Posts by R Soul

Trump announces $175B for Golden Dome defense shield over America

Though his "hair" could then provide the model for his big, beautiful Trumpodome.

Virgin Media O2 patches hole that let callers snoop on your coordinates

Copenhagen, Denmark

Why the stupid and pointless geography lesson? It's irrelevant to the story which country Copenhagen is in. We all know where Copenhagen is too. And was that the Denmark in Europe or was it the one in Asia?

BTW, what sort of meters were involved, water? gas?, electricity? sound? air pressure? Note to the editor: the SI unit of length is the metre. It isn't spelled "meter". FFS fix this.

Stop Pakistani content at the border, India tells media, tech biz

It's really depressing that gullible proles vote autocrats into power

Except when they vote for lying, incompetent, ego-tripping buffoons. That's so much better for everyone.

90-second Newark blackout exposes parlous state of US air traffic control

lessons will be learned

But lessons are learned: how to blame others, how to dodge responsibility, how to be far away from the next catastrophe, etc. That's always what happens.

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

Re: Automated or not...

The best coffee at a motorway services sets a very, very low bar.

From PlayStation to routers, you've probably been using FreeBSD without knowing it

Re: PS5, Nintendo Switch...

There's one huge difference: systemd.

BSD has nothing to do with that horrendous pile of shit.

Tesla's Optimus can't roll without rare earth magnets, and Beijing ain't budging yet

Oh the irony...

It will be highly entertaining if the Musky One's rare earth difficulties have been complicated by DOGE mass-firings in the government departments who process import paperwork, collect tariff payments, check incoming materials at the border, etc, etc.

California sues President Tariff

a going concern?

"Other than by doing this they end the United states as a going concern"

Unless the Orange Fuckwit beats them to it. He's already well on the way to doing that.

Uncle Sam kills funding for CVE program. Yes, that CVE program

A new opportunity for White House lies

Once the CVE programme is closed, the Orange Fuckwit and his clown parade will claim they've eliminated all software security vulnerabilities forever. There can't be any more bugs from M$ and the rest if there's nowhere to report these - right?

EU gives staff 'burner phones, laptops' for US visits

Why hasn't the Musky One cut the DHS budget and fired thousands of their goons? They're clearly wasting taxpayer money if homeland security means looking for tattoo pictures on social media.

America is not a safe place to be right now.

"The orange one's latest idea is to deport citizens who have committed certain criminal acts. "

Correction: The Orange Fuckwit's idea is to deport people who he claims have committed criminal acts. Awkward details like due process or constitutional rights aren't allowed to get in the way.

Trump's tariff turmoil leaves IT projects in deep freeze

Re: Overwhelmed

" I do not understand Trump's tariffs, neither his decision process on how to decide on what they are, nor his end purpose on what they are supposed to achieve."

Neither does the Orange Fuckwit.

A toddler does a far better job of explaining themselves after being let loose with some crayons and finger paint.

China ups tariffs on US goods to 125%, calls Trump's war a 'joke'

Re: On day one...

"Putin will be able to afford to buy the entire US!"

He doesn't need to do that because he's already bought the White House.

The most important experimental distro you've never heard of gets new project lead

"> I just do wish people still put important statically linked binaries in /sbin

And why does that matter in 2025?"

Because these important statically linked binaries can be put into a read-only partition where not even systemd can fuck with them.

That has to be a Good Thing. Even when your smallest SSD is big enough to hold a recovery/lifeboat OS on another partition.

"We do not need to repair a faulty OS. Replace it."

Wrong! Sometimes repairing the filesystem for that faulty OS is the only or least-worst option. Taking that option away just because some ayatollah decrees replacing the OS MUST be the One True Way is a recipe for disaster. They can't possibly know the constraints on every sysadmin and application which uses that OS. Which means they can't get to decide how some sysadmin MUST do their job.

Let me give you an actual example. I once had a filesystem go so bad, fsck couldn't find a superblock to use for starting repairs. Your solution for that would be to reformat that filesystem, whack a new OS on it and restore whatever was missing from backups. Which would have taken many, many hours. Instead, I used dd in single user mode to copy the first hundred blocks or so from another identically sized partition. The corrupted filesystem now had a viable, if inaccurate superblock. That was enough to get fsck to repair 95%+ of the bad filesystem and bring it back to life in under an hour. Restoring from backup took care of the other 5% or so.

That may well be true. The market need for cranky, inflexible Solaris admins probably has vanished. Mind you, being homeless is a far more attractive option than Linux sysadmin. I'd choose homelessness over systemd fuckery every time. Certain principles and basic decency are simply non-negotiable.

TSMC blew whistle on suspected verboten exports to Huawei – that may cost it $1B+

Re: Question...

"What I don't get is how a Taiwanese company using Dutch equipment to make a Chinese designed chip is compelled to comply with those sanctions - what bit of that is American?"

Lots of the critical tech in the semiconductor supply chain comes (exclusively?) from US companies. TSMC and ASML are well aware of this. They know that if they violate US export restrictions - for instance by selling EUV-based stuff to China - their US suppliers won't be able to do business with them and they'll be fucked. It's also likely that US companies could be prevented from buying stuff from TSMC and ASML if they stepped out of line. Which would be bad for business too.

This is why China is working very hard to develop their own solutions and not be exposed to US tech bans.

Trump doubles down, vows to make Chinese imports even more expensive for Americans

The Art of The Deal

The Orange Fuckwit didn't write this piece of vanity publishing. A ghost writer did it. The book(?) had words and coherent sentences in it. Which was/is obviously far beyond the capabilities of America's moron-in-chief.

Re: Fascinating

Or get Lettuce Liz to arrange the cheese course for the state dinner. But that. Would. Be. A. Disgrace.

Re: replace goods takes several years

Building the new factory is the easy bit - not that it's easy. The other stuff is harder: getting your supply chain (and their suppliers) to do that; securing locally sourced raw materials (like rare earth minerals); coping with the unstable manbaby in the White House; etc.

Americans set to pay more on all imports: Trump activates blanket tariffs

fixing the checks and balances

"maybe it's time to put some actual laws in place that can stop this happening again in future."

Easier said than done. In the US, all laws are underpinned by the Constitution and overseen by the Supreme Court. Which is currently stuffed with Trump arse-kissers. Honest officials who try to uphold the Constitution or are empowered by it are fucked because the Supreme Court will rule against them and for the Trump Administration. Mind you, Trump's getting rid of those honest officials because they're not loyal to him.

Any new laws like the ones you suggest will lose out to a Supreme Court that only does what the President wants - even if it's illegal or unconstitutional. The courts and law enforcement will be unable to keep a crooked President or their clown parade in check.

The brains behind Trump - Thiel and his cronies - worked out how to turn the US into a dictatorship and are now making that a reality. For them, Trump and the Republican Party are merely useful idiots - sock puppets to do their bidding.

And. That. Is. A. Disgrace.

Re: Reaganomics

Look on the bright side! The Orange Fuckwit can't be destroying the world economy when he's cheating his way to yet another Mar-a-Largo golf championship.

Trump: we was duped - really?

Duped?

Americans knew he was/is a world-class moron. Americans knew he was/is a rapist and a convicted felon. And a bankrupt. Americans knew he was/is a serial liar and narcissistic egomaniac. Americans knew he has/had no moral compass. Americans knew he was unfit for public office. And still is. Americans knew his previous Administration was shambolic and ineffective. Americans knew his earlier term of office was corrupt and often unconstitutional. Americans knew he committed insurrection and tried to overturn the result of the 2020 election. Americans knew he encouraged a near-coup and the invasion of Congress in 2021. Americans knew he habitually broke the law when in office - and afterwards. Americans knew him and his family were/are scumbag grifters who'd say and do anything for a quick buck.

After all that, how could anyone possibly claim they were duped?

Americans were/are aware of all Trump's defects. Yet a majority - a majority FFS! - still voted for him.

But the next in line is JD Vance. Who is even more moronic than Trump.

It's pure MAGA maths

.... the new name for what was known as Reaganomics in the 1980s.

Re: Oh dear....

Even if TSMC is serious about building semiconductor factories in Trumpworld (unlikely), it'll take them 5-10 years to produce anything from those new plants. Which don't yet exist on paper BTW. Assuming the countries in the global supply chain which have just had tariffs slapped on them play nice. And China doesn't disrupt the export of rare earth minerals to the US to boost its own semiconductor industry.

"but people shouldn't have encouraged him."

To be fair, he encouraged them first.

leaves Trump looking a bit foolish

When was he anything else?

On the issue of AI copyright, Blair Institute favors tech bros over Cool Britannia

Re: Tony Blair just wants ...

Nah. The tax-free millions he rakes in from kleptocrats, dodgy oligarchs and unpleasant governments more than makes up for the low royalties on his books. Which were probably ghost-written for him anyway.

Re: "text and data mining"...

If I take data from a flat ass, crumbling website and if I build something functional around it without using their trademarks and they have refused to engage my services to provide them with this enhanced functionality, then it should be deemed outside of copyright

Except it usually isn't. There's this thing called compilation copyright. In the days when we had phone books, phone companies and Yellow Pages made a point of asserting that IPR on the publications derived from their customer database(s). I think they still do. Other IPR holders - map makers, dictionaries, etc - are known to slip "canaries" into their work so they can prove when someone's made an illegal knock-off copy - by scraping their web site for instance.

Just because a copyright holder declines to use your services doesn't invalidate their IPR. Or give you the right to shit all over that.

You were very, very lucky that the IPR holder and their lawyer took a pragmatic approach. [They probably did that to avoid bad publicity.] If they'd taken you to court, you'd have lost - big time. You would have been on the hook for damages, their lawyer's fees and court costs. The IPR lawyers I've come across are vicious bastards who litigate at the tiniest provocation.

Forget Signal. National Security Adviser Waltz now accused of using Gmail for work

Re: The easy route

"Maybe the solution is to make the accepted government apps easier to use, or more responsive?'"

No. The solution is severe punishment for anyone who ignores the law or otherwise violates mandatory security protocols. Not that this ever happens in Trumpland. You might remember the Orange Fuckwit hid boxes of classified documents in a golf club toilet. And lied about it.

If the National Security Adviser finds it "too hard" to use the supplied tools for that job, give them a Fisher-Price activity centre and keep them well out of harm's way in a day care facility for toddlers.

There's a very good reason why official tools would be a PITA. You're not allowed to import contact info from insecure social media for individuals who haven't been security vetted.

Re: Dumb but also sneaky

The amount of hairspray holding that bird's nest on to the top of his incredibly thick skull is a serious fire hazard. Just sayin'...

Microsoft is redesigning the Windows BSoD to get you back to work ‘as fast as possible’

Re: Hey Microsoft

SSSHHH! Stop whining. Just look at the new colours for the BSoD. Look! A squirrel!

Re: Hey Microsoft

Trouble is that everyone and their dog wants to install kernel-mode drivers, regardless of need or utility.... And the OS can't ban them entirely

Microsoft could of course do a proper job of vetting third party wannabe kernel code. [Stop sniggering at the back!] But it's much cheaper to avoid that and instead issue press releases about changing the colour of the BSoD. Because that's what world+dog really cares about.

It's high time software vendors were held to the same standards of product liability as every other business sector: pharma, cars, aircraft, food, household appliances, etc. This is the only way to make them accountable for the crap we get sold. If your laptop wipes your data because of a hardware design flaw, whoever made it is liable and can be sued. If it did that because of a software design flaw, nobody's liable because that's what it says in the small print of the licence.

Nuclear center must replace roof on 70-year-old lab so it can process radioactive waste

When did that phase of the nuclear industry stop?

The regulations of the 2020s are keeping that at bay - and forcing the polluters clean up the radioactive shit they leak. Apart from Chernobyl of course.

stupid question

Remind me, how much does a kWh of renewable energy cost on a windless night?

What you should have asked is how much it costs to store a kWh of renewable energy for a windless night.

Renewables aren't just about wind and solar BTW.

UK's first permanent facial recognition cameras installed in South London

Re: False positives

True. However snoopercams will generate orders of magnitude more false positives.

Remember too it's human nature to believe/trust/rely on what computerised systems are saying over other inputs and common sense. If a snoopercam tells PC Plod someone is guilty, then guilty they must be.

Re: Why the sympathy for the criminals?

"I fail to see how flagging that someone wanted for assault/DV/murder/rape is walking down the street to a nearby police officer is a bad thing."

There are none so blind as those who would not see.

Here are just a few ways why this is a bad thing:

1) The snoopercam incorrectly identifies an innocent person as a criminal/suspect.

2) The images on the snoopercam's watchlist are wrong. So it correctly identifies someone who's on this watchlist but is innocent. This is not the same as 1)

3) The snoopercam incorrectly identifies a petty criminal as an international terrorist who then gets shot dead by an armed response unit

4) The snoopercam misidentifies a serial killer as someone who hasn't paid a parking ticket. PC Plod does nothing because making a minor arrest would disrupt their tea break.

5) Everyone's mugshot ends up on the snoopercam database. Because terrorism. Everyone's movements are tracked continuously. Everywhere. Always.

6) Those not on that database get flagged by the snoopercams as asylum seekers/illegal immigrants and automatically hauled off to a detention camp for deportation. No ifs or buts.

7) Real criminals/suspects use disguises (say David Blunkett masks or just a pair of sunglasses) so they can walk about unhindered by the snoopercams.

8) Cops will abuse the snoopercams to harass anyone they don't like: ex partners, people with dark skin, anyone who goes on a demo or campaigns for civil liberties, etc

9) Governments will abuse the snoopercams to harass their political opponents.

Re: Success rate?

Since careers and promotions are involved, I'll take a wild guess and say they never drop the snoopercams.

Ah. That explains why the cameras only ID'ed two rapists. Silly me.

Re: Wrong question

They should instead ask whether adequately resourced conventional policing methods are not being used.

No. The Met should be explaining why they've abandoned conventional policing methods. They also have to explain how this or any other new technology is (a) better than the tools they already have (b) compatible with a free, democratic society.

Pervasive state surveillance might be OK in China or Putinstan. It's not OK in Blighty.

UK govt data people not 'technical,' says ex-Downing St data science head

stating the bleeding obvious

So, someone realises the Oxbridge PPE and Classics wankers who infest the upper reaches of the Civil Service are useless for anything that has a STEM background? Who knew? I wonder if they have some insights into what bears do in the woods or the pope's religious beliefs.

Tech support session saved files, but probably ended a marriage

going passive-aggressive on a petty tyrant

Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I did tech support in a university department. The prof decided to make a know-nothing lecturer oversee the helpdesk: ie me. This petty tyrant decreed I must work 9-5 because that's what "professional" helpdesks did. It didn't matter almost nobody but him was in the department at 9am or that many staff worked in the early evening and needed IT support after the day's lecturing ended. I was to be at my desk between 9-5 regardless because that's the way the petty tyrant wanted it to be.

A week or so later, the petty tryant demanded I fix his computer. At just before 5pm. After taking a quick look, the following conversation happened:

Me: "Sorry. It'll take 20+ minutes. I'll fix it tomorrow morning." [It wouldn't but PT was too clueless to know that.]

PT: "Can't you stay on for a few minutes? I've got this important thing to finish today."

Me: "No, I can't. You decided my working day stops at 5pm and rules is rules. If I stay late, I'll miss my train home."

PT: "But...."

Me: "See you tomorrow. I have a train to catch. Have a nice evening."

Now I could have worked late and still caught that (hourly) train. Which I'd gladly have done for anyone else in the department apart from the petty tyrant. Who was one of those "do you know who I am?" arrogant arseholes. However it was beer o'clock and petty tyrant needed to learn the hard way who actually was in charge of tech support.

His 9-5 edict got quietly buried and he stopped bothering me.

Palantir suggests 'common operating system' for UK govt data

Re: What do we get for our money

On the upside (there's an upside?), we'd get no involvement by Crapita or Dildo Harding.

Datacenters near Heathrow seemingly stay up as substation fire closes airport

Re: How?

the top 1% of income tax payers accounted for 29% of the income tax raised

But that 1% aren't who you think they are. "The rich" pay no income tax, NI, CGT, inheritance tax. They're the nom-doms, kleptocrats and the aristocracy who hide their assets in offshore trusts. Then we have big business who cook the books to dodge what they should be paying in tax. Vodafone was able to make billions in profit one year and somehow pay less in tax than someone on minimal wage. The likes of Starbucks, Google, Amazon and Facebook get away with that year after year - and they are not the only ones.

Those of us who pay tax are ripped off by the ones with the deepest pockets who don't and won't pay their fare share. 'Twas ever thus.

You lost me at "a competent and ambitious central government".

What is this mythical beast?

Re: Questions will doubtless be asked

"Just keeping one terminal open should have kept incoming incoming even if they had to abandon departures. They only needed one runway so there is plenty of parking."

Easier said than done. There probably aren't enough gates at one LHR terminal to handle arriving planes for more than an hour or two. Airline staff ground teams, baggage handlers, etc generally can't switch between terminals at short notice either: different companies, different contracts and so on. Playing Jenga with planes parked on the unused runway and taxiways is non-trivial too. Oh and the crews for outbound flights might not be at LHR once the lights got turned on again.

Even if all this was feasible, captains could still have taken the decision to divert elsewhere or not fly at all and avoid what was sure to be a bigger than usual shit-show at LHR.

Re: Questions will doubtless be asked

Substantially increased retail opportunities in the shopping malls.

The OP might well be on to something here.

Re: Really...?

"No matter what you do there will always be events out of your control that will bring something down."

This was not one of them. A major outage of the electricity supply at LHR is a reasonably foreseeable incident => the airport owners should have had adequate backup arrangements in place, >1 connection to the grid, no single points of failure, etc, etc.

Besides, the BA IT meltdown a few years ago should have been a warning to everyone at LHR to have viable and tested contingency plans.

The post-quantum cryptography apocalypse will be televised in 10 years, says UK's NCSC

Re: Excuse my skepticism

"Why are they rushing to develop quantum computers?"

Because there's money to be made! Duh!