* Posts by Mark 65

3432 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009

Microsoft: Whoops, Patch Tuesday might screw your database connections

Mark 65

Re: JFC! do they actually test anything these days

Clearly they didn't even test it on their "latest and greats" Windows 10/11, which should be the absolute bare minimum of testing considering the size of the userbase.

UK facing electricity supply woes after nuclear power stations shut, MPs told

Mark 65

Afterwards you'll question why anybody has ever considered energy storage as a viable option because it's obviously bonkers.

No you won't. You'll come to the logical conclusion that, like so many other things in life, some parasite stands to make a fortune with their nose buried deep in the trough.

Mark 65

Re: Hmmm.

you've got to hope the next lot realise they can now place an order...

Politicians aren't that smart. Most just big-note themselves by slamming others rather than ever achieving anything....ever. Sound-bite politics.

Apple perfects vendor lock-in with home security kit

Mark 65

Re: Lock picking lawyer

V5 will link to Apple Pay

Ever suspected bankers used WhatsApp comms at work? $1.8b says you're right

Mark 65

Re: Fine bribe

In the past these guys would just meet in the pub at lunchtime to arrange the trades.

Mark 65

Re: They admitted to it...

That's the thing - compared to the money you can cream off the top on these deals, any cost of setting the system up pales into insignificance. As do the fines for that matter.

Mark 65

Re: They admitted to it...

It doesn't need to scale well - most traders will commit these "special trades" with counterparties known to them personally not just any old spod in the market. When you're dealing with traders in certain markets that can deal in size and/or have a greater freedom to trade you're down to a limited set of individuals. Whilst markets seem large most players know each other - you'd be surprised.

Mark 65

Re: They admitted to it...

The hard part is how do you know that "Spazz69" is really a trader at Deutsche and not a kid in a basement, or a Russian bot, or an SEC agent ?

Pretty sure you'd use signal and confirm the contact personally when setting up using "Verify Safety Number" i.e. when you're out on the piss with the counterparty (at the start of the session for obvious reasons). At this point you're secure. If it changes you're alerted and you'd cease comms until re-confirmed.

California to phase out internal combustion vehicles by 2035

Mark 65

Re: Not going to happen

That's just survival bias.

Apple's latest security feature could literally save lives

Mark 65

Re: It would be nice

This bit from the article is a bit interesting

Not allowing wired connections to computers or peripherals when the device is locked

Locked, or locked down? If it is just when locked then I'm pretty sure that is irrelevant as border security in most locations has the legally enforceable right to request you unlock the device.

FYI: BMW puts heated seats, other features behind paywall

Mark 65

Re: Nice Car...

This world is going to hell in a subscription BMW!

Mark 65

I'm not sure that free market economies exist any more but let's just suppose that they do. In which case the car manufacturer that chooses to be the least biggest c*nt should eventually reign supreme.

Mark 65

Re: So who is responsible for fixing the heated seats if they fail?

The good thing about T & C for software is you don't have to read it, especially if you don't intend using the software. Also worth noting that the majority of EULAs etc are unenforceable outside the US as they generally infringe on the odd statutory right here and there.

Vendors are hiking prices up to 30 percent and claiming 'it's inflation'

Mark 65

Re: That's because this isn't normal inflation

I think the point is, with a subscription model you can no longer wait it out whereas with the old upgrade model you could.

Systemd supremo Lennart Poettering leaves Red Hat for Microsoft

Mark 65

Re: Motive found.

He should have put an SSD in it then.

AWS starts renting cloudy M1 Mac minis

Mark 65

Re: Good idea

but electricity consumption looks to the most likely reason

Why? I thought most of the big data centres were already mainly running from their own renewable power and storage as, given their size, this is signfiicantly cheaper than buying the power in and reduces the need to hedge.

Their savings are not your savings but their increased profits.

Nothing says 2022 quite like this remote-controlled machine gun drone

Mark 65

Re: Fortunately Useless

All weapons are designed to wound. The criticality of that wound depends on the nature and location.

Plot to defeat crypto meltdown: Solend votes to seize, liquidate whale account

Mark 65

Doesn't seem like a loan to me, more of an arbitrage. It's like swapping $100m of <3rd world currency> for USD. You have a good idea of which one will go to shit

Toyota wants 'closed loop' EV batteries in its future cars

Mark 65

f) Don't need to use your EV during daylight which is the only point at which your solar can charge the vehicle.

For most people who tend to use their vehicle during the day, solar will not be providing the top-up.

OpenVMS on x86-64 reaches production status with v9.2

Mark 65

Re: Totally agree.

I also remember the CMS source control system. Spent many a day working with that.

Mark 65

Re: I wonder how many people still remember how to use it?

About all I can remember is purge /keep=n

Airbnb will let staff work from anywhere without a pay cut

Mark 65

Not so. The company was only "happy" because they felt they had little other choice but to pay high bay area salaries to attract the required talent in an era where that location was all the rafe. If it now turns out they don't then why would they? They've opened themselves up to talent from all around the country that is no longer faced with the prospect of having to move to that neighbourhood, nor desires the beanbag filled breakout utopia.

Farm machinery giant John Deere plows into two right-to-repair lawsuits

Mark 65

For a stop engine light you'd need a diagnostic tool - the bit they won't share. I doubt farm equipment is as open as OBD-II, hence no third party diagnostic to even tell you where to start looking. Even then I'm sure certain, if not most, car manufacturers play silly buggers with config etc.

Targeted ransomware takes aim at QNAP NAS drives, warns vendor: Get your updates done pronto

Mark 65

Why does it only seem that QNAP is affected by these worms; don't the miscreants like Synology etc or are QNAP's security practices in need of improvement?

The latter. See the part in the article about not addressing a disclosure until it became public domain.

Mark 65
Joke

Re: External Facing Madness

I have never understood why people need to expose everything

Treat your NAS like it was your genitals? Take good care, minimal public exposure.

UK, Australia, to build 'network of liberty that will deter cyber attacks before they happen'

Mark 65

Re: Buzz words

Network of Liberty? More like Axis of Banality.

Crypto.com acknowledges 'unauthorized activity' on servers, maintains no funds have been lost

Mark 65

Re: Am I the only one?

I can't believe someone had at least $16m sitting in a hot wallet.

I own that $4.5bn of digi-dosh so rewrite your blockchain and give it to me, Craig Wright tells Bitcoin SV devs

Mark 65

Re: I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

Khyber Pass would be closer.

Mark 65

Re: OK something I've never understood in this case

Changing the software may be part way there but the biggest part is getting a crucial threshold of miners to use it. You risk making the currency as worthless as it really should be.

Mark 65

Re: Bitcoin is not tulipmania

If only you could extract the energy used to mine a bitcoin back from the coin itself.

Mark 65

Re: Plot For A Film

Please explain how "the authorities" would "freeze the blockchain".

Liquid nitrogen. The original is stored in Wright's garage.

Mark 65

Re: In summary then ...

I'm wondering how he's going to pay out that $70m judgement - that was karma coming back to bite.

UK government backs away from proposals to remove individuals' rights to challenge AI decision making

Mark 65

Re: "to provide human review [of AI decisions] ... not be practicable or proportionate."

Where I see the value in AI is to perform preliminary categorisation. In anything where there is a high workload for individuals - think some poor schmuck processing hundreds of forms a day - initial categorisation or second opinion (either AI checks user or user checks AI) can add value. You could have AI (or more just heuristic questioning) help in triage to prevent options being missed. AI replaces user is stupid though.

JavaScript dev deliberately screws up own popular npm packages to make a point of some sort

Mark 65

Re: I fully support this viewpoint...

Seems fair enough, deliberately sabotaging popular widely distributed libs isn't much different to locking someone up who threatens to burn house down after lighting some small fires

Errr, it's their code. GitHub just effectively issued a big fuck you to the open source community. Your code is no longer your code. Best move on.

Mark 65

Re: Quantity of Downloads vs Requires

Where I work all package pulls are from local servers i.e. self-hosted nuget etc. and with specified versions. That may be harder to do for certain web projects vs non-web but I see it as essential workflow.

Mark 65

Re: Quantity of Downloads vs Requires

It's why web projects really do need a great set of automated tests. Things can break very easily.

Mark 65

Re: Software license is the answer

I mean, you can absolutely take that stance, but then you lose the right to complain when a committer goes rogue, breaks all your stuff, and you're getting chewed out by your boss because your system is down and you have no idea how to fix it because its all cobbled together with third-party code and. no support.

But that only happens if you're an idiot that pulls latest versions and doesn't test. If you're happy with v1.0, it works, and you don't need to move on then there's no issue. If you do then you comprehensively test right?

Mark 65

Re: Software license is the answer

Even if code is used without modification if it is redistributed the source has to be made available.

That sounds to me like "if it is used in a product that is distributed to others" i.e. to catch software vendors. However if I'm a multi-billion dollar enterprise and I use the library internally and it helps me keep the money rolling in this means I am under no obligation as I have redistributed nothing. To me that sounds like the situation in the story.

Mark 65

Re: "sign up for a support contract if it exists"

Part of the problem will be that the people in the business most adept at managing risk will have zero knowledge, view, or oversight over this area of risk. Most people's view of IT is "works or doesn't" and they don't want to know how the sausage gets made. Most devs are under time pressure to get work out for people that don't understand "quick or properly, choose one" and will therefore add to the fragility either knowingly or not. The modern world is unfortunately built on short-termism.

Mark 65

Re: Is it really that difficult?

To me there's two sides. It makes no sense as a business to pay for something you can get for free. The developer's real mistake is the level of support they've offered the product for no cost. A business will think "good on you, keep the updates coming". On the other hand it makes little sense as a business to utterly rely on something which may contain a critical flaw that may not get fixed once discovered because the developer has got the pox with freeloaders. Given the source code is available businesses may be willing to ride that roller-coaster based upon previous developer support. It is also a short-term view vs a long-term view and most planning is decidedly in the short-term camp as it fits with rewards.

Bitcoin 'inventor' will face forgery claims over his Satoshi Nakamoto proof, rules High Court

Mark 65

Re: Old Nicknames

About the only extremely rich individual who got to where he is by sheer slog would be Warren Buffet, who has dedicated his life to investing money.

Hmmmm, not so. In my opinion the world's greatest inside trader. Do major companies allow you to look through their books and deepest darkest cupboards at your behest before investing i.e. non-public information? No. Warren does though.

Mobile networks really hate Apple's Private Relay: Some folks find iOS privacy feature blocked on their iPhones

Mark 65

Pfft

They also accused Apple of "undermining European digital sovereignty" with the functionality.

They also accused Apple of "undermining additional revenue streams" with the functionality.

Sun sets on superjumbo: Last Airbus A380 rolls off the production line

Mark 65

Re: Floats into the sky

I remember taking off from LHR and marvelling at how steep the pilot could take it and how sharp the big beast could turn. I'm sure it was nowhere close, but it felt like being in jet fighter at an airshow compared to previous flights.

Log4j doesn't just blow a hole in your servers, it's reopening that can of worms: Is Big Biz exploiting open source?

Mark 65

This is the real point. Free or paid makes no difference. One maintainer or a team of hundreds makes no difference. One really bad idea on by default is what matters.

What if we said you could turn any disk into a multi-boot OS installer for free without touching a single config file?

Mark 65

Re: Hit or Miss

Maybe see if multisystem works if you use Linux

MySQL a 'pretty poor database' says departing Oracle engineer

Mark 65

Re: There is no reason not to choose Postgres

The biggest impediment on those two vs Excel is recreating the environment. For the basic stuff an earlier poster eluded to, Excel is good enough for most.

Tech Bro CEO lays off 900 people in Zoom call and makes himself the victim

Mark 65

Re: What a cowardly little shit.

I generally have little sympathy for people doing this at this time of year. You generally know in advance or, given a $750m injection, could wait until the New Year.

Mark 65

Re: Glassdoor...

Sounds like a good market to try writing one of those fledgling competitors in. Getting bought out as a booster sounds better than the type of companies that crush competition.

A 'national security' issue: UK.gov blocks Nvidia's Arm deal for now, inserts deeper probe

Mark 65

Re: About time

Awake at the wheel or lobbied hard by a different vested interest?

Mark 65

Re: Can anyone explain ...

albeit with 5x the salary

and 10x the living expenses.