* Posts by Will Godfrey

5877 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Sep 2007

Yes, I did just crash that critical app. And you should thank me for having done so

Will Godfrey Silver badge
Facepalm

The ultimate test

If you really want to test anything with a interface for humans, take it to a primary school. It's the teachers who will (in all innocence) break it in the most bizarre and unbelievable ways. I think it's the constant exposure to vertically challenged proto-people that does it to them.

Ad agency boss owned two Ferraris but wouldn't buy a real server

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Re: Walk away

... and likely soon won't be.

European Union lawmakers line up to defend world's first AI Act

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Meh

E for effort

It might 'hold' for a while, but something much better is needed to corral this.

Whizkids jimmy OpenAI, Google's closed models

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Facepalm

Again?

As I mentioned before, I was just once referred to as a boffin. I took that as a badge of honour, and it put me on a high for the rest of the day.

If it bothers you, just don't let the door hit your arse on the way out.

Microsoft waited 6 months to patch actively exploited admin-to-kernel vulnerability

Will Godfrey Silver badge
Angel

Thought Experiment

I wonder what would happen if a group of (not nice) people went straight after compromising Microsoft itself.

Arguably unnecessary, as they seem to do it pretty well themselves.

Job interview descended into sweary shouting match, candidate got the gig anyway

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Happy

Re: The first one is free

In 1960 UK the accent was totally unknown and the 't' was thought to be silent, so Nessles it was.

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Facepalm

Re: I may have told this one before...

Has anyone been able to find out exactly what value HR add to a company.

The S in IoT stands for security. You'll never secure all the Things

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Unhappy

As I've said before

The only smart thing here is between my ears - and that's getting a bit debatable!

BOFH: I get locked out, but I get in again

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Angel

Re: Swopping Locks

I was more nasty. I'd open them, slip off the circlip, then swap the digit wheels, put it back together and relock it.

Incoming wave of AI is making buying PCs riskier for businesses

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Stop

Not likely to arrive here

The most recent purchase was a quad core Ryzen5 late 2017 I think. It is more than capable of everything I want to do with it.

The other next {cough} newest is a small fanless dual core one I do my general scratching around on - like commentarding here - that was about 2014 I think.

My laptop is older still. Dunno when I got that.

Palantir boss says outfit's software the only reason the 'goose step' has not returned to Europe

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Big Brother

What an arrogant prat

If this guy told me the sky was blue, I'd immediately look up to find out what colour it really was.

If we plug this in without telling anyone, nobody will know we caused the outage

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Coat

Re: Ugh I hated SCSI cables

I'll see your 68 pin SCSI and raise you a fully populated 120 pin EDAC - complete with a lovely tangle of A/V cabling.

BOFH: In the event of a conference, the ninja clause always applies

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Thumb Up

I needed this.

My day has just improved 100%

Spent much of the morning (failing to) get sense out of a banking app :(

City of London ditches Oracle for SAP in search of ERP enlightenment

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Coat

Groundhog Day?

... or a variation of it. Only in this one you don't eventually break out of the loop.

Forgetting the history of Unix is coding us into a corner

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Unhappy

Re: What Unix cost us

No froth at the mouth here (no downvote either). Just puzzlement as to why you feel the need to be so unpleasant.

Southern Water cyberattack expected to hit hundreds of thousands of customers

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Unhappy

But of course it was the Thatcher monster

A Tory so blue she was positively ultraviolet!

Australia passes Right To Disconnect law, including (for now) jail time for bosses who email after-hours

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Only once had that problem

One manager called me in the middle of the night for an urgent call out, but I was only half awake and fell asleep again - in fact I don't actually remember the call at all. The following day I arrived at work and there was pandemonium. When nobody turned up the customer didn't complain to the manager (who was of course not contactable) but instead complained to the real boss. Manager was nowhere to be found, and I was questioned but not sanctioned in any way. I fairly soon moved on to a much better job, so don't know how things eventually settled down.

How did China get so good at chips and AI? Congressional investigation blames American venture capitalists

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Unhappy

Just hot air

If it's a choice between genuine human rights concern and campaign funding, guess which takes priority.

When red flags are just office decoration: Edinburgh Uni's Oracle IT disaster

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Facepalm

Again a classic quote:

"Send reinforcements. We're going to advance."

becomes:

"Send three and fourpence. We're going to a dance."

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Thumb Up

Re: Here it is in full - it's called "The Plan"

I've kept a copy here for some time, and sent it to a few people. Some get it, others are offended.

Aircraft rivet hole issues cause delays to Boeing 737 Max deliveries

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Facepalm

How can a company be that bad...

... and still be in business at all?

JetBrains' unremovable AI assistant meets irresistible outcry

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Meh

Re: Bad expectations (was: Bad code)

I have a somewhat jaundiced view of unit tests. They are only of any use if you are testing the right things - and discovering what the right things are, is the hard part.

This is particularly relevant with sound generation software i.e. soft-synths. One that I was using some years back fell foul of this. Extensive unit tests were set up prior to a major upgrade. After the upgrade the sound of just one of the patches I'd designed changed noticeably. They never did discover what had actually changed, and I had to rework the patch to fit.

Another one that didn't show up, they did fix but with the comment "We didn't think anyone would do that." If it can be done, sooner or later it will be done!

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Facepalm

JetBrains is completely missing the point

It's throwing developers into the position where they have no idea what is actually in the resulting code - never mind where it came from.

Zen Internet warns customers of an impending IP address change

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Unhappy

Disappointing

I've been with Zen for years - don't know just how long but definitely in the 25-20 year range. About 6 months ago I switched from ADSL to FTTC and their supplied router. I've not heard a thing about this change, so don't know if I'm not affected, or just forgotten about.

SparkyLinux harbors a flamboyant array of desktops

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Happy

I'm all for choice

It's not compulsory, you know!

Over a {cough} few years, I've refined my setup so it behaves pretty much exactly as I want, and is as lightweight as possible. No doubt other's would hate it. Fine, they can (if they want to) set up theirs differently.

They can, of course, simply use what they are given... and moan about it.

Linus Torvalds flames Google kernel contributor over filesystem suggestion

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Thumb Down

Meh!

I'm rather disappointed that El Reg, has seemingly descended to gutter press standards, and is taking a cheap pop at someone who is under enormous stress rather than delving into the actual issues at stake.

BOFH: Looks like you're writing an email. Fancy telling your colleague to #$%^ off?

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Thumb Up

So true, so true.

Say's almost exactly what I've been thinking for months. So far, nothing has suggested I might be even a smidgen off track.

Upvote for Simon; mental downvote (and nuke) for what's happening.

White goods giant fires legal threats to unplug open source plugin

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Happy

Re: Just bought both a washing machine and dishwasher

Strange game. The only way to win is not to play.

Fits this situation too.

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Meh

Re: Some people...

Ummm. I'm on Economy7 and have been for donkeys years. I know exactly when the cheap rate is and set timers for all the kit than makes heavy use of power. Why would I need a 'smart' anything?

Ransomware attacks hospitalizing security pros, as one admits suicidal feelings

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Coat

Re: Russia

In case you hadn't noticed, there are other countries where ransom activity is rife - and not just on-line.

Junior techie had leverage, but didn’t appreciate the gravity of the situation

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Boffin

The biggest problem that everyone overlooks is where to dispose of the used electrons? You surely don't expect them to run back uphill.

US agencies warn made-in-China drones might help Beijing snoop on the world

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Facepalm

What terrible people!

Upstanding citizens in the US would never dream of doing such a thing with any of their kit. Next thing they might do even worse... maybe create a search engine that scrapes, stores and sell everything they can find out about people.

IT consultant fined for daring to expose shoddy security

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Unhappy

Not Surprised

Remember folks, the first thing we do is shoot the messenger.

At last: The BBC Micro you always wanted, in Mastodon form

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Meh

Re: I still have the real thing

Unfortunately not. It's very similar and solidly built, with a 40/80 track switch on the back, but there's no maker's label.

Will Godfrey Silver badge
Happy

I still have the real thing

Well, second generation - BBC Master, along with the classic Microvitec colour monitor.

How 'sleeper agent' AI assistants can sabotage your code without you realizing

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Boffin

I wonder how an AI would treat your comment. I upvoted it based on the overall sentiment, but there are a mixture of what could be described as positive and negative micro-statements.

Cloudflare defends firing of staffer for reasons HR could not explain

Will Godfrey Silver badge
Happy

Not worked anywhere like that

Last place I worked, we had a decent standing rate for weekend on call, rotated week by week for 8 of us, and a minimum of 4 hours site pay + traveling time, even if it was just to arrive reset a trip and leave again. We never got any nonsense call outs.

Infosys co-founder doubles down on call for 70-hour work weeks

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WTF?

WTF

He's got his head so far up his arse he could probably see what he had for lunch!

Drivers: We'll take that plain dumb car over a flashy data-spilling internet one, thanks

Will Godfrey Silver badge
Meh

Not coming here

I'll stick to dumb cars that do what I want when I want it - which consists of getting me from A to B safely in a reasonable time. During a journey I'll probably spend about 10% of the time concentrating on what I'm doing, and the other 90% assessing what everyone else on the road is doing.

Former Post Office boss returns CBE to sender over computer system scandal

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Mushroom

Just when you think it can't get any worse...

'nuff said?

Everyone's suing AI over text and pics. But music? You ain't seen nothing yet

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Meh

Hmmm.

These days I hardly ever listen to commercially produced music. Instead I get it from amateur musicians directly, or sometimes just compose something myself.

Facebook, Instagram now mine web links you visit to fuel targeted ads

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Meh

I'm OK with this

I didn't need any more reasons to avoid facebook like the plague it is.

RIP: Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth

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Thumb Up

He had a pretty good run

He'll be remembered long after the current crop of 'experts' are forgotten.

P.S. Thumb up because there's nothing to be sorry about.

AMD talks up car chips it hopes will join you for a ride some time soon

Will Godfrey Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Some people do like this up to a point

I always drive with dipped headlights in daytime when driving down narrow country roads (and I do a lot of that round here). For a start, it gives approaching traffic an extra bit of warning, and also tends to make the (many) potholes and tree-root humps more visible.

Will Godfrey Silver badge
Mushroom

Hate this stuff

I want physical buttons and knobs that I can feel for without taking my eyes off the road.

The only entertainment I want is currently supplied by my music player plugged into the 3.5mm socket (don't think that's even possible with current car models).

Expert sounds alarm bells over upcoming NHS data platform

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Unhappy

Some good points there...

... so obviously the report will be completely ignored.

Infostealer malware, weak password leaves Orange Spain RIPE for plucking

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Facepalm

Once again?

How many times does this sort of thing have to happen before people take the matter seriously?

Formal ban on ransomware payments? Asking orgs nicely to not cough up ain't working

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Thumb Up

Sounds like a good idea to me!

People power made payroll support in putrid places prodigiously perilous

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Meh

Re: Somebody needs to cut the sh*t out

Well, I upvoted you, but it would be a very brave (or foolish) person who said that to the low-life's that tend to gravitate to this sort of work.

Amazon already has a colossal ads business and will extend it to Prime Video in January

Will Godfrey Silver badge
Meh

Not happening here

I was never even momentarily tempted by prime - anything.That's on the rare occasions I actually use amazon and the like. Added to this have a number of credit cards with different banks and staggered expiry dates. For any site that's the remotest bit questionable (like amazon) I always use the card with the shortest expiry to limit my risk.