Posts by Gotno iShit Wantno iShit 560 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jan 2009
Instead of being able to download and anonymously use their utility to program the remote like you used to be able to do, they force you to create an account (email address you'll get spammed at, password you'll forget and will probably be found in an unsecured database later) and then tell them exactly what A/V equipment you have running in your home.
Garmin do this too, I have an Edge 500 that needed a firmware update and I was not happy giving them my life history. The solution was tedious.
1) back up all my ride data locally using their old offline Training Centre software. 2) delete all data from the device 3) from within a new VM instance set up an online account. 4) Connect my device (at which point without the option Garmin suck all they can out of it). 5) update the device. 6) delete some data from the online account I'd missed in clearing it out 7) delete the account 8) delete the VM.
Alternatively, they could have entered into dialogue with Kaspersky who have already mooted the idea of servers on US soil as a way forward. But they didn't, they just shut the door.
There's no reason why US samples could not be analysed in the US and only the developed signatures sent out globally.
When I look at the number of nation state malware examples Kaspersky has exposed or helped expose they look like the good guys to me. Can I entertain the notion that the US spooks are pissed at their work being exposed and are trying to weaken Kaspersky as a response? Yes I can.
Surely the authorities have to go after Kalanick personally at some point? He ran this company, he set the way they operated. If he is allowed to walk away a precedent is set; Run a startup any way you like. Lie, cheat, steal, break laws, behave like utter shits. Do what the hell you like to get rich. It's all fine.
One massively important detail missing from this article, does it require internet access to function?
If the internet is only used for updates and anything the user chooses to transmit (in my case that would be nothing) this is interesting. If it is yet another set of paperweights when the lines go down or the company titsup then, well, you guess.
Given only thumbnails were found could it not be the result of a malicious redirect? Browsers are pretty good at blocking redirects on their own now but 10 years ago it was much more common. Browsers are very good at blocking redirects with <insert blocker of choice> installed but would an MP have that?
Here; free to live his life until proven guilty and then something proportionate to the crimes, 6 years was mentioned in an article earlier this week.
Trumpistan; Straight to prison until judged fit to stand trial. If unfit for the rest of his life due to the conditions - tough. If fit and found guilty, up to 99 years per hacking charge.
Nice to know a company such as Uber can make payments of 100k without the board knowing, that must be the norm then and they don't have the standard sign off processes for payments that every other f*cking company on the planet follow.
Dara Khosrowshahi joined uber as CEO in August 2017. Travis Kalanick the founder and CEO of this nest of vipers at the time of the breach & coverup certainly did know.
I do so hope that the authorities hold the individuals accountable and not the company
He wants Twitter to stop allowing deleted account usernames to be recycled
What a stupid idea. So John Smith registers JohnSmith and uses it until he gets a life or dies. Noone called John Smith from then until the heat death of the universe can again use the handle JohnSmith.
It might well make sense for government and other institution perpetual accounts but for everyone? We're not immortal beings.
to display user ID numbers alongside usernames.
Much more sensible.
Choose the right tool for job
This is the nub of the issue. If you need a long term supportable application with lots of coders coming an going all understanding each others work perl is probably not the best choice. If you need a quick hack to get a surprisingly complicated job done fast perl is.
Loads of 'real programmers bemoan VBA. There's gazillions of little jobs for which VBA is a perfectly fine choice. If you're worried about standard coding style, neatness of parameter passing, ease of code reuse and all the other things worshipers of K&R bemoan your project has probably grown to the point something else would probably be better.
And where the hell is the discussion of ADA in this thread?
But it also means that Roku does not have access to the content you select. Once you head into one of its apps – Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, HBO, whatever – it goes blind. And it is going to be a hard sell to persuade companies to hand over that enormously valuable data on user selections for a vague sense of improved customer experience for someone else's product.
This is why streaming is so frustrating. I want a box that has access to all the catalogues so that when I decide I'd like to watch Blade Runner again before going to the cinema to see the new one the box can tell me which subscription(s) I can get it on. Do the streaming companies not understand the concept of sell through? If I find the movie I want is on a service I don't have I might just open my wallet.
Such as? Worth investigating, as that's an area we haven't looked at yet.
Add to the list the entire process control domain. PLC programming software; ABB, Siemens, Honeywell, Rockwell even GE, all PLC software is Windows. As are HMI systems, same list as above plus the independents such as Iconics - Windows. One reason for the latter is control room quality massively multi screen hardware; Matrox and er, anyone else? Windows. Even the backend server boxes to run industrial control systems, it's all Windows. The glue that binds multivendor systems together, OPC* mostly, windows (though OPC on Linux is growing slowly).
Part of the problem is hardware, you need ports to talk to stuff and any given port standard has a very short life in Mac world.
*Before anyone says it OPC does not stand for OLE for Process Control, it hasn't for a decade and a half. It did originally but now OPC doesn't stand for anything, it's just the name of a communication protocol that can be implemented on any platform.
Efficiency was taking priority over quality.
Efficiency != speed. This article and many others paint a picture of declining quality to the point the patent system is undermining itself. That is not efficiency, it's merely speed for the sake of the numbers game. The only people satisfied by that will be the beancounters (more closures= more submission fees) and patent lawyers obvs. And what civilised person would piss on either of those classes of sub-human were they on fire?
It sounds like King B wants a system modelled on the US patent office. Oh lordy.
The trouble I have is that whilst I prefer the menu UI of 2003, the 2007 versions of Excel, Outlook, Visio and Project contain some notable functional improvements...
Tis true, they do. For my use case those improvements are outweighed (by a country mile) by the detrimental effects of The Fucking Ribbon™. Constantly flicking back and forth between tabs just takes time. I used to customise the toolbars so that all the commands I needed were visible all the time. I can't do that with the ribbon, the buttons are too big and there are commands that don't exist any more. EG the alignment options in Visio, I use them a lot so it is a PITA that they are in a nested turdbiscuit¹ requiring multiple clicks for one action. You cannot customise the ribbon to have the alignment tools as 1 click buttons, the commands don't exist. Nor can you get round that omission by making macros and tying them to ribbon buttons.
In Excel I don't use styles as they fall apart but I can't get rid of styles thingummy from the ribbon on the Home tab. It gives me visual indication of when Excel is creating styles (meaning the styles list is imploding and I need to clean it before my file is totally corrupt) so it has to stay. Nor can I make it smaller. Nor can I add buttons of a sensible size to the Ribbon.
Pivot tables are improving, conditional formatting² is much more powerful and so are other things I use but the every day inconveniences are simply dominant.
¹ Thing that's a button on the ribbon that expands out into a non intuitively arranged set of nested buttons in a menu like structure. But that's a mouthful so turdbiscuit is the name now.
² A constantly imploding disaster in 2007 but good from 2010 on.
A decade after their release, Microsoft Office 2007 and Outlook 2007 today fell out of extended support. Gaze teary-eyed at your installation discs. The software has entered the Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
Jump for joy you mean. The most shit version of office there has ever been is now 100% dead and buried. Hooray.
Personally I'm still crying over the death of Office 2003. Well I would be were it not for the non-persistent XP VM with Office 2003 I keep. My productivity rate at the weekends using that is streets ahead of in the week using.... Fuck knows what version, MS are too embarrassed to admit these days and got rid of Help -> About (Hint: you need a VBA call to find out now)
Is it? My heart bleeds.
How about we reduce it to £2,000 per real person out of the 13.8 million records not triggering a 'you're in the shit, it's our fault but don't dream we'll clean up the mess' letter.
Assuming half those 13.8m are duplicates and test data that's only £27,800,000,000. We can be reasonable.
If this new Blade Runner is any good, (or rakes in a lot of cash) they'll make a 3rd and even a 4th. Every series starts with the first one.
So long as they allow 35 years before the next and again before the 4th for a really worthwhile script & treatment to properly mature I don't see a problem with that. And yes, I realise that means there's a good chance I won't see 3 and bugger all chance I'll see 4. Again, I don't see a problem with that.
Pleased to see Signal no longer requires Google services (and therefore a google login) to function.
Bummed this change happened in Feb and it's taken until now to find out.
Deeply bummed it is still not on f-droid, only play so a google login is still required. (Yes, I have seen the reasons for this, #282 etc)
Sigh
It's not only Apple though, the other manufacturers are cramming more crap into their wrist worn tat too. It baffles me, it should be obvious from the outset that anything with processing horsepower and powerful radio is going to need a battery too big for a watch or have laughable life.
They should be listening to Colin Chapman. Just make it a dumb screen with a sensor or two and a couple of buttons. Link it over the lowest power Bluetooth that will work to the multiprocessor powerhouse in your pocket. Oh and add a speaker and microphone so that new owners can pretend to be Dick Tracy for the two minutes it takes to realise they look a total tool.
I'm similarly minded regarding my own home. Nothing electrical ever, wireless less often than that and something with Google fingerprints on it? Bwahahahahahaha!
I do understand the need some perceive though. If you think about the use case of an air bnb or warmshowers host for example. Being able to remotely set up one time access codes is a desire I can understand.
It's worth noting that China banned Kaspersky software from government contracts in 2014. But it also banned Symantec's code from its systems as well. Only Chinese security software is on the approved purchasing list.
The US is blocking Kaspersky because it might have a Russian controlled back door in it. China is mandating Chinese AV because they know damn well there is a Chinese controlled back door in it.
Excel is the stand out item of no-total-shit in my desktop work life, I'm not going to hate it.
I can hate that Microsoft are trying to ruin it with The Fucking Ribbon™, styles (that fall apart and bloat your file), and various dumbing down. I truly hate anyone who uses merged cells with wanton abandon, or uses Excel to create a 10 page document with one page of spreadsheet at the back or course the authors of 90% of the VBA I see. But Excel itself does it's job.
If you want me to hate an application in my daily life lets have a chat about Word shall we?
My original Desire did all I wanted but I was put off HTC by it, not a single update in the 3 years or so I used it. The irony for me is that Google have the best track record for security updates but are the worst data hoover. It's almost as if they don't want anyone but them knowing every damn thing about you...
16:10 allows you to see the 16:9 movie while playback controls are placed below it. I hate it when a subtitle or something else at the bottom of the screen is obscured by a time delayed auto-pop-up control panel.
I don't give a toss what happens in the incredibly rare event I watch a movie on my business laptop. If I was buying a DVD player, electric babysitter for the kids I don't have or some other frivolity then DVD watching performance may enter the purchasing criteria list. But for a business laptop?
Gah! When I rule the world tech company product managers will be first against the wall! (After the lawyers and accountants obviously)
If it is 16:10 or 4:3 with >1080 vertical I'll take two and the second is simply a spare.
Game or sport?
Many moons ago I happened upon a heated debate in which a chess fan was vociferously arguing that chess tournaments and talented UK competitors should be funded by the UK sporting authorities. There have been court cases about this subject. The only part of reading the debate that wasn't a complete waste of precious moments of my life was the definition offered of sport vs game.
If something can be done by proxy, an expert guiding a player by phone for example, it is a game. If the skill has to lie with the player present it is a sport. This seems right to me. With Steve Davis at my left elbow and John Higgins at my right I'd still have zero chance at the Crucible - Sport. I do not have clue 1 about the rules of Go never mind how to play it but with the right person or AI whispering in my ear I could probably do quite well - Game.
I really don't see any truly international fleets happening a y time soon
You perhaps ought to look up which nations fleet Big Lizzie will be sailing with on her maiden deployment in 2020. Also of interest is which nations flag will be on the side of half the F35Bs she will carry & operate.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
