Posts by Pascal Monett

Toyota admits its engines are overrated – by its own power testing software

"the ministry confirmed 'fraudulent acts' had been committed"

Oh, my goodness. Toyota also has a rogue engineer ?

Nutanix doesn't expect a rush of VMware refugees – maybe for years

Land and expand

I like the ring of that. It's like settlers reaching a new world.

Whether the locals will be extinguished or not is another matter . . .

FOSS replacement for Partition Magic, Gparted 1.6 is here to save your data

Ah, Partition Magic

I still have the installer for it. I have used it extensively and it has performaed flawlessly without fail. I have never found a better, easier to use tool to resize and/or move partitions.

A purchase I have never regretted.

Uncle Sam tells nosy nations to keep their hands off Americans' personal data

Re: Pot, meet kettle...

Entirely agree. It is very rich to hear this coming from the White House, when the US is a country which has already been subject to privacy treaties and addendums, just to try and keep the data slurping slightly in check.

If it wasn't for Max Schrems, the US would still be the black hole hoovering every single bit of data it wants to be. And I'm not sure that the valiant efforts of Schrems and company have really put any sort of dent into that practice.

Nvidia lures senior autonomous car developer from China's Baidu

Ah yes, jaywalking laws

Those things that were litterally created by and for automotive companies to limit their responsibility for people on foot getting run over by carelesss people in cars . . .

Thankfully, here in France (and in most of Europe, unless I'm mistaken), jaywaling laws have been repealed. It's the person on foot who has priority, always, whatever the conditions.

Google wants regulators to take Microsoft down a notch before it stifles AI

Re: Linux is a better OS anyway

And it has been for ages, but that has not made people flock to it.

Unfortunately.

That home router botnet the Feds took down? Moscow's probably going to try again

"Perform a hardware factory reset"

And poof! say goodbye to your entire, lovingly-crafted network setup.

I've got a hunch that there will be a fair number of people who won't want the hassle and will prefer to roll the dice.

Not saying they're right, just saying they couldn't be bothered.

Microsoft's February Windows 11 security update unravels at 96% for some users

"installation problems"

What ? The vaunted Borkzilla AI can't sort that out at install time ?

Then what good is it ?

Oh, silly me, I forgot. It's marketing, not technical . . .

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be coders, Jensen Huang warns

"Jensen Huang believes"

I'm sure he does. He's an electrical engineer, not a programmer. Obviously, he thinks that, as long as you can find some code on the Web, you don't need a programmer.

Unfortunately, there is no pseudo-AI that is going to code Salesforce, or SAS, or an ERP. I don't care that there are now "prompt engineers", you still have to know where to place the prompt in the code.

Programmers are not going away any time soon.

Nevada sues to deny kids access to Meta's Messenger encryption

So, he's thinking about the children, eh ?

Somebody check his hard disks to find out just how hard he's thinking about children . . .

Back from the dead: LockBit taunts cops, threatens to leak Trump docs

Leak Trump docs ?

Please don't wait, go ahead. Leak'em now, we could use a good laugh.

72 flights later and a rotor blade short, Mars chopper loses its fight with physics

"nothing short of jaw-dropping"

Par for the course for successful NASA missions.

Dell promises 'every PC is going to be an AI PC' whether you like it or not

"replete with AI-based noise cancellation"

Sorry, since when does noise cancellation need pseudo-AI ?

We already have noise cancelling headphones, and they work fine without bullshit AI.

Talk about polishing a turd . . .

AT&T's apology for Thursday's outage should stretch to a cup of coffee

"We are investing billions to grow our network"

About fucking time.

Intuitive Machines' lunar lander tripped and fell

"Touchdown! This week, America landed a spacecraft on the Moon for the first time since 1972"

Yeah, on its side.

After two other countries did so much more successfully.

But hey, never miss a chance to USA! USA ! USA!

Greener, cheaper, what's not to love about a secondhand smartphone?

"more than a third of respondents intend to replace their current handset within the next year"

Ok, but how many respondents did not intend to replace their phone at all ?

Because I don't intend to replace my current phone until I retire.

In 8 years.

Musk 'texts' Nadella about Windows 11's demands for a Microsoft account

"This is messed up"

Oh, Elon, there are so many things that are messed up in this world.

And you are doing nothing to help.

It's crazy but it's true: Apple rejected Bing for wrong answers about Annie Lennox

"willing to sell Bing, which you wouldn't do if it was a strategic asset."

Ooh, burn. So, Borkzilla wanted to one-up Google, found out the hard way that it's not so easy, and is now stuck with something it can't kill because it integrated the damn thing into every part of its OS.

Sounds like schadenfreude to me . . .

Lenovo debuts AI PCs that have specs a lot like vanilla PCs with this year's accelerated CPUs

"enabling the interaction with physical objects"

Um, like the pen I have in front of me on the table ?

I am willing to believe that a laptop has more power than a AR ski goggles, but you're not walking around with a laptop, so interaction with physical objects is pretty much going to be limited to, oh, my coffee cup is behind my screen, <reach out and grab it>.

Pff. Marketing. I never stop being amazed at what nonsense they think of to make us spend our hard-earned.

Judge slaps down law firm using ChatGPT to justify six-figure trial fee

"relying on ChatGPT to do anything related to their jobs could be a bad idea"

Yeah but, have you factored in the basic human tendancy to want to get something for nothing ?

Microsoft catches the Wi-Fi 7 wave with Windows 11

"Applications that struggle with latency [..] will also benefit"

How ?

WiFi is local. It's all very nice to have a mutli-GB connection to the nearest fiber link, but if that fiber is only 1GB, I fail to see how so very much better WiFi 7 is going to be.

To be clear : I have a 1GBps fiber link coming right into my home office. Thanks to that, we can watch TV without lag, while my home PC is torrenting Linux ISOs, my wife is on the Internet on her smartphone and her laptop, and my daughter is downloading God knows what while also watching whatever it is she finds interesting.

Of all of that equipment, the only thing actually tethered to a physical line is my home PC, with its GB network card connected to my home switch that can handle GB connections and is linked to the Orange Box, thus to the fiber that allows everything to communicate with them thar intartubes.

From where I sit, WiFi 7 is not going to increase the speed of my fiber. So the fiber is the limit, the bottleneck.

And I don't think that's going to be a problem for my household. WiFi 6/5/whatever is working fine here, thank you. Including WiFi 7 in Windows 11 which is mainly used in tower PCs (which have a GB Ethernet connection already) and maybe some fondleslabs, is not going to change the universe, as far as I can see.

But yeah, I know the drill. Marketing needs to feed . . .

Some Intel Core chips keep crashing, game devs complain

"He observes that Intel seems unlikely to improve its verification story"

Of course. AMD is now eating Intel's lunch. Now is not the time to do proper engineering procedures.

Now is the time to boost the Ghz and sell ! sell ! sell !

Intel will leave engineering to wait for when it has become the founder of the West. Then Intel will have time for that, especially if AMD comes, hat in hand, asking for production wafers.

China breakthrough promises optical discs that store hundreds of terabytes

"while also claiming"

Look, I am excited by this possibility.

But China has form in claiming stunning breakthroughs that don't actually exist.

So, I'll wait for a product before hoping that it's real.

LockBit identity reveal a bigger letdown than Game of Thrones Season 8

"despite Cronos's claim to have destroyed every last server"

Yeah, but did they destroy every last backup ?

Google co-founder Brin named a defendant in wrongful death complaint

So, let me see if I get this

Uber-billionnaire wants a little plane to be delivered to his personal island, but can't be arsed to charter a boat that could do that securely.

Instead, in a very Agile move-fast-and-break-things, he agrees to a makeshift fuel bladder thingy that is not properly tested to "allow" the little plane to cover more than X times the distance its normal range allows. The untested contraption fails, two people die as a result.

Well, as much as I would like to blast Brin for being an aloof asshole (I'm sure he is one), I do think the fault kinda lies on the guys who didn't check that the ad-hoc installation worked perfectly before going on such a flight. Maybe do a San-Fransisco-to-New-York-and-back before venturing over the Great Blue Yonder, just to be sure ?

I totally sympathize with the bereaved, but billionnaire or not, I wouldn't pilot a plane over the unforgiving ocean without ensuring that all its components worked to perfection.

They didn't, and they paid the price.

Work for you? Again? After you lied about the job and stole my stuff? No thanks

Count me as a convert

Being polite is great

But I wouldn't have answered many questions. Upon hearing that it was my old company, given the situation, I would have quickly said "Sorry, I'm not available" and I would have hung up.

Don't have time to waste with cheating liars.

Microsoft adds more AI to Photos in Windows 10 and 11

"Windows Insiders cannot get enough of AI"

Obviously. Windows Insiders are the fanboys. They are biologically incapable of refusing anything Redmond does and critical thinking is not in their DNA.

So, Redmond says AI ? Yes ! They want it ! And Redmond thinks everyone wants it.

And, cherry on top, Redmond will bestow that upon the lowly Windows 1 0 users that it will shortly be cut off from everything else. Oh ! How generous !

So, I'm guessing that all the required updates to that "AI" bullshit will also be shitting their way down to the retired version, even after the cutoff date, right ?

Because you can't get away from "AI" these days, now can you ?

Re: Probably true, with caveats

Yes, because there's nothing in Windows 11 that couldn't be put in the previous version, except that Borkzilla needs to be seen as "moving forward", even after it loudly stated that Window 1 0 would be the last version and there never would be the need for another one.

Please stop pouring the wrong radioactive water into the sea, Fukushima operator told

"could cause us to lose the trust"

I'm not sure you're not already past that point.

NASA warns as huge solar flare threatens comms, maybe astronauts too

A, B, C, . . M ?

What is the rationale, here ? Does M stand for Massive ?

Sometimes astronomy has the weirdest rules.

Authorities dismantled LockBit before it could unleash revamped variant

No honor among thieves

"its builder was leaked, believed to be caused by a developer within the group's ranks"

Too bad that the leak only served to bolster other miscreants.

Employees saved Musk from himself over Twitter Files

"longtime information security employees at Twitter intervened"

And that's why they were fired.

Amazon hopes to avoid labor regulation by simply abolishing national watchdogs

"arguing that the labor agency is unconstitutional"

Great idea. You have a lot of money, argue that the law is illegal.

I'm sure that'll work out just fine. Espcially in the land that has the best justice money can buy.

Re: So who do you support ?

Yeah, well it seems that there are a lot more poor than there are rich. Who knows ? It might be important in the long run.

Microsoft extends Copilot in Windows for Insiders

"being able to bark orders at Windows"

Yeah, that's just what the workplace needs. More noise in open-space areas, what with marketing in the corner that just can't shut up, your cubicle neigbor who can't stop talking about his favorite sport and everyone else on the (smart)phone talking to God only knows who.

And they want us to come back to the office ?

Fuck that.

Boss at one of Microsoft's largest resellers quits, admits secret share deals

Woah there !

"he has made a number of trades in the Company's shares that had not been disclosed to the Company or the market in compliance with the PDMR disclosure requirements"

Even in London, that doesn't sound like he's going to have a good time with the authorities. At the very least he's going to have explain why he didn't disclose those trades and I don't think that those will be very comfortable discussions.

After all, he's not a politician, so he does not benefit from the Boris Johnson aura of invulnerability . . .

Boeing-backed air taxi upstart Wisk plans to fly you across town at UberX prices by 2030

"Boeing-backed"

And that's where I get off, thank you.

Re: Almost there...

A nice little toy a tthis time.

Call me when you can fly a hundred miles, I might be interested.

Prompt engineering is a task best left to AI models

"I have no good explanation"

It is very reassuring to see that we are slowly handing over the functioning of our intelligence to something we cannot explain.

City council megaproject mulls ditching Oracle after budget balloons to £131M

So, continuing the follow-up of the disaster

Consultants at £1000/day ? Par for the course. If you want to fail spectacularly, you need those kind of guys and, especially, you need to not listen to them.

It's all well and good to blame the consultants, but when you've ignored the red flags, you can only blame yourself for the shambles that ensues.

Gelsinger splits Intel in two to advance foundry vision

A bold vision

All that administrative overhead is now going to be doubled, then. With Intel HQ sitting on top.

More minions running around, more manglement looking to seem important, and all that for a project that won't start bearing fruit before the end of this decade.

Well, can't say Gelsinger isn't boldly going forward, at the least.

Intel to be leading foundry in the West ? Why not ? We need something like that, at the very least.

Windows 11 users herded toward 23H2 via automatic upgrade

"Microsoft's intelligent ML model"

Is that model capable of ensuring that beta updates do not spill over to the production line ?

The arrogance of Redmond is limitless. Hey, Nadella, why don't you just mandate everybody hand over their credit card details and organize a weekly stipend for yourself ?

Exploiting the latest max-severity ConnectWise bug is 'embarrassingly easy'

Yeah, so nice to know that it's not an actual problem, it was done on purpose !

Australian supercomputer 'Taingiwilta' comes online this year with [REDACTED] inside

So, publishing is more attractive, but you can't

This from a woman who declares she's not paid enough for her job.

Seems to me that, if she can't keep her story straight in a public presentation she prepared, she's paid exactly what she deserves.

Italy's military mulling space-based supercomputing cloud

100TB in orbit

No problem, with the D5-P5336, an SSD that will be able to hold 61TB a pop, you can bring 4 of them in a RAID 5 config and you should have enough for storage.

Of course, the damage one single cosmic ray is going to do to that array is probably going to be epic, not to mention all that effort will likely be trashed when Putin decides to nuke Earth's lower orbit, but hey, it's the military, right ? What could possibly go wrong ?

I mean I can perfectly understand how Italy is so mind-boggingly large that it needs storage in space for its military to be able to easily communicate over those vast distances that lay between the pub and the opera.

Microsoft Publisher books its retirement party for 2026

"have a go at importing .pub files"

So, Borkzilla, how's about open-sourcing the format of the .pub file ?

Or would you be too embarrassed at what people would find ?

Eh, who am I kidding ? Redmond will never open-source anything it doesn't absolutely have to.

Neuralink patient masters mind-mouse maneuvers – if Musk is to be believed

"a troubling lack of transparency"

Well, it's His Muskiness. What do you expect ?

Europe's datacenter dilemma is that hyperscalers are hogging them all

+601MW demand last year

So, pray tell, how many solar panels do you need to satisy that demand ? And how many windmills ?

With this kind of growth increasing every year, can anyone really believe that nuclear power is not the only viable solution ?

Insider steals 79,000 email addresses at work to promote own business

Re: Safeguards

Well they can safely say that it is not a breakdown of internal procedures, since no internal procedures were actually used.