* Posts by Jason Bloomberg

2894 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Mar 2008

Ahead of IPO, Reddit blends advertising into user posts

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

All of which found the format capable of "driving upper funnel results"

Is that what we're calling "stuff it up your arse" sentiment these days?

Network Rail steps back from geofencing over safety fears

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: because...

a cunning smart card based system for ensuring that tower crane operators could only operate cranes within parameters defined by their level of training and certification.

That's an inherent problem of automated enforcement; there's always some means of defeating it if determined enough.

When it comes to providing 'additional protections' to what already exists it's a different matter.

It's the difference between protecting others and protecting people from themselves.

FAA gives Boeing 90 days to fix serious safety shortcomings found in report

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: "FAA gives Boeing 90 days to fix serious safety shortcomings..."

Boeing are so far down the road to ruin that I doubt there are many, if any, 'real Boeing employees who have a clue' left.

I might suggest that anyone still there is by that definition not one of such a breed.

Microsoft trying to stop Copilot generating fake Putin comments on Navalny's death

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: The problem with our "AI" systems

Putin has not made a public statement about Navalny’s death.

I don't know if he has or hasn't, nor whether he said Biden blaming him was "baseless and politically motivated".

But it seems to me these are two different things.

Dell promises 'every PC is going to be an AI PC' whether you like it or not

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

I think it's because the public appears, to a large degree, to have bought into the hype. Manufacturers can see money to be had so are simply encouraging on-going buy-in to the hype, may even have fallen for the hype themselves.

For most prior 'must have' nonsense there have always been plenty of naysayers stepping up to say why it's bullshit and they aren't buying it, in concept or with cash. Currently they aren't being seen nor heard by the public.

Unless current 'AI' proves itself I expect people will eventually come to the conclusion it's not as good as they imagined it would be and will eventually be seen as just another over-rated fad.

Employees saved Musk from himself over Twitter Files

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: For sure he’s a dick/ or special even

By equating them you are diminishing the evil that Hitler and the Nazis brought on the world

Bollocks.

That's not how perceived reputation works.

Reddit signs AI training deal with Google – and why OpenAI's Altman could be the winner

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

The best way to train an AI

Bullshit artists, propagandists, conspiracy theorists, liars and fantasists.

What could possibly go wrong?

250 million-plus reserved IPv4 addresses could be released – but the internet isn’t built to use them

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

10.*.*.*

"240/4 could be added to those pools to help “large private Internets that require more address space than is available in the private use address space designated by [RFC1918] during the dual stack transition to IPv6."

Perhaps I am missing some nuance but large private internets can use 10.*.*.* - That provides nearly 17 million unique addresses.

"Analysis of global internet traffic suggests Amazon and Verizon Business use it internally, too."

Does it still count as internal use when it is global internet traffic?

When it comes to working from home, Register readers are bucking national trends

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: It's the commute

Not having a 90 minute commute each way has done wonders for my blood pressure.

I can't disagree but I do miss listening to CDs during the journey. I know I could power-up the Hi-Fi any time I want but it's just not the same. So not the same I think it's been over a decade since I listened to any recorded music.

I'm one of those lucky ones who works permanently from home. The only real downside is it's a bit like doing jail time if you are single and don't ensure you have a decent social life. On the plus side I hardly noticed the pandemic restrictions.

The other thing I miss is calling other drivers "wankers". But there are enough opportunities for that as a pedestrian. Or get some strong ale in and just shout in the local park.

AI-driven booze bouncers can ID you with face scan

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Big Brother

Brave New World

I guess it won't be long before the supermarkets are networked with government databases so suspected miscreants can be welcomed as they step out of the store by armed police.

Insert something about "thinking of the children", "drugs", "terrorists", "immigrants" or whatever here ...

Poor communication led to complete lack of communication

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
FAIL

"In initial testing, it behaved as expected, so all was good"

So why wasn't the infinite ping-pong of updates not noticed during testing?

I fell into the same trap when I was developing proof of concept code for a mesh network where packets were broadcast to systems which broadcast those onwards and I soon experienced the network flood I had neglected to consider. But it was immediately obvious what I had unwittingly done, what I had overlooked.

The Post Office systems scandal demands a critical response

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: I realise the UK still has a strict class system

But why, on flippin’ earth, has it taken this long to become the MEGA story that it always was?

I guess it's like everything else which never breaks through to collective public consciousness.

I am quite surprised the ITV drama has finally succeeded in making the public aware of what many others have known for years, but am of course extremely glad it has.

The real question is how people can remain so ignorant of, or turn a blind eye to, things they really should be aware of, should have an interest in, have an informed opinion upon.

"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to stand by and do nothing" - or something like that.

Top LLMs struggle to make accurate legal arguments

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Snake Oil doesn't work

I thought we all knew that already.

It is mightily impressive they have managed to get a computer to emulate the bullshit artist from every pub but I don't see how anyone thought that would be useful, or is surprised that it isn't.

Driverless cars swerve traffic tickets in California even if they break the law

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Driver and insurance should pay

If I send my fully automatic car to pick up the kids from school, I should be just as responsible.

If I am fortunate enough to be able to employ a chauffeur go pick up my kids I don't see why I should be responsible for the crimes they choose to indulge in while doing that.

Regardless of whether my chauffeur is a sack of meat or a box of electronics.

NHS England published heavily redacted Palantir contract as festivities began

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Big Brother

Why?

Why would anyone trust someone to keep something safe if they are not even prepared to say how they will keep those things safe?

You would have to be a fool to do so. Unfortunately we don't have any choice but to be taken for fools.

Welcome to 2024. Nothing ever seems to get better.

CLIs are simply wizard at character building. Let’s not keep them to ourselves

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Linux

-h or --help

Hard to remember but I am eternally grateful to coders who report "use --help" rather than give me what I want when I use -h, especially when not specifying arguments gives me the help I was after anyway.

It's whether the second argument, ala "npm install", is a command or an option which mostly catches me out these days.

Bank's datacenter died after travelling back in time to 1970

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Trollface

Meet a reader we will Regomize as "Colin"

Is that a British "Colin"?

Or the American "Colene"?

Post-Brexit tariffs on EU-UK electric vehicle imports staved off for three years

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: So, Brexit means Brexit, except when it doesn't

As to getting re-elected, I think only the Dunning-Kruger wing of the party believes that's remotely possible.

And me, and others who fear that Starmer will be deemed such a damp squib that voters splitting between Labour, Lib Dems and Greens will allow the tory scum to win the day.

Every party which gets elected with more voting against them than for inevitably claims a mandate, pretends "the will of the people" is behind them and supports whatever the party decides than what voters voted for, and that nonsense is going to continue while we retain the first past the post system instead of some better from of democracy.

Musk tells advertisers to 'go f**k' themselves as $44B X gamble spirals into chaos

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Thumb Up

"it's gonna kill the company"

At least it's good news.

And all we have to do is go fuck ourselves.

Wayland takes the wheel as Red Hat bids farewell to X.org

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Joke

Integrate Wayland into systemd

Problems solved.

That time a JPL engineer almost killed a Mars Rover before it left Earth

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Flame

Measure twice, cut once.

Throwing the switch is always a stressful moment even when I have checked, double checked, triple checked, that it's not all going to end in a puff of smoke, have had others run their own checks.

He was lucky it didn't become another reminder of why it's never a good idea to have people working long hours, doing double shifts, being put under intense pressure to meet deadlines.

Sam Altman set to rejoin OpenAI as CEO – seemingly with Microsoft's blessing

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

being forced to tick those boxes

No one is being forced into anything -that's simply a strawman.

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
IT Angle

"OpenAI implodes!" and you don't think El Reg should be reporting to the extent they have on that huge event and the rapid twists and turns as the story unfolds?

Bizarre.

Ubuntu Budgie switches its approach to Wayland

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
FAIL

Re: I suppose it would be useful

Raspberry Pi's recommendation to switch to X11 or even stay with their Bullseye release for some problems encountered isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of Wayland.

I can accept all the white paper reports that Wayland is better than X11 in any number of ways. That it doesn't yet do what X11 can do remains a huge obstacle for me.

OpenAI meltdown: How could Microsoft have let this happen after betting so many billions?

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Loose change

I wish I had so much money that I could invest $10 billion-plus without needing any control over what I was investing in.

Meta's fix for teen online mental health? Hold Apple and Google responsible

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Unhappy

Indeed. And they are not going to give up on 'victim blaming' while it remains an option.

OpenAI tackles 'major outage' hitting ChatGPT APIs

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Coat

" 0554 PT (1354 UTC) ... As of 0733 PT (1333 UTC)"

Did someone ask ChatGPT to provide the time conversions?

Is UTC slowly running backwards?

Did the author experience a DST event mid-week?

Has the simulation we're living in gone completely to pot?

'Corrupt' cop jailed for tipping off pal to EncroChat dragnet

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

That's a quote from a scumbag who probably doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, just telling his scumbag mates how he thinks it is and how he imagines it could be dodged.

I doubt "having no effin' clue" is going to be on the charge sheet.

Arm grabs a slice of Raspberry Pi to sweeten relationship with IoT devs

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

I think it's just as much about a Raspberry Pi IPO being on the horizon.

China's YMTC scrounges for billions to help bypass US sanctions

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: License

Calista doesn't want to spend months in jail waiting for her trial and taking her chances with the U.S. judicial system

Maybe she'll choose to be a martyr to the cause. Or perhaps she'll just set up bed in RISC-V's Switzerland board room and wait for the extradition request to come in, laugh along with the rest of us at whatever ludicrous grounds America offers to support that.

But even sending her to Guantanamo and water-boarding her day in and day out won't sop RISC-V being a thing.

America increasingly seems to be more than one sandwich short of a picnic.

Judge bins AI copyright lawsuit against DeviantArt, Midjourney – Stability still in the mix

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Berne Convention

"Dismissed all copyright violation claims made by McKernan and Ortiz since neither of them registered their work with the US Copyright Office"

I always thought the Berne Convention provided Copyright Protection at the instant of the work's creation, that there was no explicit need to register a work to secure Copyright Protection.

Is this just another case of 'Welcome to America'?

RISC-V champ SiFive confirms it's laying off 1 in 5 workers

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

I'm not sure how this news means RISC-V isn't going to be amazing.

That SiFive have decided to shift their view of where their future lies doesn't affect the future of RISC-V itself. There are other companies out there working on RISC-V, and likely more to come, so there should be plenty of opportunities for those fired and others who have an interest in it.

The Raspberry Pi 5 is now available ... if you pre-ordered

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: A single wired NIC?

It's easy enough to connect a USB-NIC and those I have used just work. It was okay with the original Pi B and the Pi 5 has much more bandwidth for its USB.

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Eben said Q4 production would be 3 million, about a million a month, so, while they wouldn't just be building Pi 5, I'm surprised people are having to form a queue, official retailers are predicting a January delivery date.

GNOME Foundation's new executive director sparks witch hunt

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: On the third hand

The entire planet is used to this interface. Why change it?

I once had an app which did an astoundingly good job of presenting a MacOS look and feel interface. It was great except that if I had wanted Mac OS I wouldn't have been using Windows.

Hot fuzz: Cascade finds dozens of RISC-V chip bugs using random data storm

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Thumb Up

Finding bugs :(

Being able to find bugs :)

Overall I'd call it a big win for RISC-V.

Uncle Sam orders Nvidia to cease most AI chip sales in China 'immediately'

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Facepalm

Good for Chinese companies.

It certainly does seem there is $5 billion waiting to be handed to those who can come up with home-grown goods

And those wanting those chips might even be inclined to throw wads of R&D money in their direction to make it happen rather than go without. And then there's the long-term benefit of being a supplier of preference once they've done it. Plus the benefit for China, its businesses and citizens, that the money stays in the local economy not mailed to America.

I do hope China remembers to send the US a Christmas "thank you" card.

Web Summit CEO's comments on Israeli conflict 'war crimes' sparks boycott

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

They can boycott someone for any reason. You are free to boycott those companies if you don't agree with their reason.

They can.

But it doesn't look good to me when they boycott for calling out war crimes as war crimes when they are by any objective definition.

Not in my name.

Biden hopes to squeeze loopholes to slow China's devouring of US AI chips

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

If you are pissing people off you must be doing something right

While complete bollocks it must be music to Chinese ears to know America is so worried about them

RISC-V org claims export restrictions would stifle innovation

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
FAIL

"Potentially defeating the object of the restrictions in the first place"

Not just defeating the restrictions, but making them ineffective ever after, while boosting local skills, knowledge and experience, and possibly even giving China the technological advantage which they too can control.

True, it will cost, but what price would anyone put on having sovereignty, not being beholden to America and her anti-competitive practices?

For a little bit more they could deliver under cost and potentially wipe out American competitors.

I don't think China is going to be at all worried. America should be.

Kaluma squeezes JavaScript onto the Raspberry Pi Pico

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Pint

Re: Why, $deity, why?!?!

I have immense difficulty understanding why anybody would want to take the language and adapt it to run server side.

If you ignore all the stuff which lets it interact with web pages in a browser it's really Just Another Programming Language (TM), one which looks a bit like C but simpler to use because of dynamic typing, not hard to get to grips with and use at all.

And that's what some people wanting to program microcontrollers are looking for.

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Hmm.

Utterly dynamic languages are great for geniuses who can hold the entire context of a codebase in their heads at once.

And people who only write short and simple code, and that's what many using the Pico, Pico W and other RP2040 boards will be doing. It's a moderately powerful device, more than a micro but not a PC, perfect for tinkerers and beginners.

Kaluma isn't that new as I have an installation for the Pico on my PC dated 2021. I am sure it has been improved, and I don't mind it getting promotion.

As it was some years ago when I tried it I can't say much more than it seemed to work when I tested it back then.

I went in a different direction but if people want to use JavaScript then good luck to them. Each to their own. The more makers the better.

EFF urges Chrome users to get out of the Privacy Sandbox

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Six of one and half a dozen of the other

Setting aside advertising itself, telling an advertiser only that "the person viewing this page likes camping, sheep and condoms" is a lot less revealing than what can be had with cookies so I can see where Google are coming from.

And, having witnessed more than once the EFF pushing hyperbolic 'the sky is falling' nonsense, they no longer have the credibility they once had.

So, hard to say which side I'm on without more research.

PhD student guilty of 3D-printing 'kamikaze' drone for Islamic State terrorists

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: The cops also reportedly discovered at the home an IS application form,

And this is why the Home Secretary should be insisting the Royal Mail open all letters and checks them.

Yes, sarcasm. But I'm sure many of her right wing pals would support the idea.

Search for phone signal caused oil spill, say Japanese investigators

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Wow. Just wow.

I cannot believe he was a seasoned captain.

Possibly another victim of "done it loads of times before and nothing bad happened".

Raspberry Pi 5 revealed, and it should satisfy your need for speed

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Lost the plot

Everybody else I met had some other views

The worse of which was "it doesn't do video editing well". Unfortunately, being unable to do what they were never intended to do, pressure was applied to turn notebooks into things they were never meant to be which were effectively killed off for the audience who wanted what notebooks offered.

Switch to hit the fan as BT begins prep ahead of analog phone sunset

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

What's the worst that could happen?

I have had so few problems with VoIP that I can't criticise it. But I do worry what will happen when, not just the network goes down, but the cell towers as well.

That's when we will discover how fucked we are. Has any pilot programme actually tested that scenario? I doubt it.

Lawsuit claims Google Maps led dad of two over collapsed bridge to his death

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

In know what the law says about not driving faster than you can see/react

Never drive faster than your Guardian Angel can fly has served me well.

Probably wouldn't have helped here as I would have been looking over my shoulder trying to figure out what the fuck she was up to as I went over the edge of the missing bridge.

How is this problem mine, techie asked, while cleaning underground computer

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

My dirtiest secret

That would be the ground floor of a British Rail signal box where they racked the computers. Axle dust gets everywhere and there's a lot of it when you are track-side, have a lot of axles on a train, have a lot of trains, all slowing down as they pass, and the door is wedged open to let some fresh air in.

So what if China has 7nm chips now, there's no Huawei it can make them 'at scale'

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: The United States

Not to worry U.S. you are still the world champs at blackmail. (do as we say or... sanctions)

I would suggest not. The trick with sanctions is to make it a better option to comply than not. That usually rests upon complying or going it alone, with going it alone having big risks and huge costs. It's often pragmatic to suck it up and comply.

But cutting someone off shifts the choice to going without or going it alone. Which is a no-brainer and inevitably forces acceptance of those risks and costs.

It staggers me that America would walk this path, force China into upping her game.