I look forwards to the biometrics databases getting hacked so I can change my eyeballs & fingerprints.
Posts by ArrZarr
1188 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Aug 2015
Hey, friends. We know it's a crazy time for the economy, but don't forget to enable 2FA for payments by Saturday
Tinfoil hat brigade switches brand allegiance to bog paper
Disk stuck in the drive? Don't dilly-Dali – get IT on the case!
No joy for all you Rover McRoverface fans: NASA's next Mars bot is christened Perseverance
Drones must be constantly connected to the internet to give Feds real-time location data – new US govt proposal
Wednesday 4th March 2020 11:59 GMT 
Re: Useless
Maybe I should have used the joke icon, I mean come on, the suggestion is obviously terrible.
And yes, I have fired a gun - an L85 Rifle at a target range on an RAF base. My aim was indeed garbage but I was thinking about going to uni to sign up as an engineer so that wasn't my biggest concern.
Fancy that: Hacking airliner systems doesn't make them magically fall out of the sky
UK.gov lays out COVID-19 guidance as the tech supply chain considers its own
Starship bloopers: Watch Elon Musk's Mars ferry prototype explode on the pad during liquid nitrogen test
Hey, fatso. If you're standing desk-curious, the VariDesk Pro Plus won't break the bank
Monday 2nd March 2020 17:29 GMT
Re: Who cares about the desk?...
I think it's a Unicomp Model M - https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/UB40P46
The modifier keys are different, but essentially these guys bought the tooling and rights to make Model Ms when Lexmark stopped making them.
Have no experience on an original Model M, but an happy with my newish one.
We regret to inform you there are severe delays on the token ring due to IT nerds blasting each other to bloody chunks
Death and taxis: Windows has had enough of clinging to a cab rooftop in the London rain
BAE Systems tosses its contractors a blanket... ban on off-payroll working under upcoming IR35 tax reforms
Your McDonald's demo has expired. For full functionality, please purchase a licence or try another fast-food joint
Come on baby light me on fire: McDonald's to sell 'Quarter Pounder' scented candles
OK, which Dombås stuffed Windows 10 to bursting at Swedish flatpack flinger?
Early adopters delighted as Microsoft pulls plug on Mobile Backend as a Service. Haha, only joking – they're fuming
Ever had a script you just can't scratch? Excel on the web now has just the thing
Thursday 13th February 2020 11:30 GMT
I have usually had the luxury of working with people intelligent enough to know that they muck around in the spreadsheet at their own peril. Upon finishing a masterpiece, I always find that sitting down and talking them through the most important parts helps - either they understand what's going on and can take the sheet and run with it or they understand that they don't get it and leave it alone.
Wednesday 12th February 2020 16:43 GMT
For analysing a chunk of data (and as long as it fits in Excel), you can get something out of Excel faster. Then you can display it faster.
If the data doesn't fit in Excel or is already in a Database, then R or Python may well be better.
Also, real Excel wizards use formulae for everything. Resorting to VBA is an act of surrender.
Tens of millions of biz Dell PCs smacked by privilege-escalation bug in bundled troubleshooting tool
Day 4 of outage: UK's Manchester police deploy exciting new carbon-based method to record crime
Astroboffins may have raged at Elon's emissions staining the sky, but all those satellites will be more boon than bother
They can't collect your bins or fix your roads. They let Google stalk visitors to their websites. Yes, it's UK local government
Thursday 6th February 2020 09:22 GMT
Re: Why do public sector websites have adverts at all?
It's not entirely stupid - instead of thinking of the ad as an advert, think of it as a dynamic link on the homepage to what is reasonably likely to be the most important part of the site for a specific user. Contrary to what you might think, most display campaigns and display providers are chosen due to the strength of their results for the money spent so a place with good targeting is likely to get chosen over a place with weak targeting. This leads to all the display companies trying to make their targeting as swish as possible.
Using that in the same way as a paid for site search function isn't a bad idea...
Internet Society gets tetchy over .org sale delay, half-threatens ICANN over deadlines and jurisdiction
Verity Stob is 'Disgusted of HG Wells': Time, gentlemen, please
Tuesday 28th January 2020 16:31 GMT
Re: Screenwriters with a thin education, and tasked to appeal to the widest audience....
Honestly the thing that bugged me the most was the lack of Daemons for anybody that wasn't important to the story. Oxford University should have looked like a menagerie in the corridors [more than usual, at least - Gen. Melchett] but just wasn't...
Ever wondered what Microsoft really thought about the iPad? Ex-Windows boss spills beans
Remember that 2024 Moon thing? How about Mars in 2033? Authorization bill moots 2028 for more lunar footprints
Monday 27th January 2020 16:34 GMT
Re: Getting to the Moon is no walk in the park
Hence the goal to make launches as cheap, reliable and mundane as possible - widening the net for people who want to put satellites in orbit to improve profits. Also the purpose of starlink (I think that's that it's called) for the satellite internet business.
Beyond that, if Musk can get his hands on either lunar or asteroid mining or becomes the defacto route to space for space mining hardware, then he has a license to print money, especially if he's able to pull off manned outposts on/orbiting the moon - Oxygen seems to be in ready supply within the regolith if you can extract it so there are possibilities for LOX refuelling at a minimum to reduce the mass getting lifted from Earth's gravity well and therefore potential for improving payload capacity on upper stages.
Free Software Foundation suggests Microsoft 'upcycles' Windows 7... as open source
Friday 24th January 2020 16:26 GMT
Re: I'd like a pony with that one, please
Your use case may work just fine on Linux, but please don't try and pretend that in gaming that Linux developer support doesn't comfortably fit into a rounding error.
It's probable that with enough effort, all games will run on a Linux box, but there is no advantage over Windows where the games were designed to run in the first place.
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It's also worth pointing out that Windows will just run a 32 bit app in a 64 bit OS - no additional actions are required by the user (or knowledge to find the correct name of the library).
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I am not telling you to use Windows because it's better than Linux. What I would like you to do is show some fucking sanity and accept that Linux is not necessarily better than Windows for other people's workloads.
Beware the Friday afternoon 'Could you just..?' from the muppet who wants to come between you and your beer
Ancient Ore Crusher or KillBot 2000? NASA gets ready to pick a name for its Mars 2020 Rover
South American nations open fire on ICANN for 'illegal and unjust' sale of .amazon to zillionaire Jeff Bezos
Tuesday 21st January 2020 16:53 GMT
To the above commenters asking why amazon.amazon etc is worth so much, please consider the effect of having any Tom, Dick or Harry able to create a domain that looks like offers.amazon/stuff or returns.amazon/stuff would have.
having an entire TLD of your company's name out in the wild would be damn near the worst case scenario for dealing with domain squatters, especially when your company is bigger than a lot of countries and will attract scammers like a candle to a moth (calls from "Microsoft" about your computer, anyone?)
changing www.amazon.co.uk to uk.amazon probably isn't going to happen, but not grabbing the TLD could go very badly for the company.
Looks like the party's over, folks: Global PC sales set to shrink as Windows 10 upgrade cycle tails off, says Gartner
EU declares it'll Make USB-C Great Again™. You hear that, Apple?
Time to burst out graphing: Get the Windows Insider experience... by taping a calculator to your monitor
The time that Sales braved the white hot heat of the data centre to save the day
Friday 17th January 2020 09:26 GMT
Re: The quiet hero almost never gets the beer.
It feels like the IT manager would have been replaced because it would have been him that signed off the idea of updating a critical system on (1) Friday (2) payroll day.
Friday evening after payroll is completed? Less bad.
Another Friday that wasn't payroll day? Less bad.
any day of the work week that isn't a Friday? Much better.
Alphabet's 'love rat' legal chief David Drummond ejects after 18 years at web goliath, no golden parachute attached
Monday 13th January 2020 15:59 GMT
Re: Only bots click ads
Display advertising is only one of the kinds of ad that Google sling.
The ads at the top of the search page and the entirety of Google shopping are the real winners for Google as they don't need to pay the publisher/creator any ad revenue.
And I can tell you that real people definitely do click on ads, unless these bots have very deep pockets for all the stuff they keep buying.
'Buyer's remorse' drove HP's legal crusade to go after Lynch, High Court told
Thursday 9th January 2020 17:10 GMT
Re: Americanisms
Those examples are all verbifications rather than Americanisms.
Personally, I am entirely in favour of verbification. The Calvin & Hobbes strip about "verbing weirds language" was, I think, intended to be a shot at verbification, but it is entirely clear in the meaning it tries to get across...and what else is language for?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
