Posts by Dostoevsky

Scientists demonstrate X-rays as a way to zap asteroids out of Earth's path

As always...

...the answer is *moar nukes!* See this Cold War-era program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casaba-Howitzer

Microsoft on a roll for terrible rebranding with Windows App

Re: Is my understanding correct?

ROFLMAO

I mean, at least they finally settled on a consistent UI design vocabulary.

Oh, wait...

SiFive expands from RISC-V cores for AI chips to designing its own full-fat accelerator

Re: But wait ... there's more!

I'd never heard of "Propeller" before. That was a neat read; thanks! I like the idea of automatic parallelization, and this sounds like an interesting way to go about it.

The empire of C++ strikes back with Safe C++ blueprint

Counter reset.

Days Since C++ Tried to Shoehorn in Memory Safety: 0

AMD sharpens silicon swords to take on chip and AI rivals

My laptop's RTX 3060Ti works flawlessly. Even Linus has said Nvidia went from being on his shit-list to being a useful contributor.

China’s quantum* crypto tech may be unhackable, but it's hardly a secret

Spot On

<insert nailed-it.gif here>

Upgrading Linux with Rust looks like a new challenge. It's one of our oldest

Re: Why a new language?

Graydon's design for Rust had a GC and green threads. It was Go, before Go was popular. Obviously it's been out of his hands for a while now.

Re: Why a new language?

It has a formal definition, just not a stable ABI. Its design was consolidated from many sources, most of them academic.

Re: discipline

Bro has never heard of COBOL.

Re: Why a new language?

Ada is a good language, and definitely an inspiration for Rust. It's just so little used...

BOFH: The Boss is right, the applications of AI are truly staggering

Loved It!

Very clever! Just the thing to lighten up my Baby's-First-Java-Program grading session.

Top marks!

MongoDB CEO says if AI hype were the dotcom boom, it is 1996

I wish I were that old. Truly a golden age of tech.

Pat Gelsinger's grand plan to reinvent Intel is in jeopardy

Re: Meanwhile, back in the real.world, things cut both ways

No worries! I get it! ;)

Re: Meanwhile, back in the real.world, things cut both ways

That's why I put "Sarcastic" in the title of my post. Obviously it's a terrible idea in this situation, even though some would argue otherwise.

Drastic (& Sarcastic) Solution

In the 19th century Great Britain had a law that no foreign vessels could be loaded in British ports. This ensured Britain always had a strong maritime industry, even when France could ship more cheaply.

Intel Foundry's problems would be solved overnight if the federal government banned chip imports from overseas.

Google says replacing C/C++ in firmware with Rust is easy

I like using Rust, but *boy* is it bad for prototyping. I've heard that some people mock up components in Python and then port 'em.

Firefox 130 lands with a yawn, but 131 beta teases a long-awaited feature

Definitely Yawning

Wow. Vertical tabs. Much yay.

Seriously, I suspect this is more of an issue for Firefox users, given that Firefox's tab bar and header are 1½× the size of Chromium's (for no good reason).

Now if they can just make it run faster, and make it live up to the whole privacy thing...

Axiom Space dials up Nokia to connect moonwalkers to 4G

Cool!

Now we just need someone over there to use it. They aren't getting there with the Congressional Launch System—I know that much.

Shein, Temu escalate epic e-commerce squabble

Re: "late-stage capitalism"

Thank you. You're right to say that free market economists mostly discuss over-regulation. There's a reason for that, though. Adam Smith's point is that a free market will usually maximize the welfare of its constituents without intervention. Removal of overregulation should naturally "improve the lot of the common man," which is why they discuss one and not the other.

Re: "late-stage capitalism"

Finally, someone in the Reg commentariat that has a functioning brain.

I always cringe a little when people argue against capitalism while enjoying all its benefits, like electronics and decent, readily-available healthcare.*

* Does not apply if you are British. Contact your local MP to claim compensation. :)

Re: "late-stage capitalism"

He was very explicitly against regulating markets, and your statement to the contrary makes me think you never read his book.

This uni thought it would be a good idea to do a phishing test with a fake Ebola scare

Re: Priorities?

Email is not the proper channel for public health warnings. That'd be what official postings and websites are for.

Windows 11 Insider preview brings new Sandbox features and fatter FAT32

I was gonna say MS has reinvented the Flatpak, but it sounds like it's a bit different...

Shots fired as AT&T and Verizon ask FCC to block Starlink's direct-to-cell plans

Yeah, there're ways of specifically expressing what that sentence is trying to say. Ah, English... so simple, yet so complex.

If a cheesy '80s flick is a good metaphor for how you run projects, something is wrong

Re: Oh, right

Classic.

Texas sues GM for selling driver data to analytics, insurance companies

Re: Crazy Idea -- Privacy Law

Not at the federal level! That's for the states' legislatures to handle.

Why? Because I know where my state reps live.

Re: Awesome!

Yep. Then he was acquitted. He's a politician, so clearly he's not a straight dealer, but IDK whether he actually did anything worthy of impeachment.

Awesome!

I'm proud of the TXAG—we need more of this!

Palo Alto Networks execs apologize for 'hostesses' dressed as lamps at Black Hat booth

Who in their right mind...?

I mean, c'mon. It didn't even look good aesthetically. What was the point?

NASA's NEOWISE asteroid spotter turned off for the final time

Kudos.

True NASA-style precision overengineering and ingenuity.

Faulty instructions in Alibaba's T-Head C910 RISC-V CPUs blow away all security

Re: Only on T-Head's CPUs

"Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."

HT to A.C. Clarke

DARPA suggests turning old C code automatically into Rust – using AI, of course

Who knows...

...it might even work.

My experience with LLMs—probably a year out-of-date by now—is that they did a decent job of translating the usual business logic. But weird memory access or pointer math was a bit too big a byte to chew. Haha.

Linux updates with an undo function? Some distros have that

Re: Atomicity

Valid points on sandboxing. It's also not feasible for things like the coreutils and stuff.

I think my Pixel has automatic recovery—at least, that's the sense I get from the Coreboot stuff—and I'm sure it could be implemented on true computers.

I'm sure there is a market, as the author says, for making something as capable as Linux and as robust as a mobile OS. There's also a market for the desktop OSes we have now!

Atomicity

I do like the idea of the NixOS or Guix "atomic upgrade and rollback." It's like git for an operating system. Those distros are just too weird for me to actually want to use them. I'm comfortable using Timeshift to recover files or undo changes, and I *had* manually set up a poor-man's A/B partition scheme. However, I haven't seen a problem in years, so I ditched that for a default partition layout.

If a businesslike Linux distro (i.e. not blue-haired NixOS gamers) decided to create a new, more robust package manager, and use A/B boot partitions, I'd hop on board after a few years. I think mobile devices get this right—OTA updates, sandboxed applications, and fool-proof system upgrades...

Meta to cough up $1.4B to end fight over 'unlawful' facial recognition of friends

Re: Texas?

Here's the definitive report—thanks, Rockefeller Institute—and yes, lots of states do better. But they also have higher proportions of high-wage-earners and large businesses, which, thanks to the progressive tax scale, pay much more than middle- & lower-class workers, or small businesses.

Check out the 2015-2016 data. Texas was one of 12 states paying more than was received, and that was probably when I heard this...

https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-payments-portal/

Heh. Texas is not exactly strapped for cash as it is—we're one of the few states that put more money *in* to the federal government than we get out of it—and as a citizen, I'm curious to see what happens with this money.

We just voted on amendments to create billion-dollar funds for water, broadband, and energy infrastructure.¹ I'd love to see this go in one of those, though I don't know the rules on its usage.

1. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/11/07/texas-constitutional-amendment-election-results/

CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor also linked to Linux kernel panics and crashes

Re: Yeah, this was fun...

Oof! Actually, I'm fortunate to live a couple hours east of Dallas in the "Piney Woods." My car was parked at DFW, though, so I had to stop there first.

Re: Yeah, this was fun...

LOL, yes. I've been referring to it as my "impromptu Southwestern road trip."

Yeah, this was fun...

Just drove from San Francisco to Dallas in two days flat to make it home in time for work. There were no flights to be had once mine canceled, and the drive was faster. Yuck.

How to maintain code for a century: Just add Rust

Re: I am not too sure...

I've ported some FORTRAN numerical analysis code to more modern languages (including Rust!) and I can testify that FORTRAN is arcane, but still amazing.

Semiconductor shares slump – possibly thanks to Biden and Trump

Not Policy...

Biden *said* we'd become militarily involved if the PRC invades the ROC. The State Dept. and press staff immediately walked this back, allowing us to maintain our *official* policy of strategic ambiguity on the issue.

'Gay furry hackers' say they've disbanded after raiding Project 2025's Heritage Foundation

Re: Misconceptions galore there

Yeaaaaah, I'll pass. I'm sure we can all find much better ways to spend our time, no?

Trump threatens to send Meta's Mark ‘Zuckerbucks’ to prison if reelected president

That might happen if I vote red.

On the other hand, if I vote blue, my vote in 2028 won't matter either—I'll be paying $30/gal. of gasoline by then.

I'm damned if I do & damned if I don't.

The central issue in American politics **should** be building a sound currency. Unfortunately the dollar and Social Security are the third rail of our politics—step on them and die.

Palantir, Oracle cosy up to offer Karp firm's tech across Big Red's cloud

Re: Why do I get a picture

↑↑↑ This wins today's internet. ↑↑↑

Evolve Bank & Trust confirms LockBit stole 7.6 million people's data

Youch.

This is every bank's worst nightmare. Even without regulatory actions such as fines and changes in the Board and C-suite, they've lost the community's trust.

If there's one thing people won't risk losing, it's their money. I bet at least a third of those depositors will bail in the coming months. This bank is as dead as canned Spam.

My bank once had to sent letters about a third-party home insurance provider that had a minor breach. I had no end of homeowners/mortgage-holders who were scared to death their "accounts had been hacked."

I shudder to think what EB&T's employees must be feeling...

Texas court blocks FTC noncompete ban, and you can blame SCOTUS

Good!

If the FTC would regulate employment contracts, maybe it would also regulate, say, union membership?

Texas is a right-to-work state, where I don't have to deal with union BS if I don't want to. I'll keep it that way, thanks. At least it'll be my state leaders legislating instead of federal reps with a million-person constituency, and their bureaucrat henchmen...

Brace for new complications in big tech takedowns after Supreme Court upended regulatory rules

Re: Separation of Powers

My thoughts exactly!

Re: It's actually good.

> ...US constitution went out of its way to make it difficult for the federal government to do a great deal...

Exactly. The retrenchment clauses, supermajority, and approval of amendments by the states' legislatures all keep the federal government from changing its powers.

Of course, FDR sidestepped all that by creating a whole host of agencies, some of which were declared unconstitutional by the SCOTUS. Then he threatened to pack the court, they shut up, and things have gone downhill ever since.

Re: It's actually good.

Yes, stare decisis is important, but it's not the final arbiter. Remember, the Court ruled that people of African descent couldn't be citizens once upon a time. (Dred Scott v. Sandford) That precedent was overruled when the Court found it unconstitutional, and when an amendment was passed—thank heavens.

Your last paragraph is very well said! The price being set by unelected bureaucrats is taxation without representation—exactly what we are trying to avoid.