Posts by richdin

Move over, graphene. There's a new super-material in town: Graphullerene

Re: I wonder why …

Horsepucky

Orion snaps 'selfie' with the Moon as it prepares for distant retrograde orbit

Re: And Wallace wanted Shaun to bring some cheese back

...and some water bears

Time Lords decree an end to leap seconds before risky attempt to reverse time

Re: Cop Out

Why bother? According to Greta, AOC and Al Gore and the rest of the Chicken Littles, the world is going to end in 12 years...

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

Re: It makes sense for CPUs

Used to be done with a set of DIP switches... DEC upgraded my VAX's memory from 4MB to 16MB (long time ago) with the flick of a switch. Had I only known...

Boffins build microphone safety kit to detect eavesdroppers

Re: There's a far better solution to that problem

ALL my devices are connected with managed switches (Mikrotik, 1 to a room). Easy to disconnect when a device is unneeded

Rest in peace, Queen Elizabeth II – Britain's first high-tech monarch

Re: She was a good one

Like versions of Microsoft Windows - one generation is great, the following, not so. 95 vs Me; 7 vs 8; 10 vs 11, etc....

Google Play to ban Android VPN apps from interfering with ads

Two words

Pi Hole

Twitter savaged by former security boss Mudge in whistleblower complaint

CNN comes up with this?

With all the talk around collaboration (if not collusion) between the MSM and the High-Tech world - it figures that CNN would be the outlet to "scoop" this.

There's no place like GNOME: Project hits 25, going on 43

Re: Plus ca change - lentement

If aviation advanced at the rate that computers have - we would have landed on the moon in 1912 (9 years after Wilbur and Orville first flew at Kitty Hawk.

The perfect crime – undone by the perfect email backups

Re: "Delete" = "Hide"

There were two FATs - a copy to rebuild the original from JIC.

Ransomware grounds some flights at Indian budget airline SpiceJet

Better than Kenya Airways...

Once I flew from Mombasa to somewhere in Masai-Mara game park. The plane was a little 14 seater, open to the cockpit and dripping oil from multiple spots. Heart was pounding from takeoff to landing (buzzed the strip to scatter the zebras first). Only after we landed did I realize the fast heart rate and difficulty breathing was also because we flew at about 12K ft without pressurization. Needless to say - never again (although I do want to go on safari again)

Buying a USB adapter: Pennies. Knowing where to stick it: Priceless

Re: Seems ok

I had a 2 cylinder 4 valve dual carb Italian motorbike. One day I got it in my head to tune the engine, as it was sounding a bit rough. I managed to barely drive to my mechanic to unravel the mess. He gave me a resounding smack across the face and stated loudly - " I don't try fix my computer, YOU keep your hands f'in hands away from your bike!"

Bank had no firewall license, intrusion or phishing protection – guess the rest

Re: What could possibly go wrong?

More fun making deposits rather than withdrawals...

Procurement guy at Apple allegedly ripped off iPhone giant in $10m+ scam

Re: Stealing cash from the Big Boys in America

Son to father: "Dad, I've decided to enter organized crime..."

Father: "Which, private sector, or working for the government?"

BOFH: All hail the job cuts consultant

Job hunting

From my experience - these so-called consultants are actually gunning for a job in the outfit they are consulting. Numerous times a consultant has come in with grandiose plans and lots of bells && whistles - which culminated in their receiving a senior (aka high paying) position in said company.

File suffixes: Who needs them? Well, this guy did

I miss revision numbers (and VMS / RSTS-E in general). Showing my age.

Chip CFOs get a crash course in silicon geopolitics

Learned our lesson yet?

Need to re-establish onshore the capabilities for production - including returning to older technologies (reopen fabs from previous generations) - to get the capacity online and remove the dependence on foreign production with interruptible supply chains. Do we really need the latest and smallest for most of the products? Even if it cost slightly more - not having ready inventory of chips impacts everyone.

Why is the little guy getting rinsed for hardware? Because top OEMs had to spend 25% more on chips in 2021

Re: At least Sony didn't

The great difference between "build to order" aka Dell and "build to plan" aka IBM

Secure boot for UK electric car chargers isn't mandatory until 2023 – but why the delay?

Re: Solution to car charger issues...

Can't have that (cash) - 'cause it can't be monitored. THEY want to do away with cash.

Intel updates mysterious 'software-defined silicon' code in the Linux kernel

Re: @AC - @Zippy´s Sausage Factory - The plan is obvious

You mean like buying a VAX 750 with 4K of memory, and when you want to upgrade [after shelling out $$$], the fiend (field) engineer, opens the panel, and moves a single DIP switch - presto, 16K.

This has been standard practice for decades.

How to destroy expensive test kit: What does that button do?

Humans

Tell a man that there are a billion stars in the galaxy and he'll believe you.

Tell a man that the paint on the bench is wet, and he has to touch it to make sure.

Kyndryl spins out of IBM, stock starts trading on NYSE – and shares tumble

Who chose the name?

A Lynyrd Skynyrd fan? Corporate anthem is Freebird?

After more than a decade of development, South Korea has a near miss with Nuri rocket test

You forgot one

Israel has been lobbing stuff into space since 1988

Ubuntu 21.10: Plan to do yourself an Indri? Here's what's inside... including a bit of GNOME schooling

Re: Smooth FM

I tried twice... got kernel panics on my ThinkPad. Reverted to 21.04.3.

Want to check out Windows 11 but don't want to buy a new PC? Here's how to bypass the hardware requirements

It will pass quickly...

As Microshaft never gets consecutive releases right (95 vs Me vs XP... Win7 vs Win8 vs Win10) - Win11's days are numbered. Wait for Win12.

Firewalls? Pfft – it's no match for my mighty spares-bin PC

Re: Bodged rack mount server

I once had a situation with a PC server using 2 mirrored SCSI adapters running Netware on a token-ring network that brought down the entire corporation including the mainframe because of a magic app running a btrieve database...

Shows how old I am... and what an a** saver the NSE was (pre-internet!).

SCSI=SCARY

Apache OpenOffice can be hijacked by malicious documents, fix still in beta

Re: LibreOffice

MAGAOffice (as opposed to MEGAOffice?)

Guntrader breach perp: I don't think it's a crime to dump 111k people's details online in Google Earth format

Re: denying their actions amounted to a criminal offence

Ratatouille? Not so much.

Everyone cites that 'bugs are 100x more expensive to fix in production' research, but the study might not even exist

Re: Go agile, go!

There are undocumented features, and there are documented unfeatures (vaporware)

A hotline to His Billness? Or a guard having a bit of a giggle?

Happened to me once...

A long time ago, before it was a thing - I was at a demo at Microsoft Israel (at the time it was a very small subsidiary and way before I worked for MS) - someone who will remain nameless to protect the guilty was demoing the email capabilities of a product and for an example send a missive to billg@microsoftdotcom. It was in Hebrew as this was supposedly a demo system. A few moments later, Bill replied with a note saying that if we would send him the mail again in English, he'd be happy to reply. Oops.

Amazon to bring a full region to Israel, land of large government contracts

According to international law - it's NOT illegally annexed

You better stick to tech - because your grasp of international law is completely flawed.

USB-C levels up and powers up to deliver 240W in upgraded power delivery spec

Re: charging your Tesla

ua for the UX

That's a bit harsh: Lenovo adds 2 new toughened boxen to ThinkEdge edge computing line

Global climate change, not.

According to the scaremongers among us - wouldn't it behoove them to worry less about freezing and look out for higher temps?

Microsoft kills broad entry-level IT certifications, replaces them with all-Microsoft curriculum

CNE anyone?

Somewhere around here are my floppy disks with my Certified Netware Engineer certificate and master decoder ring...

Nearly 70 years after America made einsteinium in its first full-scale thermo-nuke experiment, mystery element yields secrets of its chemistry

Re: Engineering

The engineer scientist tells his wife that he's going to his lover for the weekend... tells the girlfriend that he's spending time with the wife... and finally can get some quiet time at the lab to get some work done!

Cisco intros desktop switches, one with USB-C to power your laptop

Rebranded Mikrotik?

I have fiber to my office into a little Mikrotik router and a bunch of Mikrotik 5 port switches in every room... about 50 bucks a pop. Total control ;-)

There are two sides to every story, two ends to every cable

Re: Idiot Boasting Mob

Inshallah Bukra Ma'alish

Tomorrow Allah willing, there will be something to sell!

Also - I've Been Married, I've Been Moved, Idiots Become Managers, Itty Bitty Machines and It's Better Manually

SNAFU: Clairvoyant train brings warning of what was coming down the line for 2020

Formerly know as FUBAR

Fouled* Up Beyond All Recognition

NASA to stop using names like 'Eskimo Nebula' and 're-examine' what it calls cosmic objects

Alternatively

Anything remotely provocative should be renamed "Karen"

Dutch Gateway store was kept udder wraps for centuries until refit dug up computing history

Re: I've been there! 1998?

Cow tipping?

And what is this infatuation with bovines? Tucows? Cult of the Dead Cow? Gateway...? Mad Cow disease?

Smile? Not bloody likely: Day 6 of wobbly services and still no hint to UK online bank's customers about what's actually wrong

Re: "for we like sheep ..."

I have a NO ONLINE TRANSACTIONS order on my account - I can RECEIVE money, but cannot TRANSMIT funds online, only over the phone or by conventional means (check, cc). I sleep much easier this way - even if someone hacks my account, the bank can only blame itself.

BTW - Surely you all don't mean Shirley (or am I missing a Britishism?)

Hey NYPD, when you're done tear-gassing and running over protesters, can you tell us about your spy gear?

Re: $8.8 trillion looted

A study was made whether the tribe of Indians who sold Manhattan Island got stiffed or not - turned out that the $24 deposited in an account with compound interest for 400 years was worth more than the combined real estate on the Island!!

https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/manhattan-island-deal-provides-historic-compound-interest-lesson-37185530.html

Before IBM started axing staff, it told them Q3 2020 would be super-busy with post-lockdown catch-up jobs

Once it was the other way around...

Back in the good ole days, I worked for IBM and the company had a fantastic way to get us to use our vacation days - when we had a short business trip, for example a 48hr jaunt to London, the company would induce us to buy the week long ticket (which was much cheaper than flying out Monday and returning the day after)... and the savings on the ticket was applied to your extended hotel stay. It didn't cost the company a penny more, and got us to reduce our vacation days balance (which was a direct hit on the company's bottom line as these needed to be set aside on the budget). Not to mention doing wonders for morale. A win-win.

eBay users spot the online auction house port-scanning their PCs. Um... is that OK?

Re: Fraud is a big issue for etailer

Diet? Makes sense about the flavour. Though better us on them than vice versa...

Mad dash for webcams with surge in videoconferencing has turned out rather nicely for Logitech

It's called DroidCam

...and it's great!

I wanted to use my old Microsoft webcam on the MS Win10 box I had to set up for the kid's remote school platform... but it wouldn't work. Obviously. Refused to shell out for a new MS webcam on principle. Connected the cam to one of my Linux systems - which worked flawlessly - and took out an old phone from the junk drawer with a USB cable and DroidCam. Problem solved. I'll buy him a new Logitech camera when prices return to earth.

So how do the coronavirus smartphone tracking apps actually work and should you download one to help?

Re: The Bells!

or Yellow six-pointed stars?

Wanted: An exit strategy from the overt surveillance of smartphone contact tracing

Burners won't help

What do you think will happen with a burner phone? You still have to connect to some network in order to talk. All they have to do is filter out the "known" phones (ID'ed) - showing just the burner phones... you make it easier to track and marked yourself as an object of interest.

/e/?

I installed a piece of [governmentally created] tracking software on my phone, which tracks my location vis-a-vis potential infection vectors... as I am only going from home to supermarket and back (we are under lock down). When this is over, I intend to flash my phone with a new operating system (/e/) - don't even trust the removal of the program to suffice... one can never be too paranoid.

Cloudflare dumps Google's reCAPTCHA, moves to hCaptcha as free ride ends (and something about privacy)

Re: Audio versions

A Milky Way is a Mars Bar, a 3 Musketeers is a Milky Way, etc.

This is why we kicked you out of the colonies.

Samsung's Galaxy S7 line has had a good run with four years of security updates – but you'll want to trade yours in now

/e/?

How about installing an alternative OS for your now unsupported phone?

https://e.foundation/about-e/