Posts by emag

Sure, give the new kid and his MCSE power over the AS/400. What could possibly go wrong?

Re: A bit unusual

This was exactly my take-away from this story as well. If the n00b did exactly what the boss did previously, then the onus is on the boss for this screw up.

Akamai buys Linode for $900m

I've been a Linode user since 2007. I don't necessarily want to jump ship, but I'm keeping my options open.

How to destroy expensive test kit: What does that button do?

Re: Expensive test equipment

Oh, if it's the equipment I'm thinking of (and it's really a Mk 41 VLS), it's much more expensive. During testing, instead of using real missiles, there are these boxes that connect via the same system, which completely simulate the responses to commands sent by the launch hardware and software. They're so completely simulated, the system has no way of knowing it isn't talking to a real missile. They're smallish, heavy, and very very expensive. If they were doing the final integration tests, no actual missiles would be loaded yet. Each is in its own disposable canister, loaded by crane.

Source: I used to develop software for $current+2 generation of the Mk 41 VLS back in the late 1990s. We used the same boxes to verify that the software behaved exactly like it would in a combat situation, at sub-millisecond tolerances. After some time, you could tell just listening to relays clicking if everything was working properly on our side.

Fun story: some of the first demonstrations (on land), someone loaded a canister rotated 180 degrees, so when they launched, instead of going up and away from the stands of Big Brass, the missile headed straight towards the spectators.

Open standard but not open access: Schematron author complains about ISO paywall

Re: Negotiable Virtue

I can only imagine the ASiN.1 parsing needed.

Visual Basic 6 returns: You've been a good developer all year. You have social distanced, you have helped your mom. Here's your reward

Re: Why not bring back REXX too!

Ask and ye shall receive... http://regina-rexx.sourceforge.net/ (last update was 2015)

You've accused Apple of patent infringement. You want to probe the iOS source in a closed-room environment. What to do in a pandemic?

Think OTP

It's probably a time-based one-time password setup. Could be anything from a SecurID-style token to the TOTP apps like Google Authenticator. Apple would hold the token, and give them the valid login code for the next X hours.

Dropbox attempts to muscle into password manager market with passphrase wrangler, document vault

Re: The LAST place I'd store my passwords

Across Linux (me) and Windows (SWMBO), we've switched to KeePassXC, which is compatible with the KeePass databases, but the UI is better, and it's being actively maintained. Nice if you don't want to use KeePass with its .Net (or Mono) dependencies, and KeePassX hasn't been maintained for a while now. XC also has FF & Chrome plugins to fill in passwords (and I know they work on Linux, which most of the other KeePass variants don't do, or don't do well).