* Posts by Captain DaFt

3821 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2007

Quentin Tarantino in talks to make Star Trek movie

Captain DaFt

Re: Well Discovery has the occasional swearing

Maybe he can't resuscitate it either, but it might be worth a shot.

I actually think it might work iffff:

It's not about the Federation.

IMHO Tarantino would be an excellent choice as director for a Star Trek movie focusing on the Klingon Empire and its interactions with other species.

It's a big galaxy out there, the Federation can't be everywhere for cryin' out loud!

That 70s Show: Windows sprouts Sets and Timeline features

Captain DaFt

Re: the 70's? *ANYTHING* but the 70's!

the most tasteless decade in the 20th century, from hideous polyester patterns to disco "music".

And if you doubt him, click here.

Microsoft to rebuild Redmond campus, including cricket pitch

Captain DaFt

Given Microsoft's usual naming style

Shouldn't it be "Windows Office Park One"?

The End of Abandondroid? Treble might rescue Google from OTA Hell

Captain DaFt

Re: Essentially a Java phone!

If someone does ask Linus, we really need it filmed. I nominate the SlowMo Guys!

I think colinfurze would be a better choice.

He's an expert at surviving madly dangerous projects!

The six simple questions Facebook refused to answer about its creepy suicide-detection AI

Captain DaFt

Re: I hope the Facebook AI becomes sentient...

... and after seeing what it is, commits suicide.

Bonus points if it takes the entirety of Facebook down with it!

Then Twitter would go down too, since everyone on FB would jump there to complain.

World production/morale soars, accidents drop dramatically since no one's glued to their smartphone... It's win/win/win!

Elon Musk says he's not Satoshi Nakamoto and is pretty rubbish at Bitcoin

Captain DaFt

Re: The clue is in the word 'elusive'

If only there were any clues to who that might be.

Well, if STOS reruns taught me anything, it's that Russians invented everything! (Right, Chekov?)

So obviously Putin is the real Satoshi Nakamoto. ☺

Captain DaFt

Re: Must be Al Gore.

Wasn't that Stan Lee's catchphrase, not Al Gore's?

Wasn't Longfellow the one that made it famous?

(And Bullwinkle that made it popular?) ☺

Give 1,000 monkeys typewriters, they'll write Shakespeare. Give them robot arms, and wait – they actually did that?

Captain DaFt

Re: Phhht. Shakespeare thinks he's so great.

Question is, how long would it take before they write "Hey, hey, we're the Monkees."?

Couldn't tell you. I'm to busy keeping my eye on the one that keeps typing, "All work and no play makes macaque a dull boy." over and over again.

Captain DaFt

Re: WTF happened to these monkeys

Nah, they're vicious little bastards who would bite your finger off for shits and giggles. I've no sympathy.

True. That's why I believe that they had limbless lab monkeys available.

They're just as vicious to each other, and in a lab cage with no where for the victim to run to...

Captain DaFt

Re: WTF happened to these monkeys

There's no way this could end well.

Two words - Cyborg monkey butlers!

(OK, that was three words, I'm a heavy tipper) ☺

Judge stalls Uber trade-secret theft trial after learning upstart 'ran a trade-secret stealing op'

Captain DaFt

Re: Uber really does not seem to grok this "disclosure" thing very well

Uber are about to discover exactly what the phrase "I am the law" really means.

I think the phrase they're really about to learn is: "You are sooo screwed!"

Russian rocket snafu may have just violently dismantled 19 satellites

Captain DaFt

Re: Kerbal Space Program

I believe we call this a RUD: Rapid Unplanned Disassembly.

If it was an RUD, where was the kaboom?

This sounds more like an RUR.

(That is, Rapid Unscheduled Re-entry, not Rossum's Universal Robots)

US intelligence blabs classified Linux VM to world via leaky S3 silo

Captain DaFt

Oh dearie me!

Yet another one.

Despite the default being unable to do this, and Amazon even adding color coded flags to alert you when you change it.

Who or whatever could be doing this?

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is stupidity, but constantly? Geez, who keeps pissing off the BOFH?

Pro tip: You can log into macOS High Sierra as root with no password

Captain DaFt

AFK

I'll read the comments later. ☺

I'm off to play in the Apple Store! ☺

Only kidding! Honest! ☺

'Break up Google and Facebook if you ever want innovation again'

Captain DaFt

Re: but lack of innovation is not one of them.

If Facebook wanted to...oh wait, they don't. They just store what you give them.

Even if that data's about a non-facebook user.

Also collects data from third parties, and via datr cookies about non-users to build profiles.

https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-profile-of-you-that-you-never-created/

The Stazi were slackers by comparison.

IBM does what IBM does best: Raises the chopper again

Captain DaFt

Re: As per Schlock Mercenary

Or as Australia could say: I've Been Mugged

Don't shame idiots about their idiotically weak passwords

Captain DaFt

Re: My password is ...

"badpassword" because nobody would ever suspect that I was using a bad password.

All the really Leet admins use "password' as their login name, and 'admin' as the password. It's fool proof I tells ya!

Captain DaFt

Oh, I think I know the place!

I've worked at places where the server team have made it literally impossible to choose a suitable password due to conflicting rules.

That made for a busy helpdesk

RULES FOR THE SELECTION OF PASSWORDS:

1. A password must be at least six characters long, and must not contain two occurrences of a character in a row, or a sequence of two or more characters from the alphabet in forward or reverse order. Example: HGQQXP is an invalid password. GFEDCB is an invalid password.

2. A password may not contain two or more letters in the same position as any previous password. Example: If a previous password was GKPWTZ, then NRPWHS would be invalid because PW occurs in the same position in both passwords.

3. A password may not contain the name of a month or an abbreviation for a month. Example: MARCHBC is an invalid password. VWMARBC is an invalid password.

4. A password may not contain the numeric representation of a month. Therefore, a password containing any number except zero is invalid. Example: WKBH3LG is invalid because it contains the numeric representation for the month of March.

5. A password may not contain any words from any language. Thus, a password may not contain the letters A, or I, or sequences such as AT, ME, or TO because these are all words.

6. A password may not contain sequences of two or more characters which are adjacent to each other on a keyboard in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal direction. Example: QWERTY is an invalid password. GHNLWT is an invalid password because G and H are horizontally adjacent to each other. HUKWVM is an invalid password because H and U are diagonally adjacent to each other.

7. A password may not contain the name of a person, place, or thing. Example: JOHNBOY is an invalid password.

Because of the complexity of the password selection rules, there is actually only one password which passes all the tests. To make the selection of this password simpler for the user, it will be distributed to all supervisors. All users are instructed to obtain this password from his or her supervisor and begin using it immediately.

Team Trump goes in to bat for Google and Facebook

Captain DaFt

Re: The US is rich

Who is going to make the US pay its debts back? No one, under threat of force. Therefore the US is rich.

Ah, don't be silly, no force needed at all.

From PeterGriffin's post: Piles of debt supplied by foreign governments buying US Treasury Bonds.

If the US fails, then most World powers are left holding worthless paper, and lose trillions. Then one after the other fails as well.

So if the US does go TITSUP (Totally Insolvent Territory Sinks, Unable to Pay), then everyone, except maybe Russia and Iran, will have to scramble to keep the US afloat or sink with them.

(Where do you suppose the major banks got the idea from?)

Captain DaFt

Re: Donald Jr vs Ivanka

So you see Trump as Richard III? Not Richard Nixon?

Personally, I see Trump's first term as slightly better than Dubya's.

People seem to forget just how ludicrous he was first term.

(It was Dubya's second term that turned people from laughing at idiots in office, to being very afraid of them)

Wizarding World of Harry Potter awaits Microsoft Office exam winners

Captain DaFt

Re: Woah

It hasn't really changed in over 20 years other than moving buttons to more accessible places.

So the whole ribbon fiasco is just a fever dream I'm suffering from?

More accessible!? It's like having a toddler in the house, running off with your car keys the instant you set them down!

If the buttons are so damned 'accessible' now, why'd MS have to release an interactive program just to help you figure out where they are?

Captain DaFt

Re: Woah

So much bitterness in the comments from people who, despite years of trying, clearly haven't managed to learn Word yet. The formatting isn't magic, it can be learned by anyone.

I learned Word...three times! After that I said, "Fuck this!" and moved to AbiWord for personal use.

I just can't be arsed to keep relearning the damn thing every time they break change things to "Enhance my user experience"!

SurfaceBook 2 battery drains even when plugged in

Captain DaFt

Well, who would have ever thought that someone would buy a computer and use it to its advertised max potential?

Clearly, not Microsoft!

This is peak AI: Bot to guest edit Radio 4's Today programme

Captain DaFt

Re: Politicians are already Bots, preprogammed, script driven

- Theresa May Personality Module

At last! An AI program I can do!:

command &>/dev/null

job arg1 arg2 &>/dev/null

/path/to/script arg1 &>/dev/null

There, sorted!

Aussie Catholic School forced into hasty cover-up over suggestive Saint

Captain DaFt

Re: Sense of humor

Either that, or someone along the line has a *cough* sense of humor...

Eh, not the first time it's happened with a statue.

Sometimes, through nobody's fault, these things just slip out. ☺

'Gimme Gimme Gimme' Easter egg in man breaks automated tests at 00:30

Captain DaFt

Re: Unprofessional bollocks

You do realise clippy was the first instance of AI.

How else did it know you were writing a letter?

Unfortunately, for what passes as 'AI' today, it's still state of the art. :/

Once more unto the breach: El Reg has a go at crisis management

Captain DaFt

Re: Where was Marketing in all of this?

And of course the prepared boiler plate statement about "we take security very seriously".... For some reason, every time I see or hear this, I have a mental image of Bozo the Clown delivering it.

I'm happy for you.

To me, the image is that of a gang of thugs in an alley with a gun pointed at me, with one hand beckoning. "We take security, seriously"

'Urgent data corruption issue' destroys filesystems in Linux 4.14

Captain DaFt

Re: "This would have been found just as fast in closed source."

It's part of the reason I moved to Linux.

Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

There's a work-around - use a 3rd-party tool to copy a file!!

So, your advice is to fix an OS problem by using something else?

Uh, that's what he did, isn't it? ☺

Microsoft to run VMware on Azure, on bare metal. Repeat. Microsoft to run VMware on Azure.

Captain DaFt

Vapid Market Talk

"adopting Azure reserved instances will save you big bucks."

Has any company, in the history of Earth, ever said otherwise about their product/services when trying to persuade you to switch?

And how often has it been true?

Digital minister: We're still talking to BT about sorting crap broadband

Captain DaFt

"Digital minister: We're still talking to BT about sorting crap broadband"

At the Club:

Digital minister:"I say, how's sorting out that crap broadband coming along? -chuckles-"

Jan du Plessis:"Oh swimmingly! -winks knowingly-"

-Clink glasses and the whole Club shares a hearty laugh-

HPE CEO Meg Whitman QUITS, MAN! Neri to replace chief exec in Feb

Captain DaFt

"Hewlett Packard Enterprise boss Meg Whitman is stepping down, and will be replaced on February 1 by company president Antonio Neri."

Might as well have set the date April 1, since she's turned the company into a sad joke.

The Independent 'live streamed' space vid recorded in 2015

Captain DaFt

Re: So they admit to lying

What else are they lying about?

Lets make it easier and list 5 things that we're sure they're not lying about:

1. The name of their paper

2. .....

3. .....

OK, OK, so the one thing we know for sure.

Whew... Toshiba rustles up $5.4bn to avoid delisting

Captain DaFt

who in their right (corporate) mind would even consider buying Westinghouse Nuclear? no projects, bad purchases of incompetent contractors, a definite stink about them. the A1000 is under question, and the Chinese have a clone of the process underway, and the prospect of underbidding everybody. just because something is up for sale does not mean it's worth taking.

In other News, HP executives bid 60 billion USD for Westinghouse Nuclear.

A lawyer for HP stated: "The prospects for HP entering the nuclear market could rival our purchase of Autonomy. Just think of the lawsuits!"

Germany slaps ban on kids' smartwatches for being 'secret spyware'

Captain DaFt

Re: 'sustainable in the long run'

Go Germany even if Munich is killing off LibreOffice... :(

They switched from XP to LiMux, a house developed distro, if I recall correctly.

Now they're switching from LiMux to Win10? With Office 365 on the cloud instead of LibreOffice.?

<sarc>Oh, I get the feeling that this'll go over seamlessly with absolutely no backlash!</sarc>

Aww: Apple won't be HomePod for Christmas

Captain DaFt

Hmm, maybe...

It was a little too fashionable?

"Oh, NO! You did not just put me on this tacky table and expect me function, did you?"

"And just who was you decorator? The local skip!?"

"Darling, you're adorable with your kitsch chic, but A� just can't work in conditions like this! *click*"

Cook: "OK marketing, I see what the mean. We'll just have to postpone release until we can get someone besides Jony to train it."

Massive US military social media spying archive left wide open in AWS S3 buckets

Captain DaFt

Hmm, I wonder..

"Massive US military social media spying archive left wide open in AWS S3 buckets"

Or could it be: "How to pull a Snowden without becoming a Snowden?

The timing does seem to be suspicious what with all the "Russians are gaming our elections!!" hype recently.

Windows Update borks elderly printers in typical Patch Tuesday style

Captain DaFt

"And would it kill Microsoft to warn users that an update is queued? "

It does. It gives you plenty of warning. And you can set active hours where it wont install. And there is an optional setting for additional warnings if some bs isn't enough for you...

Hey AC, why is it that when anyone points out the short comings of Win10, you're right there, with solutions or caveats that only seem to work on your system, and nobody else's?

Could it be that you work for MS and are actually using Windows 9 ?

Captain DaFt

Re: The are still used!

"See the Windows 10 "continuous beta" model."

It's called Windows Insider. And obviously is optional.

No, Windows Insiders get to test the Alpha grade, everybody else gets the Beta.

Up until Win10, once the Beta was nearly production ready, MS scraped it and started all over again.

Win10 is perpetual Beta, because they keep throwing in (or deleting) code to see what breaks.

Captain DaFt

Re: Dot Matrix ?

Wasn't she a character in one of Mel Brooks's films?

Duuude, not that one, please!

Will the real Dot Matrix Please sing out!

Tesla launches electric truck it guarantees won't break for a million miles

Captain DaFt

I'll bet in the fine print that the "won't break down for a million miles guarantee" only applies to hardware, not software.

Fear not, driverless car devs, UK.gov won't force you to write Trolley Problem solutions

Captain DaFt

The trolley problem is easily solved,

Actually the classic trolley problem (IE: divert the trolley and hit one person, do nothing and three get hit) is simple:

Do nothing.

That means you are just a spectator at a tragedy, but even just putting your hand on the lever puts you in control of the situation, and makes you a murderer in the eyes of the law. (single or triple homicide, your choice.) Doing nothing keeps the blame with the scoundrel that started the trolley barreling toward the victims, where it belongs.

Of course, this is assuming that you're just wandering by at the time, and not assigned to controlling the lever.

But who the hell would just stand at the switch waiting for a trolley to come along when there's obviously people tied to the tracks? The Hooded Claw?

New, revamped Terdot Trojan: It's so 2017, it even fake-posts to Twitter

Captain DaFt

I vant your cash, your stocks and bonds.

"IcedID already possesses some advanced features that rival features experts have seen in older and more complex banking trojans"

At the rate these are evolving, when Skynet becomes self aware, it won't exterminate humanity, it'll just steal all our money! ☺

'It's back to the drawing board...' Innocent axions found not guilty of dark matter crimes

Captain DaFt

Re: MOND theories so unfashionable?

It's more likely that dark matter and dark energy exist.

Well, something exists that exhibits what we observe.

IMHO, right now we're at the 'Luminiferous aether' stage, where we're postulating a cause, but in reality the actual cause may be something entirely different that'll look damned obvious to boffins once some bright spark stumbles across it.

DXC Tech asks staff to profile their skills

Captain DaFt

Re: Just do....

..a load of bullshit "soft skills" course (the ones that say you completed the course while the video plays in the backgrounds) and you'll be fine.

I'd follow the KISS principle:

Job skills: Indispensable Knowledge of systems. But I am willing to contract at 170X my current salary to come in and fix it when things go south, if laid off.

US authorities swallow security-free script for pill that knows when you're off your meds

Captain DaFt

"What could possibly go wrong when drug companies embed into a pill,"

All of them? That's a mighty big pill!

US Homeland Security says hardly any Kaspersky software left on federal networks

Captain DaFt

Re: MS' Windows 10 conduited baked-in 'slurped' malware uploads work in exactly the same way.

"Aw, shoot. I just gave them ideas, didn't I."

Not really, you just reinvented Chrome OS.

<conspiratorial tone> Are you sure that Chrome isn't actually Emacs hiding behind a fancy UI?</conspiratorial tone> ☺

Apple succeeds in failing wearables

Captain DaFt

I get mine "free" with my work's health scheme to track my every movement.

Gave up your freedom for a "free" watch?

Sure, Face ID is neat, but it cannot replace a good old fashioned passcode

Captain DaFt

Re: "So how do you solve the problems of people..."

May not survive. Any other ideas?

Use a kendo sword as your clue bat.

Hurts like hell when applied properly, but does no long term damage. ☺

Boffins on alert: Brace yourselves for huge gravitational wave coming within a decade

Captain DaFt

In other words,

"Boffins on alert: Brace yourselves for huge gravitational wave coming within a decade"

Surf's Up! ☺

Amazon to make multiple Lord of the Rings prequel TV series

Captain DaFt

Re: Running up stairways of falling rocks

I foresee an endless string of mini-plots revolving around elf-dwarf sex scandals, fear-mongering about new wyrms from the north, and all those swarthy eastern immigrants showing up unbidden.

Many shows can be built around such mundane things as Gandalf's annoying pipe weed snobbery, Gimli's out-of-control quaffing habit, Aragorn's racy past coming back to bite him, and Sam's unrequited love for Frodo. It's gonna be great!

So you're saying that the new series will be based on LOTR fan fiction? ☺