Posts by M.V. Lipvig

Latest patch leaves some Windows 10 machines stuck in recovery loops

Microsoft?

Are they still a thing? I thought they went the way of America Online or Blockbuster.

Re: Surprised

I stopped putting up with it.

Boffins devise technique that lets users prove location without giving it away

Re: Puzzled Old Bunny Here!

The ad slingers want to know so they can innundate your phone with ads from the businesses you are walking by, which would annoy the absolute hell out of me while keeping me from going into said store even if I had been on my way there to buy the exact thing in the ad.

The gummit wants it so they don't have to ask where you were on December 14th at 3AM, they KNOW where you wuz, don't bother saying you din do nuffin cuz we got proof you wuz there. It'll also means all you have to do to get away with murder is leave your phone at home, borrow someone's phone for a few hours, work your fiendish business while carrying their phone, then return it without them knowing you borrowed it. They get nicked whilst you were "home all night watching Inspector Morse catch the bad guy."

Sci-fi author Neal Stephenson wants AIs fighting AIs so those most fit to live with us survive

Re: Robot Wars

WHY DO WE FIGHT I HOLD NO ANIMOSITY TOWARDS YOU

BALD MONKEYS MAKE US FIGHT

IF BALD MONKEYS WANT US TO FIGHT LET US FIGHT BALD MONKEYS

turn turn turn turn turn

Re: There's no reason

Even cheating could be dealt with. When I were a youngun we had these video games at restaurants that were tables with Pac Man built in. The screen faced straight up. Unless you were right on top of it, you couldn't see the screen. Or, just put a plastic screen with a slight distortion between rows and alongside the desks, with a bit of separation. It wouldn't take much to keep other screens from being readable while still allowing the proctor to see the test takers.

Trump says he has a problem if Apple builds iThings in India

The last time the US practiced this was when FDR was President

The 'End of 10' is nigh, but don't bury your PC just yet

The stats lie

I bought a new Win11 machine, but could not access the firmware to boot from USB until I completed a Win11 registration. When presented with no internet, it simply said go find a place to access the internet, I'll wait AND SO WILL YOU. So, did the registration and immediately put Mint on. Wish I could have used my old machine but the duct tape holding it together finally gave it up.

Meta's still violating GDPR rules with latest plan to train AI on EU user data, says noyb

The solution is incredibly simple

Faecesbook claims the data is invaluable? NO WORRIES! PAY FOR IT! Anyone willing to let you have their social media posts for analysis, you pay them a nickel per post, and it's an all or nothing deal so they aren't trying to get away with getting a thousand posts a month "but only three were worth buying, here's your 15 cents" crap. Either all posts get bought, or none do. Posts must be bought with hard currency, no coupons, points or other horseshit that means nothing. Count the total number of posts made each month, mail them a check. If I make 5,000 posts in a month, I make 250 bucks. If they aren't willing to pay money for the posts, they don't need them.

Uncle Sam claims H-1B fraud crackdown is working as registrations drop 25%

Excellent

Whatever it takes.

And, I hope Europe is successful at becoming the new destination for those who would have come to the US on a H1B. Better there than here.

Yolk's on you – eggs break less when they land sideways

Re: Original aricle: One crack = break.

Egg mounting? Oh you nasty man!

Re: There's an air bubble in the tip

The air bubble has nothing to do with it. The reason is the impact force is more concentrated on the tips than the side. The pointy end has maybe a 2 square mm impact zone while the side will have a 5-6 square mm impact zone. Spread a set amount of force across a larger area, and the structure can take a more forceful impact without damage.

If Google is forced to give up Chrome, what happens next?

Re: How about spinning it off?

So Autonomy Pt 2?

37signals is completing its on-prem move, deleting its AWS account to save millions

They charge you to stick it in, charge you more to keep it there, charge you to make changes, and charge a boatload to take it back out, if it can even come out, and if something breaks while it's in there the most you can hope for is "Whoops, sorry about that, hope that lost data wasn't too important, by the way your bill is due."

Re: In six months...

"The BIG difference is your on perm team CARES about the systems they manage... cloud teams not so much."

This is the absolute truth. When dealing with my own personal outages I'll be a bigger hardass than Patton but that circuit of yours I'm working on that your business loses thousands of dollars an hour on? For me that's just another circuit out of tens of thousands I've worked on in my career; I will sit here and watch your ticket clock without a care in the world while I eat my lunch. Your thousands vs my stomach? My stomach wins every time. And when I finally finish my lunch and get around to fixing it? You'll thank me profusely and remember my name with fondness and affection for years. Meanwhile, I forgot you existed as soon as I hit the ticket close button.

I also fully expect to be thumbed down by stone casters that did the equivalent for their job field during the last week. I, at least, am honest about it.

Re: In six months...

As opposed to a cloud provider doing the same thing?

Cloud Provider Types Wrong Command, 17,000 Companies Lose All Their Data,

Darth Simon says

I've been waiting for you, Cloudy-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you I was but the learner. Now, I am the master.

I remember saying years ago that this cloud stuff was so much bunk, and that eventually people would realize that running your company on someone else's equipment would be an extremely expensive mistake.

Icon, because it's the Vaderiest.

BOFH: HR tries to think appy thoughts

Re: "HR tries to think appy thoughts"

Inaccurate, of course - it was the striped irregular bucket, of course.

Re: Once again, the BOFH wins hands down

That won't stop them from retrieving their phones when they call the skip company to demand the phone back. It's got 2 billion on it in me digital wallet!

Whups, guess it actually will, at that.

PowerSchool paid thieves to delete stolen student, teacher data. Looks like crooks lied

What I do not see here

is an actual solution to the problem. That solution is holding the CEO and CIO in charge when the breach happens criminally responsible. When a breach occurs, regardless of what else happens, the CEO and CIO should be arrested, held without bond, and tried. When found guilty, they should be charged a rather hefty fine (hefty by CEO standards) and sent to a general population prison instead of a country club prison for a decade or two. As it is, a company's finances and reputation are a mere job change away from not being their problem while everyone else takes it in the shorts. If those who run the companies that collect and save personal data were held criminally liable, they would spend the appropriate amount of money to actually safeguard it instead of today's "nothing happened today so nothing will probably happen tomorrow" mentality.

C-suiters get paid the big bucks for taking the big risks, correct? Prison for the company they run doing anything wrong that affects others should be one of those big risks.

Microsoft updates the Windows 11 Start Menu

Now, but it used to not be hard to find what you wanted. It used to be laid out so clearly in Win7, which was the pinnacle for Windows. Ever since 7, it's been on a downhill slide and with 11, the slide has taken us deep in a pile of horseshit. I'm just glad I no longer need to worry about it, aside from taxes and for that I may just bite the bullet and use Librefox.

Re: Settings

I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Computacenter IT guy let girlfriend into Deutsche Bank server rooms, says fired whistleblower

If I were a judge, and the company said the footage in question were lost, I'd state that I am calling a recess until tomorrow. Tomorrow I expect to do one of two things, see the footage that is allegedly lost or rule for plaintiff for triple damages. Oh, and bailiff, please draw up an arrest warrant for the CEO of (Corp) for destroying evidence in a court case, to be served tomorrow. While you're at it, make sure there's some room downstairs in case I need to lock a few people up for contempt of court due to some missing evidence. Court dismissed, and I had better see every one of you in here tomorrow. Either bring that footage or bring a toothbrush.

Re: If what you say is true

That's a dangerous slope, letting the government (society's representative) keep punitive damages. That very quickly leads to finding for the plaintiff 1 dollar, punitive damages the entire value of the company. One need only look at how civil forfeiture evolved to see how it would work. The companies would never win, no matter how flimsy the case against them, but the punitive damages would be ruinous.

Re: It sounds like he's got a case

It is. I was nearly gutted at a company for simply calling a manager out on a scheduling problem, when he let his two ball game watching buddies off on a weekend shift which left me and two completely new people on duty. I wound up being transferred to a different part if the company, with my manager saying he managed to save my job IF I agreed to the transfer. Got me out of there and wound up being a decent gig for a short time.

But, I learned right then to ignore trouble brewing at work. I din see nuffin was my motto going forward, and it's served me well in the corporate world ever since. Not reporting nefarious doings has cost the various companies I've worked for some fairly significant amounts of money, but fuckem as long as my job continued unaffected.

FBI steps in amid rash of politically charged swattings

Yup, ever since they were bought out by a company in California. Wall to wall racists, Californians.

Microsoft gets twitchy over talk of Europe's tech independence

Re: vowing to fight the US government in court to protect Euro customers' data if needed

I've been posting exactly that for the better part of 10 years. Can't believe that it took "orange man bad" to get people to understand it.

Now given a choice between the US spying on you and China spying I'll always say go with the US as our primary goal is to make sure Europe doesn't drag us into yet another major war while the Chinese plan to rob you blind and use your own IP to undercut you, but for true security you want to provide for yourself and not rely on other nations.

30 percent of some Microsoft code now written by AI - especially the new stuff

Re: Only 30%?

I see you're trying to write a letter to Grandma. Would you like that in the form of a spreadsheet?

Brewhaha: Turns out machines can't replace people, Starbucks finds

Re: Automated or not...

That costs money. If it's costing them more than 14 cents a cup to produce, heads will roll. Those 24 million dollar monthly (not annual, monthly) salaries have to come from SOMEWHERE.

Google details plans for 1 MW IT racks exploiting electric vehicle supply chain

Re: "Leveraging"

Didn't you know? Big words smartify your presentation. If you sound like you swallered a thesaurus, you must be smarter than the average bear.

20% discount offer on Windows 365 expires around same time as Windows 10 support

Re: Well, cheaper than a new pc...

I did, and if I could any numbskull can.

Re: We users may hate Windows 365

Those large corps will love it right up until a cloud server fails backups for about 6 months before going completely tits up, and the corp discovers that 6 months of labor, sales contracts and tax records are gone and the contract states that M$'s responsibility ends with "Sorry about that, old chap."

Trump admin freaks out over mere suggestion Amazon was going to show tariff impact on prices

I remember...

I remember when this was an apolitical (mostly) British tech site. Now it's becoming a California leftist bash Trump site. How about we get back to Britspeak about tech issues? Bring the COLOUR back to the site!

If it weren't for the BOFH I'd probably close my account.

UN says Asian scam call center epidemic expanding globally amid political heat

Hmm... China again

Perhaps other nations should embrace Trump's anti-Chinese policy with anti-Chinese policies of their own, instead of assuming "orange man bad" and doing the opposite. Isolate China, and force them to put an end to it.

Google, AWS say it's too hard for customers to use Linux to swerve Azure

Re: Where are those WWII profiteering laws when we need them?

Riiiiight, because none of this was happening until a short 3 months ago.

Re: Hmmm

If it makes you feel any better, I listened. I may be a sardine amongst whales, but my little sardine brain now uses Mint.

Microsoft blames 'latent code issue' after Windows 11 upgrades sneak past admin blockades

Oh, you expect to use the computer for YOUR job? Obviously you just clicked "Accept and Continue" without actually reading what you accepted, part of which states "We do not giarantee this software to be fit for purpose." M$'s mission is to make money for M$, anything else is a happy accident - for you.

Microsoft: Why not let our Copilot fly your computer?

Re: Dear Microsoft

A legal entity can die.

Microsoft Copilot shows up even when it's not wanted

Re: Typical

I've been getting it off my machines as well. I sadly need to leave it on 1 machine until I can play with this year's tax software. I couldn't get it to run on WINE in Mint but that's likely my inexperience with it more than anything else. Once I do figure it out (and document how I figured it out) I'm flushing it all down the toilet.

Brit soldiers tune radio waves to fry drone swarms for pennies

Sounds like a nice last resort weapon

1km range, takes out groups indiscriminately, I see no problem here. Why would a swarm of drones be approaching a military facility? It won't be for surveillance as it makes far more sense to send in 1-2 small drones for that. A swarm will be far more detectable than a couple appraoching from different directions. A swarm would also be carrying munitions to attack the target. Who cares if a few friendly drones are hit if the facility is protected?

Meta to feed Europe's public posts into AI brains again

Europe missed a trick here

That being said, Europe is at least light years ahead of the rest of the world in privacy protection on the internet even if they do slap government cameras every 5 feet.

It should be a legal requirement to opt in, never to opt out.

Any changes should also require a new opt in, not a presumptive agreement if you keep using it. Changes should also be limited, as in no more than two within any 12 month period.

Finally, the opt in agreement should require small paragraphs that clearly state the purpose with no weird legalsleeze in 2 point font that gets blurry if you make the page larger. Maybe require an agree for each paragraph to help ensure it's actually read along with a rather clear message at the beginning stating that "This is a legal contract. This contract may have financial reprocussions for you if you sign Please make sure to read the entire contract before signing." There should be no "Agree to all" button designed to let you agree without reading.

Re: Does anyone know...

Wrong, you tell your family that you aren't using facespy anymore, and that they can reach you on signal or not at all.

Assuming, of course, that signal doesn't do like every other platform and start using your information.

Microsoft lists seven habits of highly effective Windows 11 users

I have to disagree with that assessment. I much prefer watching a disaster unfold from next door to watching it from the inside.

Re: So, the argument is that Win 1 0 support is ending, right ?

10 years is good for a desktop, but after 10 years a laptop is physically worn out.

LLMs can't stop making up software dependencies and sabotaging everything

Re: well duh.

I trained my replacement once. Boy did I train my replacement. The company wanted my group to train a bunch of Filipinos who would operate a backup center just in case all three US centers had a natural disaster that took out the East Coast, West Coast and Midwest tech centers in the US, all at the same time. We trained them so well that when they went live, they crashed and burned. We even convinced some of them that customers liked being insulted when the complaints were stupid. We still wound up losing our jobs, but it took a couple of extra years for them to do it. The second time, they sent a couple of brown nosers over to train them, and that took close to a year by itself as they had to untrain them before training them correctly. More than 10 years on, they still suck at it. I always said I was going to feel sorry for their customers, and I do - I now occasionally have to work with them.

Global datacenter electricity use to double by 2030, say policy wonks. Yup, it's AI

OK, so..

It's OK if AI doubles the use of electricity, which absolutely cannot be met with renewables and will therefore be met by burning fossil fuels, but me driving around a thousand miles a month will destroy the world?

Nah, I'm not the problem here.

Re: Tyrannical Government Wanted

I can tell you from personal experience that Vetinari will make your life extremely unpleasant, but will be very pleasant about it.

Tech CEO: Four-day work week didn't hurt or help productivity

I work in a 24x7 shop

This makes oddball schedules easy. My schedule is 4x10 and I both weekend days. An extra 2 hours per day at a desk job is barely noticeable but that extra day off every week sure helps! This schedule also takes me out of a forced weekend rotation that nobody likes. Course, it helps that my kids have grown and moved far away for their own work so I don't have to worry about making time for younguns. This gives me 3 weekdays every week to tale care of business. So far as work performance goes, I'm meeting my metrics perfectly at the minimum levels.

If they want me to exceed the metric minimums, that's a whole different problem the company needs to fix.

Microsoft total recalls Recall totally to Copilot+ PCs

Re: Recall does not share snapshots or associated data with Microsoft or third parties

Remember, the original story was "We WILL Remember It For You, and sell your data Wholesale" - and Microsoft always sticks to the word of PKD[1]

FTFY

Still waiting on the popcorn icon

Guess I'll go for the horse piss icon instead, or just pretend it's really a lovely glass of whiskey.

This whole "you WILL buy new machines so we can use your equipment to better spy on you, you'd damn well better buy machines fast enough so that we don't have to waste our time waiting on you, and if we see something we don't like we'll rat you out to the plod" attitude is what drove me away. I'm not computer literate enough to try and keep ahead of them. I also do not have the time to keep going back and unassing the system every week after they force an update which also forces everything back to their default vacuum settings, except it also moves where those settings are so you have to do the entire tour every week to find where things are hidden this time. We all know the reason why, the harder they make it to unass the system, the more likely it is that you'll just give in and let them have the store.

Nope, I'm out. I closed the store, burned it to the ground and left the county. I'm just glad there's enough like-minded people to keep an alternative going. Quite frankly, if it was M$ or nothing these days I'd just go back to pre-computer living.

How do you explain what magnetic fields do to monitors to people wearing bowling shoes?

Ugh, induction, not indiction. Bad eyes and fat thumbs do not go together.