* Posts by Goat Jam

2482 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Mar 2008

'Pirate block' proposal back on Oz agenda

Goat Jam

"WTF is happening down under, since when did the Aussies become such a PC crowd ?"

Since we adopted socialism as our national religion, and no, the LNP are not a conservative party with small government & freedom as their central philosophy, so don't even try that one on.

Mozilla hopes to challenge Raspbian as RPi OS of choice

Goat Jam

What exactly is the selling point here? What does FirefoxOS offer apart from being produced by an organisation that is crippled by political correctness and a desire to employ as many so-called minorities as possible?

Apple iPhone 6 Plus: GORGEOUS FAT pixel density - but it's WASTED

Goat Jam

Perfectionist Apple

Died with Steve Jobs. That is all

Voteware source code requester labelled 'vexatious'

Goat Jam

"Surely it would build confidence in our elected officials"

Why would the AEC care whether we have any confidence in them or not? Have you ever met a government worker. They just don't give a shit what the great unwashed think.

As for the elected officials (aka politicians), they don't care either

Come up with some 'novel cloud' boffinry, grab $20m from US govt

Goat Jam

Don't he US Grubbermint have better things to do with their (borrowed) money than interfere with free markets by trying to pick a winner. Like, say, paying off their debt?

Governments have a piss poor track record of picking winners. Markets are much better at deciding where investments are best made.

I wouldn't be surprised if you looked into the whos and whats of this and discovered this is just Obama handing out some cash to his some of cronies.

Intel's Raspberry Pi rival Galileo can now run Windows

Goat Jam

Re: I dont want Windows on TV

Didn't MS buy WebTV about 15 years ago?

Tim Cook on pale, male Apple: 'As CEO, I'm NOT satisfied'

Goat Jam

I wont be satisfied

until everything is done by females. Everything. Then, after the collapse of civilisation back into prehistoric barbarism I will attain my rightful place as ruler of the world.

And if you don't think the collapse of western civilisation wouldn't happen within a year then you are completely delusional.

All Woman Workplace

SCORE: Rosetta probe hits orbit of duck-shaped comet

Goat Jam

Re: This article lacks a critical word:

That's what you get when you insist on hiring profeshinul jernalists I guess.

Australia's metadata debate is an utter shambles

Goat Jam

Re: Abbott is a complete and utter incompetent

Another great Fraser moment I seem to recall*:

The scene is Fraser doing the school kid thing, kids are lined up on the soccer field and the PM is walking down the line shaking hands and generally trying to milk the kids of that magic TV news soundbite when the following exchange took place:

Fraser: So little lady, what are you going to do when you finish school?

Schoolgirl: Why, what have you got in mind?

* May not be true, my memory fades, but funny anyway

Goat Jam

Re: Abbott is a complete and utter incompetent

"As a previous (and fellow Tory) PM said; "Tony Abbott is a dangerous politician""

Two things;

Firstly, "Tories" are a UK thing. There is no such thing as an Australian "Tory" despite what that ranting buffoon Mike Carlton might say.

Secondly, even if the term "Tory" was applicable to Aus politics Fraser is as far from being a "Tory" as you can get without being a card carrying member of the Communist Party.

Interestingly, his government carried many of the hallmarks of the current Abbott Clown Circus. It was an ineffectual do-nothing government that was more concerned with appeasing the left than actually implementing the mandate that they received after crushing Labor *twice*.

Of recent years Fraser has been a darling of the ABC and Fairfax who are not given to consorting with "Tories" I assure you.

Goat Jam

While they are nowhere near perfect, I am going to give the LDP a run and see how that goes. Couldn't be any worse really.

Goat Jam

Tony Abbott is the greatest PM Australia has had since Kevin Rudd. Also the worst.

Mozilla gaffe exposed 76,000 email addresses, 4000 passwords

Goat Jam

Boring!

The real important questions are;

How is the Mozilla diversity program going?

What is their non-white, one-legged, lesbian coder ratio today?

Have they sacked everyone that isn't in lock-step with their position on the gay marriage thing yet?

Windows Registry-infecting malware has no files, survives reboots

Goat Jam

Ah yes the dreaded registry.

On my Linux machines, if I want to rebuild a server all I need to do is a clean install followed by apt-get/yum install and then in the vast majority of cases you simply copy a configuration file over from the old machine. Voila! The job is done in an hour.

Back in the day you could do much the same with Windows. In fact I remember the time when you could simply copy the MS Office directory from machine A to machine B and it would work perfectly fine.

This is clearly a less than ideal situation from the perspective of the company who is trying to sell you MS Office however and thusly the Windows registry was born.

With the registry in place the configuration part of any particular application is disconnected from the application itself and placed into a binary blob that is impossible to copy. To obscure things even more the configuration for an application such as, for example, MS Office, is peppered throughout the registry instead of residing in its own "branch" of the tree and is therefore mixed in with all the configuration details of all the other applications in the system. Further obfuscation is achieved by "hiding" binary stuff (ie "non ascii") and borking the registry editing tool so that it will not allow you to even see the "non ascii" parts let alone edit them and we have a sufficiently tangled mess that the only possible way to install something now is to go through the complete install process which requires access to install media and the associated DRM hoops that must be jumped through.

I invite people to do a search in their registry for the keyword "outlook" and behold the thousands of references littered throughout the directory tree. Then imagine that multiplied by the number of applications that you have installed. It is little wonder that the registry is constantly bloating up and that uninstallers consistently fail to actually uninstall themselves properly.

There is absolutely no valid reason that a product like MS Office requires such a ludicrously complicated and widely dispersed configuration other than as a means for Microsoft to create such a complex mess of details so as to make using illicit copies of their software more difficult.

For the numbskulls earlier in this thread who have bought into the whole "but its a database and couldn't be done in any other way" nonsense you really should not be commenting on stuff you know nothing about.

It's War: Internet of things firms butt heads over talking-fridge tech standards

Goat Jam

What a whole lot of corporate posturing for something that nobody actually wants. This is like Apple, Samsung and MS fighting it out over who gets to set the standard API for smartwatches. Even the winner loses because nobody wanted that shite in the first place.

The Register editorial job ad

Goat Jam

"All positions are for journalists rather than IT or other tech professionals"

Yeah, that sort of explains a lot really.

Cloudy CoreOS Linux distro declares itself production-ready

Goat Jam

Re: is this familar?

I've had a (very brief*) play with it and from what I can tell it (ie: docker) is like a combination of the old BSD jails and puppet.

Basically it is a bunch of tools for deploying containerised applications automagically.

* I don't have an application for it so I haven't actually used it in anger. I might set something up in the lab should I ever find a potential use for it.

Arrr: Digital Economy Act tied up, thrown in the hold

Goat Jam

Re: bunch of tw@ts

I just got a love letter from my provider for an infringement described as "1983 - Eliminator / ZZ Top - Eliminator.flac"

Note the invalid forward slash in the alleged file name.

Also there was a url in the "complaint" to a helpful website at "secure.digitalrightscorp.com" where I could enter my credit card details to "settle the infringement". Nice little earner that.

White? Male? You work in tech? Let us guess ... Twitter? We KNEW it!

Goat Jam

Re: Please stop publishing this Frankfurt School Political Correctness nonsense already

"Seriously, this Marxist rubbish is getting so very old"

True that. I'm extremely sick of this shit. El Reg standards have slipped over the years. Try going back to mid noughties articles and note the difference.

Microsoft's MCSE and MCSD will become HARDER to win

Goat Jam

"Why not make the tests more relevant rather than "harder." An example of this might be testing fundamental concepts and/or working on the problem solving capabilities of the individuals taking the tests, rather than their ability to regurgitate propaganda or memorize "the shortest number of clicks" to find the place where Microsoft has most recently moved the control panel items necessary for actually administering a PC?"

I was going to say much the same thing, now I don't need to. Have an upvote.

PROOF the Apple iPhone 6 rumor mill hype-gasm has reached its logical conclusion

Goat Jam

Re: Colours?

"The ability to customise and pick a notification colour allowed me glance at my phone and immediately know what was waiting."

Well, that would be nice I guess.

Even better would not being a slave to my phone.

There was a time when people lived quite happily without mobile phones that constantly nagged them for their attention. Hard to believe I know.

Windows 7, XP and even Vista GAIN market share again

Goat Jam

XP

My old man has an XP laptop. He is one of those types who think "Windows" is what you open a Word document with. He hates the ribbon that he got when some well meaning person "upgraded his Windows" for example.

The laptop is nigh on 12 years old with a Celeron processor and something like 512Mb RAM so it won't run any post XP Microsoft OS which leaves me with the option of telling him to buy a new PC to just browse the internet with or sticking Linux on it for him.

To be quite honest, I haven't got the energy to do either considering his complete lack of computer competence and the chaos and confusion that will surely follow either option. The thought of dealing with that shitstorm is enough to drive me to drink.

NASA: Satellite which will end man-made CO2 debate in orbit at last

Goat Jam

Re: Maybe meteor strikes are an issue, maybe not

Option A: We build massive arrays of nuclear missiles that we can maybe shoot into space to possibly destroy inbound meteors but none arrive. We waste so much money that the west becomes bankrupt and Africa slips further back towards the stoneage than they already are with no hope of joining the modern world at all. Meanwhile, Islamists rejoice.

Option B: We choose not to waste massive amounts of money on a futile nuclear anti-meteor arsenal because if a big enough meteor is aimed at us no amount of nuclear missiles will help us anyway.

I'm sorry I think I'll go with Option B.

Goat Jam

I disagree. If the data does not support their mantra they will simply adjust the data. These people have form doing that.

Goat Jam

"denialists"

Christoph, do you accept or deny that global temperatures have not risen in 17 years despite massive increases in CO2 output (coming mainly from India and China)

NASA aborts third attempt at finally settling man-made CO2 debate

Goat Jam

Re: You mean you don't know?

""What happens if we clean up the environment and it not the cause of global warming? All we'd have then is no smog, non-polluting power and clean water."- Art Challenor"

This quote is based on the incorrect premise that CO2 is somehow "pollution" and "unclean", which it is not.

It also doesn't take into account the enormous social and wealth costs it imposes on billions of people via the ongoing campaign by the various activist greenscum groups around the world to revert the world to the stone age and destroy all human progress in the process.

Al Gore makes millions from this scam at the expense of people like me and you and you are happy for him to keep on doing so on the basis that it might possibly make some sort of positive difference to the world while totally ignoring the enormous consequences.

Goat Jam

Re: @Crazy guy

"Global warming is pretty much settled - it's happening"

Ummm, no, it hasn't happened for 17 years. That is not to say that it won't resume at some point but considering that CO2 output has been rising steadily during that same period then I think it is fair to say that C02 levels are not directly linked to temperature rises as the chicken-little brigade would have us think.

Goat Jam
Facepalm

@jhudsy

"CO2 has been pretty much confirmed as the cause of AGW."

Fact ONE: CO2 levels have risen at rates that often exceed what most of the climate models used to calculate our impending demise in the first place

Fact TWO: The world has not warmed one bit during the last 15-17 years while that was happening

Yet somehow, this is apparently proof positive that CO2 causes global warming.

Sorry, chaps! We didn't mean to steamroller legit No-IP users – Microsoft

Goat Jam

"legitimate subdomains resolve as expected"

So, how does that work then? How does my noip client update my IP? I'm pretty sure Microshit haven't implemented the "dynamic" part of the noip service.

MS need to be taken behind the shed and shot (NADT). The world would be a better place without them.

Microsoft's anti-malware crusade knackers '4 MILLION' No-IP users

Goat Jam

"Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of being given custody of the DNS, how the fuck have they managed to take custody so that they can filter out the 'bad' but fail to make sure their servers will stand up to the load so the 'good' is unaffected?"

I doubt it's a problem of their systems not scaling, it is more likely that when they seized the domains they simply plonked them on their own dns servers. There is no way they would have also implemented the backend infrastructure required to allow the noip DDNS client to "phone home" and update their A records.

Effectively, they hamfistedly converted all the "dynamic" addresses to static ones (based on their last known IP address) and then wondered why nothing worked. duh

Goat Jam
Flame

Optional

I don't even USE Microsoft crap and STILL they manage to create a nightmare for me. I only just signed up for a noip sub domain after ill advisedly changing ISP's and neglecting to check that I could get a static IP. My bad, I should have done my homwork so I sucked it up and setup dynamic dns.

TWO DAYS LATER MICROSOFT YANKS THE FUCKING DOMAIN

H8 H8 H8 H8

What's it like using the LG G smartwatch and Android Wear? Let us tell YOU

Goat Jam

No

Just no, and not just because it is uglier than those first gen digital watches that were all the rage for about 5 minutes in the early 80's either.

A watch that needs constant attention (recharging) who would want that?

Also, I still have to cart my phone around anyway?

What need are these so-called "smart watches" meant to address?

Microsoft gets the hang of funky devices: Xbox magic for enterprise

Goat Jam

Good Grief

Shouldn't this have an "Advertisment" disclaimer in the corner somewhere?

Microsoft has become a hardware company. There is now a range of devices, from phones to phablets to tablets and tablets that verge on laptops, being made by Microsoft. How did that happen

Microsoft sent in the trojan horse to wreck Nokia and then bought the smoldering remains with petty cash once the smoke had settled, that's how it happened. Do try and keep up.

If you like slipping your hand into Puppets, look for these certified types

Goat Jam

Re: The future of Sysadmining.

Puppet doesn't have gui (that I know of) it is essentially a centralised bunch of scripts that hosts on your network pull down and configure themselves with.

That is an overly simplistic description of course but it will do.

Russian gov to dump x86, bake own 64-bit ARM chips - reports

Goat Jam

Re: Could the NSA bribe ARM??

"Could the NSA bribe ARM?"

ARM don't make chips, they licence the design. Anybody can purchase a license and then chop and change things around to their hearts desire, including adding or removing any backdoors that may or may not be required in their particular application.

Thusly, I think that if the entire Russian government is driving this project then two things can be safely assumed:

1) Any NSA back doors that might have been (improbably) included in the ARM reference design are removed immediately.

2) New back doors to enable the Russian Gov to spy on their citizenry will be added post haste.

Google spaffs $50 MILLION on 'get girls coding' campaign

Goat Jam

"must go and tell 1/3 of the coders in my office that they now exist."

I would bet dollars to donuts that every one of those females is Indian. I don't say that in a disparaging way either, it's just that I have never seen a white female coder. Ever. I don't know why Indian women are apt to have a go where white women (apparently) fear to tread. Must be a cultural thing.

NSW budget calls for lower GST threshold on imports

Goat Jam

NSW budget calls for lower GST threshold on imports

Thereby proving that politicians are a bunch of clueless morons (as if there ever was any doubt)

At $1000, there is $100 GST applicable. How much does it cost the customs dept to collect that $100 on goods that enter Australia?

Given what we already know about the efficiency of government operations I would say that it would just about be the break even point. If these clowns want to start putting their hand in my pocket to grab $1.90 every time I buy a DVD off Amazon it is going to cost them much more in administration costs than they can ever hope to collect.

And when Amazon start packaging stuff in plain packaging how are those officers going to know which item that arrives on our shores is taxable? Are they going to start opening every package that arrives from overseas and look inside for an invoice?

It is a ludicrous idea.

Angelina Jolie 2.0 NOT an inspiration for Huawei phones, says exec

Goat Jam

@BlueGreen

Dude, your White Knight reflex is in hyper-drive. Maybe you should wind it back a bit eh?

'CAPTAIN CYBORG': The wild-eyed prof behind 'machines have become human' claims

Goat Jam

Re: So much to do, so little time...

"Start an AI project that is intended to run continuously and last 100 years, using the most powerful hardware available"

Great idea! We could call it "Deep Thought" and it could tell us the answer to The Great Question.

Might need more than a 100 years to run tho . .

207 thousand lights-out boxes are STILL hackable

Goat Jam
Trollface

contained next to no documentation pointing users to ways to improve their security postures

hehe

He says that like it's a bad thing.

IPv4 addresses now EXHAUSTED in Latin America and the Caribbean

Goat Jam

What they want: "ISPs to act swiftly and adopt IPv6 without any further delay"

What will happen: "ISPs act swiftly to deploy lots of NAT "routers" and start handing out 10.0.0.0/8 addresses to their customers"

Of course many ISPs are already doing this, especially on mobile networks.

We're ALL Winston Smith now - and our common enemy is the Big Brother State

Goat Jam

Re: Good point

"should easily be able to set up a bank/investment company where we could all enjoy exactly the same freedom"

Actually, anybody can already do what google does, or variations thereof.

The problem is that avoiding taxes is quite expensive in and of itself. Therefore the amount of tax you avoid paying has to exceed the costs of putting everything in place to be worth it.

For most people it isn't.

Microsoft poised to take Web server crown from Apache

Goat Jam

I never understood the appeal of WAMP

I mean, if you want to run Windows then that is fine, but why not just use IIS as well and be done with it?

If you want to run apache + mysql + php then why not host that on Linux?

After all it's not like the Windows versions of AMP have the nice gui based administration tools that are so beloved by Windows admins. You still have to edit the same configuration files on both platforms.

It makes no sense to me.

Goat Jam

Re: If history repeats, we can expect Windows Phone to top the charts in about 2030. ®

"Good point, I don't see either how IIS is not all that bad."

I don't think IIS is all that bad, but the real question is why would you use it when there are free alternatives that are at least as good, and arguably better?

Google, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Parallels bet on virtualization's surprising successor

Goat Jam

Don't Really Understand The Concept of Docker.

Is it like the venerable Solaris Containers or BSD jails?

An article that explains how it is different to virtualisation and/or jails would be nice.

Oh bugger it, I know how to use Google.

It appears that it is like an old fashioned container with a bunch of automation tools included. Or something. Doesn't sound too revolutionary but it is interesting none-the-less. Might have to fire up a server and try it out.

Alienware says it WILL ship a Steam Machine in 2014 – running Windows

Goat Jam

Breaking News

Alienware to release Windows PC. Comes with Steam pre-installed.

Women found just TWO out of every HUNDRED US tech startups

Goat Jam

Re: What a load of bollocks

Trevor says: "Dude, you're completely full of shit"

My response is, well, that is possible I reckon. So?

More from Trevor: "Women" aren't a homogenous group"

Ah yes, the infamous "not all women" fallacy, I've never dealt with that before.

I don't know why it is that you consider an opinion that essentially states that women have different motivations/interests than men is the equivalent of "steaming misogyny" but whatever.

Each to his own etc,

Keep morale high Trevor.

Goat Jam

Re: What a load of bollocks

Mr Potts said: "Women love tech"

My response is that that may be so, but they don't give a shit about understanding how it works.

Mr Potts again: "Now, give the average non-introverted lady a chance to use proper high tech in a social setting and she's all over it"

See my comment above.

The truth is that human beings are evolutionary creatures. Men have evolved to take risks (hunting, warfare) and women have evolved to seek security (align herself with the strongest warrior/hunter in order to secure the survival of herself and her offspring).

No amount of feminist indoctrination is going to change that fact. Casting yourself in the role of White Knight and rushing to the defence of da wimmins won't change it either.

Tech talk bloke compares girlfriend to irritating Java tool – did he deserve flames?

Goat Jam

Anybody who gives a flying fuck what the collective festering cesspit that is the "twittersphere" thinks needs to re-evaluate their priorities.

Basically, if you are not upsetting that mass of drooling luvvies and assorted grief-mongers then you are not trying hard enough.

Net neut supporters CRASH FCC WEBSITE with message deluge

Goat Jam
Trollface

Re: I hope they listen...

" I mean, toading to the monied interests is nothing if all your services suddenly get slammed in a popular protest. This wasn't even an intentional DoS attack: "

This is all well and good, until the vested interests explain to the FCC that this is what happens when you allow the great unwashed to have da fast internets and it wouldn't have happened if all the peons were all stuck on a trickle feed unless they stumped up the $$$ for a premium service.