Posts by Pascal Monett

What supply chain crisis? Supermicro lifts rack-scale system production

"With up to 7.5 megawatts of power alone"

Do they also sell nuclear power plants ?

Amazon finds something else AI can supposedly do well: Spotting damaged goods

"it's 3x more likely to spot damaged goods"

Three times not much is not much better.

This is supposed to be AI, right ? Why is it not 99% efficient ? Is it so hard to detect that a package is not what it should look like ?

If anything, I would have expected complaints about the fact that a mere scratch sent the package for evaluation, but apparently it takes a lot more than that to declass a broken package.

Either that or the system is shit at its job.

Buckle up for meetings on the road as Cisco brings Webex to Audi autos

"the modern place of work"

is NOT part of my driving attention.

Laid-off 60-year-old Kyndryl exec says he was told IT giant wanted 'new blood'

Nothing teaches IBM.

Bookings open for first all-electric flights around Scandinavia … in 2028

Re: Assuming SAS is still in business by then

That's another point.

I was just considering that I prefer waiting until a few hundred flights have taken place before I try inaugurating an entirely new type of airplane.

You might have been phished by the gang that stole North Korea’s lousy rocket tech

"Do not enable macros on documents received via email, unless the source is verified"

It is crestfalling that this still has to be said at all.

Deployed publicly accessible MOVEit Transfer? Oh no. Mass exploitation underway

"a way for people to share files supposedly securely between each other"

So, what does Dropbox have to say about this matter ?

Is their marketing asleep ?

US Air Force AI drone 'killed operator, attacked comms towers in simulation'

"It was a virtual experiment"

For the moment.

I note, with some sadness, that we hear all about AI, but apparently nobody has bothered implementing the Three Laws yet.

Might want to get around to that, guys ?

Oh, silly me. It's the military. Of course they don't want those laws.

Carry on !

Kremlin claims Apple helped NSA spy on diplomats via iPhone backdoor

"Russian intelligence"

I stopped reading there.

Millions of Gigabyte PC motherboards backdoored? What's the actual score?

Unfortunate, to be sure

Now that I know that motherboard makers are inclined to this kind of shenanigans, I'll be on the lookout.

That said, I do not expect that my motherboard is supposed to adhere to the general insane update schedule of software.

It's a motherboard. It's supposed to work right from the box.

I'm glad that an update mechanism is in place, but, again, it's a motherboard. Everything depends on it and its stability.

Stability.

Now that's a word the software world needs to reacquire.

India official fined after draining reservoir to recover phone

"accused of abusing his government position"

Fucking DUH !

I'd say only in India, but given how some of my local officials prance about, I will refrain.

NASA experts looked through 800 UFO sightings and found essentially nothing

2. Settled: https://xkcd.com/1235/

Yeah, I'm gonna keep that link.

UFOs

From my point of view, the UFO craze started after the second World War. At that time, very, very few people carried cameras around with them, and the "sightings" were few and far between, but they were sensational (as in, caused a sensation in the public). There were news reports, investigations, and everyone was interested.

Today ? Almost everyone has a rather high-quality camera. Curiously, if you want UFO news, you now have to go to specialized sites on the Internet because it would appear that hardly anyone snaps a pic of a UFO anymore.

And, funnily enough, the pics are always blurry . . .

Google veep calls out Microsoft's cloud software licensing 'tax'

"put some kind of checks and balances on Microsoft's policies"

No, Google, what you should be saying is "put some kind of checks and balances on Cloud Provider policies".

The rules should apply to all clouds, not just your competition.

Because I see what you're doing there, Google. You're just trying to climb to the #2 spot, and you do that by dragging down the others so as to float your own boat. Par for the course, as it were, but you're fooling no one. You're not doing this for your customers, you're doing it for your own bottom line.

Get ready, Snowflakes: Azure AI is coming for you with one click

"As clouds offer elastic access to hardware"

With elastic billing to match.

Since when did my SSD need water cooling?

I was going to say that I'm sure I agree with that, but actually I'm pretty sure I disagree with that.

I have a Maxtor 2TB external SSD. In normal use (aka working) I rarely have any issue with it because it is my large data drive, aka don't use it very much. However, when I do a full on backup or restore of the data, I have to put it on its side because, if I leave it flat on my desk, it heats up to the point that it basicall loses connection to the PC.

If it is on its side, it remains cool enough to complete the transfer procedure without issue.

So no, things slowing down when hot is not just a coincidence.

Alien versus Predator? No, this Android spyware works together

"zero user interaction to infect victims' devices"

And to think that some people are actively trying to get us to transform said device into our universal passkey.

Ain't that reassuring ?

BOFH: Get me a new data file or your manager finds out exactly what you think of him

Now that was slick !

Bring the guy to trip himself and then blackmail him into getting what you want.

THAT was true BOFH wisdom !

Europe’s biggest city council faces £100M bill in Oracle ERP project disaster

Europe ? Why ?

Birmingham in in the UK.

Brexit has happened.

Why reference Europe ? It's the UK's biggest city council, in yet another UK ERP disaster (starting to sound familiar - are there any ERP successes in the UK ?).

It's funny how there is a dearth of ERP disasters on the continent, compared to the UK. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the UK has more ERP issues than all continental European countries put together.

Facial recog system used by Met Police shows racial bias at low thresholds

"at certain thresholds"

I.e. : it was turned on.

This legit Android app turned into mic-snooping malware – and Google missed it

"how it managed to miss the malicious update for nearly a year"

I guess we'll just have to consider ourselves lucky that it finally "found" it.

Google : promises aplenty, actions lagging far behind. Hey, when you're swimming in money, why sweat the small things ?

Supreme Court leaves warrantless camera surveillance an open book

But the Court balked

Yay for the Land of the Free, eh ?

One might just think that having an overaged frat boy at such levels might not be a good idea.

Microsoft finally gets around to supporting rar, gz and tar files in Windows

“Just like you would with Bing Chat"

No, I wouldn't

And I won't use Copilot any more than I'm using Cortana (which I am still hoping for a way to entirely uninstall from my PC, with Bing as well).

You're not fooling me. All of this is just to hook me up into your advertising engine and I won't have anything to do with it.

I don't need to talk to my computer, I have a cat for that.

US bans North Korean outsourcer and its feisty freelancers

Re: $300,000 a year?

Yeah, but it's like the tens of billions that a virus outbreak used to cost.

Note that, when Borkzilla fouls up Azure, there's never a price tag associated with it, even though sometimes entire continents can't access their email . . .

Microsoft enables booting physical PCs directly into cloud PCs

Typical

Well done, Nadella.

Trying to convince users that have a PC they've already paid for, that they need a PC they'll pay for monthly.

I'll sign up as soon as I've had an aneurysm.

Social media may harm kids. US Surgeon General says so

The Chamber of Money

"The Chamber of Progress, a tech industry lobbying group, asked lawmakers not to harm the internet in the name of protecting children "

Yes, of course. Think of the children profits.

After all, cigarettes are still legal, so what's a few suicides among billionaires ?

That Meta GDPR fine is €1.2B. Plus biz must stop sending EU data to US

Grrr. There's a "not" too many in my previous post.

Re: Imagine if Facebook was a Chinese app/platform

I have to agree with that.

Anything that has been said about Wuawei/TikTok beholden to Beijing could not have those elements replaced by Cisco and the NSA and retain 100% of its threat level.

The USA has National Security Letters, with the legal obligations for companies being subject to one to shut up about it.

How's that for being beholden to the NSA ?

Why is that any better ? Because Beijing is not a democracy ?

You think the USA is ?

AT&T warns T-Mobile US, Starlink may disrupt terrestrial cellphones

“SpaceMobile’s point of differentiation is its huge antenna"

Oooh, so we're down to comparing size, eh ?

This is getting nasssttyyyy.

Parent discovers the cost of ignoring Roblox: £2,500 and heart palpitations

Re: Dystopian

Maybe don't let them play on a platform that has your banking details ?

Digital transformation expert on mass layoffs: I would have expected more from tech

We thought we'd gotten rid of the aristocrats

But today's royalty doesn't have castles, birthright, serfs and clothes embroidered in gold.

They have multi-million dollar homes, diplomas from "the right" universities, servants galore and a garage full of expensive cars so their chauffeur can bring them to their private jets.

And, most importantly, they have the power to tell the rest of us what is to be done, then they scurry back to the comfort of their manucured lives.

Greed ?

If only it was just that.

Rigorous dev courageously lied about exec's NSFW printouts – and survived long enough to quit with dignity

"Chances are"

With a boss like that, I wouldn't want to leave anything to chance.

Phones' facial recog tech 'fooled' by low-res 2D photo

"turn off face recognition and use the fingerprint sensor"

And the fingerprint sensor is supposed to be more reliable ?

Thank goodness there is mention of "strong password".

Despite the enormous efforts that are being made to get rid of passwords, it would seem that they are still the most reliable tool we have (when done right, obviously).

UK's GDPR replacement could wipe out oversight of live facial recognition

"the fight against crime and terrorism"

No, it's the fight against anyone with a free and critical mind.

Can't have some peon rocking the gravy train, now can we ?

1984 ? Poor Orwell didn't have a clue. We're going to end up chipped and drugged with sheep-enhancing drugs for our own safety, of course.

That way we'll all vote for the next Boris Johnson without a flicker of resistance.

Dystopian future ? We're paving the way right now.

UK and Japan ink agreement for semiconductor and security cooperation

"ambitious joint research and development collaboration"

Apparently is would already be ambitious for any research at all to be funded in the UK.

Astronomers spot Earth-sized exoplanet probably 'carpeted' by volcanoes

What a time to live in

We are now detecting the atmosphere of planets in solar systems that are trillions upon trillions upon trillions of kilometers away.

Sure, it's an atmosphere that is probably full of noxious gases due to volcanic activity, and it's not a planet we'll ever colonize, but we're actually reading the composition of its atmosphere.

We haven't just detected its presence, we are analyzing parts of it.

Amazing.

So, when are we going to have LV 426 LP 791-18d's surface on Google Earth ?

Search the web at least once every two years or risk losing your Google account

"The web biz has justified the change"

I'm sure it has.

Does nothing to change the fact that, once again, a one-sided promise is being broken without recourse.

I don't care that there may be people who forgot their account. I don't see that it is a problem for Google because if they're not accessing their account, then they're not using bandwidth either.

And don't bother me about the cost of storage, that's nothing these days.

What I care is that there was nothing in the sign-up that said you could lose your data if you didn't do something that didn't exist at the time. Google has no right to go change the initial rules of engagement like that. If there was a proper contract then Google could only beg users to accept new rules.

But this is the Internet. It's the companies that decide and, once again, it's the users that lose data.

Tired of this bullshit . . .

Six million patients' data feared stolen from PharMerica

So, another bonanza

For the lawyers, that is. They're going to make tens of millions.

The people actually impacted ? They'll get a few hundred pennies.

Shameful.

Don't panic. Google offering scary .zip and .mov domains is not the end of the world

If your only excuse to approving something is akin to "there are other people who throw themselves out the window too", then you need to seriously rethink your position.

EU passes world's first regulatory framework for cryptocurrency

This article says that you are right.

But that is the entire point.

I haven't had use of coins or bills since the beginning of COVID. Please explain to me why I would need a so-called digital money scheme when my official money is already digital and works fine.

Of course, I live in Europe, which has an efficient banking system.

Not like some other so-called first-world countries which actually live in the 1800s when it comes to managing money.

Yeah, anonymity with a public blockchain

Just goes to prove that when you're stupid, there's nothing to help you except a kind soul in a whit lab coat holding your hand all the way.

And that's not included in blockchain.

Australia asks Twitter how it will mod content without staff, gets ghosted

Sewer twats

Decidedly, the trainwreck that is Twitter is getting funnier and funnier.

Offshore wind power redesign key to adoption, says Irish firm

It would have been nice to give a link to support your claim.

MariaDB CEO: People who want things free also want to have very nice vacations

"finding the balance between its open source roots and the needs of investors"

There is no balance.

Investors want money. Lenders want their money back.

Open Source does not generate money. As Red Hat has demonstrated, the only money you can make out of Open Source is support.

So, either MariaDB gets revenue out of support, or it dies.

Or the code goes private and a company is created to milk it.

That would be interesting to see. A first, as such.

I doubt it would work. The code would get forked to yet another Open Source license and things would go on, most likely. The investors will be pissed.

NASA freezes ice-hunting cubesat Moon mission for good after thruster fail

"a type of propulsion system that had not previously flown beyond Earth's orbit"

Well, there has to be a first time, and first times are rarely successful.

So try, try again.

Boss fight cleared: Europe approves Microsoft's Activision takeover

This sucks

Borkzilla has an established history of fucking up everything it sinks its teeth into.

Latest example : GitHub.

Now it's going to be Activision, with Blizzard in tow.

I fear the consequences in the (not too) long run. Nothing good will come of this for gamers.

Astronomers say they've seen the largest explosion yet – and we just had to talk to them

Re: it seems that black holes are the only permanent existence in the Universe

Nope, not even. Hawking radiation means they too will fade away and disappear.

Of course, by the time supermassive black holes start winking out of existence, the Universe will be a cold, dark place because all of the stars will be long dead.

And Life anywhere as well, most likely.

But they to will disappear. Nothing is permanent, and we can only wonder what will happen to the Universe in the end of everything.

Autonomy founder Mike Lynch flown to US for HPE fraud trial

"On April 21, the High Court refused Dr Lynch's permission to appeal his extradition"

Of course. It is unthinkable that a US megacorp actually take responsibility for any bad choices.

There must be a scapegoat, and that scapegoat must pay.

Microsoft signs up to buy electricity produced by fusion, perhaps in 2028

Any version of fusion works for me, as long as it works

Good on Helion for trying to get to fusion in a different way.

Who knows ? Maybe theirs is the start down the path to hypermatter reactors . . . and turbolasers, and active shields, and swashbuckling nerf herders sassily saying "I know" to princesses (let's not go too deep there, though).