Posts by Pascal Monett

Appeals court reanimates lawsuit accusing Meta of hiring bias against US citizens

"possibly roping the Supreme Court into the legal proceedings"

Step carefully there. SCOTUS decisions have, of late, reserved some surprises.

As for the complaint, I feel there is some ground in it. A competent US citizen did not get the job some H-1B holder got. Sure, the competence of the H-1B holder is not put into question, but the chance that he also has decades of experience for that specific job offer seems kind of slim to me.

Whatever the outcome, I'm not expecting this affair to do anything to Meta's hiring practices. Not until there's a federal law that states that US companies are required to hire US citizens competent for the job before looking to bring in foreigners.

And that will never happen for many (lobbying) reasons.

TeamViewer can't bring itself to say someone broke into its network – but it happened

" significant compromise of the TeamViewer remote access and support platform"

That's a bummer for a lot of people, and it seems a major headache in the making for Redmond. If some customers' security gets compromised because of this, there's going to be blood in the water.

Polyfill.io owner punches back at 'malicious defamation' amid domain shutdown

"The site owner claimed to have $50 million in funding"

Um, buddy, since you claim a number of things that are already demonstrably fake, you can go claim as much money as you wish, nobody cares.

You are lying all over the place. You claim to be based in the UK, so where's your office ? What's your VAT number ? Why is your phone number not a UK number ?

You can talk about slander all you want. If that were true, all you'd need to do is file a complaint from your UK office. Right ?

I don't know if you're Chinese or not and I don't care. You've been found out and shut down and that's a good thing. Go ahead and try to create an empire, I will never trust you or your products.

Microsoft yanks Windows 11 update after boot loop blunder

Re: they still haven't defined what testing is

Oh, but they have.

It's just that they decided they're not interested.

Elon Musk to destroy the International Space Station – with NASA's approval, for a fee

"make sure the job is done right first time"

Yeah, because Musk has a great track record on that score.

Re: Can't help wondering

The ISS is in a gravity well and it is going down. In order to push it up and away, one would likely need to strap and entire rocket to it to get the job done, which means launching a rocket that's carrying a rocket.

Last time I checked, Humanity doesn't have that capability.

One other solution might be an array of ion thrusters, but that would means dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of spacewalking and, since we've never done that before, a good chance that something might go wrong and the resulting catastrophe would end up sending the ISS down in an uncontrolled fashion. Not acceptable.

I think it is much better to plan for how and when the ISS finally re-enters the atmosphere.

FCC slaps Verizon with $1M fine for dropping 911 calls, again

"we're committed to ensuring"

If the fine was a billion dollars, I'm sure those words would be true.

Korean telco allegedly infected its P2P users with malware

"an entire team at KT"

If it is an entire team, then the CEO is aware and responsible and should be dragged in front of a judge for trial.

You don't P2P ? Fine, that's your right. But you do not have the right to spread malware to your own customers.

That is just wrong.

Resource burden of electric vehicles set to triple by 2050

"if a set of circular economy strategies is concurrently and ambitiously implemented"

Ambitiously ?

When Sir Humphry uses the term "ambitious", it generally means the politician runs away from it.

I don't expect this generation of political clowns to do anything ambitious except fail.

Etched looks to challenge Nvidia with an ASIC purpose-built for transformer models

Primary Venture Partners and Positive Sum Ventures

Who funds these operations ?

I checked out PVP's web site. All of their "partners" are very young when you're talking funding in billions. So I take it they're not the ones with the money, they just distribute it.

So who gives them the money ?

British Airways blames T5 luggage chaos on fault 'outside of our control'

"AI and machine learning will help flights depart on time"

I think the 350 new employees might have more importance on that side of the business.

Pseudo-AI can always plan for the plane to depart by 6:30, if not enough hands are available to load the luggage, top up the tanks and get the passengers inside, it won't happen, period.

Oh, and side question : is that pseudo-AI going to be using FPGAs , or regular climate-destroying GPUs ?

Yahoo! Japan to waive $189 million ad revenue after detecting fraudulent clicks

Advertisers, apparently.

Nobody else, though.

Glastonbury to turn festivalgoer pee into eco-friendly fertilizer

"It is also nice that not everywhere smells like Paris"

Ooh, burn !

And right before the Paris Olympics as well !

AT&T wants Big Tech to help fund US internet access

"AT&T thinks that"

Someone else should yet again foot the bill for its revenues.

This story is getting seriously old. Put in some damn fiber, or fold and let someone competent take care of the problem !

China's Chang'e-6 capsule returns with lunar loot from the far side

Congratulations to the Chinese Space Industry

This is indeed an achievement. I hope that we will be able to read about the results of the analysis.

And look, US Space Force has found an excuse to ask for more funding.

So, everybody happy, right ?

Re: Rehearsal

Democracy and bureaucracy had nothing to do with it all.

It was paranoia and economic gains that were asleep. Paranoia entered hibernation when the Soviet Union fell. During that time, economic gains have been slowly waking up, and now paranoia has been jolted into action.

So, progress will be made . . .

Want to save the planet from AI? Chuck in an FPGA and ditch the matrix

13W instead of 700

That's almost 54 times less.

FPGA FTW !

Julian Assange pleads guilty, leaves courtroom a free man

That is not an excuse. It's a reason, but not an excuse.

"certain types of journalism won't be tolerated"

Releasing confidential information without doing a proper job of protecting the names of people involved has never been tolerated, it's just that Assange was the first to do it.

I would have accepted his leaks without problem if he had sought to protect the names of the people from public scrutiny. That would have been a demonstration of US Government shenanigans.

Instead, what we got was a lot of people in sudden danger who needed to flee in urgency, many operations that were exposed and failed, or worse, and the fact that Assange paid for all that with the stress and confinement he got is only justice.

A journalist is not a judge. Leak curated info about government affairs, no problem, but you cite names when the person has been arrested or is being investigated officially. Then you can because you're reporting an ongoing affair, but you do not create the affair and name the people involved.

A proper journalist does not do that.

Apple tells emulator developers it's OK with retro games – not entire OSes

Typical

"when I asked what changes I should make to be compliant, they had no idea, nor when I asked what a retro game console is. "

Yeah, it's Apple. They find excuses and make up rules to refer to when they deny you, but they will never, ever publish a clear guide of how to respect the rules.

That would remove the ability to deny you, you see, and Cupertino needs that ability to ensure control.

Control is paramount. Publishing the rulebook would remove control.

That cannot be allowed.

CISA says crooks used Ivanti bugs to snoop around high-risk chemical facilities

Hang on a minute

"after someone broke into its Chemical Security Assessment Tool (CSAT) portal "

So, basically, you're telling me that, because some government portal couldn't be arsed to do its job properly, now it is getting all on its high horse and telling everyone else to do their job ?

Are we in a real universe, or is this some clown universe that I'm not aware of ?

UK and US cops band together to tackle Qilin's ransomware shakedowns

I wouldn't argue about that either.

And I'm thinking there are a few thousand patients who might not be entirely against the idea.

I hope they find them

And when they do, well, let's just say I wouldn't balk at some extraordinary rendition.

Nvidia loses a cool $500B as market questions AI boom

"CEO Jensen Huang had sold almost $95 million of the company's shares"

A drop in the bucket. And what do you expect ? He gets shares because he's CEO. They are given to him so he can sell them.

Nvidia got hit on the stock market ? A blip on the radar. Nothing to do with market expectations, nothing to do with revenue.

This is all just more Wall Street wanking.

Airbn-bye: Barcelona bans short-term apartment rentals for tourists

Sounds good, but at the condition that sub-renting is forbidden.

Intel investor sues over Foundry flop, seeks to reforge corporate governance

Okay, you might have been mislead

But what "financial damage" are you complaining about ?

That you couldn't sell your shares as high as you were expecting ?

That's the game you decided to play. You're an investment company, you're supposed to know the rules.

If I had money to invest, I know who I wouldn't be trusting with it now.

It's desktop refresh season in the land of the Windowsalikes

Presumably you could.

I'm guessing you're under 30.

Come back in 25 years and we'll discuss how useful keyboard lighting is . . .

"harmonize the desktop theme with RGB keyboard lighting"

Right. That is a typical 1st-world detail right there.

As far as keyboard lighting concerns me, my eyesight has gone to shit so all I need is a nice amber color, which is what I program for my existing keyboard lighting.

Aside from that, I do not need to have my computer box lit in rainbow colors, my fans lit in blue, red or green, or whatever else. The box is under the desk. I don't see it anyway, so why should it be lit up like a Christmas tree ?

I will leave that to the people who think it is important, no judgement here. For me, it's not important, so don't judge me.

DARPA searched for fields quantum computers really could revolutionize, with mixed results

So, quantum computing will be here in 30 years, then

Not sure where I've already heard something like that . . .

Tesla sued for 'systemic' racism at its Fremont, California plant

Wow

And to think we live in the 3rd millennium.

I'd have thought we, as a species, could have gotten past this trend by now.

I am obviously sadly mistaken.

AT&T forbidden from cutting landline services to large parts of California

"the company argued locals had options other than its landlines"

Well, with Starlink it can now shut down its entire network, can't it ?

Oh, silly me, they still want the parts that make good money.

Well, you can't have it all. And be thankful you don't operate in Luxembourg because there, there is a law that states that anyone asking for a connection must be served.

You'd be having conniptions over there . . .

With ultimately the same result.

Privacy features lose their way in latest Firefox update

Re: Damning with faint praise

And NoScript.

Mostly NoScript.

NASA finds humanity would totally fumble asteroid defense

Re: COVID-19 Demonstrated Our Doom

I would like to think that you're wrong.

Then I look at the state of conflict in this world, the Republican party and Trump, and all the idiots that are pretending to be responsible for my country, and I think to myself : "meh, bring on the asteroid".

Sure, there will be a bad moment to pass but, like ripping off a bandage, if you do it quickly, it gets better quickly as well.

It's still a horrible thought to have, but hey, Trump.

Now, where did I leave that booze ? I need to stock up.

Um, sorry, but I believe the movie you're referencing is called Armageddon.

2012 is about neutrinos heating up the Earth's core.

Armageddon is the one where Bruce Willis sacrifices himself to save his daughter's love life (oh, and the rest of Humanity as well).

You're obviously not wrong, but you've omitted one factor : Big Oil.

Big Oil is doing everything it can to slow our response to climate change because it thinks that is in its interests. An asteroid that will devastate a large portion of the Earth just might endanger its extraction facilities as well, and Big Oil won't like that.

So I'm thinking Big Oil just might be a driving force in this scenario.

Starlink stuffs the internet into a backpack by invitation only

And besides, can I just point out that if you're out camping, why don't you, gosh, take in the view ? Get off that fucking screen for a while ?

In all seriousness though, having a portable access to the Internet is a good idea. That would help solve a number of connectivity problems for people who get into trouble in the wilderness, or people who are in a disaster zone and need to coordinate the emergency.

So yes on the tech, but could we please stop inviting people to keep their eyes glued on a slab of toxic materials when they have the beauty of Nature (with a capital, please) in front of said eyes ?

They don't need encouragement.

Guess how much stored data is ever used or accessed

So, up to 80% of stored data is unused

Not a problem for the NSA. It loves trawling through all that unused data to try and find something under the paranoia du jour.

Unused data is not useless data, and it'll be a cold day in Hell before your average manager authorizes the complete and irrevocable distruction of data he hasn't looked at since at least a decade.

Just in case, you understand.

The X Window System is still hanging on at 40

You have to understand, dissing "old" tech is trendy right now.

BOFH: Why's the network so slow?

"just a change we rolled out"

Heh, good one. The BOFH basically admits that he's responsible for the situation and manages to get dinner expenses paid to correct his own problem.

Impeccable.

You're wrong, I'm right, and you're hiding the data that proves it

"more often than not it's users and managers who are in the wrong when IT goes awry"

That's because the users and managers keep their job and are free to mangle things again.

An IT guy who fouls up is more often than not fired from the company, so he doesn't get much chance to foul up again.

Since joining NATO, Sweden claims Russia has been borking Nordic satellites

"A Kremlin representative"

Who is, of course, a paragon of truthfulness and virtue and could never tell a lie. Of course he's going to deny. They denied Tchernobyl until the rest of world was red in the face before mumbling that there might have been an issue.

It's come to a point where Putin's Russia could actually admit something and everyone else would be like "whoa, what angle are they playing now ?".

How Europe can force Apple to support competition

Apple's browser rule

That is why Apple adopted the smartphone market. On a PC, Microsoft cannot dictate what browser you can use, the user can install the browser he wants and, should Redmond try to circumvent that, the lawsuit would be immediate and devastating.

But, on a smartphone, Apple can have a field day. It owns the platform, it does what it wants. And what Apple wants is total control without liability (and yes, I know about MacOS, but the PC market is still something that Apple has not penetrated significantly after decades of trying, the smartphone market is an entirely different ball game).

The only way to change that is with legal imposition. Capitalism is not going to auto-regulate this.

Google’s attempt to kill off child privacy app advertising lawsuit defeated

"Filed in June last year"

And still not actually in court. Sheesh. Talk about a snail's pace . . .

Half of Dell US staff reportedly opted for remote work

Green flag indicates "regular onsite presence"

Hey, one day a month is regular, by definition.

Russia's cyber spies still threatening French national security, democracy

"a disinformation campaign to undermine president Emmanuel Macron"

It's okay, President Macron has his own campaign to undermine himself.

And he is succeeding brilliantly.

Battery electric vehicles lose their spark in Europe as hybrids steal the show

EV

Interesting to note that absolutely nothing is mentioned about how "green" EV's might actually not be.

I mean, if solar panels are starting to look a tad more grey than green, then what chance do EVs have outside of the political rhetoric of some biased idiots who want to see us all live in caves ?

Study employs large language models to sniff out their own bloopers

"a new way to detect errors in " LLMs

Yeah, right. Let's set up a few more climate-busting datacenters to control the value of a climate-busting datacenter.

I'm sure Nvidia is going to agree.

It sure keeps down expenses compared to asking an actual engineer to explain the results . . .

Microsoft's new Surface Laptop 7 has arrived. The recovery images have not

"why it would release hardware before its recovery tool had been updated"

Because it needs the users to test the tool to find that out . . .

Australian billionaire wins right to sue Facebook in the US over scam ads

Re: you do realise that theres nothing green about EV as well

Yes I do, thank you very much.

I don't have an EV and I don't intend to get one. That doesn't mean that I approve of selling one's country to multinational conglomerates.

Excuse me if I prefer the idea of democracy - however hard that is to keep going these days.