Posts by Bebu sa Ware

If you love your boss, imagine how much more you'll love their AI twin

Re: typical

Instead of one asshole boss i get 1 asshole boss and multiple clones of an asshole. Monkey tree.

You would also spend most of the workday turfing this prat swarm through an upper storey window.

Re: The question is (or at least will be)

Is Trump still a real person?

I suspect the still is entirely debatable.

Telling an AI model that it’s an expert programmer makes it a worse programmer

"if you care more about accuracy and facts, do not add anything, just send the query.'

if you care more about accuracy and facts as one inescapably does occasionally - incredible but true.

After a lot twaddle about personnae, prisms or whatnot, one of the less demented of this AI crew arrived at the conclusion that if you actually want an answer and not an excuse to fiddle with yourself for a few hours, just ask the effing question.

Head-mounted VR hardware will never happen, says Neal Stephenson - who coined the term ‘metaverse’

Re: "staring at little rectangles in their hands"

Not only are they staring at them, they're also loudly talking to them.

Just about everyone in these parts has those earpoddy things hanging out if their ears like little dicks so it is rare for them to have their life management system on speaker phone. Still a bus full of dingbats talking away to their silent phones is more than a little disturbing for someone raised at a time when one's mother made it clear very early on that one was to give any mad old gits and old ducks nattering away to themselves, a very wide berth.

I am certain the next iteration will be a neuralink type device inserted into the required parts of the brain (speech, auditory and visual centres) so these daftos can commune with their peers and AI agenty thingies in motionless silence.

Probably a good time to buy shares in Cybus Industries. ;)

Half of VMware users plan to reduce usage by 2028

"those who stick with VMware may well enjoy the experience."

No matter how traumatic the experience there are alway perverse individuals that will derive pleasure from its imposition.

Forced bodily insertion a of rough pineapple - mere foreplay for those lost souls that drool over the prospect of running Oracle products under VMware (and in the Oracle cloud for that little extra frisson.)

When it comes to catastrophic space weather, the UK is holding a cocktail umbrella

Re: While a repeat of the Carrington Event...

humanity could easily survive a repeat.

Likely true but also likely a pretty (in)decent proportion of that humanity might perish - specifically those living in developed nations depending on technology trashed by such an event for the the luxuries of potable water, food, heating, medicines and medical services, and cooling and heating; damaged supply chains and all the rest.

The NAO might have right idea: get a few cases of gin, crates of tonic and lots of cocktail umbrellas and watch the Sun go down on civilization from your deck chair.

Reminded me of the ill Morse quoting Housman to Lewis while quaffing an ale in a beer garden at the end of a day:

Ensanguining the skies

How heavily it dies

Into the west away;

Past touch and sight and sound

Not further to be found,

How hopeless under ground

Falls the remorseful day.

Cryptographers engage in war of words over RustSec bug reports and subsequent ban

Re: Handbags at ten paces…

Any thoroughly modern miss would have such regard for her expensive orthodontics and manicure to take the precaution of first placing a carefully wrapped half brick at the bottom of her Louis Vuitton.

As her granny told her fine words might win a fair maid but a half brick always wins an argument.

NASA sets 'impossible' ground rules for relocation of 'flown space vehicle'

USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) ?

I suspect these texan galahs know as much about the US space program as they do about anything else viz SFA.

A decent painted plywood shuttle sized prop of the above Starship would probably satisfy these texan clowns and amuse the real space aficionados elsewhere.

(I think the original suffered a "wheels up" landing on some obscure planet.)

It is nigh impossible to take this nonsense seriously especially when there is so much American nonsense that is deadly (and) serious.

The drone swarm is coming, and NATO air defenses are too expensive to cope

Another lesson

However you detect hostile drones and the countermeasures employed they must cover your whole air space. The is no point having an impenetrable frontier air space if behind that Maginot Line, your adversary ships containers full of the little buggers through your ports.

The sheer number of these cheap (both senses) single use weapons means that widespread assaults on civilian infrastructure against more developed nations advantages the less developed and/or authoritarian adversary. You cannot destroy a country's electricity grid if it doesn't have one.

If I lived in a nation that believed that bombing a place flat was viable diplomatic tool for lasting peace I would seriously ponder how a party on the receiving end might in future slowly extract retribution in view of the above observation.

Calling out corporate BS? There's a steaming pile to aim for

anthropology of business linguistics

The study of corporate arse licking one assumes. Adjacent to the ethology of the common brown tongue lizard (Vipera linguafuscae.)

The Augean stables of contemporary corporate management shit would defeat the ablest Heracles.

Elon Musk wants to build 50 times more chips than the world currently produces, using 'new physics'

Re: new physics

Pataphysics I should think from this Ubu·esque fool.

Your next car might need 300 GB of RAM, and so will autonomous robots

Re: One way to cut the demand in half

use cases I can think of where a humanoid form factor for a robot seems to make much sense,

Changing a flat tyre might be another.

channeling Elon here — Alas, even if he is beyond the pale he is still on this side of the veil.

Struggling to put your AI aversion into words? Here's a handy glossary

ChatNPC

I assumed that was "Chat No Phucking Clue" but apparently it is actually another dismal AI application.

AI·phobia might be a thing but that implies fear but for the most seriously AI averse, profound enduring contempt for the technology and the grifters peddling it, would be more accurate.

Generative Pre·trained Transformer - bollocks - Grifting Phucking Twat (you can match at least one face to that^†.)

_{† the AI grifter who always looks like a sheep botherer caught in flagrante would be favourite - not that this narrows it down much.}

Okta made a nightmare micromanager for your AI agents

they [AI agents] may use …

"they may use large language models, but also use knowledge graphs, and other types of data expressions."

Or pretty much anything at all.

Majikthise: Bloody hell. Now that is what I call thinking. Here, Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?

Vroomfondel Dunno. Think our minds must be too highly trained, Majikthise.

Microsoft publishes a workaround for Samsung's C:\ drive woes

Curious what the batch file did…

I looked up icacls for the various perms etc and saw this useful note which could, if it still applies to Win11, affect a few of the victims in as much not everyone runs English versions of Windows. Presumably the flavour of English doesn't matter.

Note that using special identities, such as Everyone, Authenticated Users, Network Service, etc., with the icacls command only works if the system language is set to English. If you're working on a non-English system, use the SID format to specify such special identities.

I thought Linux's posix ACLs were a pita but Windows ACLs seem more like a pineapple inserted in the same location.

AI for software developers is in a 'dangerous state'

Re: Phuture

If we outsource thinking to AI...then what's the point of humans, exactly?

I guess the answer to that whole question is embedded in the "what's the point of humans?"

Answer that question credibly and the original question will likely transform into "what's the point of AI, exactly?"

If the answer were "thinking about and for humans" then one might imagine the Olympian gods might too have outsourced their thinking to mankind soon after which mankind's interest shifted to new gods leaving the old stranded in a mindless void.

Having said that humanity is mostly notable for its fucking and fighting but not so much for its finking.

Re: Phuture

"Fortunately, calculators aren't in the habit of making stuff up."

A $4.95 programmable calculator from the local Asian grocery does in my experience.

Strong forces tempting humans out of the AI loop

Even down here we have to get with the program…

Temptation isn't just power, wealth and women… actually probably is, but we have to wrap it in the latest insanity up there to remain competitive.

Britain's satellite-watching gap to be plugged with £17.5M eyeball in Cyprus

"a persistent stare capability"

Wouldn't a herd of goats be a tad cheaper ?

It's not a binary choice. Independent boffin builds a ternary CPU on an FPGA

Re: Ternary is Perfect ...

"Or a Windows dialogue"

A:\> Abort, Retry, Fail? _

On the gripping hand, it's interesting and different and fun.

Not having previously encountered that reference my imagination boggled what exactly this supernumerary appendage might be gripping for interestingly different fun.

Apropos of …

of pretty much bugger all, I vaguely recall reading that the most efficient base for encoding (presumably numbers) was e (=2.718…) So 3 being closer to e than 2 actual ternary system might store information more efficiently.

Presumably a ternary ALU was implemented in the FPGA although rather spoilt for choice in the trit·wise operations on multi-trit words.

Back when, I imagined tristate TTL buffers implemented a true/false/not·at·home (or out·to·lunch) ternary logic.

Microsoft Copilot boss Mustafa Suleyman to chase superintelligence

"focus on superintelligence"

A guaranteed way of becoming so cross-eyed you would be looking out your ears if not your arse.

A truly super·intelligent superintelligence would ensure prats like Suleyman & co. would never suspect even its existence.

I very much doubt that there is anyone in MS manglement and above who could recognise even simple intelligence not even if kicked them in the cods.

RMS Crapilot - Retails Moronic Shit ?

Out-of-band getting out of hand as Microsoft pushes hotpatch for Bluetooth

hotchpatch ?

by analogy with hodgepodge which is arguably the MS stock in trade.

WorldCoin's newest pitch: Scan your eyeballs to prove AI agents really represent you

WorldCoi^Hn

PlanetGrift ?

"those who wish to wade into the weeds" — only with a brushcutter using the the metal blades.

Age verification isn't sage verification when it's inside operating systems

"way of weeding out badly conceived, technically illiterate, potentially dangerous legislators"

Re: "violation of the First Amendment by being too broad. It's an obtuse way of weeding out badly conceived, technically illiterate, potentially dangerous legislation, but we'll take it."

That would be the Second Ammendment ? but we'll take it.

Switzerland built a secure alternative to BGP. The rest of the world hasn't noticed yet

"You want to go to the Moon, so let's put rocket boosters on an airplane..."

"No, you have to design the vehicle differently."

With the current administration I wouldn't be too sure.

In the name of science: Boffins build fart-tracking undies

Are the results adjusted for the quantity of beans consumed in the preceding 24 hours?

I too was wondering whether hydrogen gas alone is an accurate proxy for the all the variety and volumes that population produces.

I would want a flow meter and a suitable spectrometer incorporated in these Reg Grundies, just to be sure.

As an undergraduate I do recall seeing amateurish attempts at what I assumed was flame photometry

Gartner suggests Friday afternoon Copilot ban because tired users may be too lazy to check its mistakes

Obvious Solution

The office decamps to the nearby rubbity at 11.30am every Friday hand enjoy an extended if largely liquid lunch until knocking off time.

BBC World Service digital switch backfires as online audience drops

Oh Dear !

It appears Mr Cockup has had his work cut out for him at the Beeb.

Doubtless a host of cunning plans were devised at great expense.

Not difficult to see Douglas Adams' BBC exposure in his work —

Marketing girl: "Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know. Do people want fire that can be fitted nasally?"

Digital fruit fly brain model walks and cleans its feelers

"Maybe there's such a thing as reading too many books."

I hope not. There would be a fair number of us who could be in rather deep shit if the almighty had set a number of tomes beyond which you are cooked.

The It's Not Fair graphic is a bit too close for comfort. ;)

this vulture spent hours peering through binocular microscopes at university in the 1980s

I don't recall sexing adult flies but do remember removing the salivary glands from the larvae and staining the giant chromosomes.

Being at that time (~1980) from the molecular side of genetics I was fascinated that you could actually see where on the chromosome the genes that controlled distinct phenotypic features were located.

I imagined you could physically cut out the part of genome involved and sequence the genes. I seriously considered investigating the idea as a research topic but the chap running Drosophilia shop was in my opinion a complete reprobate and a clear and present moral danger. Consequently sought safer pastures and appear to have, possibly uniquely, retained my soul.

Brilliant backups that kept data alive for ages landed web developer in big trouble

It's always DNS...

Doubly so when split DNS is involved.

If the external DNS isn't a subset of the internal DNS this sorry state will always eventually arise. If you control both and use bind, you can "include" the resource records in both the zone files of both views.

When moving services like this I normally turned of the service eg httpd doesn't run, or run the service on another port.

If you aren't responsible for the content and that kitchen contains a surfeit of cooks, deleting content or even taking it offline can have unintended and unforeseen consequences.

Definitely not "at home" to Mr Rm -rf (notoriously the roving agent for Mr Cockup.)

Repopulate! Repopulate! Two lost Doctor Who episodes turn up in private collection

"a little more significant than Doctor Who defeating the Daleks"

More than a little debatable but for that event's role, or footage thereof, in later defeating the "Silence." ;)

Incredible how these episodes turn up in the most outlandish places. That some chap actually filmed in 16mm the TV broadcast six decades ago seems just as unlikely.

Wouldn't surprise me if the archives of the Stasi or KGB contained recordings of the complete set of the broadcasts.

India tests whether AI can stop trains hitting elephants

"AI can stop trains hitting elephants"

Even in the "interesting" and peculiar times that is not a sequence if tokens I would ever had expected to see in an el Rego headline.

I don't know how many heffalumps are involved but another option might have been to tag each beast with a radio transponder so you might detect whether one or more of these pachyderms are within cooee of a locomotive.

Elephants are about the only exotic creature that trains couldn't collide with in Australia. Camels, donkeys, water buffalo etc are all on the table track.

Next: can train elephants to stop hitting AI — but why would you?

Jury out on whether Americans love or hate datacenters

"a quarter of respondents claim to have heard nothing about them at all"

This is the US after all. For any value of "them" above you would have the same 25% who also might have difficulty accurately applying bog paper.

Visualize a not·so·wise monkey with three pairs of hands.

Those who 'circle back' and 'synergize' also tend to be crap at their jobs

"workers and wankers"

The difference between the two is just an or. ;)

"they'll eventually take over and there'll be nobody left to do the work." — I suspect they have and there'll soon won't be but lots of confused warking and wonking fluffing it in the meantime.

I would punt…

"cognitive reflection" is "introspection" after a quick passage through the entrails of corporate crap machine.

"fluid intelligence" either a "brilliant" manglement idea conceived after a liquid lunch or a the result of an Ebola like virus liquifying manglement brain — differential diagnosis always problematic.

Azure startup credits don't apply to Claude via Azure AI Foundry, reader finds – after $1,600 charge

A long spoon…

if you intend supping with the Devil. Mine goes back to Windows 2.0 SDK and it would be a very chilly day indeed in Hades before I gave MS my credit card details.

No surprise that no one of these Grifterprises issue 30 day invoices — they would never get paid and they would perpetually in court futilely contesting non·performance.

They prefer the Dick Turpin payment model.

GitHub infuriates students by removing some models from free Copilot plan

There is simply no opinion stupid enough to not be put forward by sizable groups

Almost an axiom that defines humanity.

Alternatively: Any and all opinions are held and propounded by significantly non·zero subsets of humanity without any consideration of consistency, logic, reason, sanity or anything remotely rational.

Cake ?

As in "let them eat cake."

Chippity·chop.

_{To be fair Marie Antoinette probably didn't say that but the French Royal Family were in the stunned bunny department normally reserved for the British monarchy.}

Claude charts a new course with charts, of course

Trying to remember the per·idiotic table a harder ask

I am certain there is a trail of scarred brain tissue in the brains of my generation encoding:

Little Betty Boron Chews Nuts On Friday N_[e]ight

and the not to be missed sequel:

Naughty Magpies Always Sing Part Songs Clearly Argon.

Odd as it may seem I once used this bit of brain damage in the absence of any other reference to make up a roughly 0.3 molar saline solution.

Atomic Britain: UK plans regulatory reset to boost nuclear power

genAI is […] being rammed into anything that sits still long enough.

I would think anything that fiercely parks its bum on something solid might be spared that indignity but just getting up to stretch the legs and the genAI insertion will be rammed home.

Inside the datacenter where the day starts with topping up cerebrospinal fluid

Will mankind ever learn that there are some things you do not fuck around with?

Would have to be the favourite in the "Definitive Rhetorical Question" stakes.

It is a terrifying thought that this Hon Weng Chong is only one - and probably the least problematic - of heaven knows how many would be Davros-es (Davroi?) beavering away in their bunkers labs mindlessly fucking about with human and other animal cells (and doubtless hybrids thereof.)

I recall a 1970s Dr Who (Tom Baker) story "The Talons of Weng Chiang" which featured some sort if hybrid with a pig's brain that was created during a future period of Earth history when the world found out what this sort of fucking about entailed.

(Memorable possibly because the only occasion Leela wore a frock which at the time likely caused much male teen disappointment.)

NASA pencils in fresh Artemis II Moon launch attempt for April 1

Re: It just goes to show

"What a magnificent job the Apollo guys and gals did about 60 years ago."

Agreed.

When you turn that sock inside out it speaks volumes of the great advances we haven't made since.

'Are you freaking crazy?' Bot harasses woman, gets led away by cops

Re: A good swift kick

"Is it assault if you knock over a robot that is harassing you?"

I don't think you can "assault" anything non-human. Wilful damage to property without lawful excuse is about worst you would expect unless the plod pull out the computer misuse act or some such.

I imagine you might easily trip these bots backwards over an "accidentally" extended leg.

"marking X links" — Decorate the ends of the arms the X with counter·clockwise pointing serifs ?

16GB of memory, has 2TB of storage

Here nice robey. Like a little ride ? Get in.

Wakes up in a gutter with 16Mb EDO ram and 20Mb IDE disk.

Microsoft veteran Rajesh Jha prepares to retire, triggers yet another reorg

Re: "not lose the great momentum we have"

When plummeting headlong towards the ground there is no immediate risk of losing momentum - indeed g will generously donate more.

Off course on encountering reality (ground) this "great momentum" will be violently transferred.

Deceased ursines have three bounces in them, I am led to believe — a microsofts might be up for a tiny splat.

Re: MS Works!

Speak of the devil^†.

I just mentioned MS Works now I see an image of the install cdrom I still have somewhere (her indoors got it with her first PC ca 1998 along with Encarta.)

_{† I only recently learnt the rest of that phrase. "Speak of the devil and he will come knocking on your door."}

RAM is getting expensive, so squeeze the most from it

"Putting the swap on the spinning disk is insane."

Unfortunately we had to as we could no longer source the drums even when the magnetic core^† was still available.

Swapping to ½" magnetic tape was apparently a thing in the dim past - so I was told once (also now in the only slightly less dim past) although the piss might have been taken.

_{† core was still used in industrial contexts well into the 1980s because it was non·volatile and I suppose physically robust.}