Posts by Greybearded old scrote

Another open source project dies of neglect, leaving thousands scrambling

Re: Yeah, right

German comedy is no laughing matter.

Interesting thought

D. Richard Hipp manages to run a viable business by getting sponsored to work on public domain SQLite. Just as well, since you'll be hard put to find a computer that does anything useful without it these days. Most won't even boot up.

I wonder how he can where others can't?

Re: Yeah, right

Aw maan! Pass the ear-vermicide.

Yeah, right

Please remember when to use the joke icon.

Two paths to Enlightenment: AV Linux 25 and MX Moksha step forward

Why the forks?

I've long used original Enlightenment on Debian. What are the advantages of the two forks?

Not criticising, just wondering.

Microsoft's lack of quality control is out of control

Re: Microsoft gave up all pretext of caring about QA/QC ...

For very small values of "everyone."

You'll never guess what the most common passwords are. Oh, wait, yes you will

Re: Avoid plain biometrics

Don't even need a finger, when you leave your password on every damn thing you touch.

This security hole can crash billions of Chromium browsers, and Google hasn't patched it yet

This

This is why Brendan Eich should have been drummed out of our community many years before his political views got him cancelled.

Trusting code from any rando you encounter was the dumbest idea.

Re: my local rag causes NoScript's list of domains ... to fall off the bottom of the screen

If you've configured noscript to temporarily allow scripts from the same domain. Then very likely examined the list for whatever cdn(s) they are using. By the 2nd or third attempt I decide that their dribblings aren't that important to me after all.

It's still less hassle than letting everything run, but I can't recommend it to my non-techie friends.

Dame Emma Thompson gives the 'AI revolution' both barrels

As has been pointed out elsewhere

Nobody had to be forced to use the early spreadsheets.

Re: Linux for Luvvies

Oh, do be serious. Do you think somebody whose expertise is in drama should have a tinkerer's OS inflicted on them?

OTOH, I'd be all up for guiding them through a switch to one of the "beginner's" distributions. Done it before, with a decent outcome. Mint is my preferred one. But "other easy systems are available" as they say.

Re: Self-inflicted problem

Mate, a latex wife has much better functions.

The real insight behind measuring Copilot usage is Microsoft's desperation

WTAF?!?!?!

No telemetry is not, "an essential part of life cycle management." It's an abusive practice that needs to be stamped out, hard.

One more good reason to use the FLOSS. You know that it's good hygiene.

Re: Open letter to Microsoft

Given how the Luddites were concerned with justice in how technology should be used, I would call that a compliment.

Major AWS outage across US-East region breaks half the internet

Re: Thanks, Bezos!

"Hopefully, now all the people using AWS as an infrastructure rethinks their choice."

Such optimism. You can't possibly have been paying attention.

British govt agents demand action after UK mega-cyberattacks surge 50%

Anything of substance?

So what you've reported can be summed up as, "Oy you, do something!"

Did the report include any real advice, or have you declined to repeat that part?

Exchange Online will start archiving your oldest emails before your inbox bursts

Re: Timely

Sounds like the last thing he needs to me. Messages will be magicked away from where he expects them to some other location.

Sounds like you've screwed up his workflow to me.

See above.

Re: Stupid cognitive model

I don't care. Exposing the implementation detail like that is poor design.

Do you still fiddle with a "mixture" lever on your car? I suspect not.

Stupid cognitive model

So you have no space in Inbox, but ample in Archive? How about you just take the pointless limit off the Inbox?

Storage is cheap, data is precious. I delete very little other than one-time codes.

So what if most of it is never needed again? Computers are very good at searching, so long as they aren't coded by complete idio...

Oh

India’s IT minister moves to Zoho’s spreadsheet and word processor, urges 1.4 billion people to do likewise

Re: If it hurts Microsoft, it must be a good thing

Nadella era? I have a long memory, they've always been like that.

After nearly half a century in deep space, every ping from Voyager 1 is a bonus

Re: We couldn't do it again

Ever visited Niagara? Only the American side needs to have signs informing you that it is illegal to try to go over the falls.

The UK Online Safety Act is about censorship, not safety

Re: "adult content providers"

Did you see the part where discussions of Middle Eastern politics and stopping smoking were affected?

Microsoft wares may be UK public sector's only viable option

FUD! FUD! FUD! FUD!

Lovely FUD! lovely FUD!

I would present my counter arguments, but those above are close enough.

I started losing my digital privacy in 1974, aged 11

"Anonymised" is the problem there. If there is enough detail to be useful there is too much to be genuinely anonymous. Those who keep saying, "It's ok, it's all anonymised" either don't know statistics (even less than me) or don't know ethics.

BTW, that Pluralistic article linked to includes the best solution to the problem that I've heard of.

Context is everything

I think keeping medical records for life is sensible, since it can be of direct benefit to the person concerned.

OTOH, exporting the lot to a foreign spy-tech company as the UK is doing is a whole other thing. Especially when they've named themselves after the tool of a fictional Big Bad. (When somebody tells you so explicitly who they are you should believe them.)

When asked we told the relevent authorities to fornicate elsewhere (twice), so the third time they decided that they didn't need to ask.

Some users report their Firefox browser is scoffing CPU power

Re: management's efforts to forcibly insert "AI" everywhere

Mozilla's management isn't Artificial Intelligence, it's Natural Stupidity.

You've got drought: UK gov suggests you save water by deleting old emails

Re: From the Department that brought you classics such as

True, we had "Protect and Survive." With the most ridiculous fallout shelter imaginable.

I can only imagine it was intended to give us doomed plebs a comforting illusion of control.

Mexit, not Brexit, is the new priority for the UK

Re: Alternatives

BTW, "FOSS" is not a synonym for "Centos." Have you ever heard of Debian?

Re: Alternatives

Munich were doing alright, until a purely political decision wasted all that good work.

Re: Simple options

You seem to have missed the point of our vulture's term "Mexit."

"For further information please reread," as they say in Scarfolk.

Debian isn't waiting for 2038 to blow up, switches to 64-bit time for everything

Excellent work

Just another reason why I keep coming back to Debian after trying anything else.

Have a few of the icon folks.

Re: 1900?

It's a signed number. The overflow wraps around to a negative value.

The EFF is 35, but the battle to defend internet freedom is far from over

You forgot the joke icon mate. Here, have mine.

Selling your digital soul to use Bluesky's DMs isn't just a bad idea, it's the law*

Re: Better idea

And identifying unsupervised children goes down the same rabbit hole.

I diagnose excess blood in your caffeine stream.

Re: Moden Slavery

Do you know of any place where the left have any power these days? Even the political party that claims to be"Labour" is purging it's remaining lefties and parroting Tory (or even Reform) catch phrases.

Re: Furious

Sorry mate, you got the wrong country there. One of the things we have got right over here is that it's very difficult to get your hands on a gun.

UK tech minister negotiated nothing with Google. He may get even less than that

Re: just shite

Our government doesn't have an inferiority complex, silly. They are inferior!

(I was going to use the joke icon, but I'm not sure that's true.)

Privacy campaigners pour cold water on London cops' 1,000 facial recognition arrests

I want my free country back

I've said before that asking the computer if anyone in this enormous population is one of this very large "bad boys" list is statistically implausible. The false positives compound surprisingly quickly when you are making m to n comparisons.

That's before you start asking about the cleanliness of your data. GIGO and all that.

Beyond the practical issues, it's abhorrent to me to have the entire population live in an open prison. In one test run a few years back somebody was stopped and harrassed (not sure my memory is right, but I think arrested?) for putting his hand over his face. How long before wearing a peaked cap and a medical mask (long covid is still a bitch) becomes cause for suspicion?

But that's a lost argument when even having a human rights lawyer in charge isn't going to protect us.

Firefox is fine. The people running it are not

Sometimes, when the pale/tiny design has even beaten the High Contrast plugin, I might use the dev tools to switch off the font size and color properties. That gets me my browser default back.

Usually I'm staggered at how many times the incompetent fool of an alleged designer has redefined those.

Or sometimes I just decide that what the site has to say isn't that important to me after all.

UK charity bank CAF branded a 'disaster' after platform migration goes wrong

We are 100% focussed

Shame they weren't before really.

Has anyone seen a Big Bang transition that didn't turn into a Big Boom?

Wayback gives X11 desktops a fighting chance in a Wayland world

Re: Love Wayland

Is your surname really Jobs? I recommend some reading matter from Donald Norman.

Re: Fiddling about while Linux burns.

Maybe not.

What if Microsoft just turned you off? Security pro counts the cost of dependency

Re: Choosing risk

Or you could use a 20 sided die by staying out of the monoculture.

Re: Choosing risk

Try telling Marks & Spencer that their current setup minimised risk and maximised profit.

Techie traveled 4 hours to fix software that worked perfectly until a new hire used it

Re: manuals

And you've clearly learned 0 about reality. What was that popular definition of insanity again?

Re: I touch it and it breaks!

I look forward to those arseholes finding that they have to live in the world they have created.

ISS leaks push Axiom Mission 4 launch to no earlier than June 19

Don't de-orbit

Such a significant piece of history deserves preservation. Boost it to a higher orbit.

Windows 95 testing almost stalled due to cash register overflow

Occasionally maxint is inadequate.

I contend that no limits make sense except zero, one and maxint. Zero and one are less common than you think too.