Posts by Pascal Monett

So you've built the best tablet, Apple. Show us why it matters

"they're also keenly aware that it takes away privacy"

I beg to differ.

I am not at all convinced that people are "keenly aware" of the violation of their privacy. I will barely acknowledge that people are aware of it at all.

Because, if people were so keenly aware, they would stop with Facebook, block Google at every turn and campaign for their rights to be respected at the legal level.

I'm not seeing that happening.

Yes, there are people who are aware. For starters, all of those who, like me, do not have social media account. I can phone or mail my firneds, I don't need a life-raping platform to help me stay in touch.

But those are far from the majority, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about Facebook, Tik-Tok, Instagram et al.

So no. People are certianly not "keenly aware".

Techie invented bits of the box he was fixing, still botched the job

Same here.

I started my career in computing as an operator on a Bull DPS 9. The night shift was where we were doing most of the disk swapping because that's when the accounting packages ran.

I moved on to programming after that.

Underwater datacenters could sink to sound wave sabotage

So, sound waves can be a problem

Could they not be mitigated by putting the racks on vibration-damping supports ?

They did that for NORAD in the Rocky Mountains, I'm sure it would cost much less in a simple bit barn(acle).

Please do not give too much thought to Trump's hatred of anything.

Remember the caravans ?

As soon as his election was done, they disappeared.

Surprising, isn't it ?

First LockBit, now BreachForums: Are cops winning the war or just a few battles?

i agree completely with hard prison sentences for this kind of scum.

I'm just not convinced that any Russian national is going to give up one of his compatriots to the country that has been Russia's enemy since the Cold War.

Would you give up some hacker you knew to Xi Ping ?

Plus : a reward in dollars isn't going to be much of an incentive to a Russian, these days . . .

AWS to pump billions into sovereign cloud for Germany

Ah, GDRP

Nice to see that US multinational behemoths are bowing to the law of the land where they operate.

I mean, sure, Redmond and Fruitzilla kowtow to Beijing but, hey, if you don't, you're either banned or the CEO goes to jail. Not fun, eh Cook ?

There's no Congressional Hearing where El Zuck can pretend he gives a fuck and continue as before.

So, given that the EU is still a market that is comparable to the US, with a bit of leeway as far as lobbying is concerned, they will make an effort.

In this case, an effort of about $8 billion, to be able to continue to milk a market that is otherwise captive.

Yeah, I think I'd do the same . . .

Toshiba to shed 4,000 jobs as part of revitalization plan

"early retirement packages"

Well at least they aren't just throwing them out.

Japan still has a semblance of recognition for decades of work and loyalty.

No doubt that, in the next few decades, they will join the more "enlightened" likes of Musk & Co, who consider employees like tissues, to be sneezed in and discarded when used . . .

Of course it doesn't apply to him.

He's part of the elite . . .

Lords of May-hem: Seven signs it is Oracle's year end

"there's nothing illegal in its approach"

And there's nothing illegal in telling them to take a hike and not signing up in the first place.

Computer sprinkled with exotic chemicals produced super-problems, not super-powers

The upcoming court case ?

Why ? The hospital goofed, the machine died. Did they think that they would sue to get a new one for free ?

I doubt they could blame the contractor in any way. The glass doors were added for silence, so hospital management knew where it was going. If they knew that, they should have also been aware that there were drains with various liquids coming down there. The contractor hardly could.

I think this is all the hospital's fault. They didn't give all the specifics, or they moved the chemistry lab after the computer was installed, or they just didn't think the problem through.

I don't see how it could be the contractor's fault.

AT&T formalizes deal for space-based cellular service on unmodified mobiles

So, 64 square meters at 500km

Looks like most of that is solar panels. The number of articles explaining why astronomers are unhappy is impressive.

And they want to chuck 60+ more up there.

BlueWalker wiki here

Space.com complains

Nature is unhappy as well

Crims abusing Microsoft Quick Assist to deploy Black Basta ransomware

Exactly. Quick Assist is just the new name for it.

And yes, I have always hunted that bastard down and disabled it every time I (re-) installed Windows, since XP (among other things).

Baidu's robotaxi division to wheel into profit next year

"without any major accidents"

So there were "minor" accidents.

Still not there yet, then.

China sets goal for local carmakers to get a quarter of their chips domestically by 2025

"it will be difficult to convince car manufacturers to switch"

Why ? If brakes are already standard components, aren't there any Chinese manufacturers making them ?

It seems to me that, as soon as something is standard, there is a Chinese company making it. What's so special about brakes ?

Tesla self-driving claims parked in court

The cookie is crumbling

Looks like shareholders might want to wait on awarding the man-child a fortune in shares . . .

Microsoft's carbon emissions up nearly 30% thanks to AI

"getting suppliers to use renewable energy"

Oh yes, of course. It's everyone else's fault.

How typical of Redmond.

Tax helpline callers left on hold for nearly eight centuries

"HMRC has not done enough"

I'm thinking that Sir Humphrey would be proud.

Forget feet and inches, latest UK units of measurement are thinking bigger

Re: Incommensurate units

Oh I would love that. May I suggest 12 pounds to a guinea, 16 crowns to a pound and 20 pence to a crown.

Top it off with 6 coppers to a pence.

Now I feel like dusting off one of my old AD&D adventures and implementing that . . .

NCSC CTO: Broken market must be fixed to usher in new tech

"why is it that it's not being realized in practice?"

Because Borkzilla has spent the last four decades saying : if anything goes wrong, we cannot be held accountable and, for some reason, everybody else accepted that.

HR expert says biz leaders scared RTO mandates lead to staff attrition

"tech businesses need to re-consider the metrics"

Either that, or re-consider their managers . . .

Apple on track for quarter of all iPhones to be made in India by 2028

Not a problem. The world can wait two years for the next iPhone model if necessary.

It's not a strategic asset.

Crook brags about US Army and $75B defense biz pwnage

So, he's starting to target the military

For his sake I hope that he lives in a bunker, because he just might find out that those guys don't necessarily bother with due process when National Security is at stake.

Tesla nearing shareholder vote to grant Musk $46B

Oh sure

Reward his mistakes and unprofessionalism by giving him yet more control over the company.

Fine, go ahead.

Then watch as he burns that value by spouting more nonsense and making more stupid decisions.

Tesla is a private company. Its shareholders can drive it into the ground if they wish.

Veeam adds support for VMware alternative Proxmox to its backup software

Another step in the inevitable fall of Broadcom

SMBs may be negligeable, individually, but their volume far outstrips ten major contracts.

Broadcom will learn that to its detriment, but by then, it will be too late.

And the good thing for everyone else is that alternatives to VMWare will have bulked up, meaning the market will be more mature.

So, I guess, thanks Broadcom ?

Brexit border system outage puts perishable goods transport in peril

A power outage

What ? There was no backup system ?

This is a critical component of UK economy, and nobody thought that a backup power generator might be useful ?

Just how stupid are the numpties that plan these things ?

If you can call that planning . . .

US watchdog chases Waymo robocars to catch violations

"the number is statistically insignificant"

That is not an argument.

You are responsible for a multi-ton mass driving at speed. If the number is above zero, there is a problem.

It's great that the number pales in comparison to the number of total trips, but I would hardly consider myself getting run into as statistically insignificant. You have an edge case. Correct for it.

Return-to-office mandates had senior employees jumping ship

A lagre team meeting is, IMO, the definition of a waste of time. Many people bored to death listening to one or two twats monopolizing airtime for no definitive result.

A good manager would discuss matters with heads of teams, then ask them to discuss with their team, then come back with the results. When all teams have given their say, a new meeting between manager and heads of teams to discuss results and consequences. Then a mail to everyone to officialize the result.

You waste a lot less time, people are more engaged and more ideas might come out.

But hey, what do I know ? I don't have a fancy MBA.

Microsoft introduces Places to make flexible working less fraught

Just wondering

Would it be possible to pick a day when someone else is not in the office ?

I mean, it's all very nice to coordinate your days with someone you want to see, but some people might appreciate the ability to avoid some other people.

But of course, that goes completely against mandatory integration, right ?

Hubble Space Telescope hasn't had any visitors for 15 years

Re: Another Skylab

It may not be the latest and greatest, but that does not mean that it is useless.

Something should be done to extend its life again.

Nix forked, but over politics instead of progress

A directory tree managed by software ? No.

No thank you. I am a human being, I will not trust software to find my data, especially not in folders named with 64bit random letters.

I can actually manage my data and folders, thank you. I've been doing that since 1985. What I want is an OS that gives me the OS on one disk (it can fuck with folder names all it wants there), a Program folder at the location I specify, with all applications installed there, and a Data disk where I decide how data is stored.

If the OS gets borked, I want to be able to just reinstall that disk from backup and be up and running again.

I try to do that with Windows, but it is a chore. An OS that gives me non-human-readable folders ? Nope. Not interested, thank you.

Green500 shows Nvidia's Grace-Hopper superchip is a power-efficiency beast

LPDDR5x, ConnectX-8, et al

When am I going to be able to buy a compatible motherboard online for my PC ?

I want all that juicy bandwidth too.

Nvidia PUE-PUEs datacenter efficiency ratings, calls for application-specific metrics

It's Nvidia

We know Nvidia quite well. We know that Nvidia will skew any benchmark in its favor in any way it can.

Now, Nvidia is siezing on an opportunity to push forth benchmarks that would appear to be in its favor.

I'm just waiting for the inevitable day when Nvidia is going to complain that some competitor using the same benchmark is unfairly skewing it in the competitor's favor.

'Cause that is going to happen.

Europol confirms incident following alleged auction of staff data

That's one heck of a feather in his cap

Breaking into Europol's data is certainly an achievement that will increase this miscreant's reputation. I guess that's a good thing for him.

I note with satisfaction that, contrary to many businesses, apparently he didn't manage to navigate in Europol's network and had to content ihmself with a "minor" break-in.

Thank goodness for that. It's already bad enough that Europol got hacked, if he had made off with passwords, OAuth token and MFA passwords, that would really have been egg on the face for Euope's Crime Center, eh Dropbox ?

UK public voice fear over security in NHS data systems

Re: fair and open competition

But, there was no competition.

How can that be considered fair ?

You want us to think of the children? Couldn't agree more

Backdooring E2EE ? Might as well legislate to make Pi = 3

They tried that as well. It didn't work out either.

Backdooring encryption is just political faffing about trying to look busy and well-meaning. The cynic in me says they know full well they don't their encryption backdoored, so it's just for the ratings.

But that doesn't mean that articles like these are not important. They are very important to shoot down the endless stupidity of politicians.

One bank's brilliant upgrade was another bank's crash

Re: Extended Data Format Crashes System

That is how computing has improved over time ; by correcting one fuckup at a time.

And, mind you, in those days compilers were written by actual engineers . . .

Tesla accused of union buster bluster at Buffalo factory

Not Americans, American CEOs.

It gets in the the way of profits, you see. So American CEOs are actually the spiritual sons of all those bosses in those Dickens stories about the UK during the Industrial Revolution. Workers would lose limbs to the dangerous textile machines, and get fired for it because they couldn't work any more.

Compassion ? That's just a word in the dictionary.

American CEOs think the same way, and Musk is ahread of the pack.

German plod defend Tesla gigafactory from eco-warriors

Could someone please explain ?

It's a factory for making batteries for the EVs we are supposed to be buying in droves to prove our green credentials. Why try to destroy it, and not the coal power plants that are in use and actually pollute our atmosphere ?

What is it with Germans ? They were against nuclear power plants, now they're against EV factories ?

Do they just want us all to go live in caves ?

Microsoft's Brad Smith summoned by Homeland Security committee over 'cascade' of infosec failures

Good

Borkzilla's GOOHF(*) card has always been the words "Microsoft is not responsible for any loss of data on the customer's system", or words to that effect. You installed Windows and it was your job to make sure everything worked well.

Except that, when dealing with governmental bodies and National Security, that "protection" was bound to be demolished by the requirements of actual security.

Now, Redmond is going to have to do the very job it has avoided for the past 40 years : secure its platform.

I look forward to the fireworks this will undoubtedly result in.

* - Get Out Of Hell Free

Apple crushes creativity and its reputation in new iPad ad

"Our goal is to always "

. . make more money.

Come on, Apple. You don't care about promoting anything but your share price. Everything else is just a thin veneer of feel-good in order to maintain the Alternate Reality Field your customers live in.

And this time, you let that veneer crack.

Did IBM make a $6.4B blunder by buying HashiCorp?

It's only $6 billion

Why strategize and waste limited brain cells trying to do something modern, like actually use Open Source ?

When you're IBM, you do things the old way. You spend lavishly on companies because their product "fits" one of yours. Integrating an open source project doesn't show up in quarterly earnings, not soon enough to make a bonus's worth. Buying a company allows you to pump your balance sheet, gives the CEO something to put on his CV and lands a few cocktail parties and bonuses for the high-level peons involved.

Just integrating open-source code means that only the programmers get to share a beer in their success. Where's the fun in that ?

UK's National Cyber Security Centre entry code cracks up critics

It's a shame that you have a bank that restricts you to 4 digits.

At the BCEE in Luxembourg, you can change your PIN code to up to 12 digits.

I use 6. Once, a store clerck cancelled the transaction because he thought I had made a mistake . . .

Baidu's PR head has a PR problem after workaholic social media posts

Re: Poor Jing Qu

Poor ? Why ?

She'a an adult with a brain. She espoused the rhetoric and served up her own helping.

She takes the consequences.

Now if this has the benefit of making her a better, more understanding person, then good, but I'm not going to pity her.

The crash of the real estate market

That had nothing to do with enslaving the workforce and everything to do with the biggest real estate companies buying land instead of building the homes they had been paid for.

In China, apparently, buying a home means paying the full cost up front. I know, it's crazy, but apparently that's how things are done over there. So these companies were awash in cash and, instead of honoring their contracts, they went for gobbling up more land to sell more homes which they didn't build either.

Now the citizens are in a situation where they spent massive amounts of money for a house that does not, and likely never will, exist.

I wouldn't be happy about that either, if I were in their shoes.

"unsatisfied employees should simply resign"

But of course. It's easy to say that when you're on the top, especially in a country that has a bounty of people looking for a job.

Employees in Europe are already considered akin to dead weight (but they have to drag their filthy carcasses to the office, right ?), so it mut be worse in a country that one billion captive citizens.

It is good to see that the younger generation is starting to push that away. 996 means you have no social or family life, you live for work. 996 also means that nobody needs to worry about you, you're here to work, so take this pile on top of the one you already have and don't forget : if you're not happy, you can resign. We'll find another drone in short order.

Work is important, but it is not something to live for, nor is anything to become a slave to. It is acceptable to also wish for a good family life, and that means having time at home, every day (with exceptions, of course, but those should be minimal).

Huawei's latest smartphone features mostly made-in-China components

"it's unclear whether its efforts will pay off"

They will.

One thing China has going for it is that, when they've set themselves a goal, they aim to reach it. Time is not as important to them as it is to us.

So I'm sure their efforts will bring fruit. Of course, by then we will have improved engraving methods that are even more advanced, which China will dutifully set itself to replicate (or steal, if the opportunity arises).

But let's be clear : China has set its course on gaining technical independance. It will get there.

FCC slams banhammer on 5G fast lanes with final net neutrality text

Great job, FCC

Really, I sincerely applaud your efforts.

A shame that the OHSG stands to get back in the Oval Office and slam all your work back into the dustbin.

Because he will, his buddies want that.

And it begins. OpenAI mulls NSFW AI model output

Re: There is a theory, lighthearted...

Well it's not just a theory. If you can purchase anything on the Internet these days, it's because porn sites made a tremendous effort to get banks to take credit cards.

And now, pseudo-AI is submitting to Rule 34.

It was inevitable.

Flexing financial muscles, Arm aims to elbow into Windows PC market

I dunno.

I have a colleague with an Apple laptop based on Arm. He has no trouble running Diablo IV at full resolution (not sure, but at least 4K HD). And there is no fan noise to trouble your ears.

I think that is pretty impressive, so much that I am looking forward to Windows on Arm. I wouldn't mind looking into that as an upgrade in the next few years (aka when I retire).

Investment analyst accuses Palantir of AI washing

Re: Whazzat, again?

Agreed. So, Palantir has created a new buzzword thingamajig that it claims gives it the edge in AI.

Obviously, AI is the ideal domain to create yet more bullshit buzzwords because that's what the market is thriving on.

It's still bullshit, though.