Posts by HMcG

Rust for Linux maintainer steps down in frustration with 'nontechnical nonsense'

Re: Living this dream in my workplace right now...

I would imagine that it’s not an unwillingness to learn something new , just a judgement on the effort vs value of learning Rust in particular. Rust is new, not widely adopted, and as a kernel language unproven. Compared to applying that time and effort into improving the current C++ code, it’s not a given that learning Rust is of value ton Linux kernel dev.

The push for incorporating Rust code into the Linux kernel seems to be as much ( if not more) about promoting Rust as it is about improving the Linux kernel.

If a cheesy '80s flick is a good metaphor for how you run projects, something is wrong

Re: Cheesy flick ?

Highlander is still the best music video ever made.

Deadbeat dad faked his own death by hacking government databases

Re: Yeahbut

> If you hack the school mainframe and give yourself all A’s, are you really still a dummy?

You are if you then try to sell your “all A’s” hacking services to everyone else in your class.

CrowdStrike hires outside security outfits to review troubled Falcon code

Re: what happened

Beyond that, what really horrified me is what seems to be a complete lack of any crash log checking and safe rollback.

If you are messing around with your customers critical systems at a privileged kernel level, there’s an absolute duty to have a watchdog monitor that’ checks your drivers crash logs and safety rolls back any updates, before any such updates are loaded again.

There seems to have been a complete lack of any such function. At the very least, I hope that Microsoft revoke their boot-driver flag privilege, as Crowdstrike have not taken their duty to do no harm seriously enough.

Keir Starmer says facial recognition tech is the answer to far-right riots

Re: Buy Shares In Hoodies.....ASAP......

“ it's a bit harder to change"

Not that hard, just put on a pair of high-heeled shoes.

Might make the rioting a bit tricky, though….

Is AI going to pay its way? Wall Street wants tech world to show it the money

Re: It's the journey, not the destination

LLMs, by the very nature of them, only output average quality and extremely derivative works, so that would be a big fat 0 on any of the liberal arts,

EU AI Act still in infancy, but those with 'intelligent' HR apps better watch out

“ Last year, Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, said regulating foundation models was effectively regulating research and development. "

This would be the same Meta that just settled with the Texas legislature for a billion dollars, for using AI to illegally scape biometric data to name-tags photos without permission? I think we can do without that guys opinion on AI regulation.

Oracle's Java pricing brews bitter taste, subscribers spill over to OpenJDK

Re: FALSE

> an application running on Oracle Java will run just as well on Java from a different vendor.

Whilst that’s true, it would probably be better worded “just as poorly”. This is Java, after all.

London council accuses watchdog of 'exaggerating' danger of 2020 raid on residents' data

It depends on how the fine is applied. A fine that is effectively transferred into earmarked funding for the IT improvements that the ICO determines are required would be a better option than just a rebuke, as show by the councils unwillingness to accept that the rebuke is justified.

A thump with the pointy end of a screwdriver will fix this server! What could possibly go wrong?

Re: Worst for who?

"the second worst was to the person they were working with."

Many an adage based on this principle.

Never tempt fate, always cut towards your mate.

Never cut towards your thumb, always cut towards your chum.

etc etc.

Scarlett Johansson voices anger at OpenAI's unauthorized soundalike

It's certainly interesting that they have refused to name the voice actor in question "to protect their privacy".

Most any voice actor loves any promotion they can get, as they are all to often treated as a commodity, and actors as a group aren't known for being shy and introverted...

HR expert says biz leaders scared RTO mandates lead to staff attrition

As an interviewee, that's actually a very useful method for weeding out potential employers whose management exhibit the kind of stupidity that crashes companies. If your colleagues are being hired because they can polish shoes nicely rather than their ability to do their job*, that's not a company you want to work for.

* Unless your job is polishing shoes, obvs.

US Air Force says AI-controlled F-16 fighter jet has been dogfighting with humans

Re: Oh, no. Just think about all those poor F-16 pilots that will need to find a new job!

What on earth makes you think AI's are going to be sane?

Brit publishers beg Apple not to hurt online ad revenue

Re: banning mobile phones for under-16s, which is unmatched in stupidity

If you think a 16 year old is more easily manipulated than a 50 year old, you have not been paying attention to what's been going on in Newscorp / Fox for the last few decades...

Undersea cables must have high-priority protection before they become top targets

Re: Should be easy to spot something cutting dozens of cables

Beyond around 300 to 600m depth, cables are not even buried. No need for a plough, a simple grapnel run with a shearing grapnel would wreck havoc.

And cost-cutting (or profit-gouging) by providers means there are far fewer cables repair vessels on standby than there used to be.

(Once upon a time trans-Atlantic cables came with there own repair vessel thrown into the deal, which remained fully crewed on permanent standby for repairs, such was the revenue from international telephone calls).

They call me 'Growler'. I don't like you. Let's discuss your pay cut

Scrumpy Farms

I'm pretty sure that stuff was the inspiration for the scene in 'Alien' with the xenomorph blood...

Well, if everyone was to behave like that, we wouldn't have any Growlers in the first place.

I've been in the opposite situation - had a 'Growler' for a boss, moved company, got promoted, and sat on the interview panel when, low and behold, 'Growler' walks in applying for a job. Immediately started acting like we had been best buddies previously.

Needless to say, he didn't get the job.

Re: Why wouldn't he insist on something in writing before the meeting?

From experience, with a 'personality' like Growler, they would do everything within their power, contract or not, to stiff you on your share. Dealing with someone like that is painful enough when it's company money, when it's (what they see as) their own, you can multiply that by a factor of 10. The pain and cost of going to court to get your share isn't worth it, and with some people, you know beforehand that's the way it's going to go.

Work for you? Again? After you lied about the job and stole my stuff? No thanks

Re: "And to this day, the more he dislikes someone, the more polite he is towards them."

I don't burn many bridges, but those I do burn, I use Thermite on.

Web archive user's $14k BigQuery bill shock after running queries on 'free' dataset

>"Are you sure you want to process 2.5 petabytes of data?" seems like a good question to ask whenever something like this gets run.

Not if you are making £14,000 by not asking the question...

Meta seeks ASIC designers for ML accelerators and datacenter SoCs

Shurely shome mishtake

I thought their glorious AI was supposed to be able to do that for you?

Perhaps they want something better than whatever the average opinion on the internet provides...

We put salt in our tea so you don't have to

If you are fussing with all this but still filling your kettle with chlorinated tap-water, you don't know what you are talking about.

The rise and fall of the standard user interface

Common elements, such as standard menus and dialog boxes, were often reminscent of MacOS<CTRL-H><CTRL-H><CTRL-H><CTRL-H><CTRL-H> Xerox Alto.

Everyone copied the Alto, then accused the competition of copying them.

How governments become addicted to suppliers like Fujitsu

Re: ""the system and licenses are not readily interchangeable or interoperable"

And on a much, much larger scale of incompetence, HS2.

Re: Corruption

There's also issues with undue personal influence. The head of UK Fujitsu during this scandal, Michael Keegan, is currently employed as "a crown representative to the Cabinet Office, managing cross-government relationships with BAE Systems as a strategic supplier to the Government, He is a non-executive director of the technology company Centerprise, "

He also happens to be married to the current Minister for Education, Gillian Keegan.

It's cronyism all the way down...

Silicon Valley weirdo's quest to dodge death – yours for $333 a month

Re: You don't measure a life by it's length, you measure it by it's breadth..

Breadth:

1) the distance from one side to another: "The length of this box is twice its breadth."

2) the fact of including many different things, features, subjects, or qualities: "The breadth of her experience is amazing."

You don't measure a life by it's length, you measure it by it's breadth..

He probably isn't going to live longer, it's just going to seem like it. Time passes slowly when you're not having fun.

While we fire the boss, can you lock him out of the network?

So this supposed engineer has an entire hot-backup at home, but is simultaneously rummaging around in the live systems where he knows he might get caught out? Why wouldn't he just access the same files on his own, unmonitored copy?

I call bullshit on this entire story.

Office gossips beware – chitchat could choke your career chances

Re: If someone voices their opinion about someone

I generally try to tune everyone out.

I barely, grudgingly have time for colleges spilling their own personal stuff, let alone 2nd hand reports of someone else's life.

It's a preview party at Microsoft, but do you really want an invite?

Re: Google Workspace vs Office is a problem for them

I tried out Google Workspace, years ago, for a couple of days, then never used it again.

I'm pretty sure Google will have me down as a user, when it comes down to promotional figure like these.

Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

Norway, one of the countries the article is about, and a small country with a population of around 5 million, has a sovereign weath fund (the financial equivalent of the petty cash book) of over $1.2 trillion. In comparison, Elon Musk's net worth peaked at about $200 billion, and has dropped considerably since then. The idea that Musk is more powerful than one of the Nordic countries in question is utterly ill-informed.

Boffins find asking ChatGPT to repeat key words can expose its training data

Re: Not unexpected

Except when other multi-billion corporations have a vested interest in the copyright. Then they do need to bother about it, a lot.

UK government rings the death knell for SIM farms

Bulk SMS for businesses is a nice little earner for any of the major carriers. Killing off cheaper competition through captive legislation is always nice.

I wouldn't've be the slightest surprised if Ben Wallace and/or Tom Tugendhat end up on a nice little 'consultancy' for one of the major mobile providers, for 'services rendered'.

That time a JPL engineer almost killed a Mars Rover before it left Earth

Re: Measure twice, cut once.

A single hand-clap behind their head at the precise moment they throw the switch generally results in much fun as well.

Microsoft dials back Bing after users manage to recreate Disney logo in fake AI-generated images

Re: Teens can also get Bard to help them learn skills or complete homework

Many, many years ago, when I was still at school, extra homework was frequently used as a punishment.

That pretty much tells you what the real purpose of homework is.

None of this AI cheating is really new. Homework has always been pretty much useless as a teaching aid.

There has always been ways of copying others work, and only the most blatant copying was ever caught.

I've even seen 'helpfulc parents effectively doing their kids homework for them in order to boost their grades, if it forms part of any assessment.

IBM pauses advertising on X after ads show up next to antisemitic content

Re: What did they expect from Musk?

The moment you resort to claiming someone "has lost the argument", without you having providied any sound arguments, facts or references, is just an attempt to shut down any discussion. Which, ironically, mostly happens when you are losing the argument...

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean AI's not after you

"some (jobs) will no longer be needed”.

I can think of one recently created job at BT that could go without adversely affecting BT's future...

Italy seizes from Airbnb $836M in alleged unpaid taxes

Re: Doesn’t add up

€3.7 billion total rental revenue. Air BnB owe tax of 21% = €777 million, give or take.

We're getting that fry-day feeling... US Army gets hold of drone-cooking microwave rig

Re: Soled

Your microwave oven analogy is is specious, Microwave ovens have a very specific single frequency, thus they can, as you say, be blocked by a mesh of the correct pitch . But assuming that a drone defence system won’t have variable, or even multiple frequencies is unrealistic.

As to your claim that a mobile phone will still receive a call inside a microwave, I suggest you try that experiment while the oven is on at full power….

Re: Obvious Countermeasure

Any “obvious countermeasures “ that are going to have a hope in hell of blocking high power microwaves are (and let’s just ignore the obvious weight issues and blocking of airflow) also going to completely block any RF signals for GPS positioning, remote control and data transmission, thus rendering the drone effectively useless. The thing about faraday cages is they work in both directions.

Unit4 ditching on-prem in favor of SaaS come 2025

Absolutely. The last company you want to use to migrate to cloud services is the one forcing you into to by pulling the rug from under your feet.

Lenovo PC boss: 4 in 5 of our devices will be repairable by 2025

I would be more inclined to believe some of this marketing spiel if they were currently selling replacement parts on their website. But since they aren’t, I’ll take it with more than a pinch of salt.

The 16” is certainly going to be at the top of my list when I need to replace my current Lenovo.

My Lenovo laptop’s guarantee, as with many laptop manufacturers, is effectively worthless as you have to ship it off for a minimum 3 weeks to get it repaired, and they will almost certainly wipe the drive as the 1st thing they do.

Re: Battery safety

Which also enabled being able to carry a 2nd charged battery . Design had gone backwards from a practicality point of view.

Cryptocoin Ponzi scheme AirBit Club co-founder jailed

<Cryptocoin Ponzi scheme

Now there's a tautology, if ever I heard one.

Switch to hit the fan as BT begins prep ahead of analog phone sunset

Re: “Roads? Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads” (Doc Brown)

There are supposedly 'technical' folks on this site that would moan about moving on from Morse Code and the telegraph system.

Not in my experience over the last 20-odd years. Any time the power went out the local exchange lost power too, which may be down to the power oruting.

Why can't datacenter operators stop thinking about atomic power?

It's only cheap until it comes to decommissioning. And the decommissioning cost overruns will no doubt be dumped on the taxpayer.

It looks like you’re a developer. Would you like help upgrading Windows 11?

Re: set up the OS in a configuration intended to delight software developers

Good luck making a living selling to that 2.7% of the desktop market - with a user base notoriously adverse to actually paying for anything.

Why Chromebooks are the new immortals of tech

Re: Macs supported way more than 3 years

>Major macOS versions are only maintained for three years.

Yes, quoting the support period for a single version of MacOS without point out that version upgrades are free and support for older Macs last far longer (at least 8 years in my experience so far) is fundamentally dishonest.