* Posts by Tweetiepooh

88 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Oct 2012

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The world is chaos but my Zoom background is control-freak perfection

Tweetiepooh

I work from my study so have always had book shelves, with books, in my background. We decorated the room so the books have changed with more theology titles on show (they are used) but like not readable given webcam quality and distance.

Atheists appeal to higher power for intercession over alleged sins against privacy

Tweetiepooh

Re: The AAI and IAA should get some arbitration from the

They could go and form the AAAI, AAIA, AIAA, or IAAA where one of the the 'A' is for anonymous.

While Reg readers know the difference between a true hacker and cyber-crook, for everyone else, hacking means illegal activity

Tweetiepooh

Looking at the vote, this is a bit of a lost argument. I guess because you are writing to readers of "The Reg" who do know the difference and tend to like precision in terms. They are also bloody minded enough to want to keep the terms for what they should mean rather than what the general usage is.

A Microsoft bork at the heart of The Oracle? Whatever next?

Tweetiepooh

3 minutes before a meeting

is nothing, what's worse is informing you as you shut down to go home that it is doing patching and to not turn off your PC.

ThinkPad T14s AMD Gen 1: Workhorse that does the business – and dares you to push that red button

Tweetiepooh

Re: Red pointy thing

Like others on here I use the mouse stick plus the 3 button mouse buttons makes pasting in KDE much easier. I get refurbished Lenovos for my family, put Linux on them and they have a nice little work horse to do school work etc on.

Ancient telly borked broadband for entire Welsh village

Tweetiepooh

We still use a CRT television

as our main set but it's only 15 years old, fits nicely into where we want it and it still works fine. As devices no longer have SCART outputs we may need to change at some point but it seems that anything with a good picture and sound is going to be huge (comparatively). Ours is 28" and that's OK, good speakers too.

Really can't see point in changing stuff unless really need to - dishwasher and gas oven are both 15 years old and work fine (I can't use induction stove), washing machine is 22 years old. (It's a great way to get rid of the appliance cover sales folk with great offers to cover appliances - tell them how old your stuff is they go away).

Tweetiepooh

Re: Need a rubber hammer

Clout is a term we talk about a fair bit but I've not yet tried : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clout_archery

Cool IT support drones never look at explosions: Time to resolution for misbehaving mouse? Three seconds

Tweetiepooh

Re: Impress the senior sysadmin

All it needed was a symbolic link "opencupholder" and you'd be made for life.

BOFH: Will the last one out switch off the printer?

Tweetiepooh

It was cardiac arrest in the bedroom with Miss Scarlet.

So how do the coronavirus smartphone tracking apps actually work and should you download one to help?

Tweetiepooh

Re: Good for data-less phone plans

Don't have any form of mobile phone for personal use. Don't need to want one. Have one for work but won't carry that around when not working.

Watch out, everyone, here come the Coronavirus Cops, enjoying their little slice of power way too much

Tweetiepooh

Re: Lord Sumption

Those who've grown the plants and have them ready now would likely consider selling them pretty essential to their ongoing operation. DIY places are open but hammers don't rot and plants do but garden centres are closed.

Grab a towel and pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster because The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is 42

Tweetiepooh

Re: fun facts

According to the Radio Scripts book Slartibartfast's original name was ...

Adams wanted to give him a name "anybody would be sad to have ... gross as it possibly could...broadcastable...started with something ... completely unbroadcastable...PHARTIPHUKBORLZ"

BOFH: When was the last time someone said these exact words to you: You are the sunshine of my life?

Tweetiepooh

Sometimes though

If you have had good service from the technical people or those dealing with the issue but you know they are hampered by bad practice/product etc you can fill the survey to that end. I have had good responses and seen changes in the vendors methods but that maybe an exception.

LastPass stores passwords so securely, not even its users can access them

Tweetiepooh

It not just remembering passwords

it's entering those long random strings in to the right box with the right userid. It's hard enough on a proper keyboard, on a phone it's much harder though to be fair some can link the login to biometrics so you can use that sometimes. Yes cut/paste is available from a different store.

Cheque out my mad metal frisbee skillz... oops. Lights out!

Tweetiepooh

Re: Nice to read this

To really annoy cheque processing:

If your branch is in Wales, get a bilingual cheque book and fill them in in Welsh. The report I had was someone had to phone the branch and spell out the amount in words (numbers are pretty much the same). And the bigger the amount the more words the more spelling. And sometimes Welsh has multiple ways you can write amounts 20 can be dauddeg or hugain (ugain) - I think the latter is closer to the old form of score - so 40 can be pedwardeg (4 tens) or deugain (2 twenties).

Just make sure you get it right. (Sorry for any spelling errors above, it's been a long time since I used the language of Heaven)

Lies, damn lies, and KPIs: Let's not fix the formula until we have someone else to blame

Tweetiepooh

Optional

The managers have to be above absolute zero else there is no where to rank lawyers and salesmen.

In a galaxy far, far away, aliens may have eight-letter DNA – like the kind NASA-backed boffins just crafted

Tweetiepooh

Re: 8 letters not needed - here anyway

All that "redundant" code is turning out not to be redundant but can control gene expression and a whole host of other functions. It's part of how different cells can have the same DNA but be very different and it turns out that mutation in the "non-coding" parts of DNA can be more catastrophic than changes to the coding part which as has been noted may include redundancy.

My 2019 resolution? Not to buy any of THIS rubbish

Tweetiepooh

I watched the programming on BBC Alba - failed to understand a word apart from those read in English from Twitter etc but there were English subtitles and the music mostly better than the mainstream BBC.

Shocker: UK smart meter rollout is crap, late and £500m over budget

Tweetiepooh

Re: “The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy"

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue is far more entertaining and creative than anything some Whitehall department could dream up. And greater longevity too.

Voyager 1 left the planet 41 years ago – and SpaceX hopes to land on Earth this Saturday

Tweetiepooh
Joke

Ah the metric million!!

Developer’s code worked, but not in the right century

Tweetiepooh

Re: Because computer dates are numbers but real dates aren't

xBase did store dates with 4 character year but lots of coding just used 2. This did mean that rewriting a hospital PAS from Clipper 87 to Clipper 5 didn't need huge changes to the data. And you could change the epoch such that 2 digit year could be interpreted differently depending on usage. So in 1990

DOB : 31/05/91 would store 31 May 1891

Appointment : 31/05/01 would store 31 May 1991

British egg producers saddened by Google salad emoji update

Tweetiepooh

What that salad is missing

is some nice pieces of rare steak!

Engineer crashed mega-corp's electricity billing portal, was promoted

Tweetiepooh

Re: Promoted for failure...

Methinks the problem is promoting people who are good at their jobs to positions where they have to spend their time managing people who aren't.

It's Pi day: Care to stuff a brand new Raspberry one in your wallet?

Tweetiepooh

Re: Dates

I can never see why people want to use MM/DD, well actually maybe I can depending on how you say dates. Do you say "March the 14th" or "14th of March"?

BTW, Growing up in South Africa in the 70's we were taught to write dates 'YYYY Month DD'.

Firefox to emit ‘occasional sponsored story’ in ads test

Tweetiepooh

As long as suggestions don't interfere with pinned items in new page tab I wouldn't likely see them anyway. If they do interfere that would not be good.

UK.gov puts Suffolk 7-year-old's submarine design into production

Tweetiepooh

Re: Lighten up Francis....

Absolutely and who knows if this now turns into a new efficient design that no one every thought of because it's just silly. OK at 7 the chances are the child just drew something but good things have come because someone who doesn't know it's impossible does the impossible.

Shady US sigint base upgrade marred by stolen photograph

Tweetiepooh

With these bases unless there is risk to flyover (actual risk to work, transport, sensitive information) why bother enforcing a no-fly. That just indicates there is something "going on" and attracts attention.

A collection of domes in a field with some supporting infrastructure is hard to hide from physical view and not preventing flyovers really isn't compromising things. I'm sure they'd be aware of the difference between some hot air balloons occasionally passing over and repeated intrusions of a more suspicious nature.

UK border at risk of exposure post Brexit, warn MPs

Tweetiepooh

No matter what your political leanings, given their history you could allow government departments infinite resource and they'd still find some way to cock up any IT implementation, miss the deadline and end up with something almost but not quite usable.

Windows Fall Creators Update is here: What do you want first – bad news or good news?

Tweetiepooh

Re: upgrade

One way around this if you have multiple hard disks is to put GRUB2 on to another disk's MBR and then set BIOS (or whatever) to boot from that.

When Windows needs to update with multiple reboots, switch back to the primary disk and let Windows do what it needs. Then once all stable again, switch back to booting from other disk and there is the Linux menu in all it's glory. And you can still select Windows if you need to.

Computers4Christians miraculously appears on Ubuntu wiki

Tweetiepooh

As a Christian I condemn this action entirely. If the disto is good enough then it will be used and doesn't need this sort of approach. Many of the applications used are easily added to other operating systems. This action is more harmful both to the distro, the organisation and the wider Christian community than it helps.

Foot-long £1 sausage roll arrives

Tweetiepooh

Re: Obligatory...

Given the nature of the pastry, I'd keep it dry.

The revolution will not be televised: How Lucas modernised audio in film

Tweetiepooh

My parents relate that just after moving us to South Africa (around 68/69) they went out to a cinema in Pretoria. This was a proper fleapit with the owner showing whatever film he could get that hadn't been in the locality for a while. They were amazed that many patrons were still dressed up with furs, jewellery, suits.

--

We also were in South Africa when the first Star Wars came out and that initial scene with the Williams fan fair then the essentially cowboys in space fast pace of the film. But you did have to get through lots of ads, 2 news reels and the "B" feature first but that was part of the experience.

I think that if you did see the film in a good cinema it stuck far more than maybe the better made later films.

Software dev bombshell: Programmers who use spaces earn MORE than those who use tabs

Tweetiepooh

We have 2 types of file we edit, in one the space/tab doesn't matter but in the other it needs tabs as a column delimiter. Guess what we don't do - convert tab to space - it's horrid trying to find why the code doesn't work and it's because the data file has some lines with spaces not tabs.

Japanese cops arrest their first ransomware-slinging menace – er, a 14-year-old school boy

Tweetiepooh

Re: for i:=1 to 9999999

If it's true ransomware then he wouldn't need to brute force. (Unless it was time dependant and the decrypt mechanism had expired.)

First-day-on-the-job dev: I accidentally nuked production database, was instantly fired

Tweetiepooh

Since this should be a controlled document it's not the (just) author but who ever signed the document off. Authors can make mistakes (likely a cut and paste from their production screen) but it should get spotted when the document is approved for publication which should have multiple signers to ensure technical correctness, non containing of "classified" material and so forth.

RIP Bob Taylor: Internet, desktop PC pioneer powers down at 85

Tweetiepooh

Re: ping bob.taylor

More like

Destination Host Unreachable

Prisoners' 'innovative' anti-IMSI catcher defence was ... er, tinfoil

Tweetiepooh

Generally agree about other spaces but

that would mean you couldn't go to those places if you were on-call and needed to be reached in emergencies. I would understand in some situations but not all. (Even though I think mobile phones are horrid things and I don't have a personal one at all.)

Man jailed for 3 days after Texas cops confuse cat litter for meth

Tweetiepooh

Re: Cat litter + evidence

Wonders about the result if moggie is on some medication that would turn up in the test!

Email security: We CAN fix the tech, but what about the humans?

Tweetiepooh

Preview email in plain text only

This is my tip and it's easy to set up. Most good users send plain text equivalent or you can get a "mess" but with something readable. You can see the actual links are from www.twesbarcoyd.co.ru and tracking pixels also show in just their HTML glory.

There are a few senders who don't make the effort and you see nothing. And where you do trust the sender (and their links) you can read in formatted form.

Nothing is fool proof but it adds another layer to the existing processes.

If you use ‘smart’ Bluetooth locks, you're asking to be burgled

Tweetiepooh

Re: Stethoscopes

Ours is the one with the door wide open that means everyone thinks we are in even when we aren't (OK happened once).

More seriously our road is the one with "P" living on it since almost when it first opened, who knows everyone and has an interest in what's going on. That means we could leave our door open and any misinformed individual who came around and found the door not shut by "P" or another neighbour would likely find a "taxi" with blue lights waiting to take him to his next appointment on his exit.

Medicos could be world's best security bypassers, study finds

Tweetiepooh

Re: Biometric systems

What biometric? Hands in gloves, covered in blood and other fluids, maybe mask on, face shield.

Maybe a solution is to have separate terminals and requirements in different zones, so terminals more open to "outside" use need more security than one in a clinical area where access is more restricted. You can also change what can be done so in areas like emergency treatment where getting info is more important that changing it make terminal read-only or limit what can be changed without additional authentication.

Why the Sun is setting on the Boeing 747

Tweetiepooh

When I was at growing up in South Africa we had a cub field trip to the local crisp factory (at a time when RSA had loads of flavours) and then to Jan Smuts (as was then) airport where we toured the airport hangers and were shown around a 747. The "upstairs" cabin on this model was more than the turn left on boarding. There were only about 4 or 5 seats, each big, luxurious and separate from the others. Had own toilets and washing facilities.

Are you the keymaster? Alternatives in a LogMeIn/LastPass universe

Tweetiepooh

You can share password on LastPass

In fact you can share but hide passwords so the agent/plugin will login the recipient but they can't see the password. I don't know how secure this is but I've used it to allow my kids to login to their own dropbox accounts.

Phone-fondling docs, nurses sling patient info around willy-nilly

Tweetiepooh

It's not communication within the hospital

that is the problem. In that case the "records" are accessible on the "secure" terminals. It's contacting the consultant on the golf course and he isn't going to be carrying multiple devices, affects the swing too much.

Soon your car won't let you drink. But it won't care if you're on the phone

Tweetiepooh

Re: Slippery Slope Indeed....

I think there is the charge of Drunk in charge of a motor vehicle, you don't have to be driving, just sitting in the driver's seat can do.

BOFH: Getting to the brown, nutty heart of the water cooler matter

Tweetiepooh

Thankyou

What a good way to end the week.

Look out, law abiding folk: UK’s Counter-Extremism Bill slithers into view

Tweetiepooh

conversely

Muting those with an "anti-religion" agenda on the same basis.

TomTom MyDrive brings satnav syncing to PCs and mobiles

Tweetiepooh

My SatNav used to work like this (sort of).

Plan your journey and points of interest on Google and send the points to the SatNav. Then you just join it together on the satnav. It has a built in phone chip so remained in the car.

Then it all started to fall apart : on board search changed from Google to Here, petrol prices withdrawn, Send to GPS removed on Google maps. It still has some features I like, checks for parking, has a tracker system (I can send an invite to someone and they can see why I am late).

I don't have a smart phone nor want one but the newer units don't have much of this unless you pair with a smart phone.

If TomTom have now started to provide some of this it may get my custom next.

Cash'n'Carrion restocks atomic keyrings

Tweetiepooh

I have some of the originals

when they cost ~£30 for 6 and they are still working fine. Made nice pressies.

BBC bins pricey Windows Media, Audio Factory goes live

Tweetiepooh
Happy

Re: And Radio 3 needs to be kicked off FM

Nope, don't have DAB and main stations I want are Radios 2,3,4 and Classic FM. All that nasty pop stuff should be pushed to AM where it belongs!

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