* Posts by Pascal Monett

19000 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007

NASA tries to jog Voyager 1's memory from 15 billion miles away

Pascal Monett Silver badge

I'm sure they'll get it working again

Space may be hard, but NASA engineers are the bee's knees and, if they say there's a chance, I'm sure they'll fix the problem.

That said, there will come a day when even they won't be able to fix the problem. It will be a sad day, but what a record !

US House approves FISA renewal – warrantless surveillance and all

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"passed the House with bipartisan support"

Because of course it did. Warrants are just a nuisance when you can drape yourself in the mighty righteousness of National Security.

This bill will always pass. All the hoopla around respecting privacy is just theater.

AI spam is winning the battle against search engine quality

Pascal Monett Silver badge

There is only one solution to oppose scams and malware : intelligence.

Check the link. If it goes anywhere you're not familiar with, don't click.

Nobody is going to offer you millions to just click something. Sorry, that Nigerian billionnaire does not exist. Play the lottery, you've got better chances.

No one you know is sending you an attachment you should open. If someone you know does send you an attachment without you expecting it, contact the person and make sure it was meant for you. In every other case, trash the mail. It's a weapon.

It is so fucking simple, and yet so many are still caught by this.

Sometimes I dispair of Humanity.

Loongson CPU that performs like 2020 Core i3 makes its way to Chinese mini PCs

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Probably not exactly a bargain.

Because you think you'll be able to buy one ?

This is Chinese tech, for the Chinese market. Your opinion is irrelevant. What is important is that China now has Core I3-level tech.

They will improve.

Apple's failure to duck UK antitrust probe could bring £785M windfall for devs

Pascal Monett Silver badge

So, the fruit cart is facing legal trouble

Looks like the days of Cupertino riding high on other people's work are coming to an end.

5% is enough for Apple to still gain money and provide Store services at their current level but, of course, why settle for 5 when you can gouge six times more ?

Well six times more is too much, and the rising number of lawsuits tends to prove that Apple is going to have to lower that ratio permanently.

It might choose to do so on its own terms before having to bow to a law (ie set the bar lower to appease everyone before you're forced to set it really low).

Pascal Monett Silver badge

One case at a time.

Microsoft gives Hyper-V ceilings a Herculean hike

Pascal Monett Silver badge

So it's a cloud option, right ?

Because there ain't no motherboard that can handle that level of hardware.

I shudder to think of the monthly cost for someone who actually signs up for 2000 CPUs and 240TB of RAM. Some beancounter somewhere is going to have a heart attack.

VMware's end-user compute products probably have a new brand: Omnissa

Pascal Monett Silver badge

It is going to create a mess

Artificially tight deadline created because the Board has decided something stupid ?

You bet it's going to create a mess. The gun is going to meet the foot and Broadcom is going to demonstrate how little it cares about the users of the product it has paid a fortune to destroy.

Support contract required techie to lounge around in a $5,000/night hotel room

Pascal Monett Silver badge

So, a nice week-end then

The client was an idiot. If the decision was to not do anything before Monday morning, the client should have arranged for him to arrive Sunday night.

Oh well, I'm sure that the beancounter shook his head at all this.

British watchdog has 'real concerns' about the staggering love-in between cloud giants and AI upstarts

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Windows

"[158] lobbying entities focused on AI"

In 2023.

So now there are more. Talk about 1st-world problems . . .

Apple to allow some iPhones to be repaired with used parts

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

"it plans to begin"

Oh great. Sounds like me when I tell my wife that I'll be mowing the lawn "this week".

The only difference is, I will, 'cause if I don't, it'll only get worse.

We never agreed to only buy HP ink, say printer owners

Pascal Monett Silver badge

I ditched inkjets for laser.

You don't actually need to print in color.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

The onus is on HP to show us the law that says that its printers can only use its ink.

Ink is ink. If it's good for one printer, it's good for all of them.

US 'considering' end to Assange prosecution bid

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"the seven years he spent holed up in Ecuador's London embassy"

The souvenir of which Ecuador's ambassador is still desperately trying to drown out in alcohol . . .

Netherlands arm of KPMG fined $25M for cheating in exams

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Why do companies think that taking shortcuts is a good thing?

Because, in the short term, it works.

And in the long term, your high-level MBA will have already moved on to wreck another company.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Hilarious

"failing to prevent its financial auditors from cheating on exams "

What I note is not that KPMG failed to prevent cheating, it is that KPMG's auditors cheated en masse.

Goes a long way to say just how reliable their auditors are . . .

Boffins deem Google DeepMind's material discoveries rather shallow

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Put your ear to the woodwork. The bugs are positively crawling in that space and, if you go to LinkedIn, the sound is deafening.

Digital Realty ditches diesel for salad dressing in US to cut datacenter emissions

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"nitrogen and particulate emissions are said to be almost the same"

Is that really a disadvantage ?

Some bad things are greatly reduced, some bad things aren't, but they're not increased either. Honestly, I'm tired of seeing these everything-isn't-perfect kind of comments. So it's not perfect. It's still better.

And it recycles already used oils, which, in my opinion, is even better.

Broadcom has willingly dug its VMware hole, says cloud CEO

Pascal Monett Silver badge

I disagree.

That may be how today's MBA types think, but there is a saying in French : ce sont les rivières qui font les fleuves, which can be loosely translated as it's the little streams that makes great rivers.

if you are willing to cut off all the little streams, your greate river is going to fail.

I don't know how to to teach that to the business suits, though.

CHIPS Act hangover sees most US science agency budgets cut for 2024

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Facepalm

Wait a minute

The military gets more than it asked for ? It has already asked for as much as it thought it could get away with, and they give more ?

Content yourselves with giving what was asked for, you'll have more to give others who need it.

Huawei Cloud reveals the dynamic traffic allocation system it uses to cut bandwidth bills

Pascal Monett Silver badge

10 times the peak bandwidth ?

I think that's going to open some eyes at Redmond (and elsewhere).

Who knows ? Maybe Huawei will accept meeting with Western engineers and sharing the technique ?

Microsoft brings World of Warcraft and other Blizzard titles back to China

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"games from within the Middle Kingdom"

Why would I want to install an executable from a country that is well known for autocratic surveillance and theft of industrial secrets ?

I'm already battling with Google's insatiable appetite for data, I don't need to Xi Ping's hunger as well.

Notepad++ dev slams Google-clogging notepad.plus 'parasite'

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Hurrah for Notepad++

I second that. Anytime I have to deal with a new Windows install (God how I am tired with that), Notepad++ is on my shortlist of things to install post-haste, in order to get the best tools at my fingertips.

I am glad to see that this leech has been dealt with.

Post Office slapped down for late disclosure of documents in Horizon scandal inquiry

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Flame

"Sixty people died before just seeing any sort of justice served"

That is the point that should be relentlessy repeated.

This is not your run-of-the-mill failed Government IT operation where the higher-ups get their honours and move on, and the public pays the bill and shuts up.

No, this is an abject failure of government where the higher-ups literally walked on the corpses of honest people just trying to do their job for Queen and Country.

The fallout on this should be ruthless and profound. There is no excuse for the Old Boy's Club here.

UK businesses shockingly unaware of how to handle security threats

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Windows

"It flies in the face of common sense"

Yup.

Time to redefine "common" sense, 'cause it ain't so common no more.

Palantir and Oracle buddy up on cloud infrastructure

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Palantir and Oracle

Why am I not surprised that the sleaziest companies in IT somehow manage to always forge alliances ?

Reform of USA's Section 702 spying rule may make it to a vote this week

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Being a privacy advocate in the US

That must be like being Sisyphus. You toil all day to push that stone up the hill, and you wake up the next morning to find the stone back where it was, with Big Money silently giggling behind your back.

Solar eclipse darkened skies, dampened internet traffic

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Thumb Up

"Plenty of whom went offline to gawk at the celestial dance"

Of course they did. I was in Luxembourg City last time there was an eclipse there. I saw daylight turn into darkness, went outside and experience the sudden drop in temperature and the silence. Even the birds were hushed.

It was an awesome experience and I readily understand that Humanity was terrified by it.

TSMC scores $11.6B funding infusion for Arizona fabs, now plans for third plant

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Facepalm

Great idea

Yay ! Another water-guzzling plant in a place which is singularly devoid of water without the Colorado river, which just happens to be over-used and drying out due to climate change.

What could possibly go wrong ?

Hint : Tax breaks do not an industry make.

Shadow of Trump hangs over future EU-US tech collaboration

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"No concrete action appears to have been decided"

Well duh, it's just administrative busybodies that are making themselves look busy.

Given the state of US politics, it's certain that any actual decision or accord made now stands every chance to be overturned if the OHSG get re-elected. He did, after all, decide to flush the existing Paris accords down the drain. He doesn't give a shit about previous engagements.

Cloud vendor lock-in is shocking, but there's a get out of jail card

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"second-source can do the same for the cloud"

I have my doubts on that point.

The way I see market conditions these days, having an open-source based second-source supplier that becomes successful is going to entail two things :

1) open-source developers are going to attack the company to get what they consider is their "fair share" of the spoils, and

2) AWS, Azure or any other multi-billion behemoth is going to lavish the company board in boatloads of billions to buy them out, and they will fold

So, short or medium term, any successful open-source-based company with big government contracts is going to disappear, either because of lawsuits, or because of bagfulls of money.

Return to step one.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: UK meet Sweden

Yeah but Sweden is the exception to all the rules. It is a country that is consistently doing everything right, but nobody wants to follow its example because the Old Boy's Club of all other countries would lose its privileges.

Change Healthcare faces second ransomware dilemma weeks after ALPHV attack

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"It's a stark reminder"

It's almost a mistake, PR-wise. Indeed, now the scum have demonstrated publicly, in less than a month, that they will go back after targets that have previously paid up.

Boards everywhere should be paying attention here. You get hit, you'll get hit again if you pay.

Stop paying. It's the only solution.

Once you've secured your network properly, that is.

Engine cover flies from Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 during takeoff

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Yeeeek

So all you've got is an Airbus incident that is 25 years old.

Compared to the way too many Boeing incidents since the Max was thrust down everyone's throats.

Sorry, I still prefer Airbus.

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

"Our maintenance teams are reviewing the aircraft"

And our Board is looking into acquiring Airbus planes for added safety.

Head of Israeli cyber spy unit exposed ... by his own privacy mistake

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: "9% of them do so within three days"

I understand your point however, there is a caveat : when the police arrest them, or they get a ticket, they KNOW they've done wrong.

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Facepalm

"9% of them do so within three days"

I take that as a clear indication that there is a non-negligible portion of users who clearly need a permit to demonstrate that they understand what they're working with, because right now, they don't.

Given that computers and the Internet are becoming central parts of our working and personal lives, what with government portals being the way forward, it seems that a Computing License should be just as mandatory as the driver's license is.

Somehow, I doubt we'll ever get there.

Liquid cooling specialist snags Microsoft datacenter wizard as advisor

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Advising here, advising there

Pretty soon you're talking real salary.

Nice job if you can get it.

Google sues app devs, claims they're Play Store crypto scammers with 100k+ victims

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"an injunction to prevent [them] from ever accessing Google services again"

Um, how exactly is that supposed to work ? It's not like you give your name and address when you use a browser.

They'll always be able to sign up for a new gmail account under a fake name, that's not controlled either.

So this injunction is just legal waffling. I don't see how it can be enforced, especially when the culprits aren't on US soil.

Tough luck, bosses, AI is coming for your job, too

Pascal Monett Silver badge

What if ?

"what if organizations shared worker metrics data from AI management systems and that influenced future hiring decisions involving said workers"

In a world where installing a tattletale in your car to radio your insurance about how you drive, supposedly to lower your insurance bill, is becoming common practice, that is not a what-if scenario.

It is blindingly obvious that any AI management system will automatically and almost immediately be taken by upper management as criteria for advancement, not to mention continued employment.

Whether that will be a good thing or not, well, I guess that depends on what your current management feels like to you.

Academics probe Apple's privacy settings and get lost and confused

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"it's written in legalese"

So, documentation written by lawyers.

If that is not proof that we're going to Hell in a handbasket, I don't know what is.

Techie saved the day and was then criticized for the fix

Pascal Monett Silver badge
FAIL

Sounds like management all right

Doesn't know the specifics of the hardware, doesn't care why the server was down or the aircon had failed to restart properly, but knows just enough about your department to blame you for everything.

Typical.

German state ditches Windows, Microsoft Office for Linux and LibreOffice

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Wish them the very best

Except that, if it doesn't work like Outlook, they'll be screaming bloody murder.

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

Re: making the use of libre office mandatory

But, management needs those sexy Excel charts !

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Windows

Re: Maybe just give Linux and open-source apps to those wiith nimble brains and aptitude

Um, you do realize we're talking government employees ?

If they had nimble minds and aptitude, they'd be working in the private sector.

As far as I can see, this is just another large boast by a German state, which will be followed by close "negociations" by Borkzilla and will end up in everyone adopting Windows 12 and Office 2025. For a price that the German citizen will find on his taxes so, who cares ?

Ethernet advances will end Nvidia's InfiniBand lead in AI networks

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Windows

Pseudo-AI and the datacenter really are moving tech along

I just checked the specs on my motherboard : I still have PCIe 3 and DDR4. PCIe 6 is starting to get out. My home router is GB-capable, but not 100GB capable.

Not that it would matter, the Ethernet ports on my equipment are only GB-capable anyway.

I wonder if I will see all this bandwidth goodness on my home PC one day . . .

Microsoft thinks bundles are great and customers love them

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Will we be wooed by a refreshingly honest Microsoft?[1]

If ever the day comes when Borkzilla appears to me to actually be honest without any hidden agenda, I'll check myself into a clinic to search for signs of Alzheimers or an aneurysm.

Nearly 1M medical records feared stolen from City of Hope cancer centers

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"Is there no cure"

Yes, there is.

Cut the lines to Russia and China, which will also cut off North Korea.

Problem solved.

Of course, I'm not expecting that to happen any time soon.

UK government sets sights on £8B tech procurement overhaul

Pascal Monett Silver badge

So it's raining money again

Would it be possible that something has actually been planned this time ?

Nah, there will be overruns, Capita, Fujitsu and others will make like bandits, and the citizen will once again have to deal with unsatisfactory results.

Unless I'm wrong, which I hope, but as far as UK Government IT is concerned, I'm not expecting much else.

Could someone point to a project that was delivered on spec, on time and in budget ? Just curious.

Alibaba signs to explore one-hour rocket deliveries

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Mushroom

NORAD is going to love this - not

If (big if there) this ever happens, NORAD will go nuts trying to differentiate delivery rockets from ICBMs.

That'll be fun -->