* Posts by User McUser

700 publicly visible posts • joined 6 May 2011

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New York Times: OpenAI’s claim we 'hacked' its products both 'irrelevant' and 'false'

User McUser
Stop

The VCR is a Poor Analogy

Like LLMs, VCRs do indeed make copies of copyrighted material.

But what they *don't* do is take every recording ever, smash it all together into a database of tiny clips and then regurgitate a chain of different bits and pieces claiming it's somehow an original work. And they certainly don't do it in exchange for money which I imagine is the real motivation for The New York Times' lawsuit. If OpenAI wants this to go away, pay them.

You can't walk into the supermarket, empty all the boxes of cereal into a big container and then scoop out a box's worth and walk out of the store like nothing happened.

Intern with superuser access 'promoted' himself to CEO

User McUser
Holmes

SMTP is not secure

At a previous job in the early 2000's, management proposed to allow a lone email message as sufficient authorization for very large expenditures of money. I suggested that this was not an ideal way to handle such things since email (as demonstrated by this very article) is not particularly secure. Management did not believe me, so I demonstrated my point using telnet to connect to the SMTP server and manually faking an email from the big boss authorizing a very expensive company car for myself.

They did not make the proposed change (and I didn't get the car.)

Russia plans to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon – with China's help

User McUser
Headmaster

A sample of what now?

[...] landing on the Moon and sending a sample of lunar soil back to Earth.

The moon is covered in regolith, not soil.

OpenAI reassures: GPT-4 gives 'a mild uplift' to creators of biochemical weapons

User McUser

Do what now?

[...] synthesize and rescue infectious Ebola virus [...]

I am unfamiliar with this usage of "rescue." Rescue it from whom or what?

It's true, LLMs are better than people – at creating convincing misinformation

User McUser
Terminator

Re: More human than human?

Sounds ghastly...

Apple has botched 3D for decades. So good luck with the Vision Pro, Tim

User McUser
Meh

Re: No Love For QuickDraw 3D?

Does anyone actually use their phone for anything beyond trivial gaming?

Apparently, yeah.

Well, to be pedantic, a lot of people used to play Fortnite* on iOS at least. You may recall Epic getting all hot, bothered, and litigious about Apple taking a 30% cut of the profits from selling children digital goo-gaws and digital clothing and then getting kicked off the platform.

* I personally consider Fortnite to be trivial gaming but YMMV. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not even poor Notepad is safe from Microsoft's AI obsession

User McUser
Facepalm

WHY?!

FFS Microsoft, why add this stuff one application at a time? (And to *notepad* of all things!)

Make your awful AI tool part of WINDOWS and let it insert its worthless nonsense into ANY app that can access the clipboard and call it a day.

Kia crashes CES with modular electric vehicle concept

User McUser
Meh

I just wanted to say...

The new Kia logo looks more like KИ than KIA.

Another day, another delay to first Vulcan Centaur launch

User McUser
Unhappy

Here Tech Bros from the planet Earth wasted Time, Energy, and Payload Mass

They're sending a plaque with the first "mined" bitcoin printed on it (or some such nonsense - see https://www.astrobotic.com/lunar-delivery/manifest/; scroll down to the middle, it's the last one in the spread.)

AI threatens to automate away the clergy

User McUser
Trollface

Telephone Salespersons

I kinda *want* to get a sales call from a LLM - I think it'd be fun to fuck with it.

I assume they'll program it to always be polite and to never hang up on you, which means you can try and trick it into giving you free shit or whatever it would have the power to do and then tell it to fuck off when it stops being fun.

Personally, I'd make every other response from me a non-sequitur just to see how it responds - "I'm tempted by your offer, but how many monkeys does that package include? I'll need at least a thousand if I'm going to get this Shakespeare play written any time soon."

Zuckerberg accused of OK'ing Insta plastic surgery filters despite fears of harm to kids

User McUser
Childcatcher

Re: Why single out Meta?

It's one thing to see *other* people who conform to nearly impossible beauty standards but it is another thing entirely to see pictures of YOU that are literally remade and adjusted to fit those standards.

And then you turn the phone off and the self-perceived fat, ugly loser in the mirror is still there... ( ╯︿╰ )

VR headsets to shift 30 million units a year by 2027, vastly behind wearables

User McUser
Headmaster

Earwear... really??

350 million units fewer than the "earwear" sub-category of the wearables market

Earwear?? Look, unless this includes USB ear warmers and BT enabled LED earrings let's just call this category "headphones," yeah?

Having read the room, Unity goes back to drawing board on runtime fee policy

User McUser
Joke

Boy howdy, if I had a dime for everytime someone installed the Unity runtime...

(This space left intentionally non-blank)

Billions of 'custobots' are coming online. Marketers may need to learn SEO for AI

User McUser
Megaphone

Yeah, me niether

the machine doesn't care if Beyoncé is my spokesperson.

I don't care either, and not just because I'm not a fan of her music[1] but because what a celebrity is paid to recommend is not one of the factors that enters into my purchasing decision. It's suitability to purpose, then price, and then availability, in that order.

[1] I can't even honestly say I've even heard any of her songs but I do understand she is widely popular.

Author discovers fake, likely AI-generated books written under her name

User McUser
Holmes

"Key clicks betray passwords, typed text"

This was already done, way back in 2005, as reported on an obscure website called, let me check my notes here... Ah, it's "The Register?" Huh, OK...

https://www.theregister.com/2005/09/16/key_clicks_betray_passwords/

AI on AI action: Googler uses GPT-4 chatbot to defeat image classifier's guardian

User McUser
Terminator

ROTM

"GPT-4 does not get distracted, does not get tired, does not have other duties, and is always available to perform the user’s specified task."

Kyle Reese: Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!

Sega COO backs away from blockchain

User McUser
Holmes

Dear Sega

Why not just try making a game that's fun and good without needing a pointless "tech du jour" shoehorned in there for no reason?

Sincerely,

Everyone.

Free Wednesday gift for you lucky lot: Extra mouse button!

User McUser

Two more that work in Windows 10

  • Middle-click on any icon in the Task Bar and you get a new window for that app.
  • Hover over an active task then middle-click on the pop-up preview window above the icon to close that window.

China aims to pair J-20 stealth fighter with 'loyal wingman' battle drone

User McUser

Was I the only person who read the headline and immediately thought of the little companion upgrade units in games like Gradius or Life Force?

To explore caves on Mars and the Moon, take a hint from Hansel & Gretel, say boffins

User McUser

Why not just use a cord?

Why not just spool out a data cable behind the thing? No batteries or signal issues, unlike the proposed "breadcrumb" devices, and in an emergency you've got a tether to try and pull it back out of the cave. Seems like the simpler option, but maybe I'm not seeing the advantages to the proposal... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Smart ovens do really dumb stuff to check for Wi-Fi

User McUser
Boffin

it didn't just beep when it was done, it would then nag, and beep every 30s until you opened the door.

The intent is to help you, not nag you.

If you've ever microwaved a frozen dinner or snack, you might have noticed that the instructions usually say something like "Microwave on high for three minutes then let stand in the microwave for two minutes."

Thus your microwave beeps repeatedly at a set interval after it is done cooking so you can track the post-cooking stand time without having to set another timer or guess.

Half of environmental claims about products are full of crap, says EU

User McUser
Meh

My favorite vague environmental claim was a label on a bottle of window cleaning fluid that stated "Made from 100% Ocean Bound Plastic."

Not sure if that was supposed to be a claim as to the source of the materials for manufacturing the bottle or an acknowledgement that humans are terrible for the environment...

Lawyer mom barred from Rockettes show by facial recognition tech

User McUser

Everybody hates lawyers...

...until they need one.

Square Kilometre Array Observatory construction commences

User McUser
Coat

Karoo will house the SKA-Mid detecting frequencies between 350 megahertz and 15.4 gigahertz, while in Australia the SKA-Low will pick up frequencies between 50 and 350 megahertz.

So those would be the SKA bands then, eh?

Tech companies in the crosshairs as China proposes antitrust law revisions

User McUser
Big Brother

Public Comments?

The revisions are not yet official and remain open for public comment until December 22.

Dear Glorious Leader Xi;

I wholeheartedly agree with and embrace this magnificent new proposal. Truly, your concise and unfathomable genius is plain for all to see. The shameful and decadent western devils will answer for their insolence against our humble and righteous country.

Long may your star shine brightly in the constellation that is our just and wise government.

-Your loyal and obsequious citizenry.

Founder of cybersecurity firm Acronis is afraid of his own vacuum cleaner

User McUser
Unhappy

Sadly, privacy isn't simple or easy - it's a goddamn chore. *You* had to cover those cams, *you* had to turn off the voice assistants, *you* had to turn off tracking or install a blocker, etc. And anytime there's an update you get to play wack-a-mole on the settings that reverted back to non-private (for your convenience natch.)

Privacy should be the default setting, not something you have to dig down into configurations to find.

One man's battle to get patent rights for AI inventors in America may be over

User McUser
Devil

Such a bad example...

"[Imagine] you've just invested a small fortune for an inventive AI system and it invents a cure for cancer. Do you keep it a trade secret or risk losing it to the public domain due to a failed patent application that lacks a named human inventor?" [Stephen Thaler] said hypothetically.

Or maybe, just maybe, you could release the fucking cure for cancer solely for the benefit of all human kind without needing to make any money from it. ಠ_ಠ

Consultant plays Metaverse MythBuster. Here's why they're wrong

User McUser
FAIL

Re: Why this is bullshit

Arguably there are some possible advantages for shopping that VR/AR can provide. For example, you could look at a 3D model of something you are buying, check it out up close and from any angle. For something like furniture or clothes you could see how it might look in your actual room or on your own person.

But lets be honest, the same manufacturers that can barely take shitty photographs of their products for existing web pages are in NO WAY EVER going to produce good quality 3D models like that. Maybe the overpriced high-end/high-margin luxury brands will manage but the cheaper brands just won't have the skills or/and manpower.

Web3 'contains the seeds of a dystopian nightmare' says analyst firm

User McUser
Thumb Up

Web3 Is Going Just Great

Someone else posted this link under another article some time ago (I do not recall whom or where, sorry!) and I think it appropriate to put here as well.

https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

It's like a doom scroll, but for tech-bro schadenfreude.

Meta sued for 'aiding and abetting' crypto scammers

User McUser
Holmes

"We use technology"

Oh good - I thought that maybe they were using magic or interpretive dance or something else.

Glad they cleared that up for us...

Customer service chatbot sector forecast to be worth $7bn this year

User McUser

Re: Alternate Reality?

Do you think I would be wasting my life on hold for 40 minutes if I could do what I want to do on your website? That's why I am fecking well phoning you!

The problem is that the 2,000 other people in the phone queue ahead of you didn't bother check the website before calling and need that reminder. Not that they pay attention to it mind you...

Through the Looking Glass – holographic display hardware is great, but it's not enough

User McUser
Boffin

HeadTracking

You can do a lot of amazing 3D looking effects simply by doing head tracking

This YouTube video from 2007 shows it well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw (The 3D parts start at 2m30s in)

Tachyum's Prodigy emulator achieves first boot, runs Linux and says 'hello, world'

User McUser
Joke

Still waiting for the Atom Chip

Personally, I'm still waiting for the previous unbelievable breakthrough in CPUs to be released - The Atom Chip

Hyundai reveals the robotaxi it built for Lyft, and a version for its very own metaverse

User McUser
WTF?

Remote Control

the vehicles come equipped with Remote Vehicle Assistance (RVA) which allows a remote Motional operator to take control if needed.

This seems unwise to me. Better hope their security is up to scratch!

Boffins find if you torture AMD Zen+, Zen 2 CPUs enough, they are vulnerable to Meltdown-like attack

User McUser

Re: Meh

Obligatory XKCD link: https://xkcd.com/538/

'Prophetic' Steve Jobs autograph telling kid to 'go change the world!' among Apple memorabilia at auction

User McUser
WTF?

Wait, what?

[...] a software venture whose games were distributed with JVC video cameras.

Ummmm, what? Why would a video camera come with video games? So confused...

Remember when Microsoft devs got so excited about Windows 8 features, Twitter thought it was under attack?

User McUser
Joke

Completely unbelivable story

You expect us to believe that somebody was able to call Twitter on the phone and a human being answered?

You gotta make this stuff more plausible if you want to be taken seriously...

Windows 11 still doesn't understand our complex lives – and it hurts

User McUser

Three Ways to be Multiple people on the same Windows box

You can use "Switch User" from the CAD menu to change from one login to another without having to log out - bit of a pain and no shared clipboard between them though.

Or you can hold down Shift and right-click on an icon and choose "Run As Different User" to launch the app in your user-space but with different credentials - permissions may get weird in this case and things like the Desktop and "My Documents" folders are redirected to the executing user's profile. Plus if the application is installed in the User profile (like Teams is) this won't work at all; ditto for any applications that don't use standard .LNK shortcut files (looking at you, Microsoft Office) though you can manually create new shortcuts as needed.

If you want to get fancy, AND have the "Pro" or Enterprise version of Windows you can use the Remote Application feature with localhost to run with different credentials though this takes a LOT of work to implement correctly. The good news is that you'll have access to your own files and folders through the RDP protocol. Bad news, it uses the RDP protocol. This utility helps a lot by setting up the Remote App settings for you: https://github.com/kimmknight/remoteapptool and providing a handy .RDP file as well.

‘Fasten your seat belts, raise your tray table, and disconnect your Bluetooth headsets from the entertainment unit’

User McUser

If only it were that easy.

Obligatory XKCD comic - https://xkcd.com/2055/

British minister claims technology makes maritime cannibalism obsolete

User McUser
Joke

Dear Sir

As a naval officer I abhor the implication that the Royal Navy is a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that we now have the problem relatively under control, and that it is the RAF who now suffer the largest casualties in this area.

Yours etc.

Captain B.J. Smethwick (in a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms and garlic.)

Apple vs Epic Games trial kicks off featuring the same old arguments, hundreds of angry Zoombombing tweens

User McUser
Facepalm

Re: Epic must have been asleep at the wheel

I doubt if Epic's pockets are deep enough to survive this.

From the article: "Fortnite was the highest-grossing game in 2019, with revenues of $1.8bn across all platforms, including iOS, Android, Xbox One, PC, and the PS4." [Emphasis added.]

I know lawyers can be expensive, but I think Epic will be just fine.

CERN boffins zap antimatter with ultraviolet lasers in the hope of revealing the secret symmetry of the universe

User McUser
Pint

Re: defeating the Big Bang theory

the problem with anti-matter is that, if indeed anti-matter is exactly the opposite of normal matter, as all current experiments have measured, then the Big Bang theory is false: it stipulates that our universe was born from a big bang of energy, but then equal amounts of matter an anti-matter should have been created, which is observably false.

I am not a physicist but it seems to me that if there "should" have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter at the Big Bang AND if the CPT thing is true, then the "simple" answer is that there WAS (is?) equal amounts of both matter and antimatter, each moving through Time in opposite directions with the Big Bang as a central point between them.

Basically out there somewhere/somewhen in what we would call the distant "past" (eg: "before" the Big Bang) there exists an antimatter universe equal to ours but with the arrow of time reversed. From that universe's perspective our anti-matter universe collapsed in on itself and spawned their matter universe. And from our perspective we would see the same exact thing.

Proof that Surface devices are not a niche product obsessed over by Microsoft fans: A patent lawsuit from Caltech

User McUser

Re: So now we can make a pretty good guess about Broadcom, Linux, and non-open "blobs"........

If they really did invent the thing then they probably could have just bought a chip, plugged it into some sort of testing rig and compared its function to their original experimental findings.

Plus Broadcom probably publishes a lot of the technical information already. After all, you gotta know what the chip does in order to use it in the laptops and gaming consoles you're building.

Remember Apple's disastrous butterfly keyboards? These lawsuits against the iGiant just formed a super class action

User McUser
Unhappy

Who was that for anyways?

By which I mean, who keeps demanding thinner and thinner laptops?

To be clear, I don't miss the giant "luggables" from the 1980s/1990s but there is a point of diminishing returns and we crossed that line at least a decade ago.

IMHO, if it can't have a full-sized Ethernet (RJ45) port then it's too thin.

Privacy purists prickle at T-Mobile US plan to proffer people's personal web, app pursuits to ad promoters

User McUser
Headmaster

Grammatic Ambiguity

including information we learn from your web and device usage data (like the apps installed on your device)

Are they using "like" to mean "similar to" or "such as"?

Or to put it more directly, are they tracking the shit I do the same way that the apps I use track me or is my phone blabbing to my service provider about what apps I have installed?

Surprise: Automated driving biz finds automated driving safer than letting you get behind the wheel

User McUser
Facepalm

Shocker!!

I am shocked - SHOCKED, I tell you.

Who would have thought that Waymo run simulations would reveal how great Waymo is?

I mean, what are the odds?

Atheists warn followers of unholy data leak, hint dark deeds may have tried to make it go away

User McUser
Pint

Well I've always said...

There's nothing an agnostic can't do if he really doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not.

Hey, maybe we should all be cat-faced eco-warriors on our daily video chats

User McUser

Dial-Up

You could Zoom over a dial-up modem

You could also, you know, just call them on the phone.

Think of all the power you'll save with your PC turned off and unplugged...

Machine learning gets semi conscious... Waymo, Daimler vow to bring self-driving trucks to American highways

User McUser
Stop

Level 4 Automation is insufficient

The partnership aims to build level-four automated trucks, which would use AI to perform all the necessary functions needed to drive autonomously for a whole trip, theoretically. It'll still need a human driver to take over when necessary, for safety and regulatory reasons.

Great, so the safety mechanism for a 16-Ton truck at highway speed is a person who for the last 4 hours has been sleeping, reading a book, watching a movie, or doing who knows what else because the thing drives itself 95% of the time, and is then expected to instantly and reliably take over the split second after the AI goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ?

Anything less than Level 5 Autonomous vehicles are unacceptable IMO. I mean, what's the point of a self-driving car if I randomly and unexpectedly have to take over driving due to some sort of emergency that the AI can't handle?

MacOS on Arm talk intensifies: Just weeks from now, Apple to serve up quarantini with Kalamata golive, reportedly

User McUser
Pint

"I’ll never forget you, Windows Mobile 6.1."

No matter how much I drink...

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