* Posts by Teiwaz

4133 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Oct 2011

Four US govt agencies poke probe in Facebook following more 'oops, we spilled your data' shocks

Teiwaz

This guy actually thought he could be US president ... Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg

Still might, the voting public tends to have short memories, especially when it comes to the circus that is election fever - guess it's just an enduring amateur drama that (almost) everyone wants to pick a side and join in (bar the hopelessly sane or terminally cynical).

We just love small firms, screams UK.gov after palming AWS UK £4.1m

Teiwaz

Typical politician position - all talk, but the money just gets thrust in the pockets of those who'll be in a position to do them a favour later.

Who'd want a directorship or consultancy role with a small firm? They might have to actually do something, and being a useless third wheel would be easily noticed.

Not API: Third parties scrape your Gmail for marketing insights

Teiwaz

Geee-male.

Well, if they are mining my e-mail for the ideal ads to push at me, they are mining for cornish cotted cream and scones.

The 'targeted' ads at the top of my e-mail have been and continue to be wide of the mark (if they wre astro-navigating to Mars, it's be 'Lost in Space').

I don't know why anyone would buy their services - I certainly wouldn't, have seen the result from the 'target' end.

I've been getting a lot of dating ads recently, although I've not been looking (ever, on gmail) - and I refuse to believe the lack of romantic e-mail is what they are picking up on (I might be a catholic bishop).

Feds charge Man after FCC boss Ajit Pai's kids get death threat over net neutrality axe vote

Teiwaz

Me, I just find it hard anyone allowed him to breed in the first place...

Who?

Either of them...

Micro Focus offloads Linux-wrangler SUSE for a cool $2.5bn

Teiwaz

Re: Swelling price tag, if not profits

Started on Suse in 1999 - dropped it when Novell bought it - not a protest thing, for two releases consecutively, the desktop setup had gone downhill. Think I switched to Mandrake after that (tried Red hat, couldn't get of that fast enough).

tempted to try Suse out again occasionally.

Google weeps as its home state of California passes its own GDPR

Teiwaz

Re: 49 to go

@Bob

Mostly agree with you until "free" [insert thing here] for "all" (which becomes mediocre "thing for MOST" sounds like you're talking Health Care.

It's one of those basics, that if you are without, mediocre might well be better than nothing at all.

You are cutting off the base of the pillar to attack the top.

Teiwaz

Re: Big Deception

From a east side of the pond perception, the only 'liberals' in this story are the thoughtful individuals who managed to get this thing through.

A rare win, even if it was done with the usual game the political system method and will be shat on the moment oligarchs find someone willing to take a 'donation'.

Foot lose: Idiot perv's shoe-mounted upskirt vid camera explodes

Teiwaz

Re: The real question is: did he want to get arrested?

In America health care is only available to the rich and incarcerated

In NHS UK, the Mental Health budgets are always seemingly close to the red.

Unless you can pay for it or have had it ordered by court, good luck getting it apart from some volunteer group run courses.

Git365. Git for Teams. Quatermass and the Git Pit. GitHub simply won't do now Microsoft has it

Teiwaz

Re: Git TF!

I'm sure you can work out what the TF stand for (at least if you're Scottish)...

Those aren't the initials for Buckfast....

Teiwaz

AzureHub, eventually...

Doesn't matter what you call it, it'll be tied into Azure, Office365, Cortana and spit LinkedIn messages to all insundry when you check/in/checkout/shakeitallabout.

UK.gov is not being advised by Google. Repeat. It is not being advised by Google

Teiwaz

Re: Industry 4.0

How about making degrees cheaper so that we have a better educated work force

Not necessarily, there's been some accusations that Uni's are making degrees easier lately.

Teiwaz

Re: Even the worst AI

Three chimpanzees scratching their arses would outperform the UK government

Apart from the crap flinging - whether brexit or remain, UK politicians just ladle it out the mouth or arse and throw it about.

Teiwaz

Advised by Google or Advertised by Google ?

Not exactly an exclusive club there, Google are hardly discerning.

Might actually be an improvement if they were, as much as can be said that's negative about Google, they are fairly efficient at IT, UK.gov is not.

What am I saying, we already know Politicians won't be advised on IT. They want 'press any key and criminals will be identified, prosecuted and incarcerated and then retire to a commons bar' *

* A button that makes the EU agree to everything (or just go away) would also be on their wishlist.

Google leaps on the platform formerly known as Firefox with $22m splurge for KaiOS

Teiwaz

The Google thing might not be a deal-breaker.

If the phones only run HTML/CSS apps, surely Google are back to square one,

It's only game over should they manage to get the platform to depend on the appstore and the autorun parasite binaries.

But the Manufacturers and Networks are not blameless in overloading phones with unremovable features like Facebook and useless maps and crap of their own.

Ready, get Sets... no? App-grouping whizzery for Windows 10 killed

Teiwaz

Re: MS - 'majoring' in the 'minors'

I really like the multi-desktop feature in open source desktops, which showed up OVER 10 YEARS AGO in various desktop managers (like KDE, gnome, vtwm, fluxbox, ...).

Over 10 years? Been twenty plus years KDE being 20, and others in the TWM lineage were there first (CTWM, with up to 32 multiple virtual screens).

Time flies and we're all getting older, but ignoring decades won't make us younger.

Teiwaz

What is it about KDE's 'Desktops' feature

KDE have moved onto 'Activities' and have been encouraging it's 'it's a replacement, but not' status for some time.

It's kind of the same as Desktops, but not. I 'm not sure most users know what to do with them (with or instead of desktops).

Doesn't Pekwm have tabbed windows? (or is it Fluxbox?) or both?.....to drunk to look it up.

UK taxman warned it's running out of time to deliver working customs IT system by Brexit

Teiwaz

Zoinks!!

Actually I think she is a closet remainer

I still remember the report of her uttering something on the lines of 'would like to stay in the EEC, but leave ECJ.' (when she was still with the remain camp).

If true, that may have been the goal all along, once she got her chance, cut everything to implement whatever to achieve post-human rights britain, the ECJ regulation foiling her schemes like meddling mystery van kids has driven her barking...

Teiwaz

Going by recent Gov. IT project failures, overruns. delivery shortfalls and general waste of money chasing the buzzing tinkerbell of agile, bambi or frolicking fauns, not a chance before the deadline.

I predict a return to rampant smuggling, Cornwall tourism and tri-point hats (but only because of the new Poldark).

Facebook, Google, Microsoft scolded for tricking people into spilling their private info

Teiwaz

Re: "we are committed to GDPR compliance across our cloud services"

Well, of course. Stock corporate reply,

the lawyers are confident there's nothing that can lead to successful prosecution, or confident they can muddy the waters for decades

Much like 'fully committed to assist the Police Investigation' - the contents of three buildings have been shredded and staff flung to offices on the four corners of the earth.

Two different definitions of Edge Computing arrive in one week

Teiwaz

IT with one hand clapping.

I look forward to the zen interpretation of mainframe, when that fashion comes back in.

Labour MP pushing to slip 6-hour limit to kill illegal online content into counter-terror bill

Teiwaz

exemptions should include academics and journalists, as well as people who were viewing to gain a better understanding or did so "out of foolishness or poor judgement".

That seems to cover a wide base, ignoring the 'professional' exempt, the amateur exempt covers the span from the curious that seek knowledge to the naive and feckless.

They'll be wanting to use it to cut the former out of society, the latter are proles and can be safely ignored cause they merely clicked on it 'cause it was there while the former 'actively searched for it'.

Relive your misspent, 8-bit youth on the BBC's reopened Micro archive

Teiwaz

Made do with a C64, really wanted a BBC micro

"The BBC Micro not only gave folk access to a computer

Hmm, I seem to remember, when they weren't harder to get hold of due to lack of supply they were damn expensive.

Must check if the source to 'Nutter' is on there.....

So woke: Microsoft's face-recog can now ID more people who aren't pasty white blokes

Teiwaz

pretty much what many crims have done in the paste then without going full hoodie and ski mask.

So you're saying go out and buy a pair of tights instead?

That's been done before too.

And you'll look like a tit if you can't tell the difference between tights and stockings...

Google kills AdWords!

Teiwaz

Re: Be thankful for the lack of symbolic explanation

Humans can be exposed only to so many paragraphs containing words such as

Survival tip : mentally replace all such occurrences with the name of a type of bun or pastry.

It'll not aid comprehension*, but the mental activity may help prevent a lapse into a coma for a couple of paragraphs at least (or until you run out of bun names).

* May actually inhibit comprehension, which is probably for the best.

Crime epidemic or never had it so good? Drilling into statistics is murder

Teiwaz

Re: We need gunlaws like in the US to fight crime

In most West-European countries statistics about petty crime...

Is this a naive attempt to grab the position as the lead for a Western Europe NRA?

Yes, petty crime doesn't get processed because, from the perspective of the citizen reporting it the cops don't seem to do anything (whether this is the case or not I don't know, but suspect there's not likely to be any career-enhancing rewards for catching a petty criminal, nor any sense of achievement of justice).

Your argument would be laughable if it weren't for the terrifying fact that this is logical to some parts of the world.

Galileo, here we go again. My my, the Brits are gonna miss EU

Teiwaz

Re: Fgs

Why do we need to make one? The EU want one as they try to appear important or something and not relying on the US one yadda yadda

rely being the operative one here.

Who would 'rely' on Russia, China or rapidly unreliable U.S.A? They might decide to block it over tariffs....then not, then maybe....

The idea of 'building our own'? I hope any such project fares better than most gov. IT or the recent emergency services communication project.

Maybe the commonwealth can chip in....?

Happy birthday, you lumbering MS-DOS-based mess: Windows 98 turns 20 today

Teiwaz

Re: The ONLY things going for it were

A J MacLeod :

Sorry, too lazy to look up when Gnome and KDE came into being, and over-paranoid about factoring in actual uptake - forgot that when I started on 'Linux late '99 it was already on KDE 2.

WindowMaker not old?

The main body of the WM still works, but looks dated, but the WM-Apps widgets are truly dusty, they're like a dusty old telegraph station in a 'old west' ghost town, half the distros I've tried it on they either don't compile or the backends are extinct.

When WindowMaker was resuscitated a few years back, I thought the first thing would be updating those.

Teiwaz

Re: The ONLY things going for it were

1) Gnome and KDE were in the early stages or even a glint in someones eye, but FVWM was around (and WindowMaker) and these must have been mature by then as they've hardly changed.

2) You mean LaTex, Vi or Emacs aren't good enough?

3) No, but neither had anything much (I do recall the fun of compiling and optimising Xine by hand a year or two later, and gotten OSS working.

4) Well, yes (see 5)

5) Mainly with Winmodems. If you had one, give up and buy a decent hardware one, they generally weren't that expensive (unless you had no option but for a PCMCIA one).

6) Still more fun than Windows. Learn to love using a computer again without feeling degraded, inhibited or patronised by 'wizzard' dialogs or poorly animated puppies or anthropomorphised paperclips.

Facebook quietly kills its Aquila autonomous internet drone program

Teiwaz

Re: All eyes are now on Google and and its Loon pants...

All eyes are now on Google and and its Loon pants...

As I'm half asleep I misread a paragraph, and was rather disappointed when I re-read it.

What with wearables and Google Glass, you may one day have you dream come true....

I what form, I dunno. But am hoping for 'youtube trousers' with adverts that you can get paid for wearing around town.

Getting paid to wear trousers...? Who could resist....You can get 'charged' for not wearing trousers after all....

Creep travels half the world to harass online teen gamer… and gets shot by her mom – cops

Teiwaz

Re: Psycho creeps will always be with us.

and parental neglect...

Nice that it would be for parents oblivious to the online interactions of wayward progeny to finally get a demonstrable repercussion, I doubt neglect would ever be laid or even pursued.

If only as it's too good a base excuse for internet clamp-downs in the name of 'protecting children'. Now if only there was a chance children could be caught up in a war zone they'd do their utmost to cut that out too....wait, what? they are???? And they're not doing much about it????

UK Foreign Office offers Assange a doctor if he leaves Ecuador embassy

Teiwaz

The US cannot call Assange a traitor, for that is someone who betrays their own country

Americans never had much a grasp on English, it gets warped into a strange parody as soon as it's plane touches the tarmac. Sounds similar and communication is possible at a basic level, but a lot of words mean completely different things.

Their grasp on the emotive, even if it makes little sense, is spot on though.

Artificial intelligence? yawns DDN. That's just the new HPC, isn't it?

Teiwaz

But what catchy name can Marketing give it?

If 'artificial intelligence' becomes a worn-out hype word long before it actually exists.

Spare a moment for the shame an ridicule some future hardworking boffins when they announce 'true artificial intelligence' only to receive a 'pfff, that's so twenty-teens, man.

Remember when you were a kid, and that toy in the ads that look so brilliant, but when you got it it was just some molded plastic...? That's Life....

Dob in naughty data slurps to top EU court, privacy groups urge

Teiwaz

Re: Can the European court go after the telecoms companies?

Its the legal requirement thats wrong

Technically illegal, according to the judgement.

Still think whoever drafted the illegal law should be charged.

Charged with what? I'm sure something fits, human rights violation, attempting to overthrow democracy, or just treason.

Hell, the government itself has widened terror-related offenses enough that they could be gotten under that (but so could shoplifting).

GitLab's move off Azure to Google cloud totally unrelated to Microsoft's GitHub acquisition. Yep

Teiwaz

If MS aren't stopping the migration, it suggests they have no real confidence in their own Kubernetes implementation to me.

Confusing I know, Microsoft bought Github, this article is referring to Gitlab, no one could ever confuse the two, of course..... Nyah!

Intel finds a cure for its software security pain: Window Snyder

Teiwaz

Confused

'Window Snyder'

So did she marry or is related to the Principle from 'Back to the Future'?

Good name for a Microsoft critical (or at least sarcastic) website though.

SUSE Linux Enterprise turns 15: Look, Ma! A common code base

Teiwaz

Cultural cloning and diminishing returns

Haven't the cultures that have developed negative associations with certain numbers thought of changing the word or pronunciation to remove the association.

In the long run, it would be better than just black-balling certain numbers. That sort of thing tends to snowball, and sooner or later accountants are adding up numbers wrong to avoid bad luck and your economy inevitably tanks.

This is the sort of thing that happens when a formerly rich cultural set of traditions gets the Daily papers Star Sign treatment and reduced to Idiocracy levels of association. Reminds me of someone I knew who dabbled with the Tarot and only ever used the 22 Major Arcana (leaving out the 56 odd Minor Arcana) and then freaked herself out because 'the cards were following her around' or somesuch....

Ubuntu reports 67% of users opt in to on-by-default PC specs slurp

Teiwaz

So what is Canonical actually going to do with them to benefit people who gave them?

You don't think it's valuable to know what users are installing the s/w on?

Prioritise more popular hardware configurations

Approach large OEMs with info that a large number of purchasers of their kit are putting ubuntu on it, maybe they'd like to have a pre-install option (long shot, I know).

O.S. vendors were trying to get this sort of feedback from users for decades, and often had a 'System Test' utility to gather info to be run asa one-off - most users don't know as people usually skip the intro screens or lack the confidence.

Teiwaz

Re: Ubuntu is the beginners' choice for Linux distro

Used to be. I think Linux Mint with Mate or Cinnamon.

Certainly popular with peeps who want something XP simple or Gnome.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/whats-the-most-popular-linux-of-them-all/

I get the impression from Ubuntu sites that a fair few are jumping to one or other of the flavours, Gnome desktop doesn't appeal to a lot.

I know I had to abandon vanilla ubuntu due to Gnome, just runs badly on an old N450 Atom netbook - just sluggish and unresponsive, like how Unity was in the early iterations.

Plasma runs usably though. (barely, but sufficiently).

Teiwaz

Re: Really small systems

But are they 'real'?

Well, I'm running Ubuntu (but not Gnome) on an Acer 2010 netbook (Atom + 2GB).

Really, really small (really) and bare metal (obviously).

And I opted in (always did run the System Test prog).

Meet TLBleed: A crypto-key-leaking CPU attack that Intel reckons we shouldn't worry about

Teiwaz

Re: No bold type text for AMD being affected as well,uh?

AMD vs. Intel

AMD is the underdog just now. Everyone loves a plucky little scrapper of a terrier willing to take on bigger mutts, even if they also chew the furniture/slippers too...

AMD vs. Nvidia

Well, AMD still, Nvidia drivers are still just a non-conformist pain.

Something to fire up PyTorch fans, Facebook emits code for analyzing human poses, and more

Teiwaz

“Buying the drone is indeed easy but designing an algorithm which can identify the violent individuals requires certain expertise related to designing deep systems which are not easy to acquire. I don't think that these systems are easy to implement,"

Highly likely that once implemented, they'll eventually be acquirable by anyone determined enough.

Amazon tweaks its word processor for easier online Office edits

Teiwaz

Re: Well I for one shall be ditching MS Office 2016

By allowing you to have multiple installations, there has to be some way for MS to enforce it.

Original OP complained it was 'permanently dialling home', even if it is only a little exaggeration, how paranoid are MS and do they really need 'real-time' response on the matter. Are their lawyers on 'fireman level' readiness to leap into action on a 'bat signal' signal that a customer has fired up one extra copy of Office than they have paid for while those that have no intention of paying are allowed to keep going, as better that than cracking down and forcing them onto other alternatives which potentially weakens theri hegemony.

Don't panic, but your baby monitor can be hacked into a spycam

Teiwaz

Don't panic, but.....

Seeing that phrase in headlines a lot recently, perhaps it's just a meme, but since we are seeing it a lot, perhaps panic is well past due.

I know I experience significant culture shock when I notice not just the 'we don't give a shit as long as we get your money' IOT attitude, but the mindless buy-in that only encourages them.

I know I'm most certainly a prime example of a 'culture of one', but all the same....

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich quits biz after fling with coworker rumbled

Teiwaz

Re: Similar thing at HP

How do you know she wasn't on top ?

Depends on whether 'caught' was meant literally. Some sort of red-handed and possibly red-cheeked fashion - precariously on a desk maybe (hope it was at least pre desktop PCs, or at least post CRT) the witness would know.

US Supreme Court blocks internet's escape from state sales taxes

Teiwaz

the tax depends on the purpose that yarn will be used for

Seems worrying, when put like that.

Are we likely at some point to be charged extra tax if buying kleenex, but not for nose-blowing, but, erm other emissions...?

You want to tax thingy?

Now Microsoft ports Windows 10, Linux to homegrown CPU design

Teiwaz

They have been the world leaders in quantum computers for years, even as far back as Windows 2000 the OS was both working and not working simultaneously.

Perhaps, but only if you are not observing it, so you'd have to be a Linux / Mac user for Windows to be in that state. As soon as you observe it, you'll see it either working or not.

Nope, you merely have to look away for a moment or step away from your desk and it'll flip states*

* I think it's a hunting trick to attract unwary technical support personnel close to it so it can suck the life from their souls.

Teiwaz

Re: Still at the FPGA stage after all these years?!?!?!?!???

Great for Microsoft, but if that happens the days of open computing are over.

Nah!!

Really is at such odds with their 'we like OSS now' talk.

Question is, would it sufficiently 'sour the milk' enough for the terminally MS dependant to finally make the effort to get off the nipple.

And as to No more buying whichever graphics card you feel like and slapping it in a tower and having it work really depended on how much effort the manufacturer put into the drive and how much MS borked the last update.

Universal Credit has never delivered bang for buck, but now there's no turning back – watchdog

Teiwaz

Re: The government position:

Well, if you think you can do better, why not give it a go? Sometimes the non-establishment candidate gets in, e.g. President Trump.

So, non-establishment, maybe. But I don't doubt the real architects know how to manipulate him, judicious flattery, letting him get his way on some unimportant points, trimming the agenda temporarily here and there.

Trump is in it for Trump the business, at the end of his term, I'd count the U.S. lucky if there's just no lasting damage - it's more than the U.K. is looking at...

Swiss cops will 'tolerate' World Cup rabble-rousers – for 60 minutes

Teiwaz

Sensible

Although I am sure fans will regard this as 'premiere league killjoying', I personally, as 'not a sport fan' aplaud the no-nonsense attitude.

Most sport has become much much to over-hyped, ripping off fans on ticket prices, shirts, etc. and up the line to cost for the networks to actually broadcast it.

It's been an over-inflated ego-fest for decades, and I quite agree with only minimal indulgence.

Cops fined £80,000 for revealing childhood abuse victims' names

Teiwaz

ICO "fines" go to the treasury, and I doubt that many people would call the ICO "voracious" nor a "regulatory beast". In many respects, enforcement would be better if the ICO were funded from fines - they'd have more incentive to collect, and to proactively investigate.

One Government body fining another is a rather pointless round-robin anyway. Gloucester plod is hardly going to be allowed to go under like a badly run business.

Dismals and or court action, it's the only way, or they'll only offend again.