Posts by Pompous Git

Re: Axed Geoblocking

"Emglish [sic] is also an official language of Malta, another EU member."

There ya go! And I thought they spoke Maltese, the only Semitic official language in the EU according to my Maltese friend. But what would he know?

Re: "English is the native language of the invaders"

"Even in England... they didn't speak English before the Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions..."

The inhabitants of England, southern and eastern Scotland most certainly spoke English prior to the Norman invasion. It's called Old English. After the Norman invasion, the court language was Norman French, but the vernacular was Middle English.

There's no argument that the most common spoken language in Ireland is English and it's vanishingly unlikely to change. The problem arises when the claim is made that English is the native language of Ireland. Likely it will become so, but that time is not now when you can get a split lip and two black eyes for making such a claim.

Is fearr Gaeilge briste, ná Béarla clíste.

Oh, and

Is minic a bhris béal duine a shrón.

Re: Axed Geoblocking

Lars, native means "Belonging to, or natural to, one by reason of the place or country of one's birth, or of the nation to which one belongs." English is the native language of those born in England. In Ireland, English is the native language of the invaders. Confirmed by an Irish friend, accompanied by some very colourful language.

BTW, you might want to consider using the clipboard. It's Pompous, not "Pompmpous".

Re: Axed Geoblocking

@ Lars

There are many Irishmen who would take offence at Irish Gaelic being referred to as English. I believe the "English" Colony mostly consists of people of Scottish descent whose native language would presumably have been Scottish Gaelic.

Re: hurting pirates

"If we're being realistic, most pirate because they don't want to pay for something when they can easily get it for free."

That's most likely horseshit if music piracy is anything to go by. People who aren't into music don't pirate; nor do they purchase. Most who pirate a lot also purchase a lot. Because they are into music.

It also depends on how you define "piracy". The music industry defines me as a pirate because every CD and LP I own has been ripped and is played from a computer. The DVDs I purchase are also ripped and played from the same computer so I can avoid watching annoying PGCs. Then there are the DVDs that mysteriously won't play, but can be ripped...

Re: Renewables are not as green as its promotors claim

"What we really need - if we care bout the planet - is less people."

Does that mean you're volunteering to leave?

"Borland used to play jazz music while you waited. Apparently one of the founders played jazz"

Philippe Kahn. He plays saxophone.

Re: er - call holding in *2017*

"because the 1970's were so very very very very shit"

Oh, I don't know about that...

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll – Ian Dury & The Blockheads

Re: Avagoodweekend

Bangslikeashithousedoorinagale...

@ vid

It may not have been "commercial" (whatever you mean by that term), but Mrs Git's work colleague has had NBN for 7 years come September. The NTD was replaced several years ago because the original was deemed obsolete. It didn't solve the problem of intermittent periods of no service so not sure what that improved.

The Quigley plan we were presented with immediately prior to the election was for our locality to get FW. A significant proportion of our locale didn't; they got satellite instead. Is that what you mean by an improvement? Given the local topography and the already in-place poles that still carry electricity and telephony, to my mind it would have made more sense to have provided FTTP.

But then the FW node doesn't connect to the main fibre backbone in its immediate vicinity. The connection is via a several hundred metre underground link that a dude from Telstra told me cost ~$1,000,000. Goes with the NTD cost of $600 instead of the $15 Ethernet port that suffices in the civilised world.

I find it endlessly amusing when it's claimed these issues are the fault of the coalition when they weren't even in power.

"As outlined in out previous correspondence, our normally works fine. ...The new supplier is better, offering unlimited "unthrottled" data at $33/month - Currently Speedtest is showing 86Mbps down and 38Mbs up"

Please don't assume that because you can access such plans that we in the sticks can also. Because of contract I'm still stuck with 50 GB for $39.90 per month. We move to town soon so churning would be pointlessly costly at this point. It will be interesting to discover if FTTN is as bad as it is being painted since that is what we will be offered.

"You need to get a life oh Pompous one. The FTTP product might not be perfect (and probably far from it) but is at least reasonably current technology. The rest is rubbish built for the last century."

As it happens, it was part of the ALP NBN Plan for us to be put on FW that you describe as "rubbish built for the last century". The Minister for Communications at the time we were told this was to be the case was one Stephen Conroy who as far as I can tell was never in the NLP. What we weren't told was that fully a third of my neighbours weren't even to get FW as there's no signal, so they are inflicted with satellite. We do however get to keep our telephones on copper strung on poles that could easily have carried fibre. Being an ALP initiative, presumably you think this was the "best plan" for us. I don't and would have much preferred FTTP.

FWIW, for many years I was secretary of the local branch of the ALP. However, I don't let this get in the way of my preferring the best technological solutions, nor do I hate anyone who is not a LNP supporter.

I also note that part of the ALP NBN Plan was to remove the privately installed FTTP at Dover (the first such in Australia before ADSL even; it was for ISDN) with what you describe as "rubbish built for the last century".

The big selling points of FTTP were the capacity for speeds of 1 Gbps and reliability. I fail to see either in the real world. YMMV.

"At least the original ALP FTTP had a decent outcome"

Really? You have experienced the results for yourself have you? You call losing connectivity for days at a time "a decent outcome"? One of Mrs Git's colleagues was one of the earliest adopters and still has ongoing problems. Our FW connection only goes down for 4–6 hours at a time about once a week. At least I get nearly 10 Mb/s these days rather than the 3 Mb/s we had for the first few months. NBN is definitely overhyped and underperforming in my book.

But then what's real-world experience versus being an ALP partisan?

Re: The only defense?

"Possibly the only good defense against these is NoMoRobo"

Some months ago I purchased what's called a Telstra Call Guardian phone; it's quite inexpensive. Caller is greeted with the announcement that the telephone is protected by Call Guardian and to get through must announce themselves. When I pick up the phone I hear who it is and press 1 to let them though, or 2 to send to record message.

If we had caller ID we could add friends to trusted list and they would get straight through, but Mrs Git says they're not worth the extra spend.

There has been a dramatic reduction in cold callers and this thread recalls for me the frustration I used to suffer. Three calls from "Microsoft" in less than an hour FFS!

"If I'm reading a book I'll sometimes read them a few paragraphs of whatever I'm reading."

What a great idea! I just put Finnegan's Wake next to the phone :-)

Re: Freak 'em out !

"But what happens when they do want to be your friend?"

Suggest that you will be happy to use a condom?

Re: Better alternatives...

@ Sgt_Oddball

AFAICT Password Safe meets your criteria. Password Safe It's FOSS so would expect any vulns to be exposed quickly.

Re: "detect if anyone is anyone"

"It's in the macOS Dikshunry, which I thought was based on the OED."

There are several Oxford English dictionaries: The Pocket, the Concise, the Shorter... The Oxford English Dictionary is the 20 volume monster Mrs Git purchased me for my birthday several years ago when it was half-price. I already had the electronic version. I also have lots of dictionaries and an interesting book about dictionaries. I like words and was fascinated to discover a word in common use that wasn't in the OED. It's a first for me. Great one for a quiz night :-)

Re: Better alternatives...

"Thanks for the Password Safe tip."

I use the Linux Beta (no issues during ~16 months of daily use), the Windows freebie, the paid-for exe that runs from a USB stick and there's an android app that also reads the same files.

Re: I prefer being cryptic about something only I know

"In my computers I have a list of hints to phrases or details that only I would think of -often from deep in my childhood-(with the odd substituted letter or number)."

Some years ago I created a Yahoo! account, but when the need for it ceased, didn't use it for some considerable period of time. When attempting to use it again, was told I needed to change my password. I was presented with my "secret questions" and discovered I no longer knew my grandfather's name, the school I went to etc.

Ya gotta laugh:-)

Re: 2FA migration

"Having just recently bought a new phone, had it develop a fault, and send it back I've had to go through the pain of migrating about ten 2FA registrations three times... "

No backup then? Me and Mrs Git have three phones though only two in use at any one time. Actually, we have four but Mrs Git lost hers "somewhere in the house". Why was it turned off? To conserve electricity of course!

Re: Better alternatives...

@ a_yank_lurker

Bruce Schneier's Password Safe can run from a USB stick. One of several reasons I find it useful.

Re: Question from a Pom

"If you can prove that a mistake has been made, the bank can reverse any transaction but it is a messy process."

Messy=time-consuming. Unless the amount is worth the time consumed... I've been rogered by landlords and clients in the past.

Re: Oh, the irony!

@ Doctor Syntax

Not forgetting the update that caused svchost.exe to consume 95% of cpu cycles leading to my recommending Linux Mint to so many of my friends...

Re: hunts down vulnerable public facing SMB ports

"the primary vector appeared to be port 445 facing the intarwebs, which everyone with any kind of IT experience recognizes as being *VERY* *VERY* *BAD*."

But Shirley you have all ports closed except those you explicitly need to be open. Or am I missing something? Why would you want port 445 open?

Re: Oh, the irony!

"Windows 7 machines most affected after so-called "experts" advised switching off updates to avoid Windows 10 upgrade notifications?"

FFS J J! We were blocking malware from MS.

Re: This sure beats reading newspapers

@ a_yank_lurker

Good set of rules. First time I was infected my son was in primary school. (He brought home the first Word macro virus). Second time he had a LAN party and disinfestation was moderately painful. It was his last LAN party at home. The Gitling's now 32 years of age.

My AV warns of malware infested websites and it's often surprising.

Best insurance against zero-day is backups. One of the reasons I like Linux/gparted. Makes such a breeze.