Posts by lglethal 4373 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2007
... then a new one comes into power and cancels it all because the new president was elected on an asteroid denier platform.
10 years ago, if I had read this, I would have laughed at this as being ridiculous. Now though, all I can do is sigh and say "Yep, I can totally see it..."
"... hopefully the democrats can make it plain that Trump and the lickspittle GOP are squarely to blame for this."
I'm sure they can make the case quite plainly, but the red part of America wont listen. Or more to the point will continue not to listen. Farmers who have seen their markets tank, and have got nothing but lip service from Trump, still support him despite the fact it's killing their livelihoods. All because of some nebulous concept of "it will be better in the future..."
Americans have become so suicidally tribal in nature when it comes to politics. It's worse than the most rabid sporting derby. If your a republican voter, you vote republican no matter if you disagree with them or not, because those democrats are worse (citation needed, but never provided). Or the other way around. At best (which is actually the worst for a democracy), the supporters of one side might choose not to vote at all. But they will never vote for the "other" party or even try out a third party or independent.
Until that tribal nature disappears, you're not going to see massive improvements in American democracy.
(Although saying that, there are some signs that certain demographics are becoming less tribal, and are now voting en masse based on specific issues, primarily the economy and how it's hurting them personally. So maybe there are signs of hope...)
Privatization is a failure, so why does the government continue to reward those responsible with yet another massive public contract?
Thick brown envelopes delivered to the correct people, and jobs for the old boys network.
What's that, you were being rhetorical? Sorry, I thought you wanted the actual answer...
As a user of Hotmail, I cant believe this is real. Defintely not.
Not that Microsoft could screw this up so badly. Oh that I believe. No I cant believe that microsoft do ANY filtering...
The dozens of spam and phishing emails that plop into my account daily says otherwise.
But I absolutely can believe that microsoft couldnt find the correct filter function if it came up and punched them in the face, because their in-built filter tools dont work. Tell it to block all emails featuring the word casino. Whats the next email that will come through, one featuring casino. Tell it to block all emails from all subdomains of firebase.app (I get dozens of these per day) or at least claiming to come from those domains. Nope... It's about as useful as fly screen windows on a submarine.
It is probably about time I moved. Anyone got any suggestions for other email providers, that are not useless? How is Proton these days?
And lo and behold, for a brief shining moment, the demons of Facebook and Advertising fell silent. And foreasmuchas the Techbros did beclaim that should such an event happen, that the Internet would collapse, and their would be much anger and lamentation from the lay person or User. Such did not occur. The world did go forth and carry on, the people moved to other tasks, and much labour of industry was created and many was the soul that felt a brief hint of light in personal contact with thein neighbours.
But alas, too short was the silence, before the demons did return, with their algorithms and feeds and lies. Too short was the silence, and yet was it not unheard. Perhaps, it whispered in the ear of one or two, drawing them away from the demons embrace. And for others it showed that, should the silence come again and for longer, the world would not end, but would continue, unbowed and indeed unaffected. Let us pray that these twin demons can once more fall silent, and not just them, but all fo the demons spawned by the techbros and their ilk. Before, their corruption doth truly entshittify the Earth.
Here ends the lesson...
WiseTech are ditching their staff and will use AI for all their programming? That's great to know.
It's great to know, as that's one more company whose crap I will never use.
I look forward to hearing about the number of security incidents caused by their AI slop, and all the other bugs that slip through and ruin users days.
Can we invent something like a Darwins award for companies? Companies that do something so stupid it basically kills their entire company? Maybe the CEO can be given the award?
I'm thinking Kodak, or Ratner levels of stupid. Time will tell, but I expect to see WiseTech proving that just like any nation with the word Democratic in the name is anything but, any company with Wise in the name is equally unlikely to be actually controlled by people you would consider wise...
We've had speech to text programs for donkey years. No AI, no external connections. So why the bloody hell do we need to plug that into an error prone, environmentally catastrophic, regulary bullshitting AI, built off allegedly stolen content (allegedly only as all the cases against AI copyright theft are still ongoing...).
I really hope this is just one of those cases where someone is throwing around the word AI because they havent got an actual clue what happens in the background... But I suspect not...
I will never understand this desire to reinvent the wheel... every... single... time...
Lots of nations have online driving tests. Go to one of them, Australia for instance. Ask them who there provider is. Go to that provider, ask them how much to modify their test for the UK requirements and get it setup in the UK. Job done.
If you must, talk to multiple nations that do these tests, and talk to each of their providers. And take the best price, combined with the best performance, and go with them.
Putting out a tender like this, just means you're going to end up with some slop house who has no experience of this, putting in a ridiculously low costed bid, that will then be accepted, and be absolutely screwed up and require significant bailout, due to the sunk cost fallacy and the fact that re-bidding would "look" bad for the government.
And this happens every... single... time...
...in return for dropping a complaint over alleged anti-competitive behavior. Microsoft subsequently missed a delivery deadline.
This is why you dont drop the complaint UNTIL they've delivered their promises. You ask the courts to put the case on hold until lets say 1 week after the deadline. If they havent delivered the case goes on, and you ask for additional punishment for stringing the court along.
Yes, I know that's not how these cases go, but it's how they bloody well should work...
I think you've misunderstood the article. Or perhaps I have.
My reading is that the second hand market for phones with AI features has tanked. So you would be able to get a second hand phone with AI features cheap. I imagine although it's not mentioned in the article (unfortunately), that phones without AI are holding their value.
So for someone not interested in AI, your stuck with an expensive phone without or a cheap phone with...
In one job, I shared an office with 2 of my best mates. It was a great project, and a great team. But if you did leave the office without locking your computer, you would almost certainly come back to either a) Your screen being upside down or at 90° or b) if you were foolish enough to leave it for more than a few minutes - You would come back in, and 30 mins later, one of the guys would turn around and say "Wow L, that's a really nice email you've just sent. I really appreciate the kudos, although look I'm not interested in more than just friendship, ok...?" A quick check of sent emails would show an email having been sent praising the colleague and suggesting a bit more...".
It was all a good laugh between us, but it only worked because we really were best mates. I'm friendly with my current office colleagues, but no way would that work out here... ;)
Tell anyone proposing to replaces judges with AI, that absolutely that can be done. But for every case where the AI is wrong (for example, convicting an innocent person), then the person who proposed the use of the AI has to take the place of the person in jail. Or maybe to make it simpler, they owe them $10 million per failure.
I'll bet you absolutely no one would accept those terms. Not even Altman oder Musky. And that tells you everything about just how confident people are in AI. It sounds good, but would you bet your or someone else's life on it?
Well actually I'm sure plenty of people have no problem betting other people's lives on it, but if that came with a definite price coming back on them for losing that bet? Then, No one is taking that bet...
And guess what? He shouldnt have got away with it back then either.
If you cant be professional when working in a professional environment, then maybe you should consider finding a new profession.
Shouting, making threats, abuse of any kind, is really not acceptable in any profession. And frankly, that guy should have been sat down and had that explained to him. And if he couldnt learn to modify his beahviour, then out the door. I guarantee productivity from the rest of the team would have improved.
But , but, but President Trump promised us that all these tariffs would force all cars to be built in America, jobs to fly in from overseas, technologiy to solve all of our problems would fall from the heavens, evil "green" technologies would be banned, and we'd all be rich and happy. So long as we voted for him....
I'm confused by this announcement, the cars dont seem to be American, the jobs seem to be in the phillipines, the technology appears to be "green", and I'm still poor, low paid, and struggling to make ends meet. I dont understand. Did, did Trump.... lie.... to us???
(This is clearly a parody. Because the Trump supporting idiots, even when confronted with the sheer volume of his lies, still wont question them...)
I didnt know that Bots were part of the electorate! Although that might explain some of the more baffling decisions in government policy recently... hmm....
Oh wait sorry, since Musk was forced into finalising the purchase of Twitter, the claims that Bot's are 50% of the users has disappeared. Amazing coincidence that, no?
Listen guys, hear me out. We've been getting some feedback that some people, crazy people clearly, are not soooo happy with the new changes to Notepad. But look I have an idea.
We split Notepad into two programs. Wait, wait, just listen. Right, one, lets call it Notepad Classic, rips out all the new stuff and takes it back to being just a simple stupid word editor. Right, right, no listen, really that is what some people want. And then we take the second program and add in all that new stuff, plus any other great idea you guys come up with. And to differentiate it a bit more, we'll give it a new name, something between Notepad and Word... I've got it Wordpad! Yep we call that one Wordpad. And that one gets stuffed to the gills with all the cool features. Once we've done that, well we can dump the whole Classic from the name Notepad, and just have Notepad and Wordpad!
I know, I know, it's a radical idea. A bit out there. Creating two programs, but you know we have 2 separate audiences here, and one size does not always fit all. Not everyone can wear my shoes, you know what I'm saying. So 2 programs, for 2 different audiences. Crazy, right? But you know it might just work...
True. I should have written like A Decisionmaker.
Usually it is the Council that approves these thing. And on the rare occasion, When they actually do reject it, it gets overwritten by the next person up the tree.
Let's set if the brown paperbags are of sufficient size to get someone higher up to overrule Edinburgh council this time...
I cant actually see any reason why any town would want a Datacentre nearby. Maximum of 2 dozen new jobs, most of them low paid cleaning and security. Massive area required that will chew up power, water, often be loud, and not environmentally friendly.
Oh, right, sorry, I'm not thinking like a councillor. Personalised litte brown paper bags clearly outweigh any of those negatives...
Oh oh oh, can we first have a decision where they force Meta to lets us kick ALL AI Agents out of WhatsApp????
Some of us dont want that shit at all, in any flavour. And at the moment, you cant get rid of the stupid bloody Meta one.
So that should be the first ruling, allow people to delete/uninstall/dismemebr with a chainsaw ALL AI's in WhatsApp. Then they can make a second ruling for those people who actually want an AI, allowing them to install whichever flavour of AI bollocks is their choice. But it shoiuld come AFTER the first one comes in...
Wont someone think of the children the Stationary Cupboard monitor.
I mean all of those paper clips being used to protect the monitors! What if someone desperately needed to use a paper clip for connecting a TRS Form to a PBT Form????? The chaos that could ensure due to improper documentation collation. I mean someone might end up putting them together with a *shudder* Staple! These things are just not done...
I was just thinking about it some more. This is actually a brilliant move by Musky.
When the bubble bursts and starts bringing down ALL of the AI firms, SpaceX will be declared too important to be allowed to fail. So in will come the government to cover all of the xAI debts, and SpaceX will be good to go, and Musky will be able to proclaim his Business Genius at keeping SpaceX and xAI afloat when all the other AI firms crash.
Well played Musky, you've dumped the debts on the whole of the US population, well done... (for a given defintion of well done, of course)...
Once the AI bubble bursts (countdown in 3, 2, 1,....), then Space X will suddenly find itself with a billion dollar lead balloon wrapped around its neck.
I dont see it surviving, the space business is not that profitable...
Musk will probably then try to sell SpaceX to the Boring Company. Crashing all of those Starships is just another way of digging a hole, right Musky?
Wouldnt it be intereting if some massive American corporation brought a suit against Microsoft for lost manhours over the OOB updates? If one firm did it, it would open massive flood gates against Microsoft. Maybe even just the hint of such an event would send Microsoft running to re-hire all those engineers.
Of course it has to be an American firm, because well foreigners cant be allowed to attack 'Mercian firms.
*sigh* It will never happen. If a firm even began to have an idea and made the threat in private, Microsoft would pay them off, and make them sign an NDA not to disclose the idea to anyone else. And we will all continue to suffer as a result...
I'm not sure we really want a Killer AI App. I mean it hallucinates enough dangerous stuff already without it deliberately going out of its way to kill people!!
Also how are you going to get a Return on Investment of an App that kills its users!
Then again, the people who are actually willing to blindly follow whatever an AI says... I'm just trying to say, I dont think we'd be losing a cure for cancer, if you know what I mean... And if it can record the deaths and make them hilarious... Well I guess I can see how it might achieve a Return on Investment after all...
In news surprising to absolutely no one, (except Marketing and Tech Executives apparently), you will struggle to sell things to consumers which have no benefit to the consumer.
"Hey Sir, you want to buy this premium computer, complete with AI chip."
"Umm why is it so much more expensive then that one over there with the same specs?"
"That one doesnt have the AI chip!"
"What does the AI chip do?"
"It handles your AI applications?"
"What AI Applications?
"... Well when a really Killer AI App comes out, you'll need this chip to make it work!"
"You mean there is no Killer AI App, right now?"
"I'm sure it wont be long now! Top Tech people are working on it as we speak."
"Right... Well I'll come back and talk to you about this laptop when that killer app comes out. Bye now..."
When I had just started a new job in Germany, one of the projects had a partnership with a firm in "Eden-burg". They were all certain I must know the place. It took me a few days to work out they were actually trying to pronounce Edinburgh (actually pronounced something like "ed-n-brah").
I eventually got them trained on the correct pronounciation...
How about a complete ban on any hardware that loses basic functionality, if it loses the internet connection?
(I wrote hardware to stop the inevitable "Internet Explorer stopped working because I lost internet! I want my money back!" comments).
A TV, fridge, phone, scooter, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, dildo, door, car, and god knows what else should all remain functional without an internet connection. Yeah you might lose additional functionality ("My fridge no longer sends me a list of items that I'm running low on.", "My Dildo no longer operates to the beat of The Prodigy - Smack My Bitch up!", "My door no longer thanks for walking through it!"), but the thing should bloody well work at perform at least their basic function.
Sigh... I know it's not going to happen in this world. But it would be nice to believe it could...
It is not a nude picture of woman that is the problem. It is a nude picture of a woman WITHOUT HER CONSENT that is the problem.
If someone did this to your wife, daughter, niece, and spread that picture around, I think you would be pretty f%&king angry. And that is what is happening here. In Real Life. And that is a major problem. If you cant see that, then sorry, but YOU are the problem.
This would be fine, IF Apple and Google had not made themselves the Arbiter of what is or isnt permitted in their App Stores.
There are dozens of far less harmful Apps that Apple and Google have pulled for significantly less shit than X has. Plenty of Apps that were kicked out that were NOT creating and distributing illegal content.
So if Apple and Google want to hold themselves as Gatekeepers than they need to enforce the rules equally, and not allow something to remain on the store that is breaking their terms and conditions, just because it has a rich Douchebag behind it.
Quite frankly, if Apple and Google DONT follow through with this, it opens them up to a ton of lawsuits from all of those Apps that have been banned. Since clearly Apple and Google have not been applying their rules fairly and to everyone...
It's not really a Hotel is it. 4 people can stay there. So a bit small for a Hotel, much more like an Airbnb. I'm also assuming no permanent staff either. Like an Airbnb.
And I assume you have to clean up before you leave or lose your deposit. Like an Airbnb. Although I'm also guessing that there's also no cleaning crew that services the place inbetween habitations. (Assumably like some of the Airbnb's I've stayed in).
I can already imagine some of the reviews.
"Comfy beds, location is out of this world! But needs a good clean, and be warned there are no shops around ANYWHERE!"
"This was the worst place I have ever stayed. Took ages to get there, and there's nothing to do. Internet is super slow. Place hasnt been cleaned in ages. Way overpriced. Would not stay again."
I am well aware of that.
But the reporting here says Malaysia and Indonesia blocked X (I.e Twitter), where at other reporting days only the Grok add in is blocked. That's a pretty substantial difference.
And I would hope El Reg would be better with tech news than the likes of the BBC, but from checking other sites it appears El Reg is on the wrong here.
As to Cambodia and the arrest of these 3 kingpins. I havent heard any news about the thousands of poor schlubs stuck in those compounds being freed and sent home. Have you?
My guess is that the International clamour about these specific Kingpins got a little bit too embarrasing for the Cambodian government. So they relented and arrested them. Ownership of the Compounds will simply have passed to someone else. And business will continue as usual. Word on the grapevine is that the scam compounds generate about 50% of the Cambodian GDP, so it's not likely they are going away any time soon...
Naturally, the Kingpins were sent to China, who are the ones propping up the Cambodian regime (and who are unlikely to let Chen Zhi and the others implicate the top Cambodian government figures that were involved, as no doubt that would raise questions China does not want to answer). If they had been sent to the US, you can guarantee a plea deal would have been reached exposing the entire corrupt network. So the 3 will disappear into a Chinese prison, never to be seen or heard of again. Cambodia will make some "reparations" to specific "officials", and that money will disappear as well, never to be seen again.
And the cycle will be repeated in another couple of years, when the next set of owners get a little bit too big for their boots (or draw a little bit too much attention and publicity to themselves)...
Just on the last point and to use your own example. Cost of untangling years of production code vs overrun Service Desk, leading to customer dissatisfaction and customers actively leaving their service (as you are doing with BT). I would think untangling the code would be cheaper in the long run... ;)
As to the forgetting, well yeah that would be on you. But how many actual accounts do you need whilst travelling? Email, bank, maybe spotify (or equivalent), anything else, really? Despite what Tech Bros might like you to believe, 99% of your accounts will not be touched whilst travelling, so are safer being locked up.
It still seems to me, like giving people at least the option would be a massive cost and reputation saving move...
I was wondering if the Vultures here on El Reg can educate me a bit. A couple of my online accounts are getting hammered with attempted logins from all over the world at the moment (clearly my email address has popped up on some recent breach and is being tried out). Why the heck dont internet companies have a straight "Block on all requests for logins from outside of the country of residence" setting?
I mean considering that the firms are able to say from approximately where the IP address attempting the login came from, blocking anything not from a specific nation seems like an easy win for the company. You save a ton of Service Desk time, of helping people re-open blocked or regain taken over accounts. Every time an account gets taken over, you generate bad will and bad publicity, so this would seem like a win in every situation. With a little bit of granuality, you could give people the option to allow things from specific countries so they still have access on holiday, work travel, or if they live in a border region where the IP address can sometimes appear in the wrong nation, but still block the majority of nations. I doubt 99,9% of people in the West are ever likely to attempt to login from Russia or China, right about now, are they?
And yes, I'm well aware that a dedicated spearphishing attempt would go to the effort of using a VPN to appear to login from the home nation, but for the auto attempts coming from password and account breach dumps, they'd be stopped completely. Everything that adds a barrier or cost to those mass campaigns helps to reduce them.
So why is this seemingly not an option for, well, every site?
Can you please confirm if the ban in Malaysia and Indonesia is actually of X or only of Grok? I asked the same question on the previous article.
The BBC says it's only a Grok ban in place. And I would hope The Reg would be more knowledgable on such issues than the old Beeb...
Here's the thing. He has a legitimate complaint. Blocking everything like this Regulator has demanded would impact other customers, and that is a problem. Having a completely shite and unreliable appeals process is a legitimate problem. The regulator clearly doesnt have a clue how the tech works, nor has it taken the time to discuss how to do this in the correct way.
HOWEVER, going off on a major rant, sucking up to Trump and Co., esspousing support for Musk's "brand" of free speech bollocks, going on about conspiracy theory level "Evil Media Cabal" stupidity, and threatening to throw his toys out of the pram loses him completely all sympathy. He might have had a legitimate complaint, but quite frankly f%&k him and the horse he rode in on.
This is a very cool area for research, but the problems are:
a) scaling it up to being actually useful for a future base,
b) performing sufficient tests in a representative environment to be confident of the results,
c) getting the funding to actually do the research.
I have no doubt with enough of c), a) and b) could be solved. But there is never enough funding for this sort of research. :(
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