Posts by Pascal Monett

Microsoft continues cyber security spending spree with Miburo buy

The Borg is feeding again

So this is the latest spending spree from Borkzilla.

Oh well, I'm confident that this will not change the "quality" of Windows in any way, but I'm welcome to be (positively) surprised.

HPE ordered to pay Oracle $30m for Solaris IP infringement

"evaluating its options"

So, nuclear ?

Snowflake pledges row-based storage engine for transactional data

What's the difference ?

"no longer see it as a mere cloud data warehouse and to view it more as a platform for sharing data and data-analytics applications"

What is the function of a "mere" cloud data wharehouse ? To have data accessible in The Cloud^TM. So how can a cloud data wharehouse not share data and whatever else is running there ?

This is nothing but a marketing announcement, and nobody but salespeople and amoebas with one brain cell are going to buy into it.

End-of-life smartphone? Penguins at postmarketOS aim to revive it

Re: 'we' actually do need the profit companies make by making people consume more than they need

First of all, what we need is companies that pay their taxes.

And my whole point is that we need to rethink this situation.

Just saying that we need Apple to make ever-more-expensive shiny tat that ends up landfills is not a solution.

53.6 million tonnes of e-waste

It might be time for us, as a society, to start re-thinking this endless yearly product cycle.

We do not need a new Iphone model every year. A phone should be able to last five years without trouble, so make your new model cycle over five years and everyone will be happy (well, except for those who absolutely have to spend a thousand bucks a year to prove that they are better than everyone else).

Qualcomm wins EU court battle against $1b antitrust fine

Vestager

It would be nice if we could have some competent people in areas of resonsibility.

That would make for a welcome change.

Threat of cross-border data tariffs looms over WTO

"taxing e-commerce the same way that [..] physical goods traded internationally"

In truth, I have to admit that that does not seem unreasonable.

At the condition that the trade is made internationally. Currently, I make purchases on Amazon.fr. That, to me, means that whatever international taxation there is has already taken place. If that's not the case, they should clean that part up, but I fail to see why I should be contacted for international taxes when I'm buying stuff stored in France from a French web site.

Looks like another storm in a teacup from where I'm sitting.

Lenovo to form venture with Hong Kong comms conglomerate PCCW

Hold on

"Lenovo has struck an agreement with Hong Kong China comms conglomerate PCCW"

TFTFY

Microsoft fixes under-attack Windows zero-day Follina

"Disabling macros in, say, Word won't stop this from happening"

Ah, Borkzilla, the malware gift that keeps on giving.

Intel delivers first discrete Arc desktop GPUs ... in China

So, only in China, eh ?

I doubt that gamers everywhere are holding their breath, desperate to get their hands on this new kit.

We'll wait for the benchmarks, as usual, and Intel hasn't ever really given gamers any reason to be clamoring for its GPU products, so . . .

Adobe apologizes for repeated outages of its Creative Cloud video collaboration service

"we have been hard at work"

Translation : Cloud is difficult and, apparently, not just for consumers, but for providers as well.

On that note, talking about alternatives is a bit useless. If Adobe had serious alternatives, it would already be dead.

Microsoft's sought-after tabbed File Explorer gets closer to release

Re: Running out of ideas ?

Of course not.

Borkzilla has purchase many ideas. It's just waiting for the next purchase.

Indian government signals changes to infosec rules after industry consultation

"the six-hour reporting requirement that India insists is a global standard"

Uh huh.

As usual, you measure noon by the shadow at your door.

Unfortunately, this is tech. Tech doesn't have a noon. With the Internet, there is no noon. You conform to technical requirements, or you can get lost.

This is starting to feel like those US idiots who tried to legislate that PI was 3.14. You can't legislate mathematics, you morons, and you can't legislate the requirements of server logging. You need to start by understanding the problem and all the dependancies - something a minister and his cabinet is going to have a heck of time getting into.

Giant outsourcer keeps work from home, loses tax breaks. Government says 'good riddance'

This sets a dangerous precedent

This is absolutely unacceptable - for the shareholders.

This is going to set a very dangerous precedent. Who knows what the consequences might be ? We might even stop subsidizing entirely, and then where would our poor farmers be ? They might actually have to start selling their produce at cost+margin, and then the entire supermarket industry would have to, wait, raise their prices ?

Madness. This is the path of madness and the ultimate downfall of civilization. It needs to stop now.

Google engineer suspended for violating confidentiality policies over 'sentient' AI

Re: Emergence

AI is nothing but statistics. I did the Google course on that - well, the first six modules that is, after that it got way too mathematical for me.

This is a machine. It's based on PC hardware and can be flipped off with a switch.

There is no emergence here. It is not intelligent. It has no feelings and doesn't even know what a feeling is.

Let's keep your comment for when we have finally fully understood how the human brain works and have managed to replicate that in silicon.

That day, we'll turn it on, ask it a question and it will answer : "Hey, do you mind ? I'm watching YouTube !"

THAT will be the day we have finally invented AI.

Astra fails, sends NASA's Tropics weather satellites back to Earth

Re: It is all about the terminology

Yeah, but, scientifically.

TSMC and China: Mutually assured destruction now measured in nanometers, not megatons

What was that ?

"with no detectable economic or political strategy for attracting fabs to its green and pleasant cloudy and rain-soaked land"

TFTFY.

Meta slammed with eight lawsuits claiming social media hurts kids

My wife once took an account on FaceBook

I told her not to, but she wanted to because that way, she said, she could post vacation pics for her close friends.

Fine, I thought, after the vacation, we'll shut it down.

Well, not exactly, obviously. It took two years, but she finally told me one day that she was shutting down the account because she had noticed she was wasting much too much time on it and the other posters (ie morons) were constantly making her angry.

She shut it down because she was tired of being angry.

Hallelujah.

UK competition watchdog seeks to make mobile browsers, cloud gaming and payments more competitive

Re: No. They obtained first mover advantage

Re-read my post.

I never said that they were good at it, I specifically said they built the market.

As such, we are in agreement.

"Apple and Google have substantial and entrenched market power in mobile operating systems"

No surprise there, they're the ones that created the market.

Borkzilla, late to the party as usual, tried to muscle its way in but didn't have the balls to follow through. It rarely does when it's not the one dictating the rules.

Nokia was there for long time, but didn't manage to get to grips with smartphones and failed.

Competition is possible, but will not come from government dictate. Given the cost of entry into the market, there's every chance that the future competitor on the market will be from China, because that is where it is growing right now, safe from meddling by either of our two incumbents.

Maybe India could grow one too, who knows ?

Intel details advances to make upcoming chips faster, less costly

The best player will win.

This is tech.

If China comes out with a new x86 design that is blisteringly fast and efficient, that's what people are going to buy - politics be damned.

Whatever you do, don't show initiative if you value your job

Where were the procedures ?

I agree that James launched himself into his own troubles, but where were the documented procedures on how to do what ?

Of course, this was back in the day and this is exactly the kind of thing that made people understand how important written procedures are.

Record players make comeback with Ikea, others pitching tricked-out turntables

Re: That vinyl sound

The analog sound is digitized ?

Maybe it is today, but back in the day (ie when I was young), the process was to make a master record, then use it to imprint the production line to make copies.

There was nothing digital in that process. They didn't have the technology for that yet.

I think.

Microsoft forgot to renew the certificate for its Windows Insider subdomain

Re: Certbot

Yeah, but that was not Made In Borkzillaland.

OVHcloud datacenter fire last year possibly due to water leak

Interesting article marred by dreadful time formatting

"The fire was subdued around 1000 after the electrical network was cut off and a pump boat arrived"

Around 1000 what ? Seconds ? Minutes ? Or is it supposed to be 10:00 A.M. ?

Military timing is all good, but a : every now and then wouldn't hurt.

Activision to begin union negotiations with workers from Raven Software

"Workers were also told they could not discuss sexual harassment and discriminatin lawsuits"

The company does not have the right to impose that.

If you don't want your employees to talk about lawsuits, you need to make it so that there are none.

And I don't mean by silencing the victims.

OMIGOD: Cloud providers still using secret middleware

"they also add new potential attack surfaces"

Okay, is it time to stop the bullshit about The Cloud^TM being easy to use ?

When it is working (which is not all the time) you have to track your usage (otherwise the bill at the end of the month is a punch in the gut), you have to ensure secure access, and now you also have to ensure against attacks you don't even know about.

I have a revolutionary idea : how about housing that server in your own server room ?

Warning: Colleagues are unusually likely to 'break' their monitors soon

A screen is a screen is a screen

A screen does not need smarts, all it needs is the ability to render an image, whatever the source.

Stop this "smart" nonsense. Just slap an Ethernet connector on it and allow me to stream whatever I want to watch from wherever I'm getting it.

If all it can do is render an image, it doesn't need updates and won't fall into obsolescence before its components die.

Put the smarts into whatever I connect to it, but leave my screen alone.

Emotet malware gang re-emerges with Chrome-based credit card heistware

"they came back in full force"

The only thing they're doing is relying on user stupidity.

Granted, there's apparently an ocean full of that, but when users will finally understand that you don't open mails from someone you've never heard from, their attack vector will go dry.

I give it another 10,000 years.

How one techie ended up paying the tab on an Apple Macintosh Plus

"I thought MacWrite needed no explanation"

There is no application that can't have a user too stupid to use it.

Russia, China warn US its cyber support of Ukraine has consequences

"acts of aggression"

Don't you just love how countries accuse other countries of exactly what they are guilty of (completely ignoring that, though) ?

It's like they graduated into kindergarden.

To think that this is a level that is supposed to be handled by responsible adults.

Hardware flaws give Bluetooth chipsets unique fingerprints that can be tracked

"However, an attacker's ability to track a particular target is essentially a matter of luck"

Cue the next Mission Impossible film where Tom Cruise dashes madly around a crowded mall trying to keep track of someone he's supposed to protect.

Chinese 'Aoqin Dragon' gang runs undetected ten-year espionage spree

Once again

When will people learn that nobody sends you an attachment without even knowing you ?

Symantec: More malware operators moving in to exploit Follina

"a specially crafted Word document"

Once again, an attack that is based on the user opening an attachment from someone they don't know.

I've been getting a few mails this week with the subject "Re: your order is blocked", containing an attachment.

I haven't ordered anything. If you really think I'm stupid enough to open an attachment from an email I did not request concerning something I did not order, I just wish I had Thor's lightning at my disposal, because I would use it.

Liberally.

Indian developer educator Scaler moves to America with $11k online courses

"Developers [..] with $11,000 to spend"

I'd wager that, if they had $11K to spend, they'd buy a new car.

If you want to improve your skills in IT, Internet is there for you.

Vivaldi email client released 7 years after first announcement

"displacing email as the communication tool of choice for many"

Are you out of your mind ?

Email is essential for business. You know, that thing that keeps the economy going.

The economy. That thing that keeps Microsoft on top of OS usage.

If you think business is going to switch to video conferences for confirming invoices, you have lost the plot.

Linux Mint adopts Timeshift from overworked original developer

Re: @voiceoftruth

And you couldn't post that as a reply ?

Google calculates Pi to 100 trillion digits

100 trillion digits

Congratulations.

Now explain to me why this is relevant and what impact it will have on Science and Engineering.

Microsoft trumpets updated HR-friendly policies (that comply with recently changed laws)

"we do not endorse the use of such provisions as a retention tool“

Then why have them in the contract to begin with ?

Infosys celebrates first birthday of glitchy Indian tax portal by fixing another bug

"Nair claimed job candidates voluntarily agree to the obligations prior to joining the company"

Well duh, obviously they're going to agree - if they don't, they don't get the job. You don't need a PhD to understand that.

The fact that the job comes with unacceptable limitations is another point entirely. If Infosys exists in France, it can always include non-compete clauses if it wants, but a French tribunal throws those things out the window as soon as the case is filed.

Indian law needs an upgrade before things will get better.

VMware customers fear Broadcom acquisition will stall innovation, increase cost

So, basically everyone is expecting VMware to die

This happens disheartingly frequently in the business arena. Successful company is bought by large conglomerate and disappears entirely.

What is the point of buying a company if you are already intent on killing its star product ?

The Lido just folded in Paris. It was purchased three months ago by the Accord group. Don't tell me that they were not aware of financial issues at the time of purchase, so why did they follow through ? Because Accord wanted to shut down the Lido ? A world-known icon of Paris night life ?

Who makes those decisions ?

AI to help study first images from James Webb Space Telescope

I can't wait

I can't wait to find out just how JWST is going to advance our understanding of this magnificent Universe we live in.

Supply chain attacks will get worse: Microsoft Security Response Center boss

"companies should know the sources of the ingredients"

I have to say that I completely agree with that idea.

She should add, though, that companies should not download libraries directly to the production server.

Test servers have a use, it's to protect production servers.

Five Eyes alliance’s top cop says techies are the future of law enforcement

"the psychological effect we have on organized crime"

I'm sure Russian/Chinese/Nork hackers are quaking in their boots.

It's so nice to be able to officially pat yourself on the back like that.

AI chatbot trained on posts from web sewer 4chan behaved badly – just like human members

So he trained an AI on 4chan

And then was surprised that the results were not appreciated. Well duh.

I don't really care that he created a response bot on 4chan. What irks me is that he wasted resources on training a so-called AI in the worst possible environment.

This is why we should not use the term AI to describe what these things are doing. There is no intelligence involved.

IBM CEO explains why he offloaded Watson Health: Not enough domain expertise

"there's a misalignment"

Yes, there is. Mostly in the fact that health is vastly more costly and, when you get it wrong, the lawsuits are way higher.

Citrix research: Bosses and workers don't see eye to eye over hybrid work

Really ?

"80 percent of business leaders have either installed monitoring software or are considering it"

So that is going to be your excuse to drag everyone back into the office ? Monitoring software.

Is there going to be any monitoring of management PCs ? I guess not.

We have not read any reports of reduction of productivity during the lockdowns, but now, all of a sudden, management is worried that we might not be 100% dedicated to our work.

I have in mind a saying (don't remember how it goes) about how, if you suspect someone of something, it's because you yourself are capable of it.

AI and ML could save the planet – or add more fuel to the climate fire

"It's good to get ahead of this issue"

Indeed. It's 2022 and we're on track for global temperature increase of at least 2°C.

You really got ahead of this issue.

Of course, if governments around the world were concentrating on Thorium reactors, AI/ML consumption would be less of an issue.

Photonic processor can classify millions of images faster than you can blink

30 pixels

That might be enough to recognize a toenail.

My Samsung A3 takes pictures that are 4128 x 3096. That makes for 12 780 288 pixels, which is 426 000 times their capacity of treatment.

I think this tech needs a bit of upgrading before we can worry about Big Brother recognizing our faces.

I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems all too well

Re: Windows is also in the schools and Universities

And that is probably the single greatest factor in Borkzilla's insulting success.

Bill Gates had the genius idea of inventing the school license, and now we are saddled with whatever stupid new idea Borkzilla invents.