Posts by Pascal Monett

Microsoft exec warns of business functions being sacrificed on the altar of AI

Re: The reason we use it so much is that is is better than man

Apparently, it isn't.

But it is trendy.

For the moment.

AI has colonized our world – so it's time to learn the language of our new overlords

"Best to just suck it up and master Delvish"

I don't know about that. I'm not sure an LLM datacenter can last long when confronted with a few strategically-placed packs of C4.

If that's what it takes, that's what we'll do. After all, datacenters are not T2s. We can beat them easily.

Medical cannabis CTO says vendors would hang up when he called looking for a deal

Oh, it's Australia

Of course it's fucked up then. That's standard and practically mandatory.

Robot enters Fukushima's nuclear core to retrieve melted-down remains

"radioactive hybrid terror pigs"

That sounds like a perfect mob for the next horror game.

Wanna watch a movie? Sure! Lemme just park the lounge room

"fulfill the dream of having one more room"

That must be a purely Japanese problem. I have enough rooms in my house, I don't need to buy a mobile one.

That being said, the day we do get 100% fully secure self-driving vehicles, I would probably not mind one where I can watch something during the trip, since I won't have to pay attention to the road.

Oh, and I don't mean watch ads, Ford.

Microsoft says it broke some Windows 10 patching – as it fixes flaws under attack

"this may break dual-boot system"

What a surprise.

Oracle wants to power 1GW datacenter with trio of tiny nuclear reactors

"pilot projects have not gone well"

Why ? What have the problems been ? How many pilots have there been ?

I'd like a bit more info on that. Until we get actual fusion, I am convinced that nuclear (preferably Thorium) is the way to go. So what are these SMRs based on and why is it apparently so hard to get them working on land when they are working fine in nuclear submarines ?

The future everyone wanted – in-car ads tailored to your journey and passengers

Disabling ? What makes you think you'll be able to ?

ServiceNow moves its backend off MariaDB to homebrew Postgres

the "Pro" version of the database

If I were a customer, I would demand a demonstration on my data before giving up the money.

27 times faster when pulling reports ? I would want to see that for myself.

I hope ServiceNow has something of a solution for that.

Oracle reports rising top line as it hooks up database service to AWS

"When people are actually doing things manually, it's a security risk"

I'm sure the BOFH agrees. When no one is on the network, the network is much more secure.

Top EU court crushes Google appeal against $2.65B Shopping antitrust ruling

You really to go back to where you belong : Twitter.

Down and out: Aegon's pension pothole and TfL's mystery 'maintenance'

"But two weeks to fix?"

That is the question.

Two weeks means regular maintenance has not been performed. It means competent people have left, and documentation has not been recorded. It means that corporate knowledge has been lost. Or it means that you never paid attention beyond "now it's working".

Now, you have to play catch up.

Good luck with that.

Malaysia's plan to block overseas DNS dies after a day

"It has been falsely claimed"

It is disturbing to see that governments the world over are now prone to attacking the validity of a claim instead of proving any wrong (or justifying their position).

A government states that it wants to block DNS. Citizens claim that that is a bad idea.

That is not a false claim. It is a perfectly legitmate claim and, if the idea had any actual justification, you would not have backtracked a mere day after making the claim.

We're in the brute force phase of AI – once it ends, demand for GPUs will too

"Generative AI is"

A humongous fucking bubble that brings in VC funding and guarantees a fat golden parachute . . for now.

Sounding the end times on that is a good thing.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch could be gone in ten years – for chump change

"Curbing their spread feels like a good idea"

It most definitely does. I believe that Humans, as a species, need to stop just doing whatever because of immediate satisfaction.

We have a responsibility, due to our absolute ability to get stuff done. Bears shit in the woods ? We can remove the forest if we feel like it. We're doing that in some places on this planet. We need to better understand the consequences of our actions.

We're supposed to be intelligent. When I see someone throwing a cigarette butt out of a car window, I wonder if that is really true. We act like none of our actions have any consequence. A cigarette butt ? It's nothing. Out the window it goes. But it is something, we just don't realize exactly what the consequences are.

We need to learn the consequences of our everyday lives, and adapt to the better side of those consequences.

It's for our own good. Because reading that 75% of Italian mothers have microplastics in their breast milk is something that really does not sound good to me.

It is, however, the consequence of our own ignorance.

So stop being ignorant and do something about it.

CrowdStrike hopes legal threats will fade as time passes since it broke the world

Sure. This might be the time to finally bury them like they deserve.

Xockets rockets Nvidia: Blackwell debut threatened by DPU patent claims

So, it's going to be handbags at dawn, then ?

My, I'm beginning to think that I should invest in popcorn futures . . .

What do Uber drivers make of Waymo? 'We are cooked'

Re: Not a cheap gig to run

Yeah, but if the prize is an $80K Jag, it might be worth thinking about . . .

Blood boffins build billions of nanobots to battle brain aneurysms without surgery

Re: 38 yrs from "Engines of Creation" and 35 years from "Nanosystems"

And what exactly should have been possible by now in the medical field ?

The tricorder, perhaps ?

Boeing's Calamity Capsule returns to Earth without a crew

"Boeing is committed to continue their work with us."

Of course it is, it wants the subsidies and the fat contract.

On the other hand, it acts like a spoiled brat. Boeing didn't attend the briefing ? What pathetic man-child decided that that was a professional attitude to have ?

If it was up to me, Boeing would be stricken from the list of partners of NASA in general, period.

Pat Gelsinger's grand plan to reinvent Intel is in jeopardy

"The division is bleeding billions each quarter"

Gosh, who could have thought making stuff might actually cost money ?

Morons.

To patch this server, we need to get someone drunk

Well, at least they didn't let your access continue for a year after throwing you out, not like some companies . . .

Re: 'Exit interview'

I admit I don't really understand the approach. The person is either leaving because they've had enough, or because you're throwing them out.

Neither option is conducive to an honest and productive interview, as far as I can see.

VMware revenue bounces for Broadcom, chips were a little undercooked

"but also posted a loss"

So, not only are you losing money, but you are also losing major customers.

You can keep parading for now, Broadcom, but I don't think this is going to end well for you.

Of course the Internet Archive’s digital lending broke the law, appeals court says

The entire notion of copyright needs a massive overhaul to enter the digital age we are living in.

I don't have a solution. I have no idea what the solution is. I absolutely believe that the creator of an original work should be adequately compensated if said work garners public attention, but things like Disney should no longer happen. A work is created by a person. When that person dies, so should his/her copyright. If said person worked for a company and produced said work for the company, the person should still be the holder of the copyright, not the company. And rights should only be transferable to living, breathing people, not to a company.

But that is just my opinion . . .

AI-pushing Adobe says AI-shy office workers will love AI if it saves them time

"if it saved them a substantial amount of time"

And there's the problem right there : people will apparently accept anything that hoovers up their personal data as long as they see a smidgen of benefit.

Funnily enough, I don't think there are many people who would agree to get beaten every morning if it meant they would be paid 10% more, but as soon as computer is involved, people lose all sense of measure and can only think "oh, if I give up all my data I can get a voucher for free ice cream ? Deal !".

Pfff.

Cisco's Smart Licensing Utility flaws suggest it's pretty dumb on security

Re: What, again?

Indeed.

Thank goodness we all got rid of that supreme menace that was Huawei, right ?

With friends like Cisco, who needs enemies ?

P.S. : thanks for the linked article - I'll be keeping that as a reference

Verizon snaps up Frontier in $20B fiber power play

So, 2 million more customers

I have trouble finding out if Verizon is a reliable, trustworthy company. I found this article that states that, in 2008, Verizon was ranked #1 for wireless service, but when I google "Verizon reputation", I find scores of posts and web pages citing unhappy people and issues with either their connection or the help they (do not) get from Verizon.

Apart from the shenanigans of buying back what they got rid of years ago, I'm just wondering if this is a move that will actually make things easier for people in the long run (I couldn't care less about if it makes things better for the Board).

13 days into the outage, will Kaseya's Traverse trip back to life today?

Re: I remember dumping Kaseya

Well I have to agree that, for a company supposedly doing network monitoring, if it takes you more than 3 days to "update" your own network, you're doing it wrong.

Your network should be updated constantly and seamlessly, with a reboot of one server being handled by a failover server.

I mean, when you know how to properly design your tools and network, that is.

Age discrimination layoff case against X granted class-action status

"a dozen class actions currently pending against X"

Wow.

That sounds like it's going to cost money. Money that His Muskiness is going to have to pay, because you do not not pay when the Court says you do.

That is going to hurt . . .

Amazon congratulates itself for AI code that mostly works

"principal developer advocate for AWS"

What is that title ?

Isn't an advocate for something supposed to be independant from said something ?

Okay, I know, in these times when anything PR is supported by a budget from the interested party (unless we're talking about publicity, which can be generated in myriad ways), an "advocate" is very likely to have a financial interest in advocating (ahem, "influencers" . . .), but honestly, can't you just give the title it deserves : Public Relations Manager ?

If every PC is going to be an AI PC, they better be as good at all the things trad PCs can do

Re: Would have been better ..

And throw away the first responder advantage ? Madness.

Be first, then make it work.

Only in software . . .

Key aspects of Palantir's Federated Data Platform lack legal basis, lawyers tell NHS England

Welcome to the future . . .

"NHS England declined to comment"

Obviously. NHS knows that, when the inevitable lawsuit comes, it will lose.

There is, of course, the inevitable settle-out-of-court option, so all is well . . .

AI's thirst for water is alarming, but may solve itself

Shhh !

Don't rock the boat now, they've got a good thing going and there's golden parachute galore in the end-run . . .

Re: the free market

You mean the one that is directed by selfish capitalist assholes who don't give a fuck about laws as long as they don't get in the way of their profits ?

I'm not sure that that's a good thing for the planet, and less so for Humanity's life expentancy on it.

Apple accused of hoodwinking UK antitrust cops

What a cushy job

I wish I were hired by Apple to handle PR requests.

I could play golf all day long.

Well, if I liked golf, that is.

AT&T sues Broadcom for 'breaking' VMware support extension contract

A perpetual license, eh ?

Well, now we know just how far Broadcom is willing to go to honor the obligations of the company it bought . . . aka no farther than you can throw it.

This is indeed going to be interesting. A Board who thinks it has all the rights vs a Fortune 500 company that holds part of the security interests of the nation at stake. And all of this based on legal contract.

Methinks Broadcom is going to be eating humble pie pretty soon . . .

Copilot for Microsoft 365 might boost productivity if you survive the compliance minefield

Sounds like a nice mess

Conflicting data access ? How is it that salaries are stored in an LLM in the first place ?

Oh, silly me, it's because CoPilot hoovers up everything it can, then serves it back to whoever asks. Security ? Controlled access ? Ha ha. We're talking about Windows here. Even the US Government is starting to complain about Windows snafus.

You had one job – and four US regulators will share info to check a merger didn't unfairly end it

"the feds will apply additional scrutiny to mergers and acquisitions"

With what manpower ? Will they be hiring additional agents to support the increased workload ?

I applaud the initiative, to be sure, but is sharing the data going to be enough to improve oversight ?

Because in the end, somebody is going to have to review that additional data, collate it and analyze it, and that for each agency involved.

Or there might be a joint task force for every case, to make the data sharing more productive.

In any case, it won't be simple, but it is a good idea.

Security biz Verkada to pay $3M penalty under deal that also enforces infosec upgrade

"Verkada neither admits nor denies"

The words of every corporate criminal everywhere.

Thank you for the heads up. I will be avoiding your products like the plague and telling everyone I know about you.

Atomic clocks are so last epoch, it's time someone nailed down the nuclear clock

A graduate student

Not a professor, oh no. A student.

Methinks this one is going to have a bright career.

Microsoft PC accessories rise from the grave just in time for Christmas

Re: Sidewinder Strategic Commander to live again?

Oh yes, please !

Mine is getting a bit worn out.

GenAI spending bubble? Definitely 'maybe' says ServiceNow

"this is something that's going to be long-term"

Of course the CFO of a company hyping AI is going to say that. He's got investors to think of. He's the chief bookkeeper, he doesn't know the technology, he just sees the revenue.

The truth will happen soon enough, and then we'll see him bail with a golden parachute, leaving the company, and the hype, in the dust.

Starlink U-turns, will block X in Brazil after all

Orders that have been approved by five judges from the Supreme Court.

If you accept the US Supreme Court, then you can shut up about Brazil.

Go back to Twitter.

Admins wonder if the cloud was such a good idea after all

Re: The C Suite people have never really cared about details

Of course not.

They can't understand them.

"an initial euphoric rush to the cloud"

No kidding. It was as if cannabis had be legalized and every marketdroid was offering blunts.

And all the CxOs partook . . .

The amber glow of bork illuminates Brighton Station

"at least one screen on our network that looks like this for a few seconds"

Ah, the Good Enough programming paradigm. If it works 95% of the time, we're good, right ?

European chip lobby seeks more government cash and policy clout

"more say over policy decisions"

Ain't that nice. You give us the money and we'll tell you what we can do with it.

I don't feel like I'm living in the same world as these people . . .

UK trio pleads guilty to running $10M MFA bypass biz

Re: "Bragged"

In any case, they look a perfect fit for roles in the next Lock, Stock & Barrel film.