Posts by Pascal Monett

Is it OK to use stolen data? What if it's scientific research in the public interest?

And you'd have had a lot more trouble selling the results to advertisers.

Fine. Let's go torture 20,000 people in various documented ways and create a gigantic store of medical data that will help save lives.

Saving lives will certainly right the wrong. No problem, right ?

Royal Navy will be getting autonomous machines – for donkey work humans can't be bothered with

"our platforms will be designed as uncrewed"

I'd really like to see a warship without a crew.

What happens if there's a problem with the engine ? Does the vessel make a call to the helpdesk and some team needs to be shipped out to evaluate and make repairs ?

Today's fighting vessels are complicated beasts. Navigating is not an easy task, even with GPS. The vessel will need to be able to avoid storms, other ships, and plot a course to its destination that will optimize transit time while avoiding all dangers.

That is why all ships, merchant or military, have people in the bridge and the engine room, places where decisions need to be made and, occasionally, things can break. An uncrewed platform is going to be a long time coming, with or without "AI".

Electron-to-joule conversion formulae? Cute. Welcome to the school of hard knocks

"a multitude of fresh qualifications counted for naught"

Not entirely true. They count on the paper the HR drone looks at.

Someone with a decade or more experience in the field will always know the incidental things that no university course can possibly teach (since the teachers do not go on client site), and will therefor be able to evaluate the total environment of the problem to find the real solution.

If it were possible to evade facial-recognition systems using just subtle makeup, it might look something like this

"trained observers may be wise to your caper and stop you"

In the supermarket ?

Under what authority ?

You can still wear any garment you wish in civilized countries, can't you ?

Ransomware-hit law firm secures High Court judgment against unknown criminals

"the High Court ruled in the firm's favour by default"

I'm sure the Russian hackers are quaking in their boots.

A developer built an AI chatbot using GPT-3 that helped a man speak again to his late fiancée. OpenAI shut it down

How is it different ?

Simple, the amount of emotional attachment to a loved one is vastly more important than the attachment to a video game.

I have video games that I have "loved" in the past, but OS versions have evolved and I can't play them any more. So I play with the games I "love" today. If I lose my PC due to a super solar storm that brings down the power grid of the planet, I will be mighty unhappy, but I won't build a shrine for it. I guess I'll actually <gasp> just have to go outside.

I lost my mother a decade ago now. I still think of her. I won't be thinking about a dead PC a decade later.

OpenSilver throws Microsoft Silverlight devs a lifeline as end of support looms – or you could forget it ever happened

I am eagerly looking forward to an article in this style concerning Sharepoint.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Beijing wants its internet to become 'civilized' by always reflecting Marxist values

Now that is a very interesting quote.

It clearly demonstrates that Communism is like the Bible : each group keeps its own favorite quotes that agree with their specific mindset and ignores the rest.

Wikipedia bans seven Chinese users amid concerns of 'infiltration, physical harm'

From what I understood, there is a Chinese version of Wikipedia (because the engine in free, anyone can create a wiki on any subject). That version is not under the control of the Wikimedia Foundation.

However, the Foundation discovered that there are apparently editors and sysops from China who are actively trying to subvert pages in the world-available Wikipedia, and the Foundation is trying to find a way to put a stop to that while respecting the "Encyclopedia anyone can edit" mantra.

What a nightmare.

Ex-US intel, military trio were cyber-mercenaries for UAE, say prosecutors

"the three jumped ship to a UAE-based business"

And there is the problem : Uncle Sam let them out.

I think that, if you are working for a company that requires governmental approval to export what you are making, the government should also have a say in who you are allowed to go work for outside USA borders.

Yes, I know, it is a restriction of individual liberty, but honestly, it seems to be a necessity as well. These three not only brazenly quit to go work directly in the UAE for a competing company that openly worked in the same domain as the company they left, but they also recruited ex-colleagues, meaning yet more brain drain going where it definitely shouldn't.

And it would seem that they had no problem putting almost $1.7 million on the table to stay out of prison. I'm pretty sure that that means they have a lot more than that stashed away somewhere out of Uncle Sam's reach. They profited handsomely from torture and unjust surveillance, they should go to jail.

India, Singapore harmonise their rapid payment schemes

The Southern hemisphere is gearing up

They have the population, COVID gave them the motivation, now they are starting to realize their potential.

The future of economic influence zones is going to be interesting. Australia is weaving accords with its nearest neighbors, now India and Singapore, China is desperately trying to find exchange deals with anyone willing to work for a dictatorship, I seem to remember reading about Brazil as well, things are moving forward.

And that means that the economical influence of the USA and Europe is waning.

Interesting times ahead.

Krita art app users targeted by ransomware posing as paid 'collaboration' opportunities

Always check the links

Even if you are sure of who you think sent the mail, check that the links are genuine.

This scam is likely to be quite effective because it is apparently well done and believable, but that just means that people don't pay enough attention to with whom they work.

If you're a professional using a product, you should know what domains that product is attached to. Any mail you receive purporting to be from that company should absolutely only be from one if its own domains.

If you have a doubt, just email that company's support and forward them a copy, asking them if it is genuine.

Think before you click.

AI caramba, those neural networks are power-hungry: Counting the environmental cost of artificial intelligence

"Counting the environmental cost of artificial intelligence statistical analysis machines"

FTFY

We do not have AI. I will not stop bringing that point up.

Linus Torvalds admits to 'self-inflicted damage' with -Werror as Linux 5.15 rc1 debuts

Re: New category?

If you want to be hyper politically-correct, then you need to pay attention to where you put the hyphen :)

Off yer bike: Apple warns motorcycles could shake iPhone cameras out of focus forever

Re: plenty of other brands of phone

How many are there, exactly ?

Care to be a bit more specific ?

I know of Android and Huawei. There might be one or two more available, but "plenty" seems a bit of a stretch to me.

Ghosts in the machine learning pipeline will be impossible to exorcise

"You can't copyright, trademark or patent a real-life personality"

Indeed, you can't.

You should not, however, create a fiction based on the data of the dead.

I understand that people have trouble letting go. I understand that very well. That's the reason all those spiritism charlatans make their money.

But you have to face the fact : your loved one is dead. It's harsh, it's unforgiving, but it's a fact.

Entertaining yourself with a fac-simile is nothing but soul porn.

Deal with it. Your life is finite, just as their's was. Live your life, don't live in the past.

You can 'go your own way' over GDPR, says UK's new Information Commissioner

"morally bankrupt pathological liars"

Well, for Facebook, I think that that is a perfectly apt description.

You want us to make a change? We can do it, but it'll cost you...

"he worked out the coding of the lock file [..] and updated the lock himself

That's called piracy, if I'm not mistaken.

Not too bright, are you? Your laptop, I mean... Not you

I guess I should count myself lucky.

My work laptop is an HP Elitebook 8560w, and it doesn't have a WiFi switch, it has four buttons with a LED that shines either orange or white (when the laptop is on, of course), one of which has the WiFi icon.

If I want to connect to WiFi, I press the button, the LED goes from orange to white, then I can connect.

A rare case when HP did something right, I guess.

Oooh you naughty boy

Dozy ISS cosmonauts woken by smoke alarm on eve of 5-hour spacewalk

"the International Space Station's Russian segment"

I'm starting to think it might be a good idea to get rid of that.

Microsoft adds hybrid meeting features to Teams, including interruption-detecting AI

"notify users who interrupt others"

Oh for fuck's sake can we stop with the nanny society ?

Adults know when they interrupt. Adults also know when the interruption is justified. And they should be able to handle when it is not.

Computers are not the answer to everything.

42 is.

Knock it off. I don't need a friggin' AI to tell me when I can speak.

Search 'middle finger' on Giphy: Basically Facebook's response to UK competition concerns over merger

the wrong legal test

I acknowledge that Facebook's regular skirting at the edge of the law puts it in fine position to know how the law works, but it is still ferociously ironic for Facebook to educate a government institution focusing on competition how it should interpret the law.

I expect Facebook to be brutally slapped down on this one.

McDonald's email blunder broadcasts database creds to comedy competition winners

"We take data privacy very seriously"

As usual, after the breach has happened.

This kind of bullshit declaration is starting to wear very, very thin.

Why tell the doctor where it hurts, when you could use emoji instead?

Re: Idiocracy

No, but here we are.

"accessibility to illiterate people is the main argument for the ever increasing use of pictograms"

Great. Illiteracy is a growing problem.

Solution ? Instead of putting in the effort to curb illiteracy, let's make everyone more stupid.

Wonderful. Civilization really is going places.

Mainly down, but still, we're going places.

Boffins unveil SSD-Insider++, promise ransomware detection and recovery right in your storage

"detecting infections and reverting unexpected encryption"

That an SSD can detect infection is already a surprise to me, but what really takes the cake is the "unexpected encryption" part of that declaration.

Please explain to me how an SSD can tell if an encryption is expected or not.

How can an SSD make the difference between the used deciding to encrypt files on the SSD and malware residing in RAM doing it ?

I would really like to know, and then explain to me how a malware author is not going to be able to replicate that.

Fujitsu wins £5m contract to support the UK's troubled Border Crossing system

A program without objectives

Is just an excuse to give money hand over fist to someone without expecting anything in return, or at least, anything useful in return.

How is it that, in the 3rd Millennium of our common age, there are still people who write up commercial orders without a clue as to what they expect in return ?

Could that moron please be fired ?

Element's latest bridge for Matrix: 'All the good stuff from WhatsApp, without the less good Facebook stuff'

As if that was ever an argument for Facebook

"it feels like it would be a very ill-advised move for a big tech megacorp like Facebook to bring down the hammer on innocent users who are simply trying to interoperate "

It also feels that it would be very ill-advised for Facebook to flout Congressional hearings and lie to the face of elected representatives across the world, but hey, that doesn't stop The Zuck from doing it (although, curiously, not in China - I wonder why ?).

Amazon says Elon Musk's wicked, wicked ways mean SpaceX's Starlink 2.0 should not be allowed to fly

I love it !

Gigantic megacorp bad mouths rival gigantic magecorp leader that is trouncing it in one specific market.

None of the arguments are very impressive, given where they are coming from, but hey, Bezos has now firmly demonstrated his total lack of class and willingness to stoop to any level to try and get his way.

Funny, there was a time when that was called "leadership" . . .

Oh no worry there, it will.

LA cops told to harvest social media handles from people they stop, suspect or not

"collect social media details from people they stop and talk to"

Um, nope.

I plead the Fifth.

Move along, officer, nothing to see here.

no point

He's not wrong though . . .

James Webb Space Telescope penciled in for launch this century. Yes, Dec 18, 2021

Re: Really?

Yes but, wait until you see the JWST floating out there with it's hermine fur-lined cape.

Then you'll realize it was all worth it.

"This thing better not explode on the pad"

Or in the air, or anywhere, really.

I really hope all will go well until launch - whenever that ends up being.

We need a fingers crossed icon.

Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos fraud trial begins: Defense claims all she did was fail – and that's not a crime

No honor among thieves

Failure is not a crime indeed, that's why nobody is prosecuting Magic Leap for completely failing to deliver on the massive hype it generated.

But when you're pushing a product that is supposed to help save lives and your product is not only a dud, but you know it so well that you are asking another company to do the tests for you, you deserve to go down hard.

And pretending that she has a mental condition ? That's only a guarantee that she should be barred from ever holding a position of responsibility again.

Lying scum right up until the end.

SAP 'investigating' after viral video allegedly shows anti-mask employee coughing on shoppers

God did not invent scientists. We did that with the intelligence God graced us with.

Just as God does not punish us with landslides, floods or avalanches. We do that by not paying attention to where the dangers are when writing the zoning rules.

Stop attributing to God things that are our own responsibility.

The day the asteroid comes, it will be our fault if we're not ready and God will have had nothing to do with it.

Re: Covidiots DO exist!

Goes to show just how well-behaved people are in general.

How is it that that woman didn't get a slap in face ?

She certainly deserved it.

Cough on me and I'll tell you to fuck off. Cough on my daughter and I will punch the living daylights out of you.

Australia rules Facebook page operators are legally liable for user comments under posts

It's always the same thing. Take the Olympics - only the gold winner ever gets a mention afterwards (and not for very long at that).

Proton welcomes Sir Tim Berners-Lee to its advisory board – as ProtonMail suffers a privacy backlash

Re: Whitewashing

Indeed.

But what a shame to have a person of such quality end up in such a dump.

On the other hand, it might be just what the doctor ordered to sort out this mess.

Council culture: Software test leads to absurd local planning SNAFU

Re: Early doors

If you're that thirsty, why waste time going out ? Open a bottle at home and drink it right away, then go to the pub and finish getting smashed.

Order, people, order.

Mine's the one with the flask of whisky in the left pocket.

Browser-based video editor Clipchamp disappears into the bowels of Microsoft 365

Re: you would think [Microsoft] would have this kind of calibre of staff already on board

Oh I think Borkzilla has great people on board. That is why I simply cannot comprehend the Metro UI, or pushing dev updates to the live channel, or printergate.

It's almost as if the people giving the orders were an order of magnitude less competent than the people actually doing the work.

That's probably the reason why Borkzilla got rid of its QA department - too much trouble to deal with, much more comfortable to push a patch you think is ready and deal with the fallout (no, it isn't, but that's how it seems).

We're going deeper underground: New digital project to map UK's sub-surface 'assets'

Trying and failing ?

US Air Force chief software officer quits after launching Hellfire missile of a LinkedIn post at his former bosses

Okay, I'll accept your comment.

Now, if I tell you that it is that very same IT manager who refused me access to the dev server, what does it become ?

Docker’s cash conundrum is becoming a bet on a very different future

Maintenance is by far the biggest problem in software.

When you have created something remarkable, people will remember you.

If you spend 20 years keeping it up to date, that's a lot less likely.

It takes balls of steel to accept that.

I agree with your point.

To be explicit, for me socialism is a society where money is good, but money is not everything. Health care is primordial, education is primordial, transport infrastructure is primordial, and the laws should be tailored in favor of the population's needs, not in favor of multinational conglomerates.

Right, Texas ?

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

Well yes, but phreaking gave one person one international call.

It did not bring down thousands of data centers.

The scale is not the same.

Report details how Airbus pilots saved the day when all three flight computers failed on landing

Re: You don't need a Tesla to crash

But it helps . . .