Posts by ParlezVousFranglais

Microsoft research shows chatbots seeping into everyday life

Hi, I'm Talkie! Talkie Toaster, your chirpy breakfast companion - Talkie's the name, toasting's the game. Would anyone like any toast?

Crisis in Icebergen: How NATO crafts stories to sharpen cyber skills

"while around 1,300 cyber practitioners participated remotely"

Presumably including "attendees" from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, which NATO will only discover next week when the transcripts for the whole exercise appear on the dark web...

Vibe coding will deliver a wonderful proliferation of personalized software

100% this - just because a bunch of clowns can hammer together a red bull soapbox to race down a hill doesn't mean they can design a real car, and that is proved by the destruction most of them leave in their wake.

Vibe coding is the IT equivalent - if you want to have a bit of a muck around, then go for it and have a laugh - but don't expect to design anything serious or dependable in any way because it will end in bumps, bruises and very likely complete disaster at some point down the road...

As humanoid robots enter the mainstream, security pros flag the risk of botnets on legs

Re: My Optimus is gonna

But just hope your better half doesn't find any "extra-curricular" uses for it while you happen to be out of the house eh?...

UK finally vows to look at 35-year-old Computer Misuse Act

Re: Before

Images of Snake Plissken destroying his cassette tape and later using the "Sword of Damocles" just brought a contented smile to my face...

I understand your position and comments, but actually I think your locksmith analogy sits a little wide of the mark.

To correct it, imagine an "internet" of doors - some locked, some not, some marked, some not, some doors need to be secured, some don't, some doors identify their owner, some don't, some doors don't even have locks, they just push open

Now in that world, you want to check that everyone who is supposed to have locked their door has done so - you can't do that without opening the door, and as as soon as you try to do that, even if the door is unlocked but should have been secure, even if the door has no lock and just pushes open when you touch it, you immediately incriminate yourself, even if the state of the door and it's owner was unidentifiable prior to touching it.

You can't get permission first if you don't know who the owner is...

I completely agree that any legal protections would have to be absolutely ironclad though, but for this, the scales are currently tipped too far in one direction, and it at least needs some consideration and input from various stakeholders to try to bring it back into balance again

Automakers' AI dreams may run out of road over the next five years

So there are car makers that think they'll be disruptive and make oodles of cash by adding something to a speeding 2-tonne chunk of metal that hallucinates, lies and is completely non-deterministic?

Surely we already have human drivers for that?

UK pushes ahead with facial recognition expansion despite civil liberties backlash

Have you not seen all those little blue flowers quietly growing under the solar farms?...

Scramble Suit (A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick for the uneducated philistines amongst you...)

That is all...

Bots, bias, and bunk: How can you tell what's real on the net?

Re: A few pointers

Plus:

People are tribal and prefer to surround themselves with opinions the same as their own

Torture the data long enough and and it will confess to anything

Datacenters that don't have their own power supplies will fail

"Dont worry about Global Warming! We'll soon have the technology to make it all better.". I.e Morons...

Not really - the people that say that are generally:

a) C-Suite execs and marketing people at tech companies and startups

b) NGO's who's income relies on CO2-related fearmongering

These people aren't Morons, they are simply obfuscating reality in order to earn their next paycheck

The Morons are the ones who believe that politicians can change the weather if only you'll pay more tax and concede more freedom...

We need to get back to the real harms being done to the planet - reducing sky-high levels of pollution, consumption and waste, and trying to prevent continuing destruction of rainforests (including bizarrely to host the latest COP30) and other habitats both above and below the surface of the ocean

The constant babble about CO2 by all of the usual useful idiots (here's looking at you BBC and Mr Millibrain) just allows these real harms to be pushed out of sight by the people and corporations who continue to benefit by greenwashing their product marketing, while destroying the planet in far more substantive and immediate ways

No - unfortunately those release methane and are not considered "Green"

Apply here to win a Microsoft Ugly Sweater. It's uglier than ever

1996 - Exchange 4 and the associated version of Outlook - IMHO the only reason that Windows is still around as the dominant business desktop. By managing eventually to all but wipe out Notes and Groupwise, that locked most of the business world into MS Office and thereby into Windows. (Exchange 4.0 was a sod for exploding without warning, and often a complete bitch to restore properly, but that's the fun of being in IT...)

Interestingly MS don't seem to understand that by slowly shifting the code behind Outlook from native Windows to web-based, that could eventually break the need for most enterprises to standardise on Windows

The real "year of Linux on the desktop" might not now be too far away... (much like Nuclear Fusion ツ)

Speccy clone storms back for Christmas without a shred of Sinclair code

Re: Real

Hate to say it but 100% agree - I spent untold hours playing Lords of Midnight (and it's sequel Doomdark's Revenge) on my speccy back in the day (great shout out by the way Liam - RIP Mike...) - I still own several versions, but beyond occasionally getting out my Interface 2 and slotting in a ROM - usually Jetpac, I just can't be bothered as it's such a faff - Retropie is a much quicker "fix" these days!...

Samsung reveals its first tri-fold phone – and its desktop mode

Re: Trifold?

I think it's just that nobody can be arsed to name the doors based on the number of panels any more - they are "bifolds" regardless of the number of panels

I'm sure when Samsung eventually release a phone with eight folding screens the same ambivalence will have long taken hold...

Re: Trifold?

You'd need a really small sheepdog though...

Re: Trifold?

Depends whether "tri-fold" is referring to the number of folds or the number of screens! The term onefold could happily be applied to a "normal" phone, denoting it has a "single part", therefore trifold for three screens would hold true - in this regard the meaning of "fold" seems to come from the Old English "-feald" suffix, denoting a multiplier, although confusingly the modern English "fold" is also derived from the same root, so your own comment is also a perfectly sound assumption - you've just gotta love english...

My "bifold" doors at home have 5 panels - go figure... ツ

Open Compute Project figuring out how to get quantum computers into classical datacenters

So if they successfully get QC working on a Pi, does that mean the proof will be in the pudding?...

Re: Opens box

"But we're not sure if it's dead or alive"

Palo Alto CEO tips nation-states to weaponize quantum computing by 2029

Re: Is 2029 a Realistic Date?

For anyone like me (QC "dummies" with a passing interest):

https://algassert.com/post/2500

seems that 15 is still the highest on purely a QC - has an interesting (and to me quite surprising) comparison on the potential additional complexity of factoring 21 over factoring 15

Also plenty of side notes and reference URL's for further "light bedtime reading" on the topic...

Re: From the C suite

Ah - so therefore the REAL money is actually in getting the AI to design Heisenberg Compensators for QC?...

But your average PHB will lap it up nonetheless...

Mastodon CEO steps down with €1M payout and a deep sigh

I haven't disputed at all "what he's entitled to" - I've just asked where the money is coming from

For anyone interested, turns out the answer actually is an injection of cash earlier in the year from Jeff Atwood, founder of Stack Exchange - $1m to Eugen as a golden parachute, and a further $1.5 million to rework Mastodon as essentially a hosting and support services company to put it on a more sound commercial footing, but as a non-profit.

That's the missing link, and tbh could have been included in the original article, as it's surely a pretty obvious question for anyone interested?...

Well-reasoned response to my question? Please feel free to actually tell me what I'm missing? If the $1m isn't coming from all those donations (or the promise of future ones), then where is it coming from?

It's a not-for-profit that seems to have been just about in the black over the last 3 years, with the vast majority of its revenue being received via donations.

Surely those donations are being made primarily on the basis of rewarding those who are maintaining and improving the software, so two questions:

a) How can Mastodon afford the $1m payoff, unless Eugen is just emptying the bank on his way out of the door?

b) Upon hearing of Mastodon allowing this "golden parachute" which essentially seems to be diverting an amount equal to all of the donations received in the whole of 2022 & 2023 into one persons' pocket, why on earth would anyone who has donated recently continue to donate when all that cash has just essentially "disappeared"...

What am I missing?...

Brits to help foot power bill for datacenters under government AI plans

Re: Yikes! Can we afford to stay here?

It's called the "Carney Effect" - Canada will unfortunately soon learn ALL about it...

Jeff Bezos gives CEO another go at $6.2B AI startup Prometheus

some of that cash comes from Bezos himself...

so just the super-rich equivalent of finding a quid down the back of the sofa and blowing it on a scratchcard then - at least it'll keep him amused until his next spat with Elon over who has the biggest ****

Britain's first small modular reactors to be built in Wales

Re: Claim to fame

And your ability to de-materialise at will ever since has come in handy on a few occasions?...

Re: Sounds dystopian.

So if the SMR's go all Fukushima, just blow the bridges and tow it out into the Irish Sea?...

Re: Sounds dystopian.

Google "Wylfa Data Centre (Prosperity Parc)", but ssshhhhhh!...... don't tell the locals...

Broken wizard forces Microsoft to issue out-of-band Windows 10 patch

Microsoft Presents: The "Legacy Love" ESU Program!

Are you still using Windows 10? Do you cherish the comfort of the familiar and recoil in horror at the thought of Windows 11's taskbar alignment? Have you decided your perfectly functional hardware should not be prematurely retired just because of a few arbitrary system requirements? Then the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program is for you!!!

We at Microsoft understand. We've decided to extend our "support" for your stubborn adherence to the past... for a small but annually increasing fee!

What You Get:

Security Updates! (The "Critical" and "Important" ones, at least). We will graciously continue to patch the massive security holes we ourselves created, but only if you pay the troll toll.

The illusion of choice! Pay us money, or engage in the thrilling scavenger hunt of earning 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points per year. It's like a free trial, but you have to earn it!

A failed activation process! Even some paid users are getting "out-of-support" warning bugs, just to keep them on their toes....

A clear message: We really, really, really want you on Windows 11, and frankly don't care if our incessant bleating makes you finally decide to switch to Linux instead

(Ok, ok, I turned to the dark side and used AI - I'll now go sit in a darkened room and self-flagellate with 50-pin SCSI cables from an old Novell Netware server in a vain attempt at repentance...)

EU's reforms of GDPR, AI slated by privacy activists for 'playing into Big Tech’s hands'

Re: Wrong priorities of GDPR

Sorry but unless I misunderstand your point, I have to fundamentally disagree.

What "actual challenge" are we talking about? The whole purpose of the legislation was to safeguard the personal data of individuals. Of course it costs time and money to anyone processing personal data, because the alternative is that there are no safeguards, and that any one can do anything with anyone else's personal data.

Of course IT Security is a challenge, but the reason it's a challenge is BECAUSE of the need to try uphold privacy. To claim that because people have had data stolen before, we should just give up trying to protect it, would simply allow unrestricted abuse.

And that is why NOYB have an issue with this, because certain individuals in the EC seem to be saying currently that they think that the rights of "AI" to have unfettered access to every last possible piece of data about everything and everyone, everywhere, due to some nebulous idea that it is the panacea to all the world's problems, is more important than the ongoing battle to keep people's private date private.

Maybe we should start by releasing into the public domain every possible piece of information about those members of the EC - what they lied about on their CV's, how little time they spend actually doing their jobs, what embarrassing little medical problems they've had, how much they get paid including their side-hustles, what tax avoidance/evasion schemes they're involved in, all the affairs they've had - and then when they are shunned by their families and colleagues and laughed at in the street, they can explain what on earth they were thinking...

EU/EC decision making happens at such a glacial pace that the AI bubble will have burst, and several huge AI-related personal data scandals will have occurred long before any changes are ratified.

Whether that will make any difference to the idealogues who seem to think that AI will cure all known ills, bring world peace, and finally reveal the question to which the answer is 42, remains to be seen...

UK unveils roadmap for replacing animal testing

Because

a) there are a lot of people out there who will say yes for money when it comes to eventual human testing

b) for many conditions, trying something new is the better alternative to there being no treatment at all

UK's Ajax fighting vehicle arrives – years late and still sending crew to hospital

Re: Typical MOD bid scenario

Proving that UK Border Force failing to stop drug imports is nothing new...

Re: Typical MOD bid scenario

Big Joe: We've got enough troubles of our own. To the right General Patton, to the left the British Army, to the rear our own goddamn artillery, and besides all that it's raining. And the only good thing to say about the weather: it keeps our air corps from blowing us all to Hell because its too lousy to fly, versteh!

UK military looking for tactical comms, systems suppliers in deal worth up to £9.6B

“specialized military grade"...

...meaning Security, Encryption, and compliance with GDPR are all optional...

'Windows sucks,' former Microsoft engineer says, explains how to fix it

If O/Ss were airlines - for those who've never seen it...

https://www.webaugur.com/bibliotheca/field_stock/os-airlines.html

25 years of meatbags permanently in space on the ISS

Re: One step forward, two steps back!

"What's next? We stop flying high altitude aircraft."

Well Concorde was "retired" 20-odd years ago, and no replacement for that either... That's "progress" for you...

Google’s Ironwood TPUs represent a bigger threat than Nvidia would have you believe

So teenagers have to have extra large breasts for AI to generate them some pron? Seems a bit discriminatory to me...

UK tax collector falls short on digital efficiency, watchdog says

Re: “HMRC has not yet achieved"

It's all just TITSUP*

*Taking Income Tax Showcases Unacceptable Productivity

Lenovo puts the 'cloud' in cloud computing, proposes mid-air datacenters

The idea will never take off...

'Vibe coding' named Word of the Year. Developers everywhere faceplant

To the BeeGees Jive Talking...

It's just your Vibe Coding, docs no one can read,

Vibe coding, chaos at high speed.

Vibe coding, crashing - what a treat,

Vibe coding, hey! isn’t this neat?

Vibe coding, coffee’s my best friend,

Vibe coding, bugs that never end.

Vibe coding, dream jobs? Just a joke,

Vibe coding, laugh while you go broke

Vibe coding, bugs love to attack,

Vibe coding, my deadline's off track.

Vibe coding, wasted all my time,

Vibe coding, HEY, THIS IS SUBLIME!...

You'll never guess what the most common passwords are. Oh, wait, yes you will

Re: 123456

Hail Skroob!

SonicWall fingers state-backed cyber crew for September firewall breach

I agree - I have no idea how they can claim they are now "more trusted" (press release written by AI?). Just because they avoided a more serious "crash" doesn't mean they weren't asleep at the wheel.

That said, the SMB firewall space is one that unfortunately seems to suffer compromises with alarming regularity - Watchguard, Fortinet and Cisco have all had serious vulns/compromises in the recent past, Barracuda less so but still not perfect, and clients in that space are often the ones without the in-house expertise to react continuously to barrages of emergency updates.

What still annoys me here is that the backups weren't encrypted by default before they were sent from the firewalls to Sonicwall's cloud storage, and that's just beyond stupid these days

UK space sector 'lacks strategic direction,' Lords warn

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Brexit. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new funding models, to seek out new strategies and competent government ministers, to boldly go where no split infinitive has gone before.

Boffins: cloud computing's on-demand biz model is failing us

So form a collaborative organisation globally to negotiate with the cloud providers on provision of resources for academic/scientific institutions - while individual scientists and laboratories may only need resources sporadically, the global needs at any given time must be absolutely colossal - such an organisation could also then gather and disseminate usage patterns and peak/low-demand times to provide more certainty for occasional very high-usage requirements

Coming up with a solution to this problem doesn't seem to be rocket science, given they are supposed to boffins...

Trump turnabout sees him re-nominate amateur astronaut Jared Isaacman to run NASA

Of course it does - the OBBB requires the NASA Administrator (which is what Jared is being appointed as), to "propose" a vehicle that has been into space and carried an astronaut and transfer that vehicle to a location designated by the Administrator

It doesn't specify Discovery, and it doesn't specify Houston, but everyone knows the meaning behind the text, everyone knows that it's going to end up with the lawyers, and whoever ends up as the NASA Administrator, ergo Jared, is therefore right in the middle of that particular sh*tstorm, or maybe not if common sense prevails - and that's my point, with Jared at the helm, common sense might actually prevail

AMD taking AI fight to Nvidia with Helios rack-scale system

Re: What the shit

"By 2028, we'll hopefully have at least 5 customers, some of which might even pay us real money. We're pretty confident we will be able to supply them actual working hardware, but this is likely to be either on time or on budget, not both"

There you go....

UK agri dept spent hundreds of millions upgrading to Windows 10 – just in time for end of support

No - that's coming in the 2026 contract amendment where DEFRA get to pay an extra £50 million for a "visual awareness adjustment"