Posts by Insert sadsack pun here

Enough with the notifications! Focus Assist will shut them u… 'But I'm too important!'

I don't understand why every FUCKING device and website and software has to provide a weather forecast box wherever there are more than two pixels unused. The only question I need to answer is "do I need a jacket?" I can get a 90% accurate answer by remembering what month it is. I can get to 99% accuracy by looking out the window.

Yes, I understand that the weather data is there to be scraped and it seems like easy customisation, but just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. Weather wankers!

Be careful where you install software, and who installs it

Re: Private Libraries?

This Bob guy sounds like a loose cannon. I hope they got shot of him.

Tesla jettisons 75% of Bitcoin holdings, boosting cash balance by $936m

Re: A pint says

Kanye is clearly unwell (and a huge pain as a result). Musk just seems to be a douche - but having discovered what an awful person his dad is, perhaps it's not surprising the son grew up to be the man we know as Elon.

Security vendor splits – not quits – to address Russia's invasion of Ukraine

"external circumstances... is almost certainly code for "Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine that has so outraged the world that plenty of tech vendors quit Russia in protest."

1) think it is much more likely to be code for "our founder and former CEO has been detained by Russian authorities on dodgy charges, and we want to protect our foreign business from them". See El Reg's previous reporting on this issue. Prosecutors can't explain what he is supposed to have done wrong. He thinks he has been framed by organised cybercrime groups whose activities have been disrupted by the company.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/29/group_ib_ceo_arrested_treason_claims_russia/

https://www.forbes.ru/tekhnologii/466849-il-a-sackov-forbes-srazu-posle-moego-zaderzania-sostoalas-bol-saa-vecerinka

2) plenty of foreign vendors have issued press releases proclaiming their shock and hurt. How many have actually gone ahead and left? Far, far fewer.

Amazon accused of obstructing probe into deadly warehouse collapse

Unfortunately, OSHA has been gutted of people and resources over the last few years.

https://www.nelp.org/news-releases/workplace-fatalities-rising-trump-osha-enforcement-declines/

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2015/07/osha_safety_standards_how_politics_have_undermined_the_agency_s_ability.html?via=gdpr-consent

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedknutson/2020/04/01/worker-dangers-up-as-trump-osha-cuts-come-home-to-roost-say-afl-cio-exec-ex-dol-official/amp/

Re: Axe to grind..

"amazon pulled out of new york due to her and other politicians rediculous demands"

1) Amazon didn't pull out of New York. Amazon sought competitive bids (subsidies, tax breaks, land) from localities in order to locate their HQ2 there, and NYC was in the running. AOC didn't want Amazon to be offered freebies.

2) Amazon didn't pull out of New York. in fact, they announced they'd invest in a huge campus there without the package of subsidies and breaks they wanted.

3) AOC is a federal legislator. It was New York State and New York City politicians that could have offered Amazon subsidies etc. Federal government can't discriminate among states. She objected to the "beauty parade" of giveaways to Amazon, but it wasn't her delusion one way or the other.

Elon Musk orders Tesla execs back to the office

Re: 40 hours a week, minumum?

"if they had jobbed me out it would have been at (Salary + 1.1*Salary)*1.2 = 2.52*Salary."

I believe a 5-7x multiplier is applied at law firms and consultancies. Certainly I would have been ecstatic to make half of my charge out rate...

US brings first-of-its-kind criminal charges of Bitcoin-based sanctions-busting

"Under the United States' International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEA), it is illegal for a citizen or institution within the US to transfer funds, directly or indirectly, to a sanctioned country, such as Iran, Cuba, North Korea, or Russia"

Russia doesn't fit here. It is not the subject of comprehensive sanctions. Certain Russian banks and persons are sanctioned, but it remains legal for US persons to send money (and bitcoin) to and from Russia.

Appeals court unleashes Texas's anti-Big-Tech content-no-moderation law

Re: Better for citizens to choose

"How many school shootings were there in the 80's ? None.

Information is a double-edged sword, is what I'm saying."

And misinformation is just rubbish.

SoftBank to stop investing 'randomly' after losing billions of dollars

Re: How shocking...

Hopefully they don't do the needful only after proceeding with the presently-prospective procedures, because we all know that the proper process prescribes that actioning the necessary should precede any proceeding with procedures.

Confirmation dialog Groundhog Day: I click OK and it keeps coming back

Re: Golden Path Specifications

"Often, from the user's perspective, the "what happened" part doesn't need to be more than "something went wrong".

Possibly - but I'm reintroducing the Birch for programmers whose error messages are too cutesy..."bruh, totally tough shit occurred, no joke. Better luck next life!"

Elon Musk flogs $8.4bn of Tesla shares amid Twitter offer drama

Re: Irony

"The extreme leftists and Wokists"

I bloody hate Wokists. What's wrong with a good old fashioned frying pan?

Re: Irony

"The extreme leftists and Wokists mantra states that if you don't like it go somewhere else or build your own..."

Extreme leftists aren't known for promoting market-based solutions to social problems. You're talking through your trousers, matey

Apple to bin apps that go three years without updates

Re: So you wrote it, and it works

"As the article states, apps "that no longer function as intended, don't follow current review guidelines, or are outdated" could already be removed under Apple's previous policy. This easily includes apps which are using outdated, less-secure APIs."

I hate to defend Apple, but under the existing rules a human has to go and look at the app, apply guidelines, work out what the app was intended to do, see if the app still works as intended, and then decide whether to kick it off or not. By applying rules like "app has been downloaded fewer than x times" and "app hasn't been updated in y years", that process can be objective and automated...

...and 98% of the stuff that will be kicked off is untended rubbish that no-one will miss anyway.

"the app has not been downloaded at all or extremely few times during a rolling 12 month period"

I suppose that means my "Brexit Win Logger" app is done for, then...

India seizes $725 million of Xiaomi's cash

Re: Everyone does it

VAT is not a tax on turnover. VAT is a tax on consumption. A B2B business ultimately generates little in the way of VAT for the exchequer because anything it does collect ends up being reclaimed (offset) by its client.

Hamas-linked cyber-spies 'target high-ranking Israelis'

Re: Of course...

"It's another case of pot meeting the kettle."

Not really. No-one said Mossad would or wouldn't do the same.

Fish mentality: If The Rock told you to eat flies, would you buy my NFT?

"One of the speakers...ended up berating the others over the utter uselessness and environmental vandalism of craptos and NFTs."

They're not wrong.

US Army to build largest 3D-printed structures in the Americas

Re: I wonder if it would be simpler

They were commercialised - they're called insulated concrete forms: https://newhousebuilder.com/insulated-concrete-forms/

Coding in a war zone: A Ruby developer's life in Kharkiv

Re: Spreading the news

"What I'd like is a pipe right into every home in Russia, to pump the truth to them."

"We" already have access, uncensored access free and easy, to the truth about the Saudi war in Yemen, and the support of the UK and US for it. What are "we" doing about it? Let's not get too sanctimonious about inactivity of ordinary Russians in a police state.

Activist investors attempt to push through racial diversity probe at Salesforce

It's not a quota, it is a metric. The two are different. The metric is an estimation of "if were are hiring and promoting in a fair way, then we'd expect our workforce to look like this in a few years. If it doesn't look like this by then, then we need to ask ourselves if we are getting better or worse in fairness and if the steps that we've taken are sensible".

(I'm not saying anything about the specific metric that Salesforce chose, which to an outsider looks clunky at best).

IT in the UK and US isn't a terribly diverse workforce and does suffer from (at best) wobbly HR practices. The readership of El Reg will mostly reflect those currently in the sector. The downvotes will often be because those who would face more competition from a wider candidate pool aren't keen on it. Some of them also fear/misinterpret efforts to hire people more friendly as "reverse discrimination".

Reg reader rages over Virgin Media's email password policy

Re: So leave

It's not just the email account- it's the customer service area of the website if they are your ISP. And if you want cable or fibre in the UK, Virgin (spit) are often your only option.

SAP continues to support Russian customers

Re: No worries

"I am already seeing various ways of punching through these sanctions."

SAP's business in Russia isn't prohibited by the sanctions in place. There's nothing to punch through. That's why they are choosing to stay.

Iran's internet chokepoint caught fire, caused outages

Re: Banning VPN

"It's going to make it impossible for many foreigners to work from Iran."

Do you think there is a large number of foreign VPN-dependant knowledge workers in Iran???

Europe's largest nuclear plant on fire after Russian attack

Re: Putin provoking NATO

I heard that Putin said Russia bombed the power plant because it had bought uranium in Niger, and had a biological weapon that could deploy in 45 minutes, and was wearing a bulky coat and had jumped the turnstile...

Ericsson report details how it paid off Islamic State

Re: "the US foreign ministry" ?

If you're gonna be a pedant about it..."foreign ministry" isn't capitalised. El Reg knows it is not the proper name. The State Department is the foreign ministry of the US.

Ukraine seeks volunteers to defend networks as Russian troops menace Kyiv

UEFA, FIFA and F1 can do one."I am shocked, shocked, that this government from whom we have been happily been collecting sacks of cash and souvenir Rolexes for many years has Turner out to be not very nice". Get stuffed.

Ukraine's IT sector looks to business continuity plans as Russia invades

"Russia will stick to it's stated aim of securing the breakaway regions within their traditional borders."

What kind of credulous idiot buys this bullshit even after Russian paratroopers land in Kyiv? Putin says Russia's traditional borders contain Ukraine in its entirety.

Construction starts on another Asia-Europe undersea cable

Re: Diverse routes are also needed

"It would be a good idea to avoid Egypt and the Suez Canal altogether and route a portion overland..."

Running cable underwater is preferred because you only need to get permission once in each country (instead of planning permission along the whole land route), you don't need to dig a trench the whole route (so that people don't trip over it or dig it up), and you can just fling it off the back of a boat (instead of hiring a new crew in each country).

EncroChat defendants' lawyers make bid to halt trial

"The chances of the EU intervening in ongoing court cases seems very low. Campaigners complained that prosecutors have given contradictory stories to courts in different countries about the lawfulness of the deployment of malware and subsequent interceptions."

1) the EU is not going to intervene in criminal prosecutions in individual EU member states because it has no right to do so.

2) of course prosecutors in different countries are going to give different arguments about the admissibility of the same or similiar evidence. Different jurisdictions have different laws on evidence.

Geomagnetic storm takes out 40 of 49 brand new Starlink satellites

Re: At least they're not additional, long-lasting space garbage

"if the satellites don't initially pass system checks, de-orbit and reentry will occur without producing space junk."

I don't get it - do they burn up on re-entry? Or instead of creating space junk do they just end up creating earth junk as thousands of non-biodegradable pieces of satellite are spread across earth?

Facebook fined peanuts after Giphy staff quit and firm didn't tell UK competition regulators

"there are valuable and worthwhile services government is expected to provide for the citizens it serves..."

The state also provides services to private companies (for example, by restraining angry mobs from burning down their offices and server centres in response to their shitty behavior). Often those private companies are not owned by citizens of the states in which they operate. Private companies should pay their share of taxes.

"I could never get any information about how much fines the Australian government hands over business against how much they have collected"

I have no idea what you're on about. Are there words missing from that sentence?

Former tech CIO jailed for setting up £475k backhander scam with IT outsourcing firm

Re: DV?

"When I worked for BT* we were told that a security clearance was not to be stated on a person's public profile..."

This was still the official guidance 1.5 years ago.

Brocade wrongly sacked award-winning salesman who depended on company insurance for cancer treatment

Re: A timely reminder

"There is always the NHS to fall back on (although I have a cautionary tail that I won't share here)."

If you had insurance you could have gone private for a tailectomy.

Tesla to disable 'self-driving' feature that allowed vehicles to roll past stop signs at junctions

Re: Full Self-Driving

"The alternative would mean the car drives itself"

Like some kind of autoautomobile, you mean?

Comcast fixes broadband cables 'peppered' with holes after Oakland drive-by shooting

Re: Wow.

US people are already in danger: all the police have guns.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

https://gothamist.com/news/nypds-firearms-training-woefully-inadequate-former-trainers-say

Re: Wow.

"So the gun problem in America has got so bad they need automated microphone-based AI systems to keep an eye on it?"

If it makes you feel any better, the ShotSpotter system is completely crap, as covered by El Reg last year: https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/25/shotspotter_chicago_report/

North Korea worried a lot of countries when it said it test-fired a hypersonic missile in Japan's direction

Re: Geography?

To be fair to be fair, North Korea has an East Coast and a west coast - but they'd rather shoot things toward Japan than China

Super rocket might be ballistic, Nork news is atrocious?

Offering Patreon subs in sterling or euros means you can be sued under GDPR, says Court of Appeal

Re: GDPR -> Libel

The libel issue and the GDPR issue are different. The two have different mechanisms for establishing jurisdiction to sue in England and Wales.

Yule goat's five-year flame-free streak ends ignominiously

"But one thing about Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet - they actually had integrity. They truly believed that what they were doing was the right thing to do, for the good of the country"

This is complete rubbish. The Thatcher cabinet was just as filled with sycophants, backstabbers and grifters as the present cabinet. David Mellor, Ian Hamilton, Jonathan Aitkin - they all had their snouts in the trough. Even the "decent" ones like Geoffrey Howe and Ken Clarke were perfectly happy to stick up for Section 28.

I think you are right to say that Thatcher herself may have been convinced of her own policies, in contrast to Johnson who believes in nothing.

New submarine cable to link Japan, Europe, through famed Northwest Passage

"This causes a big problem for Ukraine..."

It's what you mention, and more. Right now Europe will kick off if gas supply to Ukraine is interrupted or Ukraine is "properly" invaded. Once Europe gets most of its gas through Nord Stream, they're not gonna give a f if Russia invades Ukraine or cuts off the gas (which would kill thousands of people in winter). Europe has inadvertently sacrificed its buffer state.

US bags Russian accused of bagging millions after stealing pre-release financial filings

Re: ??

"The Kremlin is an ancient citadel that's the Russian equivalent of the area of DC that's administered by the Federal government that contains all the main (and ceremonial) parts of the US's Federal government. So "ties to the Kremlin" really means "knows a Russian lawmaker or two" but sounds a whole lot more sinister..."

This is wrong. The Kremlin does not contain the legislature (or the courts). A reference to the Kremlin is a reference to the President and his apparatus. A person who knows a "lawmaker or two" does not have ties to the Kremlin.

Klyushin on the other hand DOES have ties to the Kremlin. Specifically he is a close associate of Alexei Gromov, a senior official within the Presidential Administration who manages the media, and Klyushin's company has media monitoring contracts with the Presidential Administration.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/12/21/russian-businessman-appears-in-us-court-after-swiss-extradition-a75888

Dutch nuclear authority bans anti-5G pendants that could hurt their owners via – you guessed it – radiation

Re: Ha Ha Ha

" I would like one of those £5 notes if he was offering though. At least those weren't radioactive as far as I know"

£5 notes are rarely radioactive. However, it's been scientifically proven that 95% of bank notes are contaminated by cocaine, a highly addictive and health damaging substance. The only way to protect you and your family from cocaine-contaminated banknotes is to demand freshly-issued currency from your bank, and to send me your contaminated notes (£€$) for safe disposal. My address is PO Box 123, El Reg, Vulture Towers, London CH4 RLI

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32146301/

SMACKDOWN! Reddit hires wrestling's investor relations head to helm IPO

Reddit is just like WWE except the wrestlers (content generators) send each other rape threats and the referees (moderators) take on all the responsibility but don't get paid.

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/reddit-rape-racist-comment-trolls-problem/

T-Mobile US figuring out international roaming on 5G

Who is the target market for 5G-connected roaming-enabled laptops? My last two employers just finished cancelling SIMs in laptops because they didn't want to have two subscriptions/accounts per user. Users just used WiFi or (if they were really bothered) were taught how to hotspot their phone.

Retail consumers won't bother with this stuff, will they?

International Monetary Fund warns crypto-related risks could soon become systemic

Re: "cryptocurrency easily crosses borders"

The point about crypto crossing borders quickly is that it requires financial regulators in different countries to collaborate and have a consistent approach. Even though they are widely used outside their home countries' borders, the Fed and the ECB (and their regulatory colleagues) are still able to keep a hand on the tiller of the USD and EUR. The same just isn't true of crypto.

Playing jigsaw on my roof: They can ID you from your hygiene habits

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Pell

On the subject of "spinning the bins", if you haven't come across Benji Pell already his Wikipedia page is worth a read.

Oz Feds reveal distribution model behind backdoored 'An0m' chat app spread by crims

Re: my oath

Ha ha ha true - but they've also destroyed all confidence in the market that anything can be trusted!