Posts by markr555

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

AI lies

Recently I had to stop using PayPal as they requested lots of ID from me, as I was now a 'politically exposed person'. I am not, and have never been involved in any politics, local or national. I thought this was very strange but obviously decided to use different payment services rather than comply. I then ask ChatGPT for information on me and it completely fabricates that I am a local councillor. This tells me that large companies are already using AI bullshitters to collate information on customers, so anyone who thinks that it's a good idea to allow AI to provide vetting info for individuals is an idiot or vastly uninformed.

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

Re: I have no problem with punitive damages

Dafuq?!

In wake of Horizon scandal, forensics prof says digital evidence is a minefield

It's not just a data integrity issue.

When you can't trust those collating the evidence (think Fujitsu), how can you trust any of it?

Arm reckons it'll own 50% of the datacenter by year's end

Re: Works Nicely For Me

Careful, praising Arm on here can have negative consequences. The commentariat have taken against it now that it's neither USian/British/RiscV. They can do no right :-s

A closer look at Dynamo, Nvidia's 'operating system' for AI inference

Re: The steam engine

Yeah but the dynamo came along only 100 years later, so give him a little 'interpretational license'

China's EV champ BYD reveals super-fast charging that leaves Tesla eating dust

Re: "Works for me"

Dick!

Judge orders Feds rehire workers falsely fired for lousy performance

At whose will?

The basic problem here is the fucked-up American employment laws that allow the unfair firing of people without any reason. Musk simply misunderstood that the rules are a little more protective of federal employees. Not surprising, as he's an idiot. The government agencies were just so afraid of their glorious leader that they implemented the bullshit firings without standing up for their staff. Testicles need to be grown to fight this with principles and conviction.

Vodafone: Be in the office 8 days a month or lose bonuses

Contract is king.

I'm not sure I understand all the bleating here; if your contract says WFH then you can work from home. If it says Hybrid/WFO then the company is well within its rights to ask or demand your presence. If you don't like it then find a new role. They company cannot arbitrarily/ unilaterally change your contract and must make you redundant if you don't want to agree new terms (UK employees, yanks are screwed)

Early mornings, late evenings, weekends. Useless users always demand support

Re: Solutions exist

Exactly this!! No-one is obliged to do ANYTHING outside of their contract of employment, so if you don't wanna do it, don't do it. Even if your work phone is turned on, and Teams is bonging away on your personal (why would you install works stuff to your own equipment!?!?), you can simply ignore it. The only person to blame is you if you are answering outside of work hours.

Blood boffins build billions of nanobots to battle brain aneurysms without surgery

Re: Isn't the hard part about treating an aneurysm

Ante-mortem in this case, shirley? Up-voted though, of course!

Tesla slams advisors for not loving Musk's $44.9B payout

Eh?

What the heck are you on about? Theres a huge inequality there, but it's not a racial inequality!

Can I phone a friend? How cops circumvent face recognition bans

Re: Maybe

It’s really quite simple, no-one (in the UK) is required to identify themselves to the police unless there is reasonable reason for the copper to suspect that the person has committed (or will commit) a crime. So when they refuse they are simply excercising their rights, or don’t you want people to have such rights? Sounds like you haven’t had direct dealings with police in a situation where they think it’s ok to bully the public, but plenty have, and they are free to excercise their right to point-blank ignore coppers if they so wish.

Fujitsu finance chief says sorry for IT giant's role in Post Office Horizon scandal

Re: Rehash

WTF are you on?? "For all your Fujitsu bashing"? They had a full team working round the clock committing fraud on a daily basis, in a secret basement office. I'm pretty sure other 'retail suppliers' aren't lying in court and sending innocent folks to prison! Fujitsu deserve all the bashing people can give, and a fuck-ton more besides.

Fujitsu gets $1B market cap haircut after TV disaster drama airs

Re: Justice

Unfortunately that's just not gonna happen

UK PM promises faster justice for Post Office Horizon victims

No Justice

There may be compensation, but I'm pretty sure there'll be no justice; not a single person/company/organisation will be held to account!

New cars bought in the UK must be zero emission by 2035 – it's the law

Re: Finding a working charger

"Using an EV for long distances in this country (at least south of Perth, Scotland) is possible today in the first week of 2024.”

Of course it’s possible, when the number of EV owners is easily handled by the grid it’s no problem, but to suggest that we can ALL have an EV is fanciful at best.

Re: Screw the Hoi Polloi!

There are 4 lamposts on my street and around 100 cars, no problem at all plugging 25 cars into a single lampost I’m sure, and the wiring fitted for a 50W lamp will have no problems supplying a megawatt!! Running a 13A cable to a car overnight might get you a few miles before you run out of juice, but hey, the local scrotes will have unplugged it long before morning :-) And of course, all this is only possible if you can actually park your car outside your house, which is about a 1 in 50 occurrence around these parts.

Screw the Hoi Polloi!

Such a lovely middle-class law, where only the people who have a driveway can ever have a car in the future. Screw the millions who don’t have a drive and so can never have an electric car! For this very reason, there is absolutely no chance of any of this becoming a reality in the UK with things as they are, as if you take away the means of earning from 20 million people you’ll have heads on spikes. But the are many other reasons: Without a viable means of transport it’s not possible to work any more (cue the lucky ones who can work from home, unlike the working classes). Without massive investment in nuclear power it’s just a daydream (cue the greenies who’ll bleat on about solar and wind power as if they are anything other than a slightly useful addition when conditions are favourable). Without massive investment in infrastructure such as a complete upgrade to the national grid and all domestic electricity supply, even the laws of physics agree it’s not possibe (cue the ‘battery technology is improving all the time’ folks). We all need to face it, the notion of electic vehicles replacing ALL the cars currentlyl on the road is UTTER BULLSHIT and it’s time we started looking elsewhere!

AWS rakes in half a billion pounds from UK Home Office

Re: Big number or small number?

A Latte here, and a latte there, it soon adds up to real money!

UK government rings the death knell for SIM farms

Poor proof reading

You commit an offence, not an offense. Offense cannot ever be a noun

UnitedHealthcare's broken AI denied seniors' medical claims, lawsuit alleges

US Craziness in action

The US healthcare system, or more appropriately, the lack of it, is truly fucked up!

Suits ignored IT's warnings, so the tech team went for the neck

Re: One does wonder...

Dafuq?!

Still got a job at the end of this week? You're lucky, as more layoffs hit the tech industry

Re: No need to worry

"Here in the UK, IT is a working class job and pays poorly"

Don't talk rubbish, it's a well paid middle class job if you are reasonably technical (programmer or similar)

Millions of smart meters will brick it when 2G and 3G turns off

When will this crap stop

A complete and utter waste of billions of pounds. A simple current clamp device and WiFi control panel was all that was ever needed. Enclosing the customer-focussed functionality within the meter is pathetically stupid

UK rejoins the EU's €100B Horizon sci-tech funding program

"women aren't that unequivocal"

Looks like you haven't met my wife!

UK Online Safety Bill to become law – and encryption busting clause is still there

Re: At last!

Obvious troll is too obvious, must try harder ;-)

Microsoft kicks Calibri to the curb for Aptos as default font

What is a curb??

The word you're looking for is kerb, you need to curb your lack of enthusiasm for proof-reading!

Nvidia's Arm wrestle – from failed acquisition to possibly anchoring IPO

Do I detect a disgruntled ex employee?

Singapore's sovereign wealth fund regrets investment in crypto-villain FTX

Eh?

Diabolical non-sequitur.

Dyson moans about state of UK science and tech, forgets to suck up his own mess

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

Halfwit is a single word, at best you can hyphenate it, you half-wit

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

How many times are you gonna post the same iname shit comment in a single thread you trolling wee fuck-nugget? Your bigotry is showing.

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

Who dafuq is US? Doubting that you are an international lawyer, so who the hell will YOU bail out? I'm unconvinced that you could bail out a frigging dinghy

Miffed Googlers meme on CEO's $226M pay award amid cost-cutting campaign

Re: @AC capitalism

Oh yeah, then why is it The People's Republic of China?? You're either disingenuous or a halfwit; possibly both.

Pornhub walls off Utah in age-verification law protest

Keeping porn from eager teenagers?

They'll never pull it off!

Elon Musk actually sits down and talks to 'government-funded media' the BBC

Re: Propaganda

"Que all the clowns"

Is that you Manuel?

Parts of UK booted offline as Virgin Media suffers massive broadband outage

Re: Fare thee (not so) well, Virgin

"Said chat started at 15:40, and didn't finish until 19:00"

There's your problem right there. Don't allow them anything like this amount of time. Either they can beat it or they can't. Once they've failed to beat it, tell them your contract is cancelled and put the phone down. Once you've sent an email informing them of their failure to cancel according to contract you're free to cancel your direct debit. Screw giving them any more than 10 minutes of your time!

Amazon mandates return to office for 300,000 corporate staff

Re: Cat ... bag ...

Unfortunately they do have some sway, at least over any early retirees, because it is they who make the rules. So instead of requiring 35 years' NI contributions to qualify for a full state pension, they'll simply increase the number of qualifying years required. You must be fortunate enough to have youth on your side if you think that the populace ever gets on over on the government.

Time to walk the talk?

Looking forward to opportunities at Amazon now that all the people who said 'over my dead body will I return to the office' will be tendering their resignation, or perhaps they won't? Time for all the naysayers to put their money where their mouth is....

Most Londoners would quit before they give up working from home

Yeah, this. People are talking the talk at the moment, but would they walk the walk if every employer demanded at least some time in the office, I very much doubt it. All this talk of 'oh, I'm way more productive in the office' is a red herring. Individuals may be more productive, but teams as a whole won't be. Imagine starting a new job as a graduate at the moment, with a steep learning curve, and no-one in the office to ask those 'off the cuff' questions from which so much can be learnt. As a profession, if we work from home all the time we are conning the younger folk out of their career progression, and it's our failure, not theirs.

Too bad, contractors: UK government reverses decision to axe IR35 tax reform

Re: huge news really

Snarky little sh@t strikes again, as usual you appear to have lost your balls and posted AC.

Quit worrying about 5G C-band and crashing aircraft, US govt eggheads sigh

Said with all the conviction...

of an anonymous coward :-P

Good news for UK tech contractors as govt repeals IR35 tax rules

Re: Contractors rejoice

My job's going great thanks,

Just because I think you should pay your taxes doesn't mean that I have a chip on my shoulder, I earn an excellent salary and pay my way in society. You, on the other hand, seem proud that you are scamming society out of the contribution that you should be making. Your tax regimen i(f it matches what I described in my OP) may be legal, but it's immoral as hell. How's your conscience?

Re: Contractors rejoice

They didn't get shafted, they got exactly what they were legally entitled to based on what they indicated they were earning. Karma's a bitch ain't she.

Contractors rejoice

Yay say all the contractors, now we can go back to paying ourselves minimum wage, employing the wife/hubby as a director, and paying a big juicy divvy. All while simultaneously berating big tech for not paying their taxes, and being indignant at anyone who questions their own tax regime

BT strikes to start this month, 40,000 workers to down tools

Re: Go for it

There you go again, complaining that a comparatively high salary is not enough. 80k (top 5%) is a decent salary by any standards, it's over 4x minimum wage, and well over half the population dream of earning only half of that. Also, the 'if you count how much effort it takes to earn it' really exposes a quite deluded attitude, sitting on your arse for 8 hours a day, toiling at the keyboard (which is what I do too) is hardly 'hard' work. It's sometimes tiring, and can be stressful, but it's not roofing in the middle of summer, or mining coal is it? We get paid extremely well for what we do (in comparison to the vast majority), stop bloody whinging!

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

Re: too poor to ever own a car.

Eh? How are cars subsidised in any way?

Dell trials 4-day workweek, massive UK pilot of shortened week begins

Re: There is no such verb as "to trial"

That's bullshit, dogshit.

US imposes sanctions as Russia invades Ukraine

Re: @martinusher - Sanctions and Resources

Dickhead, that is all.

Love or hate your IT dept, money talks – and tech workers are getting more of it

Re: Laugh

I don't have an 'I'm lucky to have this job' mindset, I have an 'I'm lucky to be in a position to be able to negotiate a good salary (according to my skills, ability and experience) in a profession that I quite like' mindset. It helps keep me grounded enough such that I don't start to believe that I'm trapped in some sort of indentured servitude when I earn more than 95% of the population. It also helps me to negotiate well with new/existing employers such that I don't feel that I'm underselling my contribution. The way you complain is to leave and get a better job, either pay or conditions, or even both. Or you actually start that business in spite of the IR35 laws, rather than use them as an excuse for inaction and bitching.

Re: Laugh

Did you really just equate a salary of up to 150k with modern slavery? While they are not monumental, these salary bands are double the national average at a minimum, so calling them laughable is an insult to all the poor buggers who get by on minimum wage, or at best an actual 20-30k. Poor you that you can only stuff your isa through the years. I don't suggest that they are high salaries, but I'm lucky to be in one of the bands that are mentioned and live a dammed sweet life in comparison to the great majority of folks where I live. If you think your salary is too low then why don't you just Jack it in and offer yourself to the highest bidder? Or stop whining and start that bloody business? Entitled much?