* Posts by Michael Strorm

1036 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Feb 2008

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Ahead of IPO, Reddit blends advertising into user posts

Michael Strorm Silver badge

> Pretend that your misuse of outdated slang is cool!

I haven't used Reddit much for several months now, but the "sponsored post" style ads felt very much like the epitome of "How do you do, fellow kids" in their attempt to appeal to the stereotypical Reddit demographic.

Whether that was more obvious to me as someone who *wasn't* in that demographic is open to question, but I can't imagine the Internet-native target market not noticing they were being patronised so obviously.

We asked Intel to define 'AI PC'. Its reply: 'Anything with our latest CPUs'

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: So about those NPU's...

Yeah, but Intel doesn't have a major share of the high-end graphics card market and they need you to buy one of their shiny new chips, so get out there and buy one anyway.

Intel's $699 Core i9-14900KS turbos to 6.2GHz – assuming you can keep it cool

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: time travel

Exactly. For all that the Pentium 4 was a commercial success, it (and the new Netburst architecture it was based on) ended up being an abandoned dead-end in technological terms for that reason.

Intel essentially scrapped Netburst and went back to a Pentium-III-based design (*) as the basis for the first-generation Intel Core.

--

(*) Detail for those not already familiar with this: Circa the mid-2000s, I remember reading articles noting that the Pentium M- Intel's then-current mobile line- was actually good enough to be worth considering for desktop use as much more energy-efficient alternative to the P4. (I gave brief consideration to this myself at the time).

The important thing here is that the Pentium M *wasn't* based on the P4/Netburst architecture- most likely because that was already too power-hungry for mobile use. Rather, it was essentially an improved version of the older Pentium III.

My assumption is that Intel were already aware of this themselves and- having already realised they were in big trouble with their attempt to create a Netburst-based successor to the P4- saw it as an obvious way out, whether they'd ever planned it that way or not.

McDonald's ordering system suffers McFlurry of tech troubles

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: My last meal at McDs

> Was in a McD's in France over a year ago

[ Insert obligatory quote about Quarter Pounders and the metric system ]

You should have gone into Burger King, so we could finally have found out what they call a Whopper over there.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Is there such a thing as "Thames Valley humour"? We may never care...

Is this an Oxford v. Cambridge thing, or just some Thames Valley humour aimed at the town itself based on some local rivalry?

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: Only been to McD's

> their strange menu restrictions

Supposedly it's impractical to have the kitchen set up to deliver different types of food/menus at the same time (e.g. extra space required, the need to have separate ovens/grills at different temperatures for cooking eggs and burgers, etc).

They could probably do it, the question is whether it would be worth the additional cost and disruption (to a setup that works best when it's kept simple) for the occasional unemployed former defence engineer who wants a breakfast item at lunchtime- or, in your case, vice versa- is open to question.

Conversely, the burger van guy probably doesn't do enough business to make it worth *his* time to even bother with separate menus, so that happened to work out for you.

Michael Strorm Silver badge
Devil

Re: Doing their bit...

> Isn't that the other place?

Isn't "the other place" normally a euphemism for hell?

I'll bet they have no problem flame grilling things there!

FCC ups broadband benchmark speeds, says rural areas still underserved

Michael Strorm Silver badge

The FCC says they've upped their recommended speeds, so...

...up yours!

SAP accused of age discrimination, retaliation by US whistleblower

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: Demeaning?

> That's not what I wrote.

They never said it was. What they said was that it was the logical *outcome* of what you wrote, which- as per my comment- it certainly was.

> I'm sorry that you suck at reading comprehension.

It's ironic, then, that you clearly suck at reading comprehension yourself! :-)

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: Demeaning?

> "has whistleblowing ever worked out well for anybody? If you want to go down that road you better have an exit strategy planned well in advance"

Now you're saying that

> "If your plan - thought out in advance before you blow the whistle - is to sue for discrimination"

So, you're putting the onus on a whistleblower to have to protect themselves, and when they do so by having an exit strategy "planned well in advance" AS YOU YOURSELF SUGGESTED(!) you would use that against them for having exploited the situation?

Yeah, right.

The end of classic Outlook for Windows is coming. Are you ready?

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: And this is why

Well, look on the bright side- technically they'll be finally getting rid of that bug by killing off the Outlook app (i.e. throwing the bathwater out with the baby)!

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: Thunderbird is the replacement for Outlook Express

That's true- and I replaced OE with Thunderbird myself- but we're talking about a replacement for the "full-fat" Outlook here, which is a significantly different and more complex kettle of fish than Outlook Express.

OE was only ever a simple mail/news app (*) which Thunderbird was more than suitable for replacing, but Outlook is a far larger beast that includes numerous corporate features and is integrated in many ways with MS's other technologies. For that reason, and as good as Thunderbird is, I don't think it would be as easy or obvious a replacement for Outlook in a large corporate setup.

(*) Technically it wasn't even the cut-down version of Outlook its name might suggest, but a modified version of "Microsoft Internet Mail and News"

Michael Strorm Silver badge

PlaysForCall

A quick search confirms my memory that- on top of the fact it defaulted to WMA (which supported DRM) rather than MP3 (which didn't)- the "rip CD" option in Windows XP's media player had the "copy protect" (i.e. DRM) option checked by default. I assume that's what happened in your case.

My Dad had the same problem with some ripped audio files after he reinstalled Windows. I'm sure I heard there was some way of stripping the copy protection, but there were only a few, so it was less hassle for him just to re-rip the CDs.

One might imagine MS using the excuse that WMA was a more modern and efficient format than MP3, but I can't think of *any* similarly plausible reason why your average end-user might want DRM applied to their ripped audio by default when it offers no obvious benefit to them.

I can definitely imagine that it might have suited MS though, or rather its you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours pandering to the music industry.

Which brings us back to MS doing things for reasons that benefit *them*, regardess of whether or not they're good for the end user.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: fine, change it

Microsoft's marketing and branding has been remarkably consistent in doing two remarkably irritating things, going back decades now:-

* Rebranding the same product under numerous different names (e.g. Microsoft Passport AKA .NET Passport AKA Windows Live ID AKA Microsoft account)

* Using the same branding or name for several different products (e.g. the aforementioned Outlook case).

Or a mixture of both, for maximum confusion.

Remember that this is the same company that introduced the "PlaysForSure" branding for music files, then later introduced the Zune which had its own format that didn't support "PlaysForSure", then badged both formats as "Certified for Windows Vista" so you couldn't know if they'd "Play For Sure" with your device.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: I need classic outlook

> I don't mind losing POP3, but I need access to the large number of PST files that I archive old mails to.

That's your problem, though, not MS's. As with Windows and everything else, this decision has nothing to do with what *you*- or the majority of other users- want or need, and everything to do with MS railroading you all down a particular path because it's in *their* perceived interest to do so.

Unless you're a very large corporate customer, they don't give a toss about your personal needs.

Chrome users – get an alert when extensions are in danger of falling into wrong hands

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: The People Responsible ...!

Wröng meme, I'm afraid.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

You use my new plugin, "Under new management under new management?"

If and when that happens, Xzibit will pop up and say "Yo dawg".

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Yeah, I know it's TLS now

Lightweight. I telnet to port 443 and do all the SSL by hand.

Your PC can probably run inferencing just fine – so it's already an AI PC

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Yeah, but we all know that...

...Windows 10 or 11 are going to "mysteriously" forget or reset your preference not to have every last bit your data sent to MS's servers and used- amongst other things- to train their AI and slurp it all regardless.

So you may as well just use their service anyway.

Joking aside- because I'm not really joking- it's now known that LLMs can be conned into regurgitating the data they were trained on and that the industry's ironically-named "guardrails" are easily circumvented. So it wouldn't surprise me if we see lots of confidential data whose owners took for granted had never even left their PC able to be extracted from the likes of ChatGPT in future.

Which you could see being a major problem for *someone* if that data happens to belong to (e.g.) the aforementioned law firm.

The S in IoT stands for security. You'll never secure all the Things

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: There is an S

Is there a version of that myth where they *do* believe everything you say, but are fated to somehow not give a toss regardless?

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: "more than 5 trillion - that's trillion with a T"

The same linked source one that includes that claim ("predictions imply that by 2025, this amount will rise to approximately 1.6 trillion [USD]") *does* specifically state a couple of sentences earlier that

> "According to the research, there are currently (*) over 5 trillion gadgets that have access to the internet."

So that (unlikely) claim certainly was in the original article.

(*) Presumably as of shortly before April 2023 when the article was published.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Not sure if that was autocorrect or just me...

Correction; "Not the fact that" -> "Nor the fact that".

Also, while I'm here, just to clarify that I don't disagree with the article per so so much as the idea that the audience here didn't already know that or that "we" (the readership, or those in the industry in general) are somehow to blame when countless people *have* been warning about this sort of thing and the actual problem was that those who wanted to sell the boys-toys-tech-loving masses cheap (or not cheap), gimmicky tat (*) didn't care about it and still won't until it becomes a major problem and they start getting penalised for it.

(*) Repost (not mine):-

Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future!

Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

"more than 5 trillion - that's trillion with a T"

You *absolutely* sure that's correct? That would work out at 625 devices for *every* human on the face of the planet, and I suspect it's not quite that high just yet.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: There is an S

I was ready to cut and paste the " We should have seen this coming" quote and say much the same thing, but it didn't surprise me that others like yourself got there first.

There's nothing in this article that your typical Register reader hadn't already known the better part of a decade ago. Not the fact that the industry didn't care and that it would happen anyway.

Brit chip industry wonders if UK budget will put its money where its silicon is

Michael Strorm Silver badge

"Promised £1 billion ($1.26 billion) in funding over the next decade"

£1 billion sounds- and is no doubt intended to sound- impressive (because it certainly is a large amount of money in absolute terms).

Unless, of course, you're already aware that semiconductor fabrication is extremely expensive, with "billion" already being little more than the base unit and a single fab typically costing several billion alone.

And more importantly, when you remember that this is spread over "the next decade", so the actual investment is only £100m/year- verging on the peanuts you'd find in the two Snickers bar that averages out at per UK resident.

A billion here, a billion nowhere else, pretty soon it adds up to a drop in the ocean. Or in other words, the usual short-termist, token gesture "we have to catch up" attempt at rebuilding the UK's manufacturing base that those same Tories spent decades deindustrialising so that Thatcher could own the unions.

HDMI Forum 'blocks AMD open sourcing its 2.1 drivers'

Michael Strorm Silver badge
Trollface

More fun out-of-context...

> "DP for me in future"

Fnar fnar!

They call me 'Growler'. I don't like you. Let's discuss your pay cut

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: Tout au contraire.

Yeah, but you don't say whether you actually went back or whether you just reminded them with a smug grin that they had already chosen... poorly.

Electronic Arts frags hundreds of workers 'to grow fandom'

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: "now Electronic Arts is letting workers go" [Asking for the Pain]

> while good companies easily become bad companies

That's ironically appropriate, as EA- along with Activision- must be *the* uber-example of companies that went from good to bad- respected in their early years (i.e. during the 1980s)- both for their high-quality products and respectful attitude towards developers (*)- yet which by the early 2000s had both turned into the complete antithesis of what they once were, emblematic of everything wrong with modern, industrial-scale, coporate, franchise-driven, employee-abusive video game development.

(*) Electronic Arts and Activision both frequently credited the developer on the front of many early games. Activision in particular was founded in response to Atari's attitude that it's (uncredited) developers were little more important than "towel designers" that didn't deserve a bigger share of the profits they'd been instrumental in helping. Which makes it ironic that later on they, along with EA, ended up being the epitome of that same attitude, but on steroids. (Of course, Activision was gutted of almost all its employees and effectively restarted when Bobby Kotick took over in the early 90s, so while- AFAIK- it's still legally the same business, you could argue that it isn't in any meaningful sense).

Crowning glory of GOV.UK websites updated, sparking frontend upgrades

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: FUCK the king twat

> Probably not the most politic to bring up the Lord Protector when the crown rests on head bearing the name of a rather less fortunate Stuart monarch.

Assuming you're referring to King Charles I (i.e. "the first one"), that *was* the entire point of the joke in the first place.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: changes to things like police and military uniforms, and signage on official buildings

> My local postbox is a VR one

They have postboxes in virtual reality as well?!

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: FUCK the king twat

I don't think that Feargal Sharkey singing "Fuck the king twat" is likely to be as big a hit as "Teenage Kicks", though.

Michael Strorm Silver badge
Trollface

Re: FUCK the king twat

I assume you're waiting for the day that Charles' crown will be replaced with a stylised representation of a Roundhead's helmet, then?

I mean, it could happen- given what happened to the first one, weren't they already tempting fate by putting the new King Charles' disembodied head on a 50p coin?

Meta seeks ASIC designers for ML accelerators and datacenter SoCs

Michael Strorm Silver badge

> I get paid very handsomely, thanks. And so does my team.

I'm not disagreeing, but "handsomely" compared to what? It may pay above average, but so it should, given that it's a highly-skilled job. The question is how the pay (in whatever country it is that you live in) compares to other fields open to those with a comparable level of skill.

> This UK view of ASIC design being poorly-paid and too difficult is why the UK is now lagging behind.

Only commenting on what I'd heard elsewhere, and I don't recall it coming from someone in the UK.

If nothing else, anyone in the UK who was serious about getting a high-end, well-paid job would likely want to go elsewhere regardless, since the low value that UK employers generally place on technical skills (and are willing to pay, or not pay, for) extends across most fields of that ilk- hardware or software.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

I remember reading somewhere that the West has a shortage of chip designers and electronic engineers in general because- for a field that requires a lot of skill and demanding academic qualifications to get into- it pays very poorly compared to the sort of lucrative software development jobs anyone who was good enough for the latter could get into with much less hassle.

Employees saved Musk from himself over Twitter Files

Michael Strorm Silver badge

"Lefties"? Too old school, maaan...

Pretty sure that "leftists" is now the conservative/hard-right's preferred bogeyman term for anyone to the left of Genghis Khan and Ayn Rand.

Of course, let's remember that Musk is a self-proclaimed "Free speech absolutist", and it's great to see him uphold that principle.... except when it comes to those he disagrees with, apparently.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

FTFY

> an unsurprising number of people he doesn't agree with have been banned from X

Prompt engineering is a task best left to AI models

Michael Strorm Silver badge

SEO-style pseudoscience meets a career path with the lifespan of a mayfly

But... but... we were told that generative AI was going to create as many jobs as it destroyed, opening up exciting new career paths like "Prompt Engineer".

Oops.

Seriously, when I first heard that term, my reaction was that this was likely to be the next pseudo-profession full of bullshitting YouTubers passing themselves off as experts, followed by further wannabe "experts", all the way down to customers driven by AI FOMO, dazzled by fake "expertise" consisting- like search engine optimisation- of little more than memorisation of ephemeral and shallow tips and tricks masquerading as a science.

A bandwagon you could see countless people jumping on to under the mistaken impression that "prompt engineer" was ever going to be a career with a long term future. When in reality, it's not just that any "expertise" they're going to accrue in how gaming the current generation of LLMs is likely to be worthless in a few years time, let alone something worth building on. (*) It's that the entire concept of a "prompt engineer" itself was so obviously little more than a reflection of the current- but ephemeral- state of the art, and likely to be rendered irrelevant as things moved on.

So yeah, I could have told you that this would happen. But I'll admit that I never realised it would happen *quite* so quickly.

(*) Rather like someone who knows that if you hit their current car in a particular place or jog the accelerator it gets around a particular problem with the engine, but doesn't really understand the underlying mechanics of why that is, or how the engine works. There's nothing to build on, and all that "knowledge" will be irrelevant when that car gets scrapped and replaced by another with completely different foibles.

Someone had to say it: Scientists propose AI apocalypse kill switches

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Is there a god?

My first thought was this (and I'm surprised no-one else got there first):-

https://www.roma1.infn.it/~anzel/answer.html

(Very short, worth reading)

Air Canada must pay damages after chatbot lies to grieving passenger about discount

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: What a strange position to defend.

It's chatbots all the way down.

Tesla's Cybertruck may not be so stainless after all

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: Cybertruck - the gift that keeps on giving...

> No - they'd use a van, so that their cement and tools don't get soaked before they even get to their next job.

Well, since we're nitpicking... :-)

If you live in a climate/country where that's a regular occurrence/risk, then yeah. You'd probably have bought a van rather than a pick-up truck in the first place. (Indeed, now that I think about it, that'd explain perfectly why vans are generally used for that sort of thing in the UK and pick-up trucks are comparatively rare compared to the US.) (*)

But the fact remains that pick-up trucks do seem to be quite common for work/professional usage in the US (where I'd assume they'd use a tarpaulin if rain is only an occasional risk?). They also seem to be quite common for suburbanites who use massive, expensive image-focused models as little more than oversized replacements for cars because they like the hardworking All-American macho associations while they drive them to and from their desk job.

I'd say that the Cybertruck was obviously in the latter category, but in its defence(!), it's *so* obviously in the latter category that it's not really pretending not to be. Or maybe I'm cutting it too much slack.

(*) Are pickup trucks still common in damper/wetter areas of the US, and is this because the pan-American culture that pickup trucks are so embedded in overrides any issues of practicality? Or are there other issues that make pickup trucks a more practical choice for the US regardless?

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: until the Cybertruck is scheduled for a full wash

I'll never let you see

The way my rust-prone car is hurting me

I've got my pride and I know how to hide

All its scratches and stains

I'll do my driving in the rain

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: Cybertruck - the gift that keeps on giving...

When it was first shown, my immediate thought was there was no *way* you could ever imagine a builder chucking dusty bags of cement onto the back of that "truck" before he heads off to his next job.

Because it was so obviously never meant for real work like that. It's purely an image vehicle, and the type of people who would pay its inflated price would never risk damaging that expensive stainless steel body by using it for actual pick-up-truck-like things. (Much like people who never risk actually taking their expensive 4x4s off-road.)

But the fact that it couldn't do half these things even if you wanted it to, and that the pretty, wannabe-macho stainless steel finish will corrode if a pigeon craps on it? That sums it all up.

Michael Strorm Silver badge

> I have negative sympathy for it.

Schadenfreude?

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: Why stainless steel?

> It started with Starship. The first concepts of starship were going to be made from composite materials.

You'd think Starship would have learned after they built that city on rock and roll.

Michael Strorm Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Stainless?

> I wonder is the Cybertruck also a bit of a gimmick?

You think? ;-)

Personally, I'd be fare more likely to wonder whether it *isn't* a gimmick.

Anyway, chill out, all you Testla fanboys- I was only joking there. I've never had less than 100% faith that the Cybertruck is a complete gimmick.

Chrome engine devs experiment with automatic browser micropayments

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Do people *still* think that's a valid argument?

By that reasoning, you'd expect to get into the cinema for free because you already spent money on road tax and petrol for the car that took you there and back?

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: Flattr

Flattry got them nowhere?

Microsoft might have just pulled support for very old PCs in Windows 11 24H2

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: POPCNT

POPCNT sounds like it should be a band by one of Nathan Barley's trust fund hipster mates. Or a side project by Jeffree Star.

PiStorm turbocharges vintage Amigas with the Raspberry Pi

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Warning for Amiga 500 and 500 Plus owners while we're here

Speaking of leaking batteries, and since we're on about the Amiga, a warning for A500 Plus owners; the real-time clock is backed by a NiCd battery that's soldered to the motherboard that can- and quite likely will- leak.

If that hasn't already leaked and damaged the board after thirty years, consider yourself lucky- mine did a few years back (might or might not be repairable if the tracks can be fixed).

I'd remove the NiCd cell from the board as a precaution regardless. (Though you're probably better checking from more knowledgeable and reliable sources than myself on how to do this safely).

Though the original A500 doesn't have the RTC (and hence NiCd battery) built in, these were typically added as part of a "trapdoor" RAM expansion. I suspect that reduces the risk of a leak damaging the motherboard itself (though not the RAM expansion) but there's still the risk of it happening.

DEF CON is canceled! No, really this time – but the show will go on

Michael Strorm Silver badge

Re: Ugh, Vegas

No, if you figure out how to use *their* rules in your favour, they'll ban you, negate your win under rules already enacted to stop you using your skill to beat them at their own game, or even sue you.

It's their territory, people have already tried that, and they'll fix the rules to stop anyone winning excessively, regardless of how fair that would have been otherwise.

You'll win if they *want* you to, i.e. just enough to keep up the pretence.

At least they won't whack you like they'd have done in the Mafia-owned era.

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