Posts by JimmyPage 3225 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Mar 2010
Much as I agree that certain chemical processes are highly indicative of life, I do wonder if our quest for extra terrestrial life is limited by our own ideas of what "life" really is. Since it's impossible to define without quickly making a circle.
Same goes for intelligence.
However all of that can be put aside for a great story of real science. Here's something that makes life a lot nicer -->
I like to apply some critical thinking when numbers are thrown around. I advise everyone to do the same. That way you work out that if politicians or newspapers are to be believed there are 10 paedophiles per bush for them to jump out of in the UK and other such nonsense.
2 million affected sites sounds a lot. I might just believe 2 million installs of Wordpress. But then we have about 8 installs over various dev, staging and test environments.
Certainly in the UK redtops, "news" is already an algorithmic process. Generally based on reflecting the views of the readership back to them with words like "EXPLODE", "FURY", "UNLEASH" as separators.
Anyone who has the MS Start feature enabled will know this - and endless parade of clickbaity stories that all push an agenda.
Admittedly it would just be a pork barrel roll. But how else can we create money from nothing ?
On a serious note, if you can be barred from working with children, why can't you be barred from working with data about children.
#justthinkin'
That's pretty much everything these days.
I have had every single wireless shiny fuck up at some point. To the extent I wouldn't trust it with anything ?
If it isn't the physical mount failing, and the phone crashing into your 'nads at 70 on the M4, it's whatever-google-maps-is-called-today* freezing and leaving you to guess the last 100 miles of your journey.
Remember in the UK once it's mounted you can't touch your device without breaking the law.
And that's before you factor in the Chocolate Factories fascination with breaking perfectly good apps with no warning.
The only upside is I would like to see Elon Musk on the way to Mars when his navigation device just stops working and nobody at Google, or Apple or Microsoft gives a shit. Then he'll be one of us :)
not sure how it will pan out in the long run, but in my neck of the woods (SW Brum) , you can't get a drive through or sit-in meal at any of the McDonalds as the queue of Uber/Deliveroo vehicles spills out onto the road.
2 weeks ago we tried 3 different McDs and couldn't get into any. In the end we came home and made toast.
And our local chippy has a stream of collection orders that they prioritise over in-shop purchases. Well they did last time I went. Which is the last time I went.
A lack of investment over the last 20 to 30 years
Mind you, it's not the lack of investment - we have spaffed untod squillions over the past 50 years. But improving a parade of MPs et ses mates retirement prospects isn't quite what was needed.
All of a sudden our organisation had all users unable to do anything as they got a security prompt.
MUCH MUCH diffing revealed that AppLocker had decided to lock by default;. We had to create a new GPO.
https://en.it-pirate.eu/windows-10-applocker-policies-still-affect-disabling-service/
was the salvation.
Mildly surprised it didn't cause more noise.
I've been using various flavours of Ubuntu since 2005. That's nearly how long a child born then needs to wait to vote.
In then I have repeated seen the Linux desktop kyboshed by the community.
No Exchange server client (so no Outlook equivalent).
Breaking Bluetooth.
Ignoring Miracast.
are just 3 mis steps that have killed every attempt I have made to interest my employers over that time.
Who remembers the days of hi-fi seperates ?
Yes, "music centres" seemed a good idea. Until you realised you were stuffed if you wanted to upgrade your amp. Or cassette deck.
How many people had to shove their first CD player through the "Aux" plugs ?
Same with "Smart" TVs. Once the software is out of interest, you can be shafted. That's why I ignore all "Smart" features (causing sales droids to weep). All I want is the panel. I'll plug my media in myself, thank you very much.
Same for cars. No, I don't want your (invariably shite) media experience. Just play what my media device is casting.
Now it's telecoms. All-in-one routers are all very well for the domestic plug'n'play market where tech support is a mate on a pint basis. But if you aspire to running a grown up business, then (as I do) you set your kit up in components. I have a dedicated server handling my OpenVPN connections that (a) has a fallback and (b) can be upgraded independently of whatever routers or switches I am using.
Surely no one reading El Reg lets their VM "Superhub" act as their router ? I don't
I'm a new employee and I'd like to change my username. How am I supposed to sell our software using this address?
Lorenzo Servantez loser@somesoftwarecorp.com
Mr. Servantez,
Unfortunately, all email addresses are automatically generated by the system and cannot be changed. Please, believe me.
Regards, Biron Tchaikovsky bitch@somesoftwarecorp.com
I am probably as lefty and down on the police as possible (I wouldn't object to the term "fascist bully boys"). But it would be a cold day in hell before I considered the police doing their job - catching speeding drivers - as "entrapment". The only way it might be entrapment is if an unmarked police car was up your rear and tried o bully you into exceeding the speed limit.
That said I also don't see why a kindly oncoming motorist warning of "plod ahead" should be guilty of anything if it causes someone to slow down.
It seems fair that once you take up the privilege of driving a car, you surrender some rights and take on some obligations. Being asked to prove who you are in order to prove you are insured and permitted to drive the stopped vehicle seems a fair exchange.
Now if you are just walking down the road, it's a different matter.
I have no problem with revenue raising from people who deliberately choose to break the law. Especially if it's being done in a transparent manner. Double bubble as they say.
Only the guilty need fear this. Speaking for myself I can manage to drive a car and not speed. I guess that makes my avoidance of fines and points "unfair" to some (I know it does, as I've had that argument IRL believe it or not).
to configure an email client to not render links clickable, and to also display the href in plaintext in the message so the user can see what's going on.
Probably no harder than it would be to have a config setting that prevents (or at least warns) when the "To" list has more than (for example) 100 email address in it.
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Not hard at all.Which means the ongoing absence of such features has a whiff of conspiracy about it.
because the alternative is that *you* manage your passwords. And en masse, that is the worst possible outcome.
There's something about a lot (but thankfully not all) IT specialists that makes them require a far higher bar for IT security than they do for anything in the real world. I suspect it's so some of them can act the Bertie Big Bollocks at parties (maybe I'msour because I don't get invited to those sort of parties ?).
As long as your security is a single step ahead of the bad guys - who are either targeting a very small subset of high net worth accounts, or alternatively just trawling the masses - you'll be OK.
The real value of a password manager is to allow me to have 1,000+ unique gibberish passwords of eye watering entropy. Have I been pawned ? Do I care ?
education is in the UK and US. Loads of fundamental "not getting it" here. And given how clever some people in the IT world must be, I oft times find myself wondering if it's all genuine or some of it is a little bit agenda-driven ???????
If you subscribe to the belief that one of the key roles of "government" is to facilitate trade with an aim to better society's existence, then you need to understand that you will have rules and regulations around trade that can affect citizens (subjects in the UK, by the way - never forget that) rights (and responsibilities).
This may or may not be directly relevant here. But it's a fact.
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