Posts by Charlie Clark

Chat2024 stuffs US election hopefuls into generative AI so you can be an 'informed voter'

Interesting but…

… the answers reflect what the scriptwriters write not how the people speak. Biden stumbles into incoherence whereas Trump never attempts coherency. In the. First placely.

Oracle disappoints market with revenue miss as Ellison hints at Azure database move

Such nice people

As we continue to benefit from economies of scale in the cloud and drive Cerner profitability to Oracle standards…

We will continue to use our near monopoly position to increase prices till it hurts.

Morgan Stanley values Tesla's super-hyped supercomputer at up to $500B

Re: Pump and Dump

Sounds indeed like Morgan Stanley is indeed hoping for some kind of equity deal on the back of this.

Local governments aren't businesses – so why are they force-fed business software?

There's a truism that managers are promoted based on the size of their project budgets but not their successes…

Re: It was only after the implementation began that they revealed that they couldn't.

The methodology is totally irrelevant. ERP projects can almost never be properly specified in advance and are often sold as "customisable", which means implementation will run and run. As will the billing.

A bigger problem is forcing these projects to be put out to tender for everything at once. The way this is done means that the procurement department is essentially sidelined by politics and forced to deal with the fallout once the deal has been signed. So, even if the department is, say, perfectly able to cope with the building of new school or traffic light system, it won't be involved in the planning. In addition, financing these projects is generally more difficult than many imagine because council funding is largely dependent upon central government, which can and does adjust grants at whim. The contractors know this is and make sure the contracts are written to make sure they get their cut whatever.

And then there are the councils such as Woking (and Krefeld*) that decide moonshots are the only way forward and borrow excessively to pay for whatever their friends in the utopia and whalesong development agency suggests, because jobs.

* https://surfpark-krefeld.com/ - in German but the KPI is the proposed charge of "around" € 50 an hour… But the Congress Centre in Bonn and the serial failures at the Nürburgring and Hahn airport spring to mind to show that this not limited to the UK. And, yes, procurement of IT systems is just as shit.

Elon Musk has beef with Bill Gates because he shorted Tesla stock, says biographer

Short-selling is part of capitalism

I'm no great fan of short-selling but it's just as much as part of capitalism as the kind of debt-bingeing or "over-selling" that Musk has repeatedly engaged in to finance keep his businesses from failing. In fact, it's a necessary corollary. Musk goes to the capital markets offering his shares in his dreams as collateral for cheap cash, Gates and the like act to stop this being a one-way bet.

Bombshell biography: Fearing nuclear war, Musk blocked Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

Re: So Musk has NOW entered the Ukranian war.......

It's the Libertarian paradox: people are supposed to be free to do whatever they want but money is also right.

Musk, Peter Thiel and others have some pretty weird ideas about what all their money allows them to do and nothing, especially not government or international regulation should stop them. But, in their own little kingdoms they expect to be able to rule absolutely.

Re: So Musk has NOW entered the Ukranian war.......

I didn't say post-1945 borders were unalterable but that they were respected by treaty, including the one that Russia signed when Ukraine gained independence. You could point out that, of course, Kosovo was effectively given independence due to NATO intervention. There were exentuating circumstances, which would never have been necessary if the West had taken Putin Mk I, Slobodan Milosevic seriously in his dreams of a Greater Serbia. Croatia was forced to resolve border dispute before it could join the EU. Cyprus was supposed to do the same but was allowed to renege… So, far from perfect but most treaties that were drawn up after WWII have been pretty successful, especially when you think how arbitrarily and ahistorically some of those borders were: Königsberg, Poland's borders with Ukraine and Germany.

But it's simply bollocks to even suggest that Crimea should be Russian if not Ukrainian. If anything, it should be independent or at least autonomous.

Re: So Musk has NOW entered the Ukranian war.......

NATO has an open door policy: any country can apply to join. The West did make assurances, Russia broke treaties. Big difference.

Re: So Musk has NOW entered the Ukranian war.......

Stop the whataboutery. Post-WW II borders are recognised by international treaties and there is at least one, of which Russia is a signatory which specifies that Crimea is part of Ukraine.

Re: So Musk has NOW entered the Ukranian war.......

The borders of Ukraine were agreed internationally after independence and are recognised as such by the UN. Russia's invasion doesn't change that a bit.

Re: he cut off the Starlink connectivity

Starlink made an annoucement to the effect that it was restricting coverage.

Re: So Musk has NOW entered the Ukranian war.......

Crimea is part of Ukraine.

Re: Musk for President !

Give him an Oscar already for his crocodile tears!

Ukaine has, as far as possible tried to avoid that kind of dependence. Don't forget that Starlink offered to provide the equipment, as long as the US DoD paid for it. Fortunately, in the meantime other companies have stepped forward giving them more options and great pictures such as the recent attacks on air defence in Crimea and Kherson.

Re: "Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars"

Or, the money from the US DoD was more than welcome. But using the network for military purposes: no way. That's a good definition of hyprocrisy.

Re: The report is not completely accurate

What, take money from the US DoD, ask for more and then say: sorry, we don't want to have anything to do with armed conflicts. Yeah, really moral.

Apple races to patch the latest zero-day iPhone exploit

Re: new to IT

You're trying to put a positive spin on what is generally accepted as poor security behaviour by Apple. 0-day exploits are the only ones that are known about. NSO is only one of many possible actors searching for and potentially exploiting such issues and they all have a vested interest in keeping such issues quiet. As Apple seems to think so as well. There have been many reports of Apple not responding to reports in the hope that security through obscurity will help.

They should be learning from others (except Microsoft perhaps) in the software industry that have established procedures for reporting such issues, developing and providing patches and informing their users. Unfortunately, however, patch releases like this are the exception rather than the rule. Users normally have to wait for the more or less regular OS updates which often contained poorly documented information about patched flaws.

Software can't be perfect and exploits will always been found so it's essential to develop a culture that accepts this and policies to mitigate consequences as much as possible. Apple still has a long way to go in this respect.

Re: I agree

You're assuming there are only two horses in that race… Even then it's not as simple as you think: NSO finds many exploits itself.

UK rejoins the EU's €100B Horizon sci-tech funding program

Re: @JMiles

The end of UKIP?

Re: @JMiles

More hyperbole. The UK's growth rate has been lower than the EU since it left, inflation is higher, as are interest rates.

Re: @JMiles

No one predicted an apocalypse, just significant disadvantages as the two scientists were quoted to illustrate.

Re: @Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

A more detailed analysis can be found on the website of the Fraunhofer Institute: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2023/german-net-power-generation-in-first-half-of-2023-renewable-energy-share-of-57-percent.html

There has, indeed, effectively been some export of production such as ammonia to other countries due to higher energy prices and Germany is not alone in this. However, prices under the merit-order principle are set by the most expensive marginal producer. Capacity is down but so is load with renewables picking up the slack as nuclear and coal generation goes offline. And, after a lull, capacity, particularly, solar is increasing rapidly again.

Industry is suffering as a result of higher power prices but it's nothing like as bad as some, mainly lobbyists, would make out. Lots and lots of things still to sort out: storage, cheaper marginal production but hopefully reduced interconnection charges in areas with greater renewable capacity will start improving things.

Re: @Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

Source, perhaps?

The EU has simply responded to Switzerland's decision to breach agreements.

Europe's Ariane 6 takes rocket science seriously by testing patience before engines

Re: Meanwhile…..

There's a lot to like about the Ariane series, including incremental developments. You're right to talk about politics within ESA screwing all kinds of projects. But this happens everywhere, especially in America. NASA's decision to put stuff out to tender was a fluke and almost didn't happen. Mind you, unfettered commercial exploitation of space is also something I'm not looking forward to.

India has a much, much lower cost basis and, while the most recent launch was a resounding success, don't forget the failure that preceded. Nevertheless, alternative launch providers are welcome to stop the next cartel.

Google Chrome pushes ahead with targeted ads based on your browser history

Re: no change there then..

Take up, and I followed this very carefully at the time, was picking up long before Google adopted the shoehorn tactic, of which it was not the only example. The major change started in 2009 and can be traced back to a campaign on YouTube, which demonstrated that for many video was the future of the web: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/4/18529381/google-youtube-internet-explorer-6-kill-plot-engineer

Re: no change there then..

Chrome became the dominant desktop browser largely due to Google's decision to develop a better browser and the resources to market from both sides: to users "as a better browser" and putting "works better in Chrome" on its websites after the success of the initial IE 6 notice on YouTube. Things would never have got this bad if Microsoft had given up its goal of ruling the browserverse (sorry) earlier.

Google is certainly monopolistic but it has kept Chromium open source and worked tirelessly to make browsers and the web better so that far fewer proprietary formats (Flash, Quicktime, RealVideo, GoToMeeting, etc.) are required. Security and speed have improved as has developed.

In fact, given its dominance in search-based advertising it's a little weird to see it pursuing this contentious route, which is likely to see mired in litigation. But then I think of the screams of the advertisting industry over the end of the third-party cookie and the sound of massive cheques being written for an alternative. And I can imagine that, in the future, we might see more of this ad-based web similar to how commercial television or ad-funded streaming. I think that more people than we might imagine would be happy with that.

Re: Enhanced Ad Privacy ..

Even easier: use another browser.

Mozilla calls cars from 25 automakers 'data privacy nightmares on wheels'

Re: It just keeps getting better

Interestingly, and this needs verification, but car manufacturers did get some exceptions for their own data collection via embedded SIMs. They don't need to tell you about these and you can't opt out. But they should, in theory, provide all the necessary data they need. They certainly don't seem to be doing much to improve the navigation systems if SWMBO's 2021 Skoda Fabia is anything to go by…

Google rebrands 'android' as 'Android' to remove any doubt about its affiliations

Re: Logos

Didn't want to get into that and I've no idea why they did it unless they're preparing some kind of video or similar campaign. In general, stick with 2D and monochrome whenever possible. The droid is simple and easily recognisable. Maybe they consider it a bit too generic for a reliable trademark? Consider Twitter's bird before it was redesigned. If it was for any other reason then expect more josssticks and whalesong in future iterations.

Re: Logos

Yes, but in this case capitalisation makese sense. Trying to enforce unusual case in a brand is always a nightmare and Apple must have teams making sure that the right people write iPhone™ and macOS™. But once things reach the real world they're lost: in English and most languages, proper names are capitalised and company and brand names should be as well. Only the trademarks are protected but that doesn't stop journos slavishly adopting them in prose, incidentally effectively watering down their protection whilst improving brand recognition.

ArcaOS 5.1 gives vintage OS/2 a UEFI facelift for the 21st century

Re: OS/2 and IBM?

At OS/2's launch, Windows didn't exist.

IBM in the 1980s was a complete mess of a company that had lost all notion of customer focus. This is why, despite an abundance of trained and talented engineers, it outsourced software development to the upstart Microsoft in the first place and kept renewing the contract even though Microsoft was working on, and prioritising, a rival product.

By the time IBM was in a position to do the development itself, the race was essentially lost. OS/2 was the better Windows, so much so that it was better at running Windows, which meant companies stayed with OS/2 to maximise the return on it but they continued to buy software for Windows. Lou Gerstner, CEO of IBM at the time, realised this wasn't a race worth winning and did the right thing. Even now, thirty years on, the Windows API dominates application development.

Re: Looking forward to that "more in-depth review"!

Could Win2K virtualise hardware ports like OS/2 could?

As for NT your history is revisionist: it only got faster by moving more things into kernel space, which made it inherently less stable. Microsoft should have bought DEC and stuck with Alphas! ;-)

The only thing launched for Amazon's Project Kuiper is a lawsuit

Government contracts are regulated differently to private companies. Companies can, and frequently do, award contracts to their friends.

The lawsuit is, however, effectively about an attempt to defraud investors by not including, ahem, Company X, in the list of potential bidders. This sort of thing is what AGMs are for and I wouldn't be surprised to see the court make that point: if you don't agree with what the board is doing, you can vote against it.

Farewell WordPad, we hardly knew ye

Re: So LibreOffice it is then.

Transitional is still OOXML. Some companies have moved the settings of MS Word to strict by default.

Re: So LibreOffice it is then.

Microsoft did indeed use the lack of forward compatbility to force upgrades on users. But this stopped with Office 2010 with the proper introduction of OfficeOpenXML. Many of the bugs you see in LO are down to a rushed and in part incomplete specification but some are down to seeming obstinacy by the LO developers.

Microsoft billing 3 cents a minute to revisit tedious Teams meetings via API

"because he can"

BOFH: What a beautiful tinfoil hat, Boss!

Re: I am sure

Or, in Russia on free-diving from sealed ones…

Re: Quirks for jerks

Those chairs are great for the living room but terrible for desks: you can feel the muscles around the pelvis relaxing as it has they're stretched.

At a desk you really just need something that stimulates muscle use, eg. a slightly unstable position which will encourage your body to move constantly and thus reduce muscle cramp. This is also the theory behind the bouncy balls or standing desks. The key is there: either or but not both. Those from the Midvale School for the Gifted (The Far Side) will generally ask for both…

Quirks for jerks

I've no problem with sensible requests for ergonomy: desk at a comfortable height, good keyboard, good screen at a reasonable distance, countoured mouse or trackpad, etc. And I limit my own screen time in the evening because it does, to me at least, seem to affect my ability to get to sleep. I'm sure you can all add your own items to the list: don't cost much and make everybody's life just a bit easier.

Then there are the numpties who want the convenience of wireless but without the waves; the standing desk and the bouncy ball to sit on… who in my experience are useless at what they're supposed to be doing. It's as if they parlay these needs at the interview stage into an impression of competence. If we're really unlucky we have to share a room with them. That's when Workplace Accidents and How to Engineer them comes in handy. Or so I'm told.

bzzt…

This profiler chatbot promises to help speed up your Python – we can believe it

Re: Usually not a good idea

PyPy does just that. It's a JIT written in Python and is able to reduce memory use, loop and function call times significantly. And these are the main areas where Python is slow.

But something that does profiling might also pick the bits of code that should either be cached or written to run only once.

Strange that Wall Street is investing so heavily in Python then, though maybe this is before the extremely well-paid analysts were doing everything in Excel, which really is slow.

If you don't understand the advantage of encapsulating high performance C, Fortran, Rust, Java, etc. so that non-programmers can use it, then you're not a real programmer either.

Germany's wild boars still too radioactive to eat largely due to Cold War nuke tests

Re: Care?

I believe it was the recent body that the decided this based on the sediment found in a Canadian lake. Lots to debate about the causes and effects but, geologically speaking it's already, ahem, settled.

Re: This is actually a devious plan .....

It's Bavaria only. Elsewhere in Germany wild board is regularly on the menu and in the butchers: lovely colour and taste.

FreeBSD can now boot in 25 milliseconds

Re: The bubble has burst

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timsort

Re: The bubble has burst

Certainly not my area of expertise but I believe bubble sort used in some cases by the sort algorithm in Python and that's considered to be pretty amazing.

Nvidia just made a killing on AI – where is everyone else?

I think manufacturing capacity probably is the limiting factor. While things like ChatGPT may be fundamentally flawed (not least because they're always behind the door), there's no doubt they're inspiring further research and investment.

Less grandiose work using machine learning before it got cute enough to be called AI is seeing adoption in certain fields. Google and others want to be provide it as a service for verticals, especially healthcare, where domain knowledge trumps general knowledge.

But it seems excessive hype is necessary for investment, especially now that debt is no longer free. So I think we can expect a lot more techno-utopia stories before reality sets in.

Wordpress sells 100-year domain, hosting plan for $38K

Re: Nearly half the web?

You can check the data from The Web Almanac which regularly surveys several million websites. WordPress is definitely the most common system in use, not least because many providers offer it. It was designed to be easy to set up and, while this has made it popular, it also enables many of the attack vectors. I haven't looked at the source in a long time but it was pretty awful.