* Posts by Teiwaz

4133 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Oct 2011

Yes, it's down again: Microsoft's Office 365 takes yet another mid-week tumble, Azure also unwell

Teiwaz

Has MS tried turning them off-and-on again?

Well, appears they got as far as turning it off, but they are really struggling to turn anyone on these days.

Teiwaz

so karma does exist.

....ohh, the arrogant presumption of naming it '365'.

Office 'once a week' does have a rather laid back relaxed feel, and might well suit the post-covid world.

What a Hancock-up: Excel spreadsheet blunder blamed after England under-reports 16,000 COVID-19 cases

Teiwaz

Re: Oh surely not...

'Coz government will probably think this a viable solution.

Don't encourage stupid.

Ironic too some is a solution reinforced with steel to others.

Apple seeks damages from recycling firm that didn't damage its devices: 100,000 iThings 'resold' rather than broken up as expected

Teiwaz

Re: Sickening

It's their right but it doesn't make it right.

It's a right that should have been left behind.

And Burberry management should be forced to eat their unsold sweaters.

Cross-platform app toolkit Flutter lead Tim Sneath aims Dart at an ambient computing future

Teiwaz

Re: Cross platform?

Yep.

Cross-platform apps are always trailing as an uncomfortable last resort.

Google adopts ‘value-neutral’ language to make selfies less about ‘beauty’

Teiwaz

It's what they do

When it's discovered a large proportion of the public have adopted an unhealthy lifestyle or relationship with a product which continues to be profitable.

Much the same was done about the increase in the grossly overweight, the labels were changed so those affected could feel better about their problem and continue to spend.

Salesforce, Deloitte try to flog contact-tracing wares to a UK public sector that's already got a £12bn test-and-trace system

Teiwaz

Sounds like...

Conspiracy to defraud the public purse or somesuch, (IANAL).

What with plagues, retreat of the ignorant masses to superstition and science denial, flat earths and entrenched political divides, we're already halfway back to the medieval, what's another fraudster trying to sell 'London bridge' a dozen times.

UK privacy watchdog confirms probe into NHS England COVID-19 app after complaints of spammy emails, texts

Teiwaz
Holmes

Re: I got one...

i don't think I got one (on my phone).

Quite impressed, as it's an old feature phone and not capable of android or IOS apps.

+1 for general gumption to all involved.

I think that brings us back to 'just bang the rocks together, guys'.

Flying camera drones, cuddly Echo gadgets... it's all a smoke screen for Amazon to lead you gently down the Sidewalk – and you'll probably like it

Teiwaz

Increasingly miniature spy drones for sale to the public

Excellent idea

Get them down to 'fly on the wall' size, and I'm sure they'll fly off the shelves, especially to cater to invasion of privacy, not just home invasion. Secret Police states like North Korea, upskirt and toilet cam fan regions like South Korea.....

...waiter, waiter. There's a spy cam drone in my soup.

Windows to become emulation layer atop Linux kernel, predicts Eric Raymond

Teiwaz

Re: Bullet through the internet

Sounds like a red-blooded American to me.

I'm sure there are many who aren't gun-crazy once you scratch the surface......maybe.

Teiwaz

It's plausible.

But MS will want Linux running ontop of something to which a licence fee is payable to Microsoft, not a Windows layer ontop of Linux - which would way too optional to many.

It's why we have the Linux subsystem for Windows, the IT answer to building a cathedral on a wet cardboard box.

It's tempting to think if they were intent on switching to a linux base, they'd be working instead on their own Wine-alike - then again - that'd be rather community minded - easier to port their own programs than cater for a platform they were dumping

Teiwaz

Re: Sadly... this is the beginning of the end

While I don't disagree this is (at least historically) well within the MS playbook.

Takeover complete

....end result...It does sort of leave them footing most the OS development costs and workload (again).

Not the Southern Rail of the stars: Rocket Lab plans frequent, regular trips to Venus from 2023

Teiwaz
Alien

Re: Assumptions about venusian aliens

Just paint a Starbucks™ sign on the probe and let the Venusians come to you...

Not if they are coffee gourmets.

Teiwaz

'Night'Flights to Venus?

Time to dig that Boney M album out I think

Feds warn foreign disinformation will be spamming US voters well after the November election to sow discord and doubt

Teiwaz

Re: Your choice?

I really can't see how foreign agencies could possibly out-do the States own homegrown attempts to sell opinion as news.

Brexit travel permits designed to avoid 7,000-lorry jams come January depend on software that won't be finished till April

Teiwaz

Re: What's in a name...

We aught to replace the entire gov. with Doozers.

England's COVID-tracking app finally goes live after 6 months of work – including backpedal on how to handle data

Teiwaz

Re: United? Kingdom

I'd have to agree with A/C above

We all knew the World-beating non-conforming, privacy invading, data slurping NHS-X app was going to be a shitshow, but Westminster refused to admit their key tool for contact tracing was broken until last minute then declared it wasn't important anyway.

.uk registry operator Nominet responds to renewed criticism – by silencing its critics

Teiwaz

Re: ICO

Do you really want a BoJo, a Cummings, a Corbyn*, a Gove, a Rees-Mogg or any of the rest of the rogues gallery running the internet in the UK?

They'll get back to trying to 'think of children' by trying to block adult material/gather a register of people wanting to access it for what's left of the UK by that time sooner or later. Whenever they've got brexit done/suffiiciently gotten the media to 'move on' from whatever other shit-show they've made of some other minor crisis and can't find anything else to break or fuck up.

Imagine working for GitHub and writing a command-line interface for the platform, then GitHub makes an 'official' one

Teiwaz

Linux == Apt???

Linux users have to add a repository and use apt

I believe that might be known as an optional dependency.

Apple takes another swing at Epic, says Unreal Engine could be a 'trojan horse' threatening security

Teiwaz

Re: "Apple would face incalculable harm"

"shouldn't be allowed to do anything inconsistent with that without adult intervention anyway."

And how do you prove it's an adult doing the intervening?

Not logging your CC number with apple at all sounds like a pretty responsible (and presumably adult) decision to me....

But, I suppose from apples perspective, not wishing to shower apple with more money must be the indicative of a dangerously irresponsible individual.

This entire case seems to back that up.

Amazon Lex can now speak British English... or simply 'English' if you're British

Teiwaz

Northern Ireland has its own unique variant.

Several, exacerbated by Belfast people who like to pretend up the M22 a couple of miles is as far away as deep rural china is from Beijing in terms of culture, sophistication and recognisable speech patterns.

Stop asking for Amazon, Google and Microsoft cloud with 'no justification': US Library of Congress told to drop its 'brand-name'-tastic RFP

Teiwaz

Even without RFPs

You are running against the American proclivity to use brand names. 'kleenex', 'Hoovers' etc.

Better dictation in latest Dev Channel build will faithfully convert your spittle-flecked Windows 10 rantings to text

Teiwaz

Good Grief...

"restart the listening experience."

I taste vomit in my mouth.

Computers are having experiences now?

Someone's getting a free trip to the US – well, not quite free. Brit bloke extradited to face $2m+ cyber-scam charges

Teiwaz
Joke

Re: It's only money...

The sort of blackmail one might expect from China or Russia. Not the UK.

What about a Trade embargo on foreign owned golf courses.

Seems the sort of blackmail the current US administration has become notorious for.

Golf, a threat to national security? Why not.

You Musk be joking: A mind-reading Neuralink chip in a pig's brain? Downloadable memories? Telepathy? Watch and judge for yourself

Teiwaz
Joke

Re: Eyes Back Head

The human brain is not wired to have more than two eyes so it wouldn't work well.

Why not?

Apparently we have 'four heads' (foreheads).

...less said about how many 'skins', the better.

IBM ordered to pay £22k to whistleblower and told by judges: Teach your managers what discrimination means

Teiwaz

Re: £22K? Is that all?

I'm going down the road less travelled on this one. Maybe, just maybe this woman is a total Karen?

Perhaps, but this is IBM we're talking about.

Tantamount to seeing the same individual in the dock in a domestic abuse case, repeatedly.

Hidden Windows Terminal goodies to check out: Retro mode that emulates blurry CRT display – and more

Teiwaz

Re: I've used a lot of terminals...

I fervently believe that gui development has been horrifically backsliding over the last few decades, with developers apparently more obsessed with what they can take out to make the thing look nicer, than what they should put in to make it work better.

Couldn't agree more - I see a lot of forum threads all over descend into arguments over the minutiae of proposed spacing regimes - and this on modern ui layouts which appear more blank space than content.

Unprotected quantum 'puters may hit 4ms brick wall, thanks to background radiation slashing qubit lifespans

Teiwaz

Get 'em while their fresh, cluck cluck qubits

Well, it'll be the first time a computer showroom had Best Before dates up*.

Although not before time, if you ask me. Hawking old beige boxes with CPUs from a generation ago to unwitting public.

Relying on plain-text email is a 'barrier to entry' for kernel development, says Linux Foundation board member

Teiwaz

Re: Faintly ironic

Even more ironic in that it was MS in the person of Gates who resisted the WWW until it was top big for even them to ignore.

After which point, they did their best to give the impression it was invented at Microsoft, or at the very least that they had a important role in it's creation and direction.

Um, almost the entire Scots Wikipedia was written by someone with no idea of the language – 10,000s of articles

Teiwaz

Re: International Recognition

I'm sure it was also said about the languages of many Native peoples' subjugated by various flavors of Anglosaxons.

True, but I recall being inflicted with certain Northern Irish Politicians attempting to speak Irish.

As to street signs and other language demands - you don't see Trekkies demand that Klingon also be added...

The Viking Snowden: Denmark spy chief 'relieved of duty' after whistleblower reveals illegal snooping on citizens

Teiwaz

Re: Corruption,... again

Douglas Adams got it right - "To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it."

Frank Herbert wrote in (can't recall if it was in 'Chapterhouse Dune') that 'Power attracts the corruptible'

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”

So... just 'Good' then? KFC pulls Finger Lickin' slogan while pandemic rumbles on

Teiwaz

Re: Cinema tie-in

Chicken Run at the cinema and the back of the ticket had a voucher for money off the Colonel's menu. It seemed somewhat inappropriate.

Yup!!, the farmers in the movie made chicken pie.

Teiwaz

Re: Different countries, different flavours

As I was told it, most of the variety in KFC is just down to frying temperature.

First KFC franchise to open in my home town got closed rather quickly due to selling rather raw chicken (Kentucky Raw chicken?).

This was early 1990s. We had to wait another ten years for another to open.

I can hardly believe so many actually bothered to complain over a slogan they'd have heard for decades, and that during normal times they'd have logically realised was not meant to be taken too literally. Such people need to be noted. Any future police state, they'll be the first to report former friends and neighbours for anything.

Microsoft sides with Epic over Apple developer ban, supports motion for temporary restraining order

Teiwaz

Cupertino getting notions of apotheosis again.

Now they're casting out of the walled garden for not feeding the apple...?

TalkTalk, Three, and Virgin Media, come on down! You've all won a prize for... not being that great at something!

Teiwaz

Talk Talk

Not great? As a previous customer, I find it hard to believe them anywhere near even mediocre.... at anything.

Putting the d'oh! in Adobe: 'Years of photos' permanently wiped from iPhones, iPads by bad Lightroom app update

Teiwaz

Re: Class action suit in 3... 2... 1...

"you only have yourself to blame"

Or in this case, Adobe to blame.

What I can't understand, is why in the name of all the gods of information technology, was an Adobe update even touching a data directory?

The 'app' can't have been saving peoples files by default under the software directory, can it? Keeping software and data separate seems elementary.

They're 'clean': SoftBank gets thumbs-up from Uncle Sam for keeping Chinese gear off its Japanese 5G network

Teiwaz

Re: Sounds like something from the Ministry of Fun!

And giving out awards for it has a kind of elementary school - level appeal. Like Scout badges or something.

Sort of, 'Congrats, you get a 'Trumps Up' (and not a knock like Tiktok for sending Trump Up or an 'Up yours, Trump').

Donald Trump thought-bubbles an Alibaba ban as Chinese clouds clam up about Clean Cloud plan

Teiwaz

Read that as

Alabama ban

..well, knew he was uppity with states having other points of Authority other than himself, and prone to sending out groups of goons in vans.

Want to hear our beloved David Attenborough narrate your life? Thanks to the power of machine learning, you can

Teiwaz

I think it needs a more woody sound.

Gorn!!

The future of signage is here, and it wants an update

Teiwaz

Re: Even Microsoft Has become a linux fan

You are delusional.

Microsfoot are desperately trying to increase the chances that on adoption, Linux can be run on top of a Windows Licence.

They have little interest in pushing users onto Linux on a nice stable non-licence paying base that doesn't want to restart a couple of times every time you want to do anything.

Xiaomi turns 10 and celebrates by sitting down to relax in front of its new transparent television

Teiwaz

I'll wait for the first YouTube videos of this TV being used to confuse a cat.

https://youtu.be/1tsIxNci_dE

As much as I appreciate a Monty Python link - Up to date Confuse-a-cat from Korea courtesy of Kittisaurus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_IA-8nQ4FY

Trump administration labels WeChat, TikTok ‘threats’ to national security, bans transactions with both

Teiwaz

Re: The DeathStar analogy is apt...

Please don't insult Vogon culture: Trump can not write poetry.

Neither could the Vogons - it never stopped them.

And lack of any ability at politics or diplomacy hasn't hampered Trump much either.

First alligators, then dogs, now Basil Fawlty is trying to standardise social distancing measures

Teiwaz
FAIL

The Osman

Standards Soviet

I'd no idea who or what an Osman was initially (the bulb makers? did they mean the Osmonds? etc.)

Not all of us watch TV anymore.

They say the tooth will set you free... so Brit dentist trade union tells members: 'Bad news – we've been hacked'

Teiwaz

The revenge of the Big Cheese (and Floppsy)?

Wrap it before you tap it? No, say Linux developers: 'GPL condom' for Nvidia driver is laughed out of the kernel

Teiwaz

Re: NVidia keep on trying

It's Linux that needs nVidia, not vice versa.

Why would Linux <u>need</u> Nvidia?

They are holding back wayland adoption.

When they stop supporting their older cards, Nouveau isn't going to be much help because of signed firmware on recent cards.

They keep promising to sort it out, but nothing comes of it.

Nvidia cards are not good value for money for linux users.

US drugstore chain installed anti-shoplifter facial-recognition cameras in 200 locations – for eight years

Teiwaz

Re: "Humans are pretty good at spouting a lot of nonsense, too"

Ignorance is treatable by education - stupidity is unfortunately not treatable (except by the Grim Reaper!!).

You left out aggressive ignorance - most ably displayed by many politicians and certain religious types.

Venerable text editor GNU Nano reaches version 5.0 and adds the modern frippery that is scrollbars

Teiwaz

Ah Nano

I tried learning vi and emacs countless times, but nanos elegant simplicity I just keep coming back to.

Someone made an AI that predicted gender from email addresses, usernames. It went about as well as expected

Teiwaz

Re: The complaint seems confused

If you want to be targetting your tampon adverts, you need to do it by sex, not by gender.

Well, advertisers have long been convinced sex sells - although in this case....

Teiwaz

Re: The complaint seems confused

the targeted promotions are for items I buy regularly, and would buy even if they were not discounted.

Sounds a little like Amazon marketing strategy - you buy a fridge freezer after a day or two of perusing, and the next month you are bombarded by fridge freezer ads online, because they think you have a fridge fetish, or maybe a lot of bodies to store.

AI assistants work perfectly in the UK – unless you're from Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, Belfast...

Teiwaz

Don't forget West of the river Bann.

The servers will need overclocking just to have a chance of keeping up.