Posts by Ball boy

Hegseth signs flying memo to expand military use of cheap drones in oddball video

Doesn't make sense

So on one hand, we have the POTUS telling the world that he's bringing manufacturing back to the US (forcing the issue with tariffs and even holding a car sales event on the lawn of the White House with his ex-bestie) - and here's Hegseth actively rescinding existing legislation designed to protect the US from importing stuff that might contain less-than-desirable systems, presumably because someone told him they don't have a hope in hell of making anything like the right kind of kit on US soil in the near future.

And the presentation! Good #deity almighty. It has been said that US politics has dumbed down significantly of late. The case for the prosecution can now rest.

Yes, I wrote a very expensive bug. In my defense I was only seven years old at the time

7 year olds: often dangerous things near computers!

When my lad was 7 his class were assigned 'health' as a project and encouraged to work on a drawing or graphic at home that they could show the class later on. Firing up Google and typing in 'fit man' produced results that were...well...not quite what he expected. Safe searching was enabled on the home PC's just as soon as I'd stopped having fits of the giggles!

Folks aren’t buying the PCs that US vendors stockpiled to dodge tariffs

Upgrade? Why?

Generally, the more things you do in the cloud, the less the platform you use matters. In a way, Redmond have made a rod for their own back: by encouraging more use of online resources, they've reduced the need to keep upgrading the local platform.

Unlike the moves from 16 to 32 bit or from 32 to 64, I also suspect there's far less pressure from software vendors to run the latest OS - unless those vendors that are looking to bolt AI into their apps. Even so, most will probably want to make it a subscription service with a backend running under their control (more vendor lock-in and, actually, it probably offers better results because they can use a half decent model) - no pressing need for Win11 on the client in that case.

All told, I imagine there will be a very long tail to Win10 usage in the home market.

Your browser has ad tech's fingerprints all over it, but there's a clean-up squad in town

Re: "not something your grandma would glom onto"

The Happy Hookers?

You, Sir, absolutely win the Internet today :-)

Frozen foods supermarket chain deploys facial recognition tech

Re: Organized and targeted retail crime is out of control.

Oh yeah, happens all the time: bunch of masked geezers rock up in a stolen Transit and force a cashier to fill their cool-bags with Iceland's discount own-brand ice lollies....

/s

Re: Hmm

@Hawkeye:

You say "Let's be clear, this is primarily about anti-shoplifting. Not about anti-violence. It can't possibly stop someone hitting a shopworker although it might help catch and prosecute such a person after the event." but, according to the article, the system doesn't store images if there's no match - so a 'new face' could rob Iceland of absolutely everything in the store, help themselves to the tills and clear off - and the system won't be any use at all in helping to identify the perp.

As I understand it, the system can only flag up someone as matching once they're in the store and then alert staff to the fact. What action the staff take is debatable though: if the suspect is known for being violent, it can't be shop policy to confront them. If someone is known to shoplift but generally does it discreetly and peacefully then I suppose staff can make it obvious that they're being watched. So yes, it's all about discouraging opportunistic shoplifting, which is probably a far bigger problem for Iceland than 'violent crime' will ever be.

Same problem blights all the retailers so I expect other supermarkets will watch how this is accepted by the public and then roll out the same tech as soon as they feel they can get away with it.

SpaceX's Starship explodes again ... while still on the ground

Re: “Starships might land on Mars in 2026”

In fairness, the bang was big enough to have sent some bits in the right direction for a touchdown on Mars. D'ya think he'll count that as a partial win?

/s

Do you trust Xi with your 'private' browsing data? Apple, Google stores still offer China-based VPNs, report says

Shirley they have their uses

If I wanted to blow the whistle on corruption involving senior-level ministers anywhere in the west, then going via a Chinese VPN might be a good choice - less chance of anyone over there willingly handing over logs to any US/UK/EU security services. Sadly, I imagine they're favoured by a number of less salubrious users who want another layer of isolation: drug or arms dealers, for example. Again, as long as the deals stay well clear of the middle kingdom's territory or interests and they can't be accused of knowingly aiding, etc. then I doubt they'd have any real motivation to spill the beans.

On the flip side, if I wanted to send details of my latest chip fab, world-beating car, corporate investment strategy or whatever, I would probably be well advised to select a VPN whose integrity I'm more likely to be able to hold to account.*

*for reasonable values of 'account'

Half of businesses rethink ditching humans for customer service bots

Just checking

Is this latest report by the same Gartner that, a couple of years ago, was waxing lyrical to CTO's about how AI was going to replace the workforce - or was that another, entirely different, Gartner?

Tinfoil hat wearers can thank AI for declassification of JFK docs

Re: never a good idea to outsource your smarts

Very true. It amazes me that any gubbermint - of whatever persuasion - thinks it's clever to put national security information into the hands of third parties.

However, the biggest risk remains the people rather than the tech. Witness various strike plans being shared in a Signal group. I don't wish to name an individual but Pete Hegseth will know who I'm talking about. In-house ultra-secured systems, double-tripple encrypted cloud with bells on or simply stuffed down the back of a toilet in someone's washroom: all count for nothing when you have someone who goes around shooting their mouth off.

Field support chap got married – which took down a mainframe

Back in my uni days we had a lecturer who'd spent time working with mech. engineers on ships. It didn't take much to get him to go off topic and recount some past adventures. I can vividly remember him, completely unaware he was doing it, automatically feeding his tie between two shirt buttons to keep it out of trouble. Muscle memory.

Trump lifts US supersonic flight ban, says he's 'Making Aviation Great Again'

There's an obvious cure for that: he could hire an assistant and get all the way to twenty by counting their digits.

I am sure he is well aware that some models are willing to use their hands or fingers for monetary gain. Doubtless he can come to some arrangement.

/s

What will UK government workers do with an extra 26 minutes a day?

26 mins per person, per day?

For #deity's sake, don't let Farage know. He'll only use that as cast-iron proof that public departments are over staffed!

Personally, I think they need to measure productivity not time-per-task. As pointed out above, there's actually money wasted if a task has to be redone if the 'help' turns out to have provided woefully inaccurate/wrong data.

Tesla FSD ignores school bus lights and hits 'child' dummy in staged demo

Re: Theoretical Liability vs True Liability

Umm... do all schoolchildren live on the same side of the road where you come from? 'round here, there appears to be a fairly even distribution of them on both sides which means some *have* to cross the road (unless the bus makes two passes down every street - which seems a little excessive but I don't live in murica and may well be making an assumption).

And on crossing the road, the safest option is obviously waiting until the bus has buggered off so you have the clearest view but if you have to go early, I'd suggest passing in front of the bus for one very good reason: it puts several tons of metal between you and the inattentive driver who's about to rear-end the bus. There's also a chance the bus driver - who's just let you off so they KNOW you're there - will use their mirrors and so give you a second set of eyes on approaching traffic. But, hey, if Darwin tells you to do it differently, you crack on ;)

Re: Statistics

When I was studying for a private pilot license, reading up on human performance and limitations was very much a thing. I recall a paper that reported that, in repeated testing, it generally took around 6 seconds for aircrew to fully appraise themselves of the situation if an autopilot was disengaged without giving them prior warning.

Car drivers are less frequently trained in dealing with emergencies (hell, they're mostly very poorly trained in general - and I include myself in that cohort) and, although they only have to worry about two dimensions - unless things have gone very pear-shaped - I very much doubt the average car-driver could take over control from a FSD system quickly enough to safely deal with a situation the software has been unable resolve in good time.

Barclays Bank signs 100k license Copilot deal with Microsoft

Effective marketing all those years ago

When I was starting my first year of uni and needed a bank account there was a protest against Barclays for their continued support for Apartheid. 'Boerclays' was the moniker used and I guess it really stuck in my mind: I've never used them for personal banking, nor have any of the businesses I've had a hand in. And they're investing in some kind of AI, hu? Call me cynical but I doubt it'll improve things.

Get a custom paint job for earbuds at a nail salon, type on a baguette, then build a fountain for your PC

Re: Earbud decoration

The market is probably wider than you might think. Around here, there's a dog-groomers who found there's very healthy business in not only shampooing and cutting the fur of someone's lap-dog but going so far as to dye the damn thing. They also do a very tidy line in painting the dog's nails to match the owner's car, outfit or whatever.

It's all about making a fashion statement - and I invite you to look at Vuitton handbags as an example of how far people will go in that regard.

Some English hospitals doubt Palantir's utility: We'd 'lose functionality rather than gain it'

Re: Looking at this from the correct perspective

Given the apparently leader-sanctioned power and data grabs that seems to be going in the US right now, I think it'd be a dereliction of duty for UK PLC not to review matters and ask if it's appropriate for an American corporation to have unfettered access to the health records of the entire nation.

Hell, even on a good day, that question should have been asked - but I guess the right people got invites to the right sporting events or whatever and they 'forgot' to check.

Scammers are deepfaking voices of senior US government officials, warns FBI

The irony

Didn't the White House recently issue an image of The Great Leader dressed as the Pope? Clearly they endorse the use of such fakery.

I can hear the words of my dear old mum echoing back to me: If it all goes wrong, you'll only have yourself to blame

Go ahead and ignore Patch Tuesday – it might improve your security

Patch? Yes - but maybe the greatest threat lies elsewhere

I'd suggest patching - for all the rather good reason JimmyPage offers: if you don't patch and you get compromised, your underwriters will almost certainly walk away from any claim. However, as Redmond prove pretty much every time, being an early adopter of patches might put you at significant risk of falling over.

Despite this the greatest threat of compromise appears to come from social engineered attacks so, while patches are required and should be applied in good time (testing on non-live, etc notwithstanding), most companies would see a greater increase in security by better educating their user base.

Linus Torvalds goes back to a mechanical keyboard after making too many typos

Re: Slow news day?

Given Cherry keyboards feature, I'd say the article is the very definition of clickbait ;)

I'll see myself out

Microsoft moved the goalposts once. Will Windows 12 bring another shift?

I think they're pretty much there already: Office 362 (note to self: check I got that name right!) is subscription but so too are all the cloudy bits from pretty much everyone. It's only a small mindset change to incorporate the client-side OS as part of one big corporate deal. Plus there's arguably an advantage in renting if you're looking to polish the company accounts: operational expenses - 'running costs' if you prefer - look way better on the balance sheet than sinking a pot-load of cash in buying stuff that depreciates.

Rent to businesses for income, pretty much give it away to education to assure future income (people brought up on a crap diet rarely change their habits) and the home market? Now mobiles do so much, I'd be surprised if the 'home user, full fat desktop' market generates anything like the revenue it did 10-15 years ago.

So your [expletive] test failed. So [obscene participle] what?

Re: Didn't see it myself

Not being a particularly skilled coder, when I was trying to write some browser/server routines, I'd often return a 'hello:' and append a string containing references to whatever.

I learnt to always, always do a global search for 'hello' before releasing the code. It's surprising how often one or two showed up, no matter how carefully I thought I'd been working!

People find amazing ways to break computers. Cats are even more creative

Labs can be daft

Growing up, we had a Lab that recognised the sound of the 3kW fan heater my parents used to try to warm the dining room and would lie in front of it. So close you'd get whiffs of burnt fur. Bruce didn't seem to notice this - being double-coated fur, I doubt he suffered any ill effects. However, the fan heater couldn't 'breathe' properly and its internal thermostat would trip. One pissed-off Lab would then drag himself off to the settee or other warmish spot...then dutifully plonk himself down in front of the fan heater as soon as the thermostat clicked back out and the thing started making a noise again. He could keep this cycle going for hours, apparently.

Fujitsu and its no public sector bids promises... what happened to them?

And the Postmasters?

It's worth pointing out that, to date, Fujitsu have paid out exactly £0 to the Postmasters affected by the Horizon debacle.

Fortunately, over the same time period Fujitsu shareholders have been lucky enough to get much, much better returns so that's all okay.

/sarcasm

The one interview question that will protect you from North Korean fake workers

What?

Employing people unseen and without sufficient background checking is asking for trouble. In the example given, it'd be easy enough to check: there'll be a Polish support group within reach who would almost certainly welcome a few corporate bucks in exchange for a quick chat in their native tongue with this 'valuable candidate'. Let's see how quickly a North Korean can pick up that particular lingo!

I'm assuming the glorious C-suites that fell foul of this 'hijacking' are the very same people who discover they have rich relatives in Nigeria who inexplicably die in car wrecks. Perhaps El Reg would be kind enough to list them: I've got a couple of bridges that I need to get rid of...

AI training license will allow LLM builders to pay for content they consume

I don't see it working for one simple reason

The folk who want copyrights to be protected are diverse and distributed the world over.

The LLM's are generally owned by monied people who, it seems, bankrolled those in power.

How do *you* think this will end?

Hacking US crosswalks to talk like Zuck is as easy as 1234

New versions won't have this problem

They'll drop the nearfield comms and switch to needing an internet connection to program/reprogram the crossings.

Advantage: they can use some form of encryption or tunnelling...but the downside is that once the key leaks or is hacked somehow, it won't be one crossing at a time that gets the treatment...it'll be the entire metropolitan area in one go.

And definitely an upvote for Jou's suggestion: "Walk this waaaaay!" in a well know screaming voice. Without doubt, *the* choice for a crossing hack!

Free Blue Screens of Death for Windows 11 24H2 users

We gave up with Windows when it became apparent we were spending more time and effort resolving issues caused by the operating system than we were fixing the applications that actually ran the business. At that point, it became a simple business decision that reduced support costs and staff frustration. Granted, we didn't have a huge investment in MS integration or back-end apps so the migration was fairly trivial. There was a need for some user re-training but every time I see another story about how Redmond has stymied their users yet again, I'm glad we made the move when we did.

Tesla fudged odometer to screw me out of warranty, Model Y owner claims

Re: Cockup?

When my navigation app is fired up, it sometimes mislocates my position before it fully acquires a lock. Is it possible that, in Tesla's code, any 'leaps' from false locations to known-good ones are recorded as mileage travelled? In fairness, I don't see this happen with my app very often and, when it does, the assumed location is usually only a street or so away so it seems unlikely that this would make a noticeable difference were it recorded - but I have no idea how Tesla interact with the raw data. Never has YMMV been quite so apt!

BOFH: There's a fatal error in the blinkenlights

Re: I confidently predict

I'm no historian but I imagine if the Turkish keyboard expired the system would default back to Byzantine Greek ;)

'Copilot will remember key details about you' for a 'catered to you' experience

Fantastic. So not only will the data know what someone's looked for - in their own words - it'll know exactly who they are, where they were and when they looked.

This means when that data gets compromised - and, yes, I did mean when not if; we all know it's only a matter of time - then bad actors will have everything they need to craft a message that really looks like it's come from within a trusted place. Or they could just bundle that data up and sell it to someone. Either way, that poor user definitely won't be the winner.

Can someone please stop the world for a second? I've been taken for a long enough ride now ;)

Microsoft lists seven habits of highly effective Windows 11 users

My hot tip

Here we go again: MS advising users to change their way of working to accommodate a new UI. Perhaps the best tip would be for Redmond to stabilise on ONE look and feel for their desktop rather that mess about with it on each major release. That way, users would develop muscle memory and spend more time working with applications - you know, the things they actually want to interact with.

I know, I'm a radical.

DOGE dilettantes 'didn't test' Social Security fraud detection tool at appropriate scale

Re: DOGE incompetence

In fairness, gubbermint web portals going offline outside office hours is nothing new: the British mastered that particular art years ago! On several occasions, I've seen messages from the UK's online tax system telling me that I can't see my updated records because I've been foolish enough to try posting changes at the weekend. Personally, I suspect they print out web-submitted updates and have them typed back in by someone in the next office over. Making TAX Digital...but only between 8am and 7pm, Monday to Friday. :)

UK government told to get a grip on £23B tech spend

There's four ways to spend money:

1. Your money on things for yourself: You'll almost always strive to get the best item at the best price;

2. Your money on things for other people: You're concerned about the cost but don't unduly care if the product is really suitable;

3. Other people's money on things for you: Cost isn't a consideration so you get the best product available;

4. Other people's money on things for other people: Who gives a damn what the cost is or if it even works.

If you want to focus the mind of people spending the public purse, maybe they need to be locked into some kind of payment-on-results so they have to think like tier 1 not tier 4 spenders.

Microsoft to mark five decades of Ctrl-Alt-Deleting the competition

I seem to recall XP (with SP3) was pretty stable and things seemed to be in logical places (for someone coming from Win 3.0 / WfW and NT). I got a new laptop that came with Win 7 and really didn't get on with it - when I tried to delete some Service Pack backup files, it appeared to be phoning home before removing each file: on the slow Internet link I was stuck with at the time, that really was the last straw. I burnt a live CD of Ubuntu, found it worked fine and even supported my scanner. That was in...err...2011 and I've felt no need to return to Redmond software since then.

*Disclaimer: I used SCO SVR4 back in the day so *nix wasn't entirely new to me.

To avoid disaster-recovery disasters, learn from Reg readers' experiences

Always check what you're backing up

One enterprising chap I knew (no, it wasn't me) went the full nine yards: installed a DAT drive on a dedicated SCSI card, a big handful of tapes marked up for daily, weekly, month, quarter end and all that good stuff. Copied a big chunk of live data to a temp volume so he could test backing it up, then safely deleting / changing the fileset before monitoring the perfect restoration of the data as he expected.

Utterly confident his backup was working and he knew exactly how to do partial or full restores, he carefully added the various backup intervals and then religiously changed tapes, keeping the long retention versions in an off-site fire safe....until a RAID upgrade meant his temp. volume got dropped and it suddenly became very obvious he'd never changed the backup's config. to point to the live dataset. Lucky sod got away with it, didn't you Dom (I assume you still read El Reg)

Dell sheds ten percent of staff for the second year in a row

And this year? More of the same, probably

The import tariffs will affect profitability within the US - which may well lead to job cuts - and geopolitics will have an impact: America's direction on the world stage means that businesses that have a choice may well avoid buying US hardware, either as the result of a risk analysis or for sheer bloodymindedness.

Maybe now is not the time to be holding stocks in American companies that flog products that have near-equals produced and sold under a different flag.

Palantir suggests 'common operating system' for UK govt data

Common format? Maybe

First order of the day would have to be: ensure data platform is within UK waters (or, at the very least, in a part of Europe we're still legally able to hold to the fire).

Second order should be: ensure no data that is not absolutely required is stored in this repository.

Third order: Absolutely no access given to any third party, contractor or processor that is owned directly or indirectly, acquired by or operating for any company that is not British (or, at least, European and operating in the bits we can legally, etc.)

It's highly sensitive data on British subjects. Surely this stuff should be at the very heart of protecting our national interest.

HP Inc settles printer toner lockout lawsuit with a promise to make firmware updates optional

Update optional?

That's fine. I've instigated a policy of buying anything from HP entirely optional. Looks like it's bearing fruit: no printing issues here at all. :-)

Don't want Copilot app on your Windows 11 machine? Install this official update

The app is unintentionally uninstalled

That means this patch can't be classed as having a bug; it's definitely a feature!

I'm almost tempted to install W11 on something just so I can have the perverse pleasure of watching MS self-uninstall it's own flagship crapware.

City council rejects inquiry into £130M Oracle IT disaster

Re: Hmm ...

10x over budget? Yes! Another Council: East Sussex.

Reported in Private Eye^* this week is their shambles over an urgent bridge redevelopment. Slated in 2017 to cost £2m, no work was done until 2021 by which time the budget cost had risen to £10.5m. It's currently calculated to cost £21m and is "no longer viable". The council has, however, apparently spent £4.6m with nothing to show for it except a set of temporary traffic lights.

^*Issue 1644, Page 15, Rotten Boroughs

Refusing to hold an enquiry does rather give the impression there's something they want to keep out of view. The court of public opinion will^H^H^H^H has already decided that this was an omnishambles of the first order and, I suspect, there's very little trust in the council. Refusing to hold an investigation will only undermine any remaining public confidence.

I'm reminded of what Sir Humphry said in Yes, Minister: only hold an enquiry when you already know what the outcome will be.

Crypto takes a dip as Trump signs Bitcoin Reserve order

Re: Mid Terms?

Mid-terms? Assuming he hasn't been assassinated, impeached or declared medically unable to hold office (and if any of those happen, the US get to 'enjoy' the vice pres. stepping up <deity> help us all)....

I can see the line already: "I had great mid terms. Probably the bestest mid-terms of any president. The results show that 200% of the 150-180 year olds on social benefits voted for me, I love those people. My kind of people. And the young, also my kind of people. They voted for me. Over 300% of all young people voted for The Donald. FACT! The mid-terms were corrupted by the lazy Democrats. Just look at their voting records and you can see they tried to corrupt the vote by not voting for me. So did the Mexicans, they tried but they failed, and the result shows how much they tried. God voted for me. FACT!... cont. page 94.

Windows 11 adoption picking up speed, but older sibling still ahead

These import tarrifs will affect minds

Let's see: if a business needs to replace a desktop because the current one fails to meet the W11 requirements then they'll be spending some $1000 on new hardware. That bill is about to go up by $100 or so to cover the tariffs. Maybe this trading war will sort itself out in six months or so, maybe it won't - but buying a years' worth of W10 support seems like a sensible low cost option. As a maintenance fee, it also comes out of OpEx rather than CapEx so it keeps the beancounters happy, which in turn, may well reflect in the CEO's bonus.

Sure, W11 offers desktop AI - but that's still very much in development (I'm being polite) so there's no huge risk in holding off on that roll-out right now. Even if the biz. has grand plans to run AI on a corporate scale to help with design, call-screening, etc, etc, it'll be server/cloud based so the toy version W11 offers still isn't required. Other than planned replacements (dead/dying hardware, etc), I see no compelling reason to upgrade to W11 across an entire business unless there are external forces such as incompatibility with a key business application.

US stocks slip as Trump pulls trigger on Canada, Mexico, China tariffs

The problem with tarrifs

Let's simplify: two manufacturers, one in the US and one in, say, China. Both make & sell a similar product. It's a competitive market so if one drops their price, the other cuts costs, takes a hit on margins - whatever - in order to stay in the game. The reverse is also true: if your competitor puts their prices UP, you broadly follow with your own price lifts because it'd be downright foolish not to (quite literally) profit from the situation.

Tariffs inflate the cost of goods (and thus the sticker price) of the competitor's products. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happens to the end user price of the domestic equivalent.

Good luck folks.

LLM aka Large Legal Mess: Judge wants lawyer fined $15K for using AI slop in filing

$5,000 per mis-reference? That'll teach the legal industry!

And a defence of 'I didn't know AI could get things wrong' was accepted? Congrats to the judge for actually fining him - but this hallucination was presented as factual information that someone relied on in court. I'd much rather the judiciary took this kind of thing seriously and levelled a fine that would make others think twice before pulling the same stunt.

Los Alamos boffins slap blinkers on satellites so we know who to blame in a crash

Vanity plates on spacecraft? I can see someone requesting the entire 'X'-series....just because

Euro cloud biz trials 'server blades in a cold box' system

Re: DC Pricing or utility pricing

The main difference, johnck, is if you use electricity or gas as your energy source you can play one supplier off against the other if you're a volume user. If you are entirely reliant on your heat energy coming from the neighbouring DC, the term 'over a barrel' comes to mind.

Perhaps I'm being petty but if I were setting up a business that relied on vast quantities of heat energy and decided to put all my eggs in one basket by permanently locking into a single custom source (all the fixed infrastructure would make swapping over to another source rather complex) then I'd probably want to increase my lube order!

All sounded good until the bit about 50⁰C water being used on-premise or in district heating systems: I didn't think a DC had a continuous need for warmth and district heating? Been talked to death and the general consensus is that it's complex to interface DC's to homes because domestic housing isn't generally close enough and their demand is seasonal - notwithstanding UnknownUnknown's dad! A swimming pool is the ideal load in many respects but they're generally nowhere near DC's either. Getting one built is possible but if it's owned/operated by a third party who are reliant on the DC for cheap energy then it'll end in tears (the DC are in business to make money...they are gifted a customer who is entirely reliant on their product...it doesn't take an accountant to see the problem). Having the DC own the 'pool is the logical solution to that - but it's a big ask getting a DC to branch out into offering leisure facilities! Greenhouses/hothouses? Again, a good 'heat load' - but at huge financial risk to the farmer, who's business model is entirely reliant on the DC's pricing.