* Posts by TheVogon

3511 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jan 2013

We're free in 3... 2... 1! Amazon unhooks its last Oracle database, nothing breaks and life goes on

TheVogon

Re: Unlike Aurora

Quite. At least if you migrate to SQL Server in Azure you can always bring it back on prem. If you migrate to GCS or AWS databases you are stuck there.

Sudo? More like Su-doh: There's a fun bug that gives restricted sudoers root access (if your config is non-standard)

TheVogon

Re: As a ex sys-admin....

The whole concept of root is a broken model though. You should be able to assign administration accounts only the rights actually needed in a "JEA security" type model.

TheVogon

"seeing as Sudo runs as root "

SUDO always was a broken security model. We should adopt a proper constrained delegation model where accounts never have to run a user mode process with more rights than actually needed. The Windows security model does this well for instance

Oh dear... AI models used to flag hate speech online are, er, racist against black people

TheVogon

Re: Is anyone surprised ? Really ?

Erm, but last time I checked much of the civilised world spoke English?

TheVogon

Re: “I saw his ass yesterday”

The Queen's English is English + Received Pronunciation. So not quite the same thing.

TheVogon

Re: “I saw his ass yesterday”

It's English. Not British English. It's the original so needs no qualification unlike say American English.

TheVogon

Re: “I saw his ass yesterday”

I'm not clear how references to Donkeys are crude?

Her Majesty opens UK Parliament with fantastic tales of gigabit-capable broadband for everyone

TheVogon

Re: Um what?

You missed the "like Australia" part. So presumably we will now ship our illegal immigrants and asylum seekers to a remote island until their case is decided.

I hear that Grunnard island is available!

TheVogon

You are misinformed. Virgin have almost zero fibre to the home. They are almost completely FTTC based.

TheVogon

Re: Always???

The UK would be quite happy with a hard border between Northern and Southern Ireland but the exiating agreements with the Feniens makes that politically tricky.

Much better to leave the EU with no deal and have Southern Ireland be forced to implement a hard border by the EU and have it be someone else's problem.

TheVogon

Re: Always???

"there is no legal basis for a 'No Deal' exit'

You clearly don't understand the situation. The UK already invoked article 50. The default position is that we leave with no deal on Oct 31st. No further legislation is required for that to happen.

And as any EU extension requires unanimous EU agreement from the other 27 states, that's not likely to stop it.

TheVogon

Re: Hmmm...

I think you mean £0.02

TheVogon

Re: Really?

Wasn't it the Conservatives that introduced and repeatedly raised the minimum wage? And finally reformed the unsustainable socialist benefits system? Tax payers are fed up with subsidising the life style of the working classes.

TheVogon

Re: It's no problem...

I think you will find that traffic will increase if only to bypass EU regulations.

This and numerous other reasons such as a predicted 50% loss of car German car sales to its largest and most profitable market with a consequential loss of 100,000 jobs alone whilst the German economy is already technically in recession is why the EU is now crapping itself at the real possibility of a no deal Brexit and the "take it or leave it Brexit deal" is suddenly negotiable again.

Kiss my ASCII, Microsoft – we've got one million fewer daily active users than you, boasts Slack

TheVogon

Re: the damned app crashes every five minutes

No resource or crash issues here either.

TheVogon

Re: Compliance ?

And for Teams you use the provided compliance and archiving tools

TheVogon

Re: I use Slack, but I'm not an Office 365 user

You will do soon enough. It's the replacement for Skype.

TheVogon

We already migrated to Teams. Given time, Slack is dead.

How much is your face worth? Google thinks a $5 Starbucks gift card should be good enough

TheVogon

Re: OK

12% of the US population versus 33% of the US prison population says that they might be on to something.

TheVogon

I really don't see an issue. Google needed more foreign face profiles in the database and they paid those involved $5 for a few seconds of their time. At least they are trying to address the problem.

A Nord VPN bug, a(nother) bad Microsoft patch, Zynga data farmed out, and more

TheVogon

But we all tested that Microsoft patch before deploying it, right?

I give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt in this case that best to get a patch out for an actively exploited issue versus delaying it for a full integration testing cycle.

However Microsoft's QA for OS patches really seems to suck these days. Interesting insider view of why here:

https://youtu.be/S9kn8_oztsA

The Windows 10 insider builds do include a "feedback hub" app to report bugs in the start menu, but it's non obvious, not on the desktop and unless you bother to search for how to report a bug you would probably never be aware of it.

I think if Microsoft added a one screen summary of how to report bugs on the insider build signup process and added some incentive for valid bugs such as Microsoft points or account credits this would cost them peanuts but massively improve the level of customer feedback.

HP polishes the redundancy cannon, prepares to fire 16% of workforce

TheVogon

Re: What is the deal with buzzword bingo?

Yes they do but the communications dept rejected the original submission of "We are on a sinking ship and need to look busy on deck if we are to continue drawing our large management salaries".

PostgreSQL puts the pedal to the metal with some smart indexing tweaks in version 12

TheVogon

A couple of things? SQL Server is more advanced in every aspect and has hundreds of features that Postgresql doesn't. Not to mention that SQL Server is many times faster than Postgresql in typical use.

Postgresql is OK only for something where you don't need an enterprise grade solution and support. You get what you pay for.

Cisco helps ease blight of tourism on Orkney's Wi-Fi hotspot network thanks to £4.3m grant

TheVogon

Re: Gas lighting

There are plenty of whales all over Scotland. I think it's the local diet of chips, lager and deep fried mars bars.

TheVogon

What a waste of our money. Put 5G in built up areas first where it's of most benefit.

IR35 blame game: Barclays to halt off-payroll contractors, goes directly to PAYE

TheVogon

Re: Last year I've been working for Infosys/Proximus in Brussels

Not too hard for many contract positions. They will just rewrite the job spec to fit the candidate they want a work permit for.

Let's not forget that English is the international language of business, navigation and diplomacy. Brits don't need to bother learning another language.

TheVogon

Re: IR35 idiocy

You can't work via a Ltd Co in Switzerland.

EU's top court says tracking cookies require actual consent before scarfing down user data

TheVogon

Re: Well that ruling has a timespan of about 30 days in the UK

No they haven't. They passed a law saying that the PM must ask for an extension instead of no deal. Which would likely be refused and which Boris will likely just ignore.

The remoaner idiots are just making our renegotiating position weaker. The EU already went from "take it or leave it" to discussing other possible options solely due to the threat of no deal. The mainland European economy is rapidly circling the pan, and the last thing they want is to loose free access to UK markets.

The result of the referendum needs to be implemented ASAP.

TheVogon

Re: That was nice

Not correct. The GDPR applies globally to the information of EU citizens and US based websites most certainly are in scope and liable to fines.

For which most corporations of note would have EU assets or income or failing that company officers could be arrested on visting the EU.

Now that's integrity: Bloke sinks 7 beers, turns himself in. Cops weren't looking for him

TheVogon

Re: Don't drink Budweiser.

It seems unlikely that 7 American beers would get anyone with a greater mass than a small toddler inebriated.

As we all know in the UK, to turn English beer into American beer, one simply drinks it.

The D in Systemd is for Directories: Poettering says his creation will phone /home in future

TheVogon

Re: That was a serious breath of fresh nerdiness

Yes you can.

TheVogon

Re: That was a serious breath of fresh nerdiness

Why would they need to keep the keys? Any issue in the supply chain you just reimage the device.

TheVogon

Re: Desktop

I assume cunt is an acronym of Computer User Non Technical as I frequently tell our directors when it appears on helpdesk tickets. Or is there some other meaning Americans should be aware of ?!

TheVogon

Re: That was a serious breath of fresh nerdiness

Stupid is as stupid does. Windows 10 offers pretty good ransomware protection if you don't ignore the prompts to enable it:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/microsoft-defender-atp/enable-controlled-folders

Fairytale for 2019: GNOME to battle a patent troll in court

TheVogon

Re: 2+2=5

At least as per "TC HEARTLAND LLC v. KRAFT FOODS GROUP BRANDS LLC" the trolls can no longer choose sympathetic venues in the US.

US govt watchdog barks at FAA over 737 Max inspectors' lack of qualifications

TheVogon

Pffft @ $5.6 billion. Peanuts compared to the US subsidies Boeing has required to remain "competitive":

https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/boeing

Bug fixes abound in Microsoft's freshly Cascadia fonted Windows Terminal

TheVogon

According to Pornhub at least.

TheVogon

If you don't trust Microsoft and prefer legacy code (How many holes now in Open SSL?!) then you can always use:

Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Server~~~~0.0.1.0

Set-Service -Name sshd -StartupType 'Automatic'

US lobby group calls for open standards to fight Huawei 'threat'

TheVogon

That was because of Qualcomm's patents. Just like they went for HDR instead of DAB or NTSC instead of PAL. Or Never Twice the Same Colour as we used to call it when I was at the BBC...

The US has long been a regime where money Trumps real democracy. Just consider that the Koch brothers and associated groups alone spent over 400 million dollars just on the last midterms. And if not clear why / how that is possible, watch the documentary "Dark Money".

TheVogon

Re: Pot, kettle

Quite. Its well documented that the US has been using Echelon and the like to steal IP for decades. They just don't want any competition.

TheVogon

Re: Oops...

"to the supposed security threat posed by Huawei."

But threat is real! We might all be able to use firmware without US government mandated backdoors (see Wikileaks for example). And of course that's a massive threat to say the US sponsored ten trillion dollars a year fossil fuel industry just for instance.

Good news: Microsoft is doubling your OneDrive storage for more than double your money

TheVogon

Re: For private individuals, 1 TB USB Drives

QuIte. If you consider that 14TB enterprise grade SATA hard disks cost about £350 in volume so for say RAID 6 @ 14:2 the raw cost is ~ £29 / TB. Plus power. Plus server. etc. etc

Devonitely not great: Torbay and South Devon NHS declares 'major IT incident'

TheVogon

Zero license cost != zero cost of ownership. Supported OSS software rarely has a lower TCO when you include migration and integration costs.

TheVogon

Re: What ?

If only we were not paying for all those overpriced Labour attempts to privatise the NHS via PFI contracts we might have had the money to fix this...

TheVogon

Re: Record Levels of Investment

So those MPs have private healthcare investments that presumably help reduce the load on and costs of the NHS?

TheVogon

Crypto virus again?

Nine words to ruin your Monday: Emergency Internet Explorer patch amid in-the-wild attacks

TheVogon

Re: IE is the Issue

The default install for Windows Server doesn't have any web browser (or GUI). If you can't use powershell then all the GUI tools can be run remotely.

Good old Auntie Beeb's mobile app berates kids for being rubbish online

TheVogon

The BBC got paid to put their name on a Research Machines product. Not the same at all as wasting our money on an app not related to TV or radio viewing.

TheVogon

Re: Nice in principle..

Quite. Much like BBC Scotland, a complete waste of our license fees.

Three UK slammed for 'ripping off' loyal mobile customers by £32.4m per year

TheVogon

Re: Bonuses

Rumour has it that several hundred 1 Euro coin locks are already on order for their airplane toilets...