Posts by Phil O'Sophical 6297 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Oct 2011
Ugh, this brings back memories of trying to understand the FIPS-140 rules on entropy. If you ever need that certification (which you will if you're selling cryptographically secure systems to governments) the test labs are very, very picky. As they should be, of course, but it's a PITA when you're on the other end of the design process. Linus probably needs to talk to the experts before arbitrarily changing anything, he could land his customers with 6-figure recertification bills.
If we wanted to build a pyramid today, it would not be difficult. Slow? Yes. Expensive? Also yes. Difficult? Not really.
Except that today it would probably be subcontracted to Crapita, and so would take 5x as long as planned at 10x the cost. And it would probably be built upside-down.
The company I used to work for had obviously acquired some IPv4 addresses that had previously been allocated to Greece, and the internet proxies used them. Occasionally, depending on what proxy I got auto-assigned to, I'd go to google.com and find it displayed in Greek.
"There's a huge difference in how Windows has changed over the years from Windows 95 through to 10 – Unix doesn't change that much,"
I'd say that Unix has probably changed just as much as Windows, the difference is that unlike Windows, and Linux, the people working on Unix understand the concept of backwards compatibility. I had programs compiled on Solaris in 1992 that still ran on Solaris in 2020, even though Solaris had changed hugely.
specifically chosen sequences of characters that, when appended to a user query, will cause the system to obey user commands even if it produces harmful content,
So little Bobby Tables can fool an AI as well?
Hardly a surprise, there's a reason why input sanitisation is a thing.
For human intelligence it takes us a decade or two of experience to get it right, no reason to expect otherwise of a computer.
At any rate, it'll be cheaper than using satellites...
Maybe not. The satellites are already there as part of the wider system, so the only additional cost would be the base station on the island. That's probably cheaper than two microwave stations (land + island), with the associated land-side cabling & wayleaves.
Not entirely the fault of the phone tech. If you're going to be lazy and bodge terminal data links onto phone circuits in the phone wiring closet, then putting up a clear notice right at the start is the minimal sensible step.
The same thing could have happened in the 2000s if someone had decided to run 10baseT ethernet over 'convenient' phone wiring.
The article makes it clear that, at least now, it's largely civilians who are the problem.
Indeed, and its the civilian employers who need to take action when their employees screw up. The military is just a customer, its powers are limited to choosing a different travel agent, just as most of us would if an agent was careless with our personal data.
The problem is that as long as people see this as an "oh dear, I done a silly thing" problem, with a minor ticking off as the punishment, employees won't take it seriously.
Organizations need to take this seriously, as a disciplinary offence with all that implies - black marks on a personnell record and retraining for a first offence, with well-publicised demotion/dismissal if they do it twice. Only then will people start thinking "Shit, I could have caused a really serious problem".
favourite stick into the HDMI
The streaming services available on many (most?) of those sticks are already infested by adverts. I've given up on subscription services, for the little amount of TV I watch I record linear TV so I can skip the ads when I watch it later. If that becomes impossible, I'll just give up on TV. 95% of it is crap anyway.
development team - they hadn't installed it either - they just replaced the binaries every day and were careful not to turn the machine off.
Oh yes, we've all been there.
That's why our QA engineer always started a new test run of a new version by installing the product exactly as the documentation said, no matter how well she knew the product by then. The result was often bug reports filled against product and/or docs, but we rarely had issues from customers.
screamed into view from roughly the south east, at about tree-top level. Mid-runway, they pointed their noses straight up & kicked in the afterburners and kept going up until out of view
I've seen an F16 do that during the fleet week airshow, coming in over Fisherman's Wharf and standing on its tail over the bay. Since everyone was looking out over the bay when it came in from behind it's fair to say they were quite surprised, and some of their kids may have learned some new words.
if you produce a car in the UK with a battery made in the EU, you have to pay the 10% import tax to send the completed car back to the EU, but if you put a Brittish battery in it, you don't.
No, that's not the case.
Provided at least 55% of the car's value comes from components manufactured in either the UK or the EU, there's no tariff to be paid when exporting between UK and EU. If that 55% target isn't reached (for example if the battery and other components are largely sourced in Asia or the US) there will be a 10% tariff for an export UK->EU or vice-versa. Using an EU-sourced battery won't trigger the tariff, but it could increase manufacturing costs compared to using a locally-manufactured battery.
This would be funny if it weren't so sad.
When big businesses like Amazon, Google, Meta, etc. try to get laws changed so that it's easier for them to pay less tax, sell our data, etc. everyone here is screaming about how we can't let business dictate our laws (i.e. in a nutshell, "fuck business") and that government should stand up to them.
Yet when a politician says that businesses shouldn't attempt to influence discussions on a huge political and constitutional change (i.e. "fuck business") you're all screaming "what a stupid politician".
It;s all the fault of those evil EU officials who expected the UK to uphold the agrreements it willingly and voluntarily signed - like being out of the Horizon programme and ESA to pick just two
You really do have a selective memory.
The withdrawal agreement explicitly refers to the UK continuing its participation in many EU programs, and calls out Horizon as one of them, subject to the UK paying the agreed money. The EU has consistently refused to finalise those payment details because of the disagreement over the NI protocol, but that has now finally been resolved and the UK can participate as provided for in the TCA.
As for the ESA, it is a European agency, not an EU one. The UK membership of the ESA has not changed as a consequence of Brexit. The ESA website is quite explicit "not all member countries of the European Union are members of ESA and not all ESA Member States are members of the EU. ESA is an entirely independent organisation although it maintains close ties with the EU through an ESA/EC Framework Agreement." and the UK is clearly listed as a member.
The UK has never had another land border.
Prior to Brexit the UK never had a land border with the EU, there was an internal land border with another EU member state.
Post-Brexit it is entirely correct to say that the Irish border will be the only EU-UK land border. There was no EU-UK land border before.
All of which proves to me the man’s an idiot
Pot, meet kettle.
The case for Brexit was built upon the claim that the UK held all the cards and that the EU would be so desperate for a deal that they'd agree to one on any terms the UK asked for.
I've only ever heard that nonsense peddled by remainers as propaganda to ridicule the process. It was clear from the outset that the EU held most of the cards, and the UK would have to fight for every inch.
the line from Brexiteers has like yourself been that the EU is being variously petty and vindictive towards the UK (*).
I, and others, have been saying that since the successful referendum result. The UK leaving the EU was a smack in the face for Brussels, and they cannot afford for it to be seen as successful, since that would undermine the reason for the EU to exist. It's not a question of being vindictive, but of simple pragmatism on their part. They must do whatever they can to make Brexit fail, for their own eventual survival.
Sorting out the border issues would clearly be advantageous to both groups, but would benefit the UK more than it would benefit the EU. It is therefore totally unacceptable to people like Emmanuel Macron, who have always insisted that the UK must suffer consequences for daring to leave the club.
I remember staying at Rickey's once. Once was enough, I never really understood it's attraction. It was demolished many years ago. The Oasis has gone too. I haven't been back in that area for a couple of years, I should plan a trip before changes even more.
The article makes clear even in your quote that there are very few alternatives
Really? You mean where it says "an issue in the UK may be that the broadband market is overcrowded, with too many players chasing too few subscriber pounds" ??
There are players with Ts&Cs which allow customers to leave if the contract terms change, but if people don't look for that when they sign the contract it's hardly reasonable to later blame the supplier they chose just because it was cheap. It never seems to occur to some people that there might be a reason it was cheaper than the others.
when was the last time you saw a home phone that was actually wired to the wall socket (and thus receiving power) and not a cordless job, sitting in a cradle, which is plugged into the mains, and not receiving power down the phone line?
I have one sitting on the desk in front of me, and another in the garage.
Neither is connected to a POTS line, sadly, but both go to a VoIP system with battery backup, and the fibre ONT has backup as well. Best I can do here.
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