Posts by A.P. Veening

President Biden to issue executive order on chip shortages as under-pressure silicon world begs for help

Probably the cheapest option would be to offer their CEOs and board memberss a mirror each and an instruction to look carefully at what they see in it. It might be necessary to ad an instruction as to which side to look at.

Ouch, that's got too/to^*) smart ;)

^*)Take your pick, both are applicable

Huawei invokes 140-year-old law at England's High Court in latest bid to thwart CFO's US-Canada extradition

Great pun, have a =====>

Supermicro spy chips, the sequel: It really, really happened, and with bad BIOS and more, insists Bloomberg

True, but forcing Bloomberg to prove a positive shouldn't be that hard (if Bloomberg can, of course).

Nominet vows to freeze wages and prices, boost donations, and be more open. For many members, it’s too little, too late

Re: Carry on grifting

that way they'd be untouchable.

They just discovered they aren't.

Re: Nominet has yet to set a date for the EGM.

49 Days (seven weeks) if I recall correctly.

Re: Irrelevant in the longer term?

Don't forget .london.

Re: It is time to GROUT !

That will only cost the tax payer more, far better to strip them of their ill gotten gains (remove all their assets until they only have debts left).

Re: So long, farewell

auf Wiedersehen

Do you really wish to see them again?

goodbye riddance

FTFY

Microsoft issues emergency fix for Wi-Fi foul-up delivered hot and fresh on Patch Tuesday

Re: Again? Seriously?

It is not you and "gone downhill real fast" is a bit of an understatement.

True, but which distro? There are so many, even if CentOS was dropped from the list of eligible distros.

Unless you can’t get into a Wi-Fi network because of the bug, in which case The Register wishes you a happy weekend figuring that out. ®

There still is such a thing as a network cable. If your computer doesn't have an RJ45 receptacle, it becomes more fun, but with a USB to RJ45 converter, that can be solved as well.

Phishing awareness gone wrong: Facebook tries to seize websites set up for staff security training

Re: Are they both 'right'?

The problem is that Proofpoint should have asked for permission from Facebook and Instagram first.

It is easier (or at least a lot quicker) to ask forgiveness than permission.

Common Sense

The problem with common sense is that sense never ain't common - Lazarus Long

We know it's hard to get your kicks at work – just do it away from a wall switch powering anything important

Re: Why have the switch ?

I see I misunderstood, I thought the top of the socket had come of.

Re: She should have been sacked

Because just about all outlets are switched in the UK.

Re: My favourite one....

So this was a true PEBCAK.

Re: Uses of Radar

I cannot possibly comment on the veracity of these stories.

It is not unlikely, radar uses the same frequency/wave length as microwave ovens (and yes, microwave ovens are derived pretty directly from radar).

Re: Why have the switch ?

The correct solution is making sure the top can't come off that easily (screw it on properly). And (assuming it is in the UK, as indicated by the 13A socket), that socket also had a fuse, so cutting the power would have been as easy as shorting it, safety first and damn the cost of one fuse.

Re: She should have been sacked

In her defense, that switch should have been above the desk (within easy manual reach just in case) and out of reach of her foot.

Dept of If I'd Known 20 Years Ago: Call centres, roosting chickens, and Bitcoin

Re: So I'm not the only one .....

In that case it would have been called a BetCoin ;)

Faced with the sack, Nominet CEO half-apologizes for taking the 'wrong tone,' asks angry members to hear him out

Re: Too little, too late

It is also a very stupid mistake, "arrogantly dismissive" is insulting while "spoiled taunting" indicates a child, not to be taken seriously and easily corrected by any responsible adult.

Re: He should be outed on principal

He already has proven (over and over again) he is neither logical nor decent.

but he's hardly going to be starving

Until a good claw back action is started.

Re: Strategic advice to Mr Haworth

To completely and thoroughly describe that level of incompetence, I need a blank phone book. And even at that size, it will have to be typed in 3pt.

Re: Too little, too late

And perhaps it is bias on my part but even his "apology" seems to drip with insincerity.

He sincerely regrets having to face the music (of his own making).

Get rid, can't see why the staff would leave, probably all give a big sigh of relief.

I can see, but those will only be competent at brown nosing.

CEO of .uk registry operator Nominet has pleaded with the organisation’s members to hear him out before they consider backing a campaign to fire both him and other non-elected members of the board.

They will listen as carefully to him as he listened to them (not at all).

Re: Dont Count your chickens

But those Big 5 will have to tread carefully, some of their customers may decide enough is enough and switch to another, hurting them twice. Once in diminished revenue and once in diminished influence, where the voting power they lose goes to the competition.

No underpants were harmed in this business strategy

O? I am pretty certain Russell Haworth has suffered an Urgent Underwear Replacement experience by now and in my opinion that counts as harm to those underpants.

Survey: Techies reckon open sourcery has better prospects than familiarity with a single vendor's cloud wares

Re: secure in the knowledge that nobody will see his code

In similar circumstances (and before anybody complained about the error), I used "Preventive maintenance", which was even absolutely true, it prevented complaints from customers.

Re: "94 per cent reckoned FOSS code was as good if not better than the proprietary option"

"Better" implies some way to measure. One easy way to do so is count the number of bugs per amount of code.

Re: "94 per cent reckoned FOSS code was as good if not better than the proprietary option"

Wrong, they were talking about the amount of errors in the code.

No phish for the likes of you, thank you very much! Google finds email villains are picky about demographics, country

Re: Common-sense advice from the UK's National Cyber Security Centre

You are forgetting [c] they are incompetent (just like the rest of government)

However, I think it is a case of "All of the above".

Microsoft Patch Tuesday gaffe leads netizens to 'Microosft' typo-squatting domain

Re: My favourite typo is

You know as well as I that that company really should be called Macrosof ;)

Terraria dev cancels Stadia port after Google disabled his email account for three weeks

Re: Paid Gmail accounts

No better and yes, they cut you off with no warning and no reason given too. However, there is a way to force them to contact you and that is by clawing back the money you paid them, preferably using a credit card to make that relatively easy.

The unanswered question at CentOS community Q&A: How can we trust you now?

Re: Yay!

Resistance is futile.

I think it is more a case of Embrace, Extend and Extinguish, where we have arrived at the third and final stage.

EncroChat hack case: RAM, bam... what? Data in transit is data at rest, rules UK Court of Appeal

There is, but you are not allowed to link to it.

In my (not so humble) opinion it does, but IANAL.

Microsoft suspends donations to politicians who backed attempt to overturn US presidential election

Re: Democrats need to do a full voter rights act

The Electoral College is what put the USA into this mess. Get rid of it.

Together with the two-party system, that starts (in case of the USA has started) a system of ever more extreme opposing views without any common ground in the middle. With a three-party system, where no single party ever gets a majority by itself, parties are forced to cooperate and can't afford to become too extreme. It works even better with four or five as with three the one in the center can become too controlling.

DBA heroes don't always wear capes. Sometimes they just have a bunch of forgotten permissions

Thanks, but I was merely commenting on "Joff", I also am a techie by heart. I've sniffed at management and didn't like it at all.

If however it comes to politics and back stabbing, I am quite good. A long time ago I was temping somewhere and something happened that I didn't agree with. Neither did the two persons directly in line above me, but they thought they were powerless. Comes along the head honcho (five levels above me) on his daily round and I make a nice, complementary remark about the how this new policy made work go a lot quicker. The guy two levels above me just about gave birth to a porcupine ... in breach position. Within ten minutes, work was stopped and the person responsible (three levels above me) got a bollocking without ever finding out where it came from. Within one more hour, the situation was corrected.

But make very sure that tool doesn't wound you and won't return as a boomerang. It is as you correctly pointed out the most powerful tool in the box, but it can also be an extremely career limiting tool. It usually is much better to limit the career of somebody else.

Nice solution to the problem, but things like this have a tendency to backfire the next time. I would have documented the request and every communication to the DBA team to get the database up in time (with proper date and time) and let the deadline whoosh by. In the subsequent auto da fé the DBA team would be for the pyre.

As an ex-techie new to management it may even be true.

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I may just end up walking away from this IT lark and get behind the wheel - at least it will bring some money in

And to put the icing on the cake, companies are complaining they can't find any good software developers.

Vote machine biz Smartmatic sues Fox News and Trump chums for $2.7bn over bogus claims of rigged 2020 election

Re: Quite a markup

Smartmatic USA Corp has annual revenue of $4.58 million. So the suit is for a little over 598 years worth of their revenues.

After the threats to staff, the security had to be increased, that doesn't come cheap and will have to continue for an indefinite period.

Re: That's what happens when you don't know what you're talking about

In other words, Dominion and Smartmatic are out for blood and won't settle for first blood either.

That would be if Trump were held personally liable as well with subsequent bankruptcy.

Most people (including judges) are wise to that. The correct sentence would be the same publications/editions, the same duration of time with identical days of the week, front page and 288pt headlines.

In the case of Foxconn that would be prime time, same anchors and free advertising for a couple of weeks.

I thought Dominion was there first with a $1.3bn lawsuit.

Against Giuliani, not against Fox News.

I wouldn't shed a tear if Giuliani, Fox News or both had to declare bankruptcy.

The Linux box that runs the exec carpark gate is down! A chance for PostgreSQL Man to show his quality

Re: I don't support the barrier sorry

The receptionist did come back a minute into his rant, promptly threw me under the bus for not opening the parking barrier, and told me she assumed I knew how to do it as I worked in IT.

At that point I would probably have lost my cool and turned it into a complete shouting match, most likely leaving that receptionist in tears for being a bloody incompetent, can't even take care of a PC.