Re: Monolith?
I believe in the original article in mentioned some outcry to the use of the term monolith.
Posts by Dabooka
1200 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jul 2007
Mysterious Utah monolith mysteriously disappears without trace
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a monastery-burning romp that would be way better if it was not an Assassin's Creed game
Netflix chooses its own judgment in 'Bandersnatch' case: Settle and make the nasty lawsuit go away
Master boot vinyl record: It just gives DOS on my IBM PC a warmer, more authentic tone
Currys PC World website crumples into unscheduled maintenance as shoppers chase latest gaming machines
Wednesday 25th November 2020 13:22 GMT
Re: Maintenance! Calling it maintenance makes them look inept.
Do you understand how this works?
Waiting a day or two would result in no console. Hitting the F5 key at least gives these 'brain dead morons' a chance of getting their paws on one. It may matter not to you, but clearly for many people it does.
Plus all of these scalpers using bots will not have helped matters much either.
Google binned two apps by China’s Baidu, which says researchers got it wrong by linking it to personal info leaks
Why did Apple hamstring camera repairs on standard iPhone 12 but leave Pro Max module swappable? asks engineering group
Tuesday 24th November 2020 17:24 GMT
Re: If i wanted a
Oh not this again.
Yes there's stand alone kit that's far better, just like the ongoing debate regarding Sonos vs hifi kit, well done for pointing it out. However that misses the point entirely.
Ultimately the phone in the pocket now negates the need to consider even a point and press when going away / out / to aunt Nellie's surprise birthday. Plus phones allow pictures to be shared / uploaded / even edited there and then. Try doing that on most cameras.
I get your point, we all do I am certain of that, but it's not comparing like for like sue case is it?
EU says Boeing 737 Max won't fly over the Continent just yet: The US can make its own choices over pilot training
Billionaire's Pagani Pa-gone-i after teen son takes hypercar out for a drive, trashes it
When even a power-cycle fandango cannot save your Windows desktop
Friday 20th November 2020 09:54 GMT 
If only it was just then
Only yesterday in my office a colleague asked how to turn the computer on.
I pointed to the big ugly base unit and suggested they try that. The indignation in their voice was palpable as they blurted out that they 'thought it was one of those all in one desktops that some staff have'.
I did not feel the need to point out they had tried the power button on both of the monitors in this supposedly 'all in one' setup.
Watchdog signals Boeing 737 Max jets can return to US skies following software upgrade, pilot training
Thursday 19th November 2020 13:35 GMT
So it's inherently safe without MCAS?
Reading this, Boeing claims it's a safe aircraft. MCAS only deploys when a problem occurs.
Now it deploys once. And a buzzer goers off. And it's easier to override.
Can't help but feel if it's safe without MCAS it shouldn't be needed at all and a simple warning would be sufficient? Surely if this additional training is to combat the effects of a system deployed to combat the effects of the flight dynamics it would be preferable to simply train the pilots in the flight dynamics.
Seems to me the additional training to be signed off on MCAS is exactly what they tried to avoid about recertification. I also assume they'll be having to sweeten the training costs for operators on top of the picking up the tab for modifications.
Israeli spyware maker NSO channels Hollywood spy thrillers in appeal for legal immunity in WhatsApp battle
Wednesday 18th November 2020 14:25 GMT
Who cares?
I mean NSO are the high profile one we know of right, are we suspected to believe that they're 'it' anyway?
Okay I'm being deliberately flippant both in my title and my comment above but in all seriousness I'm sure many of us query the ones we don't know about who are using and searching for the same exploits. I know why WhatsApp and FriendFace need to do the court action too as it's important they're seen to trying to stop it (and probably genuinely want to) but even if they win, would it end or just go underground with Mossad or whoever?
I don't know enough about this sort of thing to know for sure but I cannot believe they'd pack their toys up if they lost this.
Tablets and Chromebooks are hot, towers and desktops are not: El Reg combs through Q3 PC numbers
Tuesday 17th November 2020 17:05 GMT
Re: Who NEEDS a desktop?
I can do a lot of my work on a laptop and for some of it it is preferable and more convenient.
However for much of it a a dual monitor setup is much more beneficial and that is easier through the desktop arrangement. Same goes for most of my colleagues.
In essence I'd say your statement is probably a bit wide of the mark.
Panic in the mailroom: The perils of an operating system too smart for its own good
Nokstalgia: HMD Global introduces yet another homage to the past – a 4G rework of the Nokia 6300
Hyundai announces its own OS for Nvidia-powered smart-ish cars
Missing Alan Turing memorabilia to be returned to Blighty from the US, 36 years after it went walkabout
UK tax dept's IT savings created 'significant risk', technical debt as it faces difficult conversation with Chancellor
Tuesday 10th November 2020 10:57 GMT
Re: Defer (or cost-cut) regular Tech Refresh at your peril!
I agree where you're coming from but like to or loath it you have to consider things from the other side.
For example, the suggestion of replacing kit / software / services before nearing the end of life is clearly going to get culled by someone needing to balance the books. I understand why you'd want to do that but I also understand why someone else (who's job it is to find unnecessary spending today) would think otherwise.
The problem is when the mantra that 'as long as it works it's fine' is taken, and we all know problems are inevitable in this instance. And that's where I am. That's where I work. A significant IT spend occurred during a two year project which concluded in 2010(!) and apart from some upgrades, scaled up provision and the rollout of 365, we're pretty much stuck where we were. Madness.
Tech support scammer dialed random number and Australian Police’s cybercrime squad answered
Friday 6th November 2020 14:31 GMT
Re: Were they able to locate the slime?
It's not impossible to trace at all, I've seen it done several times.
You simply type 'trace' in to the terminal and watch a line appear on a global map that connects through several key cities until an IP is identified. Easy.
In fact I'll save them time as despite having the whole world to hide in they'll conveniently be in that internet café just across town.
Snap-crappy: 183 Brit local authorities operate 80,000 CCTV cams between them, says surveillance watchdog
Did I or did I not ask you to double-check that the socket was on? Now I've driven 15 miles, what have we found?
Ho hum: If you're so artificially intelligent, name this song while my videos go viral
The engineer lurking behind the curtain: Musical monitors on a meagre IT budget
Rambo: First Bork. Turns out John Rambo is no match for a bad CMOS checksum
Former antivirus baron John McAfee collared, faces extradition to America on tax evasion, securities allegations
UK privacy watchdog confirms probe into NHS England COVID-19 app after complaints of spammy emails, texts
Airbus drone broke up in-flight because it couldn’t handle Australian weather
Despite rolling a homegrown translation app with iOS 14, Apple resorts to freebie tool for Dutch Ts-and-Cs waffle
Monday 28th September 2020 13:36 GMT
Re: It should have been translated by a Dutch lawyer
Yep, I thought it was a bit of a strange thing to simply translate too.
Mind I don't know what is current and standard practice for these things but you do assume (perhaps wrongly) that an outfit the size of Apple would be covered in most jurisdictions as to not need a free version of a translation tool.
Ethernet failure on Swiss business jet prompted emergency descent, say aviation safety bods
Monday 28th September 2020 10:04 GMT
Re: It's the default response to cabin pressure
You keep assuming the network failure is a hardware failure.
I do not understand why you think that is the case, the article even links to a previous story where the power cycling of an aircraft was required to stop the internal network from crashing (as I suggested originally).
It really isn't that difficult a concept.
Friday 25th September 2020 11:11 GMT
Re: It's the default response to cabin pressure
Well I'm not a genius but I can't see anything in the article to suggest that is what it's fixing.
I assume the software update is about stopping the Ethernet borking itself. A bit like the 50-odd day recycle needed in some passenger jets to 'turn it off and on again' and prevent it crashing (in the IT sense of the word).
Help! My printer won't print no matter how much I shout at it!
Friday 25th September 2020 11:33 GMT
When optical mice were new...
My pal at work got a shiny new Dell along with all the other in his office.
I pop in to have a chat but he's not there, out on site or some such, so I leave a note. By writing the word 'nonce' on a slip of Post-It and attaching it to the underside of his mouse. Cue his return to find his nice new PC is not responding and a call to the techy to complain he can't log in and his 'mouse isn't working'. [You can see where this is going can't you?]
Rocking up with a spare mouse the tech has a quick look, peels off the Post-It and proclaims 'Apparently you're a nonce mate. Try it now'
He certainly didn't spare his blushes. To this day this remains one of my crowning glories at work and we both continue to communicate via this method.
Another week, another dual-screen phone, this time a T-shaped LG thingamy
Elecrow CrowPi2: Neat way to get your boffins-to-be hooked on Linux from an early age and tinkering in no time
Angry 123-Reg customers in the UK wake up to another day where hosted mail doesn't get through to users on Microsoft email accounts
Huawei set to exit server, storage, networking business in the UK
Mate, it's the '90s. You don't need to be reachable every minute of every hour. Your operating system can't cope
TCL's latest e-ink tech looks good on paper, but Chinese giant will have to back up extraordinary claims
We've come to wish you an unhappy birthday: Microsoft to yank services from Internet Explorer, kill off Legacy Edge by 2021
UK govt reboots A Level exam results after computer-driven fiasco: Now teacher-predicted grades will be used after all
Tuesday 18th August 2020 08:46 GMT
The whole system has been borked for years
Grades should be abolished and instead the UMS itself is used (why band scores into grades, just release the score) and let universities and employers decide what is acceptable.
ULNs are a red herring though, as there's not always much tracked in the two years of A level or GCSE that could be robust enough to use. Plus you have to be very careful basing things on past performance, as anyone who's negotiated value added in post 16 will appreciate (which I'm guessing you have).
The individual systems employed in various institutions will result in large discrepancies in how in year tracking is captured and awarded, as the OFSTED expectations often fly directly against what AOs [exam boards] would have us do, especially in vocational land, which still hasn't been addressed.
The problem s were caused by algorithms designed to do what they've done, and guidelines sent out made little reference to this other than we had to rank the grades awarded in class; for example of all the grade As awarded, Johnny was the most likely yet Fi-Fi would be the weakest (so they could move learners up and down). Nothing was mentioned about the drop of grades from say a C to a U, and nothing about grammar schools taking a larger percentage of the allocation.
Finally these problems were known a long time ago. Grades had to be submitted months ago, not a couple of weeks back, so for the lying toad to make out the issues only came to light last Wednesday is bollocks. We had the grades ourselves then FFS.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
