* Posts by Mark 65

3431 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009

German defense chat overheard by Russian eavesdroppers on Cisco's WebEx

Mark 65

There probably is but, as we know from the corporate world, if you're high enough ranking then such trifling inconveniences can be ordered to be dispensed with.

US accuses Army vet cyber-Casanova of sharing Russia-Ukraine war secrets

Mark 65

Maybe an old man who thinks he be getting some, as a subset of the above.

Toyota admits its engines are overrated – by its own power testing software

Mark 65

Re: So maybe...

Maybe you should read the article. Toyota was over-reporting power, not under-reporting emissions.

Maybe that's how they complied with the emissions regs but appeared competitive with peers on output?

Australian spy chief fears sabotage of critical infrastructure

Mark 65

Wot no treason trial?

Whether to move off Oracle is the $100M+ question for Europe's largest public body

Mark 65

You'd think that such requirements from so many would lead to some kind of collaborative or governing body to go about getting a solution built. Then you wake up, realise it would be a somewhat larger government IT project that would inevitably fail at large cost as everyone starts to chip in with must-have requirements and customisations for minimal gains, and carry on with your day.

Mark 65

Re: I think I see the problem

From 2019, the council had planned to adopt the Oracle system with few modifications,

Good decision on low mods, not sure about system

replacing a heavily customized SAP system.

Good decision - heavy customisation just leads to regular headaches around upgrades, loss of knowledge etc.

However, officers later decided to adapt the system and write modifications,

Really bad decision.

some of which failed, leading to onerous manual workarounds and inaccuracies in reporting.

with a predictable outcome.

SAP hits brakes on Tesla company car deal

Mark 65

Re: Tesla warp erp

Will never understand how it came to dominate the market.

Client entertainment goes to the person signing off on the payment not the poor bastard using the system.

Mark 65

Re: Are they kidding?

I have a feeling they could have had a lot better than 7% sales growth this year (though nowhere near 50%) if they had maintained their demand (i.e. if Musk had just shut the hell up

They were always going to fade as soon as someone came along to eat their lunch. In this case BYD. Tesla had first mover advantage which they used. As soon as manufacturing was moved to China that advantage diminished as the IP was there to be taken. BYD are a battery manufacturer by trade, and what's the most costly and important part of a BEV? Advantage, and sales lead, BYD.

Macy's and Sunglass Hut sued for $10M over face-recog arrest and 'sexual assault'

Mark 65

Re: "store's workers also picked out Murphy"

We don't know the precise details of them picking him out though do we? After all the company (their employer) had already "recognised" him using AI and informed the cops. No reason not to think they didn't run the match past the employees beforehand whereby human biases took over. If I was one of the people present during the robbery and you showed me a photo of someone that is, presumably, a close enough match and asked "is this the one" I'd likely confirm it too. Whereas if I were just presented with a selection of similar looking individuals the result may well be different.

And, yes, let's blame AI because too many people consider computers infallible whereas their opinion of people is less, and rightly, so.

Fujitsu gets $1B market cap haircut after TV disaster drama airs

Mark 65

Re: Accounting system

I've seen some dumb shit in my time, but that really does take some beating. I mean, WTAF?

British Library: Finances remain healthy as ransomware recovery continues

Mark 65

Re: Someone wasn't doing their job.

If the infiltrator is effectively nation-state backed and the motivation is likely more political with a side offering of cash then the damage can be massive. Especially when you don't know how long they've been in your systems or potentially how they got there.

HPE said to be moving in on $13B deal for Juniper Networks

Mark 65

HPE and the reverse Midas touch - everything they touch turns to shit.

UK may demand tech world tell it about upcoming security features

Mark 65

Yeah, but Charlie could become a legend if he did it. Just imagine this getting a regal "go get f*cked".

Brits make Amazon, Meta stop using third-party data to undercut rivals

Mark 65

Re: Amazon and Meta have agreed...

Don't forget "and future roles ensured". There's always a hint of that somewhere.

Why Chromebooks are the new immortals of tech

Mark 65

Re: MacBook Pro doing fine

Try Open Core patcher, my 2010 iMac is running Ventura and I'd imagine your machine would run it better. Just image the drive so you can go back if it doesn't pan out. Definitely worth a try.

Mark 65

Re: Dafuq?

You might be surprised how much data Microsoft Office slurps from your computer and stuffs into telemetry.

Not on my network.

Bombshell biography: Fearing nuclear war, Musk blocked Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

Mark 65

Re: So Musk has blood on his hands

More nonsense from people who actually thing Ukraine (without direct US/NATO intervention) could ever defeat Russia!

Your comment reminds me of a scene in Layer Cake where Daniel Craig's character is driving a hard bargain on a drug deal.

Duke: You wouldn't be so ****ing flashy if you didn't have him standing behind you would you?

Gene: Yeah, but he does though don't he.

Power grids tremble as electric vehicle growth set to accelerate 19% next year

Mark 65

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Victoria in Australia has proposed/started a per mile charge for EVs as they avoid fuel duty.

BMW deems drivers worthy of warmth, ends heated car seat subscription

Mark 65

Re: connected services as a strategic imperative and a driver of future revenue

The annual servicing enema isn't enough for our balance sheet, we need a little monthly something something.

Largest local government body in Europe goes under amid Oracle disaster

Mark 65

have you been fucking sleeping?

I wouldn't know, I was asleep.

Microsoft teases Python scripting in Excel

Mark 65

Re: Pandas and Anaconda

If you're just using Python for pandas I'd be using R's data.table library as it is much easier to use and has a more SQL-like natural language filtering aspect to it whereas indexing in Pandas is somewhat of a comparative cluster-f*ck.

Rocky Linux details the loopholes that will help its RHEL rebuild live on

Mark 65

Re: To free or not to free

I think this could start to sound the death knell for Red Hat. Its previous selling point was support and stability allowing software vendors the ability to have a one-stop "works on (Red Hat) Linux" option.

Debian has stability and both support and stability are offered by Suse, Ubuntu, and potentially Oracle to varying extents. Containerisation, SAAS etc means that Red Hat's opportunity space is shrinking (likely prompting this nonsense) and if one of those other distros can seize the day it will thus have fully enshittified itself with this move and provided a case study for future reference.

Let's have a chat about Java licensing, says unsolicited Oracle email

Mark 65

I read

It's Oracle's IP, and they have a right to monetize it the way they see fit, and every customer who uses it has an obligation to be in compliance. No one is questioning that, but if I were receiving that email, I'd probably make a phone call back to Oracle and have a conversation with them and ask them questions without giving much information away.

and thought "I'd just tell them to go get fucked"

Rocky Linux claims to have found 'path forward' from CentOS source purge

Mark 65

as RH devs contribute a lot of work to open source projects

Be interesting to see what those same people's opinion is on this move and whether they remain at RH. Any such company that makes large contributions towards open source projects likely has a number of key people that does so.

Mark 65

Re: Specious argument

That's what I don't think Red Hat understands - CentOS was the gateway drug.

Mark 65

As I see it, IBM are testing the waters to see what they can get away with.

Now Apple takes a bite out of encryption-bypassing 'spy clause' in UK internet law

Mark 65

Re: Proof of the UKs diminishing political structure ...

The funnier thing is that, although they could enforce the inability to use the app on UK iPhones by forcing Apple to not allow UK phones to install it, the EU is busy working on Apple allowing alternative app stores of which overseas ones not affected by this would be perfectly fine.

Missing Titan sub likely destroyed in implosion, no survivors

Mark 65

Re: A fitting epitaph

At least in some countries you cannot sign away your statutory rights with a waiver. That's including, but not limited to, death or injury being caused by incompetence.

Mark 65

Re: A fitting epitaph

I don't think he did it because he wanted the money, I think it was because he considered himself infallible.

Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries

Mark 65

...and at the end of the day, if big corporations didn't take the piss the EU wouldn't need to keep adding to the rule book.

Mark 65

Re: UK specific model?

Don't buy the marketing crap. There was never a need to remove accessible batteries or headphone jacks to achieve the ratings desired.

Planned obsolescence, wonderful for the balance sheet.

German finance minister says nein to more Intel subsidy cash

Mark 65

Re: AMD

I wish them the best of luck trying to squeeze the Germans for extra money. If they said they'd give 6.8 large then that's what you're getting. If costs have risen because you're delaying then they'll view that as your inefficiency and tough shit. There's clearly other players they can subsidise, TSMC seems like a reasonable horse to back.

Rigorous dev courageously lied about exec's NSFW printouts – and survived long enough to quit with dignity

Mark 65

Re: Shared printers

What boggles my mind is why anybody would print it out in the first place. Makes no sense.

They wanted a hard copy?

More UK councils caught by Capita's open AWS bucket blunder

Mark 65

Surely the best way of achieving savings would be for councils to pool resources and have a controlled entity service the common needs of all rather than each subcontract a set of nickel and diming muppets.

Mark 65

How anyone continues to deal with the entity commonly known as Crapita is beyond me. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

Microsoft will upgrade Windows 10 21H2 users whether they like it or not

Mark 65

Does anyone know whether the registry tweaks will prevent this updating? Family member's laptop using some version of Windows 10 kept prompting about Windows 11 upgrade so, after searching, I found a registry tweak that locks the installation on a certain version. I was wondering whether this still holds true? Likelihood is I need to update to the latest 10 version to get security patches and lock it on that if possible. Using Windows 10 Professional (I think).

Fed up with Python setup and packaging? Try a shot of Rye

Mark 65

Re: Avoiding pip

I'm guessing they look up the package source code online and type it in locally using vi with pins wedged under their fingernails while fighting a bear.

Or maybe they use conda.

There's a difference?

Python head hisses at looming Euro cybersecurity rules

Mark 65

Re: Something needs to be done to protect consumers

FLOSS is everywhere those days, as is free stuff, and regular consumers are in no way able to determine if there are risks, or what they could be.

I think that is where you draw the line between bad luck with best endeavours undertaken and the couldn't care less end of the spectrum. Even if I sell a software library that I have thoroughly tested but happens to contain some bizarre edge case that causes someone using it in ways I may have not even perceived to really f*ck up then I don't think I should be held liable. After all I have done as much as could reasonably be expected. If, on the other hand, I just wrote it, sold it, and didn't give a sh*t whether it was fit for purpose then that's a different story.

Mark 65

Everything is "may", "could" or "might" with not one explanation as to why the EU would fuck themselves over by doing such a thing.

This is not scaremongering. You should not concern yourself so much with what they intend to do with the law (the road to hell is paved with good intentions) but what someone in future could do under the law as written. That is why every poorly written law should be nuked from orbit, because of what a malicious actor could do with it in future. It is also why Governments generally write shitty laws - they convince you of their honourable intentions but write the to give leeway to act like c*nts in future.

Benchmark a cloud PC? No way. Just trust us, they work, says Microsoft

Mark 65

That they are espousing server performance whilst waving the hands at VDI performance tells me they are greatly over-provisioning on the desktop front.

When Google cost cutting goes molecular: Staples, sticky tape, and PC sweating

Mark 65

Re: availability of staples and sticky tape becoming more limited

Surely if they're all Google phones then they get them at cost not full retail price?

Mark 65

Re: "Google will no longer provide staples and sticky tape at print stations in offices"

No staples and they only made $13bn profit in Q4. Hate to think what would happen if they weren't absolutely making bank.

Parisians say au revoir to shared e-scooters

Mark 65

Re: Spin class ...

You forgot the bit "and casually strolls away being careful not to step in dog sh*t"

Atlassian to dump 500 – by email – in the name of 'rebalancing'

Mark 65

Re: "... saying goodbye to around 500 Atlassians"

AccountLossians?

John Deere urged to surrender source code under GPL

Mark 65

In that case I would guess that, whilst the actions here are of some value, they will not go to solving the repairability of the hardware as the important applications are likely to remain closed source unless JD have integrated key parts into the firmware. If they have it will then depend on how and what as to where we get to collectively on the repair front.

Ex-Tweep mocked by Musk for asking if he'd actually been fired

Mark 65

Re: I don’t….

Who's kidding themselves? He's just trying to get richer and appear more popular (not of late obviously). He got onboard with Tesla to make more money because there was a clear gap in the market - people were asking about electric cars but the incumbents had no interest in producing them when they could just keep knocking out variations on current models. There was the added bonus that the eco-fanboys that came along blew plenty of smoke up his arse, and what self-respecting narcissist can refuse that kind of rectal breeze. He couldn't give two shits about the environment, which is probably why he got the arse with the guy who kept tweeting where his personal jet was.

Microsoft adds features to Windows 11 monthly – managing it is your problem

Mark 65

Re: Yet another reason to never upgrade from win 10.

They seem like they are going out of their way to make their product untenable

Meta cranks Zuckerberg's personal security budget to $14m while cutting everything else

Mark 65

He wouldn't need to spend anywhere near that if he wasn't such a c*nt.

Software engineer accused of stealing $300k from employer was 'inspired by Office Space'

Mark 65

....and be more patient and make the theft more subtle - you may then get away with it.

Microsoft: Whoops, Patch Tuesday might screw your database connections

Mark 65

Re: JFC! do they actually test anything these days

Clearly they didn't even test it on their "latest and greats" Windows 10/11, which should be the absolute bare minimum of testing considering the size of the userbase.