Posts by Dr. G. Freeman

DWP considers chatbot work coaches as AI-fueled job losses loom

Anythings an improvement on our current overlords work coaches.

China-linked group accused of spying on phones of UK prime ministers' aides – for years

Re: Everything Is Connected.......

and the UK government has been asleep at the wheel since 1999

I'd say naptime started around 1707-ish.

Why everything's so slow these days, all the intelligence agencies, advertisers, etc snooping, slowing down the data as it goes across t'internet.

Trump says he got a deal for rare earths in Greenland, but they won't come easy

Re: A globe is certainly better than nothing

Ford Transit... they're called Ford Econolines over in the colonies, well they were when I lived there- had a much shiner "nose" on the front, and confuse hire company drones when you ask for the use of one. "can I have a transit van ?", and they point to the bus stop.

House of Lords votes to ban social media for Brits under 16

Wouldn't it just be easier to ban Under-16s ?

BOFH: Every computer system eventually serves ads

AI = Actually Ian (next door)

Brit lands invite-only Aussie visa after uncovering vuln in government systems

Re: Government wishful thinking

I know, they'll give anyone a PhD these days.

BOFH: The Christmas spirit has run dry – time to show some chiller instinct

The local shop here in Culloden have their Easter eggs out- enjoying one just now (a fine creme egg)

Cornish recycling drive sows confusion among Reg Standards Bureau

I hold out hope one day she'll return.

MI6 chief: We'll be as fluent in Python as we are in Russian

Re: Source Code

Hey Dave, long time no hear. You still annoying Claire ?

Gordon.

Welcome to America - now show us your last five years of social media posts

It's so they can tie the information in the social media's (and the backup copy the three letter agencies have) database of "Joebloggs1471" social media to an actual "Bloggs, Joe A. passport number xxxxxx", and so plug it it into other databases with that information for whatever reason they want it for.

And the winner of the Microsoft Christmas sweater is...

Re: Crikey!

I know what you mean.

SWMBO is annoyed and puzzled why I have a smug grin just now.

Apply here to win a Microsoft Ugly Sweater. It's uglier than ever

I don't think we've reached peak Microsoft yet.

Peak would mean a maximum - it still has a little way to go to be totally annoying, unusable, and be a complete waste of space.

Windows 11 and co-pilot are just a camp on the slope, we're not at the summit yet, to put a four boxed flag on it.

AI music has finally beaten hat-act humans, but sounds nothing like victory

Still waiting for the country song about a guy's self-driving truck leaving him.

Britain's first small modular reactors to be built in Wales

Re: Sounds dystopian.

The clue's in the name Small Modular Reactors.

Small- not that much radioactive stuff

Modular- it's all contained in one box.

When it comes to End of Life for the reactor, will have a small (~1kg) pile of high level waste which will be treated as normal (Sellafield reprocessing), and the modular "box" can also be recycled/ reused with only another small (don't know exactly how much, less than a tonne) of low-level stuff to deal with instead of multi-tonne stuff now.

When they designed the old reactors in the 60s/70s didn't think about end of life, now the modern ones do, and so have less to clean up afterwards

UK unveils roadmap for replacing animal testing

Does that mean I have to stop bringing the new Kereberos with me to work ?

I talk to the wee fuzzball, to test my thinking, in a sort of rubber duck debugging, but with puppy treats.

AI boffins teach office supplies to predict your next move

My office supplies wander off all the time, usually about three seconds before I use them.

Nothing to do with AI, just co-workers "borrowing" them

Space Shuttle war of words takes off as senator blasts 'woke Smithsonian'

How many people would it take to just lift it up and carry it?

I missed it too, due to the fact I was in the Geriatric unit of the hospital being born at the time (Maternity was full, apparently).

Retro nerd hacks LEGO's Game Boy into the real deal

Can it run Doom ?

BOFH: These office thefts really take the biscuit

Imported, chocolate encased biscuits....Oh no, the beancounters have discovered Kimberleys ! (OK, to be pedantic, Borland's elite Kimberleys)

Of course they should be under lock and key, preferably with a heavily armed security guard in a defensive location (MIssion Control ?) to stop the unworthy getting them.

AI robs jobs from recent college grads, but isn't hurting wages, Stanford study says

Well, AI can't really affect wages here in the UK. Most are already set at the national minimum wage, so can't go any lower (despite employers protests)

BOFH: HR plays checkers, IT plays 5D chess

Ahhh.. HR, or as they're otherwise known Human Remains.

US science left out in the cold amid plans to retire Antarctic icebreaker

Re: Ending the lease?

So, the British could lease it out to replace the RRS James Clark Ross (sold to the National Antarctic Scientific Center of Ukraine in 2021), or the RRS Ernest Shackleton (sold to the Italians) to be the sister ship of RRS Sir David Attenborough, as the RRS Boaty McBoatface ?

The Smoot – How an MIT prank became a lasting unit of measurement

Re: Easter Egg

After seeing that episode in 2014, we decided to use the name for the "not affiliated the anyone in particular" account for the new NMR machine, i.e. one-offs for schools, testing, demonstrations, that sort of thing.

Seemed apt for The Machine.

Large Hadron Collider data hints at explanation for why everything exists

So, we worked out the universe has a code to it-

consisting of up, down, left and right

a second state that is A or B

and a third thing which we think might be called start

Now, to see if there's a sequence to it

Trump's budget bill bankrolls $85M Space Shuttle shuffle

Just Wondering

Could you build another, working space shuttle for $85 million ?

(Thinking along the lines of If I won the big lottery, having a space shuttle would be cooler than a fleet of Aston Martins)

£127M wasted on failed UK nuclear cleanup plan

Re: NDA

Yes, but that's all I can say about it.

Musk and Trump take slap fight public as bromance ends

So, when's the pay-per-view Octagon fight in Las Vegas ?

American science put on starvation diet

Re: Failed to learn lesson

Trump golf Aberdeen - scam

I wish it was a scam, sadly a real golf course on a nature reserve, closed off unless you have a membership.

US tech titans rejoice in $600B Saudi shopping spree

Fighter Jet- an aircraft used for fighting other jet-powered flying things in the sjy

Jet fighter- an aircraft with a jet engine, used for picking a fight with other things, that might not be jet-powered or even in the sky (but can move)- i.e. tank shaped things

Source - ex- RAF bod in the tearoom.

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

Windows doesn't work without that file.

It's like the teddy bear on top of the server- take it away, and you get a complaining server

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

Asked Cat, I farted (Chat GPT in French) i Douglas Adams would be a suitable panellist for a convention.

It agreed, and gave a few examples of his quotes.

Forgot to mention he sadly passed away in 2001.

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

So, DOGE and the watchdog are having a barking match ?

UK govt data people not 'technical,' says ex-Downing St data science head

Re: I'd go further

Looked into the rate for getting them over here, still waiting for a reply to my question "How much is that DOGE in the window ?"

NASA rewrites Moon mission goals in quiet DEI retreat

Honestly don't care who they send to the moon, just send anybody at this point just to prove it can be done (again).

Was told in my youth, a long, long time ago, that we'd have bases on Mars by now, still waiting.

Pull whatever coloured, gendered finger out and do it.

BOFH: The USB stick always comes back – until it doesn't

Re: Soddering Iron

Thought it called was the soddin' iron when I was small. Now as a 4XL, it's a soddin' soldering iron

Odds of city-killer asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth creep upward

Re: Don't Look Up

With all the outsourcing, we're stuffed if it hits Mumbai, Chennai or Bangalore then.

AI summaries turn real news into nonsense, BBC finds

Did you use the Mornington Crescent method of curve fitting ?

Man who binned 7,500 Bitcoin drive now wants to buy entire landfill to dig it up

Re: Is the needle even in the haystack?

Did that a job once, way back when.

Most of the time, change a fuse, plug, or just give the insides a good clean, and it was like new.

Could build a half-decent computer rig from a morning's collection.

Probably his drive's been collected, wiped, had a linux distro put on it, and sold to somebody for £30 for their kid to use. (what I charged for a recycled PC in 2009)

Mega UK datacenter greenlit, but we still don't know who's moving in

Re: Why the obfuscation?

Maybe it's a three character agency belonging to the five eyes thing moving in, and don't want to advertise the fact ?

Need the server space for some high-level snooping on stuff

That subdued CES has us wondering what 2025 will look like, tech-wise

I miss the coverage of CES on the BBC 'Click' program (The tesco-value version of Tomorrow's World).

but they've cancelled Click now.

Amazon accused of cheating low-income Prime users out of two-day deliveries

Yes, but in other areas of the UK, like the bit I live in (Northern Scotland) aren't considered "mainland UK", and so next day delivery doesn't exist

Didn't know everything north of Perth was a separate island when I started getting deliveries, going to have to update the maps on the telly, still looks like one big island.

Now Online Safety Act is law, UK has 'priorities' – but still won't explain 'spy clause'

Re: But the most important thing ....

On the other hand, if a problem for the Government arises, their lawyers can interpret the law in such a way that the problem can be dealt with quickly under "current legislation" and removed quickly

Or if the problem means the Government can't do something, oh well the law can be interpreted another way to let them do it.

UK gov report to propose special zones for datacenters, 'AI visas'

Re: Data Centre Locations

Keeping it in the UK,

What about the radioactive pools in Windscale Sellafield ?

macOS HM Surf vuln might already be under exploit by major malware family

Wonder when they're going to get round to fixing the bug on Sequoia that stuffed up USB flash drives ?

Only been reported for ohhh, four months.

The IQ50 "geniuses" say use icloud, I would if I could get the information off the flash drive.

BOFH: Boss's quest for AI-generated program ends where it should've begun

I'm just popping out to out personal AI's leaving do.

Because of the similarities of upper-case I and lower-case l, got a PFY called Al instead of something computer based, when the uni asked us to use more AI in things.

He's off to pastures new, with a extra zero on his salary.

Bring the joy of train delays home with your very own departure board

Re: Cool.

I'm waiting for "Hold your Mummy's hand on the platform."

AI chatbot gets green light to hallucinate your investment portfolio

Can it hallucinate some money for me to invest ?

Heart of glass: Human genome stored for 'eternity' in 5D memory crystal

Re: One Question

"the Southampton ORCs have been busily doing all sorts of interesting things in the optical field."

Imagine what the Orcs could do if we gave them more dakka.

Online media outstrips TV as source of news for the first time in the UK

I've found that for local news and sports results have to go online as TV aren't covering it. STV and BBC Scotland are rather Glasgow-centric in their coverage, and hardly cover Aberdeen and Inverness news.

Also there's no science news programs in the UK, so again have to go online for it.