* Posts by Andrew Scott

383 publicly visible posts • joined 24 May 2007

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Guide for the perplexed – Google is no longer the best search engine

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Altavista

As i remember, altavista was a way to demonstrate how fast an Alpha based computer could index the web. Used it when it came out, never had the patience to use yahoo, but loved google when it came out. Still like it's simple search page. Not as enthusiastic about the AI summary i've been seeing lately. Don't mind ad's for the service, they're a given. Grew up with television and the ads provided the revenue for the service. Same with newspapers.

Aliens, spy balloons, or drones? SUV-sized mystery objects spotted in US skies

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Re: Aliens...

No it's ingenuity. Mutated in an alien environment and come back to earth at the behest of martian aliens.

Scumbag gets 30 years in the clink for running CSAM dark-web chatrooms, abusing kids

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Re: Hope the Other Inmates Take Good Care of Him

People in prison aren't killed as a public service but because there are people in who are just looking for an excuse to kill someone. If this person is killed by a fellow inmate it won't be because the fellow inmate is trying to do society a favor, but he will use the the fact that a large portion of society believes that the prisoner deserves to be killed as an excuse to do something he likely would do if he thought he could get away with it. Now the threat of prison is gone and it's unlikely that there will be much fuss for doing what many people outside of prison apparently want done, the inmate who may in the future kill this man will do it with the blessing society and apparently with the blessing of a large number of the commentators of this story. Don't think murder should be encouraged under any circumstances.

Doctor Who theme added to national sound archive to honor innovation, longevity

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Re: "once hit on the head by a grand piano lid"

That was a period when the writer Nevil Shute was recommending people leave GB and move to Australia. Guess someone decided to go the other way.

Facing sale or ban, TikTok tossed under national security bus by appeals court

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Re: Cough Hunter Crack Head Biden cough

sure. it's just as strange as seeing the idiot sons of trump touting crypto currency, as it their father. None of them know the first thing about crypto.

Mr Intel leaving Intel is not a great sign... for Intel

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Re: Replicant Gelsinger

We always purchased desktops with add-on cards even though the machines came with integrated intel graphics. Intel graphics always seemed to have trouble getting the correct timings for external monitors. Never a problem with ati/amd or nvidia. There were other problems when we used laptops with docking stations and external monitors. Only recently has the integrated video seemed to work properly. Still with the laptops i have available no comparison to add on video cards. Business computers may not play games, but decent performance is needed with today's higher resolution monitors and the prevalence of video conferencing.

Panic at the Cisco tech, thanks to ancient IOS syntax helper that outsmarted itself

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Re: I guess it had to be Sherlock...

OpenFirmware? Remember my step Dad talking about it and using forth on an Apple Mac. Never had an opportunity to play with it.

Police arrest suspect in murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO, with grainy pics the only tech involved

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Re: I wonder

Possibly he was planning to use them again.

How Chinese insiders are stealing data scooped up by President Xi's national surveillance system

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Re: Chinese are born entrepreneurs, unfortunately

Playing any instrument well is not "easy". If you want to find an "easy" instrument to play, start with the recorder. Flute is pretty easy also, no trouble to get an good sound out of a flute, but other instruments are much harder to get a good and consistent sound out of. Learning to play violin is not easy. Try standing and holding both arms out in awkward positions for and hour at a time while trying to get a "good" non scratchy in tune sound and thinking on your feet to choose the best way to play each note where the position is getting you ready to play the next and there could be perhaps a dozen positions your hand could be in to play one note. I've heard live concerts where a pro managed to be off by quite a bit. heard it back in 70's so can't quite remember how badly he was off but pretty bad. Hard to do when you have frets or keys. easy when you don't have any.

Microsoft teases Copilot Vision, the AI sidekick that judges your tabs

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2nd set of eyes

Sure, doesn't everyone like having someone looking over their shoulder and making comments?

Elon Musk tops US political donor list with $270M+ for Team Trump

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trump is a lame duck. Musk should have supported him in the last election instead of waiting.

Veteran Microsoft engineer shares some enterprise support tips

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not american, texan pronunciation popularized by bush II i think. Always been pronounced New-cle-ar around here even though dropping "R's" is a popular pastime in this region.

British boffins build diamond battery capable of working for a millennium or five

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Re: Battery?

Believe there are still plutonium powered Pacemakers implanted in peoples chests. Most have been disposed of as their users have since died, but a few still running in living people.

T-Mobile US CSO: Spies jumped from one telco to another in a way 'I've not seen in my career'

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Re: Won't Someone Think of the Children

Only pardon those that can afford it. He's a lame duck anyways, though we'll see what that means for the future.

Microsoft confirms there will be no U-turn on Windows 11 hardware requirements

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i7-6920 too slow. has tpm 2.0. 3.8 ghz.

Outlook is poor for those still on Windows Mail, Calendar, People apps by end of year

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No, have the desktop app for office 365 and there's a switch on the upper right corner of the outlook window that says "Try the new outlook". Under certain circumstances like a fresh install you will get switched to the New outlook. when you switch back you will get a survey asking why you didn't switch. Mostly because i wasn't asked if i wanted to switch. that irritates me. The mac new outlook is really bad, and i know a lot of people who are usually fine with the latest update who have no intention of using the New outlook on a mac. It just changes too many things that they like. Further, those machines that have the old 2019 or 2010 versions of outlook will find that they won't work with the most recent versions of the mac os and windows os.

The only thing worse than being fired is scammers fooling you into thinking you're fired

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Re: an email that appears to be a legal notice

Can be tricky. for a while we were getting phishing emails that appeared to come from legitimate email addresses within our organization. The senders names were correct, and depending on the email reader you used you might not realize that the real source of the email was gmail.com. Not our .edu domain. Especially easy to be fooled if you were using a phone which may truncate the email address to only the user name which was correctly formatted as last name, first name. There were other clues usually embedded, like being unexpected email from an unexpected though legitimate looking source.

Microsoft informed of yet another antitrust probe by US authorities

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Just a bunch of guys who feel that the 1st gives them the right to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater.

Telco security is a dumpster fire and everyone's getting burned

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Re: Pathetic anti-China hit piece

Russia a third world country?. Isn't it already? Has it ever been anything else?

Andrew Scott Bronze badge

Re: Pathetic anti-China hit piece

wait till the new president takes office.

Windows 11 market share falls despite Microsoft ad blitz

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Re: Getting better all the time

classic bait and switch.

Andrew Scott Bronze badge

Re: Desktops

Better cooling, less likely to slow down because cpu got hot. Don't run at slower speeds because running on battery only. don't usually suddenly split along the seam between the bottom and top because the battery is swollen. Not hard to get 2nd hand relatively inexpensive desktops with ecc memory. have heard there are laptops with ecc but never seen one. Less likely to suddenly become useless because you need more memory or need more disk space. Lot of reasons to stick with a desktop computer in my opinion. in some cases you may even be able to upgrade the cpu for better performance. Far less likely to become useless because someone didn't see the laptop and sat on it possibly breaking the screen and you find it's not covered under the warranty.

Cryptocurrency policy under Trump: Lots of promises, few concrete plans

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Re: You don't bankrupt casinos with good planning

Really hard to understand how anyone could bankrupt a casino. Could it be that the casino was in debt before it even opened? That would sound like trademark Trump.

Judges not impressed by Amazon, SpaceX's attempt to have NLRB declared unconstitutional

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Re: Oh, our favorite free speech proponent with so many fans and followers is again ...

That's a load. My dad was a union rep for the Brotherhood of railroad train workers. Never accused of "not doing his job", never tried to get others to not do their job. Never asked to get paid for doing nothing. When unions strike, they don't get paid. It they could get away with it, companies would abuse workers, and despite laws they do abuse workers. Most workers are constantly in fear that they'll lose their jobs through downsizing or being fired. Most people i know over compensate by working far more hours then they need to try to stay relevant. Unions exist to give workers the power that normally exists only for the employer. Employers with money and status have better access to the political system and the people who make laws. With that money they can do things like try to have workers support removed, such as this case. Of course two of the wealthiest companies and people are trying to disenfranchise workers by having the nlrb dissolved or left powerless.

BTW, he worked two jobs most of my life. rarely saw him as he worked nights on the railroad and when he did come home it was usually to sleep before going to work again. Brotherhood disolved in 2014 replaced by utu.

SpaceX hits 400 launches of Falcon 9 rocket

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Re: Lenovo take heed

Clever and thoughtful comment. Guessing you're homeless and currently live under a bridge.

Google earns fresh competition scrutiny from two nations on a single day

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gameing

If there are no other cash prize games being offered on the google platform i wouldn't think that was a problem. Also, isn't there a much more used search platform in china? thought googles presence was pretty minor there. where's the problem?

Kill Oracle's 'JavaScript' trademark, Deno asks USPTO

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trademark use

Seem to remember that Hershey came out with a candy called hugs in 1993. IIRC they trademarked hugs when they brought Hershey kisses but it took them a long time to come up with something to use with the hugs trademark.

Imagine a land in which Big Tech can't send you down online rabbit holes or use algorithms to overcharge you

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Re: Some good ideas but at what cost

Looks like at one side that you plug your ears and go ya-ya-ya to when they speak. possibly because of the company you keep.

EU buyers still shunning pure electric vehicles, prefer hybrids

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Re: Plug in hybrids

only had a Nissan i was using while my car was in the shop brake for Casper. dropped me from 40 mph to 12 with nothing visible in site. of course it was night and maybe there was something i couldn't see. wildlife crossing the road is common. mostly deer, but have seen black bear, bobcats, turkeys, fox and coyotes. 2nd time was on a road in the morning in daylight. absolutely nothing in sight. dropped me from 25 to 5 mph. 3rd time almost stopped me in a garage while doing less than 10 mph. my personal car has warned me of impending disaster and helped with the braking when it decided i wasn't taking firm enough action, but has never braked with nothing in front of the car.

Chinese ship casts shadow over Baltic subsea cable snipfest

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Think the "bear" started the missile launching first, right after the tanks started rolling in, and the planes started strafing and bombing. think if you've been invaded you have every right to take the fight to the invader. You can't start a war and say "hey, no fair" when someone punches back. No amount of "alt facts" will change that.

Andrew Scott Bronze badge

If it was the captain, and he did deliberately damage the cables and is imprisoned for the act, they (the Russians) will find an innocent eu citizen or us citizen, charge them with espionage and then trade them for the captain.

Thousands of AI agents later, who even remembers what they do?

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forgettin creation

Institutional problem. Groups, shared email addresses created and forgotten when the creator leaves and doesn't tell or even see their replacement or the person who's newly created job should overlap those responsibilities. there may also be security issues related to things like this that aren't documented or passed on to new employees or replacements.

AI hiring bias? Men with Anglo-Saxon names score lower in tech interviews

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Re: You can't add arbitrary data to remove bias.

Really that's obvious. Women prefer to work at home, cook, wash cloths, pickup crap left on the floor by their husbands, and raise children. Definite preference. Should automatically disqualify them from real jobs. just ask my sisters which is why i'm posting this anonymously.

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

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Re: But...HOW?

keyloggers will do the same thing on most computers.

Neuralink brain chips head for the Great White North

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Re: Great White North?

Actually that's pretty cool. Remember reading astronomy mag years ago. They'd take a fairly low res sensor and during the exposure move the sensor down, left, up, and right combining 4 positions and stitching them into an image with 4 times the pixel count of the sensor. Appears most phone cameras do something like this, as well as combining information from multiple sensors now.

Microsoft flashes Win10 users with more full-screen ads for Windows 11

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Re: Don't want a coprolite PC

Remember an episode of "Mad about you" where they slipped that one past the censors. Think it was the episode about filming in Yoko Ono's apartment.

Billionaire food app CEO wants you to pay for the privilege of working with him

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X

Of course it was posted on X! Why didn't i notice this the first time. DT did this for years on a tv show.

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work for free

There's a sucker born every minute, and you get what you pay for. that's my take.

California's last nuclear plant turns to generative AI for filing and finding the fine print

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Re: Their example

Wonder if it would help to have more than one llm do the task and then compare the results. If there are discrepancies then they'd need to be hand checked.

iOS 18 added secret and smart security feature that reboots iThings after three days

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Re: Microsoft - Ahead with security!

linux has a similar problem. reboot when the timer wrapped around. this was in the 32 bit days. though linux on a dec alpha was immune from the issue I think. at the time i think the response from Linus was get a 64 bit machine.

Microsoft 365 Copilot trips over angle brackets, frustrating coders

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< copilot

hasn't copilot checked in to complain about the user yet?

Microsoft breaks timezones in Settings and calls on an unlikely ally for help

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windows 11 tz

woke my windows 11 laptop up, just had the lid closed. Found the time and date were both off. was claiming that it was early morning on the 19th when i was looking at the clock at 11:30 pm on the 18th. Not sure why. went into bios and clock and date had been changed to reflect the window time and date. rebooted and was still incorrect. checked to make sure it was communicating with a time server, and that appeared to be ok as was the time zone setting. Had a good internet connection also. Seems to be ok now, but i left it sleeping last night and will check it tonight when i get home from work around 8 pm.

Windows 95 setup was three programs in a trench coat, Microsoft vet reveals

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Re: Downhill?

not sure, had to re-install win 2000 once from the cd i'd bought. Went on-line to download and install the updates, and had a virus before the download was completed. Had to format the disk and reinstall win 2000. the second time i downloaded the updates separately on a machine that had xp, copied the updates to a cd, did the updates and then went on-line.

Andrew Scott Bronze badge

Re: Downhill?

Was using 10 then got upgraded to 11 without being asked if I wanted it. Should have disabled tpm.

Andrew Scott Bronze badge

Re: "Progress, eh?"

6 cd's to install the companies image of xp. After the install was completed could recover several gigs of capacity by running disk cleanup. Convinced the image creators that if they did disk cleanup before creating the images we might need fewer cd's to install the image. Next round of computer updates came with just 4 cd's. Took a lot less time to install xp after that. At the time we could run windows 3.x from our server. We didn't have an internet connection, but we did have a lan. Some of the computers didn't have hard disks.

Sweden's 'Doomsday Prep for Dummies' guide hits mailboxes today

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We were taught how to duck and cover. Basically hiding under our school desks when the bomb dropped. pretty scary when you're 6 or 7 and told it could happen at any time.

NIST trains AI to hear the 'oh crap' moment before batteries explode

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Re: "find its way into homes, office buildings, and [EV] parking garages"

Surprising

. diesel fuel is usually much harder to ignite than petrol/gas.

Rust haters, unite! Fil-C aims to Make C Great Again

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Re: C Tones

if you don't c# you'll b flat.

Letting chatbots run robots ends as badly as you'd expect

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Re: Asimov only wrote down some words to sell some books

the three laws don't apply to llms only positronic brains. haven't invented them yet.

Airbus A380 flew for 300 hours with metre-long tool left inside engine

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tool left behind

could have been worse, at least it wasn't an employee. they check tools in and out, do they do a head count?

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