Posts by ITMA

Microsoft on a roll for terrible rebranding with Windows App

You can tell when Microsoft are "thinking".

Something useful catches fire and burns to the ground to be replaced by a pile of useless crap.

Yup.

And that vocabulary goes S.H.1.T.E.

NASA engineers play space surgeon in bid to unclog Voyager 1's arteries

Re: So if I’m right

Not for a very very very long time....

Re: So if I’m right

Currently about 22 hrs 49 minutes each way.

So you send a command and then wait 46 hours to get confirmation it has received it, never mind executed it.

https://theskylive.com/voyager1-info

Re: Stunning engineering....

Try finding a "modern" washing machine that can do more than barely survive its statutary 1 year warranty period - or washer dryer that doesn't threaten to burn your house down just being used.

Stunning engineering....

What can one say.

A space craft built with what was essentially 1960's technology (hardware designs had to be frozen years in advance), launched in 1977 and still going in September 2024.

China claims Starlink signals can reveal stealth aircraft – and what that really means

Re: old news...

Isn't this not too dissimilar to how a group claim to have been able to track Malaysia flight MH370 after it had dropped off radar and effectively "went dark" using WSPR?

https://www.airlineratings.com/articles/mh370-ground-breaking-report-reveals-location

Microsoft's Copilot 'Wave 2' is a tsunami of unanswered questions

Re: AI - just say "no"

Aren't they the very types the Golgafrichams built Ark B for? :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj7n3oFicU4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMoPR2IA2Uk

Muppet broke the datacenter every day, in its own weighty way

Re: This kind of semi-random, intermittent error is such a pain to diagnose

That reminds me of a real-time printer fix on a customer's dot matrix printer which kept stopping mid-print saying "Paper out".

I think I was working for NEC (UK) Peripherals at the time on the help desk.

Knowing the likely culprit, I asked the customer the model of printer.

I then said "This is going to sound strange...." then proceeded along the lines of "carefully lift the left hand side of the printer 3-4 inches of the desk. Then let go so it drops on the desk". <BANG>

The printer burst into life and kept printing.

A known issue where paper dust caused the plastic mechanical flag used to sense the presence of paper to stick in the wrong position. Giving it a jolt freed it.

As major web browser makers snuggle up to AI, these skeptical holdouts remain

Re: Your AI bugged browser

"LLMs are essentially confident-sounding lying machines with a penchant to occasionally disclose private data or plagiarize existing work"

A computerised politician in other words.

We've enough of the waste of flesh and blood type without needing computerised ones.

India to train 5,000 'Cyber Commandos'

Cyber security begins at home...

"Shah asserted that India leads the world for digital payments..."

It is also well near the top for hosting cyber scammers. Not lone PFYs but well organised criminal call centres.

AI-pushing Adobe says AI-shy office workers will love AI if it saves them time

Re: Adobe can piss right off

And they STILL haven't put in an option on the "free" Adobe Reader to tell their effing awful AI Assistant to fuck right off and die?

Why Adobe? WTF are you playing at?

Python script saw students booted off the mainframe for sending one insult too many

Re: I'm the OPERATOR...

And so is my wife!

:)

Admins wonder if the cloud was such a good idea after all

I can see nobody else has said it....So I will

"Admins wonder if the cloud was such a good idea after all"

No shit!

Deadline looms: Google Workspace mandates OAuth by September 30

I'd like Microsoft to explain how UPS's, CCTV equipment, alarm systems, plant equipment (i.e. water pumping systems etc) and other devices are supposed to "switch Microsoft Outlook" to send system event notification emails.

Unlike Microsoft who are killing off app passwords as well:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/clients-and-mobile-in-exchange-online/deprecation-of-basic-authentication-exchange-online

Which is a right bugger when used by shit loads of devices for sending notifications.

Iran's Pioneer Kitten hits US networks via buggy Check Point, Palo Alto gear

Why not just throw a ball of wool to distract the "kitten"? LOL

India delays planned space station and moon base by five years

Re: Why stop at 5 years?

NASA to human: "Did you arrive on Mars on the Boeing?"

Human: "Yes, why?".

NASA: "We've some bad news. About getting home....."

Human: "What sort of bad news?"

NASA: "Your not. Getting home that is"

Human: "You f**** c**** tw***s!"

NASA: "Good news! There's a flashlight you can use to try and hitch a lift on any Vogon or other alien ship that might be passing".

Re: Why stop at 5 years?

How about them cracking down more on all the scam call centres they host:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58JqGuclqng

In Punjab 140308, India ruthlessly scamming people.

Re: Why stop at 5 years?

"They sure did. Because there was no alternative. Computers and robotics in the 60/70s were nowhere near as advanced as they are today"

Yes there was.

Apart from physically "walking on the moon" the entire Apollo mission from launch to splash down could have been run automatically via Mission Control and the two Apollo Guidance Computers - one in the CSM and one in the LM.

They never did a fully automated lunar landing for one reason only - astronauts egos wouldn't permit it. In fact a fully automated "test landing" was discussed but killed because if the first Apollo LM landed with nobody onboard, the American public would rightly have said - "why are spending all the money to send men when a machine can do it?"

Launch was handled entirely by the IM computer in the Saturn V and Mission Control. The "astronauts" were just passengers, or as the oft used expression so aptly put it, "spam in a can".

Getting a man on the moon - i.e. Apollo - was all about beating the Soviet Union in space for political reasons.

Voyager 1 & 2 were designed and built using 60's/70's technology and BOTH are still exploring.

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-they-now/

The first space shuttle computers (five per shuttle) used core memory! How advanced the technology is nowhere near as important for spacecraft as reliability and ability to "harden" them for use in space.

Though I entirely agree with your point about robotic spacecraft. You didn't clearly state the biggest disadvantage to using humans - the expect to come back,alive.

Microsoft sends Windows Control Panel to tech graveyard

Re: cue the wailing

Wooha - Vista and Capable in the same sentence.... There's a novelty.

As for the "cue the wailing" what can I say. Compared to the things you can do through control panel, "settings" is a crock of shite.

Microsoft rolls out one Teams app to rule them all

Blah blah blah....

And I bet they STILL haven't fixed that stupid security hole where when you click on "Sign out" it DOES NOT!

There are frequent instances when all you have to do is click on a user name/email address and it signs you in without asking for so much as a password AFTER you've signed out.

Microsoft closes Windows 11 upgrade loophole in latest Insider build

That's not a "I'm pissed off" icon.

It's a burning bush.... :)

Windows 11 Insider preview brings new Sandbox features and fatter FAT32

Re: Regedit bug?

"Has someone been needlessly fiddling to make things 'better'?"

I say unto you.... Windows 11 !!!

NASA pushes decision on bringing crew back in Starliner to the end of August

Re: Only

What? No IEEE-488?

How about 20mA loop?

Re: Boeing suits can't be used in a SpaceX vehicle and vice-versa.

"Say, basic coms, oxegen, posibly heating/cooling, fits in the seat.....anything else?"

Dare I say it - waste... Just in case you are stuck in them for longer than may be "comfortable". On the grounds either all suits have it, or none.

Re: Boeing suits can't be used in a SpaceX vehicle and vice-versa.

I've listened to that and I didn't hear any great explanation or arugment for what you postulate - i.e. that using a common connector stops multi-use of suits and innovation.

In fact a little later they argue a compelling case for standardisation, or at least a degree of suit core compatibility, between Orion and Artemis suits in case something unforseen means you have to use one vehicle's suits in the other vehicle.

If I recall, the last person who publiclity threw standards out the window because they "stifled innovation", things didn't work out too well for when his tubular carbon fibre sub imploded.

Re: Boeing suits can't be used in a SpaceX vehicle and vice-versa.

And there are a whole bunch of standards for On Board vechicle Diagnostics:

OBD-II, SAE J1979-2, ISO 15031, ISO 15765-4:2011

I'm afraid your BMW/Tesla "diagnostic station" analogy doesn't quite stand up.

Re: Boeing suits can't be used in a SpaceX vehicle and vice-versa.

There is a difference between independent designs to minimise the risk of space suits (or other "item") from different contractors having the same design flaws - and designing ones which are totally incompatible.

It smacks of not just the Apollo 13 CO2 scrubbers - square peg/round hole - but also the early days of railways with too many tragedies caused by "Not invented here, we are not using that" mentality.

Google's ex-CEO U-turns after saying staff 'going home early' killed winning

Re: I misspoke about Google and their work hours. I regret my error

And just perhaps Google's "poor showing" in AI is because it is being forced on people who just don't want it and find it is shite, gets in the way and is extremely annoying - yes I'm talking about "Google AI overview"

It makes a lot of sense if you add "atives" onto the end of lax :)

It would certainly help explain Copilot.

LLM-driven C-to-Rust. Not just a good idea, a genie eager to escape

Re: Destroying the Patterns Needed by LLMs

Hang on....

Let me write that down in my software protection patent application.... LOL

Users call on Microsoft to update Outlook's friendly name feature

Re: "more than 100 votes"

I suspect Microsoft have had rather more than 100 votes along the lines of:

"Fuck off with forcing out new shite features like focussed fucking inbox set to ON"

yet they take no notice what so ever.

Microsoft Teams decouples from Office 365 suite globally

Re: Word and Cloud

Or put in more words:

Go to the File menu/tab in Word, go to Options in the bottom left.

In the box that appears find "Save" on the left and click on it. There you will find a whole bunch of options to control where it saves to including turning Autosave to the cloud OFF (at the top of the pane on the right in the save options).

Microsoft finds a new way to irritate Windows 11 users – a backup pop-up

Re: As posted 4 months ago, verbatim.

And the full screen bullshit screen about it needs the "Maybe later" button removing and replacing with a:

"Fuck off and die right now""

button.

But then the same applies to Copilot and Cortana before it.

Re: Just say NO!

Like that line displayed during a Windows 10 install:

"Leave everything to us...."

You have got to be fucking joking!?!?!?!?

It is like being asked to sit back and relax while a blind barber with the shakes tries to give you a shave with a cut throat razor....

Just say NO!

Microsoft are just on one long seemingly endless drive to grab customers' data and make them cash slaves to Redmond.

CrowdStrike meets Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong will

Re: MBA culture replaced engineering culture

I'd profer that they need Feynman's classic line tattooed across their foreheads:

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"

School gets an F for using facial recognition on kids in canteen

Too many people never use the hand gel....

I use it before and after using the touch screen when ever I go.

"It also notes that the school previously used fingerprint scanners for meals... but I suppose they had post-COVID hygiene concerns regarding the contact patch"

Which has always puzzled me why so many GP surgeries have "touch screen" booking in systems even before COVID.

And I noticed this on CRB Cunningham's website:

"It's just fast! Better than fingerprints - School Business Manager, Kingsmeadow School"

That sort of says it all - "School Business Manager".

Re: Ah.... <smug mode>

Seconds? Thirds? Fourths?

Have you ever had school dinners?

AI models face collapse if they overdose on their own output

Re: "using AI-generated datasets to train future models may generate gibberish"

Sounds like AI is about ready to move into politics.....

Angry admins share the CrowdStrike outage experience

Re: Holidays

Leyden jars.... :)

Re: Holidays

What?

No Faraday cage to keep your backups in?

Shame on you.

Facebook prank sent techie straight to Excel hell

Re: In our office it was Quake

And what a great "network stress testing" tool Quake was/is LOL

Ah.... But did you install the "bombs" wad pak and neglect to tell one particular colleague - who then wondered what the f*** was going on when he was hit by homing missiles and gib gun rounds from everyone else as we strained to keep straight faces.

Life, interrupted: How CrowdStrike's patch failure is messing up the world

Re: Major crisis averted - just

Or worse - those that rely on their phones for everything including making payments.

The number of times I, along with others, have been stuck behind someone faffing about with their phone to try and make a contactless payment.

CrowdStrike shares sink as global IT outage savages systems worldwide

Re: Clusterf*ck or what?

What a surprise - that part of their main page has been removed LOL

Re: The fault's with Microsoft

That is rather disingenuous.

Anyone remember the unleaded fuel additive debacle several years ago where drivers would pull into (typically a supermarket) petrol station, fill up, then find their car majorly malfunctioned?

Yes the engine stopped working, but that is only because of the crap additive in the fuel. You can't blame the manufacturer of the engine for that, they way you are blaming Microsoft for CrowdStrike's monumental f*ckup.

Kaspersky challenges US government to put up or shut up about Kremlin ties

Re: Who @amajadedcynicaloldfart

With such poorly posed questions as that, I'm not surprsed you don't work for anyone LOL.

What was that question even supposed to mean?

CrowdStrike file update bricks Windows machines around the world

But your "pissant tiny one man band outfit" as you so ungraciously put it, is very unlikely to be using CrowdFuck on their PCs.

If they are, it is more likely to be because they trusted and outsourced it to some "all knowing" IT consultancy who put CrowdFuck on their PCs.