Posts by Mark 85

Re: Follow the money

It's sort of the way it works with news, etc. In this case, the dead guy is "one of them". Everyone else is nameless, faceless and is only headlines by the sheer volume of numbers. So yeah... one guy is dead and the world screams. Millions die and they look the other way. Something is still f****d up with this world.

Re: Government Data Piles

Miscreants must feel like mosquitoes at a nudist colony.

So many targets, yet the problem for the miscreants is the same as for mosquitoes... they have to differentiate between the old inactive ones and the active live ones. So many targets, so little time.

It is disgusting that Assange is held, without trial in an effective jail for so long. Call ourselves civilised: 3rd world countries must be laughing at our hypocrisy.

Seriously? He's there by choice. It's their "house" and their rules. You need more downvotes.

Re: Sweet memories...

Then, one person in PR decided to completely ignore all that... When asked, they said, "Oh, I never read messages from IT, you're always just sending out warnings."

Those types should be strung up by the front door as example and with an email or group meeting explanation. The second one who does it should be drawn and quartered.

Re: Monitor

Is configuring-while-intoxicated a crime?

Only if you get caught. One place I worked had an IT "lunch" every month. But one sysadmin had to stay sober just in case..

Re: Space Shuttle

The worst bit about the Challenger disaster though was the fact that the dangers of the booster construction had

The launch was even more compromised by the politics. Many of engineers said "no fly" on launch morning because of the temperature. But there was a lot of political and PR pressure to launch no matter what as "the world was watching". Someone high up overrode the engineers' "no fly".

Re: Nuke the entire Experian site from orbit

Also the other two big players. Might as well get rid of them all due to leaks, break-ins, etc.

Re: Christmas is essentially Page 71 of the Brand New Monty Python Bok

Back on topic, what was wrong with tea flavoured tea and coffee flavoured coffee? I know the usual consensus round these parts is everything is better with bacon (just read the comments sections on any article about food by the sorely missed Lester Haines) but I draw the line at adding pork products (or the taste of them) to beverages.

Right now, the current fad in the States is pumpkin flavored tea and coffee... <gag>

Re: You cannot troll a troll.

"[...] he'll want a glass of milk."

Not unicorn milk?

Re: *** Be careful *** Also new in 1809, changes to Disk Cleanup Tool,

"I'm too dumb and lazy to manage my hard disk storage, so I want to just keep stuffing everything into C:\FILES, and if the drive gets full, just let the OS magically put the files someplace else without me knowing what's going on."

I suspect there's something to that. Some people save everything and every email including spam. And if something disappears, they get snarky.

Re: A Matter of Trust & False Flags

I too am taking the long view of "I don't know" and "I'm not sure who to trust" in this. The story could be a plant to discredit the Chinese or it could be a cover up of something else... a distraction. Bloomberg does have a reputation for accuracy but in this case...is it real or is BS? If it's BS, it's of the highest order but then there's "agencies" that are well funded and have some very creative people involved.

Best bet is to not to jump to a conclusion that someone wants us to believe, but wait and see how this plays out. Sherlock Holmes comes to mind: "The game is afoot!".

Re: Aww, the Stasi would be proud

Once upon a time (and for all I know, it's the same in Putin's kleptocracy today) a conversation with a Russian or an East German might well be punctuated with a brief silence and a finger pointed upwards: which in the language of the times meant, "They are probably listening."

Thus, the video part. It will see you pointing and notify the proper people that you have something to hide.

Re: Google+ users

Which is what everyone was concerned about and thus, not using it. Rumors of them reading everything (well, they do have that reputation) didn't help Google+ at all.

Is there anyone in this world that actually trusts Google? Or while we're at it.. Facebook?

Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

You hit it dead on. For those non-techies who don't know a techie, they're screwed for the most part. I've had calls from "friends of friends" over the last year wanting me to fix their Win10 problems. No can do.

I am surprised that there haven't been class action suits hitting Redmond hard over these borked "updates" as they call them. I call them borked "tests".

So the Bandmasters did it?

Re: He should know

I'd love to upvote a thousand times for the Buffet comment. Humble, still lives on his farm away from NYC and Silly Valley, yet intelligent and thoughtful.

Well... how many times can we have "oops..." as a switch is clicked or a cable pulled or command line mistyped? We've all done our share of these. It's a rite of passage.

Having said that, I do look forward to reading these weekly and the comments as our common random acts of distraction, newbieness, or forgetfulness, along with the usual missteps caused by someone who preceded us is reassuring that we are not alone.

Re: re. micro sd, etc.

Cheaper would be the plastic/paper coated wire thingies used for bread and also trash bags.

False Sense of Security Scenario?

That would seem reasonable to me. The catch is, is/was there another team that went through customs? Or just drive in from a neighboring country? Going through customs would be the perfect way to get the Trojan Horses in place as they would be "official" visitors. A drive in type... somewhat stealthy.

OTOH, this could just all be political maneuvering where the team was expected to be caught and there isn't any second team... yet.

Re: "...predict ball-gazing analysts"

Whose balls are they gazing at?

Crystal's? But she only has metaphorical balls.

While it may be bomb proof at this point (Win 7 here also), how long will that last before they try pushing via "update" to install Win10? Or, they just downgrade Win 7 to something like Win 10?

Re: The problem...

Or would you rather be living in the Gilded Age (Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, anyone? Sweat shops?) where robber barons did what they wanted and made or bribed governments to turn a blind eye?

I think we are already there. The lobbyists run state and federal governments.

Which would you prefer: anarchy or the police state?

Currently, it would appear that we are headed towards a police state because the anarchists are to be feared and government has pounded that into everyone's head.

Sadly, we the people, don't have much choice in who we elect nor do the candidates seem to have much freedom to do what we want. Between government pressure to "think of the children", "terrorism", etc. and lobbyist bribery, we're screwed. Perhaps a revolution might occur but it would end in anarchy due to the fragmentation by various political groups. The old saying "divide and conquer" is working very well here in the US. And to the naysayers, I say "look again". Black vs. white. Haves vs. havenots. Even the political parties are fragmented in many ways other than "left vs. right".

The problem needs to be addressed at the grass root level wherein the people realize how badly they are being manipulated, used, and abused even within their own factions. The problem is how to get them to think beyond their own noses and look at what really needs to be done for the greater good.

Lastly, yes.. the Facebook generation... <sigh> along with "hipsters" or whatever that only think about the next shiny to buy.

Re: Utter shite

Strangely, the spall chucker that Firefox uses doesn't. Firefox also has a problem with spall and chucker, go figure.

Does it flag them or is the problem it doesn't? Both are legitimate words interestingly enough.

Re: The message will say: “THIS IS A TEST..."

And like all good alerts, when the real thing happens, it will shout: "This is NOT a drill" 4 or 5 times.

Re: Who?

The black markets require money though, and that's what North Korea is extremely short on and need to steal to be able to buy off the black market.

NK wants nukes and the tech isn't cheap. Dear Leader wants his nice (expensive) cars, etc. The citizens need food. At some point, this house of cards will fail.

Re: Newspapers making big deal of 1st woman for over 50 years

I suspect we’re going to start seeing more and more backlash against gender equality as time goes on and people (ok, men) start feeling they are getting a bad deal.

The old "reverse discrimination" from the 70's is raising it's ugly head again. Back then, if two candidates applied for the same job, usually the "person of color" got the job as it ticked many boxes and "experience" wasn't considered for either person. I now note that companies are looking to hire female board members also. There probably aren't enough qualified candidates for that job so this will get interesting.

Re: Alex Stamos isn't worth listening to

I have a hard time believing that there are any actual "good guys" at Facebook.

That definitely applies to the board, execs, and probably all department heads. I'm sure there's some "good guys" deep down in the trenches just trying to do a good job and get a paycheck. But then, the excuse of "only following orders" doesn't fly well anymore, so there is that to consider.

Re: Of course...

All of this and other reports from inside Google on the treatment of employees makes one wonder why anyone would want to work for them.

In this case, I don't agree nor condone what he did but there are some things they've pulled on employees that make we wonder if they're not a toxic work environment.