* Posts by TRT

9821 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Sep 2009

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

TRT Silver badge

Failed Usability Check. Known Exception Dumped.

LegoGPT is here to make your blocky dreams come true

TRT Silver badge

Re: Ava Pun

I misread the other as Kragle Deng.

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

TRT Silver badge

Re: We had an issue with a rabbit

I made that joke and was met with a blank stare.

TRT Silver badge

Re: We had an issue with a rabbit

My ex wife told me that the birds had pulled apart the cabling for the network. Nest building instincts.

TRT Silver badge

Re: rotating cat

Unfortunate accidents with windows...

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

TRT Silver badge

Sacrifice As A Service

Top sci-fi convention gets an earful from authors after using AI to screen panelists

TRT Silver badge

It irritated me so much that I had to move house...

when the management company at our block of flats put up a sign on the front lawn that read "No trespassing without permission."

TRT Silver badge

Re: Detector triggered...

Fair point. Groupthink.

TRT Silver badge

Nope. That's flagging up as an AI generated apology, not a real one.

TRT Silver badge

Detector triggered...

"First and foremost, as chair of the Seattle Worldcon, I sincerely apologize for the use of ChatGPT in our program vetting process," said Bond. "Additionally, I regret releasing a statement that did not address the concerns of our community. My initial statement on the use of AI tools in program vetting was incomplete, flawed, and missed the most crucial points. I acknowledge my mistake and am truly sorry for the harm it caused."

My wetware text parser has just thrown up an over-90% probability that the statement above apologising for the use of ChatGPT was, in fact, written by ChatGPT.

However this statement...

“First, and most importantly, I want to apologize specifically for our use of ChatGPT in the final vetting of selected panelists as explained below,” Morgan wrote. “OpenAI, as a company, has produced its tool by stealing from artists and writers in a way that is certainly immoral, and maybe outright illegal. When it was called to my attention that the vetting team was using this tool, it seemed they had found a solution to a large problem. I should have re-directed them to a different process.”

“Using that tool was a mistake. I approved it, and I am sorry.”

comes up as less than 25% chance of it being completely AI generated, except the third to last sentence, which appears to have been reworded by an AI agent.

I'm getting very sensitised to it nowadays.

Computacenter IT guy let girlfriend into Deutsche Bank server rooms, says fired whistleblower

TRT Silver badge

Re: any security? ?

Thufferin' thakatath. Thith feller might be right!

TRT Silver badge

Re: any security? ?

The last bank in ethics closed a few months ago. I have to go all the way to Suffolk now.

TRT Silver badge

Re: "What was the plan, showing her his big iron?"

Well if you've got a 19"er, flaunt it, I say!

Techie solved supposed software problem by waving his arms in the air

TRT Silver badge

Re: I am surprised that a software dude...

Genuine LOL.

TRT Silver badge

Re: I am surprised that a software dude...

How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None. We'll fix it in software.

TRT Silver badge

That's using your loaf! Earned his crust that day! Donut underestimate the potential for hardware issues.

Soviet probe from 1972 set to return to Earth ... in May 2025

TRT Silver badge

Re: Oddly enough...

Russian Venus probe, American Venus probe... all made in Taiwan.

TRT Silver badge

Re: If it lands on Trump...

It'll be too expensive to make a decent film of it, though.

TRT Silver badge

Re: hmm..Venus probe

Ack. You beat me to it!

TRT Silver badge

Re: Bah!

Galasphere 347!

TRT Silver badge

Oddly enough...

I was reading about this mission series just the other day because a couple of memorable episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man were airing, and of all the episodes of this programme I watched as a child, the only stories that I can recall without a reminder are the first, the Big Foot ones and the Venus Death Probe ones. The Death Probe ones were those being aired on I think its Legend channel this past week.

Brain-inspired neuromorphic computer SpiNNaker overheated when coolers lost their chill

TRT Silver badge

I had to refresh my memory of these little beasties. Remarkable things aren't they?!

And very modern.. according to Wikipedia they implement a "cryptic REST posture", which of course is de facto now when it comes to API security.

TRT Silver badge

Perhaps they should have modelled Acomys russatus? Able to operate in desert temperatures exceeding 42°C

Open Document Format turns 20, but Microsoft Office still reigns supreme

TRT Silver badge

Pieces of byte, pieces of byte.

Microsoft to preload Word minutes after boot

TRT Silver badge

Re: In the beginning

And on the sixth day...

TRT Silver badge

Once upon a time one could fit the entire word processor in the memory footprint that today is taken up by the Application Icon.

TRT Silver badge

You know that bit in The Meaning Of Life...

where Mr Creosote gets so fat and bloated that he explodes?

That's Word that is.

Your graphics card's so fat, it's got its own gravity alert

TRT Silver badge

"Premature GPU Droop Syndrome"... can surely be cured using a little blue

PCI

In-

Line

Limiter?

Or a

Video

Interface

Augmentation /

GPU

Reinforcement

Adaptor?

BOFH: The Prints of Darkness pays a visit

TRT Silver badge

I was recently tasked with...

finding the current usage of the photocopier that arrived in the company before I did. Went down to the disused lavatory corridor where the machine has wound up some years pre-COVID during a redecoration event of the main common room area where it used to live. It's powered down...

OK, power on...

Print the job list...

Paper jam... only to be expected...

Fixed paper jam, apply a bit of platen cleaner to the rollers, a dab of blast on the paper pick up rubber... take out the toner cartridge and redistribute the powder... check it's not clumped.

Works like a beast now...

Print out the job log... and the dates are day and month, not year.

If I'd have done the job just three days later I'd not be able to tell if it hadn't been used for a year or a few days.

I suspect it's been unused for about 5 years, to be honest, but one year is enough to condemn it as not in use.

Now, where's that copy of Old Moore's Almanac and my handy Bangladeshi phrase book?

TRT Silver badge

Re: "partially implement every networking protocol known to man, badly"

And I thought it was just me!

It's fun making Studio Ghibli-style images with ChatGPT – but intellectual property is no laughing matter

TRT Silver badge

Ah, but didn't you realise it was "There's nothing but sequels and remakes - 2 The Return of the Franchise?!

TRT Silver badge

Re: Ghibli

Possibly because I apologised to the planet for a frivolous use of energy in my request to an AI?

TRT Silver badge

Re: Cartoonify filters have existed for decades

There's a driveway near me laid out in a Mondrian style.

TRT Silver badge

Mad men?

TRT Silver badge

Re: Ghibli

Indeed the prompt was "produce an image using PlayMobil figures to illustrate that the Internet is on fire with AI images created in a Studio Ghibli style."

TRT Silver badge

Re: Ghibli

Very much a Lester Haines homage. I'll forgive the youngsters... after all, what would Lester do?

TRT Silver badge

Re: Ghibli

Like this?

(Sorry planet.)

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

TRT Silver badge

Re: US companies did this to us

The UK's reputation is stainless.

TRT Silver badge

Re: US companies did this to us

Ah. Putting the cunt in Scunthorpe.

TRT Silver badge

Re: US companies did this to us

What's the blandest thing on the menu, huh? I'll have three stack and kidderly pooding, yah?!

TRT Silver badge

Re: US companies did this to us

I went to a lecture a few months ago about how a lot of the takeaways that we have come to know, love and see as part of British Culture are disappearing. Mainly because the kids who would normally take them over are now seeing that kind of work as "shit, really" and that there are better dreams to pursue than a number 59 with prawn crackers and fried rice, please. Oh, and some chips in curry sauce for the missus.

TRT Silver badge

Re: US companies did this to us

Ah, Lester. Sadly missed still.

Static electricity can be shockingly funny, but the joke's over when a rack goes dark

TRT Silver badge

I once attended a BBC Micro that refused to boot. The rig was set up in a bedroom next to a ham radio set, sat on top of the feeder.

I tried over and over to get the bbc booted but no joy. I took the lid off, wearing a static strap, and started pointing out the components to the owner. As I touched the top of the CPU, there was a big crack, a spark, and a boing. The surface of the CPU package must have been holding a charge probably picked up from the radio transmitter which I discharged with my grounded finger.

TRT Silver badge

...static electricity has not been abolished yet. This is unacceptable.

It's not been abolished yet, but it attracts a massive tariff now. Opposite charges attract.

TRT Silver badge

Re: Shocking experience

Well, he should have felt the build up to a coronal discharge... a sort of tingly, tickle thing. A testy tickle.

TRT Silver badge

Re: office chairs from hell

Obligatory Family Guy

TRT Silver badge

Re: Shocking experience

Erectrostatic shock.

New SSL/TLS certs to each live no longer than 47 days by 2029

TRT Silver badge

Why not...

Multipart certificates? Like a carnet? Buy 12 at a time, install 12 at a time. Serve one at a time.

UK officials insist 'murder prediction tool' algorithms purely abstract

TRT Silver badge

Re: Certainty

There are three certainties in life; death, taxes and last minute changes to one or more PowerPoint presentations that you've already included in a bundle intended to prevent that embarrassing "showing your underwear" moment between speakers*.

* instead of wasting time renaming software, Microsoft should create a PowerPoint mode that allows changes to a presentation in progress without flicking out of "Presentation Dual Screen" mode, perhaps a sort of "dock" for chaining presentations rather like a jukebox concept.