Posts by Wensleydale Cheese

The Pearly Gates

"Then I've got some bad news for you: the Pearly Gates have been upgraded to 2FA and moved into the cloud."

I thought they were supposed to be "in the cloud" already?

You believed the glossy brochures and marketing!

On a side note, do photos of senior management generally look less flattering when accompanying poor financial results?

Next time you are perusing the financial press, keep an eye out for senior management mugshots accompanying articles about companies reporting bad results.

Invariably, such mugshots were taken in happier times and it can be quite surreal looking at a set of beaming faces under a headline reporting a disaster.

Re: Had been together with a barrister myself

'That ever-so-witty company Amber Taverns recently renamed a pub in Gloucester "The Doctors".'

I came across a pub in the 80s called "The Office".

Weekend excuse "I'm just popping into The Office for a couple of hours" sounded plausible.

Pity it wasn't a good enough pub that I actually wanted to spend a couple of hours of precious weekend time there.

Re: Eleven year old security bug

2017-02-23 Security update for Linux kernel containing this patch (and others) arrives for latest stable version of openSUSE:

• CVE-2017-6074: The dccp_rcv_state_process function in net/dccp/input.c in the Linux kernel mishandled DCCP_PKT_REQUEST packet data structures in the LISTEN state, which allowed local users to cause a denial of service (invalid free) or possibly have unspecified other impact via an application that makes an IPV6_RECVPKTINFO setsockopt system call. (bsc#1026024).

'Apple Ireland “carried out only routine functions and were not involved in the development and commercialisation of Apple IP which drove profits,” says Plea 4.'

That sounds awfully like they are admitting that the taxes should be paid elsewhere.

IANAL but it looks like they have shot themselves in the foot with that plea.

Re: When squirrels were squirrels and men were men

" Using tape is surely a great mechanical way to solve the problem. But it isn't necessary with a basic understanding of how computers work."

KISS principle.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Re: "hefty price"

2.4 pence per text.

Re: "immediately useful when it launched"

"My FF opens about a dozen home tabs and it probably takes about 20 seconds to load. Is that such a big deal once a day? I can spend that time adjusting the chair, putting the pencils in the right place, cleaning the specs, scratching the arse, etc."

I leave Firefox running all the time; startup is something I only do in response to new FF releases or OS updates which require a reboot.

Like you say, a delay while you can be doing something else productive isn't really a problem, it's more a matter of planning.

When I'm researching a particular topic I can easily get to a few dozen tabs and really, really don't suffer performance problems, except for overbloated websites.

Having said that, I do have my systems maxed out with RAM and that probably makes a big difference.

Re: Silver lining

"I don't think I'd trust one, nor the genuine-wipe on return."

What the article is missing is the advice given to visitors to China a few years ago, namely be prepared to junk any piece of kit you use there once you get back.

"How accurate can you be against a moving target at anything over 20 feet?"

Build your own trebuchet

"Y'know, Einstein said that doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result is a definition of insanity."

Einstein never used Windows.

P.S. Apparently there is some doubt as to whether Einstein actually said this.

Proof that if something is repeated often enough, it becomes accepted?

Hadrian's Wall

"Oh, hang on, there's a wall up there already..."

Aye but that would need to be improved to meet modern building regulations, and be classed as renovation, incurring VAT.

Could save a bob or two by constructing a new wall.

Re: Software does NOT happen by accident

"Highly-specific actions like storing and retaining data do not happen by accident! This function was quite deliberately built into the product, nothing else makes sense."

I'm pretty sure that the reason for this is to allow you to move seamlessly from one device to another using Apple's Handoff feature

Synchronising stuff on multiple devices is a tricky thing to get right so I wouldn't be surprised if there are bugs in there.

Short answer: Can't say for certain what happened here, but can probably blame Apple for lack of testing.

AGPL...

The AGPL requirement that code used in a web service be released as open source can be a show stopper for the very practical reason that not everyone has the knowledge or resources to do that.

Which would you prefer?

"Effectively, they watched it together, in their separate living rooms/bedrooms/kitchens."

While that might sound like a Grim Future, it's probably better than being forced to watch whatever my parents wanted (and/or putting up with their moaning when we got our own way).

On balance, a second telly in the house would have sufficed.

Blame HP

From 2010 Print from any email device to any HP printer from anywhere in the world with HP ePrint

Re: Occam's razor says...

I can confirm that last year there was a serious uptick in the number of email nasties coming my way which were in German.

It seems to have dried up since the end of December, suggesting that someone either got closed down or had a contract until the end of the year.

Re: Whats the point of an autonomous tractor?

"in places like the Ukranian Steppes a tractor can travel 10s of miles in one direction sowing seeds, spraying weeds or harvesting grain,"

That also implies coordination with other vehicles for refilling hoppers and tanks or offloading grain. Knowing how much you are going to use or collect on a given pass or per hour or per shift helps greatly with planning that.

Re: Stuck-in-time Overflow

There is some perfectly good old code out there that needs love too. ;)

The few times I thought I'd had a reasonably definitive answer to add to SO, it's refused to let me post due to lack of points.

I gave up trying.

Is SO ageist?

Beat me to it with R

"I would have thought the answer would be R and / or Matlab, in conjunction with an enterprise-level DB like Sequel Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.

As you say, serious data analysts look for R and / or Matlab. R can cope with more databases than you can shake a stick at, and that includes the latest NoSQL stuff.

R doesn't suffer from Excel's nasty habit of altering data

Re: How much to review your spam call messages?

Can overseas callers provide a number CLI? I thought part of the problem was that BT can only show "international" .

I can see incoming international numbers displayed on a phone in Europe, so that's probably a lack of willpower on BT's part.

Re: Ignorant Brit here

"In most places in the US system, 'freshmen' are first year, 'sophomore' are second year, 'juniors' are third year, and 'seniors' are fourth or higher;"

Thanks for the detailed explanation, but what age is the typical 'freshman'?

Still a bit confused.

Re: Notting Hill Gates...

Pimlicloud gave me a good chuckle.

Re: It never stops...

In case you're out of the loop on what's going on in "Creative Cloud".

CC is also an acronym for Cash Cow.

A Cash Cow in the software world usually means a product which is no longer actively developed, but enough customers are locked in to milk it all the way.

Re: Write "not known at this address" and put in a postbox - ...

"In my experience, this does not always get the entry removed."

The last time I tried that, it all came winging back.

Threatening to invoice them for "administration costs" if it happened again did work.

Reboot the house!

"Not so long ago the politicians here in UK were getting concerned about the standby power consumption of appliances, that it was destroying the environment, and legislation was clearly necessary."

One idly wonders if this reveals the real purpose of "smart meters".

"No 47 Acacia Avenue using too much juice while owners not present. Reboot house."

... verbal gesture ..."

Huh?

That's the French version which catches the shrugs and arm movements.

Re: Magic hands

"Who thinks of these things? Two different types of on/off switch in two different places!!!"

Had that with a Samsung monitor back in 2010.

Assembled it, tried switching on as per the instructions. Nothing,

Checked the instructions again. OK, must be DOA.

Taking it to bits again I found a conventional switch just by the mains inlet. Black on black of course.

Checked the instructions yet again. Nope, the mains switch wasn't documented.

One sentence would have done.

Re: Much better

"As a self employed person I regularly ran updates especially on Fridays. I'd have the whole weekend to fix a potential problem...

But being salaried and exempt (US terminology for no overtime) nowadays I too see the sense of running updates early in the week and early enough in the day."

BTDT in both scenarios, but it was more a matter of when I/we could get the system(s) than employment status.

Production scenario: you can only book system downtime on a Friday or Saturday afternoon, but can work into the night if you have problems.

Test & Development scenario involving multiple teams: here you are not simply applying an upgrade which requires a reboot, you are implicitly including a test of shutdown and startup procedures at both the OS and application level.

In the latter case, it makes a lot more sense to do this during the day when your development and test teams and DBAs are around to sort out their bits in the event that something breaks. In my last position in this environment, any upgrade which required a reboot would be scheduled for late morning (but not a Friday), and we'd have the support of the various teams available for the whole afternoon. External support, if needed, could be invoked inside the normal 9-5 (or 8-6) cover without incurring out of hours costs.

Re: legitimate/illegitimate

It was probably auto suggest that screwed him.

There's a special place in Hull reserved for the inventor of auto-correct.