* Posts by What? Me worry?

76 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Oct 2011

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And the winner of the horrible Microsoft Paint sweater is ...

What? Me worry?
Coat

Congrats! -->

and a Beer icon too :)

cheers!

Share your 2024 tech forecasts (wrong answers only) to win a terrible sweater

What? Me worry?
Pint

Apple buys Microsoft...

Apple buys Microsoft. Post merge - all okey-dokeyed by the Competition Market Authority in record time - (obviously they don't compete: one is a lifestyle influencer, the other does cloudy stuff, duh!) MicroAppleSoft launch a new open OS branded as Bob and based on Lisa that is so utterly demoralising as no-one can get past the Clippy auto-updater and work in it. A final gasp of AI as boffins attempt to develop Bistromathics to combat Bob, fails. Humanity reverts to a pastoral, pre-industrial, Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune social and economic structure, in time to celebrate 2025 as year zero of climate rehabilitation, restoration and peace on Earth.

OpenAI meltdown: How could Microsoft have let this happen after betting so many billions?

What? Me worry?

Not since 2018. https://www.semafor.com/article/03/24/2023/the-secret-history-of-elon-musk-sam-altman-and-openai

What? Me worry?

Re: But ironically...

About that - an interesting coverage and take from a m&a perspective is at https://stratechery.com/2023/openais-misalignment-and-microsofts-gain/ and with more inside about what safeguards Msft had in place (such as the perpetual IP license!)

Buying a Chromebook? Don't forget to check that best-before date

What? Me worry?

Re: That's Chromebook right out of my buying list then

Not too sure on the Tomtom rain parade: I have a TomTom GO 5000, which we bought when living in the Netherlands. So it's at a least 2014 or so, as that's when we moved. I have't had to use it for a couple years, until this summer and the rental car came without any satnav or android/CarPlay interface. So dug out the TomTom from the box of discarded tech, plugged in to the laptop and loged in to TomTom (first surprise that account still worked), got the app to update the device and it did: new fresh Europe map and speed camera map (second surprise). It's nine years old at least and worked a charm for the trip. The MyDrive companion app on the mobile, where I could quickly look up a POI and send it to the device was very handy instead of using the screen pecking. Just my experience.

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

What? Me worry?
Facepalm

"let's engage in some proactive ideation and synergize cross-functionally to leverage our core competencies and maximize deliverables. Let's think outside the box and optimize our bandwidth while aligning our key performance indicators. Remember to touch base and provide visibility on the low-hanging fruit, ensuring …" Oh look! Consultants! Who is it now? BCG? Accenture? Fine, what are they going to mangle this time?

DisplayPort standards bods school USB standards bods with latest revision

What? Me worry?

Re: Can you just punt on the "what kind of USB-C cable is this?" question

Interesting here (at least for my needs) is that Apples Thunderbolt cable is compatible with their USB-C chargers (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208368). Their USB-C cable though, won't provide data above USB 2.0 speeds (or carry video).

Now I just need to figure out how to get my iPod (FW800) to USB-C... It worked in the past with FW800>FW400 Thunderbolt adapter. Can I go one adapter further, or will that be a bridge too far?

NASA ignores InSight's battery woes in pursuit of data

What? Me worry?
Pint

I have something to say...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxsoJM896fM and beer in cheers for the plucky probe and team!

Volvo car sales tumble amid ongoing chip shortages

What? Me worry?

Re: I like my chips

Ah... the 472. Had that 500 CID 8.2L version in my '70 Eldorado. That beast knew how to burn fuel! fun fact, mine had the optional front disc ABS brakes - useful!

Hear us out: Smartphone lidar can test blood, milk

What? Me worry?

Re: We now have smartphones with lasers

it allows for a scan of as-built conditions and create point cloud of products on racks. That we then use for model mock ups to evaluate warehouse and sales location conditions. Much faster for the forecasting work, and has enabled us to turn around the preparation work from weeks to days. Walking through with the phone makes this a mobile way of use compared to a fixed position unit. Cost is lower, production is faster. We don't need a highly detailed model - this is just for quick checks. 'Walking' around the lidar created model allows us to see stuff that we might have missed if we were taking photos or doing a product count.

Pop quiz: The network team didn't make your change. The server is in a locked room. What do you do?

What? Me worry?
Joke

Dave?!

Is your name not Bruce, then?

Who you gonna call? Premium numbers, but a not-so-premium service

What? Me worry?

Re: Wrong number

"When was the last time anyone dialled (OK used the keypad) a phone number on a mobile?"

Today. :P

Fatal Attraction: Lovely collection, really, but it does not belong anywhere near magnetic storage media

What? Me worry?
Facepalm

When the PEBCAK was me

Not at all as bad as losing a drive. At work I use MacOS and Windows daily and on separate hardware. A few laptop generations back, I had run out of space at my desk, so, when I was done working on the Dell laptop, closed the lid, plopped the MacBook on top to continue work there. Flip open the lid, blank screen. What? Close lid, reopen. No change. It was working seconds ago! Must be the display brightness...

Jab middle finger on to power button to force reboot. Boots up, Mac happy sounds pling from the speakers. Blank screen. Fine. Grab the MacBook and trundle up to the IT walk-up support station to whinge about crappy logic boards build quality etc. Flip open screen... ta-da! All hunky dory.

Back at the desk, MacBook back on top of the Dell, flip screen... blank!

Yeah... turns out I am PEBCAK idiot. Both laptops were of similar design (same Foxconn factory) and both utilised a magnet for their keep screens closed feature. Magnets that are good enough to trigger the sensor on the top laptop that despite screen is physically in open position, the sensor indicator still indicates closed, prohibiting the screen from displaying anything. Lesson learned.

Go to L: A man of the cloth faces keyboard conundrum

What? Me worry?
Pint

there can be only one

"The Catholic Church goes for Isidore of Seville, a scholar who died in the seventh century and whose patronage includes computer users and the internet." You left out the beer! Quelle horreur! https://nl.latrappetrappist.com/nl/nl/producten/p.23213.suffix.html/la-trappe-isidor.html (yes, I know this is a different guy, but he is the one that counts. ;) )

Larry Ellison says he's not following Oracle to Texas, prefers his private Hawaii pad

What? Me worry?
Joke

Re: Really

Ven or Ön? Or the plethora of choice near Göteborg? (or are you just ashamed to admit you're in Denmark? ;) )

Um, almost the entire Scots Wikipedia was written by someone with no idea of the language – 10,000s of articles

What? Me worry?
Coat

Bork!Bork!Bork!

Reedeeng thuse-a Veeki intreees bruooght beck memureees ooff zee Incheffereezer.

Bork Bork Bork!

Take DOS, stir in some Netware, add a bit of Windows and... it's ALIIIIVE!

What? Me worry?

Re: Miffy?

Nijntje, diminutive for konijntje (little rabbit). But yes, Miffy for the rest of the world. There's a statue of Nintje on the Nijntje Pleintje, near where I used to live in Utrecht. :)

[edit] fine, search result: https://www.holland.com/global/tourism/destinations/utrecht/nijntje-pleintje-1.htm

Beer necessities: US chap registers bevvy as emotional support animal so he can booze on public transport

What? Me worry?

But only before ten am. ;) The Weißwurstfrühstück was in the past a Zwischenmahlzeit (Vesper) between breakfast and midday meal. Back when the majority of people had labor intensive jobs, you needed that extra fuel to keep going. The Laugenbrezn, or Kaisersemmel debate is still not settled. :P

What? Me worry?

Back in the day when I lived in Munich, during the morning commute on the U-Bahn (U2, no less...) It was common to see the proletariat quaff a Helles or Export from Augustiner-Bräu. No one batted an eye lid- kids on their way to school, wage slaves, etc, all traveling together. Have a beer to start your day? No problem.Hard days slog? Crack tube. Not sure how it works today. Guess I should go back and check... :)

What? Me worry?
Pint

Or it came from Lucky Lab Brewery? (from that settlement on the Willamette that almost got named Boston...)

Microsoft Teams: The good, the bad, and the ugly

What? Me worry?

Re: Facts and figures or forced feeding

Suspect it's your flavour of rollout. We're in the process of migrating to Office 365 and with many bells and whistles. I've found that Teams is a much easier to manage and stable tool than SfB was. I can call from within Teams on whatever device (mobile, pc, tablet) I happen to have at hand while working. using Teams with Planner, Whiteboard, OneNote & Lens has been relatively painless and actually improved our collaboration and info sharing. It's also meant that we've had to actually go through the years of accumulated digital cruft on file shares, desktop drives, etc and clean up. Which was a really good exercise- I went from trying to manage dozens of folder shares to having two O365 Groups (we had to bifurcate internal & external federation due to legal requirements).

That said, there are definitely gripes:

OneNote - Teams integration is shite if one has repeating Teams meetings scheduled in Outlook. Teams (or OneNote) won't auto-create a separate OneNote page per meeting.

Adding external visitors to the federated Group SharePoint is a pia.

And so forth, or, as it was in your case, it's an implementation issue and we've just borked it here. :)

Before Bitcoin, digital cash was called Beenz – all that's left is a T-shirt

What? Me worry?

X.com

I still have the plastic credit card somewhere.

What? Me worry?

Re: CueCat anyone?

CueCat - Wired spammed them to every subscriber one month. Used it for about ten minutes to show off at the office and then it went to the bottom of the drawer.

One person's harmless japery can be another's night of LaserJet Lego

What? Me worry?

Re: ORLY?

Many years ago, I worked in an architecture office and was using CAD for drafting. A senior partner in the company, came by to review the documents I was creating. Rather than plot them out, I thought I'd be efficient and modern and we could review the plans on the screen. The senior partner proceeded to take out his redlining pen (the one with red ink, for, you know, drawing red lines...) and proceeded to mark up the screen. When I then zoomed out to review a different portion of the drawing, he was a bit upset that the red marks didn't move... More upset that I had somehow 'removed the reviewed work'. Anyway. :)

14 sailors die aboard Russian cable spy, er, ocean research nuke sub after fire breaks out

What? Me worry?

Re: Nightmarish stuff

Two additional options for those interested

USS Blueback at OMSI in Portland, OR. https://omsi.edu/submarine (they offer sleepovers onboard) and

U3 at Tekniska Museet in Malmö, Sweden https://malmo.se/Uppleva-och-gora/Besoksmal/Malmo-Museer/Aktuella-utstallningar/Teknikens-och-Sjofartens-hus/Ubaten-U3.html (museum closed until September though) or http://www.u3.se/SEFolder/SEHome.aspx with info in english.

Planes, fails and automobiles: Overseas callout saved by gentle thrust of server CD tray

What? Me worry?

Re: airport security

So you'll be at the the six day races? (your affliction being a common one amongst sprint cyclists...) :)

We regret to inform you the massive asteroid NASA's all excited about probably won't hit Earth

What? Me worry?
Trollface

Save the date!

Date booked as Out of Office, in Outlook365. Any bets on if the cloud will still be thing? ;P

Have a gander at this: Amazon agrees not to act as Silicon Valley's foie gras dealer

What? Me worry?

Re: Chacun à son goût

https://www.eater.com/2017/9/22/16349926/california-foie-gras-ban-explained (okay it's from 2017) but it sounds like enforcing the ban is not as simple as taking a jab at Amazon. And @jake, are you referring to the producer Eduardo Sousa, in Spain? https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_s_surprising_foie_gras_parable?language=en

Can't get pranked by your team if nobody in the world can log on

What? Me worry?

Bluescreen?

Bluescreen? from the good ol' Sysinternals?

Apple macOS Mojave: There's goth mode but developers will have to wait for the juicy stuff

What? Me worry?

Older iTunes w/ Apps MIA on Mojave

Ran Mojave for a day and realised that iTunes was updated (and thus the loss of app control). Reinstalling the 12.6 image was prompted with 'not compatible' message. So back to High Sierra and iTunes 12.6.x. Nope, not gonna lose control of those apps, just yet...

Neglected Pure Connect speaker app silenced in iOS 11's war on 32-bit

What? Me worry?
Facepalm

Re: Evidently never heard of escrow...

Exactly. That was my very first reaction: "You didn't have an escrow clause for just this type of event?!!" I guess their risk appetite was bit more than they had thought. Is there a C level pink slip in their future?

Rejecting Sonos' private data slurp basically bricks bloke's boombox

What? Me worry?

Re: Crap like this...

Yup, harmon/kardon 730 Twin Powered speaker A/B push button, as does my AV receiver from around 2002 and probably practically any other decent receiver from who knows how far back. Bang & Olufsen were really big in their adverts from eighties or so in promoting this. I remember they had an advert with a Beolab speaker shown mounted over the doorway to a kitchen so that you could listen to the Beovision in living room, over in the kitchen. Which, I thought was the coolest party trick ever, and then I found out how much B&O systems cost! :)

Tapping the Bank of Mum and Dad: Why your Netflix subscription is poised to rise (again)

What? Me worry?

Re: Netflix Worth It?

"I find myself asking if there would be shows like "Game of Thrones" if not for the Sopranos." sorted that for ya. :)

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

What? Me worry?
Flame

Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

See title. I think that there must be details missing from the story. I lived in NL for over a decade. NL has compulsory health insurance requirements (https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/living/everyday-essentials/medical-care-and-insurance).

A Dutch based subsidiary of Oracle would have known about this, their HR would know this, the relocation company should know this, and the candidate should have looked it up!

Likewise about housing requirements and options. Utrecht is a thirty minute train ride from Amsterdam. There a less expensive places to live than in Amsterdam. Even north Amsterdam is better price wise. Sounds to me like HR, relocation agent and candidate were all ignorant/incompetent.

Also there is free and/or low fee legal services available that the candidate could avail himself of (like https://www.juridischloket.nl/, and they speak English) What about expat groups on MeetUp? Or through colleagues/friends, or ToyTownMunich, Expatica, etc? Did anyone bother to even do the least amount of effort and search online for support services?

Such as here: https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/living/move-to-amsterdam/before-moving? I've only had a few relocations (US>DE, DE>NL, NL>SE, all different companies) so maybe I don't know what going on these days. But sorry, nope, no sympathy here. </rant>

Ex-NASA bod on Gwyneth Paltrow site's 'healing' stickers: 'Wow. What a load of BS'

What? Me worry?

Re: You missed out the French...

...and Germans. Rather, the Bavarians. Who started up a lovely little number in the late nineties. The first bottlings were a bit young but I think they sorted it out now. Some good stuff coming out of North America, too. :)

NASA duo plan Tuesday ISS spacewalk to replace the mux that sux

What? Me worry?
Boffin

Opportunity for an On Call article?

Not sure if it's 'dodgy' enough, but it is unscheduled! Perhaps Simon can ask Commander Whitson for an On Call Friday rundown of the spacewalk to replace the MUX. That's one I'd definitely look forward to for a friday afternoon read!

Would you believe it? The Museum of Failure contains quite a few pieces of technology

What? Me worry?
Go

have you seen the fjords?

"...and can be found in Helsingborg in Sweden. If you want to visit it, you should fly to Denmark. No, seriously."

Absolutely correct! Fly in to Kastrup CPH in Copenhegen, then train up to to Helsingør (Elsinore!:) and take the ferry across to Helsingborg. It's a nice trip. You can of course go via the Öresunds bridge and through Malmö to Helsingborg, but the Danish route costs a smidge less. Time-wise it makes no difference if you're on holiday.

Helsingborg has a nice little brewery www.helsingborgsbryggeri.se/ too. :)

What? Me worry?
Pirate

Re: Sweden

Wasa ship - way cool to go visit though. I saw it in the early eighties before they had the bespoke museum for it. We were on a school tour. At that time they were still 'drying it out' / injecting it with special preservatives. Inside the shelter where it was being stored, there was active archaeological dig and during our visit they were finding skeletal remains. Again, way cool! :)

Apple CEO: 'Best ever' numbers would be better if we'd not fscked up our iPhone supply

What? Me worry?
Flame

Cupertino Newton builder

<rant> You know what I miss? Graffiti. Not the Graffiti 2/Jot one, but the real deal. You could use it on Newtons, but it really came to the fore with Palm PDAs. Okay, okay, the keyboard on modern devices with high density screens is probably faster and more accurate. But, damit, I want Graffiti! On iOS. Without rooting. ;P </rant>

Apple unplugs its home LAN biz, allegedly

What? Me worry?

multi-room audio alternate to Airport Express

@45RPM Airfoil by Rogue Amoeba. I started using their neat little trick before the Airport Express came to be. Great tool, and they support MacOS and Windows. Take a look and see if it's suitable for your needs. https://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/

Behold the fruit of your techie utopia: A $43 San Francisco fog-infused martini

What? Me worry?
Trollface

Only forty-three bucks? Pffttt...

Stuff that! Trundle over to the Bar Hemingway at the Ritz in Paris. Order a Ritz Sidecar... To rich for your wallet? Order a 'normal' Sidecar or any of their cocktail, last time I was there they were about thirty euros a go. :P

Self-stocking internet fridge faces a delivery come down

What? Me worry?
Flame

Wait.. What?!

"The latest concept, he assured us, involved your internet-connected fridge (groan) automatically ordering more milk which would then be delivered by drone – not to your door but into the fridge itself.

Apparently, your IoT-enabled front door would recognise the drone as it approached. It would then unlock itself and swing open to allow the drone to fly into your house, navigate its way to the kitchen and pop the pint into the fridge, which has also obligingly opened up to accept its milky load."

What the hell?!! Has tech gone so far round the bend that they can't remember what their parents (uh.. ok, maybe grandparents ;) had? Milkman, anyone? Milk chute?! http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/business/yourmoney/16milk.html? There, sorted. Don't need no steenkin' stoopid fridge. Or drone. Grumble, grumble, goes away to fetishize his Nokia 6310i... :P

No, we haven't found liquid water on Mars, says NASA

What? Me worry?
Happy

I love this

It's exploration, and trying to figure out the mechanics of why something is the way it is. What was a hypothesis for an observed phenomena is revised and a new explanation is proposed. In a few years or so, it will be revised again. Along the journey we learn more and add to our understanding of our surroundings. :)

Google hopes to sniff out OS X badware

What? Me worry?

welcome to the party

Huh. Interesting, might be a useful bit of kit once they polish it up to 1.0 release.

But, do the tools at Objective-See cover this territory already? Maybe not in one single tool, though. I'm thinking of Ostiarius, Block Block and Knock Knock.

Nice to see that more people are paying attention to MacOS security. That's a good thing. :)

A trip to the Twilight Zone with a support guy called Iron Maiden

What? Me worry?
Pint

kabouter-wha?

Similarly in the Netherlands, be careful with pronunciation when ordering La Chouffe beer, my other half had the misfortune of being misunderstood and ended up with orange juice...

Gun-jumping French pols demand rapid end to English in EU

What? Me worry?

Re: Pedant alert

Try the back of beyond in Sweden, Finland, or Norway.. :) My family's place is in a small village in southern Sweden. Google Maps shows it in a satellite photo, but you can't enter an address to find it and it doesn't even list the road. TomTom sort of gets somewhat close, Garmin has no clue. HERE surprisingly has the road named and will correctly navigate to the turn off. Certainly areas of Bayern and the Alps are just as poorly covered by the digerati. I guess areas in Poland, France and Spain, etc. too..?

Apple's 'lappable' iPad Pro concept is far from laughable

What? Me worry?
Coat

Re: Shock Horror - A positive review of an Apple 'thing'

Stuff that! :) Go further back - a Palm Vx, the Palm foldable keyboard and a Nokia 6310i. (Gawd I miss that phone! Never failed...) Now there was portable travel kit. A PIA though - PalmOS, I was either connected to the keyboard, or Ir to the phone to send/receive. Ah, good times. Ok, time for the Four Yorkshireman... ;)

Lester Haines: RIP

What? Me worry?
Pint

What?!

Stunned. My sincerest condolences to his family; and the usual suspects at El Reg.

In-flight movies via BYOD? Just what I always wan... argh no we’re all going to die!

What? Me worry?

Re: Read a book

Nope, not yet. I carried a power bank with me in my carry on bag. This year it's been through European and North American airports. Though my experience is constrained to a small subset of the world, think my sampling covers enough to say it's okay.

iPhones clock-blocked and crocked by setting date to Jan 1, 1970

What? Me worry?
Trollface

iPhone end days cometh?

Anyone ventured to try entering 19th January 2038?

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