* Posts by Michael H.F. Wilkinson

4248 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007

German cybersecurity chief: Anyone have any evidence of Huawei naughtiness?

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: it's like RAAAAAIIINNN ....

Maybe these muppets are electronic monks, which can hold many contradictory beliefs without necessarily blowing a bank of illogic circuits

Doffs hat to the late, great Douglas Adams

Memes, messengers, and missiles: From Twitter to chat apps and weapons, security is ho-ho-hosed this Xmas

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Mushroom

BMDS not secure?

As in: Ballistic Missile Defence System??!!!

What could possibly go wrong?

Almost sounds like Bergholt Stuttley Johnson was involved

Microsoft flings untested Windows 10 updates to users! (Oh no it doesn't!)

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

"production quality"?

That is precisely what I fear

Ding dong merrily on high. In Berkeley, the bots are singeing: Self-driving college cooler droid goes up in flames

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Alien

Maybe it had a chat with Marvin

and consequently committed suicide

Phew, galactic accident helps boffins explain dark matter riddle

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

And there I was thinking ...

"Galactic Accident" in the title referred to a cosmic prang seen all too often when those in charge of galaxies fail to watch where they are going. Really, really, really! You put them in charge of a galaxy and they think they are rulers of the universe!

Here's 2018 in a nutshell for you... Russian super robot turns out to be man in robot suit

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

As one of my kid's likes to put it:

Trust me, I'm an engineer

Darn, now I'll have that song stuck in my head all morning

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Here I am ...

But I still think you ought to know I am feeling very depressed

College PRIMOS prankster wreaks havoc with sysadmin manuals

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Crash programs

I remember writing simple MS-DOS programs that could (harmlessly) crash a computer, basically by catching interrupt 9 (keyboard) and processing it with my own interrupt handler, which did little else than IRET, effectively ignoring any keyboard input. We had two versions: crash.exe and hang.exe. Both did essentially the same, but hang cleared the screen and printed "Your computer has crashed", whereas crash made the entire screen blink as well, along with producing an annoying beeping sound. I just put these amongst the programs people were supposed to use, and waited to see which users were inquisitive and adventurous enough to find and then run these executables. I did not have to wait long before I was called to a computer that was beeping its top off, with an annoying flashing screen. I asked the used what he thought a program named "crash" would do, and got a rather sheepish look. They generally tried (in vain) to reset the machine using ctrl-alt-del, but hey, that is keyboard input, so got ignored. The trusty old reset button on the front of the beige box was the only way out. I didn't tell them that. Otherwise they would know what to do when next they tried hang.exe.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Security through hilarity

Genius! Sheer genius

Wow, what a lovely early Christmas present for Australians: A crypto-busting super-snoop law passes just in time

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: "Ship! Come back!"

Better break out that pack of one-time pads

BOFH: State of a job, eh? Roll the Endless Requests for Further Information protocol

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Talking of " in the system"...

Defenestrations? Just teething problems with, er, ... windows installs, you mean, or of course it could be a data normalisation warning

Tech support discovers users who buy the 'sh*ttest PCs known to Man' struggle with basics

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Priceless!!

Reminds me of the BOFH episode when Simon had helldesk duties

FYI: NASA has sent a snatch-and-grab spacecraft to an asteroid to seize some rock and send it back to Earth

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Giant wombats in space?

It's just that Bennu's shape reminds me of wombat droppings.

Actually, "Giant Wombats in Space" sounds like a 1950s Aussie SciFi B-grade movie title.

Deary me, I'd better get going. The roo-leather Barmah hat too please

Here's the list of space orgs big and small sparring to send next NASA gear to the Moon

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: Probably not, because there isn't a cloud in space.

And then there is the Oort Cloud: Ideal in terms of cooling for your cloudy IT solution, but latency and power supply are iffy, I am told

I'd better be going, I think

Sysadmin’s plan to manage system config changes backfires spectacularly

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Automation does have its place

We had one sysadmin (who is no longer with us) who tended not to like automating stuff too much. This meant that whenever we needed new accounts for students or guests, he would fiddle around a while, and give you a list of new user names and (temporary) passwords on a bit of paper. I learnt the hard way, after many complaints by students, that it paid to check all accounts manually, to see if

a) the login actually worked,

b) things like home directories had actually been made for each account, and

c) that account A didn't by default write in home directory B and vice-versa.

I currently administer a small compute server used for teaching and research, and I have never been able to replicate these kinds of errors when using "adduser" to create new accounts.

Blockchain study finds 0.00% success rate and vendors don't call back when asked for evidence

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

"the industry is itself opaque"

Maybe, for more transparency and trust, they should develop blockchain technology (a meta-blockchain?) to add transparency and trust.

Sorry couldn't resist. I'll get me coat, it's beer o'clock over here

Apple in another dust-up with its fans: iMacs, MacBooks lack filters, choke on grime – lawsuit

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: It's for your own safety

Another reason for not smoking, then

Support whizz 'fixes' screeching laptop with a single click... by closing 'malware-y' browser tab

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Facepalm

I have "repaired" a mouse that would work properly.

A Bluetooth mouse.

One with batteries, don't you know

A few months later, it broke down again. Guess what? They complained it must be broken

It's all a matter of time: Super-chill atomic clock could sniff gravitational waves, dark matter

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Cool!

Literally and figuratively

Huawei MateBook Pro X: PC makers look out, the phone guys are here

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

I must say I like that display and spec. I frequently process BIG images of astronomical objects, many of which have a more-or-less 1:1 aspect ratio. 3:2 is fine, an 3000x2000 rather better than my current FHD screen. Sorely tempted, I must say.

Sacked NCC Group grad trainee emailed 300 coworkers about Kali Linux VM 'playing up'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Neither

Would that be security professional or security consultant? In my book the former actually diagnose and deal with real issues, whereas the latter know the right buzzwords, and get paid more if they can increase the hours they can declare whenever they scream intrusion!!!!. I suspect the plaintiff would be ideal for the latter category.

The alternative explanation would be that someone in system and networks at admin level is called Simon

NASA's Mars probe InSight really has Mars in sight: It beams back first pic after touchdown

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Re: Well done

Thanks for the link, that is a rather better image

Great Scott! Is nothing sacred? US movie-goers vote Back To The Future as most-wanted reboot

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Why not go the whole hog....

As long as they don't do "Dr Strangelove 2: The Rematch" with Bruce Willis saving the day

I think I need more dried frog pills, actually

NASA has Mars InSight as latest lander due to arrive today

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: marCO-A and marCO-B

The guy who comes just after the one shouting "NI" (tall guy, antlers on his helm)

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll be going. The one with the Holy Grail in the pocket, please

Oh, I wish it could be Black Friday every day-aayyy, when the wallets start jingling but it's still a week till we're paiii-iid

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: @ Dabbsy

Well, what with all the insecurity around brexit, I am glad I could get Dutch citizenship (having a Dutch mother and being born and raised in the Netherlands), but much to my surprise I could simply keep my British citizenship (which I got automatically through having British father). In the past they did a lot of huffing and puffing about dual nationality, but now suddenly there wasn't a problem. I still have a good five years of validity on my UK passport, and given the price of these things, I was glad I didn't have to discard it and get a Dutch one instead (and yes, I have Scottish and Dutch ancestry).

Laptop search unravels scheme to fake death for insurance cash

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: I thought Igor was just the lab assistant

Yeth, marthter? You called marthter?

It'th nithe to thee tho many great mindth thinking alike (and tho many Igorth) in thith thread

In Space, Still: 20 years since Russia hurled first bit of floating astronaut hostel into orbit

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

When stargazing, I am always amazed to see the ISS pass overhead, usually fairly early in the evening, when still illuminated by the sun sitting just below the horizon. With my big 16x80 binoculars, it shows some resolved structure, although it is hard to keep in the field of view as it moves along at quite a clip.

Whatever its problematic start, and doubtful future, it is an amazing achievement, and shows what we humans can achieve if we stop bickering for any length of time (or at least, bicker more productively). I'll raise a glass to all those who have contributed to this success.

Malware scum want to build a Linux botnet using Mirai

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

So we might see people

ripping YARNs.

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll get me coat and silly walk out of here

What the #!/%* is that rogue Raspberry Pi doing plugged into my company's server room, sysadmin despairs

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

I am a bit disappointed ...

there wasn't an saffron-clad, vaguely oriental-looking, elderly man with a broom named Lu-Tse involved.

Or maybe there was!! Nobody ever notices a sweeper!!!

Ah-hah!!!!

I can feel an extra exclamation mark coming up right now!!!!!

OK, I'll get out of here. The one with "Thief of Time" in the pocket please

Can you trust an AI data trust not to slurp your data?

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

This is clearly some strange new usage of the word "ethics" I wasn't previously aware of

to paraphrase Arthur Dent in the first episode of the HHGTTG radio play

Let's appoint a bunch of cronies from industry to write the rules in such a way as to optimise profit, and hang the consequences for the general public. What could possibly go right?

Sounds like another sell-out by government

My coat please, I want to get out of here!

Big Falcon Namechange for Musk's rocket: BFR becomes Starship

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Missed opportunity

to call it "Heart of Gold"?

(Im)probably not

Doffs hat to the late, great Douglas Adams

Linux kernel Spectre V2 defense fingered for massively slowing down unlucky apps on Intel Hyper-Thread CPUs

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: That's multiprocessing, not multithreading

True, make -j 32 on our 64-core Opteron machine does absolutely fly through big builds, but that is indeed multi-processing rather than multi-threading proper. We do write code that scales well up to 64 threads (up to 50x speed-up), but that only really works if you have serious compute loads (like multi Gpixel images) to process. Many applications don't use multiple threads very heavily.

Behold, the world's most popular programming language – and it is...wait, er, YAML?!?

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: No and yes [Was: HTML-only calculator?]

The border between a mark-up language and a programming language can be vague. Maybe a sensible definition of what is a programming language or not is whether it is Turing complete. If it does not allow you to write loops, I doubt it is.

Curiously, in this sense, LaTeX is a programming language, as the ifthen package provides quite neat while and for loops, and the calc package sufficient numerical manipulation to be Turing complete. I would not want to implement anything other than LaTeX docs, packages, or class files with these features, however.

Finally a platform for train puns: IBM Halt station derailed

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

I was think more along the lines of ...

an IBM Halting Problem

I'll get me coat

A little phishing knowledge may be a dangerous thing

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: How Can You Tell Without Opening it?

Sometimes opening the mail (in a mail client that doesn't open or run anything that I don't personally tell it to) is the only way of determining that it is phishing (or any other form of spam). Once I have classified it as phishing or spam, I report it as such before deleting it.

Where to implant my employee microchip? I have the ideal location

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: As someone who currently designs chip-enabled cat interface devices...

According to the Campaign for Real Cats (doffs hat to the late, great Terry Pratchett), all real cats are Schrödinger's cats, and are quite capable to tunnel through doors using everyday quantum mechanics. The only reason they might give their humans the idea that a door is an impediment is to annoy them, and make them buy (preferably expensive) RFID enabled cat flaps, in part to get back at humans for putting a chip in them in the first place. After installation of said device, cats will then either ignore it, or sabotage it (or both)

Bright spark dev irons out light interference

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: It's called a choke.

Add some paint in an abstract pattern and it becomes an arty choke

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'd better be going. The one with "Get thee to a punnery" in the pocket please

Sorry, but NASA says Mars signal wasn't Opportunity knocking

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Pity

Fingers and other appendages crossed (BTW, for vultures, should that not be talons?) for better luck next time

Brexit: UK will be disconnected from EU databases after 2020

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: TL;DR

Masterful summary. Not a surprising outcome, I would add

That Old Time 2018 IT songbook: Verity, Verity - give us your lyrics, do! We're half crazy, all for the love of you

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Great stuff, Verity!

And an extra thumbs up for reminding me of that Tom Lehrer song. Might learn to sing that on my way to work, although "I hold your hand in mine", "The Masochism Tango", and "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" do confuse other cycling commuters enough already.

The modem song is a stroke of genius

Microsoft lobs Windows 10, Server Oct 2018 update at world (minus file-nuking 'feature') after actually doing some testing

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: A good update?

My faith might be a (tiny) touch higher if they had upped the build number. Still calling it version or build number 1809 suggests they haven't rebuilt (all IDEs I have used automatically up the build number whenever I do a rebuild), which suggests a "your holding it wrong" attitude to the reported, rather serious, bugs. Even from a marketing droid's perspective, upping the build number by some significant value (say 42), suggests some hard work has been going on behind the scenes, which would in some way support their "we treat any data loss seriously" public statement (which in all likelihood should be "Seriously? We treat data loss?").

My hoard of obsolete hardware might be useful… one day

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

I can add

A SCSI version of the Iomega ZIPdrive, to complement the parallel, USB and IDE versions. I even still have some disks

Windows 10 Pro goes Home as Microsoft fires up downgrade server

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: Oh No!

shouldn't that be "Share and Enjoy!"

(or was that "Go stick your head in a pig!")

Doff hat to the late, great Douglas Adams

Premiere Pro bug ate my videos! Bloke sues Adobe after greedy 'clean cache' wipes files

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Man...

Well, I actually do back up all my photos and videos on an external back-up drive, and back that up on a different drive as well, and have them in lower resolution in the cloud as well, should all my drives fail. Having said that, I do feel I will add some more back-up storage, just to be safe.

You can't have too many back-ups, and Lu Tse would say (doffs hat to Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter)

FYI NASA just lobbed its Parker probe around the Sun in closest flyby yet: A nerve-racking 15M miles from the surface

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Brilliant stuff!

In more ways than one. Hats off (mine is the grey Tilley today) to the entire team at NASA.

The sun is rather quiet now, but hopefully the Parker probe will be able to study the sun as it reaches maximum in 6 years or so. As an avid amateur solar astronomer, I will be following this mission closely (but at a safe physical distance).

Astroboffins spot one of the oldest, coolest stars in the universe lurking in the Milky Way

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Bah!

Astronomers have the slightly weird habit of calling all elements beyond helium in the periodic table "metals". Statistically, they are right most of the time, but it confuses those with any education in chemistry. A low mass, ultra metal poor star like this will only cook up helium from hydrogen during its extremely long main-sequence lifetime, i.e. no metals even by astronomical standards. When its main-sequence life ends, it may start creating carbon, but I doubt it will produce any real metals

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: "could we visit it?"

Let's first get to alpha Centauri, to see what's in store for us at the local planning office, shall we

I'll get me coat

Dawn of the dead: NASA space probe runs out of gas in asteroid belt after 6.4 billion-mile trip

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Dawn did well!

Loads of data still to ponder. Big thumbs up to all involved in this space mission

Planet Computers straps proper phone to its next Psion scion, Cosmo

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Very interesting device

Will certainly give this a close inspection when it arrives

Roscosmos: An assembly error doomed our Soyuz, but we promise it won't happen again

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Fingers crossed

for a proper Korolev cross next time