Posts by User McUser

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

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

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

Everybody hates lawyers...

...until they need one.

Square Kilometre Array Observatory construction commences

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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'

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

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

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

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?

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

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’

If only it were that easy.

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

British minister claims technology makes maritime cannibalism obsolete

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No matter how much I drink...

The longest card game in the world: Microsoft Solitaire is 30

Speaking of OS/2...

The IBM provided version of Solitaire for OS/2 included the extremely helpful menu option "Cheat" - which, as you may have guessed, let you put any card anywhere.

Hooray! It's IT Day! Let's hear it for the lukewarm mugs of dirty water that everyone seems to like so much

No opinion...

I just drink whatever comes out of the Nutri-Matic machine...

What do you call megabucks Microsoft? No really, it's not a joke. El Reg needs you

If I may humbly suggest...

• Seattle Desktop Botherers
• The Great Beige Bloat
• Sysadmin Job Securers
• Paterson's Regret (perhaps a bit too obscure?)

It has been 20 years since cybercrims woke up to social engineering with an intriguing little email titled 'ILOVEYOU'

Never Learn Anything from History

Windows and Office apps would cheerfully conceal the extensions of known file types

And 20 years later, this is *still* the default setting in Windows for some reason...

Proof-of-concept open-source app can cut'n'paste from reality straight into Photoshop using a neural network

Re: Unintended consequences

'Taking a comfort break?'

Christ on a bike. This is an English publication, so let's not despoil it with ugly, squeamishly coy Americanism euphemisms for ordinary everyday things.

As an American, I just wanted to say that have *never* heard this expression before today. But it certainly sounds very "Are you Embarrassed Easily" British.

Now if you excuse me, I have to go pinch a loaf, make an offering to the porcelain throne, take the browns to the super bowl, drop a deuce, unload some timber, and bust a grumpy. Then after all that I have to take a shit.

Square peg of modem won't fit into round hole of PC? I saw to it, bloke tells horrified mate

Wrong era?

56k modems were available starting in 1997 so why the hell would some buy a 9600 baud modem in "the late 1990s"?

Perhaps they meant the late 1980s or the early 1990s?

Your phone wakes up. Its assistant starts reading out your text messages. To everyone around. You panic. How? Ultrasonic waves

Begs the question...

Why are the microphones in these devices even capable of picking up ultrasonic frequencies?

Even if that's just how a good quality microphone works these days, one would think that in a device intended for human vocal communication that any sounds above 20kHz would be considered useless noise and be removed via a low-pass filter.

The Ghost of Windows 10 Past shrinks back as Microsoft's axeman tiptoes ever closer

Re: "1809 update for Windows 10"

Or a boot stamping on a face forever...

Talk about making a rod for your own back: Pot dealer's seized €54m Bitcoins up in smoke after keys thrown out with fishing gear

Re: Riddle me this

A Type-II bitcoin rig? Not sure that's what Kardashev had in mind...

We need to make it even easier for UK terror cops to rummage about in folks' phones, says govt lawyer

Why is there always a time limit?

especially when counter-terrorism police are working against the clock

Because every single terrorist is a James Bond or 24 villain - they always have a time bomb (of one sort or another) and the only possible way to stop it is to unlock their phone, right?

Since when are laws based on cliches and tropes?

Alan Turing’s OBE medal, PhD cert, other missing items found in super-fan’s Colorado home by agents, says US govt

Re: She sounds like a f*****g nutcase.

This case probably tells us more about how our society (or in this case, US society) looks after people with such issues.

I agree that she likely has brain problems but from what little we know it seems she was an otherwise functional adult. How much responsibility does society really have to interfere with the life choices of someone like this? Apart from the theft (obviously), what real harm has she caused herself or others?

With a warehouse of unsold AR goggles, Magic Leap has a brainwave… let’s rebadge ‘em and sell to business!

Re: Contacts, anyone?

I suppose if you placed OLEDs on the front of the lenses that maybe-possibly-might could work?

However, being neither an engineer nor physicist (nor even an optometrist) I'm just making a wild guess.

We lose money on repairs, sobs penniless Apple, even though we charge y'all a fortune

Actually, they do make money on "Free" Apps

Apple makes none of nothing from the 84 per cent of apps that don’t charge.

Except for the fact that if one wants to put their "free" App into the AppStore, one must be a registered developer - at a cost of US$99 per year!

Watch out! Andromeda, the giant spiral galaxy colliding with our own Milky Way, has devoured several galaxies before

My god, it's full of stars...

I can only imagine how amazing the night sky will look 3.99BY from now. It's a shame I'll have to miss it, what with being dead and all...

Sleeping Tesla driver wonders why his car ploughed into 11 traffic cones on a motorway

I am curious to know if the car stopped itself after the collisions or if the alleged driver woke up and stopped it manually.

Based on the header pic on the article, the incident appears to have happened in North Carolina (approximately here); read into that what you will.

Not very bright: Apple geniuses spend two weeks, $10,000 of repairs on a MacBook Pro fault caused by one dumb bug

I know of at least three people with a Mac Book Pro that use an external display and keyboard to login every day. However these are "Late 2013 Retina" units so maybe they ruined this on the later models?

I say, Eaton boys are flogging spare capacity on data centre UPS systems to keep lights on in Ireland

Re: Really?

Except that will happen no matter what if the grid is down long enough. I still prefer the scenario where I get a check instead of the one where I don't.

Re: Really?

Scenario 1 - There is not enough power available on the grid leading to a brown/black out. Your UPS discharges stored power until grid power returns to normal keeping your servers up and running.

Scenario 2 - There is not enough power available on the grid leading to a brown/black out. Your UPS discharges stored power until grid power returns to normal keeping your servers up and running; also, you get some money.

I mean, I know which one *I* would pick.

Introducing 'freedom gas' – a bit like the 2003 deep-fried potato variety, only even worse for you

I'm convinced...

That we are definitely living in the dumbest of all possible realities.

Intel unveils Project Athena: Chipzilla tells lappy makers how to build their own kit

No, not over WiFi - it uses Bluetooth.