Posts by SomeRandom1

Microsoft updates the Windows 11 Start Menu

Re: Hey, Clippy

If you don't know history you can't learn from it. Those who fail to learn are doomed to repeat the errors of the past.

Not just IT

HMRC's Making Tax Digital scheme also made tax more expensive – by £300M

Ridiculous Complexity

They could easily make the systems simpler to implement by scrapping the ludicrously complex legislation and reduce it in size. Decades of plasters on top of bandages on top of 100 year old rules has resulted in an unworkable mess that not even HMRC can understand.

I don't see how any system could be expected to support it given the people who created the rules can't even understand them.

Re: Competent

It wouldn't appear any competent people have for the HMRC for quite some time.

Re: Small business VAT

Only when they receive them. If you were to get one, they'd want their cut!

30 percent of some Microsoft code now written by AI - especially the new stuff

Explains everything

It all makes sense now. no real people coding, garbage churned out based on historic questionable code. No-one understanding it, or testing it internally.

"Ship it to the users, let them find the bugs"

As for a uber-app combining Word, Excel and electronic crayons. The users I've witnessed can barely operate the stand alone applications, dread to think the support calls which will come for someone who can't format their table into columns like Word while making it fly in like PowerPoint.

I suppose eventually they'll shoe-horn Outlook into this abomination too. Programs aren't complete until they can email.

As ChatGPT scores B- in engineering, professors scramble to update courses

Re: Calculators

I see that as the problem - no-one is taught critical thinking and so cannot determine if the machine is even close to correct. When people don't understand how to get an answer, they can't even guess if it's correct.

As AI simply regurgitates / fabricates the data poured into it, then how will we ever advance if people are unable to produce the next step forward? Humanity will simply stagnate as the machine cannot do it for them.

London's poor 5G blamed on spectrum, investment, and timing of Huawei ban

Pointless

There's no point. Punters are sick of being told "99% coverage of UK" when it's clearly not. Dead spots in cities, zero signal along major roads and motorways. They need to sort out what is already in place before expecting people to stump up more cash for something that they likely don't need.

4G would be fine if it actually worked like Kevin Bacon's promises

UK's biggest mobile operator starts 3G switchoff, hopes it won't catch out April fools

Re: So what about the cars?

Handsfree uses the mobile SIM/network. The car connected services use an E-SIM in the car which is often multi-carrier compatible. But my understanding is they're all 3G. I expect to migrate to 4G will require replacement of the in-car modem which will likely take a main stealer 6 hours @ at least £150 per hour, chargeable to the customer of course

Workday talks up AI agents platform that will reap rewards of staff cuts

Re: The same company...

"It doesn’t particularly take any skill, domain knowledge, require a moral compass, the ability to demonstrate truth and honest …. or need a soul."

Those are pre-requisites for such positions, and ideal for replacement by the fancy guessing machines.

Google binning SMS MFA at last and replacing it with QR codes

Re: UK Banks

Can't say I'm surprised with Barclays, they're as much use as a bag of broken dicks.

Ghost ransomware crew continues to haunt IT depts with scarily bad infosec

Re: Path of least resistance

Not every IT and cyber security team are as diligent as one would hope, but they'll be reporting to the powers above that all is tickety-boo. Then they're hit and don't have the ability to recover - if they can't be bothered to patch, they're likely not doing backup and testing either.

HP deliberately adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls

Why I stopped buying HP

Do they honestly think that everyone *wants* to speak to a script-reading call centre drone who possesses broken English, who cannot understand what is being requested? The last thing anyone wants is to deal with them as it is so difficult. When it gets to that point I've exhausted *every* avenue - google, reddit. newsgroups, crappy HP website. The call centre is truly the last resort.

HP are absolute garbage, both in hardware and support.

Apologies for the rant.

Insurance giant finds claims rep that gives a damn (it's AI)

Re: "Thank you for your message. I understand your concern,"

Upvoted for another company on my "never use" list. Thank you.

Some workers already let AI do the thinking for them, Microsoft researchers find

Re: already happened

So not only is AI consuming all the electricity in the world, it's now consuming useful thought time in real people. It's like the early chapters of a sci-fi AI disaster novel.

Re: So AI just amplifies Dunning-Kruger

Some are too stupid to know they don't know much. When you believe the world is tiny it's easy to fool yourself into thinking you are an expert on everything.

UK armed forces fast-tracking cyber warriors to defend digital front lines

Re: 18 to 39

Usual reasons I suppose - the younglings see "old" people as out of date and unable to learn, despite IT being a career where one must continuously learn new methods and adapt to change. The usual discarding of experience/wisdom over jump-in-and-do-it youthful enthusiasm.

Even Windows 10 cannot escape the new Outlook

You'd think - they'll still force it on if you have an Internet connection. No-one is allowed to escape, not even those who don't want Outlook!

Vodafone aims to offer satellite-to-phone connectivity starting later this year

Service?

"and the service they will receive "mirrors the experience of existing 4G and 5G mobile networks,"

Excellent, so calls dropping, unintelligible audio and terrible service indoors. Nice

Britain Putin up stronger AI defences to counter growing cyber threats

Access filtering

Sorry for the naive question; if they know that all the bad stuff and nothing good comes from Russia, then why don't we deny them access from their allocated country IP ranges?

iOS 18 added secret and smart security feature that reboots iThings after three days

Microsoft - Ahead with security!

Windows has been secured like this for years and more - instead of 3 days, they reboot after 3 hours!

Combustion engines grind Linus Torvalds' gears

Re: Bypass

Driving hasn't been pleasurable for at least the past two decades.

Totally agree with track - that's where the fast cars should be driven.

Yes, your network is down – you annoyed us so much we crashed it

Re: A company I know

Just like Microsoft 365 and Windows 11!

Marriott settles for a piddly $52M after series of breaches affecting millions

Re: Fines aren't doing it

Jail time. 1 day per data subject breached, with a minimum of 6 months for everyone in the C-suite. Including those who were in the employ of the company during the breach as well as those currently employed. Where the remaining number of data subjects extends beyond the C-suite lifespan, convert each data subject breach to $1 (£ whatever) and additionally on top of jail time.

Real punishment should focus minds on the task, and force employment of competent staff and audits. The minimum to simply tick the boxes each year is not good enough, proven time and again.

Get paid the big wage, accept the big risk.

Windows 11 user hurt by the KB5043145 update? Microsoft offers a way out

Re: Unfortunately...

Sure, but it would be nice if Microsoft could respect system settings and not blindly reset them. For example 24H2 which dropped yesterday resets 802.1x. Today as users reboot they're finding 802.1x is wiped and they can't authenticate onto the LAN, so can't pick up GPO policy to configure the connections. All it would take is for the updater to backup the config then reapply it. Even using netsh would do.

So tired of Microsoft and the lazy, sloppy couldn't care less approach to paying customers.

CrowdStrike apologizes to Congress for 'perfect storm' that caused global IT outage

Re: Love the excuses

- But all I hear is "our software is shit and we don't do proper quality control."

Microsoft or Crowdstrike?

Speed limiters arrive for all new cars in the European Union

Re: The devil is in the detail

That could be it - an 2014 Insignia I drove did that. I'd pull up to a stop, car enagaged auto-hold and the engine auto-stopped. I'd shift into neutral and bring up the clutch and the engine would restart, run for around 10 seconds then auto-stop again. Garage claimed that was what it was supposed to do.

Self-driving cars safer in sunlight, twilight another story

Re: It's the kangaroos mate...

Lets assume that the car manufacturer is held responsible in that case - who would receive the punishment? Would it be the car manufacturer, or one of the multitude of component manufacturers that were used in the construction of the vehicle?

If it is the car manufacturer, would they even receive punishment? Every day we see $trillion software companies churn out products which they know have vulnerabilities. But when the end user is hacked there is no repercussion for the software company - yeah they have their get-out-of-jail T&C's, but there's no motivation for the software company to actually create quality software. It's up to the end user to deal with.

I imagine the same will happen with FSD - the person behind the wheel or registered keeper will receive "justice". Or perhaps simply being in the car makes you culpable.

Waymo issues software fix after driverless taxi hits telephone pole

Re: "blaming on faulty maps and code"

I'm presume they have a reason to ignore the built-in vehicle sensors, however even my old banger detects objects in front of it and will emergency brake. Was it Waymo who ran over a cyclist as they had disabled the car emergency braking sensors?

Vodafone and Wi-Fi vendors play tug of war over 6 GHz

Phone calls

Would be nice if they could just get voice calls working reliably everywhere in the uk