Posts by Delbert

Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves

AI Collapse cannot come quickly enough

In a self perpetuating circle of misinformation AI is a huge driver, especially among people who will cite the dubious results as fact without further reasearch. Couple the flawed 'facts' with a so called 'communication platform' lets call it "Spammerly" generating AI essays according to a pattern and you will have a circle of self referencing, self reinforcing, ever growing nonsense. Little did George Orwell know that the repetitive mantras of 'Animal Farm used to brainwash the masses would become machine driven or was that the point of wriing '1984'?

No-boom supersonic flights could slide through US skies soon

Re: This is all for billionaires like Musk

I think 'like Musk' is spreading the blame, 'for Musk' would be more accurate. He will no doubt ignore inconvenient rules for the benefit of profit as he has done with every regulator he has found inconvenient through the smoke screen of 'government efficiency' which has cost more than it saved and has benefitted a select few or one.

Apple exec sends Google shares plunging as he calls AI the new search

Alternative Information

We are to be presented with choices - a search which gives optional results either driven by advertising and greed or a search driven by misinformation and stupidity. We are at a stage where AI is being pushed whether or not we ask for it. I have reached the point where a result 'proudly' tagged as AI means I will have to check again because it too often contains inaccurate information presumably propogated because other searchers have clicked on the eyecatching page generating traffic to see WTAF is going on. The much quoted Abraham Lincoln titbit 'Not everything you read on the internet is true' is worth searching on Google AI for a prime example.

Microsoft: Why not let our Copilot fly your computer?

Copilot should have stayed as a gag on Airplane

The continuing march of Microsoft to force unwanted 'features' advances to the stage where one critical program is the only thing keeping me using windows. The frustration of having detritus that cannot be removed permanently may not bother corporate users but it annoys the hell out of me Bing, Edge, Copilot, Gamebar,mixed reality portal and AI I have no use for but like the cat they come back the very next day. I do need portability for the program so perhaps I will just turn off updates now on one of my windows 10 laptops before the October deadline and before further unecessary features are added.

SpaceX scores $5.9B lion's share of Space Force launch contracts

Scored?

'Scored' sounds about right removes oversight, grants own company very lucrative deal without competitive tendering. Scored is a good term like robbing a bank, dealing in drugs etc the more the legislation is removed the more the US looks like the Money MAFIA is running it, apart from the Mafia being discrete not wearing stupid caps saying 'Make The Mafia Big Again'

Microsoft wouldn't look at a bug report without a video. Researcher maliciously complied

Just to make a point!

I would have added a clip right at the end of the famous Rick Astley- Never Gonna Give You Up because nothing says you have been had like being Rick Rolled

China's Silk Typhoon, tied to US Treasury break-in, now hammers IT and govt targets

Re: China, if you're listening

Short memories at work, BTW last time the US was controlled from the golf course who was a major threat to the US? rmember test firing intercontinal missiles your way? Could that be Kim the rocket man you might remember him as the dictator sending battalions of troops and weapons to his best buddy Mr Putin

Xi know what you did last summer: China was all up in Republicans' email, says book

Only bothered about China?

Lots of chest thumping and howling about China but are we forgetting the continual data slurping and message reading by Meta, Microsoft, Google and Apple? Emails? what about every other device that listens and guides your daily life . Surely if you are involved in government you should be using encryption yes I know a certain idiot was using unsactioned unencrypted devices because he was more interested in keeping his communications private away from law enforcement and oversight than away from foreign powers.

You're going to do what to the feature? Microsoft defines what it means by 'deprecation'

Looking out of Windows

I have had a long association with Windows initially with 3.0 and then later as a tester on 2000 learning valuable lessons about not being an early adopter after travials with 95 on floppy. Which leaves me with the current problem I have changed one laptop to Linux now I have just the one program that cannot run natively on Linux, Canon's photo editor Digital Photo Professional . This despite Linux being teased as a listed OS in the download page -so annoying . Months will tick down now as I can possibly learn Gimp or Lightroom or bow down to Redmond or the last option isolate my photo editing machines from the internet like going to build a wall ....

Why is Big Tech hellbent on making AI opt-out?

Would it stand up in court?

Would Microsoft be prepared to defend its actions in law? When Copilot first appeared you were able to deny, disable and remove the app. Mysteriously it came back withoout permission and that is point of law once you have declined Copilot, then to install and enable it on that computer without permission being granted (not assumed) becomes a breach of the Computer Misuse Act or similiar legislation through the EU .

Microsoft to force Windows 11 24H2 on Home and Pro users

Outrage?

Ah that would be similar to the outrage when they were pried from Windows Millenium and Windows 8 not all progress is actually progress.... the prior editions being in both cases stable and mature

Brit government contractor CloudKubed enters administration

Agreed

Absolutely as if somebody pulled out an 2005 glossary of dubious terminology and strung random buzz words together.It is P T Barnum for the 21st century sadly the 'suckers' i.e. UK Government poured a fortune into the company which no doubt funded large excutive bonuses. Sadly if you use .gov websites like the HMCE you can see how incapable of oversight the departments are, Income Tax pages are a morass of large pretty (and totally unecessary) pictures which hamper usage and loading along with mazes of links which take users into blind alleys.

SvarDOS: DR-DOS is reborn as an open source operating system

Fond memories

Happy days asides from MS making sure cacheing would not work in DRDOS it was vastly superior and able to map drivers into upper memory blocks releasing ram more for hungry programmes . Yes I know with third party software we could rearrange the driver loading sequence to occupy the appropriate vacant upper memory blocks ah so long ago. I remember my copy of DRDos came with network support and a manual the size of Lord of The Rings.

Guide for the perplexed – Google is no longer the best search engine

Resistance is not futile

Once Google achieved a dominant position they began a history of poor management decisions across their platforms. Google search advert saturation is just the latest symptom of management stupidity.

Remember attempting to force Google+ on an unwilling customer base caused a massive kickback (and no doubt hurt revenue stream. )

Similarly attempting to force multiple advert clips on Youtube which exceed the duration of the content has resulted in adoption of adblockers and work rounds ,I forecast as soon as there is seen to be a viable alternative expect music videos to migrate elsewhere - yes interrupting the song in the middle to insert adverts is a stupid idea. Gordon Gekko said 'Greed is good' but he should have added until you pi$$ off your customers enough to go elsewhere - smell the coffee Google it is happening now.

Windows 95 setup was three programs in a trench coat, Microsoft vet reveals

Re: "Progress, eh?"

The installation of 95 on low density floppies was an enormous task given that it was bundled (in oem sets ) with DOS and you also had additional disks not a clue what they were likely network drivers . Predictably my first attempt failed and in disgust I wiped the drive and reinstalled DOS and Win 3.1 .

Incidentally I still have a factory sealed DOS 6.22 and WIN For Workgroups (3.11) diskset and that my dears is 11 hi density (1.44mb) diskettes

Microsoft starts boiling the Copilot frog: It's not a soup you want to drink at any price

Mistaken Marketing

There are a number of way of committing commercial suicide, one is forcing your audience to have product they do not want ask about Internet Explorer, U2 and Google+ how well that worked . Then you can associate your product with a perceived poison and AI is to large audience about as poisonous as tech comes. Each update and back it comes like herpes its removable (at the moment) but continually pushing features customers do not want inclines them to look elsewhere .

Oh chute. Two out of three ain't bad, right? asks Boeing after soft-ish crew module landing

Unconvincing

I'm afraid the credibility of 'Boing' was pretty low before this demonstration, denying there is a problem when it is blatently obvious is hardly going to convince anybody that they have accepted their responsibilities. A policy of corporate denial should be ringing alarm bells at NASA and among airlines.

Pro tip: Plug in your Tesla S when clocking off, lest you run out of juice mid hot pursuit

Apples and oranges

Interesting choice of comparison vehicles on the one hand an electric sedan 'cruiser' on the other a relatively large SUV which no doubt carries a lot of equipment to deal with traffic incidents. Which would fare better in one of those PIT manoeuvres do you think and hopefully not set on fire.

Large Redmond Collider: CERN reveals plan to shift from Microsoft to open-source code after tenfold license fee hike

unsurprising

Sadly Microsoft, Adobe and others are following a business model that ensures a continuing and increasing cash flow while offering dubious 'benefits' including the fixing of all the errors , bugs and vulnerabilities which should have been ironed out prior to release of their software. In a closed system where your hardware conforms to your own standards and works without interference or intervention it is a plan with little or no merit.

Want a good Android smartphone without the $1,000+ price tag? Then buy Google's Pixel 3a

Narcissist Unfriendly? does anybody care

Since the phone is aimed at people who just want an effective working communication device its likely the folk who want a fashion statement to place prominently on the table at Starbucks are not going to rush to buy one. Likewise the lack of a selfie camera has to be applauded as it will further alienate those same people who hail from the shallow end of the phone user demographic . Now if we can just get away from making phones stupidly thin that have a negligable battery life but don't make a bulge in a Gucci (knockoff) bag there is that sector completely gone !

Wine? No, posh noshery in high spirits despite giving away £4,500 bottle of Bordeaux

but what are you really drinking/listening to

I got off the audiophile crazy train a very long time ago, after the constant and expensive upgrades. I was pondering whether the latest change of cartridge for a swingeingly expensive Shure small object of desire was better/cleaner than the one I had found acceptable for a year. I was straining to detect the subtle improvements and nuances then I realised I was no longer listening to the music instead listening to the equipment and that it was beyond futile and defeated the whole point of having the kit in the first place. I feel the same way about drinks once you reach a level where there is a broad enjoyable palette of flavours (and I have drunk some nasty 'French fermented piss' over the years) just have 'the experience' the overwhelming reason to spend several thousand on a bottle is only to show you can afford what other folk cannot and you are probably going to claim you could tell that is was a hundred times better than Aldi £6 a pop Bordeaux. Well it isn't and the very people who perpetuate the myth - wine writers have been caught in the lie in blind tasting tests. If it is enjoyable then you have achieved your goal no matter what you paid.

Secret mic in Nest gear wasn't supposed to be a secret, says Google, we just forgot to tell anyone

Missing something?

So run that past me again Google , the microphone is not on and is only activated if the user specifically activates the microphone which you have not told him exists or explained in the manual how to control........ which would reveal there is in fact a microphone. It almost looks like you didn't want anyone to know .... or perhaps it might accidentally be turned on

Facebook's pay-for-more-eyeballs shtick looks too good to be true: Page views, Likes from 'fake' profiles

Failing to look surprised

Anybody casting a critical eye over Facebook can see with one eye closed that they are being spammed with a stream of irrelevant advertising and sponsored posts. Somebody is paying by the click to have their uninteresting products placed in front of you multiple times. Think - if you didn't like it the first five times maybe we can try some more (he's paying)? We tried their offer of a free 'boost' worth twenty five pounds (they said) a fair wedge for our shoestring budget it yielded nothing quantifiable no wave of extra likes, clicks etc and we suspect it really annoyed more people who are not even slightly bothered about Classic Rock music. As my teacher would occasionally say "Needs More Work"

Excuse me, sir. You can't store your things there. Those 7 gigabytes are reserved for Windows 10

Optimising swap files really?

Oddly its not a very new idea, based on fixing the size of the swap file/virtual which memory goes back to windoze 95. Best done at the first install, you deleted all the bloatware ( which was tiny compared to today just unused jpg,install and text files ) set the swap file to zero min and max restarted and defragged. Reset the swap file to 4 times actual memory (er 16 mb) and you had a contiguous swap file freed from the clock cycle stealing dynamic resizing which gave a huge performance hit. Detailed later in Windows Annoyances so doing same for installs is pretty obvious idea if you have a massive harddisk space no so much if you have a measly SSD on a laptop.

Microsoft points to a golden future where you can make Windows 10 your own

Re: What about the stuff that we really don't want...

Yes indeedy, spending a cathartic half an hour deleting the irrelevances and then seeing it reinstalled was the final straw that caused a clean install of Windows 7 the OS you actually want.

Google-free Android kit tipped to sell buckets

Perhaps preventing the supply of phones with built in snap malware would be a good start, otherwise breaking away from google seems like a good plan certainly save on the data they hijack each time you connect.

PwC: More redundos at HQ of UK 'leccy stuff shop Maplin

Chief Rival May Not Be Amazon

Probably the biggest hole in the leaky ship that is Maplins business model is Poundland seriously would you buy an identical 1 metre USB micro cable for £9.09 when you could but nine for the same money?

New York Police scrap 36,000 Windows smartphones

Swap due to incompatibility to an incompatible OS?

Interesting that custom applications that work on windows 8 will not work on windows 10 yet it is deemed less expensive to recompile to iOS. Or buying into a by comparison horrendously expensive phone with a none replaceable battery will be a cheaper option than paying M$ for another years support after official support ends after all who keeps phones which are getting kicked around daily longer than three years or doesn't have a service contract that replaces their phones periodically. Perhaps the current IT department or at least whoever signed off on the replacement plan needs a reality check?

Banking websites are 'littered with trackers' ogling your credit risk

Re: UK banks tracking......

I'm with Local Laddie , if the only leverage we have is to bank elsewhere then make it so. My own bank would love me to use their new account and offer incentives like interest on the current a/c but require me to transact online through my phone which I 'can do anywhere'. Not convinced that having my data streamed through a third party wifi is any safer than having a stranger enter my PIN its not happening. Likewise my bank card was replaced at my request with one lacking an RFID chip I know the risk and I'm not taking it, it is my choice not the banks.

Avast blocks the entire internet – again

Good Idea?

The way Windows updates are foisting unwanted, none - optional "features" onto users it could actually be a good thing.

'Windows 10 destroyed our data!' Microsoft hauled into US court

You can EULA if you want to..

The problem with this is if you "consented" to the upgrade then you are bound by the EULA which basically takes away any rights to have an OS that works or will maintain your data safely. Those warnings are writ large in the agreement and legally binding - they should probably read click here and give up all hope. That brief period when you might have found you were updated without consent was just that a brief period crying a year later is unlikely to cut it. Failing to back up your data is a gross dereliction of duty in a business and trying to pass the blame marks you out as incompetent something that will no doubt be given as evidence.

Want a Dell printer? Unlucky – they've just stopped selling them

No issues apart from wifi

We binned the HP's at home in favour of Dell 'lasers' direct connection ie cable has caused less issues in eighteen months than the HP's did in one day. The only downside being network wifi printing was flaky at best at worst you would need Harry Potter skills to connect. Would I buy another certainly if there is a box shifter selling them at discount I'll have an A3 size please :-) or one with a flat path for printing card.

Windows 10 now rules the weekend, taking over from Windows 7

Devil in the detail

At least one of the answers is standing there in the table and also the reason I am using Win10 on this laptop the decline of the unloved unwanted 'stinky' win8 which is overtaken by the ancient XP OS. A lot of people like me took the free upgrade to expunge 8 from their lives now that period has ended I wonder how the next upgrade will go if users find themselves with a Win8 box . I think the availability of Win7 licences might skew the numbers or perhaps more people would dip a toe into Linux distros the least likely option is buying a copy of Win10

Adblock Plus blocks Facebook's ad-blocker buster: It's a block party!

(Flash) Gordon's alive!

I find that not updating 'Flash' is a wonderful sidekick to my ad blocker so many advertisers rely on Flash but if it is not kept updated Firefox detecting content asks "Do you want to run this legacy piece of crap (sort of)" a simple NO! and the carefully crafted/selected spamming goes in the bin.

Admitted it has vulnerabilities but...if it is blocked and cannot run.

Sick and tired of modern Windows? Upgrade to Windows 3.1 today – in your web browser

I see your DX and raise you .....

Ah those were heady days my first homebrew was a 386SX33 perfect until a romance with fractals incited me into a threesome with coprocessor. My perversions knew no bounds and a soon I replaced the board and partnership with a 486 DX2 80 from that house of ill repute AMD whip me baby! :-p

Facebook Messenger: All your numbers are belong to us

Re: Errrrrrmmmmmm...

If an App "requires" a heap of permissions then you can be assured that the developers road map includes using them sooner rather than later.

WATERPROOF iPhone 6Ss? Old news. Check out the OTHER 7 SECRET FEATURES

No mention of the "tipping point" function which advises Cupertino when over 58% of their target market has purchased a unit and connected, this triggers a "new model press release" automatically.

The pachyderm punch: El Reg takes just-over-a-ton Elephone P8000 to tusk

Re: I'm curious...

T'ain't necessarily the case that Chinese brands will have no support. I was pleasantly surprised to find Cubot have now got a euro-service centre who bent over backwards to help me with a low volume jack socket problem on my new X12 Their diagnosis after we tried various work rounds was a warranty replacement done via the vendor. The new phone is happily driving my car (and truck) stereos for four to six hours a day .

I'm a fan of the company the only phone I have bought in recent years which has failed badly to perform was a Motorola Cliq ruined by google bloat/spyware. The oriental kit has performed well until inevitably it gets damaged by my hectic lifestyle new screen and my older P9 was good to go until it got jammed into a truck seat runner still worked though! I should get another screen so it is a handy spare.

Microsoft uses Windows Update to force Windows 10 ads onto older PCs

Re: @IaS - Naughty, naughty

Not really as soon as I started looking into the machinations of Chrome which slowed my single core machine to a crawl while loading. I decided that any browser that was running three hidden iterations for the purpose of reporting my web traffic to its masters was not worth having - removed never to return.

Tulsa woman bludgeons man mercilessly with laptop

Charged with domestic battery after a byte and a beating - a punsters dream scenario. He is lucky it wasn't a Toughbook that would have done serious damage.

'Lenovo, Superfish put smut on my system' – class-action lawsuit

Class action? no just reimburse my wife for the cost of getting the resulting malware removed by the local computershop $150 to purge right down to reserved bios partition level and reinstall windows 8

Hear that sound? It's the Windows XP PC bubble popping

Re: Huh?

All depends on the purpose you use your computer for, the big bogey man was XP would no longer recieve updates for IE. The was back pedalled upon within a month and in any case the majority of users would rather pull the long hairs from their noses than use IE. A lot of soho users will have a better than adequate XP box running their legacy software until it croaks - if it aint bust dont fix it - is the paradigm. The trigger will come with computer death or when a critical programme (think accounting package) will no longer run after an essential update.

Bloat-free, unlocked Moto X to be dubbed 'Pure Edition', says report

Seeing is Believing

Having been heavily burned by buying a Moto Cliq which gave bloatware a whole new horrible meaning and ate up my data allowance even when not actively used, it would be a very cold day before I would touch anything Moto. I don't have problem with preloaded apps like Farcebook or Twitter etc most of the planet is on at least one they will update automatically and they are easily removable. My desire is a simple settings menu that allows me to decide how my phone compromises my privacy I hate the idea I have to pay for my device to report my every move,text and call straight back to moto/google I want a switch that says 'nothing to see move along'. Since the Moto went back in its box I've bought Cubot P9 that doesn't report my gps postion,only updates when I have wifi isn't connecting to facebook every couple of minutes it suits me fine. Will Moto do this level of configuration I doubt it?

Fiat Panda Cross: 'Interesting-looking' Multipla spawn hits UK

4wd control

Odd to criticise the positioning of the 4wd drive selector the best reason to have it away from the steering wheel is to discourage fiddling, it is not something you should need to use regularly unless you are a Kalahari or Amazon resident. The proof being the dedicated offroad manufacturers place it on the transmission tunnel by default Land Rover, Toyota, Subaru and Isuzu all think its a rather good idea.

Too rich for an iPhone 6? How about a gold-plated Brikk?

Ooh suits you Sir!

I went into a certain store frequented by the 'beautiful people' in Manchester and saw their display case of blinged out phones. It really does get the point home that "this is not your kind of store" and you know the most impressive part is this phone is restrained compared to the contents of that case. If you had so little taste that you would buy a phone and pay ten times the price of the electronics for a pretty tacky case then daddy who is likely footing the bill will be appalled you cannot buy class!

Say goodbye to landfill Android: Top 10 cheap 'n' cheerful smartphones

landfill rumours may be premature

Having been badly burned buying a Moto Android hampered by Moto/Google first refusing to update the firmware and then the dreadful clunky Google front end which simply ate data allowance by continually 'phoning home' and ignored attempts to block the drain. I put it back in the box and vowed never Motorola again. I found a 3G Windows ME phone - I know a retrograde step but it solved the data issue and I was moderately happy with a interface familiar to my old iPaq (2G).

I did need an android for a number of applications and now finally I have Chinese droid that works admirably, one which is upgradable, carries eight gig of storage plus a microSD slot and a second simcard slot (though only 2G) it doesn't have a massive megapixel camera (which I don't need) What it does have a slick capacitive multipoint touch response, unfussy interface, 5 inch screen and googleplay. Cost? a lot less than these featured here . Simply it does exactly what I need, it may not be a Starbucks table item of man jewellery (OK it looks a lot like a Samsung Galaxy S5 until you get very close) - but it seems while the big players stampede into specifying more unwanted features the actual Chinese manufacturers are listening to what users want and quietly making their own decisions like including everybody's favourite better battery life - well can you find a phone with a battery that really lasts to the specs? I have now five days standby with a few hours of websurfing and a handful of calls thrown in I'm down to just over 40% battery life? the landfill can wait!

Virgin Media sales are a bit flat under the Cable Cowboy's reign

lack of value

I'm a subscriber who has watched VM steadily ramp up prices using little incremental things we are are not supposed to notice. In the end it was the constant repeating of programmes on TV that made me take another look at the rediculous amount of money I was expected to pay for a service no better than freeview with TV cancelled after subscribing to Netflix I'm over £40 a month better off and that first month covered the cost of my new freesat PVR rather less than the cost of "installing" ie plugging in a Virgin+ box .

They played a similar game with my mobile account with an enticing PAYG deal for twelve months that became a joke quickly from 20p for a days internet it jumped to 40 then 50p rehashed the call charges and it was time to cancel that as well. Time they learned that having loyal customers is not a reason to fleece them.

Why can’t I walk past Maplin without buying stuff I don’t need?

Re: Great headline!

That sounds about right 50/50 split sadly though they have lost the plot in the same way Tandy did pricing themselves out of the market for those without urgent need. These days I check the 'specials' flyers when stuff actually gets marked down to the true street value. Why pay a couple of quid for a pretty blister pack with two plugs when you can buy 10 delivered for less money?

Google invades videoconferencing market with Chromebox for Meetings

Re: Why pay for Google? to have all your bases

The elephant in any room involving Google is privacy and their record much like the elephant stinks. Would anybody discussing commercially sensitive information really trust them not to be trawling through communications in the way they routinely do with every product they produce? like that elephant its not going to fly.

HP clampdown on 'unauthorised' server fixing to start in January

Re: legal?

I think you are correct in consumer law , holding a customer to ransom when you have supplied goods with a fault is not going to fly and is likely to get you dragged into court for failing to comply with the law,. Persue this in the local small claims court and send in the bailiffs to HP for reparations and siezures when they try to ignore it!