Posts by Mark 65

Re: The real blame goes to..

It still amazes me how people are using bog-standard OS variants for critical tasks. Maersk for their global shipping operations and whomever is in charge of monitoring radiation at Chernobyl. Sure, there's likely some forced aspect of software X only runs on Windows but for massive companies with real market power and scientists I cannot see why you wouldn't enforce the usage of a hardened OS suitable for the task. Some suitable Linux variant springs to mind.

How many times must an OS fail in critical applications before the right people have a fucking light bulb moment?

Re: So ESTA can't manage reliable data transfer but its the passengers who get it in the neck.

More to the point

“ESTA” is the Electronic System for Travel Authorization and is a pre-screening program for citizens of nations that don't need a visa to visit the United States. Securing an ESTA authorization takes a few minutes on a dedicated web site and costs US$4 to apply and then a further $10 if approved, whereupon the US Department of Homeland Security lets your airline know it's okay for you to board.

That looks and smells like an electronic visa to me.

Re: Pulling The Rug From Under People's Feet

It works almost everywhere. It's called market inertia

More like "bait and switch"

Re: Imminent danger.

Man, I have and will always believe that George Brandis is a fucking despot. One seriously nasty piece of work. He is an absolute stooge for the 3 letter agencies. No doubt they have photos on him.

Re: I used to really think Australia would be a cool place to live

Sorry, but that is a bullshit counter argument. The truck driver will not be waiting for an hour unless he's a fucking idiot and so's his employer. Dawn varies in time throughout the year by more than 1 hour so if cows are milked "when the sun rises" then his arrival time varies from around 4am to around 6am throughout the year. He's based on sunrise + X, so daylight savings makes no difference.

As for the North of 40C at 8pm argument - so what? If that 8pm stayed as 7pm then North of 40C at 7pm is not likely to drop by too much by 8pm. If you live in that kind of heat zone then you have air con or sit and sweat. 1hr does not make a difference to that.

The "no daylight savings" arguments in QLD are archaic and simply shit-kicking in my opinion. I believe they stem more from a desire to be different from the rest of the eastern seaboard than anything based in reality. More a case of "NSW want us to but they can get fucked cos we don't take orders from the likes of them blues" than fact-based.

Re: but fines cannot be a solution

Microsoft NEVER prevented users from installing and using Netscape

I believe that, on more than one occasion, updates that were installed on users machines via the usual patching process decided to set IE back to the default browser. That right there is a breach. The user made their "FREEDOM of choice" selection and MS decided "no thanks".

MS were a massive abuser of monopoly power especially when it came to PC manufacturers installing the OS by default - have a little read through history of the shit they pulled for that to occur.

Re: Save me from the evil "Things"!

Whispernets. Direct, unblockable connection. Try to cage them and they'll brick.

Breach of Christ knows how many sales and consumer goods acts anywhere outside the US. Fit for purpose etc. Ain't gonna happen.

Re: "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,"

Hard to believe that this exists in a country that proclaims so loudly it's support for a right to a fair trial and due process.

I normally apply the doctrine of "thou doth protesteth too much". Any country that harks on about how free and fair it is, invariably isn't. There may have been a point in its history when it was but that time has long since passed.

Re: 125% of the sRGB colour spectrum

For true photo editing you'll be using an NEC or an Eizo ColorEdge.

Re: A question

Don't most IDEs these days have a setting to convert tabs to spaces?

I believe the big number is there to justify a request for a long sentence. You could hardly ask for years for $13.

Yet another reason to buy an open-wrt/dd-wrt/gargoyle/tomato compatible router and flash the firmware.

Re: Oh Dear.....

Breaking bitcoin is not about anonymity or terrorism it is about controlling money and being able to tax shit. Bitcoin gives rise to a potential "World Currency" that is harder to print like it's going out of fashion or tax into oblivion to pay for your asshatted spending plans. At present banks control money (and Governments) and they'd like it to stay that way. Disintermediation is not in their interest.

Re: "WTF is a NAS doing hosting virtual machines?" Quite, just because you can...

Several reasons for running VMs on a NAS:

• The VM is sat on the machine where the data storage it requires resides thereby removing the lag of accessing data over 1Gb/s link in a home environment vs straight off of the RAID array.
• You wish to run software such as Crashplan which doesn't run on your NAS natively but can be run in a Linux Server VM on top accessing a read-only share aggregating the folders that need to be backed up.
• You want to run SabNZBd, Couchpotato, and Sickbeard/Sickrage/Sonnar on your system and it won't run natively, or will run natively but keeps getting fucked up by firmware updates therefore segregating it into a nice Linux Server VM and giving it limited storage access makes a lot of sense.
• You may wish to run a build server, dev environment, Jupyter instance etc etc on a machine that otherwise sits there doing not a lot

There are many reasons, just because none appeal to you does not mean others are wrong to do so.

Re: So freetards will change their DNS and life will carry on

@AC: That just ends up as whackamole

It is clear from the German interior minister's comments that it is focusing on the third, most pragmatic solution: gaining access to someone's phone or other device.

It is also clear that such behaviour will rapidly lead to wide availability of a Qubes style OS for smartphones in order to prevent said pricks from installing shit on everyone's phone because, as we all know, they just simply cannot help themselves when it comes to mass rather than targeted surveillance.

Re: Skills Gap

Failing to get decent candidates or failing to get decent candidates at the rate you want to pay? Either way there is a talent vs pay mismatch, only who is at fault is up for grabs.

The fact you mention "normal pay" leads me to think the problem may be on your side.

Re: To be fair...

I'd love to see a protester smash Brandis in the nuts, preferably like in the game show on Idiocracy.

Re: RMA the controllers?

Because the WHOLE array job inclusive of management was OUTSOURCED to HPE and ATO decided that it is a good cost saving measure NOT to have any staff directly involved in managing its critical infrastructure.

To be fair, the OEM should have staff more capable of looking after their kit than the client will. In this case it appears HPE does not fall into this bucket. It also appears they made some pretty clueless choices.

Seems a pretty limited use case. Most media professionals, especially in photography, will be using Eizo ColorEdge level monitors, Wacom style tablets of varying sizes and not putting grubby fingers on the screen like in the MS site photos. I don't blame Apple for not bothering with a touch screen.

Re: The Elephant in the room

Checking that you really live in the catchment area of the school you've applied for etc etc.

And that it was you who didn't pick up your dog's shit / left your bins out one day too early etc etc.

Re: ma1010 "Sounds like a lawsuit"

Good to see her bank had systems in place to detect fraudulent transactions like most banks have had for the last decade or so. This would have stood out a mile.

Re: So....restore from backup

Where's the segregated VLAN? Anywhere with such important data and of such a size should be capable of setting up an environment where dev network logon credentials only work on the dev VLAN and so do not permit the crossing over into the production VLAN whether you know the prod db connection string or not. One account for troubleshooting prod environments (which they wouldn't have had in this case), and one for performing dev tasks. Not that difficult.

Re: Notice what wasn't said

That's the way I read it too. Can't imagine the ATO saying "ahhh, that's alright then" and letting you off with them being on the short end of a dollar or two. The taxman is not in the business of risk which is why they sit up the front of the queue when a company goes bankrupt.

Re: cameras at the ready

If you were a pilot of a commercial airliner and you saw a drone dangerously close then you'd think to pull your phone out of your (presumably trouser) pocket and take a quick snap? Me? I'd be thinking "best avoid that fucker" and take evasive action.

Re: Now if just 1 major PC maker installed Linux by default...

I believe that for a lot of manufacturers it comes down to the components they have chosen and the availability of drivers. I would guess that it is where most would have cheaped out on a component and the OEM only makes drivers for windows. It's a lot better these days. I installed Mint on a 2008 MacBook straight from a live cd/USB, no special work required.

Re: Timezones?

which ignored us for hours ...

That's just because they're French.

FYI 4.2.6 now available for those not able to install 4.3.x

Re: Ok, they spy on their clients

Most of Netgear's kit uses their firmware take on OpenWRT so, in most cases, you can just flash the router with your own firmware which rids you of such pestilent shite.

Re: "As per normal with Oracle, they only play by the rules when it suits them."

Their corporate motto appears to be "heads I win, tails you lose".

Someone's gotta pay for Larry's new yacht

Re: Really?

I'm not sure you can measure the nanny state nature of a country by the amount it taxes cigarettes and alcohol when you'd then need to take into account whether or not said country has free healthcare that gets smashed by the use/abuse of said items. I believe the UK is high on the nanny state index but I don't think taxation on "bad for your health shit that affects others and loads up the NHS" (alcohol through violence and smokes through passive factors) is a good metric.

Like you I recently replaced an iPad (version 2) with a newer model, but only because the former broke. Given it was a 2011/12 purchase and was only replaced due to breakage the device had good longevity. Hence, it is only logical that sales would decline over time once a saturation point was reached.

Although I agree that a laptop can be better to use, the iPad wins for keeping the kids occupied and not taken up so much space/weight.

Re: Social Media? Sorry, don't use any.

Also...

• Travel history during the past fifteen years, including source of funding for travel.
• Address history during the past fifteen years.
• Employment history during the past fifteen years.

Could not possibly remember any of that information and I don't tend to keep old passports for souvenirs.

Re: Fixed that for you

Well, you know you've reached the level of a police state when you have to answer questions from the local station's admin staff waving a fucking door pass at you.

Re: Smoke and mirrors

Yep, report a minor indiscretion in order that the big stuff can carry on happening. Self-reporting, ffs, that is like any form of self-regulation - abused by all and respected by none.