Posts by DoctorPaul

Techie traveled 4 hours to fix software that worked perfectly until a new hire used it

Re: Manual?

About 30 years ago I was off the road for over a year (tried to snowboard aged 42, broke my neck) and when I restarted driving I decided to teach myself to left-foot brake as I felt like I needed a challenge. It was too, left leg is programmed to stamp down hard on the clutch, then release it slowly, so braking wasn't exactly gentle to start with. Took about 18 months for the "intelligence" to move from brain to spinal cord to left leg but after that the reflex was fully programmed in and I'm pretty sure that the half-second gained by not having to come off the accelerator onto the brakes once saved me from a serious coming together with an errant white van man who came straight out of a side turning.

The technique is pretty fail-safe as if I ever get confused I end up with both feet on the brake which is no problem. I still occasionally drive manuals and have no problem adjusting to using a clutch when I do - spent time last week hammering around Brands Hatch circuit in a Dodge Hellcat and a 1966 race-prepped Ford Mustang (bloody great iron V8 up front, race tyres, no power steering, insanely heavy clutch) as a birthday treat. Now that I have to renew my licence every three years it seemed like a good idea to get my driving independently assessed :-)

BOFH: Rerouting responsibility via firewall configs

Reichenbach...

...Falls

Field support chap got married – which took down a mainframe

From very early in my career I adopted the mantra "never trust a programmer in a suit"

Meta pauses mobile port tracking tech on Android after researchers cry foul

Re: Oops, caught out

You mean like the TV ads for WhatsApp's privacy that they just started running?

X's new 'encrypted' XChat feature seems no more secure than the failure that came before it

Re: Musk,.........

LOL!

And never in my life did I think that I would say that :-)

Have one of these. That is beer isn't it?

Trump tariffs ruled illegal within minutes of Musk announcing end of government role

Re: Its a bit of a mess, bit was avoidable

I read somewhere that California has the fifth largest economy in the world. Maybe they should just leave the Union, they could even take up the kind offer from Canada!

Empire of office workers strikes back against RTO mandates

One simple factor

Successful WFH requires a competent manager. I rest my case.

I was lucky enough to WFH as a freelancer for a wonderful manager back in the day, and that was in the days before public internet access. A copy of WinFax Pro on Win3 on the Shuttle XPC that I built myself (TWO monitors thanks to Matrox graphics) and a direct modem connection to a "server" in the office. The office was in London, home was a house in Kent with a sea view from the bedroom that served as an office.

Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves

Sorry but I have to ask "how low is that bar?"

Every advert I see for an AI agent includes the proviso that you should check the results for accuracy. When every search system has had AI shoehorned between the user and the results, how the hell are you supposed to do that?

User unboxed a PC so badly it 'broke' and only a nail file could fix it

Re: In denial

I started out on motorbikes, so you quickly develop a hypersensitivity to potential "incoming" at the edge of your vision. It's that or ending up dead or injured, always assume that every other road user is a half-blind psychopath.

Re: In denial

I was 39 when I finally had to admit that my arms weren't long enough! Couldn't get on with varifocals as I constantly thought that there was movement at the periphery of my vision, very distracting when driving.

Europe plots escape hatch from enshittification of search

Re: Yay Kagi and American capitalism

Mythic Beasts give me basic web hosting, a database and catch-all email redirection (so one mailbox and infinite email addresses) for 3 quid a month including VAT

Wish I could upvote this refusenik stance a hundred times! (I've told you a million times, don't exaggerate!)

Me? Got a PhD in AI so what do I know?

Re: Laughable

Switched to qwant a year or so ago, thanks to mentions in this august publication, and it works well for me.

Even happier now that I know that they use their own index and are based in France. Seem to recall that the French have strong views regarding personal privacy.

Re: distributed search

Who remembers the "Wheeltappers and Shunters Club"? The wheeltappers did what it says on the tin, go around the yards tapping the wheels to detect cracks and chips. Why? Because faulty wheels damage the track. Suddenly there are two different companies running the track and the trains and the train companies have no incentive to keep checking wheels as they don't pay for the damage caused to the track. British Rail were crap, but at least you knew who to sue!

No-boom supersonic flights could slide through US skies soon

Re: With This and America Today...

What a piece of engineering! First saw Concorde in about 1964 - my uncle was a draughtsman on the project.

Joint build between two countries, one using metric, the other Imperial was one thing but then I learned that at full chat the fuselage was about 18" longer than when it was at rest on the ground. Any engineers out there ready to take that on? Every element of the fuselage needing the same coefficient of expansion - including the controls.

And while I'm fondly reminiscing what about that classic photo of Concorde at Mach 2 above the Atlantic? Taken from a UK jet fighter that I believe needed an in-flight refuel just to get there, managed to keep up for the minute or so that it took to take the photo, then had to return to base. Concorde just kept pootling on to New York, for an interesting definition of "pootle".

VPN Secure parent company CEO explains why he had to axe thousands of 'lifetime' deals

You mean like I can't reinstall my "perpetual" copy of Office 2010 because M$ turned off the activation servers?

Re: Two words:

Are those the idiots who decided it was a good idea to put the timing chain on the *back* of the engine rather than at the front where you only need to remove the radiator if that?

Linus Torvalds goes back to a mechanical keyboard after making too many typos

Re: Wish I knew what kind....

I'm lucky in that respect, as I'm not completely left-handed nor ambidextrous. I write with my left hand (plus use a spoon or toothbrush) but use my right hand for things like a mouse, hammer, saw etc. Being right armed and left eye dominant, archery proved tricky when I tried it at school.

Sometimes I wonder just how my brain is wired!

Amid CVE funding fumble, 'we were mushrooms, kept in the dark,' says board member

Re: Move it to Europe

Time to benefit from the law of unintended consequences.

Bad trip coming for AI hype as humanity tools up to fight back

My first (and only) question to Meta's AI bot when it popped up unannounced on WhatsApp was "How do I poison the well of your data?", although my very first message was simple - "Fuck off".

Need a Linux admin? Ask a hair stylist to introduce you to a worried mother

Re: Experience

Re-planning "on the hoof" was one of the classic AI problems (the travelling salesman problem being the absolute classic) that we were trying to solve when I did my PhD in the late 80s. Specifically sorting out the knock-on effects on airline schedules when a flight was delayed or a plane taken out of service unexpectedly.

Re: "He had used the _time in his bedroom_ to become a Linux guru"

Damn right! I was a founding partner of Salamander Software in the early 80s and our first game was produced using audio cassettes duplicated at the local audio store and labeled by us sitting on the floor using a John Bull printing outfit that was basically a DIY rubber stamp. A year later our product was on the shelves of stores like Boots nationwide.

Microsoft Copilot shows up even when it's not wanted

Even easier, in FF just set the default search to something like Qwant.

Microsoft admits it's not you, Classic Outlook can be a real CPU, power hog sometimes

Re: Interesting

Smells of AI?

TalkTalk Business pulls disappearing act on customer emails

I currently pay them for broadband but that's only because I was with Shell Energy who were bought by Octopus then sold on to TT. Don't fancy paying them a crippling exit fee, plus I use my own router, pi-holes pointing at Cloudflare and domain at Mythic Beasts for email. As soon as the contract expires in August they won't see me for dust!

Uncle Sam kills funding for CVE program. Yes, that CVE program

Have any of Trump's businesses ever accrued any goodwill? Somehow I doubt it.

Static electricity can be shockingly funny, but the joke's over when a rack goes dark

Reminds me of what happened to me here in the UK some decades ago. Working from home (luckily) when suddenly there was a problem with the electric supply. Not a power cut, very much the opposite thanks to water ingress out in the street. I'm guessing it was something like getting next door's phase of the mains hitting the neutral of our supply and so bypassing the fuses. Every light on every appliance was *very* bright and the whole house was humming! Cue a sprint to the fuse box to throw the main switch. If noone had been home then I very much doubt if the wiring, or indeed the house, would have survived.

DOGE dilettantes 'didn't test' Social Security fraud detection tool at appropriate scale

Re: DOGE incompetence

Wasn't that the way that HMRC first implemented online tax submissions? Data entered on the website was typed into the actual HMRC systems by hand, with the resulting typos causing problems. Or was that an urban myth?

Microsoft to mark five decades of Ctrl-Alt-Deleting the competition

Re: When you're ubiquitous...

Visual Studio was crap compared to Delphi. Just sayin'.

Americans set to pay more on all imports: Trump activates blanket tariffs

Re: Econ 101

The big change between the old Purchase Tax and the Value Added Tax that replaced it (here in the UK) is that PT was only charged once, at the final point of sale, while VAT is charged at every step of the production process. So the quarry charges VAT when it sells the clay to the tilemakers, they charge it when they sell the tiles to the DIY store, which then charges VAT to the final customer. The thing is that every member of the chain except the final punter is also VAT registered and reclaim any VAT on their "inputs".

As a builder, I would expect you to be VAT registered to be able to claim back the tax you pay. Mind you, then you would be forced to charge VAT on the entire bill to your customers so it very much depends on who you're building for. It would price you out of the bottom end of the market for sure. In any case, surely you just quote a fixed price for the job rather than buy the tiles and sell them on to the customer as an invoice item?

One of the last of Bletchley Park's quiet heroes, Betty Webb, dies at 101

Re: Wonderful people

My darling late partner was a child in London during the war and took part in the IWM project including doing a piece to camera and being on site for school visits. She was in her 70s at the time and was highly amused by a comment from one of the children - "I can't believe that you're that old, AND STILL ALIVE!"

Revenge of the nerds: Teachers, professors sue to undo Trump science funding cuts

Re: Ha

Thanks for remembering Kent State.

Quick summary for those who weren't around at the time. Student protests on campus and they end up sending in the National Guard. Fleeing students shot in the back. Four dead. Check out Ohio by Neil Young to get a flavour of the times. My first year at University of Sussex (1970) I made friends with an exchange student from California, his school buddies were coming back from Vietnam in body bags.

Tesla Cybertruck recall #8: Exterior trim peels itself off, again

Re: It looked stupid when it was first announced

It's not legal here or anywhere in Europe because the sharp edges and lack of crumple zones make it a danger to pedestrians. Interestingly that lack of crumple zones means that the WankPanzer will inflict similar damage on the occupants of said vehicle (I use the term loosely) in the event of a crash.

Oh, they're irreparable too so insuring one might get to be a challenge.

Now that's got Hendrix running through my head, still that's an ear-worm I can live with!

China's EV champ BYD reveals super-fast charging that leaves Tesla eating dust

reproduction through external fertilisation

So I guess that by definition Elon is a wanker.

DoorDash sued for allegedly branding customer a fraudster after delivery photo query

I did that with DPD last year, at which point the photo proving incorrect delivery disappeared from their website!

Google says it's rolling out fix for stricken Chromecasts

Just got an email from Google detailing the situation so it looks like they are taking proactive action, shame it's a bit late.

Stuff a Pi-hole in your router because your browser is about to betray you

Re: A few negatives of pi hole

Regarding item 3, just run a pair of pi-holes it's not like they're expensive in the scheme of things.

Re: so many ads

That's been my setup for quite a few years - pair of pi-holes and Firefox running uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger. Looks like I will be investigating LibreWolf real soon now. Oh and shout out to fbpurity for allowing me to continue using FarceBook to keep in touch with family and friends.

Before I moved to Privacy Badger I tried using uMatrix for fine-grained script control but every time I wanted to make a purchase on a new website I found that I needed to repeat the payment process five or six times whilst adjusting settings, often resulting in a failed payment or even worse a duplicate payment. Would I be right in thinking that NoScript will have the same issue?

How Google tracks Android device users before they've even opened an app

Re: Can be uninstalled on Samsung S23

Just applied the March update and it doesn't seem to have reappeared.

Re: Remember when Firefox let you choose what cookies to block?

Can anyone tell me the relative benefits of Palemoon and Waterfox? Been a Firefox user for many years but now ... reasons.

Re: Can be uninstalled on Samsung S23

Found it and removed it on my Pixel 6a

Still can't get to your Outlook mailbox? You aren't alone

Re: Email SPOF

Try Mythic Beasts as a hosting provider, as recommended by denizens of this 'ere forum.

I'm retired now, so needs are minimal. Three quid a month (including VAT) gets me basic hosting with PHP and a MySQL database and unlimited email addresses, although catch-all redirection means I just need one mailbox to support an effectively infinite number of email addresses. Need to register somewhere? That email will be yourcompany @ mydomain.whatever.

My previous provider got subsumed into the GoDaddy empire and, as I don't do business with fascists or slaughterers of wildlife, I moved my hosting and that of my few remaining pro-bono clients to MB. While I was transferring mailboxes from one to the other I had both providers webmail clients (Roundcube in both cases) open in adjacent tabs in Firefox so thought that I would compare their search performance. MB returned a result in 10 seconds or so, GoDaddy just span it's wheels for a minute or so and then timed out.

Edit: forgot to say that their tech support is exemplary as well.

Trump says US should kill CHIPS Act, use the cash to cut debt

Re: Mmmmmmm ... chips

Poutine - go Canada!

And the whining from the boss of Jack Daniels was absolutely epic after Ontario pulled the plug.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

Firefox 136 finally brings the features that fans wanted

Is it only me that has to use a pair of pi-holes? I set up one but after a week or so it locked up and so took down my home network. A router expects a primary and a secondary DNS anyway so I just bought a second pi to make up the pair. That has worked perfectly for many years, including a couple of years where I forgot to do any maintenance or updates at all.

When I last looked at the logs, one of the pi-holes would do all the heavy lifting for a number of days then things would flip-flop to the other one for a while, I assume because the first one had had a lockup. Running on a pair of 3b's.

Wallbleed vulnerability unearths secrets of China's Great Firewall 125 bytes at a time

Anyone remember "the Millbank Tendency"? My problem with Labour is that they are basically a bunch of control freaks and worryingly better at it than the Tories who at least could be relied on to generally stuff up anything that they tried.

Feds: Army soldier suspected of AT&T heist Googled ‘can hacking be treason,’ ‘defecting to Russia’

Re: U.S. Army Admission Test

Reminds me of apocryphal stories many decades ago of the maths test for a Saturday job at Woolworths. Allegedly you failed it if you could add up.

This was in the days before tills did the adding up for you, yes I'm that old!

HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback'

Re: Irate customers

Pretty sure the last time I assembled some flat pack stuff the packs of screws had one extra in them.

"Just in case" I guess.

HP deliberately adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls

Re: Yeah I had this cobblers with my bank yesterday...

I just keep repeating "I want to speak to a human"