Doesn't make sense
Why would the board not want him to leave? He's bringing the company down, people who want to buy electric cars don't want to buy them from a neo-Nazi.
Posts by VicMortimer
589 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Feb 2017
Tesla, Musk double down on $56B payday appeal
Haiku Beta 5 / In tests it's (Fire)foxier / It pleases us well
Thursday 9th January 2025 17:22 GMT 
It's a nice toy.
I've been playing with it for a while, stuck the experimental Firefox/Iceweasel on there last week.
But I don't know that I really see a serious future for it. There's a reason it's not Mac OS today, and Nextstep is - and Apple seriously considered it in the '90s. Sure, part of that was the annoying Frenchman, but it's just not as capable as a *nix.
One REALLY weird thing about it is how much faster it is to install than it is to boot, at least in the VM that I've been using to play with it.
Encryption backdoor debate 'done and dusted,' former White House tech advisor says
Sunday 5th January 2025 00:14 GMT
Re: It's simple.
Except that's actually not true. Here, read it for yourself: Mobile Communications Best Practice Guidance [cisa.gov]
How a good business deal made us underestimate BASIC
Saturday 4th January 2025 17:46 GMT 
You don't want files? Really?
That's just insane. PEOPLE KNOW WHAT FILES ARE. The concept has a real-world analog that makes sense to anybody. And what's the alternative, the electronic equivalent of a desk covered in massive piles of paper? Yes, I know some people work like that, but it's NOT efficient or sane. And yes, I know some computer companies have tried that stupidity at the user-facing level (looking at you, Apple) but they ultimately had to give up and put a file manager in and set up a folder mechanism for apps.
Ultimately, data has to be stored and just throwing everything into a giant pile is the stupidest possible way to do it. Yes, people SHOULD have to know what a file is, it's a simple concept and it takes minutes to teach the dumbest noob about files. If you can't grasp the concept of a file, you have no business using a computer and you should probably be in a care home so you don't hurt yourself.
BOFH: Printer's festive bips herald a merry mystery for the Boss's budget
Sunday 29th December 2024 04:11 GMT
Re: Christmas party
One of the good things about living in America is that stores are typically staffed by Americans - who are usually smiling, friendly, and happy to help. They're really happy when they don't have a bagger at the grocery checkout at that particular moment, and I bag my own stuff rather than waiting for one to show up.
The other day I had a really full cart and they'd closed everything but the self checkouts at 10pm, and while I'd gotten to the store before that I'd done a lot of shopping so it was about 10:15, and I apparently had a vaguely grumpy look on my face as I walked toward the self checkout, so a clearly happy employee who was watching them asked if everything was ok, and I said "well, I was hoping for a human as I smiled at her" so she immediately opened up the nearby register and checked me out.
I'd have tipped her, but grocery stores are one of the few places where tipping isn't allowed here.
How cops taking down LockBit, ALPHV led to RansomHub's meteoric rise
Saturday 28th December 2024 22:14 GMT 
Ban paying ransom.
There is only one way ransomware is going to go away.
A full criminal ban on paying ransom. CEOs of companies that pay need to face prison time.
Ransomware is about money, if that money is cut off there will be no motive, and without a motive ransomware stops.
ANY other approach is just going to look like an idiotic game of whack-a-mole. Go after the payers and you end the crime.
Naïve Reg hack thinks he can beat Christmas food comas once and for all
Supreme Court to hear TikTok's appeal against law that would force it to shut, or sell
Saturday 21st December 2024 20:20 GMT
Re: "their right to free speech"
You're forgetting the free press part of the 1st amendment.
Ticktock is, by any sane definition, a publisher of speech. This shouldn't have needed to get as high as SCrOTUS. This idiotically unconstitutional law should have been tossed out by the first district court to look at it.
Biden’s antitrust crackdown on tech M&As may linger into Trump’s reign
Saturday 21st December 2024 20:03 GMT 
Need a full ban on M&A
We're well past time for it. There needs to be a full ban on ALL mergers and acquisitions. There's not a single circumstance in history that consumers were not left worse off after one company bought another.
The ONLY exception would be a company that's going to fail and shut down otherwise, but even there it doesn't help anyone if the buyer is private equity, the business gets ruined anyway if that happens.
Coder wrote a bug so bad security guards wanted a word when he arrived at work
Monday 16th December 2024 17:38 GMT
Is there any way to pay other than monthly there?
And I'm not "in credit" on gas, electricity, and water. The bill is always exactly what the meter says, and has been for decades. They used to send a guy around every month, now the meter sends it in, but it always matches.
Maybe that's because I don't have a "company" - it's the government, through the local utility board. I'm getting ready to switch my internet to them too, they're doing gigabit fiber now.
Monday 16th December 2024 17:31 GMT
Re: Smart meters, but not so smart.
How long ago was that? I haven't paid for a phone call in decades.
Now that I think about it, the eras of paying for phone calls and not being able to talk to humans haven't coincided for me. The last time individual phone calls cost money it was fairly easy to talk to a human at the telco, just dialing 0 would get one on the line PDQ.
Google Timeline location purge causes collateral damage
Blocking Chinese spies from intercepting calls? There ought to be a law
Photoshop FOSS alternative GNU Image Manipulation Program 3.0 nearly here
US, China agree machines must not be allowed to control nuclear weapons
Will passkeys ever replace passwords? Can they?
Sunday 17th November 2024 18:45 GMT 
No and no.
Passkeys are a BAD idea. What they're going to result in is users in the real world losing access to accounts, and with the current (also stupid) trend of users storing their data on somebody else's computer, that data. Passwords are hard enough to keep up with, lost devices are a real thing, and this passkey nightmare is going to result in a lot of torment for a lot of people.
Passwords are flawed. Passkeys are worse.
Combustion engines grind Linus Torvalds' gears
Monday 11th November 2024 17:26 GMT
Re: Dumb interviewers
Hydrogen is a stupid distraction, it's a dead end.
It's incredibly inefficient and polluting to produce, has high losses in transportation, and is hard on components in contact with it. And it's explodey. Hydrogen makes sense if you're using it in a fuel cell on a space shuttle, but if you're not in a situation where you need the electricity and the water because you're hundreds of miles above the earth, you're stupid for even considering it.
Meanwhile, electricity distribution is a solved problem, we just need more chargers installed.
Batteries are the ONLY way to go. The vast majority of vehicles spend the vast majority of their time sitting still, that's time they could be charging if they need it.
That position you just applied for might be a 'ghost job' that'll never be filled
Sunday 3rd November 2024 16:03 GMT
Re: USA
He's wrong. Not only is it a federal matter, it's already illegal.
It's just that the FTC hasn't bothered enforcing it.
"It shall be unlawful for any person, partnership, or corporation to disseminate, or cause to be disseminated, any false advertisement—"
"(2) By any means, for the purpose of inducing, or which is likely to induce, directly or indirectly, the purchase in or having an effect upon commerce, of food, drugs, devices, services, or cosmetics."
"(b) Unfair or deceptive act or practice
The dissemination or the causing to be disseminated of any false advertisement within the provisions of subsection (a) of this section shall be an unfair or deceptive act or practice in or affecting commerce within the meaning of section 45 of this title."
"(1) The term “false advertisement” means an advertisement, other than labeling, which is misleading in a material respect; and in determining whether any advertisement is misleading, there shall be taken into account (among other things) not only representations made or suggested by statement, word, design, device, sound, or any combination thereof, but also the extent to which the advertisement fails to reveal facts material in the light of such representations or material with respect to consequences which may result from the use of the commodity to which the advertisement relates under the conditions prescribed in said advertisement, or under such conditions as are customary or usual. "
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/52#a
"(a) Imposition of penalties
Any person, partnership, or corporation who violates any provision of section 52(a) of this title shall, if the use of the commodity advertised may be injurious to health because of results from such use under the conditions prescribed in the advertisement thereof, or under such conditions as are customary or usual, or if such violation is with intent to defraud or mislead, be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine of not more than $5,000 or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment; except that if the conviction is for a violation committed after a first conviction of such person, partnership, or corporation, for any violation of such section, punishment shall be by a fine of not more than $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment"
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/54
Apple quietly admits 8GB isn't enough in 2024, M4 iMac to ship with 16GB as standard
Apple throws shade on pokey AI PCs, claims its maxed out M4 chips are 4x faster
Dropbox to shed another 500 staff, CEO takes 'full responsibility'
Saturday 2nd November 2024 21:49 GMT
Re: Time to pull out
I've got a client that insisted on moving all their file shares to Dropbox. I was even told to not maintain a local backup, that everything would be in "the cloud" now.
Needless to say I set up a local backup of all their files, complete with network shares already set up to make dumping those losers as quick as possible. The VPN is ready, all the accounts are configured, all I have to do is tell them it's there and ready to use. Already told one guy when he was having trouble getting Dropbox to work on his desktop, he's effectively already switched back to in-house. When Dropbox screws up again, they're gone.
Sysadmins rage over Apple’s ‘nightmarish’ SSL/TLS cert lifespan cuts plot
Wednesday 30th October 2024 16:00 GMT
Re: The solution...
Comcrap is hijacking port 53.
Found that out one day when I was trying to figure out why Mailinator was marked as a malware site, and I couldn't figure out how to bypass that. Turned out to be at the DNS level... But I run my own servers, so I whitelisted it, and it still didn't work. But when I remoted out to a site that wasn't on Comcrap, it didn't error at all. A bit more poking and everything I didn't have DNS records for was hitting the Comcrap servers even though I was trying to hit others.
Ended up having to play stupid games with DNS over HTTPS to avoid the Comcrap servers.
Beijing claims it's found 'underwater lighthouses' that its foes use for espionage
Wednesday 30th October 2024 15:03 GMT
Re: "...a prolonged great power war"
You're assuming that the nukes would get used. They probably won't.
Russia would have already used nukes in Ukraine if they didn't know they'd get nuked back if they did. And that's the case in any conflict, nobody will use one because they know how that ends.
Gary Marcus proposes generative AI boycott to push for regulation, tame Silicon Valley
UK sleep experts say it's time to kill daylight saving for good
Sunday 27th October 2024 14:39 GMT
It is, other than among these idiots who have styled themselves "experts".
The reality is that they've done no experiments, they've just decided having it get dark before we leave work in the winter is somehow good for us.
I know I'd rather wake up and leave the house in the morning when it's still dark or just getting light than have to drive home in the dark when I'm tired.
Permanent DST is clearly the best solution.
Ford CEO admits he drives a Chinese electric vehicle and doesn't want to give it up
Friday 25th October 2024 22:28 GMT
Re: They did
They're too small.
That's why.
Americans (me included) aren't interested in cars with that little interior space. I looked at them, and ended up with a Ford C-Max Energi. Not as much plug-in range, but more interior space. And one of the few things I don't like about it is that it's too small, I want more space inside.
Friday 25th October 2024 22:24 GMT
Re: For years I've wanted this
Nope, the Hondas are nothing like that.
Chevy Volt and BMW i3 range extender are pretty much it for what we've seen before. Honda uses parallel hybrid eCVT transaxles. The engine can directly power the wheels, and does much of the time. There's nothing wrong with that approach for a hybrid, my Ford does it. But it's not the same thing as a car designed to be an electric car with an engine that's only coupled to a generator and only kicks in when the battery is mostly depleted.
Qualcomm 'pausing' X-Elite Dev Kit, offering refunds
250 million-plus unused IPv4 addresses should be left alone, argues network boffin
Would banning ransomware insurance stop the scourge?
Wednesday 23rd October 2024 21:07 GMT
Paying should be a CRIME
What if the choice is pay $10 million and everyone who had the ability to choose not to pay spends a year in prison, is fined $5 billion, and is prohibited from being an executive or board member in a publicly traded corporation for life?
Paying ransom should be a CRIME. CEOs who pay or contract with 'negotiators' should go to prison.
And for hospitals - their contingency plan MUST include an "all systems are down" option that allows them to continue to operate. If the compromised systems include patient-contact systems actually in the operating room (which should NEVER happen, why were those not airgapped?!??!!!), then the contingency might be "Call the helicopters and fly these patients out of here!" otherwise it's "Grab a paper notepad and keep the surgeries going!"
Screw the casino. If they pay the ransom, they go straight to jail.
Tesla FSD faces yet another probe after fatal low-visibility crash
Friday 18th October 2024 20:55 GMT
Shut it down.
If the Elongated Muskrat won't end the idiotic camera-only failure, NHTSA needs to step in to recall and suspend the sale of Turdlas with any feature that allows the car to have any level of control beyond full human driving.
The camera-only approach is a failure, and should not be allowed on the road.
UK electronics firms want government to stop taxing trash and let them fix it instead
Geico tells El Reg, no, it's not canceling all Cybertruck insurance
Smart homes may be a bright idea, just not for the dim bulbs who live in 'em
Monday 14th October 2024 10:57 GMT
Eh, but...
Light switches are fine-ish if all you want your lights to do is on or off. But if you're feeling "ok, gimme a creepy Halloween scene" you're not gonna get it out of switches.
And I'm notorious for NOT turning lights off anyway. As in, I might go back in that room soon, better leave the lights on. So a few years ago I went pretty much all in with the Hue Zigbee bulbs, found them used on ebay because they're stupid expensive if you don't, and now it's almost all my lights. I don't use voice control, because I'd rather push a button (or click a button, I'm usually in front of a computer anyway) and I don't allow always-listening systems in my house. So I've got some repurposed old phones stuck to the wall, and a few Zigbee buttons, and I can have my lights any color I want anywhere in the house. Which honestly didn't sound like something that useful before I started doing it, but turns out it's something I absolutely love and use all the time.
It's got one hub that sits on ethernet, the wireless isn't WiFi, it doesn't have a huge attack surface, and my disabled girlfriend gets lighting control without having to struggle (or call me to flip a switch). And I don't have to remember to turn lights off at night, the automation handles that for some and turns the rest into pretty-color nightlights.
INC ransomware rebrands to Lynx – same code, new name, still up to no good
Saturday 12th October 2024 00:41 GMT
Make paying ransom a crime.
The only way ransomware will be stopped is if paying ransom becomes a crime. There's no way to go after criminals in countries that either don't care or actively support ransomware.
But we can go after the money. If a CEO who allows a company to pay ransom goes to prison, the money will stop, and the ransomware will stop.
Using existing laws like "material support for terrorism" to lock up ransom payers would be a start, but paying ransom really needs to be its own explicitly defined crime.
Ransomware gang Trinity joins pile of scumbags targeting healthcare
Wednesday 9th October 2024 14:22 GMT
Ban paying ransom.
The ONLY way ransomware is ever going to go away is if paying ransom is made a crime.
If CEOs go to prison for paying, they'll stop paying. And if nobody pays, the profit motive evaporates.
It really IS that simple to stop ransomware. Make it a crime to pay.
Hire a third party that "negotiates" and then pays? Make that a crime too. Lock up the CEO that hired the 'negotiator', and the 'negotiator'. Follow the money, and stop it at the source.
Domo arigato, Mr Roboto: Japan's bullet trains to ditch drivers
Saturday 28th September 2024 04:36 GMT
Re: Just to clarify a point
I have good news for you!
No, you probably can't really operate trains in Japan. But there's a simulator!
Saturday 28th September 2024 04:30 GMT
Re: Just to clarify a point
Some people PREFER to work at night. It's cooler, you don't have to wear sunglasses, and if you need to get something from one of those shitty shops that isn't 24 hours, you're off to be able to do it.
Working at night IS NOT in any way tied to long hours. My favorite shift ever was when I worked 4 to midnight, I'd usually get up around 2 and when I got off there was the rest of the night if I wanted to go out or just go grocery shopping. I wish I could still do that.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
