* Posts by StrangerHereMyself

1783 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jul 2020

LastOS slaps neon paint on Linux Mint and dares you to run Photoshop

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Re: Windooze

I personally think this is a very nice touch. I've never been able to get any Windows application to run on WINE no matter how trivial.

Last one I tried was Password Safe and it had all sorts of issues. Fortunately for me they created a native Linux version so that's what I use these days.

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Windooze

I'm not if I understood it correctly: they're pre-installing WINE and integrating it with the operating system so you can transparently install and run Windows applications?

Intuitive Machines blames dim lighting and dodgy data for second lunar faceplant

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Because they used a regular radio altimeter.

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Radio altimeter

Why didn't they just use a radio altimeter instead of a laser altimeter. Radio altimeters have been used since WWII and are very reliable although their power consumption is somewhat higher. But hey, power consumption doesn't matter much if you're lying in pieces on the Lunar surface, right?

37signals is completing its on-prem move, deleting its AWS account to save millions

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Wrong choice

Cloud was always the wrong choice for the majority of users. It's just that the idiots in the C-suite thought they could save a few pennies by firing the tech support employees and let the "Cloud" do this for them.

If Google is forced to give up Chrome, what happens next?

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Think

There's no use contemplating the sale of Chrome since it won't happen. Google will be forced to sell its ad-business and nothing more. All other remedies are merely for the show and not actually being pursued.

Microsoft moved the goalposts once. Will Windows 12 bring another shift?

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There's nothing funny about this because it's obvious the requirements are merely stipulated to force people to upgrade and even spark another hardware upgrade cycle. The unintended consequence of this is that many users will switch to Linux Mint to enable them to keep their (sometimes relatively young) hardware employed.

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Re: the problem

That's nonsense of course. Nothing will stop you running Windows 10 after October 14th 2025. And all your applications will keep working as well, so there's no immediate need to upgrade to Windows 12 or buy a new computer.

It's just after so many decades of security scares people have become accustomed to updating their operating system and suspect that if it isn't updated it will become insecure almost immediately. That's an obvious falsehood but try removing that from people's ingrained instincts is arduous and fraught with difficulty.

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Re: Final

It is the final version as far as I'm concerned. The final version before Linux Mint takes over!

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Microsoft knows users are never going to accept a paid subscription with their Windows PC. They're not THAT stupid. Making Windows subscription based will sink the entire Windows franchise within a year. And Microsoft itself not long after.

No, you'll be able to buy a Windows license in the foreseeable future. Just don't expect Microsoft to support your Windows version for very long.

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Sales ploy

Clearly a sales ploy. All these security improvements have never hindered the pwning of Windows computers in any substantial manner. Even to this day disk encryption isn't standard on Windows 10 computers (it is in Windows 11, though, more than 2 decades after TrueCrypt / Veracrypt saw the light) except in the Pro (business) version.

But all those PC's that are being left behind will most likely switch to Linux Mint, which is far more secure and almost infinitely supported by hardware going back decades.

Trump wants to fire quarter of NASA budget into black hole – and not in a good way

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Re: Whither MSR

I believe there's a very real chance Musk will succeed. I mean, who would've thought his "chopsticks" landing of the Super Heavy would work. When I saw the animations about a decade ago I shrugged and thought "I believe it when I see it!"

I'm therefore unwilling to discount anything Musk says. He may not succeed in his proposed timeline but in the end there's a real possibility he will.

His only failure was Full Self Driving, which I blame on his inability to oversee the complexity of the problem he's trying to solve. Driving is a complex task which even humans with 1 billion neuron brains have trouble dealing with. Although the Grand Challenge in 2005 showed you could solve it for a limited scope dealing with the real world conditions is quite another matter.

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Re: Whither MSR

Musk isn't. But I can assure you NASA and the U.S. government are.

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Re: Whither MSR

At the rate MSR is progressing it wouldn't surprise me in the least that Musk will have people on Mars before MSR lands there.

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Whither MSR

I predicted MSR would be scuttled and here we are. The program was already running on its last legs but has now finally been laid to rest.

The insistence of NASA to continue with its convoluted and complex MSR architecture with many single points of failure and its inability to make key decisions in a timely fashion have made this the only reasonable outcome for the project.

Open Document Format turns 20, but Microsoft Office still reigns supreme

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Succes

I would call the move towards ODF a complete succes, many governments and organizations mandate it and every office suite has the capabillity to read and write the format.

Microsoft gets twitchy over talk of Europe's tech independence

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Re: I trust Microsoft

Not ruling out military force is not the same as threatening to invade and absorb Canada.

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Re: I trust Microsoft

You're confusing Canada with Greenland. Trump has never made threats to take military action against Canada let alone invade it.

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Smokescreen

Smith is merely putting up a smokescreen and making comforting noises to please the ears of their European customers. There's absolutely no way Microsoft would be able to stop the U.S. government from issuing subpoenas of customer data.

Arizona laptop farmer pleads guilty for funneling $17M to Kim Jong Un

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Many companies demand you supply personal and resume information in a certain fixed format or enter it into a website so some AI can evaluate you. It wouldn't surprise me in the least that in a couple of months or years there will be no human in the loop to hire you. It will all be A.I.

Gaming the A.I. will become the next prerequisite skill.

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These middlemen (or women in this case) are disposable. The malware has probably already been planted and might be nigh impossible to detect if done properly. The only way to be sure is to rip out everything and start rebuilding the IT infrastructure from scratch. Only DATA can be restored, not complete software installations which have turned toxic.

It's a lot of work, but it's the only way to be sure.

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Norks

I'm pretty sure the Norks weren't interested in the money, but as a springboard to either steal IP or plant backdoors at said companies.

BTW this makes me wonder if the Ruskies aren't doing the same and why this hasn't been exposed yet. Seems like low-hanging fruit to me.

Windows isn't an OS, it's a bad habit that wants to become an addiction

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Re: Linux Mint will win

Most professionals are already switching to Linux since they're tech-savvy and most of the tools (including Microsoft's own) are already available for Linux.

Visual Studio Code is often used on Linux and if you're into developing web applications for .NET or web-based back-end systems there's no need to use Windows.

I don't see Android ever becoming a replacement for the desktop. Billions of poor people may have no choice but to use a smartphone, but in the affluent West there will always be a need to have a "real" desktop machine in addition to a smartphone.

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Re: And yet desktop Linux

You're wrong. Linux is already approaching the 5% the desktop. And that's in addition to being dominant in the server space.

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Re: Split Personality...

The second best option would be for people just continuing to run Windows 10...FOREVER.

Or someone could cobble up a Windows XP version from the stolen source code and patch it if need be.

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Linux Mint will win

Coming October I suspect many will jump ship towards Linux Mint since the flogging has become intolerable. Users simply won't take any more.

And as I've said many times before: Linux Mint suffices for the majority of users who merely use their computer to surf the web, write an email, print a document or watch videos. If just those users move to Linux Mint it will shake Redmond to its foundations.

EU Chips Act heading for failure, time for Chips Act 2.0

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Volume

IMHO the EU already produces more than 20% of the world's IC's by VOLUME but not by VALUE. The semiconductors made in Taiwan are mostly high-end, used in GPU's, AI accelerators and top-of-the-line CPU's for PC's and smartphones sometimes costing hundreds of dollars a piece.

The semiconductors made in Europe are mostly made using low to medium complexity semiconductor processes for use by the automotive, consumer products (washing machines, audio) and smartphone sector. These are low-cost but made in large numbers.

So it all depends on your metric. If Europe wants to compete with Taiwan, Korea and the U.S. it will indeed have to invest a LOT more money. A single high-end semiconductor plant can cost up to $100 billion these days.

Europe fires up beefier booster for Ariane 6 and Vega-C

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Cancelled

I suspect Amazon will cancel most Ariane 6 Kuiper launches and redirect them towards Blue Origin, also the property of Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos.

The Ariane 6 booking is merely a back-stop in case Blue Origin doesn't come through. Now that it has there's no reason for them to keep flying on Ariane 6.

Microsoft: Why not let our Copilot fly your computer?

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Irrelevance

Microsoft is making itself irrelevant with these stupid A.I. gimmicks. No one's asking for some stupid A.I. to take over their computer and "do things" for them. The only one who touches my computer is ME, thank you!

Said company shouldn't be surprised if users jump ship at the first opportunity, and that will be October 13th, 2025. To Linux Mint.

Official abuse of state security has always been bad, now it's horrifying

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Re: Sooner or later, that scent escapes the kitchen and we know something's cooking.

I was thinking: "the scent escapes from the loo"

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Secret courts

"Secret courts have no place in a democracy." That phrase says it all, doesn't it?

And in the U.S. it's even worse. There are secret laws there as well. No one (except some lawmakers that have to rubber-stamp them) knows what's in them. No opportunity for journalists and the public to even discuss the implications of these laws.

The wheels are coming off of democracy in the Western world. How long before we resemble something like Turkiye, China or even North Korea?

EU: These are scary times – let's backdoor encryption!

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Re: Untrustworthy

Politicians make these decisions without any input from their constituents. And it seems both Left and Right wing parties are somehow aligned to the law enforcement and intelligence services' wishes.

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Untrustworthy

Politicians are scum. They keep making noises about not wanting to backdoor E2EE and at the very last moment pass a law that mandates exactly that.

I still remember clearly Labor wanting to introduce RIPA Part 3 in the UK and the Tories blocked it calling it "Orwellian." And what did the Tories do when they came to power? The first thing they did was to pass RIPA Part 3.

I would therefore not surprise me that despite all the supporting noises for E2EE they will enact something like RIPA in the EU. Many countries have been quietly been lobbying for this. Publicly they're against backdooring but when the EU enacts legislation they'll tell their constituents they "had no choice."

Why is someone mass-scanning Juniper and Palo Alto Networks products?

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Insecure junk

Because both companies make insecure junk and someone's probably discovered a zero-day to exploit. It truly amazes me that hardware specifically being sold on the premise to keep out undesirables is itself becoming a avenue for criminals to steal the keys to the kingdom.

Why aren't they using MINIX or some other microkernel operating system in their hardware? Because they're lazy and incapable of slapping more than an insecure Linux kernel on their stuff is why.

Google makes end-to-end encrypted Gmail easy for all – even Outlook users

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Re: Encryption

Encrypted email only protects against the message in transit. Storage is on your computer residing in your home where LEA can't easily enter.

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Snake oil

Encrypted webmail can never be secure or trustworthy. The only way to make it safe is to use it from an email client running on your own machine.

This amounts to snake-oil IMHO and shouldn't be used.

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

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Desperate

It just goes to show how desperate the UK government has become to get some measure of meaningful economic growth, frivolously throwing away all the rights of its citizens to please Big Tech and hoping on an A.I. boom miracle.

The Brexit chickens have truly come home to roost!!

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

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Re: V for Vendetta

We're close. Very close.

An economic slump like we're seeing today might well incite a government to exercise extreme measures like staging a chemical warfare attack.

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V for Vendetta

Watch this film and realize that it takes place in a future Britain. A future not so very far away if I'm not mistaken.

When even Microsoft can’t understand its own Outlook, big tech is stuck in a swamp of its own making

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Re: Hand

The office in this case being a 50000 m2 campus with dozens of buildings.

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Hand

Isn't this simply a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?

Microsoft is a huge company where software engineers have a large degree of autonomy in what they want to achieve and build. The company has general guidelines but like most large companies it consists of multiple fiefdoms each doing its own thing.

Palantir suggests 'common operating system' for UK govt data

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Microkernel OS

How about the UK government funding and developing MINIX or RedoxOS to get it ready for government use. These are by far the safest offerings on the market. Even if they are rarely updated they remain secure.

Yes, Linux is far more developed, but even the best ones are still sometimes rough around the edges. I just upgraded my Linux Mint version and I got all sorts of repository errors which would baffle most users.

Boeing's Starliner future uncertain as NASA weighs next steps

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Re: On a different note, Artemis is pretty much dead, too

Everyone with half a brain knows that once Starship makes a successful flight Orion and SLS are toast.

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Re: Boeing was regarded as slightly ahead of SpaceX

No, that was the Boeing lobbyists talking. No one really believed Boeing was far ahead of SpaceX.

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Pull out

I'm adamant Boeing will pull-out of the manned space business. There are so many other companies which can do it more cheaply and profitably than them and they've got their shareholders to look after.

All of this could've been avoided if Boeing hadn't managed the program according to its profitability wishes and instead focused on getting a working manned space capsule. All the delays and cost-cutting has cost them dearly. So dearly they'll probably conclude that this is not the business they want to be in.

Ubuntu 25.10 plans to swap GNU coreutils for Rust

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Re: License @Rich 2

I read this story about a developer who got sued by some company which took his BSD code, altered it and then sued him for copyright infringement That's why I vowed never to release any code under BSD or MIT licensing.

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License

Why would switching to a more permissive license be an issue?

Mozilla pleads with Uncle Sam to not turn off that sweet, sweet Google search money

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Mozilla earns $400 million a year from Google's search kickback and only a tiny amount is being invested in the development of Firefox. Where the rest is siphoned off is still a mystery to me.

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Harmful

It would be harmful FOR THEM, but not for competition in the internet search arena where it could be beneficial. Firefox's market share has already dwindled to such a degree that their demise wouldn't really make much of a difference anyway.

Rocket Lab says NASA lacks leadership on Mars Sample Return

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Re: Architecture

Another good reason to switch to a grab-n-go architecture since the ascent vehicle doesn't have to survive months of the harsh Martian climate.