* Posts by anonymous boring coward

3232 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jan 2015

Another day, another British Airways systems screwup causes chaos

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Be careful what you wish for.

" Outsourcing is just buying foreign services."

Foreign?

WannaCry kill-switch hero Marcus Hutchins collared by FBI on way home from DEF CON

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I have never crashed my car, so haven't needed a seat belt. Seat belts are overrated junk. Don't use them.

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USA is not really a normal functioning society any longer. POS state now.

'Real' people want govts to spy on them, argues UK Home Secretary

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Real people aren't politicians -that's for sure!

Linux kernel hardeners Grsecurity sue open source's Bruce Perens

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What is "hardners"?

Apple weans itself off Intel with 'more ARM chips' for future Macs

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Re: Why not?

I don't know what the Banana Pi runs at, but I bet a Pi at 1 GHz isn't far off a 1GHz Intel offering (that maxed out at 1GHz when it arrived -not a downclocked modern one). Probably faster?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Yeah. My son is 12 and was born very recently!

AMD shocks the world by only losing $16m

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Only goes to show that you too have been had. Did you enjoy it?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Has it been that long..

My last desktop one was a 486 DX2 66MHz! (Upgraded from a 33MHz version)

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

I've only used AMD on my desktop systems since the first Thunderbird (which stomped all over Intel's offerings).

They have always been good value, even when behind on the ultimate performance charts.

This is good news indeed!

For Intel $16M would be a rounding error, BTW.

Microsoft Surface laptop: Is this your MacBook Air replacement?

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An additional £600 for 256GB more SSD? Are you effing kidding me?

Firefox doesn't need to be No 1 – and that's OK, 'cos it's falling off a cliff

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Why is Firefox, despite being faster than ever and using less memory than Chrome, losing ground?

Because it isn't true. Firefox leaks memory like it's going out of fashion. It grabs and doesn't release memory (because "unused memory is wasted memory"-duuhhh, Firexox isn't an operating system!!!). It doesn't use separate processes for individual tabs/windows to allow easy and reliable recovery of memory.

Q. What's today's top language? A. Python... no, wait, Java... no, C

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Doing as much as possible with as small resources as possible in an interpreted simple language, I would suspect.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

"I dislike awk intensely. But for some tasks, there is no sane substitute..."

One can use sed as well for quite a lot. Even hairier than using Awk.

Done quite a lot in "sh" as well. (Think this was before Bash, so was more limited. Bourne Shell, as opposed to Bourne Again Shell, if my memory serves me?)

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

BTW, for me the top language has to be Swedish, closely followed by English, and then C. Quite like Tcl and Awk too. Awk because it's awkward, which I like. Never liked C++.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

I learned Swift, but it made my head explode.

All Swift learning spilled out.

Why can't you install Windows 10 Creators Update on your old Atom netbook? Because Intel stopped loving you

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: five-year-old silicon obsolete?

I use a fanless laptop with an Intel N3540, which is much faster than all my Core 2 Duo devices (also laptop processors). I also have an SSD in this laptop, and 8GB RAM. Covers all my Internet related needs. (The SSD and RAM are upgrades to this cheap Acer. The screen is unimpressive though.)

This system handles HD video etc easily (not encoding, just watching), as opposed to Core 2 Duo which never got the correct drivers to do it well, I suspect.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Microsoft murdered netbooks

"If the various Linux desktop projects hadn't gone out of their way to kill XDMCP, I could simply use it as a portable X-terminal to my desktop machine."

There must be a number of ways around this, surely?

Have you googled the problem?

I have yet to find a Linux, or Unix-like system, that couldn't be coaxed into delivering remote X sessions.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Never forgive, never forget, Linux forever.

"if MS won't provide them (instead just supplying security fixes for the next 5 years) then they're a bunch of cunts...."

Yes they are. They shouldn't artificially create demand by obsoleting stuff. It's bad for people's wallets. It's bad for the environment too.

This is the ONE major thing that's wrong with Apple, and MS just had to go and copy it. Just like they had to copy Google's spying model. MS just loves taking the worst of everything and bringing it together.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Microsoft murdered netbooks

If performance is sub-par, that's the end user's problem. Just give them a downgrade option.

If MS really cared about the end user they wouldn't break things like web cams at the drop of a hat, with no solution in sight, just because they don't give a sh*t.

After this it won't be long until some other lower end CPU gets dropped.

MS is in cahoots with hardware manufacturers to artificially pump up demand for new hardware, now when it has become obvious that certain specs reached years ago are more than sufficient for most users.

One prime suspect called "Intel" comes to mind, but some large Laptop manufacturers would also fall into that category.

Windows 10: Triumphs and tragedies from Microsoft Build

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Re: Sorry

"I wish they'd fix the basics before adding new features."

MS doesn't like doing things well on a detailed level. They still can't do colour management right, for example. In sharp contrast to Apple.

Polishing things to perfection isn't really MS's thing.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Creator's Update... NOT

Still?

There won't be a new Media Center. Any 15 pound streaming device will do the job better (or almost as well), with certain restrictions (no recording, no getting terrestrial or satellite feeds, not much support for local content).

MS lost interest in WMC about 10 years ago.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Putty ....

"all 500 PC's in our offices have been upgraded to Win 10"

You are a trendy lot, you!

Not trendy enough for Macs, mind.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: What carrot and stick approach?

"Not sure what will happen when I upgrade my son's PC, but I suspect some kind of Windows 10 licensing extortion racket will kick off."

Update: That is exactly what happened!

Luckily I had another licence key code at hand which resolved the situation. And, luckily Windows 10 accepted it as the new licence key. Some codes are better than others.

Microsoft raises pistol, pulls the trigger on Windows 7, 8 updates for new Intel, AMD chips

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Two words - Linux Mint

"WHEN were those statement said exactly?"

You may want to look into the definition of "ever", as in "only ever".

Radiohead hides ZX Spectrum proggie in OK Computer re-release

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: C90 cassette, as that medium was the dominant way? No!

Damn you! Now I'll have to watch Micro Men again! Brilliant film for nerds like myself!

From landslide to buried alive: Why 2017 election forecasts weren't wrong

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: @ anonymous boring coward

"Interesting. So you see Brexit as a bad thing"

I don't know in what kind of isolated bubble one must live in not to do that?

Some kind of alternate reality created by one-foot-in-the-grave Murdoch, perhaps?

Have you even followed the bad news shit shower that is coming down due to Brexit?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: @ anonymous boring coward

"You mean the countries which have until recently been homogeneous and is now starting to deal with open racism?"

What?

Aren't you thinking of the various small villages around England now?

"Hard brexit is a great thing in my view."

As is suicide in some peoples' views. Not much point in discussing if you come from that angle. If you get it, do enjoy. Perhaps you get to enjoy Bumbling BoJo as well.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: @ anonymous boring coward

Do you have any idea how far to the right the Tories are vs, for example, Scandinavian countries? A few years of course correction won't hurt. A hard Brexit with May the OCD (strong and stable) PM will hurt many times more.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: @ anonymous boring coward

You are comparing some dictator in a undeveloped country with extremely uneducated people (even worse than the UK), with one of the worlds oldest democracies. Chavez wasn't above stealing ("nationalising") resources. I don't see that happening in the UK. You are afraid of the Bogeyman as depicted by the Tories.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Getting the wrong demographics adjustments

Making Theresa May realise that she is not, in fact, a dictator, is a big win.

We'll see how long it takes before she reverts back to playing Thatcher in a B-movie again.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Most of the Polls were Tory owned

If you can persuade one wing (say young left leaning voters) that they might as well stay at home playing PS4 games, because their vote won't make any difference, then the poll may well have been effective.

There are many ways small biases (biae?) can creep into polls to make them suit their customers.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: First Past the Post

"EU Commissioners are not elected. They're appointed"

Like Theresa May then?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

My main surprise in this election was the large turnout, which shows that young people have realised, after the Brexit disaster, that they must engage politically right now, rather than later or never. Some constituencies had 80% participation.

How lovely if some of the old stuffy backwards MPs can be further cleaned out in a soon to come re-run!

Sure, Corbyn sometimes sounds like some Chavez Light, but given the systems in place in the UK there is no risk of an actual Venezuela situation. A mild course correction towards the Scandinavian model is about as extreme as it will ever get here.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: The phrase "lies, damned lies, and statistics" ...

The exit poll showed what someone who had voted (as opposed to deciding not to bother), had actually voted, after they did it (no possibility of changing their minds).

No wonder they got it right..

'My dream job at Oracle left me homeless!' – A techie's relocation horror tale

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

It's "have", not "of". Words have actual meaning. Use that to guide you.

Blighty's first aircraft carrier in six years is set to take to the seas

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Let's just hope the carrier isn't due to be scrapped before the fighter jets are delivered...

Labour says it will vote against DUP's proposed TV Licence reforms

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: News to me

"Left wingers think government knows best and will ensure the money goes into the right places, if you just give you money to us.

Right wingers think that once you have enough you will donate time and money to the right places to fix the issues."

That's the Fisher Price version of how it works.

I have never noticed the Tories having much of a tendency to think people know what's best for them. In reality all governments always think they know best what's right for the lowly people.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: I Think We Need The BBC

"Many European countries implement a licence fee, and many others (European, Non-European) have government funding in addition to advertisement."

How stupid of me then!

Because others are screwed over by their systems, it's obviously correct that we are too!

We should never reform, even when technology completely changes our behaviour.

Makes so much sense.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

"but turning it into a commercial enterprise where profit and cost savings are the most important things is not the way to go"

You don't think BBC makes money outside sucking in the licence fees?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Amazon and Netflix?

Every dum-dum "documentary" (that's the sound of kettle drums) has to be one hour long, regardless how trivial the subject. And it has to have stupid CSI-lighting and photogenic made-up scientists, and shaky cameras with zoom lens issues.

Produced for the AD crowd.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Most of its good stuff isn't made in-house anyway.

If BBC only made stuff that differentiated them from the commercial channels, I bet the license fee could be slashed to less than half. That would be better value.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

The BBC has gone so much downhill that it might as well get the coup de grace.

Most of its good stuff isn't made in-house anyway.

For light entertainment any of the alternatives will do just fine.

If I were to pay only for what I'm interested in, the BBC's production would look totally different. And younger people wouldn't want to pay at all. So I understand why BBC and the established powers are desperate to hang on to the mild and controllable (and "entertaining") BBC under the current anachronistic mandatory licensing model.

Ever wonder why those Apple iPhone updates take so damn long?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: no no no no no no no, Apple

"So Apple doesn't keep old hardware on hand for testing? They don't have an automated test process that would allow multiple test scenarios to play out? They don't have any sort of virtualized test environment?"

Only an idiot (MS?) would rely on that and then do a full roll-out.

Even MS, with OS as a service, have hopefully now learned that they must roll out gradually. Would you rather have 1% or your user base needing tailored help, or 100%?

There is a reason I always delay any updates as long as it takes to get feedback from those who can't wait.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Most incredible feat of software development - ever

"This must be the most incredible feat of software development (call it engineering if you want) in the history of the computer industry. It is almost so breathtaking that it is shocking."

No it's not. You are exaggerating. It's neat though.

Going to the moon with the equivalent of cheap calculator as the on-board computer, that's an achievement.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: I say "Well done Apple."

"And your limited understanding of file system formatting"

Formatting?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: It wasn't as risky as the author makes it out to be

This wasn't about releasing an untested update on peoples devices, it was about Apple purposely using peoples phones as a test bed, i.e. they implemented a change, ran some tests, then rolled the change back whether it worked or not, all as part of a single 'update' as far as the users were concerned.

I actually quite like this approach, if it means they can test some aspects of introducing the file system changes in a safe way, before rolling it out wholesale.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Can't live without your iPhone for 30 minutes, even if doing it at a time of your choice?

Pathetic.

I can inform you that Android upgrades aren't exactly speedy either.

At least the i-stuff gets updates. My i-stuff that's a lot older than my LG G3, for example, still gets updates (LG won't update the G3 for no other reason than wanting to sell the latest and shiniest -don't get me wrong, I knew about this general Android problem). Having Google's own hardware doesn't seem to help that much. They just think it's natural to leave perfectly working stuff behind for the landfills.

When we said don't link to the article, Google, we meant DON'T LINK TO THE ARTICLE!

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Surely the correct headline would be:

Right to be forgotten forgotten