I have just remembered something that's probably also a good comparison. Does anyone remember the 'New Coke' desaster from the 1980ies?
Posts by allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
6157 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Oct 2015
Page:
- ← Prev
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- Next →
Microsoft's done a terrible job with its Windows 10 nagware
Monday 14th March 2016 08:04 GMT
It's a bit like some sort of midlife crisis thing going on here, I think. A middle-aged guy, well established, doing well. Everything moves along nicely, but a little too routine, a little bit boring. So all of a sudden he wants to do all the stuff the hip young kids are up to, but hasn't got a clue about it. So inevitable he makes a fool out of himself; alienating both his old peers and his would-be new peers. We've all seen that happen, and it usually doesn't end well.
Beer-powered bid to build mobile network goes flat
Go ahead, build better security: it just makes crims try harder
You say I mustn’t write down my password? Let me make a note of that
Monday 14th March 2016 00:31 GMT
Re: Serious luddite question
I don't mind so much that the system at my place of gainful employment forces me to change the password every month. The annoying bit is when the system tells me that my password will expire in 14 days, and would I like to change it now? (And when I click 'no' the next day the system will ask again.)
Why the change? If the password was really, really, really good and also really, really, really secure I wouldn't see the point either. But as it is, the passwords won't be that good really and in most cases not really that secure. So a forced change reduces the chance of the password being known to too many people and provides the opportunity to set a better password.
Apart from that, it's sort of traditional by now, in a but-we've-allways-done-it-that way.
I have just written a post that contains the word 'really' ten times. I guess it's really time to go to bed now.
Saturday 12th March 2016 00:34 GMT
Re: Of course, real dinosaurs remember acoustic couplers and 300 baud
Radio Shack / Tandy had a solder-it-youself kit for the acoustic coupler's electronics, and a pair of headphones made a good combination of microphone, loudspeaker and rest for the handset, with some tinkering. Good enough to connect a C64 to a bulletin board...
Friday 11th March 2016 11:49 GMT
Re: Clear Desk
Thanks for the link, I can actually use that at/for work!
IIRC the 'Clean Desk Policy' was started by the consulting firm Kienbaum*, at least over here in Krautistan. Old Mr. Kienbaum himself would prowl the offices at night, accompanied by a janitor armed with a very large bin bag. On a related note, Jil Sander doesn't like potted plants in her offices, so all the windwsills are slanted at a very steep angle.
* Think 'McKinsey' if Kienbaum doesn't ring a bell. A consultant by any other name, etc.
Mechanic computers used to pwn cars in new model-agnostic attack
DARPA to geeks: Weaponize your toasters … for America!
Athiest who believes in god?
Sunday 13th March 2016 14:05 GMT
I think that's exactly his point - it's a law of nature, not something a creator (in other words: god) has made up at some point.
"You can't be an engineer and go to chuch." - Henry Royce*
* Yes, the guy who made the cars. The other one was The hon. Charles Rolls. The hyphen in 'Rolls-Royce', so to speak, was managing director Claude Johnson. Without whom the company would have tanked after Rolls managed to become the first british pilot killed in a plane crash in 1911
New Anti Tracking browser from Ex Mozilla co-founder
Clear November in your diary: SpaceX teases first Falcon Heavy liftoff
UK fella is a multimillion-dollar cyber-hustle mastermind – US DoJ
Monster motor breathes fire in Mississippi
Rocky times for startups: Mutual funds devalue and VCs turn off money hose
FBI channels Kafka with new rules on slurping Americans' private data
A typo stopped hackers siphoning nearly $1bn out of Bangladesh
Friday 11th March 2016 14:02 GMT
Re: And yet nobody. . . / SWIFT (not Taylor) / question
That reminds me: 'money transfers' between banks are electronic messages, i.e. data packets. Bank computer Alice sends a message to bank computer Bob and makes a note that account number 123456 has [amount of money] less in it. Bank computer Bob makes a note that account number 654321 has added [amount of money] to it. Obviously credentials are exchanged etc etc.
IIRC the NSA has compromised SWIFT in the past*. Would they be able to pull off a MITM caper that creates money out of thin air by making Bob believe he received a transfer from Alice (that Alice never did send)? If so: hello even-blacker-than-usual budget!
* During the first Gulf War they could provide a list of Iraq'a assets all over the world within a couple of days, for all practical purposes bank statements. This was needed to freeze the assets.
Crap IT means stats crew don't really know how UK economy's doing
Tech biz bosses tell El Reg a Brexit will lead to a UK Techxit
SAP backs UK remaining in the EU ahead of vote
ExoMars ready to roll atop bloody big rocket
What's next? FBI telling us to turn iPhones into pocket spy bugs? It'll happen, says Apple exec
I beg you, please don't back up that secret directory full of photos!
Feds tell court: Apple 'deliberately raised technological barriers' to thwart iPhone warrant
Friday 11th March 2016 07:26 GMT
Re: Ignorance is an excuse
The FBI's reaction pretty much comes across like a spoiled kid that's used to getting everything it wants. And this time it doesn't get it.* "Mom, dad, the other kids are mean to me!"
Problem is, they selected this as a test case to force a precedent**, so they "can't" back down now. (They could of couurse. But... well, you know...) So they just keep piling it on. This is getting bigger than the Super Bowl!
* And apparently in more than just one possible meaning.
** For the other 25,000,000 sigle, device-specific cases in the offing
Web servers should give browsers a leg-up, say MIT boffins
Hardsploit: The handy hacker help for hapless hopeful hardware hacks
Nest: It's no longer all about you. Now it can recognize your kids, too
Friday 11th March 2016 06:28 GMT
"Zuli has since added multiple user accounts, and the product's usefulness has rocketed as a result."
No, it hasn't. 0 * 10 = 0.
No need to expand on that either, see original 'Zuli smart lightbulb' post. It's all in there already.
It's friday and count down to beer o'clock starts NOW, so have a nice weekend everybody.
Go No! Google cyber-brain bests top-ranked human in ancient game
Thursday 10th March 2016 17:07 GMT
Re: Congratulations to the team of DeepMind
"Have you noticed how much better car doors fit now that they're installed by robots and not humans?
Not a very good example. It's not so much the installing bit, it's the whole process of manufacturing the door and the car's body. The tools simply got better, including the tools that make the tools. Which was helped a lot by stuff like CAD / CAM and CNC and so on, sure. Anyway, you end up with components that are made with such a level of precision that it doesn't really matter whether they are assembled by hand or by machine. This is more or less a matter of cost. VW are making a point of assembling their flagship, the Phaeton* by hand.
( https://www.glaesernemanufaktur.de/en , they also build some of the Bentleys there )
* To be discontinued soon, will be replaced by an electric model in 2019
Page:
- ← Prev
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- Next →
Biting the hand that feeds IT
