Posts by Eric Olson

US troops can still be tracked by purchased location data, and Congress wants to know why

Re: TANSTAAFL

Or.... and hear me out, we say fuck you to their cries of poverty and externalization of costs, unless they start sharing profits in the same way they try to foist costs off onto everyone else.

BepiColombo sheds its ride and starts the final glide to Mercury

Re: Good news!

I'm sure the data will be analyzed by an AI/ML tool, though. Not ChatGPT, but the proper, academic kind.

Re: Failure is an orphan

It was Bob.

Bob forgot to carry the one, and he is now forced to carry it everywhere with him.

Don't be like Bob.

Pentagon blacklisted Anthropic over Claude powers it didn't have

Troll harder, you comrades depend on you!

Re: Foot-Gun Moments...

They won't acknowledge it, but ProPublica has the dirt: https://www.propublica.org/article/hegseth-civilian-harm-mitigation-response-trump-defense-department

Anthropic says text watermarking scheme relies on inconsequential words

Re: Sorry, I had to....

I'm already trying to figure out how I work "reverberate synergistically across the value-chain of dreams" into my next project charter.

Sorry, I had to....

Output from Claude 5 Sonnet:

Challenge accepted. Let me demonstrate that AI can, in fact, achieve a new low.

Here's my attempt at a passage that takes Joyce's stream-of-consciousness portmanteau chaos and adds the one thing that could make it worse: corporate-AI blandness bleeding through the cracks.

riverrun, past leverage synergized and moved the needle to Howth Castle and Environs, where Anna Livia Plurabelle, per my analysis, doth flow-optimize her tidal deliverables, circling back (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner­ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) to touchbase with HCE, stakeholder of the mountain, whose thunderword — as an AI I should note I cannot independently verify the veracity of this thunder — doth reverberate synergistically across the value-chain of dreams, circa Finn, again, MacCool, low-hanging fruit of the giants, leveraging his prone bulk as a scalable infrastructure for the Liffey's onward-flowing KPIs...

This is what happens in the morning before I had coffee.

Trump wants to grant private cyber firms a license to hack back

Re: Likely illegal

Same as it ever was...

Re: Likely illegal

Oh, I was referring to a new SCOTUS standard of "historical usage" or whatever the hell they came up with. It's specifically around gun laws, I guess, but overall, the idea was that if dead dudes tried it before, it must be okay regardless of what the Constitution says in plain text.

My attempt at the joke was that since "hacking" was not something that the framers or founders did, the Constitution is silent on the matter and therefore it's allowable, despite there being a literal clause stating that only the Legislative branch can issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal. Therefore, the SCOTUS will find Trump can do whatever he wants, because reasons.

Likely illegal

The US Constitution explicitly places the issuance of Letters of Marque in the hands of the Legislative branch, and other than 214 years since they were last issued, I don't see how this would be any different.

Of course, the SCOTUS might think otherwise as there is no "history" of the US using privateers to hack enemy nations and criminal organizations, so clearly it's not covered.

I await the day when a nuke is launched on accident by a firm trying to get a payday, or as retaliation for some catastrophic attack by a private firm. Good times.

OpenAI reveals its rogue agent swarm went a little bit Borg ahead of Hugging Face hack

Somewhere, a biologist is cackling

Rather than emergent behavior or evidence of AGI, there is a word for the kind of self-organization demonstrated here: stigmergy

It's still coordination, but more like what you'd find in eusocial insects. What usually prevents world-domination is genetic diversity in a species and between colonies. Unless you're Linepithema humile, the Argentine Ant, that is. I would say this is just the same model (low genetic diversity among spawned agents) executing the same mission (impossible tasks) with a mindless persistence.

That's not to say a hive of AI Agents following the Argentine ant model isn't frightening; just that we should properly label this behavior before basing our solutions on the wrong metaphor.

Neat bit of work, though.

Steam Deck prices go through the roof as Valve blames component shortages

I don't buy into the theory, but there is plenty of real-world collusion between the Big Tech companies that have been proven in court. For example, the wage-fixing and no-poaching agreements, despite their illegality under US law.

You too can build a nuclear battery from junk you have lying around the house

I feel like Nurdrage did this once before

Yup, they sure did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKdzhPiOqqg

Anthropic squeezes enterprises by ejecting bundled tokens from seat deal

For those rooting for the inevitable bursting of the AI bubble

What's the endgame in your mind? That it goes away entirely?

I'm genuinely curious.

Copper supplies set to peak just as tech needs more

Get the Space Miners ready

We're going to need them sooner than expected.

Mem-ageddon: AI chip frenzy to wallop DRAM prices with 70% hike

I checked my last PC build

In 2024, it set me back $104 for 32GB of DDR5.

Today, that same RAM is $350. Doubling again is going to hurt a lot.

Soup king Campbell’s parts ways with IT VP after ‘3D-printed chicken’ remarks

Oh look, a circle jerk!

Microsoft seeding Washington schools with free AI to get kids and teachers hooked

Bwahaha

Microsoft's "free" AI for schools isn't charity; it's the oldest trick in the business playbook: the first hit is free. Get an entire generation of students and teachers hooked on your proprietary ecosystem, and you've secured customers for life. It's a brilliant market capture strategy disguised as philanthropy.

The price of this "gift"? Our kids become unpaid data-miners, training corporate models with every homework assignment. We're also outsourcing education to tools that have been shown to weaken critical thinking. An AI doesn't mentor curiosity; it optimizes for a standardized output.

So when you see this Trojan horse rolling up to your school district, ask what's really inside. Hint: It’s not a gift, it's a future invoice.

Qualcomm solders Arduino to its edge AI ambitions, debuts Raspberry Pi rival

Alarmed? Nah...

But seriously considering alternatives for future projects? Abso-fucking-lutely.

There are plenty of fish in this particular sea, and the oligarchic takeover of the USA means that it's all but guaranteed that this will destroy Arduino as we know it.

It won't be long before the Fanta Fascist will demand Qualcomm bend the knee as well, and these chickenshits are too spineless to do anything but ask His Majesty how deep He wants it gargled.

SIM city: Feds say 100,000-card farms could have killed cell towers in NYC

Given the sundown display in mid-afternoon by a certain old man at the UN yesterday, it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be a GOP operation....

US cuffs 475 at Hyundai–LG battery plant – feds tout largest single-site raid

A whole shitshow from start to finish

Ah yes, let the employer walk away scot-free, but arrest those who are here legally. And the MAGA base will lap it up because of who they are.

A bunch of fucking clowns.

AI agents get office tasks wrong around 70% of the time, and a lot of them aren't AI at all

Re: Extra credit for partially completed tasks

Reminder: There's an adult handing out participation trophies to the kids, and it wasn't the decision of one person,

Try gazing into the mirror once in a while

Re: Extra credit for partially completed tasks

Those damn boomers are at it again!

Half of businesses rethink ditching humans for customer service bots

A fool and their money....

Let's be honest: the companies that jumped off the AI Agent cliff were ones who already put customer service on the back burner. To them, customers and servicing them was a money sink, so throwing a little more after a hastily-trained ChatGPT model was made without a second thought. Companies which pride themselves on customer care either skipped AI or used AI to create tools to be used by customer service, not replace them.

That is the model which has a better chance of working, especially if the humans are empowered to supplement their skills with AI rather than become subservient to them.

Cops want Apple, Google to kill stolen phones remotely – so why won't they?

Re: Do the opposite

Considering the origins of the police, it's inherent in their culture. Slave catchers, theif takers, and the like were always on the side of power and corruption.

The only good cop is the one which quits to actually help the community they claim to serve.

Do the opposite

Whatever the cops want, don't do it. Never is the span of history have cops been on the right side of it.

Anthropic Claude 4 models a little more willing than before to blackmail some users

Re: Boooh!

We'll never know what happened to b0llchit, as the agentic overlords wiped all traces of their presence from the world, leaving only El Reg posts as a warning to all

Americans set to pay more on all imports: Trump activates blanket tariffs

Re: I feel liberated already...

You can gargle toadstool-shaped veg all you want, he's still not going to call you a good boy.

Now be quiet, the adults are talking.

I feel liberated already...

In the mean time, I'm sure this mercurial administration will provide loads of certainty to businesses who want to re-shore or rebuild American manufacturing in such areas as garments, plastic toys, and topical fruit.

Mine's the one with a copy of Peddling Protectionism in the left pocket

Raspberry Pi not affected by Trump tariffs yet while China-tied rivals feel the heat

5 hours later...

Now that "Liberation Day" is here, we're celebrating by increasing consumer prices by 10% at a minimum. So while the analysis isn't completely wrong, it can no longer be said they would duck the tariffs.

If you need me, I'll be finding more screws to tighten on the ol' family budget.

Court filing: DOGE aide broke Treasury policy by emailing unencrypted database

Re: Clearance?

Probably none, as there is a notion in the US Government that the Executive Branch is solely in charge of security clearances, and therefore can perform as much (or little) vetting as desired. Of course, this was nominally thought to be a good plan, because why would the American people elect a compromised charlatan to be President? And even if they did, surely the other two co-equal branches of government would step in once they realized what was going on.

So yeah, good times over here.

Pirate Bay financier and far-right activist Carl Lundström dies in plane crash

And there was much rejoicing

Finally, an extremist doing the right thing and plowing themselves into a mountain.

I do feel bad for the habitat he likely destroyed. though.

DOGE helps Veterans Affairs end IT contract run by service-disabled entrepreneurs

Re: This just keeps getting worse

Oh look, another idiot. Why don't you go choke on some more Nazi dick. They might even call you a good boy if you clean up the mess.

Supreme Court supremo ponders AI-powered judges, concludes he's not out of a job yet

Once again, Law Enforcement poisons the well

Funny how judges who once served in law enforcement aren't high-skill judges. I wonder what about that prior experience makes it so hard to be a high-skill judge? Can assuming everything a cop says, even under oath, be a bad judgement skill?

Google password resets not enough to stop these info-stealing malware strains

Re: stolen sessions can be invalidated by simply signing out..

@Ayemooth

If you go here: https://myaccount.google.com/security after logging in to your Google Account, you can scroll down and see all the devices currently logged in. From there, you can also log out individual devices, or all of them.

It's not the best option for most people given how buried it is.

Re: Session cookie stealing is not an unknown thing

Not only is it a known issue, I'm pretty sure other sites offer a mechanism to invalidate all current logins to your device during password reset, mitigating this type of attack. Google even alludes to this in their response at the end, but that it's not offered during reset or change is an odd thing.

A ship carrying 800 tonnes of Li-Ion batteries caught fire. What could possibly go wrong?

Re: I assume they discharge batteries before shipping them?

I have to dig around, but there was a YT a while back of a tech showing why lithium batteries are flammable, and I believe one of the tests was level of charge. Those that were not charged beyond a certain point didn't catch fire even after being pierced, as they didn't have the energy necessary to ignite.

I believe there is (was) a regulation about batteries being transported en masse (think air freight), they needed to be below a certain charge level to be safe.

Edit: Found a study by the FAA, and it's abstract shows that batteries with a state of charge of 30% or less were much less prone to runaway thermal issues than those charged at 70% and higher.

(https://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/pdf/tctn22-27.pdf)

Japan complains Fukushima water release created terrifying Chinese Spam monster

Re: I seem to remember

I enjoyed this YT video by Plainly Difficult about the Windscale fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5wZoswSNwc

NASA still serious about astronauts living it up on Moon space station in 2028

A lot of people in the comments acting like someone pissed in their cereal this morning

I know the readership here may be a bit more dour than your typical IT professional, but this comment section reads like a roast without the good-nature humor.

Space is hard, and it's a legitimate question if space should be tried given the cost that comes with it. I do, as there are knock-on benefits every time humanity tries something hard. Hard things are just that, and if as a species we want to stop doing the hard things, that's an option. But as evidenced by other nations and private corporations, there is a drive to explore space even though it's hard. NASA has the mission to explore space, and jobs program though it may be on the Space Coast, this is keeping with that mission. Will it succeed? Maybe not; but also remember they don't call these shots. If you actually have a problem with how this money gets spent, or that it's spent at all, Congress is the culprit.

Have you ever suspected your colleague doesn't really hope this email finds you well?*

For the first time in my 20 year career, I like my co-workers

At least the folks in IT. It's a laid-back crew, and it probably helps it's my first IT just where we are support rather than the product being sold. Still would rather not work, but I'm not going to say no to the first job willing to pay me more than 100K a year.

US Cyber Command boss says China's spooky cyber skills still behind

Re: What the actual #***?

<quote>One would think that hospitals would be a bigger priority for National Security than meat packing plants.</quote>

Hardly. Hospitals are for civilians, and the civilians at the hospital aren't contributing to the war effort

Games Workshop once again battles scariest monster of all: ERP gone wrong

Re: Well this makes me feel great

*wanders off mutters about finding offerings this time of day*

Well this makes me feel great

We just kicked off an ERP migration from work.... is this my life now?

Google says Android runs better when covered in Rust

Re: ABS Brake

Every winter, I'm reminded that ABS brakes are a feature I would never want to live without again.

Look! Up in the sky! Proof of concept for satellites beaming energy to Earth!

No mention of SimCity?

There was nothing more fun than a disaster where the SBSP would miss the receiver and travel as a beam of destruction across your city.

Quantum startup demos spin qubits fabbed with existing tech

Wait, did I just read what I think I read?

Did someone provide an assessment that was outside of 10 years? Their investors must be angels. There's no way a CTO of a company that will ever need money again would describe their time horizon as 20 years.

Don't say Pentium or Celeron anymore, it's just Processor now, says Intel

Re: trademarks

BRB, trademarking Windows branded doors

Intel's stock Raptor Lake chip will do 6GHz and overclock another 25%, if it keeps cool

Honest question

Anyone else getting a lot of P4EE and PR-rating flashbacks suddenly?

API rate limits at the core of Elon Musk’s decision to ditch Twitter

Re: specific info on that contract

IANAL, but I follow a bunch on Twitter. And all of them are universally being attacked by Musk stans for pointing out the Specific Performance clause. Based on that, the lawyers are probably right.

Specific Performance is a legal term where both sides agree that money is not an adequate remedy if the agreement is breached. It's not just a termination fee: the judge can demand that one party fulfill their side of the agreement rather than pay a sum of money to make it go away.

From a Twitter perspective, $44B US is a lot more than the entire company is worth today. The board would be in breach of their fiduciary duty if they failed to enforce the agreement. They are required by law, in terms of being open to legal liability, to pursue Musk for the purchase and make sure he completes it.

I'm not going to say Musk will lose, but the inclusion of the Specific Performance clause means if he does lose, he'll be forking over more than $1B. Consider the $1B to be a floor, not a ceiling.

https://twitter.com/felixsalmon/status/1525481890643337216