Posts by xanadu42

Firefox is fine. The people running it are not

"No web designer is building on Firefox first any more."

There is at least one - me :)

I use Firefox first BECAUSE it seems to have a 'standards-compliant browser engine' based on what I think should occur based on the (not so well defined) 'Standards' (which Google now has too much control over - another story)...

After that I check with the 'other' web-browsers and fix any 'anomalies' (which are minor).

When I first started web design (15+ years ago) I built against Google Chrome but the 'non-chrome' web-browsers at that time had too many (minor, but annoying) issues that took way too much time to fix...

"Mozilla should be a nonprofit, working to fund the one independent, non-vendor-driven, standards-compliant browser engine"

Agreed - Mozilla should be a 'REAL' non-profit (is that a thing in the US of A?)

The C-Suites have taken (and are taking) too much money out of the 'Mozilla Foundation'

The C-Suites have taken (and are taking) too much control of the 'Mozilla Foundation'

Sack ALL of the C-Suites

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

That looks very BASIC (circa 1980's)

Shouldn't it be something like:

while (true) {printf("Luke smells!");} // which is allegedly NOT memory safe

OR

while true {println!("Luke smells!");} // which is allegedly memory safe

At seven years of age I didn't even know what a computer was - it wasn't until ten years later I saw my first one! That computer was an A4 size printed circuit board with (I think) a Z80 CPU, four 7-segment LED's, 256 bytes of RAM and was programmed by a bank of 10? toggle switches...

About all you could do with it was make the LED's flash in pretty patterns...

AI scores a huge own goal if you play up and play the game

"Computers could be very, very good at chess while still having the IQ of a pebble."

That is being cruel to pebbles - at least they know that you cannot defy gravity...

ChatGPT creates phisher’s paradise by recommending the wrong URLs for major companies

Apocryphal

Incompetence

<create your own backronym>

AIs have a favorite number, and it's not 42

At least 27 in binary looks balanced: 11011

Uncle Sam wants you – to use memory-safe programming languages

What I really hate about all this talk of using memory-safe languages is that

.

.

.

Oops - just had a memory-buffer-overflow and forgot my train of thought...

/e/ OS 3.0: Slightly less clunky, slightly more private

"The features are good, but far from state of the art."

Given the current "state of the art" of most commercial software this sounds like a good idea :)

Trump guts digital ID rules, claims they help 'illegal aliens' commit fraud

Key under front door-mat?

Let's hope Tr*mp's ideas on security also apply to all his real-estate properties...

Just walk up to the front door and look under the door-mat for the key?

Enterprises are getting stuck in AI pilot hell, say Chatterbox Labs execs

I you liken "AI" to an elephant and security measures as cotton balls (as padding) then the security currently being applied to "AI" is like a half-dozen cotton balls being applied across the skin of the elephant..

The elephant can obviously still cause a lot of damage (like the proverbial "bull in a china shop") as the security is ineffective.

What is really needed is enough cotton balls to cover the elephant to a thickness that you can no longer recognise it as an elephant.

The elephant can still do damage but all the padding will lessen it a little...

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

And here's me thinking FSD stood for Fucking Stupid Driver

Unhappy with the cloud costs? You're not alone

So...Gartner is saying the "cloud client" is at fault when in fact it is the "cloud provider" for:

1) misrepresenting the simplicity if the migration;

2) providing useless support;

3) providing useless documentation (if any at all);

4) providing "out of the box" systems that are poorly configured and inherently insecure, and

5) providing overly complicated controls.

All of which the client "discovers" after signing their data away and thee "'tech teams" valiantly trying the get the "cloud" to work like their on-premises systems did...

Microsoft set to pull the plug on Bing Search APIs in favor of AI alternative

Seems that no matter what Micro$oft product you are using you WILL be forced to use their "AI" enshittification :(

Micro$oft's belief in Nuclear Fusion and Majorana quantum computing being available in the next couple of years seem to be their driving force...

Pity that viable Nuclear Fusion is still decades away and Majorana quantum computing seems to be a well-developed hoax - based on my readings

Bad luck, Windows 10 users. No fix yet for ransomware-exploited bug

Re: Microsoft would never stoop so low

Shouldn't the last bit read '... can only be described as "Agent Orange"!'?

Forget Signal. National Security Adviser Waltz now accused of using Gmail for work

They probably think ...

... that Gmail stands for "Government mail"

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

I notice a typo

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

Should read:

"as that is where we're adding the majority of security failures and new bugs at this time."

NASA rewrites Moon mission goals in quiet DEI retreat

Re: Insane

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

Not ALL Americans...

According to https://www.cfr.org/article/2024-election-numbers:

"... voter turnout nationally in [the] 2024 [Presidential elections] was 63.9 percent"

"More than 155 million Americans voted in 2024: 156,302,318 to be exact."

(Pulls out Calculator) Based on the above numbers there are around 244,604,566 voters in America and around 88,302,248 eligible voters didn't vote...

"Trump won 77,284,118 votes, or 49.8 percent of the votes cast for president."

"Kamala Harris won 74,999,166 votes or 48.3 percent of the votes cast.

Which means around 4,019,034 who DID vote DIDN'T vote for Trump or Harris as President...

Which means that, of eligible voters who actually voted, 79,018,200 (or 50.5%) DID NOT vote for Trump as President

Add in the 36.1% of eligible voters who didn't vote and it means that 68.4% of eligible voters DID NOT vote for Trump as President

So NOT ALL Americans...

(Bet that many who didn't vote now wish they had!)

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

A few years ago I bought an HP OfficeJet Pro 8740 for around $AUD450 (an ink-jet printer) because it was the only available Printer/Scanner with two paper tray and document feeder

Recently bought complete new set of cartridges - cheapest I could find was $AUD390

Two downsides:

1) cost of cartridges

2) claimed scanner resolution doesn't seem accurate when comparing same DPI scan between the HP and a Canon scanner over 10 years older (the Canon creates a clearer scan)

Based on this my next Printer/Scanner with same requirements WILL NOT BE an HP

Good Investment HP, NOT!

'Dead simple' hijacking hole in Apache Tomcat 'now actively exploited in the wild'

Never liked the idea of TomCat...

... but as a "seasoned developer" I have to wonder about the age of the (group of) developer(s) who created the code that enabled this exploit AND the "average" age of the people who reviewed the code and allowed it to be released...

According to

https://www.thedailyvpn.com/what-is-the-average-age-of-a-coder/

the age ranges of Developers are:

<18: 2.5%

18-24: 23.6%

25-34: 49.2%

35-44: 17.8%

45-54: 5.1%

55-64: 1.5%

>65: 0.3%

My age puts me in the "top" 1.8% (only just) :(

So when I say "seasoned developer" it means that I have been developing software (across various platforms, in various languages, that covers hardware control, virus detection, data forensics and website development - to name a few) for longer than the age of 75% of current Developers

Fuck - reading this article has made me feel REALLY OLD!

AI crawlers haven't learned to play nice with websites

My servers were similarly hammered late last year by Facebook- and ByteDance- related IP's and/or UserAgents with absolutely no respect for robots.txt which clearly states "User-agent: *" and "Crawl-delay: 10"

Based on the hammering I assume that their bots assumed "Crawl-delay: 10" meant a delay of 10ms NOT 10s

All of these, allegedly "AI" bots, can F-Off as far as I am concerned!

France offers US scientists a safe haven from Trump's war on woke

Australian universities told to justify US-funded research grants

see

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-14/trump-administration-asks-australian-universities-funding/105053784

'The tertiary education union called it "blatant political interference" and the Group of Eight representative body said it was "extremely concerned".'

And so they should - Presumably emails sent by Felon Musk's DOGE (Department Of Gratifying Elon)

Microsoft goes native with Copilot. Again

Microsoft should have really thought about the name...

... given the Old Microsoft "Helicopter Joke" from the mid 90's:

"Whilst flying around Seattle on a very cloudy and hazy day, a helicopter suffered an electrical malfunction that disabled all of it's navigation and communication systems.

"Due to the weather conditions the Pilot couldn't determine their exact position or the course to set for the airport.

"The Pilot flew to a tall building and, whilst circling it, wrote a sign asking 'WHERE AM I?' in large letters and showed it to the people he could see in the building.

"The people in the building quickly responded with a sign that read 'YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.'

"The Pilot smiled, waved a thank-you, looked at a map and promptly set course to Seattle airport where the helicopter was safely landed.

"After they were on the ground, the Co-Pilot asked the Pilot how the 'YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER' sign helped determine their position.

"The Pilot responded, 'I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless reply'"

= = = = =

The Pilot figured out the solution, the Co-Pilot couldn't...

Worry not. China's on the line saying AGI still a long way off

Generative AI models have passed the Turing Test ...

... which was proposed in 1950! (see https://www.britannica.com/technology/Turing-test )

That's a lot of technological change for those "electronic thinking machines"!

Here's the ugliest global-warming chart you'll ever need to see

To Err on the side of caution

If I had a car with brakes that I think may be failing would I leave it until the brakes actually failed, or get them looked at by an "expert in car brakes" and get the expert's opinion?

In the area of climate change we have a similar (even though more complicated) situation - so again off to the experts for their opinion...

I will err on the side of caution and get my car brakes fixed BEFORE they fail, AND support the idea that climate change is a significant problem that needs to be solved BEFORE it is too late...

To me it seems that "deniers" have little, or no, sense, NOR an ability to appraise a situation either objectively or logically.

The future of AI is ... analog? Upstart bags $100M to push GPU-like brains on less juice

Re: Full circle

If simple analogue electronics can perform better than it's very complex digital equivalent at a similar task then it suggests we must re-evaluate where we are heading

...

When I was turned 9 (in the very early 1970's) my parent's birthday present was a "100 in one" electronics kit based on my (way too obvious to them) interest in electricity...

Before I received this electronics kit I had done many stupid and dangerous things (in retrospect) a few months before with "240V AC mains" like digging out the wall-mounted socket to see how it worked and connecting my sister's battery-powered food-mixer toy into the Mains socket (thinking that it would go faster!) after destroying said "food-mixer" and getting the wires to the battery compartment inserted into the Mains socket!

Needless to say a big bang from the food-processor and sudden darkness (didn't know about fuses) OOPS!

I also looked inside the radios and TV's my parents had (for which I was not found out - I did tell them a decade or two later)

My parents immediately knew the cause (which obviously I tried to deny to no avail) and I was in deep-sh*t for months - but I got that "100 in one" electronics kit...

Learned all about NPN and PNP Transistors, Diodes, Resistors, Capacitors and the difference between a battery and a cell...

My Dad even helped me when I built the "Crystal Radio" part of the kit by putting up a 30-odd-foot piece of wood with wire attached so so that the "Crystal Radio" worked with a good audio volume!

I absolutely loved this analogue electronics...

Around 17 years of age a friend of mine showed me an "electronic computer" - around an A4 sized circuit board with a small number if "Integrated Circuits", four seven-segment LEDs, 256 bytes of "RAM" and 10(?) switches

Didn't understand what was meant by "Integrated Circuit" or "RAM" but my friend showed me how, by manipulating the switches in a convoluted pattern he could get the display to say "boob" after much flashing of the LEDs

I was Hooked and "the digital world" became my career...

But I lament the day where everything analogue became digital...

The "Transistor Radio", a simple and obvious extension of the "Crystal Radio" - Digital Radios are so boring in comparison - a "black blob" and "nothing obvious" about how it works...

Pretty much the same for all current electronics - no avenue for curiosity as it is ALL "black blobs"

Analogue world we live in so analogue WILL rule :)

Tesla sales crash in Europe, UK. We can only wonder why

TESLA?

Totally Electric, Still Lame Anyway

(not mine)

And now something fun for a change: Building blocks of life in Bennu asteroid samples

Given "that Bennu contains 14 of the 20 amino acids essential for life on Earth"...

And Assuming that Bennu is a typical example...

Does this mean that there is at least a 70% chance that lifeforms on Goldilocks Zone Exoplanets will have a similar biology to here on Earth?

If so it means we are not alone :)

Unfortunately, given our current tech, we will not be able to find out for millions, or billions, of our years

Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever

Mint is not the flavour for me

My Win10 machine keeps annoying me with prompts to upgrade to Win11 to which I continually decline - where is the "Never As Again" option?

In preparation for migrating said Win10 machine to Linux I have been testing a few Linux Flavours on a much older machine... (Most of the servers I manage remotely use Ubuntu but it doesn't seem to have the features I want in a Desktop!)

Based on various commentary here, and elsewhere, I gave Mint a try...

The install went cleanly, as did the installation of various other software packages I need...

I used the system for a few hours and was suitably impressed.

Turned the system off and waited about a month to see how upgrades worked...

Did the upgrade and it failed to boot afterwards :(

My research didn't give any clues as to why the upgrade failed to I thought it was something I had done...

Repeated process and on next upgrade the same sort of fail...

Now I am investigating Rocky (based on a previous articles here and other readings)

Keeping my fingers crossed...

Microsoft eggheads say AI can never be made secure – after testing Redmond's own products

Security By Design

So, "...the work of securing AI systems will never be complete"

But the "...cost of attacking AI systems can be raised..."

(As argued by Mark Russinovich) By using "... defence-in-depth tactics and security-by-design principles"...

I know that Mark Russinovich is the original author of a number of the Sysinternals applications (some of which I use on a semi-regular basis) so he has a good understanding of Windows' inner workings...

Unfortunately the large number of issues related to Windows 11 updates over the last few months (which appear to be increasing over time) suggests that Micro$oft is a LONG, LONG, LONG way from correctly implementing "... defence-in-depth tactics and security-by-design principles" that actually work

US watchdog sticks probe into 2.6M Teslas over so-called Smart Summon crash reports

It is an ASS...

... and I mean that in the context that it is stupid...

Question is whether or not the person who chose "Actually Smart Summon" as the feature/product name could see the issue with the naming?

Or was it deliberate and indicative of Tesla's (aka Musk's) contempt for those who bought their cars?

/s

Australia lays fiendish tax trap for Meta – with an expensive escape hatch

Nice to see that the Australian Government has "the balls" to tackle Big Tech...

Big Tech will probably try kicking them in the balls...

Abstract, theoretical computing qualifications are turning teens off

Re: Another "R" - suggestions

Reasoning...

Some may say "Critical Analysis"...

Paraphrasing the various references I have read for the meaning of "Reasoning" it is basically the process of forming/drawing conclusions, judgements, or inferences from facts, evidence or premises

Paraphrasing the various references I have read for the meaning of "Critical Analysis" it is basically the process of understanding the meaning of information and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the information...

That said it seems that "Critical Analysis" relies upon "Reasoning"

So "Reasoning" would be a good "Fourth R"...

And, if the Education System is working properly (??), the basics of teaching of Science, English and Mathematics should cover the Technology aspect...

Eek - the STEM that everyone in governments around the world seem to talk about as being the "Basics of Education"

Problem seems to be that, for many years (at least 2-3 decades, maybe more), children have not been properly taught all of the beauty of Science, English or Mathematics (due to cuts in spending on Education) and are, as a result, falling into the traps of the technology they use without any understanding of the pitfalls and think, in their ignorance, they are better-educated in "tech" than their parents...

How US Dept of Justice's cure for Google could inflict collateral damage

Outside the box thinking...

Outside the box thinking such as the following may level the field a bit:

Make it a requirement that Alphabet/Google:

1) Remove ALL Tracking features and Google Account Linking from Google Chrome;

2) Make ALL their proprietary code open-source;

3) Donate funds to the main developers of ALL current non-proprietary web browser engines. (and, for that matter, make all other mega-corps that make proprietary web browsers do the same)

4) Advertise on ALL their varied products ALL of the current non-proprietary web browser engine producers

So instead of everyone who doesn't use Google Chrome seeing adverts to use Google Chrome when visiting an Alphabet/Google -owned site they will see adverts (paid for by Alphabet/Google) for alternate web browsers along the lines of "This web browser may be more suitable for you..."

Probably all too altruistic... and a one-in-a-trillion+ chance

And waiting for the down-votes

Now’s your chance to try Microsoft’s controversial Windows Recall ... maybe

Re: Seems something's semantic somewhere

Agreed, precisely what is meant by "sensitive material"?

If a computer user searches for information related to a minority group or a medical procedure (only two examples of way too many to list) that is "illegal" in their region will Recall not record it?

For example, and only considering the USA: a trans person or a pregnant woman seeking medical information...

Will Recall not record such "sensitive material" on a state-by-state basis in the USA?

And what about countries where a person searching for "sensitive material" may be put to death because of same?

Will Recall not record such "sensitive material" on a country-by-country basis?

Micro$oft's statements appear extremely disingenuous

Microsoft accused of 'greenwashing' as AI used in fossil fuel exploration

Windows 11 (Artificial) Requirements ...

... and the e-waste that results from the said "artificial" requirements when people are "required" to upgrade their perfectly fine computers to run Windows 11...

(All the varied work-arounds that allow Win11 to run on machines that do not meet the Win11 requirements is proof enough for me that the Win11 requirements are "artificial")

So M$ "greenwashing" is not a surprise

Obviously no care for our environment - only the bottom line

Add to that the extremely poor quality of Updates that have been reported over the last year, or so, for BOTH Win10 AND Win11 and it indicates that M$ simply does not care...

The horror that is VHS revived for horror movie release

Don't forget Vinyl

The soundtrack will be available on Vinyl from November

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien:_Romulus_(soundtrack)

https://variety.com/2024/music/news/alien-romulus-score-benjamin-wallfisch-vinyl-1236106988/

Luckily brand new record player's are still widely available - I have seen many listed at less than AUD$100 which will play at 33⅓, 45 and 78 rpm (not that I would pay that little if I were in the market)

Western Digital wasn't the only one - Windows 24H2 update bluescreens Asus systems

Singing the "Microsoft Blues"

Me wonders why vendors, whose product was working fine for many prior versions of Windows, have to issue a "fix" after a Microsoft Update?

Seems to me EVERYONE is paying for M$ f**kups (== total lack of Quality Assurance)

Tesla FSD faces yet another probe after fatal low-visibility crash

Early May 2021 Elon Musk revealed he has Asperger's on Saturday Night Live

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57045770

https://www.newsweek.com/snl-read-full-transcript-elon-musks-opening-monologue-saturday-night-live-1589849

This may explain a lot about his decidedly unusual behaviour...

Internet Archive user info stolen in cyberattack, succumbs to DDoS

Wayback Machine Timeout

Just tried https://web.archive.org/ and got a timeout :(

Seems like their issues may be quite serious

https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/web.archive.org.html

Also reports site is down

Mozilla patches critical Firefox vuln that attackers are already exploiting

Re: Yes but...

A quick duckduckgo search indicates macOS Sequoia affecting Firefox and Google Chrome

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255795609?sortBy=rank

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/problems-with-firefox-connecting-to-local-sites-on-my-network.2439635/

AI agent promotes itself to sysadmin, trashes boot sequence

Re: I think Forrest Gump distilled...

Or to paraphrase: "AI is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

Competition watchdog accuses Google of abusing ad dominance

Google Search Recommends Google Chrome as a "more secure and faster" web browser

And who has forgotten way back when Google Chrome was a new product, Google aggressively advertised their new web browser in their search results?

The way that it was done implied to the "average user" that the web browser they were using wasn't secure and was slow...

So the "average user" installed Google Chrome which then changed the default web browser without need for admin access...

Little did the "average user" realise that Google Chrome was sending all their activity back to Google

NOTE: "average user" means one using Windows before M$ properly implemented UAC

Datacenters to emit 3x more carbon dioxide because of generative AI

how many r's in strawberry

Ask ChatGPT this question (re-tested at time of post)

The answer: The word "strawberry" has 2 r's.

So AI is going to cause more adverse climate effects which will cause strawberries to be smaller

(See https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-16/climate-change-small-strawberries-warmer-nights/100071954 )

Maybe ChatGPT is predicting this by stating the lesser number of r's?

After asking ChatGPT "how many r's in strawberry" ask ChatGPT "count the r's in strawberry"

The answer I got: I see what you mean. There is actually only 1 R in "strawberry."

Yep - strawberries are getting smaller by the moment

SQL king Larry Ellison becomes sequel sultan with controlling interest in Paramount Global

I imagine that Lucille Ball and Gene Roddenberry will not be pleased with where Star Trek will "boldly go" in a Larry Ellison inspired future

Twitter must pay over half a million to unfairly dismissed Irish exec

Check the maths...

YES I know (F)Elon's "earnings", as I describe following, are not "real money"... but if he were to "cash out" tomorrow then it WOULD be "real money" (and probably f*ck many stock exchanges at the same time)...

So please bear with me

(F)Elon was recently awarded USD$46,000,000,000 for effectively doing F-All...

Aggrieved ex-employee awarded USD$607,000

Aggrieved ex-employee received about 0.0013% of (F)Elon's award - around 7 minutes "(F)Elon time"...

Reminds me of the old Q/A joke about Bill Gates (and I'm paraphrasing - the joke came out a LONG time ago):

Q: "What would Bill Gates do if he accidentally dropped a $100 bill?"

A: "Nothing - based on his hourly income it would cost him more to pick up the $100 bill than what it is worth"

There are around 525,600 minutes in a year - so (F)Elon received around USD$87,520 a minute for his "award" (I assume for 'that particular year') - so, again, bear with me...

At maximum (my "best case" scenario) I can earn around AUD$135 per hour (AUD$2.25 a minute!) - at current rates that's USD$89.50 per hour (USD1.49 a minute)

(F)Elon (has effectively) earned around 58,738 times the amount I can earn in the same time...

Even assuming the "worst" [for (F)Elon that is] and spread (F)Elon's award over 20 years...

Still means (F)Elon (in worst case scenario) has been awarded around 2,937 (per unit time) than my "best case" scenario...

If I've f*ck up on the maths, I apologise - have had a few beers...

Users call on Microsoft to update Outlook's friendly name feature

The current version of Thunderbird (v128) by default now includes the email address of the sender in the email list...

If the "Show only display name for people in my address book" option is enabled only the "friendly name" is shown

Even so, the email preview has, for as long as I can remember, included the email address in the "From" field

M$ Outlook has always made it difficult to show the actual sender email :(

Bugging out: 53 years since humans first drove a battery-powered car on the Moon

Only 18km/h...

From what I remember of watching the "Moon Buggy" zooming around it certainly looked like the driver (or is that pilot - seeing that "Driving the rover was actually more like flying an airplane...") was a maniac!!!

Granted I was in my very early teens and didn't think about (nor fully understand) the difference in gravity but, surely, the "effective speed" I saw was more like 108 km/h...

A hell of a ride on such a rough surface...

Irrespective of my (very) poor maths and (even poorer) understanding of gravity both the designers AND drivers of the LRV deserve a belated beer :)

Secure Boot useless on hundreds of PCs from major vendors after key leak

NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE

I remember seeing NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE displayed during the BIOS boot process on machines as far back as the late 1990's on desktop machines using either a Phoenix or Megatrends BIOS

So the key issue with Secure Boot BIOS's is no surprise...

Apple Maps escapes orchard into web browser wilds

Re: Remember the days...

Just visited the site using Firefox and up popped the "browser not supported"

Changed the User Agent to simulate Chrome and all appeared to work ok when comparing with the same check using Chrome...

So it would seem that "browser not supported" is an outright lie...

Microsoft 365 remains 'degraded' as Azure outage resolved

Re: Hitting Australia as well

Affected infrastructure includes Banks, Petrol Stations, Airports, Airlines, Fast-Food "restaurants", TV stations and supermarkets - and the list seems to be growing by the hour...

So much for putting everything into one basket - er, "cloud"

The M$ cloud seems to work exactly opposite to how they claim it works...

Maybe they should rename Azure to "Egg Basket"?

Just wonder how many managers are now regretting getting rid of their "real" IT teams and moving everything to the "cloud"?