Posts by nematoad

OpenAI deputizes ChatGPT to serve as an agent that uses your computer

Re: Giving the LLM cancer the means to spread itself.

Why are we doing this to ourselves?

Money.

Or at least the prospect of making billions.

With that sort of incentive nothing will stand in the way, consequences be damned.

Ukrainian hackers claim to have destroyed major Russian drone maker's entire network

Maybe not.

BO Team (also known as Black Owl)

If I were them I think that I would stick with Black Owl. :-)

Outlook takes another sick day

Hah!

...a portion of mailbox infrastructure isn't performing as efficiently as expected,

As efficiently as expected?

I hate to tell you this, but it's not working at all.

This can't be just chance. Maybe some sort of "cunning plan" to force everyone onto online subscription package?

Either that or just plain incompetence.

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson backs plan to do a Jurassic Park on extinct birds

Do not despair.

All involved acknowledge bringing the birds back to life may not be possible,

Maybe not at the moment, but the life sciences move at a tremendous rate and future advances may make this scheme possible.

After all, who would have thought a few decades ago that we would be able to map the human genome?

Elon Musk's Grok chatbot posts Mein Kampf 2.0 in now-deleted X rant

Re: Who Would Have Thought...

Yes,

GIGO,

'Trained monkey' from tech support saved know-it-all manager's mistake with a single keypress

A nasty piece of work.

I would bet that the manager in question was what is euphemistically called a "middle manager". You know the ones, like a fifth wheel on a car, there, but of no conceivable use and just taking up space.

I always found that when dealing with the workers or the top brass I had no problems. With the workers they were anxious to get on with the job so put no obstacle in my way. With the top managers provided you dealt with their PA or secretary and arranged for a time and place to do the job, again no problems. It was those characters in the middle that gave me trouble, pushy, insecure and always looking to impress. My heart sank when I got a call to one of them.

Meta calls €200M EU fine over pay-or-consent ad model 'unlawful'

Nice try.

Meta

You are not in Kansas anymore.

By what measure is the fine 'unlawful'?

Maybe if you were only doing business in the US then the EU would have no jurisdiction, but you aren't.

You play by the rules where you trade or you get out.

Uncle Donald will not be able to help you out with this however much you wish he could.

Wayback gives X11 desktops a fighting chance in a Wayland world

Fiddling about while Linux burns.

Wayland, a re-invention of the wheel that does it worse than the original. Great job guys!

I may be getting paranoid but there must be a reason why all these projects like Wayland and systemd are being thought up.

Is it an attempt to hijack the Linux ecosystem for private gain? Or is that developers are bored and thinking up jazzy new solutions to problems that do not exist?

I don't know but I think it may be telling that the likes of Miguel de Icaza or Lennart Poeterring start working on things that throw the Linux system into chaos and then move to work at MS.

There may be a good reason for all this chopping and changing that is going on but for the life I me I can't see it.

Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill bankrolls $85M Space Shuttle shuffle

Re: B747-400

I'm not sure that it could.

All that gold plating and marble probably makes it a bit overweight.

Re: Just Wondering

Yes, what is it about Lego versions of such space related items? I've seen picture on El Reg of the 747 and the Shuttle and neither of them had me reaching for my wallet.

I am a model maker and have been for over 60 years. When I think about a model the first thing that comes to mind is "Does it look like the original?" A little work and sometimes a lot of research will go into making the model as near as possible to the real thing.

With these Lego kits the limitations of the materials used to make them, i.e. the bricks, detracts from the finished appearance to such an extent that I would never contemplate buying one. They are just odd looking.

I have made a Revell 1/72 model of the Space Shuttle, it's big and really looks impressive. I had to finish it with automotive spray cans as even my expensive air brush was not up to the job.

AI agents get office tasks wrong around 70% of the time, and a lot of them aren't AI at all

Re: HAL or Holly?

Pretty much a universal truth that nothing bearing the remotest resemblance to drinkable tea can be had from any machine.

Probably not in this case.

Captain Picard is using a replicator so presumably the tea will have be analysed and programmed into the replicator so that a decent cup will be produced.

I just wish that said replicator was here as all of the tea I have ever had in a cafe, restaurant, canteen etc. tasted as if it had been brewed in a inner tube.

The year of the European Union Linux desktop may finally arrive

Re: Maybe this is finally he time

Wasn't Grangemouth the place that blew up...

Certainly not when I was there.

I did hear a few stories about the cat cracker blowing up and depositing part of itself in the BP Chems' canteen about half a mile down the road. But that was years before my time.

The process side of things had nothing to do with the roll-out of COE.

That was handled by the ITSO, IT Supply Organisation, different managers, different staff and a different cost centre.

Re: Maybe this is finally he time

...big bang replacements like that are hard and expensive.

Maybe so, but if the top management are behind the project it can and will be done.

I was working at Grangemouth when BP rolled out the "Common Operating Environment" COE. That meant taking the wide variety of OS's, networks and hardware that had been installed by the various departments when they were able to choose what equipment and protocols to install. Everything from dumb terminals, complete with green screens, to NT4 servers, Decnet, ethernet, DOS, Windows 3.11 the list went on and on.

Now Grangemouth was a huge site, it being the only site where all three branches of BP's operations BP Oils, BP Chemicals and BPX were together in one place. A lot of planning went into the change, lots of high paid specialists and lots and lots of new hardware and software. Training, audits and on-site visits later the whole thing was rolled-out and it worked. It took a while for everything to settle down but it did mean that the workload of the IT department was significantly reduced.

Everyone was involved, consulted and listened to.

It was well done, and if BP could sort out the mess the IT infrastructure was in on such a scale then it should not be impossible to ditch MS and go for something else.

Where there's a Will there's a way.

Re: US cloud providers are officially poison

Now they'll jump right in and mess around with an organisation's admin and suspend a user's e-mail (Azure, OneDrive, etc...)

And people still pay for this shit?

Now I know that inertia plays a big part but what else is keeping people stuck to MS?

Fear of the unknown, herd instinct, or is it the latest and greatest features like copilot?

As far as I can see it's not reliability, security of your data or ease of use.

So what is it?

Glazed and confused: Hole lotta highly sensitive data nicked from Krispy Kreme

Horse, stable door, etc.

"Krispy Kreme took the appropriate steps to secure our systems following the incident and continues strengthening the security of our systems to further protect the privacy of the data entrusted to us."

A bit bloody late now!

And what about all the stuff that they demanded and then stored in an easily accessible form?

No fines, no slap on the wrists, this calls for jail time.

Oh, I just noticed, this is a US based story.

As you were.

Pulsant and Nine23 offer sovereign service for UK govt, regulated sectors

Go Pulsant and Nine23

Microsoft said it would expand its European datacentre footprint and the Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty services. Google introduced an air-gapped solution for customers with strict data security and residency requirements. AWS promised a new European organization...

Aren't these the same organisations whose CEOs and owners recently turned up to Trump's inauguration after having generously donated millions of dollars to the cost of said inauguration?

Watch what they do not what they say.

Good luck to Pulsant and Nine23. They will need it after the big cloud providers start deploying all the dirty tricks they are so well versed in.

‘AI is not doing its job and should leave us alone’ says Gartner’s top analyst

Re: You can't replace people

After all, what should we do with all of these ex-workers that are now useless?

Soylent Green?

Northern Ireland government confirms it did not ask Fujitsu to continue bidding for project

Liars.

Fujitsu has refused to answer this question.

And their silence speaks volumes.

Why keep a promise when there is money to be made?

NASA to silence Voyager's social media accounts

However, Voyager will continue its mission,

Yes it will, as even one of Trumps insane executive orders cannot overcome the laws of physics.

Though that might not stop him trying. After all, control is everything to a king.

Oh, in case you are wondering, the joke icon is for Trump's behaviour, not my comment.

AI's enormous energy appetite can be curbed, but only through lateral thinking

Optimistic.

You can't put tariffs on free and open standards or free and open code,

Want to bet?

Given that most of the big corporations appear to be driven by insatiable greed there is a good chance that some smart alec will come up with a scheme to corral as many open standards and data as possible.

Just look at the SCO shenanigans or the fiasco of MS driving through Open XML as a standard to see that where there is money to be made nothing or no-one can stand in the way.

AI can't replace devs until it understands office politics

Re: It's going to happen

It's not just developers that will not be immediately replaced with AI.

As a former second line desktop support person I can't see a self-propelled wheely bin rolling up to a user and saying "I hear you have a problem." When I was doing desktop support a lot of the time the user did not really know what had gone wrong just that their PC had stopped working. Knowledge of the system is necessary but people skills are just as vital. Listening to what had happened, working out what to do to fix the problem and even taking the PC back to the workbench to sort out hardware issues are all things you have to do, added to which a good "bedside manner" so as to reassure them that they have not lost all their work are all parts of the desktop support person's toolkit.

UK 'extremely dependent' on US for space security

Re: Good article

Trump has called on members of the NATO military alliance, which includes the UK, to commit to spending 5 percent of their GDPs on defence.

And how much does the US spend on defence?

3.4%

"Do as I say, not as I do."

Donald J Trump

Microsoft winnows: Layoffs hit software engineers hard

Really?

... 30 percent of its code is now written by AI.

Ah!

That would explain a lot of what's going on with MS.

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

No!

"...power the West to its obvious innate superiority."

Or in other words "Amerika uber alles."

This sort of thinking has a long and infamous history and has been used to commit all sorts of unethical and criminal acts, treating "non-Western" peoples as "Others."

Pompous, bombastic and just plain worrying.

'We still have embeds in CISA': CTO of Brit cyber agency talks post-Trump relationship with US counterpart

Not.

...its tea-drinking cyber sibling across the pond in the UK.

No, that's not tea the NCSC is drinking, its Trump branded Kool-Aid.

It make you wonder what Trump has on these characters to make them so servile.

Britain's cyber agents and industry clash over how to tackle shoddy software

Do get it right!

It's hoi-polloi. No "the".

It's as bad as saying Lake Windermere or PIN number.

It just makes you look uneducated.

Hmm.

A string of cockups will quickly out those who don't provide value,

It doesn't seem to have worked with Microsoft, and people still keep buying their stuff.

Tech titans: Wanna secure US AI leadership? Stop giving the world excuses to buy Chinese

Oh?

"We need to accelerate the diffusion of American AI technology around the world,"

Do we?

Speaking as a non US citizen, the current administration in the USA is doing a very good job of putting other nations off from having anything to do with the US.

Given the unscrupulous, predatory behaviour of many US companies, Google and Microsoft being examples, and the erratic conduct of Trump and his minions, it may well be the safest course for counties to steer clear of future involvement with the US AI industry. The F35 "kill switch", although possibly apocryphal hints at the kind of hidden levers Trump may be able to use.

Europe and the rest of the world need to get off their arses and start developing the things and technology they need for themselves.

Would you trust Trump in a fit of pique not to damage any country or person who failed to give him the "loyalty" he feels he is entitled to.

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

Re: for the first time

Merely translating from insider jargon to plain language is not dumbing down.

One man's jargon is another man's shorthand.

The audience articles like the one quoted is not the general public. It is aimed at specialists in the subject and they know what the "jargon" means. It is concise, accurate and unambiguous.

As for avoiding prolixity look at the number of words used in each example. The original is ten lines, the "simplified" version is twelve.

So, a tool that loses some of the more subtle meanings and precision to make a technical piece of writing palatable to the uninitiated.

Musk’s DOGE probed by top watchdog after poking around Uncle Sam's systems

Re: Bloated

The US government Trump is bloated and out of control pursuing its his own agenda not of the people...

FTFY

KDE 3 lives to fight another day as Trinity Desktop 14.1.4 hits the shelves

Well done Trinity.

I was a fan of KDE 3 and when they moved to version 4 I hated it. That bloody cashew was the last straw, so I moved to PCLinuxOS and with a few brief exceptions have stuck with it ever since. I did try Trinity once or twice but PCLOS has had on on again off again relationship with Trinity and it was a real PITA to install it at times.

Good for the Trinity crew, have a pint on me.

FBI steps in amid rash of politically charged swattings

Really?

"We won't tolerate the weaponization of law enforcement."

That's Trump buggered then.

Infosec pros tell Trump to quit bullying Chris Krebs – it's undermining security

Not my problem.

...it's undermining security

It might well be but as far as Trump is concerned that doesn't matter so long as it does not affect him.

As he said at the Oval on January 6th when they told him lots of his supporters would not go through the magnetometers as they were afraid that any weapons would be spotted, "They are not here to hurt me."

The man is a menace and a threat to the world.

Tesla's Optimus can't roll without rare earth magnets, and Beijing ain't budging yet

Re: What will China want in return?

Dear God! I think that you need to start taking your dried frog pills again.

Or stop reading Trump's social media posts.

They look as if they are contagious.

What sentence ever needed three exclamation marks?

Only 3,000 staff jump from SAP after 10,000 earmarked to be pushed

Re: Just the odd 10,000 …..

Yes, these C suite types are so far removed from reality that they regard their employees as akin to pawns on a chessboard.

These are people we are talking about here, not some bloody toys for you to push around.

I sometimes think that Karl Marx had the right idea when he wrote Das Kapital.

And they say you become more right-wing when you get older. Doesn't seem to have worked for me.

Fog ransomware channels Musk with demands for work recaps or a trillion bucks

Oh dear.

...the billionaire's growing frustration with political attacks from the left.

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen".

Harry S. Truman

Could not have put it better.

People with thin skins should stay out of politics, it's a rough game.

How to stay on Windows 10 instead of installing Linux

...the IoT edition only offered US English as the system language.

Oh, the same as El Reg then.

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

Re: " Why on earth would you want crossing indicators to speak?"

That used to be true on the old crossing controllers.

The new ones fitted here are no longer electro-mechanical so they can't give any haptic signals. All they do is emit a piercing beeping sound.

So if you are deaf and sight impaired you might be in trouble.

Trump's tariff turmoil leaves IT projects in deep freeze

Re: Shipments

Where are these Nobel price economist experts when you need them?

Obviously not working for the Trump administration!

M365 Family users wake up to notice 'Your subscription expired'

Re: And that's why...

My hat is off to you who are able to keep your local systems up 100% of the time...

Ah thank you, but then I use Linux.

So I am not beholden to a faceless landlord who is always moaning about me not paying my rent. Rightly or in this case wrongly.

Delicious irony as Euro alliance pumps €1M of Microsoft's money into open source cloud federation tech

Out in the cold, again.

"In the EU these types of initiatives are springing up everywhere,"

Yep, it looks like the EU is about to cast off the shackles of giant US companies.

The UK? Keep ploughing on with the old because we no longer have the heft of the EU behind us and so we are too small and too poor to do anything about it.

Remind me, what were the benefits of Brexit supposed to be?

Isar’s first orbital rocket crashes into sea – CEO calls it a 'great success'

We are go for launch.

Ha!

What ever Musk can do Daniel Metzler can do better and quicker.

How's that for moving fast and breaking things?

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

Not going there.

"GenAI comes in and adds to whatever it is you're running, and it will be part of every mobile phone, every PC, every laptop, every server, every piece of software, it will be in your car, your TV, and your watch."

I'll have what he's smoking.

Just wait a while before making that kind of pronouncement. Think "3D televisions" as something pushed and pushed as the next great thing and see how that worked out.

No, if something is useful then people will buy it. Ramming it down everyone's throat just because you have sunk a lot of money into the project is not going to work.

Sunk cost fallacy, anyone?

Both Haiku and Linux get new FOSS Nvidia drivers

Better late than never.

As Liam says this is a good thing for owners of newer Nvidia cards. For me it's too late.

I struggled for years trying to get my Nvidia cards working properly. Much burning of the midnight oil, much consulting on forums and a lot of bad temper and cursing.

In the end I changed vendor and bought AMD and to this day I have never had a problem.

So two cheers for Nvidia but all the problems of the past mean that they have lost me as a customer.

Windows 11 roadmap great for knowing what's coming next week. Not so good for next year

Duck!

"... that is where we're adding the majority of improvements and new features at this time."

Oh God.

Incoming!

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

Double standards?

"These kinds of attacks have no place in our community."

Quite right.

Save all that kind of nonsense for the Capitol Building.

Then Trump might give you a pardon.

Euro techies call for sovereign fund to escape Uncle Sam's digital death grip

Tough.

US companies face "substantial financial burdens" due to the European Union's digital regulations.

If you want to play on the EU's turf then you play by the EU's rules.

Unhappy with that? Then don't do business in the EU.

What's that you say? The EU is a big source of revenue to US companies?

Then pay the extra it takes to trade in the EU.

It's called the cost of doing business.

Bunch of entitled wankers.