* Posts by Teejay

135 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Mar 2021

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Volkswagen stuck in neutral after 'IT disruption'

Teejay

According to posts on heise / reddit, apparently they had forgotten to renew their switch licenses.

Robot can rip the data out of RAM chips with chilling technology

Teejay

When I read articles like these, I always realise how some people are insanely smarter than me.

Boeing discovers Dreamliner defect, delivery delay decided

Teejay

Re: paywall

Phantastic, thanks!

Teejay

All you have to know about what is going on at Boeing can be found in this excellent article, but it's unfortunately behind a paywall:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/

This documentary also summarises it quite well:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EESYomdoeCs

TLDR: Overpaid bean counters from McDonnell Douglas took over Boeing and installed themselves at the top. They changed an engineering driven company into a quick buck making company.

Meta tells staff to return to office three days a week

Teejay

In a Venn diagram, people who think work from home is good for productivity must have a huge overlap with identity politics drivers, equity preachers, tech bubble enthusiasts, cheap money advocates and power point fans.

All Microsoft Surface Pro X cameras just stopped working

Teejay

Building time dependent certificates into the hardware parts of any device is planned obsolescence. Once the updates stop, the device stops working. As this can be undone by turning back system time, it has nothing to do with security.

Ads for lucrative jobs in Asia fail to mention chance of slavery as crypto-scammer

Teejay

This is really horrible.

Nvidia's RTX 4060 and 4060TI are actually priced like mid-tier cards

Teejay

When the Xbox One X came out, everything was tailored towards 4K 30fps. Now, everything is 60fps, Unreal Engine 5, ray tracing, high CPU and GPU demands, so much is back to Full HD.

First ever 64-bit version of Windows rediscovered … and a C compiler for it too

Teejay

A friend of mine was an early Alpha geek, but I think he decidedly enjoyed the fact that is was Unix and not Windows.

Cheapest, oldest, slowest part fixed very modern Mac

Teejay

iMac screen

On an ancient, but very well equipped iMac music production system (with plugins for 1000s of £s), the screen died. To keep it running as a two screen setup (it already had one external DVI port), I found an old USB to DVI converter on Amazon and, after a long search, the appropriate software driver on the internet. Worked flawlessly, and was fast enough to have the mixing console on the USB controlled screen. Whoever wrote that driver was seriously cool, not a single crash over years.

Elon Musk finally finds 'someone foolish enough to take the job' of Twitter CEO

Teejay

Re: UK vs San Fran

"Always check which office the original article came from and you'll start to understand that El Reg UK and El Reg San Fran are two completely different entities..."

I agree, so much. Since the Register is not a pure UK publication anymore, it feels exactly as polarised, opinionated and self-overrating in its quality as Ars Technica.

Teejay

Really?

"I don't know about you folks, but I came back to Twitter to watch the airship crash, and the algorithm has never seemed more violent, racist, crass, and entertaining."

What, oh what, has become of the old Register I used to love? I am no 'Musk fan', but likewise, I could not have imagined a 'journalistic comment' like this five years ago in El Reg, nor the thinly veiled hate of new vs the ironical UK satire of old.

Dyson moans about state of UK science and tech, forgets to suck up his own mess

Teejay

One more word on the UK...

One more word on the UK, because most here really do not understand what made it tick and why it is going downhill.

The reason is not Brexit. The reason is that the UK was decades ago taken over by the 'financial industry', which produced absolutely nothing, and thrived on cheap money. Those times are over. Apart from that, Russian and Ukranian oligarchs as well as Saudi families parked their money there. That's basically half of the GDP of the last decades.

The tories are clowns. Labour are clowns. Brexit *could* have been a chance for more democracy versus a quite undemocratic EU. But that's not going to happen, and it's definitely not the reason the UK is going downhill.

There is hardly any manufacturing left in the UK, but in many ways that is true of the EU, too. It's all gone to Asia. And energy is owned by Russia and the Saudis. And then, of course, there is the huge welfare state.

(As some commentators here are unfamiliar with more complex views: Of course neoliberalism and neomarxism go hand in hand, just on different levels. They are both totalitarian and globalist, but of course, neither the BBC nor the Guardian tell you much on that.)

Teejay

Re: Reporting just as bad as ever in El' Reg...

"Which is why virtually all the high density semiconductors in the world are made on Dutch-manufactured equipment"

Proves nothing at all. ASML make world-class EUV-lithography equipment, but that's it. Otherwise, there's Infineon and perhaps Nokia-Ericsson. And a few low density chip companies for the automotive industry, which mostly have been sold to the Chinese.

Teejay

@CowHorseFrog

One of the few intelligent comments here.

I seriously wonder, however, how much forums like these are infiltrated by NGO- and three letter agency-sockpuppets. Considering the US online propaganda budget alone is estimated at a two digits billion sum, that's not as far fetched as it seems.

Teejay

"Sigh. I voted against Brexit, but this one-trick pony journalism is just bad."

I totally agree. Both the average tech journalist and the average poster here have gone down the road of cheap polarisation and oversimplification, which of course mostly plays into the hands of those with money and power.

The way everything is blamed on Brexit, which *could* have been a chance to actually 'take back control', whatever that means, instead of blaming incompetent, greedy, controlled politicians both in the UK *and* the EU...

But I give up. Most people are not capable of complex thoughts anymore, and, no, doing something with tech does *not* mean you're an intellectual.

Teejay

Re: Really?

"Doesn't seem to be going downhill where I am."

What *on earth* does this kind of selectivity prove?

'Looks up, sees a green field and a blue sky while typing this' -> So?

You could find dozens of German independent media outlets that strongly criticise what is going on in Germany, or you could rely on Spiegel, ARD and taz. Now what? Even the NZZ from Switzerland has become highly critical of Germany.

Teejay

Really?

Even if unpopular at the New Censored Wokister™ and with its darwinistically shifted readership (mission accomplished?), the UK's decline has little to do with Brexit, and much with the current neoliberal, undemocratic, neomarxist state of the whole West, and with mistakes made many years ago. Germany is the most un-Brexit-y country in the EU, but it is also going downhill at a rapid speed. The difference is that they started from a higher standard than the UK.

Microsoft cries foul over UK gaming deal blocker but it's hard to feel sorry for them

Teejay

Great article!

Thanks for the great article. A wonderful counterweight to the BBC's commentaries along the lines of 'the EU do it so much better, because we hate the UK, because Brexit'. They basically quoted Microsoft verbatim, those good billionaires from the US and those woke Londoner's going hand in hand. Globalist big money and globalist neomarxists really seem to love each other, and, no, the young 'uns around here really don't get it because they've been brainwashed from the cradle onwards.

UK watchdog blocks Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition

Teejay

And the BBC angle is...

Of course, the Brexit-hating BBC had to make this of it:

"EU better to do business in than the UK, says Microsoft boss"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fk1bt2#:~:text=Brad%20Smith%20hits%20out%20after,was%20blocked%20by%20UK%20regulators.

Google says it did not train its AI chatbot Bard on your private emails

Teejay

Key word: 'personal'

The quote is: "We do not use personal data...", which implies that Google filters out what it perceives as personal and uses the rest.

It is now safe to turn off your brain: Google CEO asked Bard to plan his dad's 80th birthday

Teejay

Conspiracies et al

We live in a heavily thought policed time. People under 30 mostly love it, because it's all they know, and people over 50 mostly hate it, because they know differently. Chatbots are quickly being forced into the policed thinking of under-30s, which is why they seem both surprisingly smart and purposely limited to those over 50.

Bing AI feels like ChatGPT stuffed into a suit – not the future

Teejay

Re: Agreed!

I used to love El Reg. My humorous, daily British go-to site, especially as I don't live there. It has changed so much, it really hurts. It now feels like a knock off of Ars, in so many ways.

Teejay

"One of its competitive differentiators is its irreverent and humorous tone that often criticizes or mocks the IT industry and its players. Its masthead sublogo is "Biting the hand that feeds IT" which reflects its independent and sometimes controversial stance."

I feel this applies to the old Register, not the new one, but I guess that opinion of mine will, too, be removed by the new comment sanitizing.

JAXA: Research simulating life onboard ISS contained fabrications

Teejay

Re: Wider problem

So basically, like 50 percent of research, but this time it came out.

US bans Chinese telecoms imports – won't even consider authorizing them

Teejay

Re: Coincidentally…

Bad, incorrect, misleading video. It pretends like backdoors are accidental. Also, it is very probable the US agencies know more than they openly say. I do not believe the US are better in other countries, however.

California wildfires hit CTRL+Z on 18 years of CO2e removal

Teejay

Maybe...

Maybe, just maybe, they should start removing all the old, dry wood again that the tree harvesters left behind, like they used to do, before eco warriors stopped them. Same problem as in Australia. And, no, you won't find this on the BBC or in the Guardian.

The Metaverse is the internet no one wants

Teejay

I agree with the sentiment of the article.

Why, however, is every link now underlined, like in crappy web design from the early 2000s?

Fixing an upside-down USB plug: A case of supporting the insupportable

Teejay

Re: Can't put my finger on it

"ROFL. If going even further alt-right is 'becoming more and more pc' to you, you may have a bit of a problem there..."

I always try to understand where these kind of totally over-the-top and misplaced comments come from, and usually think it's a generational thing and something about brainwashing by constant repetition, but that thought isn't really comforting in the least, because it doesn't bode well for the future.

Teejay

Re: Can't put my finger on it

Shame the Register is changing, too. It is becoming more and more 'pc', not nearly as bad as Ars Technica, but it's slowly loosing that light-hearted English humour that the BBC started to tear down some years ago. Next, we'll have more and more articles on climate change modelling and software solutions against populism. Can nothing good ever last? I still miss the wonderful CNET UK podcast moderators from ten years ago. All fun was sucked out when one of them was replaced due to 'gender equality'.

Germany orders Sept 1 shutdown of digital ad displays to save gas

Teejay

Re: Germany, the country with no natural ressources and now also too little electric power.

One more thing: The Germans are burning the gas they barely have to make electricity to export to France, because of contracts once signed. The largest gas tanks, by the way, were sold off to Gazprom and thus the Russians. Germany has become a crazy neoliberal globalist pseudo-left country, it makes me weep. And regarding BlackRock, the failed former military minister Ursula van der Leyen, now chief puppet of the EU, is basically being hand-mimed by BlackRock into following their ESG-plans via a new green deal, costing 500 billion Euro of taxpayer's money, thus a huge forced redistribution from the bottom to the top. But sure, downvote me, even if some here probably haven't the faintest idea of what I am talking about.

Teejay

Germany, the country with no natural ressources and now also too little electric power.

Just for context: Germany will at the end of 2022 have switched off its final atomic power plant. This is based on the lone decision of then-chancellor Angela Merkel after the Fukushima accident in Japan. Electricity in Germany costs a multiple of what it does in neighbouring France, which has kept its atomic power plants running. Germany has become a totally ridiculous country over the last decade, but the Germans haven't noticed it yet. They are destroying their economy on every level and are also trying to save the world from evil CO2. In reality, it's BlackRock and its ESG-eco-wokeness, but the Germans are the ideal nation to brainwash into this kind of BS. And I am allowed to say this, as I am from there. Of course, Britain has so many similar problems of its own.

Amazon has repackaged surveillance capitalism as reality TV

Teejay

When I first heard this, I really thought it was a joke. Then I realised it wasn't.

Zuckerberg: Yes, Facebook kept Hunter Biden's laptop under wraps

Teejay

Re: 'Take that, you evil Trump fan'

Hmm. I basically agree with what you said last, even if it's a teeny bit worded in a slightly arrogant, but of course deeply knowledgeable lefty intellectual tone. But you are, in my opinion, deviating from what this was about to begin with: A medio-political power structure stopping information from coming out that could influence voters in a way not desired. It is well known that the owners of the big Californian social media companies overwhelmingly backed Biden, and hated Trump.

Teejay

Re: 'Take that, you evil Trump fan'

Sigh. Sure, anyone could have made those deals. It has of course nothing to do with gaining access to power - also called soft corruption.

'In particular, there are verified emails illuminating a deal Hunter Biden developed with a fast-growing Chinese energy conglomerate, CEFC China Energy, for which he was paid nearly $5 million, and other business relationships. Those business dealings are the subject of a separate Washington Post story published at the same time as this one on the forensic examinations of the drive.

The drive also includes some verified emails from Hunter Biden’s work with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company for which he was a board member. President Donald Trump’s efforts to tie Joe Biden to the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma led to Trump’s first impeachment trial, which ended in acquittal in February 2020.'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-laptop-data-examined/

Teejay

Deep state

So basically, this pretty much proves that the FBI is part of the deep state? Or does anyone really believe that the US three-letter-agencies where *not* in the know regarding Hunter Biden's financial entanglement with Ukraine officials? (Who of course now are all good and uncorrupt people, because Putin.)

Twitter, Meta kill hundreds of pro-Western troll accounts

Teejay

CIA

The CIA budget is about 15 billion dollars, of which an estimated third is spent on media propaganda. That's far more than 200 accounts on Twitter, that's a large swath of our information landscape.

Our software is perfect. If something has gone wrong, it must be YOUR fault

Teejay

Semi-working software

Reading this, I had to think of my Garmin watch, its buggy software and their 'support forum'.

Remember the humanoid Tesla robot? It's ready for September reveal, says Musk

Teejay

Tesla shares

After what I just read, I would downgrade Tesla to 'sell'.

Google asks workers for ideas on being 'more focused and efficient' in internal survey

Teejay

Re: Here be brainstorming...

If 'chiefs' earn more than twelve times as much as the engineers, there is something seriously out of balance.

Teejay

Here be brainstorming...

Get rid of every employee with the following words in their job description: Gender, identity, inclusion, equity, equality, opportunity.

China's 7nm chip surprise reveals more than Beijing might like

Teejay

Two things

As I said in my other, downvoted, comment: Bribery and thievery. Wow.

Sage accused of misselling perpetual licenses it knew would soon be obsolete

Teejay

Incredible...

This may sound slightly on the spectrum, so sorry, but I always fail to understand how people with such obviously bad characters can look into the mirror in the mornings.

British intelligence recycles old argument for thwarting strong encryption: Think of the children!

Teejay

Conspiracy theory (?)

The EU is basically doing same, at the same time.

This of course is a coincidence. Everything else would be a conspiracy theory.

China seems to have figured out how to make 7nm chips despite US sanctions

Teejay

Spying and bribery

Let us never, ever forget that up to this point in time basically all of China's 'success story' is based on spying and bribery.

Huawei under investigation for having tech installed near US missile silos

Teejay

Huawei supplies services, too

I want to clarify something here. Huawei is by no means a pure equipment supplier. Many telcos in the West, and very probably Africa and South America, outsource equipment *and* services to Huawei. So basically Huawei has carte blanche to do whatever they like, with little to no oversight.

FYI: BMW puts heated seats, other features behind paywall

Teejay

More subscriptions

After Creative Cloud, Microsoft 365, Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Spotify, Ring, here comes the next subscription service for the many.

I applaud Apple for so far having kept Logic and Final Cut one-time payments.

BTW, what happens when a car company detects meddling? Could they disable all non-safety relevant subscriptions that where added after purchase?

Brave New World. Then again, with everything increasingly deemed luxury by inflation and 'save the planet' (looking at you, artificially created food sparsity, energy sparsity and can-I-even-afford-a-child crises), this all feels unimportant and mostly aimed at the new mandarin classes - to which of course, that's the trick, we almost could belong, forever.

Take the day off: Windows Autopatch is live and can even fix cloudy PCs

Teejay

Totally not excited

Before Microsoft decided to release even important updates only once a month, we had single patches that were issued as soon as they were ready. So nothing new there.

And since Windows 10 we have automatic updates forced on us whether we like it or not. So nothing new there either.

Apart from 'cloud' and 'catching issues while they happen' (yeah, sure), am I missing something?

Boris Johnson set to step down with tech legacy in tatters

Teejay

Crossover?

I remember reading this article in the Guardian some minutes ago.

Apple's latest security feature could literally save lives

Teejay

Images...

Would be interesting to know if the number of allowed image types is limited to jpg, png and gif. I seem to remember that one of the more ingenious iPhone hacks was based on exploiting a decades old fax file format.

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