Posts by Shalghar

Laid-off AWS employee describes cuts as 'cold and soulless'

Re: View it as an opportunity

If any business is replacing real thinking meatsacks with Automated Incompetence, the sacked humans dont need to plan revenge.

Electronic Karma is much more powerful nowadays, the Absolutely Insufferable will see to it.

Adhering to rules - no matter how esoteric, outright silly or counter productive those are - is not limited to amazon.

Try again whenever their "AI" concentrates on profit priority and ignores potential "IP" issues on the way.

Which would mean that "AI" is finally going to be as small minded, brainlessly focussed and single minded as biological idiocracy.

Re: It's clearly working well

The funny thing even as a normal customer is the chatbot that claims its not a chatbot. And the second chatbot that pops up when you type in that you refuse to talk to a chatbot. My personal records with an amazon issue is three chatbots in a row, they are so obviously triggerword controlled that you dont need to be turing to recognize them

I dont know if amazon uses the option where you live but in germany you can actually schedule a telephone call with a real serf, maybe that could help you.

As for that "identification" nonsense, the amazon app/website keeps nagging me to put in my mobile number "for security" which i deny. A few weeks ago, while buying a google play voucher via amazons app, i had to enter the very same banking details that amazon already has or the transaction would not have been possible.

Their "review" section as well as their built in "search" functions are abysmal, even ignoring the very same item descriptions that can be found on the very same amazon site via duckduckgo but not the amazon internal search.

Well, "AI" will keep happening until everything dismantles. Automate what can - and even what should never - be automated to increase profits.

Most here already know not only what could go but also what will go wrong.

Its a pity that i was never asked wether i wanted to live in "interesting times", but then again, Rincewind was also never asked.

Operation Eastwood shutters 100+ servers used to DDoS websites supporting Ukraine

Re: Russian hackers are inept morons

Apart from, the impression i currently get because all my posts - especially non related to this topic - are suddenly getting downvoted all across the forum - a behavioral pattern i always see when some keyboard warriors without real arguments decide to go into "now i show you !!!" mode, your posts dont react at all on my statements but purely on conveniently stripped off trigger words.

Lets get this "norks" bullshyte out of the way first. Apart from speech impediments, meaning inefficient information flow, training, weapon and equipment greatly differs when looking at north korean and russian army so if some "norks" are indeed on the battlefield, they would be a logistic nightmare and more of a liability than an asset. Not that any real evidence of those phantom squads has been shown until today but hey, such a nice fairytale to further the "russia will collapse any minute now" storyline, why spoil it with reality ? Does it make a difference for the victim if they are shot by russians or others ? Did it make any difference for the US soldiers killed by friendly fire in "desert storm" ? Were they less dead ?

Yes russia doesnt see the fins as a threat, that might have something to do with the fact that the fins arent acting like a rabies infected alley cat and have shown to honor their word/treaties even when its inconvenient. They are pretty different from the rest of the west in that specific aspect. The nukes in belarus are direct escalation to make the updated nuclear doctrine more authentic. Somewhat convenient that you somehow are not informad what provoked this, and i have the impression that you will also ignore the kaliningrad-statement from the current NATO summit. Mutual assured destruction reloaded. With ukraine deliberately targeting early warning systems only capable and optimised for detection of ICBMs the need for shorter retaliation/reaction time arose.

I know a bit of multinational troops wargames, from my experience with netherlands "Landmacht" and although we were both NATO trained, the difference in national training, rank structure and of course any kind of equipment showed quite drastically that before a real deployment we would have to train quite a lot to make the integration acceptably seamless. Same in yugoslavia, there was a reason why the involved nations tended to divide the assignments and use homogenic troops whenever possible,

Only when even the strongest bully adheres to rule of law and morals are those things not meaningless. If the strongest bully decides to revert back to might makes right, every oh so "important" rule of the so called "civilization" is null and void. Lets take something different from war but still profit oriented:Remember the Panicdemic with enforced injections of an experimental substance ? Correlate this with the nuremberg codex and tell me how this is compatible.

What gave you the impression that the ukrainians had or have any say in the matter wether they want a war ? Ask Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland, what the 5 billion dollars were "well spent" for.

Those who decided to transform ukraine in yet another NATO war colony (yugoslavia refused, thats why they were suddenly "liberated" against their will) against the neutrality clause in their constitution, those who decided to mass murder civilians in Donbas and the other separatist areas dont give a shyte about anything but the lining of their own pockets. Pretty much warmonger standard.

Dont forget prominent US sources, the Ukraine was always given enough weaponry to bleed, never to succeed.

Animals have more "morale" or at least social competence. No Rottweiler,no ferret would ever stab any friend so brutally in the back as every nation on this whole planet regularly does. None of those two mentioned animals would ever leave a friend in need alone, compare that to humans.

None of those animals would attack children or adolescents for no reason, quite a difference to the Obama administrations rule that any afghan old enough to potentially wield a rifle can be shot, no matter if hes armed or not.

For more complex weapon systems, the laughably criminally short training time makes it impossible to use the outdated trash the Vassals shoved down the ukrainian drain halfway effectively. As already desribed, i highly doubt that the poor soldiers are even knowing what they could do if they were properly trained. What little believeable frontline information may be filtered out of the massive wunderwaffen/volkssturm-propaganda shows a lot of ineffficient weapon handling for the bigger systems like Leopard and especially the highly capable but also higly complex AA-Tank Gepard and much more disturbing, reports of an "infantry training" that doesnt even show the privates how to use their assault rifles. This is mass murder from the own side, sending insufficiently trained soldiers into battle is just criminal intent, not even negligence.

But theres hope for whats left of Ukraine: Blackrock failed to find "investors" for the "rebuilding process"==financial black hole that feeds the corruptocracy. Once the money runs out and/or the US government decides to play its much wanted war games with someone else, the ukrainians are left in the ditch just like any veteran of any army. Yes, also in germany, the public health system is not obliged to accept any veteran as a member. Once the Bundeswehr has the information that you will not be fullly fit for service within at most a year, you´re out without anything if you have served less than 4 years. Thats the usual "loyalty", another meaningless buzzword to bait cannon fodder.(§1 Soldatengesetz:"Staat und Soldat sind sich in gegenseitiger Treue verpflichtet" somewhat never applies to the state, no matter what this law assumes.)

BTW: the german populace also has no say in the current protofascist war machine being built on outrageously high debt increase. We also have some obligation to strive for peace and understanding between all countries on this planet in the constitution. Noone gives a (manure placeholder of choice) about this, nor about any other content of this purely decorative booklet.

Re: Russian hackers are inept morons

"Bombing of hospitals, civilian infrastructure, torture, rape?"

Yes, thats war in a nutshell. Company endorsed, interest based, politically wanted mass murdering without rules or the thin veneer of undeserved rightouesness called "civilization". Take a look around, things like deliberately killing non combatants are happening at several places in the world right now. Why would anyone care for just one of the intentionally provoked conflicts ?

Things like murdering civilians and non combatants are pretty much normal in wars. It doesnt matter who shot first, its always civilians that get murdered and both combatants and non combatants getting mistreated or tortured. My lay and Abu Ghreib were no singular thing, its pretty much the twisted norm.

If you dont like whats happening in wars, prevent them before they start. Which means not meddling in foreign countries and not doing the exact things that provoke others to begin the atrocities.

I wont try to show you how long the provoked proxy war in ukraine ranges back (around 1996, pretty much during yugoslavian civilians got mass murdered by "the good ones") in preparation and, later on, deliberate escalation. If you put useless, irrelevant, purely propagandistic trash like "morals" or "geneva convention" aside, did anyone believe russia would tolerate another NATO war colony directly on the front lawn ? With the F-35 as a carrier system for mini nukes ? Within a 6-8 minute flight time range from moscow ?

As soon as Ukraine broke its own constitution, both after the western paid for and instigated maidan massacre as well as the intentional disregard for its neutrality clause, the war was only a question of time and NATO/US weapon systems being deployed.

As all wars, it will only end if any side involved overexerts its capacity or loses interest, if the financial burden gets too high. Noone really cares about the loss of lives and even the "environmentalists" cheer the war on, obviously CO2 from tanks is not calculated into the "climate change" ideology.

Whenever a war breaks out, its intentional, and in most cases, the intention is mutual. Because those who decide to start it are never found at the front lines or in danger.

Re: Russian hackers are inept morons

Since war itself is a crime, why bother listing sub-crimes ?

Same for economic warfare against civilians, called "sanctions".

But let me guess, its okay to kill "the evil ones" and that the alleged "rule of law" and similar fictitional niceties only apply where, when and if "the good ones" see fit ?

Still, i would like to know how dangerous "russian hackers" actually are. "Inept morons" or "cyberthreat", take your pick but be aware that if "the evil ones" are a "cyberthreat" its suicidally moronic to get everything and anything "online".

Re: Russian hackers are inept morons

Its a bit funny, can we please decide wether "russian hackers" are the most dangerous "cyberthreat" or "inept morons" ?

A bit like the Taliban, stoneage camel riders but high tech adepts that can fly planes into towers and bomb a big hole into the USS Cole.

Currently, "the west" is holding russian money and assets hostage, destroying or outright stealing it, which breaks international law but who cares in times where "rule of law" is a joke and "might makes right" becomes obvious "rule based" standard worldwide.

There are many "dirty" ones, and none of them is named Harry.

Go ahead, make my day.....

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

Re: just shite

Quite frankly, i dont know. I have seen a new model in a car shop for new cars somewhat last year so it seems to be still existing although i have no clue at all wether they are still owned by BMW or the ownership has moved on/the brand was dropped. Its still a former british brand that i remember was sold out although ARM is naturally more interesting for people in IT.

Is Sinclair still existing with any product at all ? From cheapskate homecomputers to strange motorized whateverthatwas it seemed pretty much diversified as a company/brand name but i never was very aware of any of it.

Re: just shite

You mean the country that let something like ARM slip away to foreign "investors" would have enough of a clue to not get disadvantaged even more ?

Maybe the concentration on and pampering of mainly parasitical things like "financial industry" wasnt such a bright idea in the long term.

I really do not intend to offend you but what exactly do you mean by "championing british talent & companies" when even famous brands like Rolls Royce, Rover and Bentley are british in name only ?

Security company hired a used car salesman to build a website, and it didn't end well

Try the current issues of the "EPA"-"elektronische Patienten Akte", mandatory for public health insured people, optional for people with private health insurance.

Germanys CCC has shown how easy you can get access to even the most private information and how absolutely insanely unuseable the corresponding pp is, that officially would give the victims "control over who can see what" but of course doesnt. Its opt out and opting out menas you have to annoy not only your health insurance but also each and avery one of your doctors and any hospital you are admitted to.

Lets wait what nonsense and dystopian pricacy catastrophe the european wide mess of the same kind will be.

Re: That reminds me

Even lower tech experience. As i approached a distresssed woman in front of the ATM i intended to use, she told me that no money came out.

I found the ATM non working due to a black plastic strip glued to the hole where your bills would pop out.

After removing the plastic with my pocket knife (back in the days, you were still allowed to have such a dangerous weapon on you) we found the bills she wanted to withdraw stuck in the mechanical innards but possible to remove with pliers or suchlike. This was pre mobile phone era so i went to a nearby telephone booth and called the cops, then returned to the ATM to wait for their arrival.

They interrogated us, took the plastic strip, gave the woman her money as the stuck receipt proved it was hers and let us go. A few weeks later i had a follow up call from the bank, thanking me for getting the cops involved and asking if i could be a witness, if they would ever find the culprit. Never heard from this incident again.

Re: That reminds me

Guess how good this kind of malware worked on "non professional home computers" like Amiga and RiscPC....

German law "solved" the issue of the juristical definition of "circumventing a working copy protection" by defining any existing copy protection as "working" - wether it actually worked at all or not.

The GEMA. some sort of "rights management" parasite imposed additional fees on the first CD burners and burneable CDs, alleging that those were solely designed for copying "protected" music. You could even buy GEMA-pseudoapproved (more expensive due to additonal fees) burneable CD but were still not allowed to burn copyrighted content to it.

Trump tax law keeps Bill Gates' nuclear datacenter dreams alive

Will there be a nuclear new "general protection fault" as well ?

Having experienced microsofts "quality" performance for some decades (BASIC V2.0/C64 and V7.0/C128 being the exceptions), i dont feel good about Bill Gates being involved in an untested nuclear device of any kind.

Reminds me of Elons GrokCenter near Memphis, poisoning thousands of people with the fumes of the allegedly "not active and only for emergencies" gas turbine energy generators.

All this energy going to waste.

Smartphones in the doldrums due to crap demand and tariff woes

Broken or better, not "newer" and buzzwordish

One of the features that helped with my decision for my current smartphone is the built in FLIR, which greatly helps at work, there were no outstanding other hardware features that interested me although the solid state battery is a nice thing to have, reducing the explodeability to zero and extending the temperature range quite a lot.

I will stay with Blackview for a while, repairing as much as possible (not glued but screwed casing helps a lot although getting replacement parts is still some odyssey into oblivion) and only buying new when anything breaks beyond repairability.

I do agree that there are no real tempting hardware features to be expected and the "upgrades" in software are mostly orwellian , buzzwordian or marketurdian nightmares that need ADB access to remove or disable them.

The last "update" for Android 13 DOKE (normally a rather bloatware free one for android "standards") for example installed and activated a wallpaper malware that messed up my choices, used mobile data without consent, activated without consent and could only be reliably deactivated and removed via ADB. At least it did not mess with my preferred system settings, especially deactivation of animations and similar optimisations (which i have put into a script for obvious reasons).

While USA residents might blame Trumps Tarriffick Trifles, germany suffers under the EUrocracy and its ill effects, the malevolent CO2-Sect and its exorbitant price hikes, a "back to stoneage" Bundestag and increasing warmongering fueled by exorbitant loans with the usual effects (a success model that went so well in both 1914 and 1938, we even still have the "Schaumweinsteuer", a tax that was created to fund Kaiser Wilhelms submarine fleet.)

TL,DR: the market is saturated; with increased financial insecurity and insufferably high inflation combined with insufferably low wages the customer has no money to spend on "nice but not necessary" and you have nothing thats really worth purchasing.

'I guess NASA doesn't need or care about my work anymore'

I gave you a possible reason for the downtake as well as my opinion of wether its indeed newsworthy or not. Mind you, we are speculatiing here why its really taken down although there is a high probability its another anti-DEI overreach.

I also gave you my opinion why the anti-DEI efforts seem so excessive currently and why i believe thjey are necessary, if not unavoideable. Theres one thing to want tolerance but its quite another thing to demand or enforce any kind of newspeak under direct threat of societal consequences up to loss of work or even legalized fines. You can speak as distorted as you like but dont expect me to try to mimic a grammatically and factually false distortion of natural language. As to any kind of outward appearance, i am working in a company that doesnt care about anything as long as you do your job. We dont need "DEI" enforced from above, we have got around 8 to 10 different nationalities, from eastern europe to albania with one tamil guy and one from senegal as well as a multitude of cultural backgrounds from the abrahamitic religions to something like pagans of all kinds as well as atheists. You do your job, you are OK to have around, thats all that matters.

As posted, if you want to misunderstand, you are free to do so. The immature statement of "vladimir" being "proud" of me clearly hints at a nonsensical correlation that DEI madness is something positive and the even more primitive hatred against russia as counterpart and permanent antagonist.

A nice way to show that you dont have arguments albeit a bit too obvious for my personal liking but you do you.

I guess its just a bit of overkill, like the articles about enola gay. Automation can be helpful but if no real brain looks into the aftermath, its quite likely going like shooting a nuclear warhead on a single cockroach.

I know that noone likes the trumpeltier ("trampeltier", not meant biologically but in the sense of elephant in a china shop) and much of the seemingly or factually erratic behaviour isnt something i would or could understand.

On the other hand, the DEI madness really overdid it, overreached and contaminated far too many aspects of life and media so filtering out as much as needed (like the firefox extension that filters gendernewspeak contaminated texts to make them readable again) to not get that destructive ideology thrown in the face with each and every text, picture, movie or whatever is not something i would oppose but is long overdue. If you dislike "right wing" parties getting stronger and elected to power, ignoring what pissed off the majority of voters so much, that they chose "the enemy" and instead insulting them wont help but keep the trend alive, kicking and expanding.

As long as the DEI removal teams keep correcting every potential filter overkill, this kind of news is non news. When something stays offline that doesnt have anything to do with the DEI trash, that should be reported and - if uncorrected - could be newsworthy.

If you intend to misunderstand, just do so. I personally am more impressed by Morgan Freemans approach to racism and fully agree with him. See the respective interview with the brilliant (although i often disagree with him) Bill Maher about black history month, i believe it was a "Club Random" episode but might misremember.

And now its "news" that an inactive (!) blog was taken down. Wow. Would it be "news" if this happened due to a cleanup effort to weed out outdated stuff that noone clicks ? Of course not. But now its the anti-DEI-Devils so its "news".

Concerning the strange comment that the evil (TM) russians would rejoice that an inactive blog from some NASA guy is down, why should they care at all ? If it was of interest, they would have copied it long ago. As would the chinese, indians or other spacefaring nations.

Your graphics card's so fat, it's got its own gravity alert

Re: Card orientation

Go for AcornRiscPC original casings. Those are not only screwless (locking bolts) but can be stacked.

If you need a decent amount of cool looking sillyness, put so many RsicPC casings over the others that you have a tower with a pizza oven.

https://www.houseofmabel.com/personal/computers/riscpc/

NIce idea. Anyone remembering those VESA local bus monsters in those "mini tower" casings remembers the second stabilizing groove on the front side of the casing. Lets go a bit further back in time and remember "filecards", RLL or MFM controllers with the full size 3,5" HDD directly mounted on the card. Those were often designed long enough to reach the casings front end, for the same mechanical stability reasons the VESA monsters later on also needed.

How about a sturdy enough metal support beam that can be clipped into the casing after installing the card, that goes over the card and connects from back to front end of the casing, effectively supporting the full upper length of the card ?

Sorry thats not "high tech", thats just mechanics.

But if you want, you can glue some RGD LED stuff on it, so it might not be too bad...

What the **** did you put in that code? The client thinks it's a cyberattack

Re: "Clever" machine obscenity detection...

There is a little village called "Pissen" (yes, "urinating") near Merseburg in eastern Germany.

Other more "civilized" names like AschAFFENburg (monkey) also exist.

Profanity filters should implement a cross reference list for triggering but "innocent" nonprofanities like comPUTEr (for french speaking people) or mARSCHmusik or whatever longer word seems to contain a built in profanity substring. There was a now closed down MMORPG called "forsaken world" that censored its own item "Drachenkraut" through all three languages it was published in europe due to "kraut" i believe. Its hard to guess beyond the XXXX or ****.

Naturally, the french players talked trash in circles around any filter upgrade that was implemented. Biological creativity outwitting any kind of "AI" or similar glorified sort-of-sort algorythm as usual.

Much better however would be to globally set the societal variable snowflake_mode_intensity from "excessive" down to "whocares".

Why not:

Anonymous

Developer

Helping

Someone

?

Thats a letter more and... oh, look, a squirrel !!!

Re: Be careful where you type

Things like this also happen in the military. When i was on guard duty as NCO i read backwards in the guards book of a really, really remote weapons and ammunition storage facility. The text i found a few months back is quite likely etched forever in my mind until alzheimer comes to the rescue.

"Gefreiter Nordhorn wurde beim Geschlechtsverkehr mit einem Schaf erwischt und sofort erschossen. Neue Wachstärke 1-9."

In translation: Private Nordhorn was cought shagging a sheep and was promptly shot. New Personnel count 1(NCO) / 9(Privates).

Of course this was forged in later on. I am somewhat sure due to the strict regulations concerning personal weapons and equipment. there would be a hell of a fuzz (and with the fuzz) if a weapon wasnt returned to the weapons storage after end of guard duty cycle and the ammo wasnt accounted for properly.

More on topic and much more in reality, we had a very emotional telephone conference concerning a machine installation at GKN/Airbus around 2010, especially emotional when it came to health and safety as well as the strangely non compliant higher ups (running around without helmets and high vis vests, things like that). What we did not know was that the customer had some of his higher ups on visit in our company in germany and the call was on hands free. Still glad we used below medium level of snarkiness and sarcasm which kept the aftermath tolerable.

Microsoft total recalls Recall totally to Copilot+ PCs

That worked soooo well with windows update, didnt it ?

Concerning the EUrocracy... Did you miss who was selected to go after the big data corporations ? She could only be avoided because she was not an EU citizen, much to von der Leyens anger this former employee of both google and microsoft couldnt be installed to check on the big bad data wolves.

and now for something completely not different:

https://netzpolitik.org/2024/drehtuereffekt-bei-eu-kommission-lobby-waechter-kritisieren-beamtenwechsel-zu-microsoft/

https://www.lobbycontrol.de/konzernmacht/seitenwechsel-zu-microsoft-beschwerde-bei-eu-eingereicht-117981/

https://www.dr-datenschutz.de/datenschutzwidrige-nutzung-von-ms365-durch-die-eu-kommission/

"Any? You mean that's incoming too?? Who the fuck would be stupid enough to share that ??"

Thats not incoming that will be part of it from the start. The option to create such a privacy mess by yourself might be implemented later on.

Re: I'm assuming

This could work. I did something similar when the GWX-Annoyware infected Win7/8 machines with the constant nagging for a "free upgrade" even on machines that wouldnt be accepted due to hardware requirements. Some users kept getting the GWX mess, even though they had uninstalled GWX and disabled the respective KB update so i created an additonal user account, made it the owner and sole user able to change/delete within the folder that GWX was stored, deleted everything in it and then - after setting the usual flags like write protected etc. deleted the user account. Not even an error message after that.

I believe however that such innocent and simple things wont work as intended, instead i suspect something like the system shutdown when killing the wuau*.* update task in WinXP or even bigger problems. Protecting unwanted malware through system integration is not new for microsoft.

Re: BTDTGTTS

"My phone is de-Google'd. I do have other Android devices that aren't, but they don't get used on a daily basis."

Exactly this. ADB command line witchcraft surely helps to get rid of some of the pestware like google assistant, "digital wellbeing" and annoying bloatware like livewallpaper that still sends notification although officially disabled and not having any permissions. Well its down the drain of pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.annoyingcrapware.... Digital wellbeing is a special case, you need to activate the adb command right after officially disabling it or it will covertly restart and block the uninstall command. And dont bother giving it the command to delete its stolen data and cache after you disabled notifications. Doing so will reenable notifications for this suspicious stuff.

This is no longer a game if it ever was. Everything is compromised and the amount of annoying hoops and loopholes you have to endure to make "your" devices at least mostly behave like you want is growing with every day and every orwellian atrocities the EUrocracy or the protofascist german government mess are spouting on a near daily basis.

Re: BTDTGTTS

That would be munich and they did suspiciously discover their special designed breed of *ixish stuff "didnt work" after microsoft made some decision for an investment in said city. Currently the federal state of schleswig-holstein claims to try anew, athoug i cannot discern if its genuine incompetence or malicious intent to show that Linux wont work.

At least i managed to give my wife a linux based desktop for her small business. All the stuff she needs simply works and the insecurities of unwanted, potentially destructive updates, warnings that the OS will "no longer be supported" as well as the strange phenomena Edge and microsofts unwanted insistance on bing and other crapware randomly generated are gone.

Re: Alleged Use Case

Non functional opt-out selectors along with reassuring fake messages are nothing new. You would need to have sysinternals file monitor or something similar running for a while to see if its really no longer recording. Or just take a look on the remaining disc capacity before and after coffee/lunch break.

Re: The promise of A.I.

If you can sell it to someone who believes that "AI" can do $whatevermagic, noone cares if it can to anything at all.

Re: Recall does not share snapshots or associated data with Microsoft or third parties

Well maybe its the "interest based ADnoyance" scam, this time from redmond instead one of the other data thieves.

If thats one of the far too many (ab)usecases i might be interested in seeing how that works. As far as i can tell from my android devices, the "interest based" Adnoyance might indeed be based on someones interests but usually not mine.

"Locally" can be such a misleading word. Locally stored somewhere on the third planet is still "locally" in a galactic way...

" Record the maximum and probably store it forever and a day"....

I suspect you overlooked the "AI" part, which means everything spied and stolen will constantly and forever be processed, correlated and mutilated.And of course phoned home in one way or another no matter what they claim. (Office 365 spell checker anyone ?)

Have fun trying to prove that anything digital has not been tampered with or that you are not in cahoots with any terrorist, criminal or people with the wrong opinion when "the AI" says that you might be.

Thats independant from the current overlord

While i can somewhat understand the aversion against the trumpeltier (german:Trampeltier=Dromedar), the mumbling mummy and his cackling witch of the word salad were and are no better. Without wanting to defend any head(less) of state, i wouldnt blame a new inaugurated puppet for things that began under his predecessor(s).

On topic: Win7 was the last redmondish spyware i used and Win2K was the last windows where the administrator was actually an administrator, even able to delete the wuau*.* "i will ignore anything you forbid and do as i please anyway"-"update". Since WinXP you cannot even disable the wuau*.* tasks, the system will shut down immediately without any chance to avoid this. this means that since WinXP, i am doing everything important and privacy relevant on other OSes and abuse Redmond stuff only for irrelevant things like gaming.

Tech support world record? 8.5 seconds from seeing to fixing

A bit more recent

Windows 7 and 8 suddenly developed internet connection issues when the router was changed from telekom standard hardware to fritzbox.

Only in IPv4 mode, though, and ipconfig/flushdns could resolve the issue sometimes.

Pulling the ethernet connector out, waiting a few seconds and pushing it back in or going to network settings, disabling ipv4, then reenabling again would also work.

Turns out win 7/8 really likes to preserve its first router setting on 192.168.2.1 instead of the fritzboxens 192.178.2.1 address and would revert whenever it had one of its many mysterious user annoyance feature activations. Other symptoms included DNS on *.168.*.* while DHCP correctly on *.178.*.* and every imaginable mess up of the 168 and 178 bits until it finally settled temporarily on all three options 178.

Sometimes its the hardware settings, sometimes the registry or other software issues, sometimes DHCP takes too long for wins liking,sometimes all of the above.

Really easy to "quick fix" but can be a PITA to find out which issues little win actually has.

UK sleep experts say it's time to kill daylight saving for good

Well the dictatorship of the council has more important things to do than commit to one of the few things that seemed to be a bit democratic. Cant have the serfs getting ideas above their stations, can we ?

And please dont give that propaganda that the EU lets members decide for themselves, just take a look at the multitude of sanctions that are conjured whenever some member dares to step a nanometer out of line.

Its a major pass the buck. Want to do something your voters really dislike ? Give a call to your accomplices in brussels and see it coming back "from the EU, sorry no can do".

Congress to Commerce: Sanction more Chinese chip firms to stop Huawei's evasion

Re: Trumplestiltskin"s dream

Well if that materialises as fast as the promised "bestest trade agreement" for brexitland, it might take longer than the trump-ET lives.

I cannot speak for the USA as i have no first hand experience but when it comes to germany, especially now that the EUrocracy runs Amok with the silliest of regulations, i can understand why international competitors benefit from death by beaurocracy.

Lets start with ticking all those climate preachers off (People like the COP xx hypocrites who do their "climate conference" in person, with tons of cronies and tons of kerosin because every useless climate preacher needs to fly there with the biggest private jet possible.) CO2 taxation ups the cost for everything that needs energy to be produced, which means everything.

EU regulations, that keep mutating and must be mutated into local laws include interesting things like the correct angle for cucumbers, a law for machine builders to create documents concerning the possible deforestation index for every friggin part thats manufactured externally, excessive "data protection" that - if done by the letter - will force each company that makes prototypes for others to delete any and all information after a maximum of 10 years. Add the convoluted german tax laws and you might see and experience why international competitors have less issues.

Of course, there are similarities to the US (as said, i have no first hand experience so im going by what information i got in the last decades). Outright corruption on all levels, including tax avoidance schemes like chancellor Olaf Scholzs "Cum-Ex/Cum" which his pals in the Warburg bank do since the late 1980ies, albeit under the name of "Dividendenstripping" back when it first came into the news.

Taxes and other forms of legalized wage theft are currently surpassing the 50% mark which leads to less customers in the nation and thus the need to export (==compete internationally).

Add the destruction of any kind of useable education (Bologna/Master/bachelor) and the massive increase of cost for the worsening education and i believe germany can be compared to the US.

Then theres the second part of the widespread destruction. Apart from the economic war that the falling USA wages against so called "allies", german managers tend to make more and more suicidally bad decisions, from electroimmobility over trading quality for cheap blinkenthingens and other useless decorations to actively discouraging educating their workforce and also actively discouraging any kind of incentive to develop and share ideas. The "idea" part is also not helped by changing the work law by andrea nahles ("social-democratic" party), effectively giving your employer anything you invent for free.

TL,DR:

Both managers/corporations and governments are to blame for each and every economic issues the so called "free west" is currently experiencing. Both are adverse to long term thinking and planning, something that china is traditionally good at, both only operate on greed, incompetence and ideology and both dont give a flying dolphins droppings about the destruction they cause or the people they murder (directly or indirectly) as long as their pockets fill up. The main issue seems to be a system thats optimised to put the most detestable and deranged psychos in the positions where they can do a maximum of damage.

Game not over: Epic brings Fortnite back to iOS in Europe, using its own app store

Maniac Minsion in Day of the tentacle isnt new, also SCUMM in SCUMM. ;)

AI stole my job and my work, and the boss didn't know – or care

Re: A cynic's sarcasm might help

But where is the earth-shattering KABOOM ?

Twitter must pay over half a million to unfairly dismissed Irish exec

Re: Not a US company, but similar behaviour from the Irish subsidiary of Wix...

Nice name. Is this some platform for masturbation issues ?

The verb "wixen" is german slang for male masturbation (not to be confused with "wichsen" which may have the same meaning but normally is the action of applying shoeshine and polish it in.).

If any internet platform thats called out for "hate speech" (by whatever nutjob of whatever ideology/voluntary mental disorder) got cancelled, deleted or ignored, the internet would be silent.

Google's ex-CEO U-turns after saying staff 'going home early' killed winning

Re: I misspoke about Google and their work hours. I regret my error

"I doubt few offices are equipped for that."

Behold, my CAT6 of 8 tails.... Or my 10 knotted extension cords mace. Or whatever corded weapon any mess of USB cables transforms to after one day in a dark drawer...

"t never hurts to be seen putting in extra effort, to make management think you're more valuable "

No need for effort, most of "management" hasnt enough competence and understanding to actually be able to value real worth. Just make sure to put on a show of what they think they understand and youre better off than anyone doing real work.

One of the far too many examples was me and a colleague "standing around" (as a certain manager decided to believe and voiced to everyone and his dogs fleas behind our backs) in front of a prototype. What he wasnt able to see/hear because he kept his distance and had no intent of asking what we did, was our conversation about technical difficulties, how to get cabling from the feed through all the moving parts to the target, how much space had to be allocated for pneumatics..... All the fiddly little stuff that "somehow" always comes up with prototypes.

When it came to the next performance review, this nice opinion was put on the table and cost both of us our share of the bonus for early completion.

Compensating the shortcomings of the construction and implementing some "minor" changes, with excessive overtime, destroyed weekends, delayed vacancy, all for nothing.

You might guess what happened at the next machine. Spoiler: somehow this thing was completed late. Too late. Expensively late (Oops, had to be on the container ship to overseas ? Really ? My, how shocking. Isnt it too bad ? If only someone had had some ideas in the early stages of completion....).

Re: Yep yep, the priviledged attitude

Just be "green", replace each useless CEO with a pottet plant.

For "CO2" reasons, etc.

Biden tries to cut through fog of confusion caused by deliberately deceptive customer service tricks

Re: The golden rule, ignored

Which equals to never fix anything at all.

Well as nice as it SOUNDS....

"Talks", "discussions" and "efforts" that are taking years, decades, until the sun burns out yet fail to show even the smallest result of whats allegedly intended ?

If any of the allegedly intended, any of the oh so worthy intents, efforts, whateverblabbernothinghappenings actually transform into something real that actually does whats allegedly intended, i might applaud.

As far as my cynicism infused sarcasm-a-tron is involved, big words, nothing done. Seen too much of this in germany, experiencing it every time another scammer pollutes my phone or my letterbox. Helping those in uncancellable subscriptions and similar evil stuff as best as i can, succeeding sometimes directly, sometimes sadly have to convince the victims to get a lawyer, as none of the "consumer protection agencies" or whatevers do anything useful.

IF any government REALLY wants this kind of scammery to end, why dont they put into law what they allege to intend ? Maybe because as long as its in discussion limbo, nothing happens but at least all are looking good and the scammers keep on scamming and the $currency keeps on rolling.

Re: Old US Benchmark/Example

Seems a lot like "Bertelsmann Club" but the "Club" not only had a very long mandatory membership, you HAD to buy something ito fill a spending quote or else would have sent trash of their choice for premium prices to you and wether you liked that or not was your problem. Also, the "discounted only for club members" items in their shops pretty much matched the "noone likes this trash, have it for some cents" aisles in discounters. Cancelling the membership also was a real hassle, my sister needed three tries and finally a lawyer to get rid of them.

Apple is coming to take 30% cut of new Patreon subs on iOS

While this seems like the obvious thing to do, wasnt this "redirecting to different payment methods" already forbidden in the TOS(s em out) when epic started to get angry with apples Iprotection racket ?

I have an inherited mac mini with os 10.whatever in working condition but never read any apple ToS so i am rememberguessing from what i read here.

Please correct me if im (quite likely) remembering wrong.

Try the RedMi scourge, if you feel masochistic tendencies.

Android as a disadvantegaous advantage of being highly customizeable, sadly also in a "we tell you what you cant delete" way thats somewhat Ihateyou compatible with apple.

On the other hand, there are many, many manufacturers that just deliver a plain as possible OS (with only "child mode", "digital wellness" and similar uninstalleable bloatware thats sadly deeply encrusted in the OS now) with the occasional customer contact, system optimizer and phone mirroring app included.

When i compare my blackview pack with the "mi" whatevers that my wife and kids pretend to like, i have literally zero problems apart from my usual preferences like replacing gboard with hackers keyboard, installing several apps that playstore doesnt like and fiddling some stuff around with ADB becaus i somewhat dislike certain things.

The "mi" things however are somewhat loaded with bloatware and manufacturer made sillystuff, and thats exactly whats triggering issues quite regularly. Sadly, most of this cannot be uninstalled, only disabled or overridden with replacement apps.

Anyway the dokeOS android in blackviews really "just works" from first start, the sillystuff thats clinging into whatever "mi" android is called "just works" for a few weeks, then triggers a multitude of mysterious issues along several other apps.

TL,DR: Android also "just works" but sadly, some manufacturers do interfere with this in a quite unpleasant way. That might be why things like Lineage and KaiOS exist. ;)

German state ditches Windows, Microsoft Office for Linux and LibreOffice

Re: Outlook/Exchange ?

Thats interesting but in our company, the basic OS on each and every CNC is some sort of Linuxish abomination, be it the spanish machines from FANUC, the bigger one with a Heidenhein PLC or the medium one from some noname manufacturer in the US of A.

I do know of some machines, especially with siemens PLC inside that seem to use Microsoftish things, Spinner (yes indeed their name) CNC for example.

But as time goes by, manufacturers of time critical equipment tend to dislike windows exxcentric opinion of "real time", "stability", uptime as well as some stutters and hiccups generally not happening in anything Ixish. The more microsoft bloats up, the less attractive they are, not due to storage issues but due to the unhealthy effects on speed, reliability and precision. Mutating data standards for files of any kind also dont help people, who need to have their stuff ready for longer than two versions.

The more aggressive microsoft acts against the userbase, the more pressure will build up to look for any alternative.

Give it time, do your best to convince people who really do not need windows that they dont need windows. So far, Mint seems good enough for those who only need a browser, Email access and some sort of Office suite.

Re: Windows VW or WINE

Let me remind you of hells incarnate sadistic "programming environment" called Siemens TIA portal.("Totally Integrated Automation", my flaming backside after tons of chili).

Depending on the hardware you need to program, all those still suffering from "Turbo"PASCAL traumata (command you need is in THIS version of the library AKA "unit" but this unit is incompatible /overlapping but lacking with another unit that has another command you need in it....) will have a creepy feeling that they experienced something in the dark past thats quite like TIA nowadays.

Most of those who have to cope with different "compatible" hardware modules or even siemens own hellspawns from other times and versions, especially safety modules in DP (decentralized peripherals, basically I/O modules not directly built in the PLC but connected via Profibus or profinet) have similar issues with the databases for hardware modules of different time and manufacturer (officially "compatible") so the usual approach is to set up several VM with TIA portal under the respective windows version and each VM for special cases has a specific, project oriented combination of hardware databases in it that would conflict with each other when trying to install them all as well as with the "standard" config siemens alleges should work for everything.

Then throw in a mix of feldbus,profibus and profinet along with a DP/DP coupler to really mess up the addressing... "organically" grown over time, most here will shudder as they know and have experienced what suchlike might mutate to...

Anyway, there would not be much difference wether your Desktop is KDE,gnome or whatever, you would still need different VM. And there we are again with special hardware needs.