Posts by AtomicDog

Unexpected item in the bagging area as Windows Activation error pops up at check-in

It constantly amazes me that there isn't a dedicated digital signage Linux distro with management application. It wouldn't be rocket science, it just needs a bit of standardisation for software vendors to develop against.

UK wants datacenters to pay a fee for grid connection requests

Re: I'm sorry...

The current national demand for the whole UK at 4pm on a Friday afternoon is about 28GW.

The average demand over the last year has been a shade over 30GW.

Assuming the 80GW of "proposed" datacentre capacity actually draws anything like full power, that's more than a tripling of power demand.

The entire installed generating capacity for the whole country is currently only about 80GW, and that includes renewables that can't generate all the time, nuclear power stations that are slated for decommissioning, and other power stations that need to be able to go offline for maintenance.

So I might have misunderstood the precise nature of the figures being discussed, but I think my general point still stands, no?

I'm sorry...

They want to TRIPLE the connected load to the grid!? And for what!? What the hell is that going to do to our energy prices!?

How about "fuck right off"!

Closed models refuse to help researcher swat Linux bug

Re: Just wow

Much more slowly, albeit much more methodically.

Using LLMs is more like using an Uzi to shoot a target rather than learning how to use a sniper rifle.

FOSS smashed one Microsoft monopoly. After 20 years of failure, it's time to smash another

Re: Monopoly --

Lots of these --->

For the first MS Developer brave enough to leak it.

If you're playing silly games pretending something's a standard, good luck actually trying to take action against someone disclosing the one thing that actually lets it work in a truly interoperable manner.

Re: Group Policy integration in education

You know that if you do still insist on using Windows, Group Policies allow you to run logon scripts that can be used to reset an application config back to a known good state...?

If little Johnny has fucked up the settings, you tell him to log out and back in again.

Microsoft seeks Supreme Court lifeline in pre-owned license battle

I do hope...

...that the Supreme Court laughs at them and declines to hear their appeal.

Support newbie figured out how to avoid all-nighters, and his colleagues hated him for it

Re: Some People

It would be fine if the companies used the savings to reward the fixers. But far more often than not they just pocket the savings as dividends or management bonuses. So no real incentive for the plebs to fix stuff, especially if it ends up losing then money through lost on-call or overtime.

US Marines' latest anti-drone toy is an AI turret that uses regular machine guns

This clearly won't be anything to do with LLMs, it'll be trained computer vision models and a learning model for the weapon type and conditions etc, surely?

Law firm insisted on one password to rule them all

Re: "In the end, the boss will have the final word"

If you're experienced enough, and they have any brain left at all, they would realise that pissing you off would likely trigger whistleblowing to ALL of the relevant authorities, which would likely result in severe financial loss to them, and possibly the end of their careers...

Tech support scam caused massive data breach at Australian airline Qantas

Hmm

Surely the data protection commissioner should have considered that had there not been a viable network path for the data to be exfiltrated, this scam would have failed...

And maybe Qantas should have borne that in mind when choosing a CRM system implementation.

It's about time these commissioners grew some teeth - ok you've proved that you can't look after your customers data in a SaaS tool - so now you've got 12 months to get it inside a secure network with exfiltration controls, and for every month after that that you don't do it, we're going to fine you $1 per customer per month for the first year, $5 per customer per month for the second year, and so on.

Microsoft rolls out Windows Search updates and they're... quite good

Even a stopped clock...

...is right twice a day.

Datacenter MacGyver saved the biggest football match of the year

Re: If a UPS could do it...

No safe place to put one close enough to the equipment needing to be powered...? Fumes? Trailing cables? Highly flammable liquid?

And also as someone else has said, power quality.

Microsoft flips Windows Backup to on by default unless you're in the EU

Not by default without asking it doesn't...

Every week...

...these cunts come up with yet another reason to ditch Windows.

Microsoft previews Linux containers that run in Windows

Christ...

Windows Defender and Intune to manage and be aware of containers!? How about "get the fuck off my container images and leave them the hell alone". The last thing anyone who uses containers seriously on a daily basis as part of their workflow needs is Microsoft's malware pissing about with them.

The whole point of containers is that they're supposed to be environment-agnostic. As soon as you start pissing about using Intune to put restrictions on things, that agnostic behaviour goes out of the window.

Fuck Microsoft. Anyone developing stuff in containers would be better off using Linux anyway, it's only corporate lock-in bullshit that keeps Windows being mandated and stops people from using the best tool for their job.

UK firm bombarded debt-ridden people with 5.5M texts

Re: Porbably outside the remit of ICO, but:

And what's to bet one or more of these "Authorised Corporate Service Provider" entities will also end up being totally bent, and continue to facilitate shenanigans.

Bent people will be more than happy to pay for false validation so they can keep getting away with rinsing people and making far more profit; and the ACSPs will probably get away with little more than a slap on the wrist and a fine. At which point they'll wind up the company and not pay it...!

Re: Porbably outside the remit of ICO, but:

We really could do with some kind of fast-track justice for cases where people have clearly and obviously acted like completely antisocial c**ts for their own personal gain.

More and more people are acting like complete c**ts because they see others get away with it over and over again. It's time for a serious clamp down.

Also, any kind of fraud conviction should bar you from ever being a company director ever again, and Companies House should take their reforms a step further and require biometrics from directors so they can guard against non-existent directors and people who use aliases as a means to get around existing bans. It's far too easy for people to set up limited companies today that they then use as a shield for all manner of shenanigans.

Why Amazon hates 'human-in-the-loop' AI governance

Thinks he's some kind of visionary, but is actually wearing size 18 shoes, a squirty flower on his lapel, a colourful curly wig, a big red nose, and is concealing a custard pie...

2,000 retired Google Pixel phones get a second life as a private cloud

Funnily enough...

My S22 Ultra goes out of support next year and I was just wondering if it could somehow be flashed with Linux to join my collection of home lab equipment...

Maybe iFixit or someone could branch out and produce guides and harnesses people could use?

Microsoft allows BYOL for Amazon RDS. Repeat, Microsoft allows BYOL for Amazon RDS

Re: Pardon me whilst I go consult a lawyer /s

The Software Assurance requirement is one of the biggest scams going as well. If I want to run a copy of licensed software I own, I should be able to run it whenever and wherever I want.

I could make the decision to run legacy versions on prem without SA. I should be free to make that same decision on any IaaS provider I want to, without having to pay more Microsoft Tax.

GOV.UK goes Dutch on payments as it dumps Stripe

Why on earth is our government paying a foreign company to process payments between British residents and British public sector institutions?

It's not a requirement that's going to go away. Why isn't the entire capability built in-house?

Angry devs vow to flee GitHub Copilot as metered billing takes hold

Re: Who could have predicted this would be a bait and switch?

The "frontier" models may well end up charging on a per-usage basis even when running on-prem - but there will still be free models available that will make a decent enough job of it that they'll have to keep the prices vaguely reasonable if they go down that road.

InPost locker caught shipping unactivated Windows

KMS

I'd bet it's just lost contact with it's KMS server responsible for Windows Activation.

Which could well be a DNS issue.

It's always DNS.

Zombie user account let hackers control the city’s water

Re: This is why I still like "password change policy".

I'm talking about a single user account per user, federated. So if you're still in the business you're still using some systems, so you don't get locked out of infrequently used systems.

If you've got systems that still rely on dedicated user databases in a corporate environment rather than federated identity then that's a whole different problem to solve

Re: This is why I still like "password change policy".

Make it 30 or 45 days and that'll avoid 99.9% of vacations.

Re: This is why I still like "password change policy".

Far better just to automatically lock unused accounts after X days of inactivity, and provide user's manager/HR with a workflow to unlock them on request.

Datacenter builders face an impossible quandary: Demand to the left of me, protests to the right

Distributed?

Given AI is power-hungry, and concentrating all that power-hungry kit in a few places is the cause of the problems, surely the demand for inference could be met by providing a subscription that includes a turnkey box you plug in on-prem/at home which uses your internet connection and power to provide inference services.

You get a lower price per token, or a higher allowance in return for hosting a box, or two, or three.

AI gets massively distributed, power consumption gets massively distributed, no new stupid datacentres needed.

Frustrated franchisee sues Pizza Hut over crappy kitchen AI

Re: AI?

Still doesn't sound like AI is the actual cause of the problem.

The company and it's product have been around for a while, it's probably the same product configured in a way that fundamentally damaged the plaintiff's business model, with an "AI" natural language layer bolted on top so marketing can call it "AI".

"AI" won't have made the decision to share all that data with DoorDash drivers, that was no doubt made by some dipshit product manager that was probably wined and dined by some DoorDash execs...

AI?

This doesn't sound as though AI is the problem, it sounds like shitty design choices combined with corporate policy have changed the behaviour of the delivery drivers.

I know El Reg is an AI sceptic, but blaming everything on AI somewhat undermines the legitimate cases where AI is the cause of the problem.

AWS warns of EC2 'impairment' as power loss hits notorious US-EAST-1 region

Re: RCP8.5

That's ok, you just keep drinking the kool-aid over there chum.

Nobody ever said wind and solar alone were the answer - but they're a hugely important part of the answer.

History will look extremely unfavourably on the USA's irresponsible behaviour over the last 20 years. You've taken capitalism to extreme levels and to hell with everyone else and the planet.

You've not had leadership and the political will to ever do the right thing - all your politicians are interested in is lining their own pockets, and your populace has as a cohort completely lost any capacity for critical thought. You're a selfish, cruel country - the mask has well and truly slipped.

Re: RCP8.5

Here's a thought:

How about - given it's obvious you have no bloody idea what you're talking about - you resist the urge to have an opinion, and actually listen to people that do know what they're talking about.

I know you yanks are big on freedom of speech, but don't forget the maxim "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".

Re: RCP8.5

What the hell has Arizona got to do with us-east-1...?

ServiceNow under siege as Atlassian adds to ITSM take-outs

I wish...

Companies would just fucking do one thing, do it well, do it at an acceptable price point, play nicely with other complementary products, and just be happy with a solid revenue stream instead of chasing "growth" constantly.

Then we'd end up with a series of best-in-class products instead of these enshittified suites that essentially destroy real competition and leave us with the choice of a few shitty megacorps who can charge a small fortune for their bollocks.

I hate late-stage capitalism.

UK govt dept sent a document 'in error.' Now it's being used in a £370M contract lawsuit

Agreed - I've been involved with contracts for public sector clients in the US where the entire contract and statement of work - including all payment terms, ends up published in full, no redactions. Available on the council's website for all and sundry to download. Didn't do us any harm...

Microsoft's GitHub shifts to metered AI billing amid cost crisis

Re: Mr. pusher man

Well the good news is that the expensive models charge lots per token output - meaning unnecessary verbosity is expensive. So hopefully that will soon be a thing of the past.

Go straight to sell! Windows second-chance setup hawks Microsoft services at IT's expense

Malware

That is all.

Using the password 'admin123' wasn't as bad as sharing it on Slack

It all boils down to the lack of engineering principles.in technology, once again... Poorly qualified people who don't know what they don't know half of the time, no oversight, no need for CPD, no legal leg to stand on if a beancounter tries to overrule you, no certifying body to hold your feet to the flames if you screw up, and tech bros shovelling new flavours of shit in your general direction on a daily basis.

The stable door's still open, the horse has long bolted, and now corporations can make massive screw-ups that seriously affects people's lives, and at best get hit with a slap on the wrist level of fine, with no true individual accountability at either a technical or board level.

Pass the key, passwords have passed their sell-by date

Re: Great!

Clearly you don't understand how passkeys work - go and do some research before shooting your mouth off...

Microsoft's GitHub grounds Copilot account sign-ups amid capacity crunch

Re: Get your short positions now

The market correction that needs to happen is decentralisation - there are plenty of free models out there now that perform pretty well.

OpenAI/Microsoft/Claude start ramping up prices or diminishing capabilities to limit demand because they can't scale quickly enough.

They can't bring data centres online nearly fast enough to fix that problem, which means they'll not be able to utilise all the GPU capacity they've "committed" to buy.

That means GPU prices should hopefully drop to a sensible level and then the world and his dog that want to use AI but don't want to pay megabucks to the megacorps can buy their own hardware capable of running quality models, and then run them for just the cost of electricity.

It would get rid of the ridiculous need to build data centres and all the expensive infrastructure around them by spreading the load across the electricity grid.

Genuinely longer term I think they'd be better off developing and licensing their models and not serving them. Once things like the NVIDIA DGX Spark start becoming more mainstream and drop in price, AI at the edge will be the future. Not AI that the supplier decides you've used enough of today, thank you.

Capita won disastrous UK pensions gig after acing performance checks

Re: Brown Envelopes

My point - admittedly not very well explained - is that only about the top 20% of taxpayers are net contributors to the exchequer.

So if two of us that fall into that category are currently directly propping up the pensions of two mid-level former civil servants, with nothing to spare, who's paying for our use of the NHS, our parents' use of the NHS, our kids' education, etc etc...

It's an insane use of taxpayer's money. I have no issue with using taxpayer's money to pay civil servants to do a good job and to contribute towards their private pension schemes while they are doing so, but paying final or career average salary pensions is a huge liability that the exchequer would be much better off getting rid of.

Re: Brown Envelopes

The biggest problem with the civil service IMO - particularly in the technology sector - is the whole fact that it is badly paid with the promise of a nice pension in the future.

That - by and large - attracts and retains meagre talent at best - the type that wants to outsource everything to the usual suspects.

When you look at how much is wasted on contracts with the usual suspects, there is more than enough to shift to a defined contributions pension scheme with salaries that will attract and retain quality talent to do stuff in house.

Re: Brown Envelopes

Even if it's no longer final salary, it's still defined benefit, which STILL lands the taxpayer with the liability ad infinitum. It's still - stockmarket-dependent - a far more "solid" pension than a defined contribution pension.

Re: Brown Envelopes

Oh yeah? My parents were both mid-level civil servants, both took early retirement at 52, and both have been milking the taxpayer for the last 20 years on their final salary pensions. Genuinely they cost more to the taxpayer than my sister and I pay in income tax each year, and we're both in the top 10% of salaries.

It's a shite pyramid scheme, engineered by the generations that have primarily benefited from it, by government actuaries fraudulently using mortality data that didn't take into account improvements in medical care and life expectancy until it was much too late to stop it.

Defined benefit pensions should be completely outlawed, both in the public and private sector. They are pyramid schemes pure and simple. The civil service should be forced to draw a line under it and move people to defined contributions so that future taxpayers don't have an ongoing liability. Same should apply to former prime ministers and and other politicians who currently get lifetime pensions.

UK watchdog targets Microsoft licensing in cloud competition probe

Re: Better late than never…

Because that's what your staff were skilled in, that's what all your legacy systems were built in, and it takes time and money to migrate to license-free alternatives.

Anyone using SQL Server and Windows Server for new product development probably needs their head looking at though, unless there are very niche requirements which can't be worked around.