Posts by Pascal Monett

Bizarre backup taught techie to dumb things down for the boss

It was a useful option, therefor I'm pretty sure it has been removed.

I need my Trash

It would be funny if I hadn't met at least one person who treated the Trash bin as her personal temporary storage space.

How she never screwed that up is beyond me.

Network died, hard, during company Christmas party, leaving lone techie to fix it

"for VTP to work, the command had to be sent to each of the switches"

So he was operating on faulty assumptions. I don't want to be harsh, but it seems that an admin should always check that what he's doing is the right thing, otherwise mayhem might ensue.

He didn't make sure, and he paid the price (one lost XMas evening).

I'm not necessarily saying that an admin should consult the manual every time, but I would have thought that, just before sending a command that should reconfigure the entire network (not something you do every day, I guess), it might be a good thing to double-check and be sure.

Oh well, he's learned his lesson.

India takes second punt at soft lunar landing with launch of Chandrayaan-3 mission

Re: Good luck

Yes and no. The majority of failures are about getting to LEO in the first place. Either the rocket blows up, or its engines fail to provide the necessary thrust for the required amount of time, or something goes haywire with the guidance system . . . The possibilities of failure are almost endless.

If the rocket manages to get to LEO, you've arguably done the hard part. The rest all depends on how rigourous the programming was, how complete the tests were and how prepared the whole project was. Sending the probe depends on Newtonian physics. There are no surprises there.

Getting to LEO is a roll of the dice. After that, it's mostly your fault if something fails.

Producers allegedly sought rights to replicate extras using AI, forever, for just $200

Only created by AI ?

I don't know, check this out : https://this-person-does-not-exist.com/en.

Yes, a lot of faces can be spotted as fake, but some are very convincing.

And you'll never see the same face twice.

"address concerns of being replaced by AI"

Seems those concerns are damned real right now.

I propose an AI to replace Hollywood moguls. Scan them once, give them $200 and see how they like the idea.

Let there be light ... based wireless networks: LiFi spec OK'd as Wi-Fi complement

"thin cable thickets"

So, thinnets then ?

Right, I'm out.

'There has never been a realistic plan' for UK's £11B Emergency Services Network

"current hardware will be obsolete in 2028"

So, the project is eight years overdue and current hardware will be obsolete in five.

They forecasted a major emergency comms project to only work for less than fifteen years before requiring everything to be replaced ?

Golly, with planning like that, who needs catastrophes ?

Tell you what, guys, I'll do you a favor : give me £15 billion now and I'll have something working by next year, promise. I don't know what yet, but for £15 billion I'll wrack my brain and get it to work.

Broadcom asserts VMware's strategy isn't working and it basically needs rescuing

"VMware alone can't get that job done"

Yes, apparently VMware is a lame duck. Utterly incapable of ensuring healthy competition. Lacking vision. Etc.

With all those compliments, it's lucky Broadcom is being nice. I shudder to think of what they would be writing if they decided to get nasty.

And apparently the blame is being laid at marketing's doorstep. That should be a strong hint for the salesdrones at VMWare to polish their CV and start finding employement elsewhere.

Then again, they're salesdrones. They always have their CV ready to go elsewhere.

Feds want to see what ChatGPT's content is made of

"Of course we will work with the FTC"

Yes, of course you will. Why do you have to state the obvious ? You don't actually have the choice.

Duh.

PR is great (or so I've heard), but there is a thing as saying too much. That last sentence was too much.

Samsung’s midrange A54 is lovely, but users won't feel seen

"But at $450, outright, its flaws are easy to overlook"

Um no. If I pay $450 for a bloomin' phone, it had damn well better perform flawlessly. Not costing $1K is not an excuse.

I will overlook flaws if I buy a $150 second-hand phone, not if I buy a >$200 brand new squawker from a store.

Celsius feels the heat: Ex-CEO arrested, watchdogs line up to sue bankrupt crypto biz

Roni Cohen Pavon on the run

You mean this guy ?

This "Celsius Network Roni" ? Pro tip : if the name you use at work is not the name on your birth certificate, you're either an actor, a porn star or a criminal. You most certainly are not a professional businessman, even if you do wear a suit and a tie.

So he "assists in the development of sales strategies and the identification of a variety of difficulties and obstacles" at Celcius ? Seems like he mainly worked to find ways to cheat the law, maximize sucker income and sing the siren tune of unbelievable interest rates (because they were not real).

And now, like the cockroach sent scurrying from the light, he is running from Justice. I'm guessing he may be smart enough to go to a country that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the USA (not guaranteed, but still possible) - which are, for the most part, poor, 3rd-world countries. I'm also guessing the FBI have his accounts frozen, so I hope he had the foresight to stash some funny money into an account that he can still access from whatever straw-thatched hut he's living in now.

In any case, I'm sure he'll be living la vida loca for $2/day for the foreseeable future, unless he's stupid enough to get himself caught for something (not impossible either). Fugitive from justice sure gives you time to reflect on how not smart you actually were when you decided that scamming people with false claims and newfangled non-tech was a good idea. Of course, it gives you time, but the intelligence to recognize that doesn't come giftwrapped with it.

LG to offer subscriptions for appliances and televisions

Stop giving them ideas !

Re: piracy warning

And it has forever been so. The only thing is, back in the glorious days of VHS, you could take one look at that FBI warning, snicker and press Fast Forward to get of it and all the useless previews that followed. These days ? Put the disk in and go prepare your snack/dinner/whatever, because you've got at least five minute of unskippable shit occupying your screen before you can actually watch the movie you intended to.

Pirates ? They've got the same movie on a USB key or NAS and, when they want to watch it, they prepare their snacks beforehand because when they press PLAY, the movie starts.

I'm starting to think the pirates may not be entirely wrong . . .

Ex-Twitter employees owed half a billion in severance, says lawsuit

"subject to Twitter's decision making governance procedures"

Well isn't that a Get Out Of Jail Free card right there.

Musk's "governance procedure" is locking up the cash register and throwing (almost) everyone out.

Her contract can be as solid as granite, Elon has history in not respecting contracts (at least, at Twitter).

He's already not paying rent, not paying cloud bills and likely many other bills. What makes you think he's going to pay her golden parachute ?

She's lucky if she's being paid her salary, at this point.

Clingy Virgin Media won't let us leave, customers complain

"Being able to switch provider easily is an important part of a competitive market,"

And every single provider agrees, as long as the customer switches to their service.

Switching to a different provider ? That's not competition, that's treason.

Three signs that Wayland is becoming the favored way to get a GUI on Linux

"if it does its job correctly, the user [..] might never know they were using it"

And that is the proper definition of a GUI, not to mention an OS.

It's not supposed to be in your face, it's what you're working on that is.

Asus blames 'thermal stress' for fried SD card readers in Ally handhelds

"after fewer than two weeks of use"

Yeah, but it was two weeks of use 24/7

India slaps massive 28 percent tax on online games of skill

"massive 28 percent tax"

The house always wins. Whatever the game, whatever the amount, the taxman is the only one to win 100% of the time.

Tax prep firms 'recklessly shared' your data with Google and Meta – senators

"the persistent ubiquity of spy pixels"

Funny that. On all PCs that I control there is the persistent ubiquity of NoScript and UBlock Origin.

I wonder why . . .

That being said, this report is entirely from Democrats (and Bernie). I expect a flurry of Republicans to jump to the defense of poor little Google any minute now.

Indian developer fired 90 percent of tech support team, outsourced the job to AI

What ?

An Indian company that cannot find competent technicians to staff its help desk ?

What is the world coming to ?

Funnily enough, AI models must follow privacy law – including right to be forgotten

"Eliminating hallucination from LLMs is still impossible now"

C3PO is starting to look positively sophisticated.

Intel woos China with nerfed Habana Gaudi2 AI chips

Profits must roll in

Apparently, duty to the shareholders outweighs national security every time.

China outsources censorship to web giants to break the fake news business model

"Publishing negative information and customer disasters"

Oh, so only good product reviews are allowed ?

I'd think that those "self media" platforms would be happy about that.

Obscure internet boutique Amazon sues EU for calling it a Very Large Online Platform

"forced to meet onerous administrative obligations"

Why would those obligations be so onerous if Amazon isn't flinging ads ?

Let's say that one of the rules is : ensure that all 3rd-party ads conform to regulation.

Check ads in company : no 3rd-party ads.

Rule is met. End of story.

So where's the onerous ?

If Amazon is adamant that it is not a VLOP, then it shouldn't have much trouble ticking off the list in the same manner. Its management is creative enough, it can surely manage. Okay, they'll have to actually work a bit instead of yelling at the peons, but hey, consider it a welcome change of pace.

EU gives its blessing to reopen data pipelines to the US

"limits to the access US intelligence agencies have to EU citizen's data"

So, pigs are flying now ?

I have absolutely no confidence that the NSA is not going to get its grubby hands on all that delicious data. The only way to limit the USA's access to EU citizens data is to not send it over in the first place.

But hey, diplomats will be diplomats.

So now, when if ever we find out that the USA has not kept its word, what's Plan B ?

Almost all classic US video games 'critically endangered'

Agreed. And that should extend to all software that is no longer supported.

Like Windows 95. Office 2000.

Or hey, Windows 7.

Sega COO backs away from blockchain

"the Japanese gaming giant still hasn't figured out what blockchain is good for"

Oh come now, we know what it's good for : for separating a fool and his money.

Foxconn, India's star recruit for semiconductor manufacturing, quits

"a $19.5 million semiconductor and display manufacturing joint venture"

Well if it's only $19.5 million, it's small fry and of no big consequence.

Now, a $19.5 billion deal would be a big problem.

US unhappy about China's tech pushback, rules out decoupling

"She called the conversations 'direct, substantive, and productive' "

Somehow, I doubt that a discussion with any Chinese diplomat is going to be substantive, much less direct.

However, I do believe that the Chinese diplomat will definitely try to give that impression, while privately smirking at the gwai loh's credulity.

Turning a computer off, then on again, never goes wrong. Right?

Re: resize it again!

Yes, because obviously if it didn't give the proper result the first time, Shirly it will the next time, right ?

Ah, manglement. They deserve every meme they get.

No, not really.

Doing anything to a box you know nothing of, especially in a server room, is a big no-no.

NASA 'quiet' supersonic jet is nearly ready for flight

Re: De-bang

Good one !

And entirely true.

Amazon's robo vacuum power grab sucks EU attention

"Amazon may use such a dual role"

Yeah. May.

Frankly, this eternal tiptoeing around sensitive issues is starting to grate on my nerves. Stop cushing the blow already. Take the guns out and just say what you mean : Amazon, if you don't play fair, we'll gut you and leave your entrails to the vultures.

All this namby-pamby niceness just makes the suits in multinational behemoths believe that they are untouchable.

Well, except if they live in China. Those guys know just how touchable they are.

Sometimes I don't find that such a bad idea.

Capita staffers told attackers stole data from its own pension fund

Well, you have to admit Capita is egalitarian

It will fuck up its own employees just as readily as it will fuck up its customers and their employees.

That said, its About page needs to be updated. As usual, after such an event followed by months of silence, any blurb mentioning honesty and transparency needs to be followed by an asterisk sending to a paragraph stating "As much as our legal and marketing departments are okay with that".

Post-Brexit tariffs on cross EU-UK electrical vehicle imports still going ahead

"there will not be sufficient battery production supplies in the UK or in Europe by 2025 and 2030"

Which won't really be a problem given that there will not be enough nuclear energy generation to supply them all anyway.

Anyone who believes that the tens of millions of ICEs rolling around today will all be replaced by EVs in the next six and a half years needs to come and see this bridge I have for sale . . .

Not to mentiont that the overall green credentials of EVs are still to be demonstrated.

Are those batteries really 100% recyclable ?

And how many more are going to die in the cobalt mines just to make another hipster happy ?

UK government's newest department to lead mega ERP procurement

"deal could be worth up to £215.6 million for 10 years"

Oh man, they are soo off base.

The potential cost overruns, the near-certainty of the end product not being satisfactory, the endless delays . . .

Why not just skip all the hassle and start sueing right away ?

Samsung warns of imminent profit plunge

Wow

From almost $11 billion to less than half a billion.

In one year.

And to think that when Borkzilla gets its forecast wrong by 2%, Wall Street hits it with a slump in share value . . .

Methinks Samsung shares are going to be littering the streets, begging for someone to just pick them up.

Australia's 'great example of government using technology' found to be 'crude and cruel'. And literally lethal to citizens

Government as usual

"The document found ministers made untrue statements and abused their power, and that senior public servants knew the scheme was flawed and/or illegal but did not act to stop it."

So, bumbling idiots with a mandate and high-ranking position holders not wanting to rock the boat. Mix in a hefty dose of badly-thought-out financial rules and apply blindly via Computer Says No and you get the almost invitable : human suffering and death.

A little knowledge may be a bad thing, but a bit more knowledge, and somebody with a pair, would have been a better thing in this case.

Funny thing : as soon as I read the heading I immediately thought of that Yes Minister episode, and the great example of government and private sector collaboration.

OpenAI is still banging on about defeating rogue superhuman intelligence

"superintelligent systems"

If there was any intelligence at all, it would be awesome, but there isn't. Not a iota.

What there is is a whole lot of electronics hardware with a hefty load of software written by very intelligent people, no doubt, but that does not, in itself, create intelligence.

What it does create is a monstrous machine that is so complicated in its workings that it baffles our spongy little brains, so we dub it "superintelligent".

Instead of creating the proper log environment in the code so we can trace back how it reaches its conclusions . . .

Tesla ordered to cough up data for Autopilot probe or face heavy fines

Re: they just really suck at parking

Apparently, they also really suck at driving.

Maybe they are jerks after all.

Nickelodeon probes claims of massive data leak as SpongeBob fans rejoice

"Nickelodeon has deep pockets"

Well it's going to need them. International lawsuits are a whole 'nother level of expense.

The stuff is out there now. Let the game of whack-a-mole commence.

From cage fight to page fight: Twitter threatens to sue Meta after Threads app launch

"We're often imitated, but the Twitter community can never be duplicated."

One can only hope.

Microsoft puts out Outlook fire, says everything's fine with Teams malware flaw

"It will upload the attachment to the sender's Sharepoint"

Ah, Sharepoint.

Well, I guess that's what you get for throwing everything including the kitchen sink into whatever stupid idea the boss's nephew had.

That said, it may be able to wreak havoc, but there is a difference : it is highly traceable. Anybody pulling those shenanigans on a corporate network will be able to do it once, then will logically have their account banned.

At least, I would hope so.

If you don't know the person sending it, it's generally a (very) bad sign.

Brits negotiating draft deal to rejoin EU's $100B blockbuster science programme

Re: seeing the way they have punished the UK for wanting to leave

Citation please ?

The EU enacted the rules that were in place. You might want to remember that the UK specifically made some of those rules you are considering as "punishment".

Then again, you might prefer to ignore that. Much more comfortable that way.

So, carry on !

HSBC banks on quantum to lock down comms network

"a pilot quantum-secured metro network"

That is going to be completely secure.

Between the money needed to put it in place and the complete lack of programmability, nobody will be able to hack it because nobody's going to be able to make it work.

Lamborghini's last remaining pure gas guzzlers are all spoken for

Lamborghini going EV ?

An EV supercar. If there ever was a class of objects that do not need electrification, I would have definitely put Lamborghini and Ferrari in there.

They already have stupendous acceleration. High-end EVs have, apparently, similar levels of acceleration, but they absolutely lack the autonomy to take advantage of it over time. You can definitely ramp up the odometer in an EV, but you're trading that for distance at a perilous rate.

A gas-guzzling supercar isn't economic, but you can floor the gas pedal without immediately checking how many minutes you have left.

Plus, with either brand, the point is kinda the noise the engine makes. If you're telling me that those Lambos are now going to coast out of parking lot silently, well, like what's the point of having one ?

Very few people buy that kind of car to go around unnoticed.

China to Meta: Flattery needed to get you into our VR market

Re: Threaten

You blinked.