Posts by hardboiledphil

Supermicro admits building AI infrastructure is a tricky, low-margin business ... for now

It does seem strange that in a time of such a demand bubble you'd be accepting low margin business.

Meta faces multiple complaints in Europe over plans to train AI on user data

Re: I don’t use faecesbook

How do they know its you if you don't have an account where they can learn your image?

Windows Subsystem for Linux gets enterprise friendly and plans a settings interface

Oh no.. Defender

While I'm stuck on a works WIndows machine WSL is a godsend for me. Most of the dev stuff I do on it is way easier to do (just sudo apt to install tools) and generally it's 2 to 5 times faster than using Windows itself. The thought of them letting Defender stick it's podgy fingers into WSL sounds like the whole WSL system will end up going as slow and sucking as much as Windows (sad face)

.wslconfig does have some default settings in it already

Brexit border system outage puts perishable goods transport in peril

Re: A power outage

Who said they didn't have a backup? Maybe the backup failed too.

I've seen a client have 3 backups and still lose datacentre - one backup was under maintenance and the other two failed to work.

Japan may need 50% more electricity for hungry, hungry AI and chip fabs

So we all have to have reduced power vacuum cleaners and LED lights but industry can add 35% to enery usage (and consequently CO2) and no one's concerned?

Java 17 now developers' favorite brew, with Eclipse Adoptium proving popular, too

Re: Oracle DB?

We had a large cost reduction drive aimed mainly at Oracle DB as they changed the pricing model for the cloud significantly - goodbye Oracle.

Then they started threatening to charge for Java and nothing we had required Oracle version so - goodbye Oracle. Company actually deleted the Oracle JDK off my work machine but by then we'd already moved to Adoptium so didn't matter.

Surprised still so many using their JDK.

Would be interesting to know who's using Graalvm Community v Enterprise. Need to read up on the licencing for the Community edition

The ZX81 finally gets the keyboard it deserves

Re: How times have changed..

I had the Memotech memory pack as well as the graphics pack.

My uncle built the computer from the kit for me and at a later stage he also fitted a keyboard from a library terminal system as that's what he was working with/installing at the time.

Microsoft claims it didn't mean to inject Copilot into Windows Server 2022 this week

Saw a screenshot on twitter - application package was a whole 8Kb. So either is wasn't the full thing or their compression got REALLY good. Still you don't want random sh**e appearing on your prod servers.

Boeing paper trail goes cold over door plug blowout

Re: Real information and professional insight

+1 for the Blanolirio channel.

Watch it for a few weeks and you'll realise just how many people die in small plane crashes around the world!

Wanna run Windows on an M-series Mac? Fine, buy a license, but no baremetal

>> I now have a 14900H with 64GB RAM 2TB disk. <<

And 32 minutes of battery life while it runs at half its max speed coz it's not plugged in ;-)

Apple exec defends 8GB $1,599 MacBook Pro, claims it's like 16GB in a PC

MaxTech has just released a video comparing exactly same M3 machine with 8Gb and 16Gb. A few activities it made little difference but overall I think the verdict was don't buy one and if you're going to upgrade the memory then you might as well go for the next spec up and get 18Gb and a few other things for not much more than the memory difference from the 8gb

Re: Mac system requirements

Do people still really use HDD for system drives these days? Can't imagine how slow that must be....

You can check memory pressure in activity monitor - much better view on how much memory is being "used" than what you might be used to using over the last 20 years of task-manager or htop

There are loads of videos on youtube comparing speeds of different memory M1/M2 at jobs such as Photoshop and running VMs (check out Alex Ziskind for instance). Surprisingly the tail off in speed was pretty minimal on M1s even with 8Gb. I don't though disagree that 8gb is pathetic these days.

Dropbox limits ‘all the storage you need’ unlimited plan, blames abusive users

Is the issue here that SharePoint can't do trainable downloads? Shouldn't matter that much how many attempts it takes as long as it doesn't start again each time

SpaceX, T-Mobile US phone service will interfere with ours, claims rival

Non-geostationary. Such a mouthful.

Geo-fluid, geo-active perhaps?

SUSE announces its own RHEL-compatible distro... again

In general companies that are paying Redhat for RHEL aren't that worried about FOSS...

.. except that if you look at the support agreement that they provide then often there is a section that says that if RH can't fix the issue then they'll do there best to work with the open source community to come up with the solution.

So in some ways it's not good that they're likely pi**ing off the community that they might need to help them at some point in the future.

About ducking time: Apple fixes up autocorrect in iOS 17

back up

It's no different from normal backup you should probably do before any upgrade. Plug it into your mac/PC and let the OS/iTunes back it up.

White Castle collecting burger slingers' fingerprints looks like a $17B mistake

Yep - "storing it every time" just doesn't make sense - you store it once and the software compares the scanner's output with known value.

Apple’s M2 chip isn’t a slam dunk, but it does point to the future

Re: Not a fanboy

I have an M1Max (personal) and an Dell i9 (company) and admittedly the Max was more money but there really is no comparison for everyday use. Max is same speed whether on battery or power but i9 significanly slower on batter. Max is silent while i9 has fans running when constantly over 10-20% cpu and Max probably lasts 4 times as long on battery. Company machine does have some other crap on it that doesn't really help it's performance (it's faster compiling in WSL2 than Windows???) but if it was my money on the i9 I'd be sorely disappointed unless I didn't know how much better other machines can be to use

Happy birthday, Microsoft Money: Here's a cashpoint calamity for Windows and .NET

Re: MS Money and Quicken

Still using Money 97 for the basics for which it excels (sic) at.

Just using an XP virtual machine on OSX/Linux and it runs fine. Data file is visible to the VM through a shared folder from the host OS - which will back it up automatically via time machine/dropbox etc.

I did look around for something similar and even with the advanced stuff I never found anything that came close to it's functionality and ease of use.

The UK is running on empty when it comes to electric vehicle charging points

Re: Some things that would help the situation

Twizzy just needs a standard 3 pin plug....

The coming of Wi-Fi 6 does not mean it's time to ditch your cabled LAN. Here's why

Re: WiFi it's the future honest!

I have fallen to this scam during my time away from the office. Gone is my hardwire to the docking station. Sure the wifi is fast now but the office is empty...

On the plus side I now have ethernet over power + cat 5/1gb switch at home for laptops/desktop/appletv/ etc and phone/tablet have much less interruption than when I used to use the wifi on the shared house wifi

FBI paid renegade developer $180k for backdoored AN0M chat app that brought down drug underworld

Reminds me - time to watch The Wire again....

What's that about Apple hardware? Pfft, says Intel as it intros magical self-healing PC

Battery

All day battery life seems pointless if you never have to go anywhere

For the price tag, this iPad Pro keyboard better damn well be Magic: It isn't... but it's not completely useless either

Re: It's the software, stupid

My 5 SE is running 13.4.1 and looks like it wants to download 13.5. How come a 6 won't run these?

Tesla has made a profit. Repeat, Tesla has made a profit – $143m in fact

Re: More Tax?

Not likely if they've got a billion dollars of losses to offset it against. Looks more positive that they would pay tax in the future though.

Blackburn ain't big enough for the both of us: Mr Creamy and Mr Whippy at the centre of new ice-cream war

Can't believe nobody has brought up Peter Kay's The Icecream Man Cometh - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0720300/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_29

It's even based in the same county.

Includes the best line ever - "Crunchies, Crunchies, how'm I supposed to make 99's with f**king Crunchies" (might need translation for non-UK readers)

Germany mulls giving end-to-end chat app encryption das boot: Law requiring decrypted plain-text is in the works

Re: why not?

They don't even allow Google Street view in Germany

10 PRINT "ZX81 at 37" 20 GOTO 10

My parents bought the kit for me and my uncle (who worked on library computer installations) built it up. Later I got the Memotech 16kb pack (no wobble) and then said uncle fitted like a large rs232 connector to the side of the machine and from then on I could plug in an external full size keyboard. Later I got the Memotech high res pack (192*256 ??) but wasn't much around to use it.

It did teach me BASIC though and the last 22 years I've been a developer in some form or other.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the failest mobe of all?

Re: Its not the day to day failure with apple stuff ...

As per any device - just make sure you do a backup to a computer before you major updates. Any issue just restore it from the backup and try again a week later when they've fixed the issue

User asked help desk to debug a Post-it Note that survived a reboot

Re: CONTEXT PLEASE!

How can a language not be context based? Doesn't sound possible but I'm only used to a few western languages.

Five ways Apple can fix the iPhone, but won't

Re: Ditch iTunes

For me I prefer to add the music to iTunes and then it automatically syncs my playlists (latest added, top 1000, least played 1000 etc) to multiple devices without me having to even plug them in.

It's always good to have the option to drag files but it's a so slow process and I find it just wastes my time that I could be doing something else.

Apple drops dongle prices to make USB-C upgrade affordable

Re: FFS

Precisely! I remember using dongles in the past and they had nothing to do with adaptors or convertors - they were an anti piracy measure.

I half expect the BBC to get technical stuff wrong but the Reg calling them dongles is a bit absurd.

I thought Apple were taking the pi** when they dropped the ethernet connector but it's getting silly now. Hey Apple listen to what people want NOT what you can make to advertise as fractionally better because this or fractionally better because that...

Should be a good few years in my MBPro yet but it's not looking like it will get replaced with the latest version at this rate when the time comes. I have a not-cheap HP Elitebook for work and it's terrible in comparison. I mean no back lit keyboard on a 2016 machine...really?????

Belgian court fines Skype for failing to intercept criminals' calls in 2012

2012 was Pre-Microsoft presumably - before they took all the peer-to-peer goodness and ripped it all out and made it insecure again to the delight of governments everywhere.

Sports doping agency WADA says hackers lifted Olympic athletes' medical records

TUE secrets?

Not sure I understand why if an exemption has approval from the official body and is therefore in effect legal that it should remain secret. Closed systems in this area seem to lead to a huge level of distrust which athletics as well as many other sports doesn't need in this day and age.

iOS 10 bricks iThings

Re: Early adpoters beware

>> Who installs version x.0 of anything? The prudent wait for x.1 or even better x.1.2 or x.2 <<

Prudence makes sense (at least for the first couple of weeks of any release) but these days you have to actively stop it from updating so not like it's just the fanbois that get the x.0, everyone should get it.

That Public Health study? No, it didn't say 'don't do chemo'

Time to stop the mainstream reporting on science? Let's face it they actually bring little of benefit to the population with the pathetic misrepresentations they make from any scientific reporting these days.

Hacked hookup site Ashley Madison's security was laughable

Is anyone doing this kind of analysis/report on Dido's farcical security? Good to hear some actual facts rather than CEO media facing spoutings

Hacker shows Reg how one leaked home address can lead to ruin

Re: ID-10-ts

So untag yourself and don't click "Allow on Timeline"...

Thunder struck: Apple kills off display line

And presumably that was because encoding meant that file size was massively reduced. I remember editing minidv footage on my old Powerbook and the file size was huge as it recorded the whole of each and every frame in full detail.

Re: Apple displays

2002 Cinema Display still in use daily here on the home linux box. Viewing angle is still way better than anything I've used since (mostly cheaper PC monitors admittedly)

Facebook, WhatsApp farewell BlackBerry

The FB app on BB was ok, certainly faster on my Z10 than FB app on my iphone 4S which I gave up using a long time ago.

I did notice last week that there was an update waiting for FB on the Z10 and turns out it just replaces the app with a link to the website.

Whatsapp talking about not supporting because it doesn't do the new stuff they want to do.... It already does far more than I want it to do anyway, although whatsappweb was quite a nice surprise and saves me having to use crappy touch screens when I'm sat at home working on the laptop

Big data boffins crunch GPS traces, find altruistic route planning is good for everyone

But eco...

The last few years most satnav's I've seen have been more interested in reducing CO2 than reducing driving times. I didn't know that they still cared that we got there the quickest possible, just that we killed less polar bears doing it

GDS gets it in the neck from MPs over Rural Payments Agency farce

dial up speeds...

For filling out a few online forms you really only need dial-up speeds.

This does all sounds like a disaster from the start though.

Photographer hassled by Port of Tyne for filming a sign on a wall

Re: Not all security is like that, I'm not

>> We are told to keep a eye out for people taking photographs of the site <<

Is there any actual evidence that bombers/terrorists are stood around taking pictures of buildings they are going to target. Anyone can view most of the outside of the world through google maps and if they were even half competent they would manage to get someone inside with subtle/secret camera.

Like the government's "we need this as it's proven to help us prevent terrorism"... does anyone have any actual proof that taking photos has ever led to an event or more pertinently preventing photos from being taken would stop an event from taking place.

Oh and if in Canary Wharf taking photos and you get stopped then you're not technically on public land. It's private land owned by a corporation so they have a bit more say in who they want to allow to take photos. I'm pretty sure it's possible to get advance permission though if you ask and tell them what it's for.

Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

Re: Promises, promises

I got a free upgrade to 4G on 3 network and at home in the evening I've seen 40mbit speeds up and down - amazing speed!

2 miles away in one of the financial districts I struggle to get 1mbit and in the new office location I don't even get a signal at all, so it's pretty pointless most of the time.

You put 100,000 people/phones in a 2km square area and it just doesn't have the throughput it needs on the backend, doesn't matter if it's 3G, 4G or 5G, the higher number just makes you more annoyed it's not working as marketed. Holiday day trips to lightly populated Med' islands show how decent even 3G is when it's not over subscribed.

Oh and on the IoT... I love the quote I read on t'internet - "my boiler won't turn off because it can't see the internet". I would laugh hard at that except the landlord controls the heating for the flats from his phone....

Competition watchdog dismisses plans by TfL to uber-regulate Uber

Re: Predatory pricing?

>> "He also questioned whether the low prices offered by some apps are kept artificially low to drive out competition — a form of predatory pricing." <<

But on the flip side if the drivers are able to move companies easily then the app charging the low prices is going to struggle to get drivers. Supply and demand works on the driver side as well as the customer side as long as drivers can leave with no/minimal penalty

How to solve a Rubik's Cube in five seconds

You could always tell someone that cheated by swapping the stickers as they quickly became loose and fell off. Also if you know how to solve it then it's easy to work out near the end if pieces have been swapped around incorrectly.

I learned to complete it from an A4 set of instructions someone sold me back in the day and I still have them somewhere and practice a few times every year or two to keep the muscle memory working.

I can remember a conversation back when they first came out with a neighbour who in a bit of one-up-manship was convinced she'd completed 5 sides...