This guy is getting somewhere understanding tghis thing – https://twitter.com/0x09AL

If the virus is using Payte, and uses the DoublePulsar exploit it could in theory be hitting different machines with different payloads – Double Pulsar allows.

I can confirm that some machines show a generic disk problem error and others a demand for bitcoin payment. I also wonder if they attacked Win 10 and Win 7 machines differently depending on patch level, but can’t confirm that (since sat at home).

Either way it’s nasty for those affected.

Looks like it might be payte but spread using the Petrwrap malware. This can make use of the Eternal Blue SMB exploit – or just use PsExec to remote execute commands on domain joined machines that are accessible.

PetrWrap: the new Petya-based ransomware used in targeted attacks

In terms of value for money, the carriers whilst expensive are definitely better value than their US Super Carrier counterparts – for the price of the USS Ford we could have 3 x QE class carriers.

It’s too late now to harp on about CATOBAR; the decision should have been taken around 10 years ago to either build them that way, or just replace the 3 light carriers, with 3 more light carriers…

Now that we have them, I’m sure we’ll get good value. The expected life-span is 50 years, and as pointed out drone tech is coming along rapidly and can do all sorts of clever things without a bag of meat to carry.

For those that slate the F35B, it is late, and it is expensive but from what I’ve read/been told/understand it will be a game changer. The old RAF Tornado F3’s proved themselves in exercises against proper fighters like the F16 once they were properly upgraded with data-links and BVR weapons. The F35B has that and will be more capable that the Harrier ever was.

Could we put some Sea Harriers on them? Yes, but the School of Flight Deck Operations at RNAS Culdrose might be a bit miffed to lose their toys, and Sharky Ward is a bit long in the tooth now 😀

If it’s an old company machine that they are letting you have, you should check if the BIOS/UEFI is protected with a password. If so I’d ask IT to remove that as it might cause you grief later on if you need to change something.

Other than that you will likely need some media (DVD or USB stick) with a base Windows install. Company machines often have an Enterprise Edition installed even if they have a sticker with an OEM Pro or Home Edition. If your company has done something like this e.g. installed Enterprise Edition using the company licence you ought to remove it, if it is no longer considered company property…

…not that anyone would likely care.

TBH where I work if they did this kind of thing IT would insist on cleaning the laptop up and removing all company software before letting you have it. Maybe they’ll do that for you?

Battle Cry of Freedom. James McPherson

This is very good. One of the key sources on my degree 20 years ago, I still occasionally thumb through it.

FFS Drac, Piemonster was on the other list!

It’s a pointless forum, the only good thing in there were the pictures of Louise. Who would have thought that a lady of those qualities could have done such a thing, and to a wood burning stove too!

I used Yammer, used it to raise a query as to why we (a state/tax payer funded organisation) were being charged over 1000% mark up on a part.

Yes, Yammer’s not for anything that could rock the boat, it’s like a safe space for senior mangers and fluffy departments like HR to communicate things down to the minions. Posting on Yammer is like announcing your presence as a trouble maker.

Slack is like the unofficial (because it is) place where the technical ineptitude of our glorious leaders is called into question. The person who sends one of them an invite will be sent to Coventry, and we’ll have to go hang out on a private Mastodon server or something (STW?) instead 😀

Not so long ago we witnessed a family in a restaurant with 2 kids aged approx 5 & 3 both creating a bit of a fuss. Out came two tablets propped in front of the kids for the whole meal – ffs!

Meh, in principle it’s the same as pulling out the colouring books or favorite cuddly toy to distract the child. I prefer the Spanish method which is to let the kids just freely play in the restaurant – you’d probably be ranting about selfish parents not controlling their kids if they did that 😀

You ‘chat’ via ‘Skype for Business’ (think 21st century MSN messenger if you’re not using it now.) because it’s freer to chat than e-mail, but can be recovered later like e-mail for reference.

The millennials in my company hate Skype, they insist on using Slack.

I now have to use;

email
Skype for business
Microsoft Teams
Slack
Yammer

depending on which team I am interfacing with; some of the guys are in their 50’s and wonder how I know about stuff when they seen nothing on email.

We can also age our engineers/sysadmins by platform;

Mainframe – 50’s
Unix/Oracle – 40’s
Windows/SQL Server – 30’s
Can I download it from Docker-Hub? – 20’s

Temperature has a lot to do with flavour – especially pilsner type beers which need to be drunk at a cool temperature to stop them tasting like piss…

My theory is that if you pour a canned Stella into a chilled glass it tastes more or less the same as straight from a chilled bottle. If sipped/quaffed straight from the can, you taste the metal – and possibly rats piss where they have crawled allover the cans in the warehouse 🙂

I bought a MotoG4 when my 630 died, I am very happy with it.

Where I live I don’t get to vote for Tories or Labour. It’s a toss up between some independents, greens or UKIP.

I’ll probably vote green, I don’t much like the Speaker of the House.

+1 Sandwich, I completely agree.

My wifes old Mini Cooper S used to benefit from the super petrol, not by much; I believe it had a knock sensor. In the V6 MG ZT I drove at the time it made no difference to performance or economy.

In the diesel pug 407 I now have the super diesel sees it get a few more mpg. I once got over 700 miles out of a full tank – practically all motorway miles. 650 is about the best I’ve ever had on normal diesel for the same kind of driving.

Both AMD and Nvidia now bundle software for recording your gaming. You can also download other apps that do the same.

Minecraft is not that taxing so ~ £100 graphics cards are more than fine e.g. AMD RX560 or Nvidia GTX1050. Those would also be able to run Elite on lower settings.

If you have a budget around £150-£175 then a 4GB RX570 would more than meet your needs and your CPU shouldn’t have problems keeping up for 90% of games out there. An nvidia 1050Ti or 1060 would be the other option.

There are loads of flight sims available. For a gaming/dog-fighting one world-of-warplanes seems to have fans. I have not tried it, but it’s free (with paid for add ons).

If that’s too arcade like il-2 1946 would probably run on your current card and cost less than a tenner from gog.com and be a good intro into a proper ww2 sims (it has more recent successors).

If its fast jets DCS world is free for the base install with the more basic add ons quite reasonably priced (but I’d recommend one of the better GPU’s for that). Whilst it has got some simplified aircraft and missions it can still take a while to master and has some very realistic add ons that require a lot of effort to learn;

EDIT – some people might question DCS for a 9 year old… however I got my 7 year old daughter to land an SU 27 on the Admiral Kutnetsoz with a few of the difficulty settings turned down. It was great fun 🙂

Should definitely ask Rachel.

So, my mate got married a few weeks back. Turns out his wife’s middle name is Louise. Should I have said something during the ceremony?

The tables in the reception were each named after a cat from her life…

…I failed him. Didn’t I?

If it works for you, who cares?

If you really want Picasa it is still possible to download it:

http://dl.google.com/picasa/picasa38-setup.exe

Frankly, I don’t seem to have any ‘shut-off valve’; when others are able to say ‘I’m full’, I don’t know what they’re talking about. If I am at an event where lots of pizzas have been ordered, the only thing stopping me from eating every leftover piece is not that I am no longer hungry; it is the risk of someone noticing. And I am like that with pretty much everything.

I have this problem, becoming vegetarian has kind of helped, but it kills me when the kids leave perfectly good food on the table and it has to go into the compost, but at least I no longer clear their plates when they have pizza or sausages etc.

Can’t help but think cases like these are good examples a why organisations that expect to run software for potentially decades should now only use Open Source software.

The advantage being they have control over the source code and will be able to keep it patched etc. Obviously might not be cheap but would avoid the risk of not being able to do much when company X goes under or stops providing support for product Y.

I know of utility companies that are going the other way and replacing some FOSS systems with MS because hiring skilled staff was easier and cheaper for the latter – IMO it seems shortsighted given these systems have a Lifetime beyond the standard MS support dates.

Wife loved it, I just looked up from the book for the good parts. There were a few 😉

If you want to turn off some of the annoying crap in Windows 10 I recommend this tool:

ShutUp10

Much simpler than doing it all yourself.

This. I’d like to know where the magic line is so I can stay the right side of judgement.

That would be impossible…

…Single earning household, or double? Kids or no kids? Much of a mortgage – depends when you got on the property ladder, how long have you been earning, how much debt etc.

What sounds like a large wage could very well be just-about-managing to someone else, no?

The point is more money is required for public services and it has to come from somewhere.

&

We need more money to pay for more expensive and high tech society we live in.

To me this is commonly believed tosh.

If some government departments can’t perform their function with the billions that already gets assigned to them, then I doubt they would do any better with a bit more on top.

That’s not to say that many public facing services don’t need more funding to replace knackered kit, or to hire/train staff. How much money is wasted before it gets to where it is actually needed?

On top of that I believe the government now spends £10 billion p.a. on PFI repayments. How many times over does the public need to pay for projects? If the Guardians figures are correct we will have speant £80 billion for £10 billion worth of investment in NHS related projects alone. That’s just one department, the RAF tanker fleet will cost £10bn for less than £3bn worth of hardware.

I’m well aware you pay more for something on tick, but who on here would pay £1.2million in total for a £200k house?

We should be on the streets the way public money has been speant, and instead people think we should throw good after bad by taxing those who already pay more, more. Bonkers.

I think Corbyn is just chasing a few votes on this one, and has no real plans to tackle the problems facing public spending.

Yes, people earning £80k can afford to pay more, and at a higher percentage rate too, greedy feckers…

Oh wait, they already do.

Based on the Salary Calculator website with 3% pension contribution:

£20k basic
Tax = £1,580
NI = 1,420

£40k basic
Tax = £5,460
NI = £3,820

£80k basic
Tax = £19,740
NI = £5,120

Seems to me that the top 5% are already puting in at least 8x what below average earners put in. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work, why does it need further changes?

I’m a part-time veggie. When I am at home it is easy, Mrs BGL is committed. When I am travelling for work it is harder, if pushed I tend to go for fish but sometimes there really isn’t much choice if you want to eat a decent meal.

Since its only every once in a while I don’t worry about it. The main benefit is I very rarely (like once every 6 months) eat cheap processed meat.

I don’t miss bacon at all; a decent fish dish is what I will cave in for.

O&o shutup10 whilst you are at it to keep how much of you personal info you share with Microsoft.

It can also switch off some of the win 10 features you might find annoying.

IME it’s been the horses with nervous riders that seem to be more of a problem.

I’ve only every had one scary moment when near horses whilst on the bike and I was left with the impression that the horse and rider didn’t much like one another.

I’m not a horse person, so could be BS, but I suspect the horse was looking for an excuse to dump the rider based on what I saw way before I was near them 🙂

I built one of these over Easter with my 7 year old. Great fun, paid around £150 for it and now John Lewis have it for £110. Takes some time to build but recommended.

Is it because they’re seen to be getting closer to actual nuclear ICBM capability

There’s probably a little more to it – posturing on the international stage by a fat oaf with bad hair*

…but basically yes, the N.Koreans have a proven missile capability, and are seeking to build bigger missiles with the range to hit the USA. They also have a proven A-Bomb capability and are seeking to make them small enough to put in top of missiles.

Every test they conduct is an incremental step closer to having the capability to nuke a US city.

*pick your leader, it might apply to more than one 😉

I’ve experienced few things more terrifying than standing there waving arms like windmill shouting as loudly as I can at a herd of cows stampeding towards me.

I shit myself, but it works.

Probably even easier to sail into a port on the western coast of America..

LOL, good spot, quite… but Donald will be expecting that and will have Team America waiting for them 😆

Rather than suitcase bombs the Norks are more likely to have a diesel-electric sub and sacrificial crew willing to sail it into a port on the eastern coast of America.

Far more likely to work and room for a sizable a-bomb. – Kim has lots of subs that are hard to track.

My assumption here is that the US won’t back off. Trump clearly wants to go down as a President that fixed all the things his predecessors were unable to.

From an American perspective better to have the show down and possible war whilst the NKoreans don’t have ICBM’s and warheads that can hit California, than after.

I just can’t see a way the US could neutralise the North without there being massive civilian causalities in the South and possibly Japan as well when the North throws whatever remains back.

The news talking about it being blown up by cyber attack, implies that it’s controlled by internet connected computers.

This sounds like complete BS, but Stuxnet was able to jump the airgap to non-connected machines in Iran thanks to USB drives. So not completely implausible.

My bet is that the NKoreans are just going through the pains everyone else does with large rockets – getting it right is very difficult.

I’ve decided the last things I sold on ebay will be the last.

There is just too much risk involved and then all the hassle keeping the buyers happy so you don’t get bad feedback. It feels like you have to jump through hoops chasing couriers and troublesome buyers for too little reward.

I’ll just use gumtree and face-to-face sales in future. Put something on keenly priced and it’s usually gone quickly with no hassle or fees.

Based on my own experienced of ebay once the dust settles I think the OP is going to be £160 out-of-pocket.

Why I did a bioscience degree is beyond me.

tits

?