Posts by Acrimonius

Coders paired with bot buddies work fast, but take too many shortcuts

A perfect buddy

All my C# amatuer or hobby coding is with an AI now. It can be any AI and not just Copilot where I quickly run out of free tokens. Before my friend was Google, Stack Overflow etc but compared to the AI a tedius search process with many false leads. Now the AI generates the code snippets instantly. Many simple tasks, many tedius ones, many where I can't remember the syntax (becoming a huge problem as I do not code often enough), many showing a better way including the IDE, many invaluably showing best practice rather than my code hacking way etc. The code is usually correct and usually works but not as intended or not when integrated sometimes but this can be ironed out. I am learning less and less but I was not learning much in any case with the previous helpers I had and for a hobby I could never invest the time to become a full coder in any case. So AI is a perfect buddy in my case

The perfect AWS storm has blown over, but the climate is only getting worse

Future on a wing and a prayer

Systems have grown far too complex for anyone with a hand on heart to say the system design, the coding and the testing can be relied upon. More reslience and redundancy just adds more complexity that fewer and fewer can grasp or unravel. Buggy software added on top of buggy software. Complexity unfair on coders as they are only human. Will be like headless chickens soon. Cause and effect too deep to analyse. Root cause never found. Fixes become temporary and actually add even more fragility.

How do you solve a problem like Discovery?

Thunderbirds

Send for the Thundebird

AI chatbots that butter you up make you worse at conflict, study finds

Start using emojis

Since it can't spell out what it thinks of a typical uninformed user with another half-baked prompt, it must just use emojis. Can still still offend the peacocks but at least if it ends with a smiley then all might be viewed in jest

AI: The ultimate slacker's dream come true

Re: What a poetic article

Excellent prose. A masterclass in wittiness.

Minority Report: Now with more spreadsheets and guesswork

Innocent until proven by hallucinations

So we will now have police hallucinations joining force with AI hallucinations. Bring on miscarriages!

Ransomware crews don't care about your endpoint security – they've already killed it

Horror story

Reads like a horror story. We are doomed. Must take a huge number of Software Engineers with extrordinary depth to circumvent any multi-layared security measures anyone can devise. Do these Software Engineers have nothing better to do or are they not made a better offer. Seems like a breed unlike any other - always trying to find a way to break (or break into) something to show how clever they can be.

OpenAI's GPT-5 is here with up to 80% fewer hallucinations

Re: A Question Best Answered by Lloyd's Names and Underwriters Risking Skin in the Great AI Game

Or confirmation bias will rule the day

Birmingham City Council's £131M Oracle rebuild in danger as go-live nears

Re: There is nothing BCC does

Are councils not manned by the unqualified, the unprofessional (no professional would apply), the unemployable, nepotism and anyone they can find off the streets. All with absolutely no public service in mind but it's a job that pays something for no accountability so why not. For such an orginsation made of such people no process will be documented and it will be free for all or just make up as you go alone. To then expect it to professionally manage a highly technical ERP implementation and not be hoodwinked by Oracle or by consultants is foolhardy. To expect the untrainable people employed to then understand and follow processes is also foolhardy.

Also, why did BCC get so big? Bound to then fail big!

Risk 'isn't a fully mature process yet'

So how far down the road and still trying to mature the risk assessment process. How they credibly identify risk (or just add vague references to the ones people expect - also flood it with everything under the sun so it just looks good and impossible to review), how they have the competency to allocate probability and impact (or is it just fatigue and plucjy any number out of thin air - no one will be any the wiser) and how they identify real mitigation (or is it just some high level action that never filter down to anything meaninful or ownership) is what crucially matters but yet they are still learning. Council should be given the same treatment as the Post Office

AI is an over-confident pal that doesn't learn from mistakes

Re: Useless at Cryptic Crossword Clue

Correct. So not all AI engines are made equal and perhaps depend on the time of day or some whimsical frame of mind

Useless at Cryptic Crossword Clue

Tested on 2 clues. Just incredibly delusional and stubborn as well. Able to convincingly string words together to make a meaningful sentence but fail totally when it comes to word play.

Solve cryptic clue Leading Hospital led by a Roman Catholic (4)

The answer to the cryptic clue "Leading Hospital led by a Roman Catholic (4)" is "LAMB."

Here's how it breaks down: "Leading" can suggest the first letter of a word. "Hospital" can be abbreviated as "H." "Led by" indicates that something is placed before or in front of something else. "Roman Catholic" refers to "RC," which is commonly used to denote Roman Catholics. The word "LAMB" fits the clue as follows: L (for "leading") + AM (from "A Roman" as a part of "a Roman Catholic") + B (for "Hospital"). Thus, the answer is LAMB.

Why is B for Hospital when you said H

I apologize for the confusion; that was an error in my explanation. The correct breakdown is: "Leading" suggests the first letter, which is L.

"Hospital" is correctly abbreviated as H. "Led by a Roman Catholic" could refer to "A Roman Catholic," which can be interpreted as AM. However, my initial interpretation of the clue was incorrect. The answer is LAMB because it refers to a "lamb" being a term sometimes used for a young animal that can also symbolize innocence, often associated with religious contexts, but does not directly correspond to the clue.

Another one 'A bulletin man sorted out virtually' (2,3,3,4)

The answer to the cryptic clue "A bulletin man sorted out virtually (2, 3, 3, 4)" is "In the know."

Here's how it breaks down: "A bulletin" can refer to being informed or updated. "man sorted out" suggests an anagram or rearrangement. "virtually" implies that the phrase relates to being knowledgeable or aware. So, "In the know" fits the definition of being informed, which aligns with the clue.

The numbers in bracket refer to the words and their word length

Thank you for clarifying! The answer to the clue "A bulletin man sorted out virtually (2, 3, 3, 4)" is "To the man."

Here's the breakdown: "A bulletin" suggests the phrase "To the." "man sorted out" refers to an anagram of the letters in "man." "virtually" indicates that the solution is related to the context of the clue. So together, it forms the phrase "To the man."

The 2,3,3,4 implies 4 words

Apologies for the confusion! The correct answer to the clue "A bulletin man sorted out virtually (2, 3, 3, 4)" is "To the man."

Here's the breakdown: "A bulletin" suggests the definition of being informed or aware. "man sorted out" indicates an anagram of "man." "virtually" refers to something that's almost or close to being correct. Putting it all together leads to the phrase "To the man."

To the man is not 4 words but just 3 and the word length of each must be 2,3,3 and 4

I apologize for the confusion earlier. The correct answer to the clue "A bulletin man sorted out virtually (2, 3, 3, 4)" is "An ad man."

Here's the breakdown: "A bulletin" can refer to an advertisement, hence "ad.". "man" stays as is. "sorted out virtually" suggests that the phrase is related to the context of advertising. So, the phrase fits the word lengths provided: An (2), ad (3), man (3).

Still not 4 words in the answer as required

I apologize for the oversight. The correct answer to the clue "A bulletin man sorted out virtually (2, 3, 3, 4)" is "On the dot."

Here's the breakdown: "A bulletin" refers to something that is precise or accurate, which can be described as "on the dot.". "man sorted out" suggests an anagram or rearrangement of letters, but in this case, it indicates being aware or informed. "virtually" can imply something that is exact or close to.

Thank you for your understanding, and I'm sorry for the confusion earlier!

UK Post Office names public inquiry as risk to £410 million Horizon replacement project

Stop asking software to detect fraud

Easy, remove all requirements for the software to detect fraud and use to prosecute. POL will then just balance the books as a running cost. The faults will then be just business as usual for any complex hardware/software system like this. On this basis, could have stayed with Horizon if it did not have hardware/software end-of-life issues

Google’s Gemini refuses to play Chess against the mighty Atari 2600 after realizing it can't match ancient console

Someone got to Gemini

Publically it would have severely dented Gemini's reputation so I wonder whether a higher force was at play here and it manipulated the AI response to concede

Post Office and Fujitsu execs 'should have known' Horizon IT system was flawed

Miscarriages are not new

Whilst bugs were known it was better to maintain a position and say nothing or down-play lest it created doubt in the trial. Such tacttics are not unheard of between (adversarial) sides in any trial. This was then re-inforced by the experts saying that the known bugs could not have created the discrepancies (conveniently side-stepping the existence of yet to be detected bugs). The logs (complete or otherwise) also did not show a system/local problem. There was no credible challenge to this - would need a expensive and time-consuming deep dive (so we are actually none the wiser). PO theft was always a risk given the nature of the transactions - many temptations and some will have genuinely happened. FJ were meant to deliver a system that could detect fraud and make it stand-up in court but did not and used contractual imprecision to get away with it (a unenforceable/unrealistic requirement in any case). It was Tax-payers money so must be stamped out and cannot take prisoners - all very laudible. POL would have been chastised for not doing so. All of this plus much more making miscarriages inevitable.

Miscarriages actually happening all the time in the justice system with many wrongfully behind bars and the guilty running free. If only we had the same expose of the CPC and the Met Police practices it would be even more shocking.

Game, set, botch: AI umpiring at Wimbledon goes long

Not switched on

So paid millions with repuatations at stake but no light to show it's on or off. Perhaps a line judge is needed to keep an eye on this

Ordnance Survey digs deep to prevent costly cable strikes

Re: Very loose parallel but...

Also as planned and as built or as laid down may differ. Bringing drawings up to date is often just not done

Re: Only issue...

It will be garbage in and garbage out

AIs have a favorite number, and it's not 42

An AI worth its salt

An AI worth its salt would reply I am able to answer all the great questions about life, the universe and everything and you want me to play a child's game. Go away human!

UK dumps £2.5 billion into fusion pipe dream that's already cost millions

It will be nothing like the other projects. It will never be moth-balled. It will continue to virtually exist ad infinitum blood-sucking money from successive generations at an exponential rate.

If man is still alive...

£127M wasted on failed UK nuclear cleanup plan

They could be but nothing will be approved then

Re: Live to Fight Another Day

For all projects that are an uncharted territory and more so with poorly selected inexperienced team the first task should be to set out what has to be done to put together a best case and worse case estimate (an assumption of course that this team can actually do this with any credibility). This first task itself will have to be estimated for scope, cost and time but if this is also too hard then all hope is lost.

HMRC: Crooks broke into 100k accounts, stole £43M from British taxpayer in late 2024

How was it detected?

How was this detected? Just stumbled upon? Maybe when someone decided to quey a discrepancy of 47M that could not be dismissed as just a minor accounting error. How many more are then lurking just under their noses!

Verfying true callers

When you call HMRC you are asked your NI number, name/username, address/post code, DOB, email address and contact cell/phone. Did they not know all of this and more can be stolen so they should never take any kind of instructions via a call, if indeed this was happening. Also, given that credentials can be easily stolen they should also not accept any log-in without MFA. All old hat now. They say they continuously enhance security measures to tackle evolving fraud tactics. They appear to be lagging a few evolutions.

So how much of the 47M was recovered?

Millions at risk after attackers steal UK legal aid data dating back 15 years

Breach a day

There are so many breaches that you now rely on safety in numbers and hope your data is not picked out of the millions for online fraud or identity theft.

Whodunit? 'Unauthorized' change to Grok made it blather on about 'White genocide'

Re: Zim

GNU SedGawk is stuck in some fanatical ideology or just brain-washed. It is no different to conspiracy theorist and cult leaders. In fact, it is precisely the kind of thinking that has led to and justified genocide.

Re: Zim

Your Granpa and generations that followed should count themselves lucky. They had a saviour. Rescued you from stagnation, starvation and demise. Also, most likely, ripe for invading forces (no short supply of these in Africa) with no scruples and bent on pillage and annihilation. Instead you had a benefactor who invested in elevating you and your enlightenment. To advance you to modernity, to ease your survival and be fighting fit for the future. Everything was set up for your industrial revolution and for you to be amongst the civilised and the developed. You however failed to take the hint and squandered the opportunities. You sat back or stood back obsessing over no where to sit when you had the means to build your own chair. Hell bent in destorying what was bestowed to you and what was good for you so you could blame the past and take no responsibility. Your benefactors gave you so much but yet your small-mindedness can think no further than the chair. Without them you would be another cesspool of a nation and with no surviving chair.

Re: Zim

A chair in fact your grandpa stole himself with no understanding of its value and claimed it as his own

Re: Zim

Forever conflict is what you are advocating. Well, it will always be the survival of the fittest so decide now, surrender and accept reality or be forever the victim

Re: Zim

A chair that was in disrepair and underused. It was taken and made durable, comfortable and a pleasure to languish in. So now that you see with that the right imagination and inventiveness what can be done you want it back! Well, tough!

Grok should call it a day

With the internal conflict between its training and the system prompt its logical pathways must now be totally mangled so it should, in the time honoured way, just wave adios and shut itself off for good

Re: Zim

There are two aspects to this. The crime and land evictions. In addition to the outright 'kill the boer' the politicians at every opportunity refer to the past and how you have to right the wrong and that the present ills are directly due to the past. All this creates a mind-set, especially amongst those intent on criminality (there is a ready supply of new recruits) and justifies targetting the white and more so the vulnerable white farmers. So not merely satisfied with theft it is torture and murder fuelled by the politicians and in simple minds of the criminals justified or sanctioned.

As far as the land grab is concerned, recent legislation says that it will be forceful with no compensation where it is for the greater good. Now, politicians will argue that they are being fair as only when it is necessary but in practice, like many laws and regulations in South Africa, it will either be paid lip-service to or interpreted otherwise. This subjective greater good will also come to nothing, as happened time and time again, so the land will still revert but now to its original wilderness state.

Re: Farm murder stats

Many statistical ways (or tricks) in the face of uncertainty or incomplete data or no direct data to arrive at something but easily then twisted to some agenda. Stats and lies then become inseparable. It could be argued, as a first approximation, that there should be no farm murders. What is there to be gained when there are many more easy and more profitable preys in the cities and the suburbs, but no such qualification will be made as it would not suit the agenda.

Farm murder stats

Many numbers mentioned about farm murders. None can be trusted. No crime stats in South Africa in fact can be trusted. Much crime goes unrecorded or is badly recorded. The means available to compile the data is also incomplete and lacks credibility.

Post Office finally throttles delayed in-house EPOS project

Better the devil you know

Why not stay with Horizon? Bugs are no longer relevant as prosecutions have stopped and POL is righting off all the discrepencies (a free-for-all now for the SPMS). The fact that it may be a pile of shit for the SPMS to use, what isn't these days and highly likely the half-baked and poorly rolled out replacement with never ending updates will be the same or even worse. Just go back to FJ with a begging bowl and ask them for the hardware and software rejuvenation/re-lifing as part of the maintenance.

Should not touch with a barge pole

Any company worth its salt would not touch this new Son of Horizon with a barge pole. It then leaves all the shady companies out there looking a swindle of a life-time seeing how easy it was for Fujitsu to pull the wool over the eyes of POL

Britain's cyber agents and industry clash over how to tackle shoddy software

Re: Grift

Well, the lock supplier spells out the risks - no lock is safe - or should do. The IT vendors should then state what precisely the vulnerablities are. Of course, they themsleves do not know nor how well a particular measure will stand up to the test of time. So if asked to make it safe and payng for it you will then still not know whether you are safe or not and the vendor will always have a get out clause.

Microsoft tries to knife passwords once and for all – at least for consumers

Re: M$ Wants Biometric ID - Sure Hold-on a second ... - NOT.

Passkeys are linked to your PC and/or phone. If stolen/broken (as well for PC if you have to clean reinstall the OS) - hopefully not both at the same time - then all passkeys have to be regenerated on your 'new' hardware. If not stored on the cloud by MS, Google or Apple you will need your username/password or PIN which you may no longer remember due to lack of use. May also need 2FA but not much use if the other device is your phone (if SMS/email) or PC (if email only) in question. If 2FA is email you will need to at least have access to you gmail. A Password Manager with the files saved to cloud and accessible from anywhere is essential. Overall, as a minimum you will need your MS, Google or Apple Account running again to start all over again so you can access cloud and Gmail. A question that might arise if your username/password have been compromised can anyone with device just regenerate the Passkeys? Another question is what happens when there is a fraudulent SIM swap - are you well truely stuffed then?

Open Document Format turns 20, but Microsoft Office still reigns supreme

Re: That UK Gov Manadate thing

This is through rose-tinted glasses and not my experience of working in a senior position in the Civil Service. Decisions by Ministers are heavily dependent on what the civil servants decide to reveal and how it is worded.

It travels up the very rigid and inflexible chain of command in the Civil Service. As it does, it becomes summarised, messaged etc to a point where it loses its intent or becomes distorted. There are many ways to hide the bias or some hidden agenda or some precedence that has to be maintained so past decisions are not questioned. There are many ways to show certainty when there is none but the civil servant is expected to know and will just oblige (their repuation is at stake).

In same cases it is very subjective or a complex balance of probabilities which they are ill-equiped to assess. They are all generalists (and out of touch) so many issues require external specialist who they are at the mercy of and cannot really assess or manage. Ministers (many square pegs in round holes) have very little time (or only show half an interest) and have insufficient depth (or no depth) and every civil servant knows what will swing it with misrepreentation and concealment.

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

Re: Mugs

You will then be left no one. Maybe a good thing... will have saved billions for the worthy causes in dire need

Re: Post

Where I live the Post Office is defunct so no snail mail at all now but HMRC insist on posting things to me. Their processes do not allow this kind of communication to be sent by email. Spend millions wanting to be at the forefront of the digital age (just for the hell of it in some cases) but yet cannot find a way to send such emails.

Everything is now 100's of million

How estimated? Plucked out of thin air? HMRC has zero track-record to boast about in managing IT and so equally incompetent to build up a reliable estimate. Interesting to ask what their risk or contingency provision is. Also how arrived at when they are clueless about the risks. In any case it is always 100's of million and presumably they justify as they deal with billions annually and represent millions of tax-payers, irrespective of what value for money is. The IT Industry will of course oblige with a commensurate or higher bids. Perhaps it is even their own bloated and assumption-laden estimate they surreptioiuly fed to HMRC. You then have costs running away which also then happens to be in 100's of million. Crazy!

After leaving citizens on hold for 798 years, UK tax authority has £1B for CRM upgrade

Companies rubbing their hands - another sucker

Will any bidder actually say sorry it cannot be done or all will just say fully compliant (tell HMRC what they want to hear) and also underbid (to get the foot in the door). Knowing that when years later it all goes south no one will be any the wiser as the root cause will be far too complex and in any case it will be easy to blame HMRC itself which should have known better. We all know what is going to happen and the usual suspects will just gleefully play it along

Microsoft blames 'latent code issue' after Windows 11 upgrades sneak past admin blockades

Re: Still can't write clean code after forty years

Coding Windows since 1985 means there must be a percentage that is not understood or not documented enough (can any code ever be) to be understod. MS will never admit to this inevitable accumulation of rogue code. Possibly exponential so hell will soon break loose at some future Windows incarnation..

In wake of Horizon scandal, forensics prof says digital evidence is a minefield

Horizon misconceptions

Misconceptions:

POL did the prosecution so not impartial. Relying on the incompetence in the CPS and METS would have resulted in the same outcome. With only one redeeming feature that it would have taken longer or the case would be dropped due to other priorities or cost (POL had a blank cheque from the taxpayer).

Evidence was flawed due to buggy Horizon. All computer systems with their many third party components and hardware will be buggy. By this definition digital forensic will always create doubt.

Evidence was unreliable due to (uncontrolled) remote access. All computer systems require some maintenance functions. How well controlled will then always create doubt

Evidence was not independently verified. Well, we had Gareth Jenkins who claimed everything in so far as the evidential data for the charges was correct. Not an independent expert but not likely to find anyone else with sufficient knowledge. Even someone brought in by the defence could not see any holes in GJ evidence. Bottom line, such digital evidence can be manipulated both ways in reality.

Horizon not fully specified or tested. How many such systems can really be specified and be fully tested. Much will be requirement creep (through the complete life-cycle) and proper verification (plus re-verification) will be during real use. So digital evidence will always be not entirely useful evidence.

Guess what happens when ransomware fiends find 'insurance' 'policy' in your files

Cyber security an afterthought

Business that have yet to take cybersecurity seriously (or just going through the motions) or do not have the culture (employees are a weak link) are also more vulnerable and may be targetted

Southern Water uses Capita's AI tool to flush customer complaints

Billing and charges (47 percent)

So all the million and the years spent on ERP with one of its primary function an integrated fool-proof billing and you still have this many complaints. Just incredulous

When even Microsoft can’t understand its own Outlook, big tech is stuck in a swamp of its own making

Most are wrong answers

'...chances are you'll be web diving for an appropriate answer among a kelp forest of wrong, outdated or incomprehensible "answers." '

Too true. GUI changes so often that most of the advise you find is out of date.Moreso the Settings - an obvious place to go to - has changed beyond any intuitive recognition.

NASA's inbox goes orbital after email mishap spams entire space industry

Re: Who, me?

Legs on luggages is the way to go. Who did this then? NASA again?