* Posts by Hubert Cumberdale

1087 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Sep 2019

Page:

Google wants to target you – yes, YOU – with AI-generated ads

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: "A few days ago, I fired up YT in Firefox and it disabled all my extensions."

I'm skeptical. If this happened, then we should all smash our devices and run for the hills in tinfoil hats because all bets are off.

I don't question your personal experience, I just question the fundamental cause. If YT – or indeed any website – can mess with a browser's extensions in that way, then something is seriously wrong with the browser. Mayhap you should check for malware?

Microsoft enables booting physical PCs directly into cloud PCs

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Am I in an American Teen Horror Movie?

...and this one isn't even actually a thin client – it's a fully-fledged and perfectly capable desktop being used for something a Raspberry Pi could do.

Microsoft finally gets around to supporting rar, gz and tar files in Windows

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: I am not convinced

Yes.

"Just like you would with Bing Chat..."

i.e., you just wouldn't.

Microsoft will upgrade Windows 10 21H2 users whether they like it or not

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Windows 11 use has jumped from almost 9 percent in March (2022) to 23 percent in April.

They probably also know that the holdouts (like me) tend to play leapfrog with the versions (in my case, roughly 3.11 -> 98SE -> XP -> 7 -> 10 [-> 12?]).

Twitter adds new DM features, and Musk claims encryption is here, starting today

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Since a week or two ago when Twitter stopped letting me search without logging in, I've decided I just don't care any more (not that I cared that much before).

Owner of 'magic spreadsheet' tried to stay in the Lotus position until forced to Excel

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Perhaps if Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss had used that, things might've gone better than they did.

Chrome's HTTPS padlock heads to Google Graveyard

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Oddly (for me), I kind of agree with Google. I say pointing out when it's plain HTTP is probably the best strategy, as it means everything is potentially visible in transit (which is a problem). Showing a padlock is kind of meaningless when the use of encryption is the norm (or it bloody should be): it just gives people a false sense of security.

Microsoft cries foul over UK gaming deal blocker but it's hard to feel sorry for them

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Congrats for an article that entirely avoids any detail

(And those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it.)

Microsoft pushes users to the Edge in Outlook, Teams

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Well, it's approriate

Top tip – Edge can't run at all if you do this:

c:

cd "%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Microsoft\Edge\Application\9*\Installer"

setup --uninstall --force-uninstall --verbose-logging --system-level

(You might need to change that 9* to an 8* – haven't quite worked that out yet.)

Seems to be working long term for me now.

China again signals desire to shape global IPv6 standards

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Thanks to the Great Firewall

Being a totalitarian regime, China are better placed than most to make IPv6 happen in their country. However, it'd be nice if they'd also actually normalise the use of TLS like most of the rest of the world. I go to a lot of Chinese journal websites, and almost all of them are plain, unencrypted HTTP. I guess they don't really want people using encryption. Which is exactly why I think everyone should encrypt everything all the time.

Amazon, Bing, Wikipedia make EU's list of 'Very Large' platforms

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Considering how hard MS tries to force Bing (and of course Edge) down people's throats, its market share is actually pitiful. I'd wager it's made up largely of people who don't know any better. (And I'm really glad they dropped their cringeworthy attempts to turn "Bing" into a verb.)

Support chap put PC into 'drying mode' and users believed it was real

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Nipples and sonic screwdrivers

The appropriate term for it depends on the level of formality required.

Child-devouring pothole will never hurt a BMW driver again

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Volvos are really dull

I never said that Volvos were dull, merely that their drivers tend to be seen as such. At the risk of being insulting (and with no personal offence intended), I'm not sure that reeling off a list of info/stats about your Volvo helps to change that image...

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Volvo drivers don't get a serve too?

I'm in the UK, and my dad's had one Volvo or another for the last 40 years or so. There's quite a few around, but Volvo drivers here tend to be seen as rather boring, I think – not even really worthy of comment one way or the other.

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

I've heard it said (and I find it quite comforting) that if you ever feel like your job is just a pointless waste of time, remember that in a factory somewhere in Germany, someone is fitting an indicator light* to a new BMW.

(*"turn signal" if you're in the US)

Microsoft stumps loyal fans by making OneDrive handle Outlook attachments

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

I vote for Tutanota.

Azure blunder left Bing results editable, MS 365 accounts potentially exposed

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

I wish I could edit Bing's search results. They might get more useful.

Amazon opens its ad-hoc Wi-Fi-sipping Sidewalk mesh to all manner of gadgets

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Nope.

Nope. And Nope. Ain't no way I'm lettin' shit on my network link up to other people's random shit and lettin' them channel their shit through my shit. I mean – shit, man! My home hub ain't no ho!

Europe's right-to-repair law asks hardware makers for fixes for up to 10 years

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: @Hubert Cumberdale

I would suggest that a lot of it is down to the massive inequality that exists in the US (and I note that the UK has been getting progressively worse on that front over the last decade or so).

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: @Hubert Cumberdale

Nicely done. Got any mum jokes?

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: @Hubert Cumberdale

Okay then. Homicide rate per 100k (2019) – US: 5.77. UK: 1.28. Interestingly, 4.5 times lower. Still not looking good – let me guess: that's somehow also caused by loony liberal lefties and their violation of your right to shoot them? Also note that more than half of gun deaths in the US are suicide. It's much harder to kill yourself over here, and that's a good thing.

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

It may be mostly the police and criminals that have guns in the UK, but I'm just fine with that; tight gun control indisputably reduces the number of gun-related deaths. (If you think otherwise, then you're an idiot: feel free to indicate this using the downvote button.)

Firearm-related death rate (per 100K pop.): US: 10.89. UK: 0.24. Yes. That's right. 45 times fewer.

There's one sure winner in the AI explosion, say analysts: Dutch outfit ASML

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Is it just me that thinks "ASML" looks like one of those there acronyms the cool kids used to use? Not sure what it stands for, though. (How about "actually s####ing myself laughing"?)

Yes, Samsung 'fakes' its smartphone Moon photos – who cares?

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: What a laugh...

Which is fine. But it's still quite different from your camera effectively saying, "It looks like you're taking a picture of the moon. That's been done a lot before, and with better cameras: let me download a better photo and give you that instead (without even telling you)."

China launches yet another crackdown on social media

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

*quiet

Don't worry, that system's not actually active – oh, wait …

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Change window - cue the drums

Fair point, fair point. My partner often rolls her eyes when I start out on what I think is a novel anecdote...

As for hiding things with an adblocker – that's a good point. I reckon, given a small amount of time and motivation, I could set a rule for uBlock0 to make it seem like posts from certain users aren't even there! Certainly worth considering for some (not you – you can be entertaining). Might get confusing though, wondering what people are replying to.

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Change window - cue the drums

Cool story, but I thought it sounded familiar. You've posted it before, three times, in fact. With precisely the same wording. I know you enjoy getting the upvotes, but don't you think that's milking it just a little?

Service desk tech saved consultancy Capita from VPN meltdown, got a smack for it

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: "brought the company name into disrepute."

Maybe it was his use of that bizarre and unloved compression format, RAR, that was the problem. I guess it was just an easy way of creating a self-extractor back then (and the less said about a random self-extractor downloaded from a newly registered domain having unfettered access to root drive the better). Can we all agree that there no sane reason for anyone to use RAR today, though? Right? Can't we?

[runs away expecting torrent of abuse for some reason]

European Commission bans TikTok from staff gadgets

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Is it me, or does the word "cyber" in isolation sound weird and dated? I get its use in some compounds (cyberattack, cyberbullying, etc.), even if I still don't like it (there must be better prefixes we could use – it just makes no sense regarding its original Greek origin of "steersman"...), but on its own, it feels like it should have gone the way of "information superhighway" or "world wide web" (and don't even try to pretend that "cyberspace" sounds anything but ludicrous now).

Microsoft begs you not to ditch Edge on Google's own Chrome download page

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: This isn't that new

This has been working for me for a while now:

c:

cd "%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Microsoft\Edge\Application\9*\Installer"

setup --uninstall --force-uninstall --verbose-logging --system-level

It hasn't come back in over a year. (You might need to change that 9* to an 8* – depends.) Also worth doing:

REG ADD "\\.\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate" /v DoNotUpdateToEdgeWithChromium /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

but I don't think it really achieves anything any more.

Gen Z lingo and search engines: A Millennial Odyssey

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: "quickly distill information"

It's still fun though:

Me: Do you speak jive?

ChatGPT: As an AI language model, I have the ability to generate text in a variety of natural languages and dialects, but I do not have the ability to speak or understand spoken language like a human would. However, I can understand and respond to written text in a variety of dialects and languages, including Jive.

Me: Cut me some slack, Jack.

ChatGPT: Sure thing, my man. No need to get your feathers ruffled, everything is cool like a fool in a swimming pool. Is there anything in particular you need assistance with?

I'd say that's fairly impressive.

Romance scam targets security researcher, hilarity ensues

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: I’m too boring, I never see these scams

Are you sure? I'd be curious to know what effect the recently increased levels of w##king from home have had on daytime access statistics for certain sites...

That's not a TP-Link access point, it's a… vacuum?

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Vaccumming up for you

Quite. It's Gen Z we need to be snarky about now.

Microsoft promises smaller Windows 11 updates with UUP – but there's a catch

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: As an administrator

Best atomic update for W11 -->

Google now won't black-hole all AI-made pages as spam

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: AI and newspapers

If my local rag is anything to go by, an AI could probably do better than the humans that write for it most of the time.

Conversational AI tells us what we want to hear – a fib that the Web is reliable and friendly

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: run for cover and grab the popcorn

When did toilet paper become illegal? Did I miss something?

You can run Windows 11 on just 200MB of RAM – but should you?

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

"You can run Windows 11 on just 200MB of RAM – but should you?"

FTFY, and, no.

Should Google location data be a tool for cops?

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Conversation with a Police officer

"Bigot."

...says the same person who recently suggested that people taking offence at bigotry should be told "to go fuck themselves and mind their own business".

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Conversation with a Police officer

(^ white guy ^)

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Conversation with a Police officer

^ Absolutely this ^

The USA is weird. In the UK, we (allegedly, probably, usually) have policing by consent. Over the pond, it seems that the default assumption is that you probably won't consent, so it's assumed that violence (be that through the demand for verbal subordination or actual physical attack) will be required.

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Or even just shooting people because they're not obsequiously subservient, which is apparently required if you speak to a US cop for some reason.

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: a diameter longer than three football fields

If it were a "proper" football field, then the size could vary considerably.

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Why Google?

"most people have either an Android or iPhone"

iDon't. Maybe I should think about robbing a bank.

User was told three times 'Do Not Reboot This PC' – then unplugged it anyway

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: More Context

"You'll get used to it."

You don't have to.

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: More Context

I personally wondered what that random heading was in the middle of stories with (ironically) no explanation or context (and no links). Turns out uBlock0 has been hiding those links for me automatically. Now I understand! Nice.

Windows 10 paid downloads end but buyers need not fear ISO-lation

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: Ah yes that unicorn Linux Desktop

Rule No. 1 of giving a presentation somewhere new: never assume that your tech will work with their tech. This has always been the case, and probably always will be, whether with Linux, Mac, or Windows. These days that means – as a minimum – taking a fairly long HDMI cable with you (and of course any crazy conversion dongles that your super-slim near-portless laptop might insist you need). And I still never trust wireless for anything critical (which includes the critical avoidance of embarrassment during a presentation). And if I'm feeling like things may be a bit behind, projector-technology wise (I'm looking at you, tiny random church I'm talking at for some reason), then I'll even take an HDMI-to-VGA converter...

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

I thought everyone on here was unanimously agreed that Mint is the way forward [ducks and runs for cover].

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

"appears only to impact buyers who shop on Microsoft's website"

Well that rules out anyone with any sense then. There are always cheaper ways to get MS software than from their website. Personally, I'm a fan of grey-market licence keys (though I suspect I'll get a barrage of criticism for that).

Publisher halts AI article assembly line after probe

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

Re: I really don't see

Probably somewhere with the outrage at your spelling.

India uses emergency powers to order takedown of BBC documentary

Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

He's here! Quick, censor him!

Page: