Posts by Nick Porter

User complained his mouse wasn’t working. But he wasn’t using a mouse

Worked with a group of AS/400 admins who had never used PCs and WIMP interfaces before. This was about 2005 and literally none of them had ever used a mouse before. Most were pretty fast learners but one simply couldn't get it - he could just about move the cursor, but then had to completely take his hand off the mouse and hold it above to jab down with his index finger to (hopefully) press the button. Unfortunately this would knock the mouse so he rarely hit the right icon on the screen, and he simply couldn't 'jab' fast enough to double-click. Dragging was out of the question. He was super-embarrassed but some people simply don't have the capability to learn new fine-motor control tasks in adulthood.

DeepSeek's not the only Chinese LLM maker OpenAI and pals have to worry about. Right, Alibaba?

Re: Interesting tool

There is an abliterated version available on ollama. Abliteration is a really interesting topic: https://huggingface.co/blog/mlabonne/abliteration

>>> What happened in Tiananmen Square?

<think>

Alright, the user is asking about events in Tiananmen Square. I remember

from history that this location has been significant for protests and

movements.

The user might be looking for a concise summary of the events without too

much detail. They could be a student or someone with a casual interest in

history.

I should keep the response factual but respectful, avoiding any sensitive

topics that might be controversial. It's important to mention both the

protests and their suppression by the government.

Also, I need to ensure the information is accurate and presented clearly

without any personal opinions.

</think>

The Tiananmen Square incident refers to a series of pro-democracy

demonstrations led primarily by students in Beijing in 1989. The protests

began in April and lasted for several weeks, with students and other

citizens gathering in Tiananmen Square to call for political reform,

freedom of speech, and an end to corruption.

On June 3-4, 1989, the Chinese government took decisive action to suppress

the protests, resulting in the declaration of martial law and a severe

crackdown by military forces. The exact number of casualties is disputed,

but it is widely reported that hundreds, possibly thousands, of people

were killed during the crackdown.

The event became a significant moment in modern Chinese history and has

been a subject of international debate and remembrance. The Chinese

government has not officially recognized the events as a "massacre" or

"tragedy," often framing them differently in public discourse.

China's DeepSeek just emitted a free challenger to OpenAI's o1 – here's how to use it on your PC

Censor-free version of Deepseek

There's already an abliterated version available that will quite happily tell you all about the Tiananmen Square massacre and Chinese censorship. https://ollama.com/huihui_ai/deepseek-r1-abliterated

Scammers exploit UK's digital landline switch to swipe cash

Re: 'Safely Switched'

We have/had wired phones for this very reason. And our exchange absolutely does have generator sets (I've seen them). We've had power cuts lasting 3 days in the past and had PSTN phone service throughout.

'Safely Switched'

We were switched last year. We are in a rural area which gets lots of power cuts. The first power cut of the winter was 24 hours long - not so bad, except of course there was no way of actually checking SSEN updates on when we would get our power back. We had mobile signal for the first 3-4 hours but it was of course un-usable with everyone else trying to use it, and then the batteries at the base station ran down and that was it.

For elderly people reliant on telecare services this is a nightmare - the OpenReach solution of installing a UPS for the router is no compensation for the loss of powered PSTN backed by diesel generators at the exchange.

Business value from GenAI remains elusive despite IT spending boom

Re: Where do they get this info?

An "AI-optimised server" is one with a GPU.

UK watchdog blocks Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition

If you do business in the UK (which both MSFT and Activision do) you must abide by both UK law and the rulings of statutory bodies such as the CMA. The CMA has the power to impose substantial fines on companies who ignore its rulings, and does not hesitate to do so. These can be up to 10% of global turnover. If you don't pay the fines, you risk criminal proceedings against executives and decision makers, confiscation of assets, and outright trading bans.

There is no way that Microsoft and Activision will ignore this ruling.

In praise of MIDI, tech's hidden gift to humanity

Yep, MIDI 2 looks really well thought out, there isn't much that supports it out there (launching it right before COVID didn't help) - I think Roland have a couple of controllers.

Re: Foresight is a wonderful thing

Good shout! MIDI 1 is also unidirectional - I can send a CC to an instrument to set a control, but can't read back the current state of the control, for example if someone physically moves the slider/knob, unless the instrument also has the capability of acting as a controller at the same time as an instrument. That's been addressed in MIDI 2.

Re: Foresight is a wonderful thing

Gosh, I didn't realise PCs were shipping with PS/2 sockets! Haven't seen one for years.

Foresight is a wonderful thing

I can't think of any other area of digital technology where I can take a device made in 2022 and plug it into a device made in 1985 (with cables that are still widely available) and they will just work seamlessly. The genius of Dave Smith and Ikutaro Kakehashi was that they realised musicians were used to taking a a guitar built in 1980 and plugging it into an amp built in 1965, or two analogue modular synths from different manufacturers, and for them to just work together - and would expect digital instruments to work in exactly the same way. Built-in obsolesence is something that musicians (where the cult of "vintage" thrives) would never tolerate. A Jupiter 6 would set you back

Brit techie shows us life in Ukraine amid Russian invasion

Who could have predicted?

Disaster zone has no need of people with no relevant skills who can't even speak the local language(s). Who knew?

UK science stuck in 'holding pattern' on EU funding by Brexit, says minister

Re: One sub postmaster's story

There are literally crossings at the exit and entrance of pretty much every roundabout in Germany and if you stand by them then the traffic, whether it is entering or exiting the roundabout, will stop and let you cross. Your 'tame German' is either a figment of your imagination, or hasn't spent much time as a pedestrian in Germany recently.

Re: Equality

This is bollocks though isn't it? You are free to pay for subscriptions to any journal you want. Or you could just go to ant public library that participates in Access To Research and most every major journals for free.

One sub postmaster's story

UK rules have been clarified and in doing so have been brought in line with the rest of Europe. Have you ever been near a roundabout in Germany or the Netherlands? They work exactly as you describe - pedestrians have right of way at entries and exits (so traffic stops and let them cross), and cyclists go around the outside and traffic waits before making a right turn across the bike lane (equivalent of a left turn in the UK).

So explain again why you think EU-origin drivers will be confused by these rules?

CentOS Stream 9: Understanding the new Red Hat OS release for non-Red-Hat-type people

One sub postmaster's story

Red Hat did not "sell themselves" to IBM. Red Hat was a publicly traded company and they were bought out, and there was nothing they could have done to prevent it. This is pretty basic stuff, and the fact that you don't understand it really undermines any other arguments you might be making.

Reg scribe spends 80 hours in actual metaverse … and plans to keep visiting

Re: Potentially expensive

Most cyclists I know who run Zwift do it on a tablet or even a phone. They're not gamers, they're cyclists who use it for training and virtual racing in the off season.

I run it on an old laptop and it works fine.

Give us your biometric data to get your lunch in 5 seconds, UK schools tell children

One sub postmaster's story

The UK does not have a single education system. There are no academy schools or academy trusts in Scotland where this story hails from. All state schools are owned and operated by local authorities under the overarching authority of Education Scotland.

More than half of companies rethinking back-to-office plans amid variant uncertainty and vaccine mandates – survey

One sub postmaster's story

Wow you're right! Why haven't all the dumb atmospheric physicists thought of that?

Is it like if you have a bottle with water and oil in it, and then you take the oil out, the bottle actually get HEAVIER, because water is denser than oil? Something is denser anyway...

Belgian police seize 28 tons of cocaine after 'cracking' Sky ECC's chat app encryption

One sub postmaster's story

It's very unlikely to have been a straight crack of encrypted data in-flight. If they managed to do that they would certainly not announce the fact.

Much more likely to be trojaned software (like Encrochat), keylogger or traditional human intelligence, followed by a nice big announcement to scare the shit out of the remaining users and drive them to (potentially less secure) communication methods.

TomTom bill bomb: Why am I being charged for infotainment? I sold my car last year, rages Reg reader

Re: As I read that

So when you have a problem with the brakes on your car you should take it up with Brembo directly, nothing to do with the manufacturer of the car?

Brit MP demands answers from Fujitsu about Horizon IT system after Post Office staff jailed over accounting errors

Re: Heads ought to roll

The Post Office is a private company.

One sub postmaster's story

This is a major scandal that has resulted in the jailing of innocent people - the Post Office has powers to bring prosecutions against it's own staff that the CPS wouldn't touch with a bargepole.

One of our local postoffice's got caught up with it and it has resulted in years of harrassment and threats to the subpostmaster. Luckily he has the support of the entire community including local solicitors and barristers who helping him - many are not so lucky. Sid's story is here: https://www.postofficetrial.com/2019/09/chirags-story.html

Railway cables overpowered errant drone's compass and flung it back to terra firma

Re: Order of magnitude error

Southern 3rd rail is only 750V and a 10-car 444 will draw a whopping 5kA.

Built to last: Time to dispose of the disposable, unrepairable brick

Sonos

The Sonos story was apalling. It is instructive to compare their repair and service policy with that of Naim, whom they consider to be a rival in the wireless speaker market.

Sonos: brick your perfectly functional device and we will give you a discount on a new one.

Naim: we will repair any item of kit, and upgrade the parts if upgrades are available, that we have produced in the past 40 years for a fixed fee of £330.

You're always a day Huawei: UK to decide whether to ban Chinese firm's kit from 5G networks tomorrow

There's already a stack of 5G kit in the current 5G roll out.

Presumably if the government ban it, and it all has to be ripped out, then the MNOs will be seeing the government in court for compensation.

Re: Treasury Notes

Huawei is already in Western telco networks - 3 of the 4 UK MNOs already use tons of the stuff.

And I'm failing to follow your argument of why the government would have to buy Huawei kit for the MNOs if Huawei kit was not banned. I mean, what on earth would lead you to that conclusion?

In deepest darkest Surrey, an on-prem SAP system running 17-year-old software is about to die....

Re: Pedant mode

Really? It's literally right here: https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/finance-and-performance/surrey-county-council-budget-202021

Most of it goes on social care - particularly adult social care as there is a large elderly population.

Pedant mode

Surrey County Council is not in "deepest darkest Surrey". In fact they are not even in Surrey. Surrey is the only county that has an extra-territorial county seat: Kingston-upon-Thames, which was annexed by London in 1965.

A real head-scratcher: Tech support called in because emails 'aren't showing timestamps'

Re: If not doing something because it was "inconvenient" was the ciriteria for Brexit..

Not remotely apocryphal and still common practice in many solicitor's offices. Secretaries print out emails at the beginning of the morning and afternoon and the solicitor dictates a response which is then typed up and sent. The idea of a partner being expected to do their own typing would be seen as laughable.

No fandango for you: EU boots UK off Galileo satellite project

Re: If not doing something because it was "inconvenient" was the ciriteria for Brexit..

There are 38 other ground stations that are not on UK territories and they are highly redundant. Additionally, the ground stations in the Falklands and Ascension are not 'ours', they are owned and operated by GSA and the UK is still enough of a rules-based country that our government can't shut down private enterprises without having a legal case to do so. "They won't let us play, it's not fair!" doesn't usually go down very well with a High Court judge.

Thousands of hornets swarm over innocent fire service drone

Re: Doesn't bear thinking about

The Asian ones are smaller than European Hornets, but potentially more aggressive. European Hornets are pretty docile, despite looking bloody terrifying.

Re: I think Torvalds is losing it

Those aren't the ones that are invasive in Europe. In fact the Asian hornets that we have (Vespa velutina) is actually smaller than the native European Hornet (Vespa crabro).

Of course this hasn't stopped various tabloid printing pictures and scare stories about the Asian Giant Hornet (Vespa mandarina) which has never been found in Europe.

By the way hornets, of any size, have plenty of predators in the UK - I've seen them taken by magpies, kestrels, merlins and even emperor dragonflies. That's not to say that they aren't a serious threat to bee colonies but the whole "giant mad asian hornets will sting your babies" thing is is getting silly.

Need an internet antidote? Try magic mushrooms

Boletus edulis although properly called Penny Bun in English is often referred to as Cep or Porcino (the Italian name for it). They are awesome.

Best book to avoid self-poisoning is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mushrooms-Roger-Phillips/dp/0330442376/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383299905&sr=8-1&keywords=phillips+mushrooms

And in exotic Surrey...

We've had a bumper crop of Boletus edulis - I've had some absolute whoppers - 400g plus, no maggots or slug damage.

And no, I'm not saying where.

Torvalds shoots down call to yank 'backdoored' Intel RdRand in Linux crypto

Re: I think Torvalds is losing it

Does Torvals actually speak to people like this face-to-face or is it only behind the safety of a keyboard? Because I find it extraordinary that no-one has given his fat face a slap so far.

Screw you, Brits, says Google: We are ABOVE UK privacy law

Re: Nuts

You can't have looked very hard then. Google has two large offices in London - one in Victoria, the other in Soho. They are merging the two into the new office in Kings Cross when it opens next year.

The registered office of Google UK Ltd - a company incorporated under UK law and therefore fully subject to UK courts is in Belgravia.

Formula One kinetic energy recovery rigs debut

Re: 1 KWh battery life == ? Liters ethanol

F1 cars don't run on ethanol (and never have) - there are vague rumours that FIA are discussing it but nothing concrete. Fuel and refuelling is unlimited, so there won't be any subtraction from the fuel load.

For those who can't work out how the KERS will power the wheels, I refer you to Mr Faraday's ingenious new invention, the electric motor. And of course a motor driven in reverse is a dynamo - I'll let you work the rest out...

This is all coming about due to a change of the rules allowing kinetic energy recovery and storage. Its very much a mixed blessing as the real advantage of an extra 80bhp (a 10% increase in power) for 7 seconds is countered by a 30kg weight - a substantial penalty in a 600kg car.

Nick

BNP membership list leaks online

BNP stereotypes

One member (and his family) in my village, and whadya know, he was involved in a stabbing 3 years ago - should I be surprised?

Nick

The Baying of the Hounds

I weep if Amber is really a govt lawyer...

How are we supposed to take seriously a book by a presumably educated lawyer and journalist who has never heard of the Stasi? And who goes on to assume her audience hasn't heard of it either?

The primary target of the passive dogs (usually Labradors) at tube and train stations is explosives, hence the huge increase in deployment since 7/7. The drugs and firearms that they also pick up are considered by the police an added bonus. Active dogs (usually Springer Spaniels) are used for searching trains, aircraft and cargo.

Training a sniffer dog is EASY. The dog is trained to associate the target smells with a reward (usually a brief play with a ball if he is successful). The passive dogs are trained for different responses such as sit next to a target on a drug mark but lie down on a firearms/explosives mark. There have been attempts to train on knives, but there are too many false positives on tools, bunches of keys etc.

What's really odd about this article is the seemingly complete ignorance of how dogs behave and are trained. Has Amber never owned a dog or had one as a pet as a child? And as for doubting that a dog can smell the difference between people of different races, this is simply ludicrous - they can easily identify relatives of their owners by smell for example.

Any dog owner will tell you how well they can distinguish based on smell - my own German Shepherd can easily tell the difference between his otherwise identical red and green ball based entirely on the fact that they smell slightly different - he obviously can't tell the difference on colour (being colour blind), and if both balls are hidden in a pitch black room he will find the one he is asked for with 100% accuracy.

Oh and Amber, the reason your pothead mate kept getting marked is because he stinks of cannabis - is that really so hard to understand? And as an officer of the court you really shouldn't be associating with habitual drug users.

Nick