* Posts by Will Godfrey

5893 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Sep 2007

Kaluma squeezes JavaScript onto the Raspberry Pi Pico

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Facepalm

A quote from 'elsewhere'

One is amazed; not that it has been done, but that anyone would want to do it!

EFF urges Chrome users to get out of the Privacy Sandbox

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Unhappy

Give us the money

{Gangster Google} Be a shame is something bad happened to that lovely Internet of yours.

Mozilla's midlife crisis has taken it from web pioneer to Google's weird neighbor

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Happy

I do this. It's not flashy, has no javascript, but is clean an informative. My sister was visibly shocked when she saw how quickly my webby stuff downloaded and displayed - even on Windows.

PhD student guilty of 3D-printing 'kamikaze' drone for Islamic State terrorists

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Black Helicopters

Hmmm

The spooks have been sitting on this for 7-8 months. I wonder what they got up to in the meantime.

China suggests America 'carefully consider' those chip investment bans

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Black Helicopters

A simple question?

I wonder which country has the best record for long-term planning.

Contract for England's controversial health data platform delayed

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Unhappy

Scammer's delight

In recent months I been seeing ambiguously worded txt messages with a request to respond via one of those compressed URLs. The title is just DOCTOR SURGERY (yes all capitals) and the source is a withheld number.

Now where have I seen that sort of thing before?

Free software pioneer Richard Stallman is battling cancer

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Same here

Huawei's UK tech eviction reportedly caused Sky to fall on mobile customers

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Unhappy

Something, Something, Security!

We are getting steadily closer to the point where governments are mere puppets of the multi-national corporations.

Something that was 'predicted' in numerous science fiction stories from the past.

Raspberry Pi 5 revealed, and it should satisfy your need for speed

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Happy

No Audio? No Loss.

Personally I think this was a dud anyway. The quality really wasn't up to much, and I quickly found even the cheapest USB units gave significantly better results all round. Never tried any of the hats - they all seemed far too expensive for what they were.

With such a USB unit I found the Pi4B could run complex MIDI tracks in a full-fat soft-synth, so this one should be even better.

Google killing Basic HTML version of Gmail In January 2024

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Unhappy

What happend to...

plain text?

That's how my email client is set up. Anything else is treated as spam.

UK-US data deal could hinge on fate of legal challenges to EU arrangement

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Flame

Has it happened yet?

When the US says 'Jump' does the UK demurely ask 'Please sir.. how high?'

Airport chaos as eGates down for the count across UK

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Alien

Re: Current problems

Maybe there's a dark pattern here and it is, in fact, working exactly as designed.

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Facepalm

Re: "The gates use facial recog technology"

It's wrong anyway. They use farcical recognition.

GNU turns 40: Stallman's baby still not ready for prime time, but hey, there's cake

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Thumb Up

Saved me from Microsoft Hell

I remember a quote (can't remember where from)

"It is foolish to expect ordinary behaviour from extraordinary people".

Stallman certainly fits that on both counts.

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Coat

Re: 1991

Whereas Microsoft versioning is a model of clarity

/s

Chap blew up critical equipment on his first day – but it wasn't his volt

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Facepalm

It never gets old

If I had a penny for every time I'd either been a victim (or perpetrator) of this I'd have a few more quid in my back pocket. It cuts right across from complete novices to (supposedly) seasoned professionals.

Techie labelled 'disgusting filth merchant' by disgusting hypocrite

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Pint

Re: So let me recap...

You made I larf!

China caught – again – with its malware in another nation's power grid

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Unhappy

In the words of the song...

They would not listen,

They're not listening still.

Perhaps they never will,

Watt's the worst thing you can do to a datacenter? Failing to RTFM, electrically

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Stop

I never lent tools to anybody

Even my boss knew better than to ask.

Oh, and when one guy tried to filch a screwdriver I slammed the lid down on his hand.

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Unhappy

I I be a-goin there, I be-n't start from here

To me, part of the blame lies with the manufacturer of said very expensive kit.

Anything of that nature that requires external power should have at least basic safety 'crowbars' fitted. It's not difficult or expensive.

Save the Children hit by ransomware, 7TB stolen

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Mushroom

Utter Bastards

I don't usually agree with extreme responses but this group needs to be taken out permanently and very publicly.

Arm's lawyers want to check assembly expert's book for trademark missteps

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Unhappy

Sad

This certainly isn't the Acorn Risc Machines company that I remember with the new, exciting Acorn Archimedes.

What a terrible descent this has been from a well respected platform to a filthy gouging monster this has become.

If you like to play along with the illusion of privacy, smart devices are a dumb idea

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Angel

Re: Why would a Washing Machine require my Date of Birth ...

it's amazing how many people were apparently born on the first of January

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Stop

not here

The only smart stuff in my place is between my ears - and these days that's a bit debatable.

GNOME 45 formalizes extensions module system

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Coat

They can get on with it

The rest of us will run Gnome free

IT needs more brains, so why is it being such a zombie about getting them?

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It's all upside down

The whole of IT is about problem solving. First finding out what the problem is really is, and then using a methodical way of resolving it. HR don't have clue about that, and neither do most managers.

Ideally you want someone who not only has those skills, but also enough experience to chose the best way to solve it - the quick fix isn't usually the one.

P.S.

An extreme example.

The network went down every Tuesday morning - that's when the dust cart came round and the vibration rattled a switch that had a bad joint inside.

Farewell WordPad, we hardly knew ye

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Coat

Re: Never even heard of it

Oh dear. I guess ironic humour doesn't travel well.

PS: Neither does the word 'humour'

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Linux

Never even heard of it

I wonder why :P

Sure, give the new kid and his MCSE power over the AS/400. What could possibly go wrong?

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A bit unusual

These are normally stories where the "offender" gets away with it - just!

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is returning with its first-ever asteroid sample

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Re: Long term weather forecast

I went across to France on a ferry to see it - similar experience, although the cloud cover wasn't total so we got to see a bit of it. I remember all the seagulls went absolutely nuts at totality.

I'll see your data loss and raise you a security policy violation

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Linux

None of my machines have a recycle bin

I know that if I delete something then it's gone - teaches you the 'measure twice, cut once'.

Germany's wild boars still too radioactive to eat largely due to Cold War nuke tests

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Boffin

Coincidence?

The Leclanché cell was invented in 1886

waitaminit

Sorry, that was 1866 :P

USENET, the OG social network, rises again like a text-only phoenix

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Thumb Up

It never went away!

I've been using it since I first heard about it in the early 1990s, although the number of groups I'm on has dwinded somewhat.

Southern Water to drink up tech deals worth up to £358M

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Unhappy

More funny money

... and castles in the sky.

I'd like to say I was surprised, but, well, you know.

Want tech cred? Learn how to email like a pro

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Coat

Re: Don't write me a damn book, pick up the phone.

Wow. What a coincidence!

Mine is 01234567890

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Facepalm

Oi! Split you text up into readable paragraphs.

UK flights disrupted by 'technical issue' with air traffic computer system

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Happy

So NATS went NUTS

Actually I'm rather surprised nobody got there before me.

Come on commentards keep up!

Huawei reportedly building 'secret' semiconductor fabs

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Facepalm

Yawn

Best get used to being also-rans. That's what the incumbents are likely to become if this stupid trade war continues.

China's top EV battery maker announced a breakthrough, but top boffin isn't convinced

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Facepalm

Did nobody spot a problem with this?

"Transportation, typical home, workplace and public level 2 chargers can take a battery from full to empty in anywhere from four to ten hours."

Last rites for the UK's Online Safety Bill, an idea too stupid to notice it's dead

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Re: Computer MOT

The one that made me lose my rag was when explaining that when it rained the phone line got so noisy it was unusable. I was told there was no fault on the line. I pointed out that it wasn't raining. They suggested that i call back when it is raining. I asked how could I call back when it was unusable. After a few rounds of this sort of thing I was asked to try a different phone and in the master socket, at which point I said (somewhat emphatically) It doesn't rain inside my house.

I actually knew what the fault was, and when I eventually got a an engineer to turn up. I pointed at the overhead cable and he immediately agreed to replace it. It was one of the ancient figure of 8 ones. The plastic had become brittle and cracked so when it got wet there was a nice path between the wires.

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Thumb Up

Re: Computer MOT

Keep these coming folks... I've not laughed so much for years.

(we need a bouncy ROTFL icon)

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Facepalm

Not holding my breath

Our government has never been known to limit it's stupidity. I wouldn't put it past them to decide computers needed regular 'M.O.Ts' where they were tested for only having {cough} healthy {cough} software. Oh, and the ISPs would be dumped with the task of ensuring that.

Version 5 of systemd-free Debian remix Devuan is here

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Angel

Re: Being based off ...

Great minds think alike!

Or should the be:

Grate mind fink rightly?

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Stop

Not had any problems here

Skipped over to Devuan with the first release, Initially just the laptop to check it out. Had no issues at all and one at a time moved my other machines over. Since then I've upgraded with each new release. Works fine for me with no highly invasive mess crawling through everything. Oh and I also kill that other Poettering disaster, Pulseaudio - delete the server and no more snap, crackle and pop when I'm doing serious audio work.

US tech titans say a heads-up about India's PC import license would've been nice

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As a kid I quickly learned that "My dad is bigger than your dad" just doesn't cut it.

Lesson 1: Keep your mind on the ... why aren't the servers making any noise?

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IT Angle

Sequential switches are your friend

In the dim distant past I worked for a firm that built complete bespoke Audio/Video systems in 6ft racks for people with more money than sense. If the whole lot came on at once it would take out quite hefty contactors, so each rack was fitted with these switchers. For one rather large auditorium we even have to have built a 'slow' sequential switch for the lighting system.

Resilience is overrated when it's not advertised

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Re: Failover backup redlining

Well, the backup performance was certainly arrested!

30 years on, Debian is at the heart of the world's most successful Linux distros

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Devuan User here

As far as I'm concerned, debian accepting SystemD was just about their only mistake. I'm not sure, but I heard somewhere there are moves to make it optional. Hope that's true.

80% of execs regret calling employees back to the office

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Big Brother

Re: Idiocracy

Nono. Big government would never do a thing like that... Not without getting permission from big industry first.

Will Godfrey Silver badge

Re: unpopular opinion: no, WFH and WFO are not the same.

Indeed. However good managers are few and far between. When I found one I stuck with that company for over 20 years until I retired. I still drop in on the company office If I'm going that way, and recently visited the old boss (also retired) when I was on holiday to where he had moved.