Posts by Matthew "The Worst Writer on the Internet" Saroff

FOSS could be an unintended victim of EU crusade to make software more secure

Call me a Conspiracy Theorist

But I'm thinking that commercial software providers may have lobbied to give FOSS providers the proverbial shaft.

Arca Noae is modernizing OS/2 Warp for 21st century PCs

OS/2

Half an operating system!

Twitter's Singapore landlord says avian network still a tenant, despite eviction reports

Re: One more step towards oblivion

I must object to your calling Musk a, "Twat," it is unfair to that part of the female anatomy.

Third-party Twitter apps stopped dead with no explanation from El Musko

Re: Web UI change maybe?

Following is the old chronological, For You is the algorithmic bs.

New software sells new hardware – but a threat to that symbiosis is coming

If You Quote Myhrvold

He should not be described, "Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold," he should be described as, "Microsoft CTO and notorious patent troll Nathan Myhrvold."

His company, Intellectual Ventuires, is one of the most aggressive patent trolls in the world.

Belarus legalizes piracy – but citizens will have to pay for it

The Problem is not Belarus, it is WIPO

WIPO is an organization dedicated to promoting rent seeking behavior, and as such, it has slowed the economy and exacerbated inequality.

There are a lot of problems with Belarus, but this is not one of them.

CES Worst in Show slams gummi gouging, money-wasting mugs, and other dubious kit

Re: from that site...

They must be using Metric ages.

A gummy printer?

They gotta do Haribo Sugar Free Gummy Bear flavors.

https://www.boredpanda.com/hilarious-comments-sugarfree-haribo-gummies/

India's fix for its online gaming indust... Oh. Self-regulation

Self Regulation is to Regulation

As self importance is to importance.

Google accuses Indian antitrust watchdog of plagiarizing EU ruling

Google: Get Better Lawyers.

It is not copypasta, it is legal precedent.

IT recruiter settles claims it snubbed American workers

The solution to this is to abolish the ridiculous, midnight rush to get all applications of the current H1B system, and replace it with a bid system.

Once H1Bs are fairly market priced, as opposed to being a source of cheap labor, the problem goes away.

Twitter is suffering from mad bro disease. Open thinking can build it back better

Mastodon reminds me of something

Fast local response, with some sort of polled exchange of more distant messages propagating through a non-hierarchical group of servers?

I may be dating myself (It's not like anyone else would), but this sounds a lot like Usenet.

Cisco wriggles out from $2 billion bill for ‘willful and egregious’ patent infringements

A Little Bit Confused

Did Cisco steal trade secrets, or misuse patented data? They are mutually exclusive.

If it's the former, then it is subject to a non-disclosure agreement, but patents are required, except in the case where they are classified by a government, to be public, and not just public, but written such that a, "Person having ordinary skill in the art," can reproduce the invention.

So, which is this?

How do you solve the problem that is Twitter?

Musk ain't a software guy either.

His code at Zip2, the last place he coded seriously, was described as a hairball.

His skill is self-promotion.

Intel reveals pay-to-play Xeon features with software-defined silicon

What Fresh Hell is This?

Twitter engineer calls out Elon Musk for technical BS in unusual career move

I'm surprised that the pedo guy apartheid era emerald mine heir™ is not asking for TPS reports.

"I think that the entry "fired from Twitter for trying to correct Musk's bullsh*t" would actually look quite GOOD in someone's resume."

Since we are correcting people here.

Amid losses, Uber driven to become advertising network

What New Hellscape is This?

facepalm

This maglev turntable costs more than an average luxury electric car

Mag Lev turntable, but they don't have a linear tracking arm? Lame!

Musky scent? Billionaire launches fragrance: Burnt Hair

What a Complete Prat!

Most overrated man in the universe, except possibly for Liz Truss.

Ever suspected bankers used WhatsApp comms at work? $1.8b says you're right

This won't change until senior executives are frog-marched out of their offices in handcuffs.

Meta accused of breaking the law by secretly tracking iPhone users

Re: Only way to stop it -

No. Frog march Zuckerberg and the head of their Apple development and sales teams out of their offices in handcuffs.

That will stop them.

Amazon 'punishes' sellers who dare offer lower prices on other marketplaces

Re: Amazon doing something useful?

I dunno. It sounds like a browser extension to me.

Source: IBM disguised Watson Health layoffs as a 'redeployment initiative'

Won't stop until

Excecutives are frog marched out of their offices in handcuffs.

Google says there's no Waze forward, carpool app axed

Good

How do I get rid of the damn popups is literally the most common question on the support forums for Waze.

Lawsuit accuses Oracle of facilitating sales of 'billions' of folks' personal data

Larry, "I Harassed You, Have a New BMW" Ellison Doing Something Unethical?

I simply cannot believe that.

Tesla owner gets key fob chip implanted in his hand

I Have an Idea So Clever You Could Put a Tail on it and Call it a Weasel

We need genital recognition software to unlock things.

We know that this is were it all ends up, in a dystopian penile (and vaginal) ID systems where "Dick Pics" are required.

Meta proposes doing away with leap seconds

Call Me a Cynic

But I gotta figure that the primary motivation for Zuckerberg's proposal is that it somehow benefits Zuckerberg, probably by creating a new way to stalk their users.

I am opposed.

Elon Musk had secret twins in 2021 with Neuralink exec

Re: We already knew that Musk was an idiot

There is no such thing as watching too much James Burke.

We already knew that Musk was an idiot

He wanted to move PayPal's back office to Windows in the late 1990s, almost a decade before Microsoft managed to make HotMail run under Windows. That is a special type of stupid.

His concerns about a population collapse are similarly ignorant bullsh%$. History shows us that.

Specifically, the Black Death, which wiped out half or Europe, was followed by huge increases in worker productivity and standard of living, perhaps the fastest and biggest jump in history. (I would go into the underwear driven information revolution that followed)

The only people who did not like that sequence of events were the nobility, who were chuffed because they had to pay the peasants more. ……… Oh, now I get it.

Bipolar transistors made from organic materials for the first time

Will this computer need an SSNRI?

If it's biopolor, it will need counseling and medication and ……… What? ……… Not that type of bipolar?

Never mind?

US lawsuit alleges tool used by hospitals shares patient data with Meta

Re: Publish Zuck's medical information

It's not Madam Tusseaud's. Their Zuck sculpture is way more lifelike than the original.

Plot to defeat crypto meltdown: Solend votes to seize, liquidate whale account

Re: Grrr!

I think that the metaphor is not about the aquatic mammal, but rather Bruno Iksil, the former City trader known as the “London Whale”, who lost over $6 billion a decade ago.

That being said, I'm popping some popcorn and watching the show.

Insteon's vanishing act explained: Smart home biz insolvent, sells off assets

With all of the furor over "undeserving" families filing for personal bankruptcy, overwhelmingly because of medical bills, it seems to me that corporate bankruptcy needs similar scrutiny.

Expect sales reps' calls if IT wants to ditch Oracle

To be fair, Larry Ellison buys lots of cars ……… For the women who allege improper behavior.

Autonomy founder's anti-extradition case is like saying Moon made of cheese, US govt tells UK court

This is What Happens When You are a Poodle

The US/UK extradition arrangements are remarkably one-sided.

Remember Norton 360's bundled cryptominer? Irritated folk realise Ethereum crafter is tricky to delete

Peter Norton Must Be Spinning in His Grave

Yes, I know, he's still alive, but given the tight code that we wrote in the day, the fact that his name is attached to this abomination must be galling to him.

Bitcoin 'inventor' will face forgery claims over his Satoshi Nakamoto proof, rules High Court

Well, I Invented Internet Trolling!

Just saying.

Awkward. At Chrome summit, developer asks: Why should anyone trust Google?

If Your Product is Dependent on a 3rd Party Platform

You do not have a product.

SpaceX-powered trip to ISS grounded by 'medical issue'

Re: Boeing version of a "medical issue"

Boeing's problem is that they got taken over by McDonnell (ignore the Douglas) with Boeing's money, thanks to pressure from the Clinton Administration.

Boeing was a company where engineers built planes, and kind of muddled through on the business part.

McDonnell was a hedge fund trying to fake that it cared about building aircraft. (Literally only one [sort of] civilian project in its entire history)

So after a few years of Harry Stonesphincter, they no longer knew how to do anything but make stock buybacks.

50 years have gone by since the UK's one – and only – homegrown foray into orbit

Re: What could have been

The Germans used a Hydrogen Peroxide oxidizer and a Hydrazine and Methanol fuel in their Komet fighter.

Once some of the high test Peroxide leaked into a cockpit and dissolved the pilot.

Google deliberately throttled ad load times to promote AMP, claims new court document

If You Favor the Consumer Welfare Theory of Antitrust

1 second, x 10 million ads throttled a day x $7.25 minimum wage is Google stealing more than $20,000 a day from consumers.

Facebook may soon reveal new name – we're sure Reg readers will be more creative than Zuck's marketroids

Riffing on a Saturday Night Live Sketch from Its First Season, When it was Still Funny

Call it, "Painful Rectal Itch," with a name like that, it has to be good.

Chinese developers rebel against long working hours with crowdsourced tell-all on employers

Sounds a Lot Like the United States

No mandatory vacation time, no overtime for IT, etc.

I wish that I did not live in a 3rd world nation.

As Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

If Your Business Depends on a Single Platform

You don't have a business.

The fact that Chrome is pretty much it for browsers (I use Firefox, and have written an extension for same) means that if you are writing extensions for it, and it is your livelihood, you are going to get screwed, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life. (I don't code for a living, as my coding is ugly enough to give Tardigraves cancer)

Yikes, tough crowd: Only 30% of German-speaking users are happy with SAP's cloud push

There are People who Don't Hate SAP?

That's a shocker.

Florida man might just stick it to HP for injecting sneaky DRM update into his printers that rejected non-HP ink

I Remember the Panasonic KXP-5400 Postscript Printer

Low cost for the day, early 1990s, of about $500.

The toner cartridge was just a toner cartridge, and the developer had a bin for spent toner that you could crack open and empty out, getting about 10x the life.

Eventually, I could no longer get toner cartridges though.

Start or Please Stop? Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'

Really Stupid

Desktops and laptops are largely production systems, while phones, and to a slightly lesser degree tablets, are consumption systems.

These different functions SHOULD drive different systems, but Microflaccid and it's delusional designers keep trying to unify two very different tools.

Trust Facebook to find a way to make video conferencing more miserable and tedious

Remember Zoom Bombing?

This will be way worse.

See, "Judge Richard Posner visited Second Life to give a lecture on civil liberties in the post-9/11 era in a Greek amphitheater, ended up befriending a furry, and was attacked by a fireball." (https://twitter.com/slhamlet/status/1428502160241688577)

Still, that is WAY cooler than Zuck's vision.

Google to revive RSS support in Chrome for Android

Re: Show me the money

I use Quite Reader myself, I dropped Feedreader after no updates in about 10 years.