Posts by Jonathan Richards 1

Feeling dumb? Let Google's latest AI invention simplify that wordy writing for you

Re: An AI dumb-downer made in 'murca.

> asking me if I couldn't just give them a YouTube video instead

I *hate* this phenomenon. I was helping someone assemble a flat-pack drawer intended to be installed within a kitchen cabinet. "First, we'll read the instructions", sez I. "Oh, they're online", sez he.

What was online was a video, showing the unboxing of the kit, followed by long-distance shots of a chap assembling unspecified parts at a speed that indicating he'd been in training for a week.

Back to working out how the damn thing goes together from first principles, with lots of measuring (twice) and "offering up".

The 12 KB that Windows just can't seem to quit

Re: Google search

Some of us remember the original Lockheed DIALOG search. Boolean query on controlled vocabulary index terms, followed by Boolean set operations to come up with the final result set. Downloaded at 2400 baud, it was just about slow enough to be read from the screen as it headed on its way to the 5¼" floppy disk.

Tariff-ied Framework pulls laptops, Keyboardio warns of keystroke sticker shock

Norbauer

I'm never going to fork out thousands for a keyboard, but that Norbauer offering is just superb - the whole ethos of the slow company is just so opposed to the modern move-fast-and-break-things vibe: that's the vibe that seems to be ever so good at breaking things, and moving fast in a random walk. It makes me happy that a company like that can still carve out a niche in the 21st century.

Trump tariffs thwart TikTok takeover as China digs in heels

Delusional leader options

> Invade Poland?

Poland was not allied with Nazi Germany - maybe we're closer to Op Barbarossa territory.

Trump doubles down, vows to make Chinese imports even more expensive for Americans

Re: Fascinating

> Trump has just picked a fight with literally the entire world.

Well, except uninhabited sub-Antarctic islands, of course. That would be nuts, it would be something that would happen if you pasted some dumb formula down all the rows of a spreadsheet full of trade figures; that wouldn't get past this team of stable geniuses, would it?

Photoshop FOSS alternative GIMP wakes up from 7-year coma with version 3.0

Re: names

I'm with the MacroRodent on this one - I remember many years ago coming across a more or less violent reaction to the GIMP name in some online post, and I had to go look it up to find out what was objectionable. Still, if I see the word, the software comes to mind - I didn't pay a lot of attention to the other meaning, and wouldn't be able to give you an explanation without looking it up again.

So that's two of us that you have to disbelieve.

Feds charge three over Molotov attacks on Tesla sites in multiple states

> What is a “suppressed” AR-15?

An AR-15 (assault rifle) fitted with a noise-suppresser would be my best guess.

OpenAI asks Uncle Sam to let it scrape everything, stop other countries complaining

Re: While we're at it

Patents, explicitly so in the US, are not applied for and granted in order to gain or give "credit". The time-limited patent monopoly is quid pro quo, the quo being full disclosure of the invention in the patent. This promotes the progress of technology, which is what the patent-granting State is interested in.

AI models hallucinate, and doctors are OK with that

Re: Eggheads

Not going to take on the units challenge, but I offer that a definition of egghead involves theoretical work and maybe philosophising, whereas a boffin probably designs and builds gadgets, and may even know which end of torque wrench is which.

Re: On anthropomorphization

I've cursed and yelled at the way a computer reacts, by doing just what it has been told to do instead of what I want it to do, but always in the certain knowledge that a human has (mis-)programmed it to be that way.

An earlier point made about giving ships (vessels and vehicles in more general terms, too) a feminine gender is well taken; we can gain an affection for what is an engineered item keeping us afloat in a bitter and unforgiving ocean, but I still don't think that counts as *anthropomorphism*. Maybe I'm being too picky - I think anthropomorphism is attributing humanity to something non-human. Peppa Pig is anthropomorphic. Paddington Bear, and Peter Rabbit, too. The idea that we should consider ChatGPT and its ilk to be in any way human, or attuned to humanity, is mildly repulsive.

Re: Not surprised

> Plato's teaching have reached us because someone wrote them down

Which doesn't mean that he was wrong. I've made a living for quite a long life, not by knowing things as Plato did, but having an idea where to find a reminder, as he warned of.

"they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant

Fantastic! That's the Key User Requirement for Large Language Models, right there.

Re: On Hallucinations

I have sympathies with both your arguments. If I can speculate, the OP is objecting to using metaphors that encourage us to accept (without thinking about it) that LLMs can think, reason, self-reflect on their thinking and reasoning, and generally behave like a human intelligence. They don't, can't, and, in my opinion cannot be made to do so. The underlying mechanism of an LLM, i.e. statistical forecast, is so different from how a human intelligence works^[1] that we must guard against the mind-set that they're 'intelligent just like us'.

P.S. edit: re. "humans have anthropomorphized tools and objects in general". I don't think so, and certainly not in the way that LLMs are being identified with human attributes. Nobody sympathises with a hammer because it's having its head banged on a rock, nobody thinks that wheels are happy simply to turn on their axles. I'd like an instance of your statement, if you can give me one.

^[1] This remark is confidently made, in the knowledge that I don't really know how human intelligence works. We don't understand our memory or acquisition of biases, we have to force ourselves really hard to think absolutely logically (syllogisms, etc.) and so on. Maybe I'm hallucinating.

Manus mania is here: Chinese ‘general agent’ is this week’s ‘future of AI' and OpenAI-killer

Re: General advice

Dammit! I spent so long on the mistranslation page you linked to that I forgot what we were talking about.

Techie pulled an all-nighter that one mistake turned into an all-weekender

Re: Keeping a backup... in VMS

Your recollection of VMS is correct. I used that feature a lot when writing modules for the Extensible VAX Editor.

US Dept of Housing screens sabotaged to show deepfake of Trump sucking Elon's toes

Re: During this time

I think you need to look up and then understand the definition of a sovereign nation. All the constituent nations of the EU are sovereign. Ukraine won't sign away sovereignty by signing agreements for US miners to dig for rare earths. There are many scenarios in which Ukraine remains sovereign, and none of the others are in any way optimal.

Re: During this time

> I'm struggling to see how he thinks this helps the US's strategic cause.

Because if Russia taking over and extinguishing Ukraine as a sovereign nation is normalized, then Trump is more free to do the same thing to Greenland. Or British Columbia.

Does terrible code drive you mad? Wait until you see what it does to OpenAI's GPT-4o

Re: Not sure why misalignment happens

> why should it be any easier to demand it of AI?

Well, because "AI" is being widely touted as a suitable replacement for sentient human thought, research and creativity.

We are accustomed to making judgements about the trustworthiness of fellow human behaviours, including their communications. What this article illustrates is that LLMs are unreliable (big surprise) but also that we have to take account of the ways they can be unreliable *differently* to how random strangers do it.

I cannot see a way that an LLM can build my trust in its output.

As Amazon takes over the Bond franchise, we submit our scripts for the next flick

I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but...

> A glamorous female open-source developer ..

C'mon, now.

Hey programmers – is AI making us dumber?

Re: AI isn't turning programmers into dumber people

Get the HR AI to sift the applications, then.

This would have a joke icon, only that's exactly what's happening with the biggest shiniest employers.

Re: Ding Ding Ding !!!

... and we used to laugh at people simply for quoting Wikipedia. Huh.

Re: Nearly there

+1

The stories came from consideration of edge cases, or where one or more of the Laws had been eroded because "it seemed like a good idea at the time".

Musk's move fast and break things mantra won't work in US.gov

Re: You are missing the point.

> As long as EM has the control of the US govt cash

Yabbut, he doesn't. Neither does the man who believes he is EM's boss. It's Congress that makes the *spending* decisions. I hope everyone has heard Sen Bernie Sanders' speech by now.

Quote "Let’s be clear. The president can recommend legislation, he can veto legislation, but he does not have the power to unilaterally terminate funding and legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. That is a dangerous and blatantly unconstitutional act."

Pres. Trump has sworn to uphold the Constitution. He wouldn't fib, would he?

HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback'

Re: "many of our customers were not aware of the digital support options we provide"

Maybe not *truly* shite... yet. Wait until you have to explain your issue to a Large Language Model allegedly imitating an Intelligence, and see how much shittier it can get.

Re: Irate customers - Missing Hole

Well, I guess that you underspecified the hole. Inbound or outbound? D'ye want a grommet with that?

*Hewlett

The chap deserves to have his name spelled properly, at least

Tool touted as 'first AI software engineer' is bad at its job, testers claim

Re: "Devin’s tendency to press forward with tasks that weren’t actually possible."

> TBH it sounds like it was stitched together from a bunch of other stuff.

Testing for bolt fastening head to neck - - Check!

The ultimate Pi 5 arrives carrying 16GB ... and a price to match

Maybe those people are outnumbered but the LLM few will buy a lot of units.

Just how deep is Nvidia's CUDA moat really?

It's a small point...

... but since when did we write C++ as C-plus-plus?

No, I can't help – you called the wrong helpdesk, in the wrong place, for the wrong platform

Adding up your timesheet

0730, ... until ... 1630 ..., 8 hours later.

Hmmm.

Wubuntu: The lovechild of Windows and Linux nobody asked for

Re: To recreate the ‘green-screen’ olden days in your terminal/console window:

I mean, I upvoted, but I have Konsole set to use 12pt Hack font in green-on-black and that's olden enough for me. I'm afraid Terminus is just a step too far back in time! Next, someone will introduce phosphor fade...

The only thing worse than being fired is scammers fooling you into thinking you're fired

Innocent victim in cross-fire

First of all, "Tell us Once" is 'a service that lets you report a death to most government organisations in one go'. It doesn't belong to the Department for Work and Pensions.

Secondly, it is in fact an attempt by The Bureaucracy to alleviate the pain of the bereaved having to call many elements of the government to report their loss, and in general it is a Good Thing. I say this as a relatively recent user.

BASIC co-creator Thomas Kurtz hits END at 96

The bit of the brochure which gives me the shivers:

> Stored program operation means greater flexibility as all programs may be internally self-modifying.

Self-modifying code *can* be very space-efficient, with small op-code sets like this, I suppose, but all I can say is that I tried it once (6502 assembler) and it almost scrambled my brain.

Alright, which one of you at the back said "Almost?!?"

Undergrad thought he had mastered Unix in weeks. Then he discovered rm -rf

Re: Ah....backups....

> No-one said anything about restore.

Similarly, I was firmly told that I needed to ask for permission to undertake some course of action I wanted to take (can't remember the details). When challenged later, I said "Well, I did ask for permission. No-one said anything about waiting for it to be granted."

Yet another UK government seeks to reform GDPR

Re: BS.

Well, what I get bored with is endlessly clicking 'Reject All' on cookie checks, followed by 'Object All' for the amusingly named 'Legitimate Interest'. If I don't get the option, I'll just have to manually delete the ****ing cookies, I suppose.

Pixel perfect Ghostpulse malware loader hides inside PNG image files

Windows key...

This is where the telephone scammers fail first when they start down the road of trying to get me to install TeamViewer or similar RDP software - "Please press the Windows key and R".

Me: I don't have a Windows key. (My keyboard is now forty years old)

Scammer: ???

Want to feel old? Excel just entered its 40th year

Re: Inter-Sheet

> Before the PC

I had a spreadsheet on my Commodore 64, but I can't for the life of me remember what it called itself. I remember loading it from cassette tape every month to check my payslip, which was calculated with bizarre additions and deductions. I've probably still got the tape somewhere...

Yes, your network is down – you annoyed us so much we crashed it

Re: Important word

"Computer" is indeed an important word, it's right there in the title of the Act, and *nowhere* does it give an indication of what Parliament thought a computer actually is. It gives the impression that they might have been thinking of digital electronic computers, which would have been a good start, but as it stands it probably takes in everything from nomograms and slide rules to AWS/Azure data centres.

'Newport would look like Dubai' if guy could dumpster dive for lost Bitcoin drive

Repurposing

Don't forget the magnets, too. They can come in handy.

>checking...<

> I probably don't need the number of working hard drives I have.

$ lsblk | grep -E "^sd[a-z]" | wc -l

9

Some of them are mirrors, though!

re English terminology, please?

Newport's in Wales, so a well-known translation app suggests "safle tirlenwi".

Moscow-adjacent GoldenJackal gang strikes air-gapped systems with custom malware

Air gapped still needs the gap bridging, sometimes

OK, you have a risk profile for your IT that means it should be air-gapped from the Internet. Great. That stops you being affected by some widespread zero-day. But you have to build and maintain the operating systems on the "safe" side of the air gap, and get operational data in, and products out. That means that the air gap isn't just some fresh air - it's a carefully managed interface to The Great Outside. The operational data coming in must be sanitized, on trusted media, and the products out must not give away attack vectors to bad actors who might get hold of it.

If part of your careful management is to carry data over the gap with USB devices, then gluing up the ports isn't useful. Perhaps a USB driver stack that works only with specific whitelisted device IDs, and special control measures on how the whitelist is managed? Big Red Klaxon for when a black-listed device is plugged in? ==>

Linus Torvalds declares war on the passive voice

Re: A sense of priorities

Absolutely. I did put "e.g.", rather than i.e. I have myself been known to refer to KDE/GNU/Linux when I wanted to make clear what was running the GUI.

Re: Even if British, up close and personal are things more passionate than passive impersonal ‽ .

Whooosh. Dr Fowler was quoting something written in or before 1926; even if he had made up the illustrative sentence, it would only be relevant for its grammatical structure, not for 21st century geopolitics.

Re: I'm British...

For all the people wanting to catch up somewhat painlessly, even entertainingly, with English grammar, I recommend buying a copy of 'A Dictionary of Modern English Usage' by H.W. Fowler. First published in 1926, though mine is a 2nd edition, published 1968. So, correctly named for certain values of 'modern', then, but it has been issued in several new editions since.

Having the book, you can always look up a particular topic, or you can open it at random, and enjoy whatever your eye lights upon.

Here is the 5th entry under passive disturbances, reproduced for your pleasure:

5. The impersonal passive --- it is felt, it is thought, it is believed, etc. --- is a construction dear to those who write official and business letters. It is reasonable enough in statements made at large --- It is believed that a large green car was in the vicinity at the time of the accident. / It is understood that the wanted man is wearing a raincoat and a cloth cap. But when one person is addressing another it often amounts to a pusillanimous shrinking from responsibility. (It is felt that your complaint arises from a misunderstanding. / It is thought that ample provision has been made against this contingency).

The person addressed has a right to know who it is that entertains a feeling he may not share or a thought he may consider mistaken, and is justly resentful of the suggestion that it exists in the void. On the other hand, the impersonal passive should have been used in For these reasons the effects of the American recession upon Britain will be both smaller and shorter than were originally feared. Were should be was (i.e. than it was originally feared they would be).

Re: A sense of priorities

Yabbut, for Linus, Linux === kernel. Userland is foreign. This is why the pedants among us will refer to, e.g. GNU/Linux.

Re: Simple Perfectly Rare and Raw Uncommon Sense

> nicely put

Up to a point. 'to clearly not misunderstand' is an egregiously split infinitive, and there's a mismatched single-quote, too. Someone needs to tweak the prompt template.

Switching customers from Linux to BSD because boring is good

Re: No security updates

Well, I upvoted that post before I saw the joke icon. You keep the upbovote, but IMHO it's not a joke, at all. A server connected solely to clients on an internal network, as here, is pretty damn secure. If you don't need any new functionality introduced by updates, then updates are nugatory. Finite state machine just goes on changing between one of its finite states and the next one ...

Watch your mirrors: Tesla Cybertrucks have 'Full' 'Self Driving' now

Re: Your mileage may vary

Here in the south-west of England we have a lot of single track roads. Not wide enough for two cars to pass, and there are few passing places, and stone-built overgrown hedges 6-8 feet high on each side. The frequent bends are such that you have no clue there is an oncoming vehicle until it appears 20 metres in front of you. Reversing is frequent; one journey I undertook recently, admittedly on back lanes and to avoid flooding elsewhere, involved a total of at least half a mile of reversing.

On the other hand, it won't be a problem for Cybertruck. It wouldn't fit between the hedges.

Re: Steer by wire

Everything on a fly-by-wire aircraft is at least double-redundant, and inspected every few hundred hours of operation. I don't know if that is the case with steer-by-wire/brake-by-wire automobiles, but it probably should be.

AI code helpers just can't stop inventing package names

Re: Opportunity

In what way, do tell? This is just like the

3. ...

4. PROFIT!

meme. Wasn't funny for very long back then, either.