* Posts by Mark 85

12880 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Nov 2012

What's Big and Blue – and makes its veteran staff sue? Yep, it's IBM

Mark 85

Re: Don't hire us....

One of these days, there will be sweet revenge of sorts on these consultants. The consultant will probably be canned for someone younger and cheaper.

Mark 85

I expect this has plenty more to do with salary than age.

Definitely. The bottom line rules the boardroom. It's not about "tech" as people who have worked on legacy systems were being let go in favor of younger workers to replace them. The IBM defense is BS and everyone knows it.

GG n00b lol! Amazon frags support for its own games controllers

Mark 85

Re: Presumably no consumer laws were broken

I would think that some sort of action should be taken. They crippled and disabled much of it's capability and then continue to sell it? I feel sorry for anyone who bought one at this point but not so sorry for anyone buying one from here on out.

US State Department confirms: Unclassified staff email boxes hacked

Mark 85

Given all the data breeches in both government and in businesses, is there anyone left who personal info hasn't been taken in the hack? The size and apparent length of most of these attacks before being detected is mind-boggling.

Judge: Georgia's e-vote machines are awful – but go ahead and use them

Mark 85

I'm wondering why don' they use encrypted VPN or a true private network. Or do something like they did in the past: Count the votes locally and call in the results or sent them by courier. Too late for that to happen. No internet involved.

Trump pulls trigger in US-China tit-for-tat tariff tiff: 10% slapped on $200bn of imported kit

Mark 85

Re: In trade

And what they can't come by on their own or legitimately via license, they pirate.

Planning on geeking out at CA World this year? Think again

Mark 85

Re: Really helpful

In that case, everyone go and party without the obligatory meetings, presentations, etc.

Microsoft: Like the Borg, we want to absorb all the world's biz computers

Mark 85

@BongoJoe

I really hope that's tongue in cheek. F'rinstance I make my living now from my own bespoke applications none of which remotely resemble anything that MS offers.

You will need to be assimilated into the MS Borg factory.

Mark 85

Re: Testing - half baked or well thought out for profit?

This will give them the chance to bork millions of machines at once with a cobbled patch and get paid for it. Saves on testing costs and at some point, will give them a lock-in to apps, etc. much like Apple does.

UK.gov isn't ready for no-deal Brexit – and 'secrecy' means businesses won't be either

Mark 85

there will be only time for “temporary sticking plasters”.

Which will become permanent due to "cost impact on profits".

Mark 85

Re: Anyone else being asked by agencies ...

Yes, but they're all busy smuggling people into the US. Or so some folks would have us believe.

Microsoft reveals train of mistakes that killed Azure in the South Central US 'incident'

Mark 85

Re: RE: asynchronous nature of geo-replication could have led to data loss

Sir Loin Of Beef says it all.... Manglement forgets about what happens when you put your data on other peoples' servers. Maybe they should forget that also when it comes to profits, bonuses, etc. I'll be glad to hold all their assets for them.

FCC boss slams new Californian net neutrality law, brands it illegal

Mark 85

Pai said "If individual states like California regulate the Internet, this will directly impact citizens in other states."

And this is a bad thing? The other states might just follow suit and some are in the process. A bit of revolution by the States would be good thing in this case.

Sysadmin misses out on paycheck after student test runs amok

Mark 85

Needless to say, after the *third* time that happened, they plugged the floor drain. Not sure where it goes to now.

The admin offices? If it were a corporate, I'd assume it went to Marketing.

Mark 85

Re: "Snoopy characters"

More like "ego" of the star and since the producers wanted the "star" they went along with the name.

Boffins ask for £338m to fund quantum research. UK.gov: Here's £80m

Mark 85

Re: Quibbling

creating more innovation centres.

I've never quite grasped the concept of "innovation center" or "center for excellence" other than a buzz phrase meaning "we'll toss money into this hole and then someday put the dirt back in after we have enough money to retire".

NHS smacks down hundreds of staffers for dodgy use of social media, messaging apps

Mark 85

Re: deeper than that

Ewwww..... a teapot? There's a mental image requiring several gallons of mind bleach.

Mark 85

Re: Meanwhile

Indeed. They need a stand alone (not public like Whatsapp, etc.) that is fit for purpose. If they have a stand alone app that no one can use, then users go to the next best thing.

Leeds hospital launches campaign to 'axe the fax'

Mark 85

Re: Oh dear

Here in the States, my doctors use the tech. Patient records are in a central repository (mychart, I think). Yet, every office has a fax machine because some doctors don't use the computer and hand over their chart notes to a secretary. When he/she gets around to it, the chart notes get entered. The nice part is that patients and medical staff have access when needed.

Mark 85

Re: Easy for internal

A good solution and one of many in the comments. Doctors are not techies. Many can barely use a computer much less anything else tech related. Change for them is hard in this area even if they're keeping abreast of the latest medical publications (which they prefer to be paper based). It's going to take the profession another decade or two before they catch up with the rest of the world.

Mark 85

Re: But... but...

In the distant past it was print and snail mail or print and courier. We've traded speed for security. Speed is faster, security not as good.

Salesforce supremo Benioff buys Time magazine for $190m

Mark 85

Fire Sale?

Meredith Corp bought it for almost $3 BILLION and is now selling it for S190 MILLION. Sounds like a fire sale to me and they found a sucker to buy it.

A basement of broken kit, zero budget – now get the team running

Mark 85

@Milton -- Re: Bad managers are like knotweed

What you said applies to the US as well and probably other places.

Mark 85

I'd agree with you on the PHB. Check for new car, recently remodeled house, or new swimming pool. Maybe a trip out of town regularly. This does have the feel of something not quite right there.

Trump shouldn't criticise the news media, says Amazon's Jeff Bezos

Mark 85

Re: Media? Does he mean news reporting, cause it's not the same.

Here's Snopes take on it.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-in-box/

Mark 85

It was obvious from the beginning that trump is an incompetent con-man and all around dirt bag.

Just Trump? I thought that applied to almost all politicians.

The internet – not as great as we all thought it was going to be, eh?

Mark 85

Re: I'm sympathetic

So, I'm sympathetic to the perspective of those who consider the internet to be a net minus, and have a bit of a hard time coming up with a great counteragument to that view.

It could be the isolation factor mentioned in the article or the being burned by trolls, con artists, etc. While the internet is a good thing in many ways, there is much bad out there and it seems to be getting worse.

US Treasury goes after IT shops for funneling cash to North Korea

Mark 85

Park Jin Hyok?

Code name for person or pesons? Or he's disappeared? Gone invisible? Name change? Or life changing event? We'll never know.

How an augmented reality tourist guide tried to break my balls

Mark 85

Re: apps

I think is part of outsourcing. The app writers (certainly can't call them programmers) attend a few classes, get some paper that says they graduated, and suddenly are not working at outsourced jobs with no clue about what they do. Second thought.... they have a clue. They get to sit around, drink tea, and call home to the family and get paid for it. Any working code is shear luck.

Do not adjust your set, er, browser: This is our new page-one design

Mark 85
Joke

Re: Commentads

As the 3 Stooges used to say: "I resemble that remark".

Mark 85

I also just noticed the "forums" have changed : https://forums.theregister.co.uk/

Mark 85
Devil

I don't like change. Please, no. I don't like change.

But we're in IT. We're supposed to love change. I guess we should all go install Win10 if we haven't already.

Side note.. I miss the "hours" for post (posted X-hours or X-days ago). GMT Is not my cup of coffee/tea/adult beverage. I note that the articles "time" isn't in GMT... yet.

Mark 85

It seems as if the comments in the previous "beta" release were simply ignored

So the MS method? Ask for comments. Ignore comments because users don't know what they want.

Mark 85

Re: Next change in line

Your first urge upon waking up is to check El Reg, rather than have a quick wank? Bloody hell.

Coffee before all else!!!!

US govt confirms FCC's broadband speeds and feeds stats are garbage

Mark 85

They could, theoretically, but with all the non-compete agreements, it's not going to happen. Any little guys get pretty much run over. Go look at what happened when Google said they were coming in. Prices dropped where they are but the places they didn't get around to have raised their prices back and in some cases, more.

Princely five years in US big house for Nigerian biz email scammer

Mark 85

The fine was only 10% of what they got? I would think full restitution of the $25M they got plus the fine would be appropriate. Or maybe keel-hauling.

US govt concedes that you can indeed f**k Nazis online: Domain-name swear ban lifted

Mark 85
Pint

Yep. Time to go have a beer and sort out what's legal and what's SJW stuff.... <sigh> Make that several beers.

Former Detroit IT boss sent down 20 months for bathroom bung bonanza

Mark 85

$30,000.... really?

He shot himself in the foot and is getting jail time for that amount? It's good that he is but it just surprises me that was all he got.

Python joins movement to dump 'offensive' master, slave terms

Mark 85

“Primary” and “secondary”, or whatever, carries the intent just as well.

Nah. Go with "Boss" and "Lackey". Or "PHB" and "Contractor".

Microsoft accidentally let encrypted Windows 10 out into the world

Mark 85

Awww.... don't drag Lemmings into a discussion about Windows. Lemmings was a great game.

Mark 85

Re: Accident or a test?

What exactly were they "testing"?

The gullibility of users? So of like the forced Win10 "upgrade"...

World's oldest URL – fragments 73,000 years old – discovered in cave

Mark 85

and does it have prior art rounded corners ?

No worries as the patent on the stone's corners expired a really long time ago. I guess patents aren't written in stone.

Card-stealing code that pwned British Airways, Ticketmaster pops up on more sites via hacked JS

Mark 85

That will probably mean a lot of programmers get the brunt of the punishment for "following orders". Punishment never starts at the top. Blame usually rolls downhill for landing.

Mark 85

Re: A Chuckle and a Cringe

Be afraid, be very afraid. Seems like most (for some value of most) do carry third party code and some of those link to other third party's.

Boffins don't want to burst your bubble – they create them with sound

Mark 85

Re: Retrofitted justification

The government might want to fund this since the politicians blow bubbles and want to stay in office.

Mark 85

TMI. But have an upvote any way for the admission.

AI beats astroboffins at sniffing out fast radio bursts amid the universe's clutter

Mark 85

So 3 billion light-years away... That means the "signals" left there 3 billion years ago. It might help with understanding the beginnings of the universe but coming from "life" seems unlikely. The SETI is still looking for life and I guess that while this research might give us understanding, it won't help them in their goal to find life. It is a fascinating spin-off project though.

Volkswagen faces fresh Dieselgate lawsuit in Germany – report

Mark 85
Pint

Re: Dieselgate

I suspect it was a reference to Beetlejuice... the movie. But you satisfied Godwin's law..so have a cold one.