Posts by Andy The Hat

The 'End of 10' is nigh, but don't bury your PC just yet

Re: TODO

"I've been using linux since Sarge 3.1, jumped a few distro's then stayed on ubuntu until Gnome classic popped of then jumped to xubuntu.

Once I was confident with linux and all things terminal I then made a VM running Arch, Installed that a few times to get the hang of that then lived in there for a few months to get the quirks out the way and then finally moved over to full on install.

Never looked back and have finally settled in hyprland on Arch with xfce as a fallback if wayland gets all weird"

Isn't this the basic problem? Present that comment to a average user and they'd look at you blankly. Present a USB install of win 11, stick it in the hole and go (give or take signing your life away) and away you go. Choice and variation across what seems to be "Linux" causes basic confusion.

There just needs to be a core install system that is extremely similar across all distros with no big user decisions or distros to decide on - just "Linux".

Everything "tweaky" should be built out from that core *if you want it but it is not necessary*. At the moment, user decisions that impact the basic system happen far too early and are far too confusing for general use.

Windows is currently a turtle, laying on it's back and desperately waggling it's legs in the air, but user confusion is not allowing Linux to take advantage of that situation. Indeed the desperate desire for difference may result in the Linux community directing users to turn over the turtle ...

AWS says Britain needs more nuclear power to feed AI datacenter surge

Re: Yes, but then again, No.

But the electricity price will still be artificially tied to oil price and the Government refuses to remove that tie even though green energy costs production are dropping.

As "net zero" plans and electricity usage is enforced, oil usage will drop, it's barrel cost will naturally balloon because of production efficiency losses and, surprise surprise, the cost of electricity *that everyone will now be forced to buy* will go through the roof.

Maximum profit for a few electricity moguls ... I wonder how many politicians will get directorships and fat brown envelopes?

India ready to greenlight Starlink – as long as it lets New Delhi censor, snoop

No difference to the UK "digital push"

Snooping is interesting.

As someone in the UK who has a landline, I believe if the authorities wish to "tap" my phone line they still have to apply for a warrant, general connection data is not mandated to be recorded. However, given the current push to "full fibre digital" and "you can't have a phone line with that except if you get a VOIP provider" and "sorry you are on 2G but you cannot transfer your full open payg tariff to 4G so we need you personal details for a contract" is this not pushing those basic levels of communication into a condition where they must be logged as requested by the state? It seems that mail is going to be the only thing left (currently) that requires a warrant to be snooped on. Slippery slopes and all that.

Microsoft pitches pay-to-patch reboot reduction subscription for Windows Server 2025

"Aim for xxx hotpatches per year ... which may require a reboot"

To rewrite that statement:

We "aim to find and patch vulnerabilities or update software xxx times per year" and

We "require a subscription for you to have a hot patch service which may or may not actually be a hot patch ..."

This is MS "helping" customers apparently.

Customers already pay for this software and updates, this is just a change in update methodology. Is this the first step for MS supplying software updates as a subscription model?

How to stay on Windows 10 instead of installing Linux

I may be old and set in my ways ...

but I may be one of those who would just lob £50 at Microsoft to buy those security upgrades that are being developed anyway for LTSC releases for the next few years ... no cost to MS, all profit.

The retail extended support subscription is way too expensive and, unless people decide to upgrade hardware, they are in a no win (sic) situation.

Only other option is a third party attempts to produce security releases as they have with earlier versions ...

UK's attempt to keep details of Apple 'backdoor' case secret… denied

Basic point here

The issue is whether the TCN refers to particular individual(s) who are subject to law enforcement action or whether it is a general requirement.

If it refers to individual(s) then I believe the law says that it should all be kept secret as the ongoing case may be a matter of "national security".

However, if the TCN refers to Apple and it's service in general, with no targeted law enforcement case, then there is no issue of national security *at this time* to address apart from "we can't break it, we might want to break it at some point".

That second scenario is simply untenable - it would open the door to a who plethora of issues where the government demands (and obtains) authoritarian rights over communications, goods, services or individual rights "just because there may be a criminal in the future, think of the children!"

On the issue of AI copyright, Blair Institute favors tech bros over Cool Britannia

Re: Freebies

Why don't you just "identify" as a corporate AI and carry on stealing data? As long as you replicate it badly you can even sell it at a profit by "identifying" as a search engine with ads.

OTF, which backs Tor, Let's Encrypt and more, sues to save its funding from Trump cuts

" this DEI Presidumb – who got the job only for being an entitled white male".

I must disagree, I believe he is orange.

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

I'm so old that I remember when new things were implemented when the user asked for them and didn't have to second guess the day when unwanted "features" may be rammed down their throats.

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

Re: It takes a mix

And:

One to hold the purse strings

One to produce an irrelevant specification

One to check the purse strings are still held

One to write a contract for the correct amount of money in line with purse-string checker.

On to maintain a check on the implementation

One to explain to the government committee why the project will not complete on time

One to complain and reduce the amount of money available because the contract is too expensive and not completing on time

One to open the purse strings because the consultant requires more cash otherwise they can't complete on time and

One to open the purse strings further the contract written didn't actually have a completion date but did have a tie-in to the contractor for 20 years ...

UK's biggest mobile operator starts 3G switchoff, hopes it won't catch out April fools

Great news ...

Nice to know I'm in the 1% who can't get 4G indoors ...

Also nice to know that as someone who has a rolling PAYG SIM with Tescos with about £20 per year credit, I've been offered a expiring monthly contract as "PAYG is not yet available on 4G". Good to know because I will be able to pay monthy for a service I will never completely use and already know I can't use at home ...

I don't want smart I just want emergency phone and text ... and I don't want to swap to one of the dirt cheap tariffs that are 3g based because that would be stupid ...

Political poker? Tariff hunger games? Trump creates havoc for PC industry

"President Trump's ongoing trade war ..."

I see this term quite often but as Trump is unilaterally (for the most part) imposing extra taxes and restrictions on his own people who, we must remember, voted him in to do this stuff, how is that a war?

Is it not more of a drive-by-shoot-yourself-in-the-foot?

Crew-9 splashes down while NASA floats along with Trump and Musk nonsense

they _could_ have used the Starliner capsule

True, but they'd have needed to fit super-clench-resistant seating. Even as a test pilot, I would imagine riding a ship with no ejector seat and was already known to have issues would be more than gluteus-stimulating.

Do AI robo-authors qualify for copyright? It's still no, says appeals court

Maybe there's an ulterior motive to this?

Let me think out loud here ...

Assume it is decided that copyright can be assigned to an AI without prior registration of that copyright (as per current authorship).

Assume someone owns AI System B.

Assume then that Author A uses AI System B to produce some part of their work. System B could then be declared a co-author in copyright terms and could "legitimately" request, via their human owners, a share of Author A's royalties on that work.

To extend that further, any work generated in part by an AI system would earn royalties on the back of the human author's work ...

As a cynic, I could see the big AI companies strong-arming the use of their "AI driven technology" for auto summation, auto-indexing, auto-content or auto-layout design of a document for instance and claiming partial copyright for the AI, thus royalties for the parent company ...

SpaceX Dragon pod arrives at ISS to finally pick up stranded Boeing astronaut pair

Re: Rescue mission in space?

yes but to get such a situation sorted, surely Trump could just pull some strings ...

As Chromecast outage drags on, fix could be days to weeks away

Re: Googleprecation

I accept that Google is wonderful and would never disadvantage ordinary people in any way.

But I do wonder whether the action of selling products with time constrained certificates or baked in reliance on an external web sever which can be killed at will, without telling the customer that the product they have purchased in good faith has a manufacturer controlled end of life date is a legal practise.

Deprecation and not providing support after n years is fair enough but including a time bomb ...?

City council rejects inquiry into £130M Oracle IT disaster

Hmm ...

Let's not have a local investigation into whether there was anything illegal happening within the council structure because:

"On the issue of the possible offenses, I think this council should remember that this is not a court of law, and that those matters are rightly and properly pursued by the council's legal team,"

So, have the council's legal team been instructed to conduct an investigation this with respect to illegalities? It appears not as there has been no local investigation to raise specific legal concerns to be investigated by the legal team. So that's ok then - Procedure 37a subsection 2: "Beware of the Leopard: ensuring one's own arse is well covered before opening the basement door" successfully enacted ...

Has any other project, even some of the gloriously awful military and government ones, actually managed to go 10x overbudget?

Europe's largest council kept auditors in the dark on Oracle rollout fiasco for 10 months

Re: To err is human...

"How many of you still have letters from two decades ago? How about emails?"

I haven't deleted a non-scam email since about 1996 ... and it absolutely saved my bacon in 2000 ...

The issue for me will be with withdrawl of support for .pst files in outlook (that's what we get so no alternatives) as I don't want multi-megabytes of live email database that's mainly cover-my-arse historic.

SpaceX's 'Days Since Starship Exploded' counter made it to 48. It's back to zero again now

Re: Bodge job

There is no evidence released that says the cause of the incident was an engine failure - changing an engine is a red herring.

The issue (harmonic response) caused failure of the fuel system somewhere - downcomer joints, engine manifolds, even tank structure itself and leakage into the attic. The problem is that they may have cured the apparent issue (as demonstrated during the extended static fire) but if the fuel itself acts as a dampener (eg for the main downcomer) then the fuel level may mitigate the problem until it reaches a critical level or be in a certain attitude.

The only way they could even try to stimulate this issue in testing is a full tank test firing, but on a test stand this may not demonstrate the issue (see comments about pogo earlier) - for a start the dynamic forces are different and the vehicle attitude is wrong ... So, unless the fault is a result of minimisation which can be found, or a basic design flaw with the triple downcomer pipe structure (which I believe was used in the last flight and this) the only way to test it is to fly it ...

Microsoft goes native with Copilot. Again

Co-pilot, where is mt data going?

Simple query, "how do I get my printer working?". What then happens?

I assume that the system looks at your machine, takes a full hardware and software inventory, uploads it to the system where your data is absorbed into the Artificial Anus as training data so MS can make more money out of it, then suggests the user should watch a couple of episodes of the IT Crowd to learn how to reset their system?

I don't want my system data uploaded - if details of system configurations are made available to all and sundry beyond my firewall (even "accidentally") it could display an attack surface or provide data to advertisers.

So how do I stop that trawl happening? Does GDPR "legitimate interest" not include the right to refuse to have data uploaded unless the user consents to it - assuming if it is personal and, in my opinion, software configurations of machines could be very personal - eg finding drivers or hardware identifiers for Blow-Up Brenda and Vibrating Vicky?

How the collapse of local cloud provider caused biz continuity issues in UK government

Cloud collapse ...

Cost lots of money.

Company worth little, but you could by it cheap as a going concern. It would keep things running for you and potentially save money in the long term.

Why have the Government let it fold if it's that important?

Something strange going on here unless it's a demonstration of how we should feed the MS/AWS pigs at the trough and not doing things ourselves ...

Hisense QLED TVs are just LED TVs, lawsuit claims

Re: Some weird doublethink here

A restaurant had a load of bottles of house wine unsold and needed to move them. They pushed them on their menus and took some money off and still couldn't sell them. Nobody wanted cheap plonk.

Then, at someone's suggestion, they doubled the price.

All was sold with rave reviews of the product from customers.

No difference, just buyer expectation of what it should be like based on external factors (eg the price).

As long as the claim means nothing tangible you are in the clear. Is a quantum dot as per the MIT patent, the Samsung patent, the Sony patent, the LG patent ... or is it just a panel made of very small substrate LEDs (in the marketing sense of quantum=small, dot=small) or conversely, a technological step in LEDs (as in quantum leap=big step, dot=LED pixel)?

Personally I think the claimants are pissing into the wind with this.

Bybit declares war on North Korea's Lazarus crime-ring to regain $1.5B stolen from wallet

Re: Hey!

Some beans and some more beans. Isn't that a very small casserole?

Microsoft trims more CPUs from Windows 11 compatibility list

There is a fundamental difference between hardware required to run it and "hardware requirement" to run it with it's full and entire mashup of "apps" (is it just me that hates that word?)

Simply issuing a "minimum hardware spec" for the system to run (which was what they always did, if somewhat unrealistically) with a conditional set of extra requirements to support things like higher security protocols would have got them out of a huge crock of excrement.

As it is, they are shown to be issuing hardware requirements that are patently false for most cases and, I would suggest, deliberately misleading customers and misusing a dominant market position.

Google binning SMS MFA at last and replacing it with QR codes

Re: What about all the people who don't have smartphones?

Surprisingly I don't need an app to wipe my arse ...

UK government insiders say AI datacenters may be a pricey white elephant

Re: There is no business case for the investment amounts that have been mooted.

"Better invest my pension in the publishers of Razzle, Fiesta and the like, or the companies mailing them out in brown envelopes....

Note for overseas readers: Probably best not to search for those publications on a work computer. Not only will the themes cause all enterprise filtering and monitoring to sound the klaxon, you might be very disappointed in these exceptionally down-market journals."

I always thought they were the bottom end of the market too ...

Google confirms Gulf of Mexico renamed to appease Trump – but only in the US

Perhaps the time is right ?

I keep getting Spitting Image "Is a Nut Running the Country?" flashbacks but they now involve decaying fruit ...

Their recent effort was poor because everyone was just hopelessly dull but currently there's so much potential to stab and twist the satirical knife ...

US freezes foreign aid, halting cybersecurity defense and policy funds for allies

Re: if it forces European leaders into self sufficiency

It's ok, we'll dump all the snake-oil Cisco crap for better Huawei stuff as the US balance of payments obviously doesn't need our tax dollars ...

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

Re: Why the obfuscation?

Come now. Some people are just so cynical and can never see the positives in such initiatives. There is one ... somewhere ...

Court rules FISA Section 702 surveillance of US resident was unconstitutional

"... If confirmed as DNI, I will uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people."

A Trump appointment meaning "the safety and freedom of the American people except anyone recognising, actively acting on behalf of or supporting in any way those identifying as LQBTQ+, non-american citizens or unbelievers as per the words preached by the Lord High Marshal 'till Underverse comes!"

China and friends claim success in push to stamp out tech support cyber-scam slave camps

Re: Strange numbers

Those nasty 70k people who forced officials and other "leaders" into enslaving them ... China is freeing the 170 from the drudgery of their daily slave-driving. The other 70k have no papers so must be foreign spies who can be imprisoned in chinese work camps making iphones whilst investigations continue.

UK tax collector's phone service 'deliberately' bad to push users online, say MPs

Such a simple view ...

All complaining about the system but the roses are about to bloom!

Apparently the enlightened Government is pulling sqillions of pounds from budgets to replace the aged HMRC system with AI because according to the venture capitalist advisor, obviously, AI!

The AI will be much better than the current HMRC system as it's been fully trained by the HMRC.

The AI will be able to save money by answering the phone using the same message "the phone lines are still experiencing the unusually high volumes of traffic" used since Covid.

The AI will be able to answer all questions as long as they are the correct questions.

The AI will be able to pass you to an operator where you can be put on hold until your call times out.

At any time during your call, the AI system can be queried by starting your phrase with "Alexa ..."

This will be so much better since an answerphone message can be replaced with a multi-million pound AI system to do a better job with no human interaction at any point *and* the Government get to sell all your data to the highest bidders.

UK aims to fix government IT with help from AI Humphrey

as I believe is phrasmotic contrafibularities ...

And no doubt another nice bonus for a AI-enthused venture capitalist crony ...

How long until "national id to allow easy access to Government services" will be trawled up again?

Microsoft to force Windows 11 24H2 on Home and Pro users

"If an enforced update borks a user's computer why should MS not be prosecuted under the appropriate legislation?"

I said similar elsewhere.

To knowingly breaking a system with software is an offence under computer misuse whichever way you look at it. "Accidental issues" can be argued over but when it is already clear that there is a problem and forced, automatic implementation is then enabled there can be little argument. Who's got the cash to employ a lawyer to test this?

AI pothole patrol to snap flaws in Britain's crumbling roads

Re: Depth measurement

"an optical-only system fails miserably when the roads are wet "

That was my feeling too ... when is a puddle a 8'x4' wide dip in the tarmac and when is it a gaping chasm to hell filled with enough water to a whole flange of baboons?

Medusa ransomware group claims attack on UK's Gateshead Council

Re: ? do they understand UK councils

Not so. They'd employ a couple of management consultants to tell them how many cleaners and bin men to sack to save the cash.

SpaceX resets ‘Days Since Starship Exploded’ counter to zero

Interesting pair of failures

Yes I know both were test flights and in that view were both successful as they will have produced useful data.

Both BONE and Starship failed to complete their entire missions but which was least bad?

BONE booster failed but got payload to space - good for customers but bad for the company bottom line. Is that seen as a success?

Starship failed but the booster landed - good for the company costs but bad for the customer ... does that make it a fail?

I wonder how the company investors and potential customers see it? Perhaps "just a test, we don't care."? Traditionally nobody worried about the booster after stage sep and that was costed into the flight but now that margins are squeezing, customers save loads of money but that introduces financial risk for the launch company as multiple scenarios now have to play out to make any mission a financial winner ...

Re: caused the ship to RUD

Apparently I managed to disassemble my dad's favourite radio when I was a little kid ... no way was that being reassembled!

Brits must prove their age on adult sites by July, says watchdog

Re: Age verification

Does this mean age verification is required to watch Youtube because of all the "tool improvement" adverts that are doing the rounds at the moment or do they ban Youtube, which is used by millions of teachers for valid material, because the kids may be exposed to tool tips ...?

Re: Age verification

"another commentard will pitch in with memories of sharing porn on Jacquard loom punched cards in even earlier decades "

I saw a documentary about oil-on-canvas depictions of vile acts by the Bishop of Bath and Wells painted by A Genius ... "Don't bother to try to destroy it, we have the preliminary sketches ..." :-)

UK unveils plans to mainline AI into the veins of the nation

Re: When did the public consultation happen?

' the creation of a new National Data Library to "unlock" the value of public data in supporting AI development.'

That statement blatantly says public data will aggregated and sold to AI systems. It does nothing to suggest any level of privacy or opt-in for the use of data so why do we need public consultation as, obviously, if you have nothing to hide why would you worry ...?

Surely this shows how incompetent the Government are ...

What happens when someone subpoenas Cloudflare to unmask a blogger? This...

Re: First Amendment

"ride into town in a Tamworth Pig "

Two things do I understand from this - Trump riding into town in the company of a pig, and secondly, Trump riding into town in a pig. Both appear equally likely but either way I think the RSPCA would have a good case for gross abuse of a pig and deliberate contamination of a pig with agent orange ...

Broadcom says VMware is a better money-making machine than it hoped

Re: And how long...

It'll be just fine. Users will see the "70% margin" on their product, obviously decide that it's great value and buy more ...

Win a slice of XP cheese if you tell us where Microsoft should put Copilot next

carry on everyone ...

I believe they should demonstrate it's abilities and include it as a free upgrade on all Oozlum birds ...

SpaceX hits 400 launches of Falcon 9 rocket

Re: Male bovine excrement.

apart from it wasn't ditched, a landing leg failed on landing so it tipped over, and it had done 23 launches which is more that it was originally expected to do.

Don't know exactly with that booster but the original aim was more than 5 launches to be economic, that was increased to "up to 15 launches" now it's "realistically how many times can we land this thing?"

As long as it's safe for the payload going up, and it makes it back in a controlled fashion to either ditch in the sea or land on the pad then it's done more than any other orbital rocket is expected to do ...

Mysteries in polar orbit – space's oldest working hardware still keeps its secrets

Please

"a power budget of 12-14 watts - less than a three amp USB charger"

Or, to put it another way

It takes 12-14W which is less than a 15W charger

Why not use meaningful comparisons? Less power than an electric toothbrush. Less power than a car brake light. Less power than a Big Mike pleasure device on vibe setting 3 err 4 errrr errrr errr ...

Microsoft shuttering dedicated licensing education, certification site

From next year

"bing bong ... The certification you have just missed on platform four was for licensing ... calling at Slough, Dodcot ... bing bong"

Google's AI bug hunters sniff out two dozen-plus code gremlins that humans missed

Who gave it bad training data?

Wonder whose bug-ridden code they used to train the model?

Study suggests X turned right just in time for election season

Is this the correct conclusion to draw from the data available?

I'm not sure about this.

The fact that Musk endorsed Trump would naturally attract more right (in the American sense) leaning support and was probably a significant contribution towards those increased exposure statistics. But the argument presented is that the increased exposure *artificially* increased on the day he endorsed Trump. I'm not sure the paper differentiates or, without inside information, could differentiate between the two scenarios. Once the ball was rolling, the retweets etc follow and is the way X works - publicity creating publicity.