the simpler win9x ...

Upvoted. The win3.1/9 UI isn't perfect. But it's quite usable. I've seen six year olds who are none too sure of parts of that alphabet thingee master the Win 9 interface well enough well enough to run simple games. And it doesn't handicap adults or us elderly. Let's quit screwing with it and see what we can do about a phone/whatever interface that works as well. And let's not then impose an interface optimized for small touchy screens on PC users.

We lose money on repairs, sobs penniless Apple, even though we charge y'all a fortune

Ask Siri

Perhaps Congress should have asked Siri rather than Tim Cook. Possibly they would have gotten a less unlikely answer.

Five new players – including Blue Origin and SpaceX – are now in NASA's race to send landers to the Moon

Re: Chump change

2.5Bn will buy you a complete Mars rover mission. e.g. Curiousity. So 2.6Bn is a bit more than pocket change. HOWEVER, It looks like you're probably right. This contract pool appears to be just for some bus tickets from Low Earth Orbit to on the ehrrr ... "ground" on the moon -- not the full missions. Perhaps someone who knows more can clarify what is being purchased, how many missions are involved, and what the full costs are likely to be

HP to Xerox: Nope, your $33.5bn bid falls short of our valuation

Re: Has this ever ended well?

When Mike's Taco Truck proposes to buy out a major fast food franchise, it's possible that Mike is a brilliant manager who will, over time, greatly enhance the value of the restaurant chain. But it's also possible that Mike is a scam artist who will gut the fast food business, pocket all the loose cash, and be found drinking Pina Coladas in the Cayman Islands when the crazed fiscal monstrosity he creates eventually crashes.

Which scenario do you think is more likely?

Re: "not in the best interests of shareholders"

The odd thing is that this is all perfectly legal.

Why do you find that odd? As the Russians say "Everything Marx told us about Socialism was wrong. Unfortunately, everything he told us about Capitalism was right."

Uncle Sam prepping order to extradite ex-Autonomy boss Mike Lynch from the UK

The two are accused of falsely inflating the true value of Autonomy's business by fiddling revenue reporting, misleading auditors and market analysts.

Is it being suggested that lying, fudging numbers, etc,etc,etc are illegal practices? Has anyone considered the probable affect of that philosophy on the world's economy? Not to mention the future of the world's political elites.

(I've been following the Trump impeachment hearings. I am rapidly concluding that the witnesses are the only people in the room that shouldn't be locked up.)

White Screen of Death: Admins up in arms after experimental Google emission borks Chrome

It bit me!!!

You knew (or should have known) it was a snake when you picked it up.

https://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TheLittleBoyAndTheRattlesnake-Cherokee.html

NASA spanks $34bn on a disposable rocket – likely to top $50bn by 2024 moon landing

Re: then the dates for subsequent missions may drift to the right

Dear Mr/Mrs/Miss Scotland

We're sorry to report that your coat (and rocket) have been inadvertently sent out for dry cleaning. We regret the error, but you have to admit, they were pretty grungy. We expect them back in 2024 or 2025 or maybe 2026. The fee will be around $8B US. Or maybe a bit more.

In the meantime, we can lend you some burlap sacks to protect you from the weather.

Sincerely,

NASA

Your business and continued support are very important to us.

Can't you hear me knocking? But I installed a smart knocker

Smart?

Very funny piece.

Anybody have any idea why IOT gear is referred to a SMART? As far as I can see, its virtue -- when it has any virtue at all -- is consistency, not intelligence.

Re: There is of course a new approach here

Chineseium screws are designed so that the groves in the head all rub off when the screw is halfway inserted

On the other hand, the center of the screw is somehow made of harder material that will firmly deflect the drill bit when you absolutely have no choice other than to drill the jammed screw out. Achieving all this in one simple, inexpensive metal device was apparently invented by the Chinese in the seventh century BC and has been perfected in subsequent millenia.

I doubt the Chinese use this technology in screws made for domestic consumption.

Judge shoots down Trump admin's efforts to allow folks to post shoddy 3D printer gun blueprints online

Re: Why a 3D printed gun?

People still get shot in London all the time (24 last year)

24 shooting victims is a slow Saturday afternoon in Chicago. Total this year as of November 9 = 2394. Difficult as it may be to believe, that's fewer than last year.

see https://www.chicagotribune.com/data/ct-shooting-victims-map-charts-htmlstory.html

Section 230 supporters turn on it, its critics rely on it. Up is down, black is white in the crazy world of US law

Re: The law of Unintended Consequences applies....

I know this will kill Facebook ...

It'll be tough, but I think I could somehow get by.

Gas-guzzling Americans continue to shun electric vehicles as sales fail to bother US car market

Re: Electricity in the USA

Given that I don't anticipate charging stations being a common feature in areas with a population density of 5 people/mi^2 (1.9 / km^2),

Indeed. If you're looking for something to do for an hour or so, try working out the logistics of a weekend ski trip from Los Angeles to the nearest reliable snow at Mammoth Mountain in a Tesla. That's 300+ miles. At night. High Speed driving (You'll lose some range to drag). Through high desert (i.e. temps once you leave the LA Basin will likely be sub-freezing. You WILL almost certainly want heat). It can probably be done. But the queue at the Mammoth Lakes chargers when the lifts close on Sunday afternoon is likely to be impressive if very many Tesla owners try this.

Re: Electricity in the USA

"But most people don't travel very far in vehicles."

That's maybe OK for a second or third car. Heck, as an ICE vehicle approaches End Of Life after 20 years or so, it's likely to be on life support and not something you want to take more than 20-40km from home as it's maybe not all that reliable. I don't see that an EV would be any worse. A vehicle with limited range is OK for local shopping, errands, and commuting to work or school. That's assuming that one has a handy facility for charging your EV.

But in North America, most of us need, or think we need, at least one vehicle with "unlimited" range.

BUT, current chargeable EVs are priced like first vehicles, not second cars. Hybrids get around many of the limitations of EVs of course. Personally, I think hybrids may well be the future. The only reason I don't own one is that in recent years, new cars have sprouted a vast assortment of baffling and often quite poorly designed controls that I have no interest in fighting with. And my low-mileage, 15 year old Nissan with an after market GPS and rear-view camera meets my needs.

I suppose the combination of an EV and an older, but reliable, low-mileage ICE might work for some.

I doubt Americans will change as long as the pricing for electric cars are still pretty expensive

Exactly. Cars are a major purchase item for all but a few Americans. In most cases, they are going to buy the least expensive vehicle that meets their perceived needs That's VERY unlikely to be an EV. At most, they might spend an extra 3% or 5% for an "environment friendly" high gas mileage hybrid, but that's about it.

The only way I can see that changes any time soon is if some outfit somewhere builds an extremely inexpensive EV that has all the EV problems (slow refueling, limited range, lack of "free" cabin heating, probably limited interior/cargo space) but is REALLY cheap and proceeds to sell tens of millions of them in Africa, Asia and Latin America. And if they can somehow get those things past US/EU/Canadian safety requirements. And if they can compete pricewise with low end ICE compact cars. Then maybe Americans will flock to them as they did in the 1960s to VW bugs and the 1970s to Japanese sedans. ... Perhaps. ... Maybe.

Uber CEO compares pedestrian death to murder of Saudi journalist, saying all should be forgiven

Re: He then argued that everyone should be forgiven.

Uber is all about the Gig Economy. They probably have one or more local drug cartels on call for body disposal gigs.

Morrisons is to blame for 100k payroll theft and leak, say 9,000 workers

Perhaps ...

I think what is being suggested is probably that the data should have been encrypted using a KPMG provided public key that Skelton couldn't use to decode the data. Perhaps.

Who would be responsible for implementing such a process? Morrisons? The UK government? Skelton? KPMG? The EU? Maybe Joint and Several Liability applies here. There are some quite deep pockets amongst that lot.

One man's mistake, missing backups and complete reboot: The tale of Europe's Galileo satellites going dark

Re: And we wonder why people want to exit the EU

Actually, there are several alternatives cited in other answers. Or, if you have unique requirements, you can possibly design and launch your own GPS/GLOSNASS,Beidou,IRNSS (pick one) compatible satellites as Japan seems to be proposing with QZSS.

Re: So in short...

Closely followed by a second report on how to cut ballooning costs by removing non-management staff.

You're suggesting they should outsource the non-management part of the effort? There ARE non-management workers somewhere in the organization structure -- right?

Re: Doesn't inspire confidence....

I thought at first that the organization chart might be similar to xkcd's Python Environment chart https://xkcd.com/1987/ But on further analysis, I think the Python thing might be clearer and simpler.

To avoid that Titanic feeling, boffins create an unsinkable hydrophobic metal with laser power

Re: Hmmm...

You're right of course. Archimedes wins again. Damned Greek spoilsports. But I wonder what a surface coating of air bubbles does for or to drag. Any chance these laser teated metals might lead to more fuel efficient hulls or propellers?

NPM today stands for Now Pay Me: JavaScript packaging biz debuts conduit for funding open-source coders

Re: Is there someplace I can go ...

"This is shallow thinking at its most obvious."

Sorry my friend, but I expect you'll eventually, probably after many years, conclude that Thomas Hobbes "The life of man in the natural state is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." was a lot clearer thinker than Ayn Rand.

I'm sympathetic to Libertarianism. Any reasonable person is. I'd prefer a universe where Hobbes was wrong. But in practice, everybody does what they want and it all works out simply doesn't work. If you want problems solved, you tackle them -- mostly one at a time -- instead of throwing up your hands and saying "It can't be helped".

Right now, malicious web scripting is a problem. A serious one. Not a simple one. And it's getting worse, not better. I expect that Google and others will eventually try to tame it. They employee some very clever people. Maybe they'll succeed. But my bet would be otherwise.

But thanks for at least taking the time to express your viewpoint -- unlike the general population of apparently inarticulate and I suspect rather dimwitted downvoters around here.

Is there someplace I can go ...

I'm not against paying for open source software. I've even been known to do so as well as contribute some spare change to Wikipedia and the Internet Archive.

Javascript On the other hand ... Is there someplace I can go to donate to a fund to eliminate the menace of website scripting -- not just Javascript, but ALL web scripting -- from humanity's future? I appreciate that it is a complex issue. There are worthy things -- interactive maps for example -- done with web scripting that would otherwise probably need to be provided by browsers. But the internet has become a rather bad neighborhood. And it's getting worse. And Javascript is clearly one of the reasons the neighborhood is going downhill.

Comcast-owned Brit telco Sky to hire 1,000 new staffers, half of them engineers

Re: They are not engineers

they didn't know what that meant and it wasn't on their script

No kidding. I, and my family, have attempted on two occasions to report damaged cable distribution boxes to Comcast. (One smacked by a snowplow, one bent up by my wife's car). We have concluded that there is no way to do so, We are now (thankfully) ex Comcast customers. Our somewhat shaky DSL connection is probably technically inferior to Comcast's cable. But there are intelligent lifeforms at our phone company's offices.

Re: They are not engineers

They are not engineers

Of course not. What use would Comcast have for an engineer?

Remember the Uber self-driving car that killed a woman crossing the street? The AI had no clue about jaywalkers

Re: Surely

One should have hoped so. 'cept it ain't.

The requirement should probably be to do what a normally cautious human driver would do -- slow down until the object and it's trajectory is positively identified. If it can't be identified, try to creep around it in a safe fashion. In no case strike it.

Will such behavior be unpopular with other drivers? Most likely. Especially when the object is a scrap of paper or a tumbleweed. OTOH, I doubt that violent arm and finger motions accompanied by verbal abuse from other drivers would bother autonomous vehicles one bit.

Re: Surely

FWIW - In Arizona as in most (all?) of the US, you aren't supposed to mow pedestrians down even if the pedestrians shouldn't be in the road.

Relevant law: per https://activerain.com/blogsview/1497199/watch-where-you-re-walking-arizona-revised-statutes-pedestrian-right-of-way

28-794. Drivers to exercise due care

Notwithstanding the provisions of this chapter every driver of a vehicle shall:

1. Exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian on any roadway.

2. Give warning by sounding the horn when necessary.

3. Exercise proper precaution on observing a child or a confused or incapacitated person on a roadway.

It doesn't surprise me that Uber's "autonomous" vehicle doesn't seem to comply with relevant traffic laws. Bunch of greedy sociopaths if you ask me. Likewise Tesla. Waymo OTOH seems to be run by adults. If you ask me, Uber, Tesla, et. al. vehicles should be required to be led by someone on foot waving a red flag or a lantern (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_traffic_laws) until such time as they demonstrate reasonable concern for public safety.

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

I was wondering much the same thing

I've only seen one actual IR spectrogram in my life. 60 years ago. In college. And all I know about Raman spectography is what I read in Wikipedia. But I came to much the conclusion you have. I suspect that it's probably possible to use spectrograms in quality control to check product consistency. And I expect you can use spectography to check for specific impurities -- Arsenic, Cadmium, etc and maybe some toxins. But detailed analysis of a meal? How do you know if that strong (probable) CH bond peak is from fructose in honey as opposed to ethanol in beer or the starch in mashed potatoes?

Re: Gluten intolerance affects less than 1% of the population

I have been diagnosed with Gout, which is extremely painful

You bet it is painful. You have my sympathy.

But the thing about gout is that once you've built up MonoSodiumUrate crystals in your joints or elsewhere -- which you likely did years ago, gout attacks can be triggered any change in blood urate concentration -- downwards as well as upwards. And they probably can be triggered by other events -- stress, surgery, etc, etc, etc. At least so we're told

Most of us gout sufferers can tolerate plant and dairy purines far better than animal purines. Again so I'm told. And it certainly seems so for me. And we probably do need some protein and therefore purines for health.

I assume you're taking Allopurinol or some other medication(s), and that MAY help bring your blood urate under control and eventually subdue the gout attacks. It doesn't work well for me, but does for many.

You might want to consider buying a blood urate meter. They aren't outrageously expensive. I think mine cost about $40 US. Test strips also aren't outrageous. About $1.00 per test if you buy the strips from Amazon. And you don't have to test every day. Once a week might well be adequate. Anyway, the hope is that in a few tens of months all the urate stashed in the body will dissolve and gout will be a thing of the past ... At least as long as I'm very careful about animal protein. So far, it's promising. Measured urate levels are well below the purported solubility level. Of course, it's not clear how accurate the meter is. And the actual as opposed to theoretical solubility level is a bit hazy. (Toe, Ankle, and Knee joints are not necessarily at exactly the same temperature as one's blood). Anyway, my gout attacks have become less frequent and less severe, so I'm sticking to veggies, faux meat, and cheese.

USAF spaceplane back on Earth after mystery 2-year jaunt in orbit. Jeepers creepers, what has it been doing up here?

Re: James Webb Space Telescope

as someone who struggles to fold a map...

It's possible to fold maps back up again? To the original dimensions?

Who knew?

Chrome devs tell world that DNS over HTTPS won't open the floodgates of hell

Re: Missing the point

Apart from this, I don't see what problem DOH is meant to fix.

What problem? !!!ADVERTISEMENTS ARE BEING BLOCKED!!! You and I may not view that as a problem, but Google's customers are advertisers. It seems probable that THEY view ad-blocking as a problem.

Running on Intel? If you want security, disable hyper-threading, says Linux kernel maintainer

Re: Updating Firmware isn't easy

Updating OS kernels is (usually) tractable. I can test the new kernel for hardware compatibility and other issues without destroying my system. Or if the testing failed to show a problem that becomes all too apparent later. I can (probably) recover from a problemetic update one way or another.

BIOS and other firmware upgrades OTOH have the potential to be a "final solution". If I brick the hardware, am I going to be able to unbrick it?

It's dangerous to go alone! Take Uncle Sam and the Netherlands: Duo join naval task force into China's backyard

Those are dangerous waters

My guess is that the Chinese will generously provide the round-eye flotilla with a suitable 24/7 escort of modern Chinese warships to ensure that the foreigners come to no harm..

Re: > that's over half the Navy!

"The fact is that the number of the officials and the quantity of the work to be done are not related to each other at all. The rise in the total of those employed is governed by Parkinson's Law, and would be much the same whether the volume of the work were to increase, diminish or even disappear." Parkinson's Law -- C Northcote Parkinson 1955

Like the Death Star on Endor, JEDI created a ton of fallout and stormy weather in cloud market

Re: Whaaa?

"I've followed this reasonably closely since 2012 when AWS/Google started to make significant in-roads into DoD IT infrastructure. ..."

Thanks -- vtc

Whaaa?

Is anybody around here actually familiar with what JEDI is supposed to do? I did some Googling and found lots of articles about the process of awarding the contract, but very little about what the $10B actually is to buy. The closest I could come was from the BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50191242

The Department of Defense wants to replace its ageing computer networks with a single cloud system.

Under the contract, Microsoft will provide artificial intelligence-based analysis and host classified military secrets among other services.

...

It is hoped that Jedi will give the military better access to data and the cloud from battlefields.

That looks to me to be quite nebulous. They're going to draft Clippy and send him off to fight ... Who? How? Why would anyone even think that might be a good idea? They are going to make battlespace management dependent on some sort of AI entity/entities at the end of a probably questionably reliable communications link?

This sort of reminds me of the 1960s era USAF Automated Logistics System which managed to burn through $250M (big money back then -- a couple of billion in current dollars) on a poorly defined mission and ended up with pretty much nothing to show for it.

I imagine that Microsoft will make money off this. But I wouldn't be shocked to find that in the long run there will be a lot of folks at MS who will end up wishing Amazon had been awarded the contract.

Microsoft explains self-serve Power platform's bypassing of Office 365 admins to cries of 'are you completely insane?'

Re: Employees buying software for their company?

I think this a dubious idea.

But I do recall that back when I worked for big companies, at some level managers (where I worked at least) had a small discretionary budget they could spend without stumbling through the requisition-purchase order-whatever jungle. Perhaps that sort of thing is what is being targeted.

Uncle Sam demands summary judgment on Snowden memoir: We're not saying it's true, but no one should read it

Re: Snowden's memoirs

"I would say that Snowden comes across as a true, almost religious, believer in the US constitution and the power of the US democracy"

Apparently that attitude is a poor fit to the NSA's ethos. I'm not terribly surprised. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Re: Free publicity

They (probably) can't ban it. As far as I can see, they are just doing this to harass Snowden and to discourage future leakers. If I recall correctly, Snowden's publisher is in England which will probably make it somewhat more difficult to seize profits which they quite likely could do if the publisher were in the US.

Talk about a killer feature: Home, Home Mini gear replacements promised after fatal update bricks gadgets

Re: Google forcing people in to Google Accounts not just Nest.

"I installed Tiny Tiny RSS on a private webserver ..."

The thought of using RSS never crossed my mind. But I'm tired of dealing with with Google's crappy Javascript that works properly nowhere but (possibly) chrome and slows information delivery to 1200 baud modem speed. A couple of tests look like RSS feeds might be an answer.

Thanks.

Re: Google forcing people in to Google Accounts not just Nest.

"Google News became worthless to me after the redesign in 2017(?)"

Yep, they certainly made a mess of things. Out of curiosity, did you find an alternative or simply give up on trying to get news on-line?

We're late and we're unreliable but we won't invalidate your warranty: We're engineers!

The previous owners of this house apparently had a toolkit consisting of a hammer and a roll of duct tape. You can do a lot with a hammer and duct tape. Who could have guessed that duct tape used in place of a proper joining fitting between a bathtub and the household drain pipes could last for decades before failing and flooding the garage?

Your local hardware store will probably sell you a small bottle of purple liquid for about the cost of a cup of machine coffee that will permanently glue PVC piping together. OTOH odd though your setup looks, there's a lot to be said for if it ain't broke, don't fix it.