Posts by Flocke Kroes

Re: Maybe we noticed the warranty return rate

Take a look at the figures. If you are returning drives after a few hundred hours consider checking for PEBKAC because the drives are not the problem. Blackblaze buy lots of 4TB Seagates. They do this because with good redundancy and fail over the 3% PA failure rate is more than accounted for in the price. (The average is 2% for Blackblaze's inventory). Judging by the quantities in service the same cannot be said for the 5% PA failure rates of a couple of Western Digital models.

I would vote for it if ...

... they use suitable training data. I propose recordings of TV interviews with politicians.

Re: America

No need to make it up. When the UK government needs to come up with something really stupid to do all the have to do is copy the most damaging policy the Americans came up with 5 years ago.

Re: Now, if this were a Windows exploit...

All free software has an automatic money back option. Perhaps one day Microsoft will provide such a service to their customers. You are welcome to hold your breath while you wait for it.

Re: Jaywalking

When someone gets run over they put up a fence to stop other people getting run over in the same place. A few days later the fence has a hole in it and people cross there again. The entire exercise is pointless for many reasons. One data point is not sufficient to identify a dangerous place to cross the road. It does hint at a popular place to cross the road and the possibility that some people are not as good at crossing the road as others. If they used more effective barriers, people not capable of looking both ways before crossing will simply find somewhere else to die.

Re: One stereotype about Generation Z...

Just like every previous generation had plenty of individualistic rebellious teens.

Re: This is new news?

Before Amazon, RS components had a reputation for seeking 'special relationships' with their suppliers. For example negotiate a low price, buy vast quantities to build a huge stock, wait for the supplier to invest in increased production then halt buying and sell from stock until supplier can be bought for a pittance.

There is nothing new about this business model.

Re: Diagnostic process

In normal circumstances I can find a fault with a binary search but some clients like to help by asking a continuous stream of "Is the printer broken? Is the computer broken? Is it the printer cable? ..." three seconds after I enter the room. Applying chresmomancy may lead me to suspect the problem is a Letter sized document sent to a printer loaded with A4 but that requires typing in my password to check which can be a little tricky if I get too much help.

Re: Phil Kingston

I am confident what you consider a valid patent and the standard of the patents that are actually awarded are very different. The big problem with the EFF's stupid patent of the month is the thousands of thoroughly deserving patents granted each month that miss their chance of fame.

Re: Tigra 07

I know we are a net contributor. I have never said otherwise. That is still consistent with getting an unfair share of EU pork which used to be true but is being eroded. What I massively object to is Brexits promising the gross ~£350M/week (16% of the NHS budget) when the net amount which could theoretically be available is a rounding error on the NHS budget. The signature benefit of Brexit has been a big lie from the start.

The next crap down on the list is to restrict freedom of travel. That hits both ways. You are contributing towards restrictions on my freedom of travel.

"We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act. The violent drug dealer who cannot be sent home because his daughter – for whom he pays no maintenance – lives here. The robber who cannot be removed because he has a girlfriend. The illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because – and I am not making this up – he had a pet cat."

"This is why I remain of the view that the Human Rights Act needs to go."

Do you really want to be stuck in the same country as cat-gate?

Words mean different things to different people

In the security services, "trusted" means "someone who can betray you".

More big moons in the solar system

The solar system has four rocky planets, one with a large moon. The moons of the four giant planets are small compared to their primaries but Ganymede, Titan, Callisto and Io are all bigger than Luna also Europa and Triton are bigger than Pluto. There are currently five dwarf planets: Pluto and Eris both have relatively large moons. So far three Trans Neptunian Objects also have large moons (Orcus, Salacia and 2007 OR₁₀)

(The JWs try to tell me Earth is really unusual because of its large moon. I like to show them this pretty picture)

Re: Change

I can change my search engine today.

The next general election is scheduled for May 2022. Although there may be a few different faces I am not expecting any real change in the government.

Re: comms companies can't throw you in prison ...

... yet, but when they want such power Pai will grant it to them.

Re: There More than One Way to Skin a Skunk RAT and Address a Virtual Land Grab

To the best of my knowledge, amanfromMars 1 is a travesty generator. I can understand your confusion because some of the other commentards here are even more incoherent.

Re: Meh

If manufacture does return to the US (or Mexico) then a 25% tax on Chinese goods will result in a 15% mark up on local manufacture plus another 9% from reduced economies of scale.

Re: Why ...Press F1 to continue... was stupid

This is pre-dates USB by a long time. Hotplug hardware was somewhere between rare and fictional so plugging the keyboard back in could break the keyboard, motherboard or both. As the hardware did not support hotplug there was no reason to have the software handle it. If the hardware survived then the firmware in the keyboard controller could hang so the machine would need a power cycle anyway.

Now imagine you have got your server almost ready to install on site. You remove the keyboard and video card because no-one will be typing on that machine, switch on and the damn thing beeps at you. You read the manual for the motherboard and discover the beep code means the BIOS has not detected the video card and refuses to boot. You put the video card back in and try again: the machine hangs. Attempt three with a monitor shows the infamous "Keyboard not detected. Press F1 to continue". After summoning a horde of demons to hunt down and sandpaper the programmer responsible you dust off a coffee stained keyboard and rip the keycaps off it so the machine will boot (and the customer will not press the wrong button).

Years later, Microsoft came up with: "Mouse not detected. Click here to change."

Re: Don't get me started

The problem was you started by making a purchase instead of doing a proper search for a device to meet your requirements. I bought an Epson printer 9 years ago because the driver was a included in Debian and there was cheap third party ink available. It still works fine - and 6 sets of ink cartridges are under £15.

Re: "California two-spot octopus"

Octopuses are Greek, not Roman so the plural would be octopedes (like centipus millipus :-)

Re: Alternative 2018 floppy disc put-down

Swallow the coffee and put down the cup. USB and internal 3½" floppy drives are still for sale on Amazon. You can even buy a pack of disks - you will only need 4 for the Raspberry Pi Linux kernel!

Re: moon landing

The next step up from a trip around the moon is to refuel the BFS-crew in orbit with the BFS-tanker. The BFS-crew could then land on the moon and return to Earth without further refuelling.

<embiggen>If</embiggen> Dearmoon and the first crewed LOP-G mission both launch on their no-earlier-than dates, Dearmoon goes first.

Re: No shit, Sherlock?

The problem with getting rid of politicians - no matter what method you use - is that the replacements are even worse. Executing the Westminster civil will require setting up a new working group and hiring staff to investigate the most cost intensive method. Start with a £100M budget and a two year deadline then after five years and £500M the project will be abandoned due to cost and restarted a year later.

Re: Bloody foreigners ...

... over here doing jobs Brits won't or can't do, paying taxes, supporting our pensioners. We must put a stop to that at once! Build a wall! Make the EU pay for it! Make England Grab Again!

Re: Bottom hidden by fog

Foggy Bottom is not in the zip code database. It should be in a list of US historic districts, but I could not quickly find one in plain text format to search.

Re: Eff off Apple

Extra glue and price have worked really well for Apple. I expect more of the same next year.

Watch out for PETS

People for the Ethical Treatment of Software will be after you. Stallman has been claiming for ages that software should be free. If you are not paying at least minimum wage you are part of the problem. Next you will be claiming that the copyright of photographs does not belong to the camera.

Re: That is neither here nor there.

It is precisely here and there. Disabling javascript drastically reduces the attack surface so there are a thousand fewer ways to slurp the data. The Scammers went after BA despite Amazon having ten times the revenue and far more customers.

Amazon make it abundantly clear when you are dealing with a partner. You would really have to be stoned out of you brain not to notice. I can tell you precisely what happened to me the only time I got scammed by an Amazon partner. When I tried to complain to Amazon they instantly offered a full refund or credit on my account. The entire process took under two minutes. I have never received such excellent customer server from any other internet / mail order vendor.

I would dearly love a competitor to Amazon because they are near enough a monopoly. First thing that competitor has to do is demonstrate a minimal understanding of security by having their site work without javascript.

Re: GUI ?

A modern Pi is fine with a sensible GUI. XFCE is a good choice but there are plenty of other light weight GUIs to suit all but the people who need their windows semi transparent and rotating over the surface of a klein bottle.

Re: Time Machine Invented!

Michigan Link: On 2018-08-16 DNC security partner Lookout tested the DNC's email security by setting up phishing sites to collect user names and passwords. This information was then sent back in time to before the 2016 election so that DNC emails could be leaked.

Oracle link: The Internet Research Agency indictment is dated 2018-02-16. Google said they had taken steps to prevent similar trolling by the Russians. CfA tested this by setting up account using the Internet Research Agency's address and doing some trolling. Apparently this trolling travelled back in time to before the 2016 election and caused the indictment.

Re: ST

Apparently declaring bankruptcy and posting dumb shit on Twitter does make one qualified to be President.

Doesn't matter what his crime was

Would you really want to lend money to a man who will try to pay it into the account of a non-existent American company by using a the wrong account number for a company with a similar name in London?

Re: Local video playback

Local video playback time measures how much the OEM restricted screen brightness when not plugged into the mains.

Re: Helium?

Helium is difficult to contain, which is why He drives took a lot of R&D but it worked. MTBF increased by a factor of 2 to 6 (depending on what you compared against). These are now real results from field tests, not guesses for a new product.

Air drives are not sealed. They have an air filter that can fail. They also suffer in humid environments. Air gets turbulent more easily, wobbles the heads and vibrates the platters as well as raising the temperature.

If a Helium drive leaks there will be a detectable change in pressure so there will be some warning before failure - but I would not bet on getting the 16 hours warning required to image the whole 14TB.

Re: *nix is toast

The SCO group never owned Unix but that did not stop the bankruptcy trustee selling TSG's (non-existent) rights to Unix to some dupe. Novell was bought by Attachmate which was bought by Micro Focus.

Micro Focus is selling SUSE to EQT Partners which will split it out into a new subsidiary Blitz 18-679 GmbH. I have no idea if Unix is moving with SUSE.

@JuJuBalt

When a sensible person contributes towards the construction costs of a gym they make certain they are legally entitled to a share of the profits.

Now withdraw your pension plan in cash and tell me which MP you would trust invest it on your behalf.