Posts by onefang

Elon Musk merges xAI into SpaceX to spread universal consciousness via a sentient sun

Ah, he wants to create Skynet.

Systemd daddy quits Microsoft to prove Linux can be trusted

I was waiting for someone to mention the emacs OS. So what will happen first, emacs OS gets a decent text editor, or systemd OS gets a decent init system?

Results are in for biggest 4-day work week trial ever: 92% sticking with it

My four day work week is Tuesday until Friday. Since I live in the future waiting for the rest of the world to catch up, er I mean Eastern Australia, during my Monday it's still the weekend somewhere in the world.

This is my form of semi-retirement. If four days catches on in the rest of the world, I'll have to reduce my work week to three days. Tuesday to Thursday sounds good.

Also, this being the land of the long weekend, most holidays are moved to the nearest Monday or Friday. If they are on Monday I take Tuesday off.

Microsoft hits the switch on password-free smartphone authentication

Re: More wankery

I'm glad someone mentioned the competitors to Yubikey. There's at least a few, some of them are even open source. I have my eye on Nitrokey personally, I'll probably buy one next year, if they bring out a Nitrokey Storage 3 as I expect they will after they have updated their other keys to version 3.

Misguided call for a 7-Zip boycott brings attention to FOSS archiving tools

Sourceforge IS "public code hosting" and as the article pointed out, the source code is there, though only as a download. Sourceforge does git and other source management systems.

DRAM prices to drop 3-8% due to Ukraine war, inflation

Coz war?

The heading says coz war. Twice in the article it says coz war. The sub head says "Wait, we'll explain". Nowhere in the article dos it say why coz war, just says coz war. I'm still waiting for the explanation.

The metaverse of fantasy worlds is itself still a fantasy

'What has yet to emerge is the most essential part, from Forrester's perspective: the interoperability needed to turn siloed metaverse spaces – spaces provided by individual tech giants – into a seamless experience for users. "The fully federated metaverse will contain standard protocols for the presence, persistence, and transfer of identity and assets," Forrester said.'

You mean like OpenSim and it's hypergrid protocol that allows you to travel to other OpenSim worlds, transfer identities and assets, and provide presence services persistently? We have been doing that for over a decade.

OpenSim is an open source clean room implementation of Second Life. The same viewers work on both. There are at least three VR viewers that I know of, I wrote one of them before the first Oculus Rift was released to consumers. So most of the things this "new" metaverse says it will be has been around for at least the 16 years Second Life has been running.

I even made a parody of The Zuckerverse metaverse that I call metaverse farted, any one on a hypergrid enabled OpenSim world can travel there. Their identity and avatar will be transferred there, then transferred back when they go home. They can pick up and leave any assets they desire. They can make friends with any actual members of that world (OK, there's only one member for now), or any other visitors from other worlds. They can get presence announcements for these new friends. The entire world will persist for as long as I decide to keep it running (I've been running OpenSim based worlds for over a decade). Any assets they take with them will persist for as long as their home world keeps running.

Only took me three hours to make that parody world. The Zuckerverse set a really low bar to get down to quality wise, I'm 61, I can't limbo like I used to.

'Say hello to my little vacuum cleaner!' US drug squad puts spycams in cleaner's kit

And how many bowling balls will it suck up? We all know how much trouble spilling a load of bowling balls on your carpet is, otherwise why would vacuum cleaner adverts keep demonstrating their ability to pick up bowling balls?

OK Google, why was your web traffic hijacked and routed through China, Russia today?

Re: What about the UK

"Then why the hell do I get 'security warnings' when I sign in from the same machine with the same IP and the same hardware etc etc as I did 2 minutes ago???????"

Perhaps for the same reason I do? Coz I'm using insecure protocols, with non trusted programs. Like fetchmail using SSL and POP3 to fetch my email. Waaay less secure than HTTPS, and much less trusted than Google Chrome. Though apparently it's only insecure once every few months, rather than the once a minute it actually polls at.

"Unlikely but you can contact them about this. I've done it before"

You are assuming that I want to actually be able to understand the Russian adverts that Google shows to me, when I'm not using ad blockers, and VPNing through my Dutch server. If I'm forced to send more information about me to Google than I normally do, then I'm more than happy for them to get incorrect information.

I wonder if this has anything to do with Google thinking for several months at least that my Holland server is in Russia? Other GeoIP providers correctly place it.

Facebook's CEO on his latest almighty Zuck-up: OK, we did try to smear critics, but I was too out-of-the-loop to know

'He also rejected the comparison between efforts by a public relations firm to influence the media with efforts by trolls and foreign powers to influence the media.

"I don't think that analogy makes sense," he said.'

After all, the former is a corporate thing, and the later is governments and arseholes. As we all know, corporations can do no wrong, and the sooner they complete their take over of the worlds governments, the better off Zuck, er I mean we all will be. Arseholes are just arseholes.

Japanese cyber security minister 'doesn't know what a USB stick is'

"How does he watch Porn ???"

He has some lower flunky watch the porn for him, and that lower flunky also ..., well you could probably guess the rest.

Re: At least he admitted it

"If it had been Trump he'd have said his knowledge of the internet was "powerful, very powerful and he was probably "the best person for the job" since he invented the internet". Something which would clearly upset Al Gore.'

That's basically what Prime Minister Tony Abbott said about Malcolm Turnbull when handing over control of the Australian NBN / nbn to him.

It's November 2018, and Microsoft's super-secure Edge browser can be pwned eight different ways by a web page

Re: if an open source project had MAJOR flaw rates like this

"I know that it's fashionable to consider C-like languages as too dangerous to use, but that's always been and continues to be utter bullshit."

This graybeard agrees with you, and I've used more languages than most. It must have been one of those fashionable ones that downvoted you.

Re: Using Edge

Keep a copy of Portable Apps on a USB stick, then you wont even need to use Edge to download a browser.

Microsoft lobs Windows 10, Server Oct 2018 update at world (minus file-nuking 'feature') after actually doing some testing

Re: Retrieving documents

"It would be much easier and quicker to open up that laptop, get out the hard disk and attach it to a USB port as external hard disk on any working computer."

But not cheaper for a charity that runs on donations and grants. I did think of that, but didn't have any suitable hardware laying around for reading that ancient hard disk, other than the ancient laptop it was in.

Re: Is it ground hog day again?

I said it was a charity. There's stuff that has been hidden in cupboards for many years, just waiting for me to start working there and find it. I've had to fix up an ancient laptop that had Windows XP on it, so they could retrieve some important documents from it's hard disk. There was also a laptop that had Vista on it, but now has Linux Mint on it, though the display has lost a bunch of pixels in the lower right corner, almost ready to just toss that one.

Is it ground hog day again?

So tomorrow I get to install Octobers update and Novembers update on the one Windows 10 laptop under my control. Or rather, I get to watch as they get installed by themselves, coz I don't have full control. I can't wait for the higher ups to declare the nominal user of that laptop isn't actually coming back, so I can rip out 10 and install something saner. Then at least I can stick the admin password into my password manager, instead of not knowing it coz no one bothered to remember it. I only know the users password coz someone labeled it onto the case. Considering that particular laptop once took most of a week to install an update, I don't expect it'll get much actual work done on it tomorrow.

Meh, it's a charity, I'm a volunteer for only two days per week, the guy they pay to look after things should be doing a better job. There's a desktop running Vista that he should have installed 7 onto sometime in the last month, I was planning on doing that tomorrow.

YouTube supremo says vid-streaming-slash-piracy giant can't afford EU's copyright overhaul

Re: Too hard

"Personally, I've never thought You-Tube videos of commercial performances were remotely legal."

Depends on who put it on Youtube. After Taylor Swift put on a concert in a sports stadium near me that was close enough to hear, but not close enough to hear clearly, I realised that as far as I know, I had not ever before heard any of her music. I figured I'd give her the benefit of the doubt. So I went to Youtube, and watched a playlist of Taylor Swift videos that had been uploaded on her own channel. It sounds plausible that her own promotional channel can legally upload her own videos, but you never know. It even included a video of a concert, professionally produced, not just the result of one of the many phones I saw recording it. So a legal upload of her commercial performances.

Re: So what?

"YouTube actually have a very poor control of their platform,"

They don't even have good control of their adverts. Youtube always shows me adverts in Russian, for goods and services available in Russia as far as I can tell. I'm not in Russia, I'm not Russian, I don't speak Russian. All those adverts are entirely wasted on me.

"The YouTube content scanning system, from where I'm sitting, is a blunderbus that isn't even pointed at the barn door."

In my case, for the advert system, the barn door isn't even on the same continent.

Sudden Windows 10 licence downgrades to forced Xcode upgrades: The week at Microsoft

'Admittedly, the level of Windows 10 integration is far deeper for Cortana. However, for PCs with "compatible hands-free" access, Alexa can be woken with a keyword and will then behave just as if your PC had turned into, er, an Echo.'

Easily fixed. Teach Cortana to recognise the voice of Alexa, then order Alexa to boss Cortana around.

Re: Solidarity

you used four capital letters though. expect to be billed for those shortly. not counting the four in the icon hover text, el reg gets billed for those.

Yikes. UK military looking into building 'fully autonomous' killer drone tech – report

Re: Fully Autonomous

"If one elected party brings them in and a death occurs during another parties term of office whilst under their watch, who exactly is to blame. The designer, innovator, programmer or the network supervisor?"

The politicians, on all sides. The buck stops with them.

Brit boffins build 'quantum compass'... say goodbye to those old GPS gizmos, possibly

Re: Ah demonstation just in time. Norway / Finlands GPS knocked out by A.N. Other

"Just in time.Aircraft in Norway / Finland had GPS knocked out last week by an intruder, so military sexercise"

That sounds like a very fun military they have in Norway / Finland.

Re: It's not a compass.

"I read that when they dug the chunnel they were only inches off course by the time they met up in the middle, which is pretty bloody impressive if you ask me ( I blame the french for those few inches, naturally )."

Where the diggers from the English side using inches, and the French side using centimeters?

Re: It's not a compass.

"Why couldn't you use a regular compass to get a heading underground?"

Depends on what you are digging through or near I guess. Or possibly digging with, that huge metal tunnel digger might be all the compass ever points at.

Re: It's not a compass.

"onefang: your question, "No idea how it works when rotating it in place, does it even notice?", is answered in the video"

Ah, I skipped watching the video. Back when I only had 30 GBs of Internet a month I would generally skip random videos, to conserve bandwidth. Now that I no longer have that problem, I still have that habit. Slowly breaking the habit.

Re: GPS accuracy

"The reason for this was - the US military didn't want to be giving foreign powers the ability to target their cruise missiles more effectively."

I always wondered about that. Missing with a nuclear weapon by 15 feet likely isn't a problem for the people delivering it. Still gonna be a big problem for the people it was aimed at. Then there is the modern "mount a camera on it and steer it for the last stretch of flight". Oh look, there's the front door to the White House on the right, guess they moved it.

It's not a compass.

It only measures how far it moved, and currently only on one plane. Even once they get it up to three planes, as planned, it still only tells you how far it moved. You need another bit of information, where you started from. No idea how it works when rotating it in place, does it even notice? Though I guess having more of them and doing some calculations tells you if it's rotating. You still need to know which direction you where facing to start with. Not to mention that errors add up over time on these sorts of devices, though perhaps the error is really tiny, it wasn't mentioned.

You can get that missing info from, oh I dunno, a GPS and a real compass I guess. Or a surveying point and it's records.

Still, it's cool technology.

Windows XP? Pfff! Parts of the Royal Navy are running Win ME

Re: At Bombastic Bob, re: MS software.

"For a guy that hates MS so vociferously you sure do have a lot of their software..."

That's likely why he hates them so much, coz he has to put up with them. Dunno about Bob, but the only reason I have any Microsoft software on any of my computers is coz people paid me to.

Re: Boatnotes?

I think it's a pun on Bootnotes, so Shipnotes wont work.

"It's only used to play Minesweeper, though!"

I think you'll find that's the actual code used to actually sweep for actual mines.

Re: ME is not an Operating System...

"it's a medical condition!"

And MS is also a medical condition. I don't want any of them.

Chinese teen braniacs are being trained to build new AI weapons

Re: If the West is in trouble

"Are you Au Fait and in Any Position to Change the Future to an Easier Managed, Live Operational Virtual Environment where Earthed Assets are Carefully Provided with All Future Necessary Information for Dealing with Beings of Advanced IntelAIgents."

I'm working on it with my SledjHamr project. Though the Earthed bit is optional.

Have the Chinese authorities been watching WarGames, and decided to take the next logical step? Remember kids, the only winning move is not to play.

Bill Gates joined on stage by jar of poop as he confesses deep love for talking about toilets

Re: El Reg, scientifically constipated?

So you think the article was shit, and should have spread out some more details about the poop? Opened a door on the toilet tech? Lit a match, er to shine a light on the more important things?

Thank $deity that week's over. Look, here's some trippy music generated from pixels of a Martian sunrise to play us out

I like it, when are they releasing the album?

Arm kit vendors snuggle up around the Windows 10 Autumnwatch bonfire awaiting supported OS

Re: unkind?

"bang their (the windows team) heads on a blunt windows"

Might be more productive to have them smoke a blunt, then go head banging at the local mosh pit. It couldn't be worse than what they do now.

Upgraders rejoice! The 2018 Mac Mini heralds a return to memory slots!

'it looks like the space was used instead for cooling. That "hulking great fan".'

I hope that they have increased the maximum ambient temperature the thing can handle. My current Mac Mini is rated at 32 C. Summer started here not so long ago, earlier this week it hit 34 C on several days. I've seen higher temps. I have to turn off the Mac Mini (and my Asus ROG) on those days. I put a bloody great big fan in my main desktop just for that reason, so at least I still have something I can use on hot days.

Berners-Lee takes flak for 'hippie manifesto' that only Google and Facebook could love

Re: Knighthood is soooooo special today...

A couple of Prime Ministers ago, you could have just asked Tony Abbott nicely.

Macs to Linux fans: Stop right there, Penguinista scum, that's not macOS. Go on, git outta here

Re: "It avoids having to pay for a bundled copy of Windows."

"True. Or even better, pick up an old case from a second-hand store, buy the components you want, and assemble it yourself."

Not sure why you need your case to be an old second hand one, new cases are available.

"It's really easy to do these days."

I've been doing that since last century. The last computer I bought whole, including operating system (not including phones) was a Mac Mini in 2012. The one before that was an Amiga 1200, back when they where new.

Apple replaces boot-loop watchOS edition with unconnected complications edition

Re: updates and upgrades

"My Tough solar G-Shock get's it's atomic time from the radio tower, and it's juice from the sun, will go forever,"

I used to think my solar powered watch would last forever. The first one got stolen. Rechargable batteries don't live forever though. By the time the second battery died, they didn't make that particular battery anymore. That's when I switched to using mobile phones for time instead of watches. I use a solar panel (hasn't died yet, but looking the worse for wear), to charge a solar battery (on the second one), and then charge whatever phones I'm carrying at the time (currently on the second and third phones).

Townsfolk left deeply unsatisfied by Bury St Edmunds' 'twig' of a Christmas tree

Re: Not Technical!

"This really isn't in any way technical or scientific, so what is it doing here?!"

It's in the Bootnotes section, you must be new here. Also, you left off the appropriate icon -->

Are they planting it early, in the hope it will grow?

UK rail lines blocked by unexpected Windows dialog box

Re: Windows

"Actually they do that on their mobile phones now."

So much better when it's up there on the wall, for everyone to see their high score.

Dell upping its margins again: Precision 5530 laptop will sting you for $13m. Yep, six zeroes

If they kept that price for a Fortnite, they could have a Crysis on their hands.

Has science gone too far? Now boffins dream of shining gigantic laser pointer into space to get aliens' attention

Re: Dr. Evil says;`

We'll need a frickin' big shark for that, I shall call him Meg.

Google vows to take claims of sexual assault, harassment seriously, just like privacy

"Employee-gathered data suggests the company pays men more than women; Google takes issue with those figures and argues women at the company make 99.7 cents for every dollar men make."

Google isn't very good at maths then. A dollar is more than 99.7 cents. Not much more, but it's still more.

As if connected toys weren't creepy enough, kids' data could be used against them in future

'The report also argued children are "becoming accustomed to sharing their information without asking why it is needed or what it will be used for", saying a lax attitude has been identified in kids as young as six.'

Um, are we expecting six year olds to be fully woke privacy activists?