Posts by M. Poolman

Palantir helps Ukraine train interceptor drone brains

Re: that's terrible - Errmmm

"every propoganda video I see on youtube" *and* "I don't ... even watch them" ??

Big Tech's control freak era is breaking itself apart

Re: Experts have always known and were ignored, as usual

"People with real domain knowledge and real expertise are not the ones who are allowed to make decisions."

Absolutely true, and in many other walks of life. Another incarnation/variant of the Peter Principle.

Researchers intercept unencrypted satellite traffic from space blabbermouths

just by just pointing a commercial off-the-shelf satellite dish at the sky

Wow, without even connecting it any other equipment or like, you know, all that processing watchamcallit stuff I hear about from time-to-time?

New string of phishing attacks targets Python developers

Re: "And now for something competely different."

More like the Phish Slapping Dance

Ruh-roh. DDR5 memory vulnerable to new Rowhammer attack

Re: Ah, the memories...

I'm old enough, just, to remember that, but I thought the culprit was cosmic rays, rather than alpha particles (where would the latter have come from?)

Jaguar Land Rover supply chain workers must get Covid-style support, says union

Re: Insurance

Indeed. Is it (publicly) known what the cause of the outage was yet? The correct response in my view depends very much upon this (e.g. state-sponsored cyber attack vs bean counter cost cutting). Even if it was due solely to internal incompetence, a lot the workers getting

laid will be entirely blameless.

Banning VPNs to protect kids? Good luck with that

Re: It's all about government surveillance

And would also need to ban any use of encryption technology.

Ukrainian hackers claim to have destroyed major Russian drone maker's entire network

Re: 10TB of backup files

Gosh, I'd forgotten the Russians have Nukes. Thanks for the timely reminder!

(Obvious icon)

Re: 10TB of backup files

Gosh, I'd forgotten the Russians have nukes. Thanks for the timely reminder.

Meta pauses mobile port tracking tech on Android after researchers cry foul

See icon

''' We are in discussions with Google to address a potential miscommunication regarding the application of their policies. Upon becoming aware of the concerns, we decided to pause the feature while we work with Google to resolve the issue.'''

Burn them.

Burn them all with fire.

Then burn the ashes.

LastOS slaps neon paint on Linux Mint and dares you to run Photoshop

Re: Linux is never Windows.

Well yes, and no, or maybe.

Whatever, I see no problem of having distros whose desktop design make it easy for users who never do anything than point and click to transition from windows. This is particularly relevant as many win10 users are running hardware which won't support win11, so, do they try a new, free, OS or simply shell out for new hardware?

Europe plots escape hatch from enshittification of search

Re: distributed search

I remember those days pretty well. Rail and Water services in particular a far more enshittified now than they were then!

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

Re: Maybe

Even if the boss isn't screaming you should be able to work under pressure when the shot hits the fan. Y'know like in a job where the stuff you do actually matters and there will be real consequences if you screw up.

Spot on!

"Students aren't taught to write and analyse sorting algorithms because they'll need to write and analyse sorting algorithms. They're taught it so they know how to write programs in general, and more

importantly because they will need to anayse the performance of things that haven't already been subject to decades of research to improve them. "

I'm nicking that for my next module description!

Re: Yes, kill multiple choice tests!

Yes. Absolutely. Definitely. 100%.

Background: Almost the same as yours!

O2's AI granny knits tall tales to waste scam callers' time

Re: Only a matter of time now

You beat me to it, have one on me!

Yeah, I'd love to have it on my phone - set to answer anything coming in from a blacklist.

The other thing that struck me is that scammers will soon, if they are not already, will be using this kind of technology to generate scam calls.

So AI scam sources connecting directly to AI scam sinks - it could lead to a meltdown of the interweb as we know it!

ETA - Damn! Beaten to it by Wade Burchette.

Skyscraper-high sewage plume erupts in Moscow

Re: Degassing = blowing out the rusty water

fnarr fnarr

Over 170K users caught up in poisoned Python package ruse

Re: Python, eh?

The problem isn't the language but the distribution mechanism, potentially you could get similar issues with R (cran), perl (cpan) or even TeX (ctan) (and doubtless many others), it's only less likely because they don't have such a high profile as Python. For me the only sensible solution is never to allow anything to automatically install dependencies other than the official OS repository, especially on production machines. The more automatic things are made the more they are likely automatically to go wrong.

There was a very good series discussing this, and related matters, on LWN last year (https://lwn.net/Articles/924104/) with a brief follow up here: https://lwn.net/Articles/959236/

Linux has nearly half of the desktop OS Linux market

Re: If ChromeOS is Linux...

Yep fond memories indeed, this wasn't Oxford Poly you're talking about by any chance?

Open source AI makes modern PCs relevant, and subscriptions seem shabby

Re: costs

Exactly what he said! This is still very new technology, and if people at home want to spend time generating prog rock covers - good for them.

On the other hand, there must be many potential applications in science and engineering waiting to be discovered (big data is all very well, but often begs the question as to how it is then processed and interpreted). Putting these tools in to the hands of researchers, for a fairly modest hardware budget, with the "freedom to tinker" and freedom from the hassles of licencing, subscriptions etc. can only be a good thing.

Sure not all problems can be solved with a generous sprinkling of magic AI pixie dust, but it strikes me that we may well entering a new and exciting era of computing.

Unix is dead. Long live Unix!

Re: Are you quite mad?

see title

Microsoft to block downloaded VBA macros in Office – you may be able to run 'em anyway

Re: A tighter security method.

I guess you must be from across the pond. The result of HR bods over here checking to see the a pants wearing policy is being correctly observed has comedic possibilities of gargantuan proportion.

Well the thought made me chuckle anyway

Analogue tones of a ZX Spectrum Load set to ride again via podcast project

Re: Inner City Unit did this on vinyl years ago

Double thumbs up for the ICU ref, although I think Nik Turner might have been a bit pissed off at describing them as a Hawkwind spinoff, even if the two were not entirely unrelated.

For those unfamiliar with ICU - check 'em out - especially the 2nd LP "The Maximum Effect".

, programs were distributed on other media...

For example in the form of a couple of k of hex printed inside magazines to be lovingly typed in - yep, we really did that!

Brit MPs blast Baroness Dido Harding's performance as head of NHS Test and Trace

Re: Please don't call it NHS track and trace

Be careful what you say, if only in jest, grasshopper.

GitHub merges 'useless garbage' says Linus Torvalds as new NTFS support added to Linux kernel 5.15

Er, how about Aldgate East, using District Line rules?

I think that is only valid if the Gryncham-Thrib exceptions to Huffington-Bates variant is in play.

Re: So, my stance of 30 years ... vindicated ????

And you tell the young people today ...

You're missing the point, it's not the interface per se that is the issue but some of the underlying logic and (especially) the naming conventions for various concepts, as has been illustrated in many posts on this thread.

Note that the story kicked off as a result of problems originating in a lovely cuddly web gui. There's more to computing than UIs !

Re: Thanks to All

Thanks, old bean, have one on me! I thought it was only me as well; perhaps there is a case of the emperor's new clothes here? GIT does have some attractive features, but it sure as hell is a PITA to learn.

Spring tears down math geek t-shirt listing because it dared to mention the trademarked word 'zeta'

Re: Don't think iSmash (chain of phone repair shops in England) is owned by Apple.

Or indeed, iPlayer

Astroboffins think strangely porous boulders found on asteroid Ryugu may be the stuff of proto-planets

I might be missing something here

but why the excitement that "this may be the stuff that planets were built from"? I thought the whole point of these missions was asteroids were already assumed to be just that. I'm not trying to diss what is obviously a stonkingly brilliant mission, just curious as to the way this particular result is being reported,

Big red buttons and very bad language: A primer for life in the IT world

Re: hydraulic computers

It's an absolute gem and a bit surreal when you go inside to discover a pretty much bog standard Tesco inside.

Arm freezes hiring until Nvidia takeover, cancels everyone's 'wellbeing' allowance

Re: This is a good idea

Kinda struggling with the concept of a "crunchy worm" here

Good: Water vapor signal detected for first time on distant planet. Bad: Er, we'll let one of the boffins explain

Re: So it's not a dry heat then?

...people seem to have an issue with the word...

I wouldn't have thought that it bothers moist people!

Linus Torvalds issues early Linux Kernel update to fix swapfile SNAFU

Re: A swap partition saved my life

Yep, screw your system with dd and then recover it.

Sorts out the BoFHs from the PFYs!

Microsoft's underwhelming, underpowered dual-screen Surface Duo phone arrives in the UK this month for £1,349

Re: Target Audience?

... a really usuable Excel ...

What is this mystery of which you speak?

Re: This is not the phone you are looking for

Now I finally see why dual screen phones might have a genuinely useful application!

Android devices behave as one device with two screens

X for Android, anyone?

This scumbag stole and traded victims' nude pics and vids after guessing their passwords, security answers

Re: John Kettley is a weatherman

<Mainwaring> I was wondering who would be the first to make that connection </Mainwaring>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db6WHtNV5-I

K8s on a plane! US Air Force slaps Googly container tech on yet another war machine to 'run advanced ML algorithms'

"We look to unleash the power of digital engineering and agile software yada yada

Don't much about U2s or K8s for that matter, but I still score pretty high when it comes to bullshit bingo!

Nvidia watches Brit upstart Graphcore swing into rear-view mirror waving beastly second-gen AI chip hardware

Re: Make it simpler

Wot he said. Applies to a number of other environments too!

Two out of three parachutes... is just as planned for Boeing's Starliner this time around

Boeing's landing technology also features airbags -

Outsourced to a company in Bulgaria?

(well someone had to say it)

One does not simply repurpose an entire internet constellation for sat-nav, but UK might have a go anyway

Re: Re assume...

Thumbs up for the obvious riposte, which I obviously failed to spot (you can have a beer icon if you prefer)

Folk sure like to stick electric toothbrush heads in their ears: True wireless stereo sales buck coronavirus trends

Little known company called Onkyo

I think are quite well known in HiFi circles. I've got a couple of the entry-level separates and am well pleased. Worth checking out (other companies are of course available, and I have no connection with them).

The only way is bork for the UK's embattled rail travellers

I expect

That that would make quite a good exhibit for the Bork Railway Museum!

Zealous Zoom's zesty zymotic zone zinger: Zestful zealots zip zillions

Re: Why zoom?

Since lock-down, I've used (for work and leisure) FB messenger, Google meet, MS teams, Skype and Zoom. Zoom for me is head and shoulders above the rest: simpler to set up, better audio and video quality, and more reliable (of course your experience may be different)..

I think it's telling that this is from a start-up who focus on doing one thing and doing it well, as opposed the the offerings of various mega-corps who see something new and want to add a slice of the action to their portfolio.

I guess it's only a matter of before Zoom get bought by someone much larger, and I'll have to start looking for an alternative.

In case you need more proof the world's gone mad: Behold, Apple's $699 Mac Pro wheels

Re: The longer I live, the stranger things get...

Wheels on a MacBook - the ultimate hipster skateboard?

Linux fans thrown a bone in one Windows 10 build while Peppa Pig may fly if another is ready in time for this year

Re: Embrace phase is working well.

Having done neither, I bow to the voice of experience.

Real-time tragedy: Dumb deletion leaves librarian red-faced and fails to nix teenage kicks on the school network

Re: Amiga C compiler

I got that from a Fred Fish PD library floppy. The developer actually had his personal telephone number in the docs, I rang it once and a slightly fed up sounding better half answered it and shouted up the stairs in a rather resigned tone of voice "Stevie, North C!".

You tell that to the youngsters today and they won't believe you.