Posts by Rich 2

Devs sound alarm after Microsoft subtracts C/C++ extension from VS Code forks

Re: Shouldn't have been unexpectected.

I don’t think anyone has a right to complain about MS here - and it’s been a VERY long time since I thought that. MS are enforcing their license. Which they are perfectly entitled to do. A license which, by the way, has not suddenly changed recently (at least not in relation to this). If you choose to use a software product that has a license that states quite clearly that this kind of thing might (or is likely to) happen then it is your own fault of things go pear-shaped. You have no right to blame MS. You might not like it and want to stamp your little foot, but you have no right to complain

As for using VSC, I also don’t “get it”. It’s a bit like the hoards of people that use the Crome browser. Just why??? If you want to edit code, use an editor. And learn how to invoke the compiler in the command line

RIP, Google Privacy Sandbox

Re: Their profits

Re “basically riding the privacy”

“Eroding”. Not “riding”. Bloody phone!

Re: Their profits

I can’t remember the details but if you go and search, you’ll find that Moz has been slowly making certain decisions over the last little while that don’t sit comfortably with a lot of its users (basically riding the privacy that FF has, until now, been known for

It’s very sad and very annoying. I’ve been a FF fan for longer than I can remember but have now moved to LibreWolf (I suggest you check it out). There’s also a GNU hacked version of FF (can’t remember the name) that removes the nasties that have been introduced but I’ve not tried it (I don’t think there are binaries readily available so you need to compile it and I don’t hate myself enough to endure the pain)

CVE fallout: The splintering of the standard vulnerability tracking system has begun

Re: Redundancy is a good thing

Right. Genuine thanks for enlightening me.

As for “…get in the way of your understanding what the US government does, especially under this administration”

You’re right - I have no fucking understanding at all what the Orange Fuckwit and Co are doing. But neither do they

Re: Redundancy is a good thing

By “woods chipped” I assume you mean thrown away? If so, then why would it be thrown away? Even if sanity is ever restored to the US (and it’s all relative, I know) then that’s no reason to “wood chip” anything

El Reg's essential guide to deploying LLMs in production

Impressive

That’s a very impressive and comprehensive list of how to get an LLM up and running

The one item you seem to have missed out is the one under the heading “What do I do with it?”

Microsoft: Why not let our Copilot fly your computer?

Bollox

“Computer use enables agents to interact with websites and desktop apps by clicking buttons, selecting menus…”

But this is not “AI” AB’s does not in any way need any “AI” shit. Apple did something similar about 30 years ago. And I’m sure there are other examples about. I think even MS did this many years ago. Obviously MS’s effort was shit and so nobody used it but still

Brit soldiers tune radio waves to fry drone swarms for pennies

I would like to think they can ship this to Ukrain PDQ (like in the next few weeks) but having once worked on an MOD project that was an “urgent operational requirement” for the ill-conceived (stupid) invasion of Iraq, I can say that the war was (quite literally) over by the time the project got anywhere near complete.

The MOD’s idea of “urgent” is …errr …. flexible

TalkTalk Business pulls disappearing act on customer emails

Especially any business!!

[…thinks really hard…]

Nope. No idea why anyone would given their money to TalkTalk

Microsoft hits Ctrl-Z after Teams trips over file sharing

Odd behaviour

“…odd behavior. Attachments failed to upload, downloads stopped working, and collaboration for affected customers ground to a halt”

Oh. I thought that was normal behaviour

Tech tariff turmoil continues as Trump admin exempts some electronics, then promises to bring taxes back

Oh how we laughed

I would love for China to impose export duty of (say) 145% on phones and computers bound for the US.

Yea, it would hurt, but I bet it wouldn’t hurt for more than a few days until the Orange Fuckwit changes his mind and drops all tariffs

….but China won’t do this, so…. Boooooo

Microsoft total recalls Recall totally to Copilot+ PCs

Re: Maybe just ask what we want?

That was (not was) the day….

Re: ...better choices

I could be wrong but I think the Agent P is a reference to the cockwomble responsible for insidious systemd and the atrocious pulse audio.

I don’t know about the latter but system dunce is used by all Ubuntu-derived Linux distributions.

If you want to avoid systemd (and why would you not?) then there are alternative distributions. I have used void Linux for years for this reason and the fact that it odd generally lightweight - I can recommend it

Nvidia paid $1M for Mar-a-Lago meal, US later scrapped AI chip export crackdown

“how do you explain this huge victory for the republicans[?]”

Remember that the Orange Fuckwit used to contribute the the Democrat party but as he has said himself, he ran as a Republican because (and I paraphrase because I do not remember the exact quote) “I would never win running as a Democrat, but Republican voters are stupid so I have a better chance” (and seriously , I’m not exaggerating here!)

I think that answers your question. And by some miracle, I’ve also managed to find something I actually agree with the Orange one on. SHIT!!

Microsoft lists seven habits of highly effective Windows 11 users

Re: Non-start menu

In all my years of suffering windows almost all the places I have worked insist on using it for reasons that make no sense at all) I have NEVER seen the hiding task bar thing work properly and consistently.

MS software is, has always been, and always will be shit

Re: My 2 cents...

Eh? Where would be the fun in that? Nobody at MS is paid to actually make the UI better!

Trump tariffs to make prices great – a gain

“It wasn't designed to start a tariff regime it was designed to stop it from other countries”

I know it’s pointing out the bleedin’ obvious but I can only imagine that you don’t read the news.

As has been very widely reported, the Orange Fuckwit’s oh-so-clever formula for calculating his tariffs is not in any way whatsoever based on tariffs that other countries charge on the US. They are based (vaguely) of the trade imbalance. So he’s penalising countries based on the fact that they make stuff that Americans want to buy!

This also explains why he’s put huge tariffs on islands inhabited only by penguins. That and the fact he’s an utter moron.

EU may target US tech giants in tariff response

It’s one way of doing it

Well the EU. A (and the UK) have been dragging their tentacles over taxing the likes of Googlies and Amazon and MS etc etc for years now

Imposing tariffs on them might go some way to getting some money out of them. Obviously, most of that extra money will come from the locals because it’s unlikely the tech companies will lower their prices to any noticeable extent to compensate

Qualcomm set to move in on UK chip IP biz Alphawave

So….

On Monday, we’re all talking about how we should distance ourselves from US tech (on account of the US tech companies being out-of-control sharks and the US being run by a self-serving loon that seems to think of the whole world has his personal playground to do with as he wishes - a sort-of real-life game of Monopoly or Risk)

By Tuesday, we’re looking down the barrel of yet another sell-off of home-grown tech to a US company!

I would hope that the UK gov will stop this but I’ll not hold my breath. In fact I won’t be surprised if they give ‘em a tax break into the bargain

When even Microsoft can’t understand its own Outlook, big tech is stuck in a swamp of its own making

Outlook

“All it would need to do is provide the basic email functions we all use”

So why do you use outlook at all? There are many normal (IMAP) email servers and clients.

Like everything else shat-out by MS, outlook is a steaming turd. Why the fuck does anyone still use it? It’s moronic

LLM providers on the cusp of an 'extinction' phase as capex realities bite

Excellent

“…grapples with the capital-intensive costs of building products in a competitive market.”

Don’t you mean…

“… grapples with the capital-intensive costs of building products with no discernible useful value.”

Either way, it will be nice to have less of this crap constantly in the news

Both Haiku and Linux get new FOSS Nvidia drivers

I was referring to individual application developers; not the Linux distribution dev teams

I’m guessing you are being voted down because of the Linux criticism?

I use Linux every day and have done for years, and while I generally like it, I do agree that there is a horrible creeping bloat to a lot of it. I don’t think this is a Linux-only problem though. A lot of it seems to be laziness on the part of developers that prefer to include some external library to do some simple stuff that brings in other libraries that…. you get the idea. I installed what I thought was a very small application the other day on a Ubuntu machine. It brought in so much stuff (and I could see that the majority of it was never going to be used - a boat-load of video drivers for hardware that doesn’t exist for one) that the total install was over 300MB. Totally nuts. I deleted it all again. And then you have the increasingly complex tangled web of “management” and “authentication” stuff - a lot of it so complex that is amazing it works at all.

Bloody nVidia

I’m having to seriously consider a new laptop now. Not because there is anything wrong with it but because nVidia have (relatively recently) removed the ability to run the aging (but perfectly good) graphic chip in it in a low power mode. As a result, the laptop now cooks! And no, I can’t go back to the last good driver because it doesn’t work with newer Linux kernels, and the nouveau driver just doesn’t work well enough (and also doesn’t support a low power mode)

There are complaints about this brain-dead decision to remove some very useful functionality on the nVidia forums but (obviously) they are completely ignored by nVidia itself

My next computer will not have an nVidia chip in it

From MP3 to Web3 to now 3D, Napster gets a new owner

Why do companies do this?? Spend millions on buying up an ancient festering carcass that has no relevance whatsoever and that everyone has long-since forgotten about?

And they ALWAYS have grand plans for their shiny ….errr ….rusty mouldy purchase that everyone knows will never ever come to fruition. Not even close. And they will sell it on in a couple of years to the next idiot for a fraction of what they just spent. Is it just a tax scam or something?

British govt wants to mainline AI, but its arteries are clogged with legacy tech

Re: And this is a bad thing why?

Well quite.

“hampering attempts to adopt AI….”

….to do what????

Can someone in government answer this bloody question? I’m sick of hearing about how vital it is that everyone uses AI but nobody says what for!!

As for “AI-focused efficiency” that’s this week’s best oxymoron

2 in 5 techies quit over inflexible workplace policies

Re: curious to see how they arrange it so that WFH boosts "a sense of community"

My wife keeps telling me I’m neurodivergent. Unfortunately, she’s a psychotherapist so it’s difficult to argue with her :-)

NASA rewrites Moon mission goals in quiet DEI retreat

Re: Insane

I take your point re lawyers and morals.

As for Keir Starmer, he’s on very thin ice. I get that he’s trying to keep the US on-board with Ukraine but he’s in very severe danger of being seen (with some strong justification) as a scared wimp with his handling of Trump.

Insane

“… We look forward to learning more from [and] about the Trump administration's plans for our agency and expanding exploration at the Moon and Mars for the benefit of all.”

Every day seems to be one step closer to pretty much every American institution and businesses grovelling and toadying to the insane whim of the Almightily Radiant Super Excellent Holy Orange Loony Emperor.

I read yesterday about some law firm throwing away its moral compass to appease the Great Orange Fuckwit. “Lack of integrity” doesn’t come within a million miles of describing them.

I think the Americans have a phrase for what’s going on - “Going to Hell on a Handcart”?

I always knew the Americans were nuts but this is getting to be well beyond what I thought was possible

Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options, says Dutch parliament

Re: It’s a start …but should have happened long ago

Well, quite

Re: I hope this happens

“…but then it needs "a lot" of work to make all the bits work together”

Bearing in mind most of the MS stuff only just hangs together and breaks on a daily basis, it’s not a high bar to exceed

It’s a start …but should have happened long ago

"With each IT service our government moves to American tech giants, we become dumber and weaker,"

Well, at least Ms. Kathmann has her head screwed on. We just have to wait 20 years for the EU to catch up

Can we have our proper English back as well?

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

Re: "The U.S. is a C(o)untry," PT 2

That’s because the Yanks have stupid gun laws (or lack of) and half the population still think they live in the Wild West so, against all common sense, refuse to do anything about it.

For some bizarre reason, this reminds me of the utter uproar in the US when [can’t remember who now] popped her boob out at a Super Bowl. While the rest of the world looked on with a “so what?”, half of America seemed to react like the sky was falling in. And yet it’s perfectly fine to shoot-up a school full of kids - well it must be apparently, because they refuse to do anything about it (in fact it’s even better than that - they actively work and lobby to ensure it keeps happening!)

What is a “suppressed” AR-15?

Apple hallucinated Siri's future AI features, lawsuit claims

Re: Are you sure?….

In that case, humanity is doomed. But we all knew that anyway. If there was a God then he/she/it should give up and find another universe to play with

Re: Are you sure?….

I don’t think any of the examples you cite are beneficial or useful. As for “AI” (aka LLM) being a positive thing, the evidence for that is rather thin. It can spit out some pretty pictures and stitch together some text (most of which is plagiarised from actual people) but that’s about it. “AI” is just a clever search and pattern-matching algorithm

And I have yet to see a use-case for an Internet-connected washing machine or fridge - they are stupid ideas

Are you sure?….

“Apple deceived millions of consumers into purchasing new phones they did not need based on features that do not exist”

I’m not convinced that anyone rushes out to buy ANY product based on the threat that it includes (or will include) any kind of “AI” (no such thing)

While I am tiring of advertising lies (actually, advertising in general) just like the next carbon-based life form, I would consider NOT delivering on this promise to be a positive and good feature

Privacy warriors whip out GDPR after ChatGPT wrongly accuses dad of child murder

Re: Hit them hard...

“…OpenAI previously argued it couldn't correct false data in the model's output”

Then they should be made to delete the data. And if that means deleting their entire model then so be it

Ubuntu 25.10 plans to swap GNU coreutils for Rust

Re: License @Rich 2

I’m not preventing anyone from using my code. If you choose not to use it because you have your own artificial constraints then that’s up to you and is fine by me.

Re: License

I don’t use any MS products - I haven’t done so for years.

I DO use BSD and Linux though

Re: License @Rich 2

I’m not sure how you can “pirate” software that is freely available.

And the rest of your content is entirely American-centric so completely meaningless to me

Re: License

I never said anything about putting my code online.

As for your point, I refer you to DJB’s experience (ref http://cr.yp.to). He has published lots of code online for years and it has been used by literally millions of people and businesses. Probably the most well-known is qmail. He eventually (after many years) put a license on it. But he only did that because he got fed up of people complaining it didn’t have one even though he said it was free to use. Not having a license never stopped anyone using it though (except those that needed to tick a box)

So your baseless assumption that software MUST have a license to be useful is demonstrably and unsurprisingly nonsense.

Re: License @Rich 2

I always include a copyright notice.

But I don’t see a need for a license. Licenses are what company lawyers fret about. Jo in the street couldn’t give a monkey’s most of the time (unless it’s GPL and all that entails - which brings us back to the point I made that GPL is a pain).

Re: License

Because it’s “just not American! ….errr sorry…GNU!”

I long-since tired of the GNU religion. It’s not that I object to someone licensing their code as GPL - software authors can use whatever license they like and it’s not my business to tell them otherwise.

But I intensely hate the “…BUT IT’S NOT GPL!!! - HERETIC!!! NON-BELIEVER!!! STONE HIM!!!!” attitude that seems to go along with it far too often.

The GPL and the Jesus culture that surrounds it is a pain in the arse and as far as I’m concerned the more non-GPL software the better.

And as a note to all those Jesus-loving GNU people that will vote this down, I’m not saying this because I like the idea of BIG TECH stealing code and not contributing. I have written quite a bit of free stuff in my time that I’m happy to be used by anyone (not under a GNU licence, of course. In fact most of it has no license at all). But go ahead - vote-down the non-believer!!! Better still - BURN HIM!!!!

Dell discloses monster 20-petaFLOPS desktop built on Nvidia's GB300 Superchip

“optimized for AI computing workloads”

I hate to point out the recurring theme here but does anyone know what “AI computing workloads” these might be? (I also note the rather vague phrase that seems to keep cropping up)

Maybe Dell knows? Dunno….

Microsoft isn't fixing 8-year-old shortcut exploit abused for spying

Or just block all windows machines from accessing any network whatsoever. That would improve overall security immeasurably

US tech jobs outlook clouded by DOGE cuts, Trump tariffs

Go DODGEY

I’m sure by the time DODGEY and the Orange Fuckwit Overlord have finished, everyone in the US will be looking for a job; not just IT folks.

Amazon to kill off local Alexa processing, all voice requests shipped to the cloud

Re: The Alexa experience

I notice that the word “innovate” seems to be making a comeback recently.

That used to be one of Microshite’s favourites and is generally a shorthand for “make a new standard that isn’t a standard at all to replace a perfectly good existing (real) standard for the sole purpose of making life difficult for you. Oh, and it will be shit too, just for good measure “

Get off that old Firefox by Friday or you'll be sorry, says Moz

Re: Forced obsolescence

If you are issuing certificates with expiry times measured in years anyway then you may as well make it 999 years. Otherwise you are saying it’s ok to leave a security issue open for 5 years (or whatever) until expiry but it’s not ok to wait 900+ years.