Well, I think it is about time that authorities do something about the "protest for hire" individuals and organizations that are behind this and other events (like in the Port of Los Angeles), which are all fueled by directed misinformation...
Posts by Bitbeisser
240 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Aug 2011
Google fires 28 staff after sit-in protest against Israeli cloud deal ends in arrests
Apple's failure to duck UK antitrust probe could bring £785M windfall for devs
Monday 15th April 2024 19:00 GMT
How much are they supposed to lower the prices? A lot of run-of-the-mill apps are just a couple of bucks anyway, do you have any idea how many you need to get paid for to just break even with your very own development costs. And if Apple if just taking another 30% of those couple of bucks, that means you need to sell a lot more of your app to even start to make any money. And don't forget that you have to pay another Apple tax as you need to have a Mac with the latest version of XCode to even get the code signing to get the app in the store in the first place...
Sorry, but what Apple does is just highway robbery. And yes, Google needs to made to change their commission scheme as well, Likewise Microsoft for their 12%/15% they are charging for games/apps in their store.
It's not that they shouldn't take a free for providing the service of that store, but IMHO, anything above 5% is absolutely excessive....
Apple stops warning of 'state-sponsored' attacks, now alerts about 'mercenary spyware'
US insurers use drone photos to deny home insurance policies
Wednesday 10th April 2024 21:40 GMT
Re: A physical visit is a lot more reliable
"In California the threat model is a little different. A wood framed house will survive most earthquakes as long as it's bolted to the foundation and properly built; a masonry house will collapse and kill you."
But then that wood framed house will provide no to little protection from mud/water coming down the hillside and in case of a wildfire (or unkempt palm trees catching fire, as it just happened a few days ago), the wood framed houses provide plenty of additional fuel in case of a (wild)fire. Same with those nasty juniper trees. Roman candle galore, with most houses that are not directly in a high severity fire zone are not properly prepared to deal with the embers...
Change Healthcare faces second ransomware dilemma weeks after ALPHV attack
What can be done to protect open source devs from next xz backdoor drama?
Tuesday 9th April 2024 17:48 GMT
Re: People keep saying "stop using so many dependencies"
Today's "programmers" aren't that anymore. They just throw canned libraries or "frameworks" at a problem, without actually knowing why and if there would be a better option to solve a problem, with less unknown "hubris".
To sort a small array or list, a quick hand rolled bubble sort might do just fine, without the fluff of pulling in a whole qsort library. Or throwing simple data into extensive SQL tables with vulnerable SQL statements/queries, where a simple, small random access data file would suffice.
Reusing code is fine, but one needs to know what to reuse, why and how.
But for far too many folks these days, that only know how to use a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail...
Techie saved the day and was then criticized for the fix
Tuesday 9th April 2024 17:09 GMT
Re: I have done the air-con shuffle in the past!
"but that's 0.52595812836mm, if you want to go that route"
Well, that would be rather retarded, as nobody, in almost all use cases, would require and use such a precision. Again, one of the points that you and most of your fellow US Americans are completely missing.
Tuesday 9th April 2024 17:07 GMT
Re: I have done the air-con shuffle in the past!
"Hyperbole much? I'm fairly certain that in the whole of human history, the only sociopath who has suggested that 0.0207070129276 inches would be a useful measurement is yourself."
Not really, as you are totally missing that nobody would/should be using inches anymore. Or feet, ounces and other Fred Flintstones units...
The end of classic Outlook for Windows is coming. Are you ready?
Monday 18th March 2024 20:23 GMT
Re: POP3 is horrible
Sorry but your rant doesn't make much sense.
No, you do not lose your data if you change ISPs. Or if you do not "manually copy your email". For the very reason that you claim that there is no problem with POP3: backup.
You can back up your IMAP email folders of your mail client (PST in case of Outlook) just the same way you back up your POP3 email folders. Not one bit of difference.
And if you are using email for work, it is more than likely that you have more than one device where you are receiving email. And I prefer to have access to all my relevant email, on any of my devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone), at any given time. I keep track of email with clients, both incoming and outgoing, and can always get back to any of the email exchanges, on any device, at any time.
Yes, there is a danger that you accidentally delete an email that you find out you need later, and this has been synced with the IMAP server and from there to the other devices. Tough nuts, but that is where making proper backups comes into play.
And most ISPs there days usually don't offer to keep email on the server for more than two weeks, so if you go on vacation, or are sick/in the hospital for 15 days, you will lose email that you can not download from the server anymore. WIth any decent IMAP server setup, this simply isn't a problem. Even if your devices didn't retrieve any of the email, it is still on the server. And can be retrieved from any device...
It's that most wonderful time of the year when tech cannot handle the date
Saturday 2nd March 2024 20:35 GMT
How can some software, in the year 2024, not properly account for the additional day in a leap year. The rules for when there is a February 29th added (or not) exist for several hundreds of years, well before there was even a remote inkling of computers around.
It just comes to show that there are far too many "programmers" around these days that might know about all the latest paradigms and other fluff in programming, but have lost all connection to real world problems...
Americans wake to widespread AT&T cellular outages
Oracle faces continued legal battle over alleged NetSuite software misrepresentations
Australian supercomputer 'Taingiwilta' comes online this year with [REDACTED] inside
Rice isn't nice for drying your iPhone, according to Apple
Friday 23rd February 2024 17:55 GMT
Re: COULD ALLOW SMALL PARTICLES OF RICE TO DAMAGE YOUR IPHONE
A former boss, back in the late 80s, spilled toner inside of a good old HP LaserJet II printer. He took the printer outside onto the lawn of the house (office was in the basement of a residence at that time), then used a garden hose to spray that whole thing down, before and after dismantling most movable parts, then let it sit the rest of the day in the nice warm summer sun (not the developer though).
Reassembled it two days later and it was working for at least another couple of years before it got replaced by a newer one (LaserJet 3 IIRC).
He had to replace parts of the lawn though at the spot where the toner&water mix spread...
Friday 23rd February 2024 17:47 GMT
Re: COULD ALLOW SMALL PARTICLES OF RICE TO DAMAGE YOUR IPHONE
In most cases, it isn't likely to be just water that got into the (i)phone, but coffee, soda, juice, etc, that do not evaporate completely without leaving a residue. And THAT is likely to cause some shorting between components.
And yes, while there is a slim chance that some rice dust could get into the device, this is in most cases at that point the lesser evil.
And if that device has crevices large enough that there is an increased risk of dust or tiny particles getting into it, simply don't put it straight into the rice but put it itself into a smaller bag, left open! but folded over once before immersing it into the rice. Or wrap the parts in some paper towel before putting it in the rice. In those cases, it just might take a bit longer but the hydrophilic properties of the rice should just work.
I have done this in the last 3 decades or so, at least since laptops became more widespread, and thus accidents with them, even before the advent of cell phones, on hundreds of devices, without any additional ill effects.
YouTuber who crashed plane for sponsorship dollars earns 6 months behind bars
Wednesday 7th February 2024 22:07 GMT
Re: Curious
It needed a check ride after some maintenance, but otherwise was technically fully airworthy. One of the reasons why a check ride would have been required was that he replaced the original, antique (and thus valuable in working order) engine and replaced it with a not type rated replacement engine. For that, it would have needed to have a thorough inspection and flight check in order to be officially safe to fly and get the FAA's "stamp of approval". More of a procedural issue than actually a technical one. AFAIK, the engine of the crashed plane is still missing, so it can't be determined if there was actually anything wrong with it, as he claimed in the video. All of his behavior, and lack of any remedial measures, points rather to the engine to have been perfectly fine and him actually turning it off mid flight...
Wednesday 7th February 2024 21:51 GMT
The plane he crashed was old but in perfect flying conditions. Nothing even remotely "dilapidated". And yes, there were more hints from the start of his video that this was all but a scam stunt. Including flying high enough to safely glide and maneuver to any of at least 3 or 4 emergency landing sites (grass strips, roads, sand bank of a creek)
He got off far too easy, he even got his pilot license already back and those 6 months are a total joke.
He should spend at least two years in the klink and lose his pilot license for life...
Aircraft rivet hole issues cause delays to Boeing 737 Max deliveries
Wednesday 7th February 2024 20:35 GMT
Re: >but the problem may also exist in 737s already being used by airlines
But that doesn't work for the bean counters at the airlines! Those older planes have (nominal) less fuel efficient and more maintenance requiring engines. Beside that some of those really old 737 still flying (kind of) commonly are not allowed into international airspace (just check on those 737s that made the news recently in Russia).
At some point, those older planes' operating costs are well above the break-even point and thus deemed no longer financially viable...
Wednesday 7th February 2024 20:31 GMT
Re: >but the problem may also exist in 737s already being used by airlines
actually, they did find faults during production at Spirit. But those airframes were delivered to Boeing for assembly anyway, sending a team there as well, which was then fixing the issues while other work to finish the plane was being done...
Wednesday 7th February 2024 20:10 GMT
Re: Working as desgined!
Well. not quite. It ultimately came down to the poor design of the windows, as those stresses on the skin due to the increased speeds and flight level of jet aircraft wasn't well understood at the time.
The loss of the wing of the plane in India was only "suspected" to be material fatigue. It was later determined that it was rather extreme G-forces due to the overreaction of the pilot in extreme weather conditions that resulted initially in a nose dive of the plane. Two accident upon takeoff was also due to pilot errors with few flying hours and "cycles" experience of the pilots.
The Comet actually ended up to serve for several decades just perfectly fine as the British Nimrod anti-submarine/maritime patrol aircraft....
Wednesday 7th February 2024 20:00 GMT
Re: Boeing learns
Well, no. At least, the situation is far more complex. The main reason why Boeing acquired McDD was to get their hands on their very lucrative military aircraft production (F-15, F-18, C-17), after having out-lobbied McDD out of the civilian aircraft market already (the DC-9/MD-80/9x was a direct competitor to the 737) and not having themselves any military contract for decades (B-52s and xC-135s are all 50s/60s designs "warmed up". And that Boeing got the contract for the replacement for the KC-135 and the E-3 was also by "influencing" DoD and politicians to sell an inferior product in a rigged "competition"...
Boeing was able to eliminate a direct rival to their main market and get some "fresh" blood in the military sector. Once again, for the bean counters, this all made perfectly sense and for a great bonus check...
Wednesday 7th February 2024 19:36 GMT
Re: Reap what you sow
They spun off what is now called Spirit AeroSystems out of the larger Boeing company to keep the bean counters and shareholders happy. The overall production process stayed the same, just the responsibilities, technology, QC and financial wise shifted...
Upper management at Boeing thought they can keep plucking the goose that lays golden eggs (the 737 series) well past due date, baiting airlines with projected lower costs by allowing for pilots with one type rating to keep flying those planes without having to invest in additional training for a complete new type rating when switching to a complete new plane model. With the introduction of MCAS, existing 737 pilots should now have been allowed to fly those planes without (expensive) retraining and certification/check rides. Cutting corners on production and QC is just one more nail in the coffin...
Fujitsu finance chief says sorry for IT giant's role in Post Office Horizon scandal
Friday 2nd February 2024 22:01 GMT
Re: Talk is cheap, where's the £?
Yeah, Fujitsu should do a bit more than just issue apologies. It is a very complex issue, with apparent f***ups on various levels. And at least those that paid with their death can not be compensated anymore.
But as far as exoneration of the falsely convicted goes, that should be done IMHO immediately, at the highest level possible. And as far as compensating the survivors of this scandal goes, it should not only happen on the back of the British tax payers, but Fujitsu needs to chip in a substantial amount as well.
But both exoneration and compensation of the victims should not mean that those ultimately responsible, at all levels, are not going to be held accountable. I simply can't understand how this could go on for years without ANYONE in charge noticing a rather disturbing pattern and intervening, instead of partaking in covering this whole thing up until it became a TV show... :(
A Space Shuttle goes vertical for one last time
Windows 10 users report app gremlins after Microsoft update
Friday 2nd February 2024 17:36 GMT
Apple has avoided any backwards compatibility for many, many years. It was just easier for them to get away with it as they lock you in on their own hardware. One more way to cash in on those rose colored shades wearing fanbois.
Microsoft has noticed that Apple is raking in all that dough and think they now have to be just like Apple.An because they can't lock you in with hardware, they are taking a page out of the playbook of Adobe & Co and make you pay through the nose for subscriptions.
Adobe has 'no plans' to invest in XD despite failed Figma buy
'I’m sorry for everything...' Facebook's Zuck apologizes to families at Senate hearing
Microsoft confirms Windows Server 2025 is on the way
The rise and fall of the standard user interface
David Mills, the internet's Father Time, dies at 85
Politicos demand full list of Fujitsu's public sector contract wins in wake of Post Office scandal
Tuesday 23rd January 2024 21:37 GMT
Re: ICL?
It's the same with Siemens and Fujitsu. And in extension Nixdorf. Or Amdahl.
What amazes me with this whole "Post Office" story that the problems happened over a couple of decades, with not just a handful or even a couple dozen of cases in all that time. But almost a thousand of them. That should have raised more than one eyebrow and have someone look into the pattern and deduce that this is not people defrauding the system but some software problem. And it is not that accounting software is something new to the world of IT, it is probably one of the first tasks that computers were used for to handle.
But then here in the US of A the accounting issues of the Los Angeles Department of Water&Power, which insisted on using an accounting system from PriceWaterhouseCooper, which ended up costing twice as much as original planned and ultimately costing rate payers in excess of US$230 million, on top of more than 100,000 customer annually getting "estimated" (rather than properly measured) bills for both water and electricity that are up to 100x the normal/previous water and electricity bills.And at the same time, the DWP is out hundreds of millions of US$ from (commercial) customers that haven't gotten a bill (and hence not paid) for months up to years...
Code archaeologist digs up oldest known ancestor of MS-DOS
RIP: Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth
Linux Mint 21.3 and Zorin 17 are beta buddies
Microsoft floats bringing a text editor back to the CLI
Microsoft issues deadline for end of Windows 10 support – it's pay to play for security
Thursday 7th December 2023 18:04 GMT
Re: Need the EU to step up…
Yeah, forced obsolescence of hardware is something that MS is trying to learn from Apple. They see how all those fanbois are junking their perfectly fine Macs, just because Apple says it allows to upgrade them to recent software anymore. And if making ungodly amounts of money this way (for which they do not pay the proper taxes, but that's a completely different topic anyway).
It is sad to see that operating systems have become the cash cows for those corporations these days instead of being reliable means to run required applications on them. And no, just switching to Linux is NOT a solution for a lot of (mostly small) business...
40 years of Turbo Pascal, the coding dinosaur that revolutionized IDEs
Wednesday 6th December 2023 00:12 GMT
Somewhat of a weird article. I used Anders' compiler when it still was called PolyPascal. And I am not aware that back then, Turbo Pascal was available for anything but Z80 CPU & CP/M-80 as the OS as well as 8086 and DOS (and CP/M-86).
And 64KB was the maximum address space on a Z80&CP/M-80 and even on a PC, a lot of machines in '83 had rarely more than 128 or 256KB of RAM. So that COM (tiny) memory model was quite sufficient, beside that it supported overlays. It was also a compromise to the speed of generation, as it didn't create OBJ files but created directly binary code that got copied to the end of the runtime system.
Yes, Turbo 4 was a complete rewrite, and by that time, PCs had also developed quite a bit, so a compiler could take advantage of more than the one 64KB segment of the COM memory model....
Will anybody save Linux on Itanium? Absolutely not
Wednesday 22nd November 2023 18:15 GMT
"As for "hundreds " - the number is in the thousands, even now. There are individual HP-UX sites with nearly a thousand machines. I would guess there are at least a thousand OpenVMS/IPF sites and at least two thousand running UX. I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers are 2-3 times that. (Remember that while VMS is available on x86 now, the ISV ecosystem still largely is not - Rdb for instance.)"
Even thousands of Itaniums still running are not even a droplet in the ocean of computing these days. It was even a niche within a niche at its best times.
And you mentioned those vast numbers of thousands of Itanium machines running HP-UX and OpenVMS, which just underlines that there is no real need for Itanium support in Linux. How many Linux distribution ever seriously where offered? And how many instances of those?
Raspberry Pi 5: Hot takes and cooler mistakes
And now for something completely different: Python 3.12
Terraform fork OpenTF renamed and relocated as OpenTofu
Activist investor to GoDaddy: Cut costs, improve sales, or sell
Lawyer's Microsoft email snafu goes from $1.75M lawsuit to Ctrl+Alt+Settle
Oracle disappoints market with revenue miss as Ellison hints at Azure database move
Wednesday 13th September 2023 18:50 GMT
Re: Am I reading this right?
Yeah, that statement (and the stock market reaction) is totally bonkers!
They miss the hedge fund vultures' (no offense intended to anyone associated with El Reg LOL) estimates by 0.16% and their market valuation drops by 9% (it's all "funny money" anyway). Seriously?
As much as I despise Evil Larry and his minions, this is just nonsense....
Biting the hand that feeds IT
