Posts by localzuk

Microsoft readies Windows Autopatch to free admins from dealing with its fixes

This would eliminate its usefulness in education settings too. Can't be having teacher laptops deciding to reboot in the middle of a lesson.

Being able to set a maintenance window at a minimum is a necessity.

Will optics ever replace copper interconnects? We asked this silicon photonics startup

Re: The medium is the messenger

Considering the speed we can transmit data through copper has increased year on year for decades, I think this point is key here. Copper itself hasn't massively changed, but the tech to utilise it properly has. Eg. compare USB 1 to USB 3.1. Massive increase in capability, but it is still just a copper wire.

Always read the comments: Beijing requires oversight of all reader-generated chat

Socialism?

Not sure the Chinese government have a good grasp on what socialism is? Socialism is itself not authoritarian and dictatorial. Having criticism of the government isn't not in itself anti-socialist.

But then, China isn't particularly bothered with actually following socialist values are they? They appear to be far closer to the Animal Farm version of communism - everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.

Tencent completes 50 million core migration of its own apps to its own clouds

Re: "30 per cent better than the industry standard"

You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!

Re: "30 per cent better than the industry standard"

30% worse than what Tencent has in place.

If you want to launch Starship from Texas, here's some homework, FAA tells SpaceX

Re: Not too bad/onerous

The USA imported 26.3m metric tonnes of steel in 2019, and exported 7.1m metric tonnes.

So, yes, steel can very easily be shipped.

Not to mention, China is the world's largest steel maker, followed by India, Japan, USA, Russia, S Korea, Turkey, Germany etc...

Raw materials are not going to be the reason SpaceX stays in the USA. They are a relatively minor part of the cost of flying their rockets.

Re: Not too bad/onerous

The FAA is also aware that it is an issue of competing on a world stage too. If the USA behaves in a way that discourages private space port operations, then companies are more likely to move to other countries. Plenty of countries would love that investment.

So, realistically, these mitigations are part of the process of ensuring things stay in the USA as well. They're certainly not to make it too onerous to implement.

Threat of cross-border data tariffs looms over WTO

Re: "taxing e-commerce the same way that [..] physical goods traded internationally"

Sure, spending keeps going up.

You know what also keeps going up? Population and inflation. If you measure federal govt spending against GDP, it has been fairly level since 1952 in the USA... State and local spending though? They've been increasing.

The UK, as a comparison, has been rather more all over the place, but if you draw a line through it (excluding covid years, but including financial crash, and the 70s version of the financial crash), it is fairly flat too. Averaging around 40%.

Re: "taxing e-commerce the same way that [..] physical goods traded internationally"

Less government has been tried. It doesn't work. Less government means more scams, criminals and frauds. It means more poor quality goods coming to market due to less regulation. It means more people getting sick or hurt etc...

We have the amount of government we have today in reaction to problems. Politicians didn't just wake up one day and decide "lets regulate XYZ market for no reason".

Intel details advances to make upcoming chips faster, less costly

Believe it when I see it

Intel have made so many promises over the years and have simply not delivered. We'll see if this is more of the same, or if AMD will keep their lead.

Whatever you do, don't show initiative if you value your job

Sounds about right. There was lots of software like that. Still is some of it floating around in schools that are unwilling to modernise.

When the outcome is "you're fired" you can be sure there is a blame management system in place.

Re: "So was James truly the guilty party?"

There was plenty of poorly written software around at the time that did indeed require local admin rights to run. No amount of changing permissions would remedy the issue - anyone working in Education at the time can give you plenty of examples.

Woman accused of killing boyfriend after tracking him down with Apple AirTag

Re: Ban cars?

Cars have a critical legitimate use - without them the economy would fall apart.

I suspect you're trying that argument as a way to say arguments about gun control are bad, except guns aren't necessary for the USA to operate.

China 'must seize TSMC' if the US were to impose sanctions

There's a million Uyghurs in "re-education" camps at the moment... Do you really think the population of China could stand up to the might of its police and military? I doubt it very much.

Tiananmen Square shows us they are completely OK killing people who disagree.

Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh resigns after being added to EU sanctions list

Re: China has never been expansionist

The creation of China was in fact done via attacking and conquering neighbours. Qin Shi Huang conquered neighbours, gave himself the title "Huangdi" of the Qin - the start of the imperial state of China.

More recently, they have annexed Tibet, Aksai Chin, the Paracel Islands, etc... Not to mention their current claims to Taiwan.

Re: Give Ukraine Nukes

Examples needed. What is it that NATO has done which are not related to defence?

Re: Give Ukraine Nukes

Putin wants to win, but he also is willing to say "if we can't win, no-one wins" with regards his nukes. He has stated multiple times, if he considers Russia to be at risk, he will use nukes without a second thought.

Re: Give Ukraine Nukes

Your analogy doesn't hold up.

China is a single country - the only way for it to expand its borders is taking over other countries.

NATO, on the other hand, is a defensive alliance. It isn't a country. It doesn't have borders of its own - its members have borders. NATO simply says "if one of us is attacked and they ask for our help, we will help".

The only way to join NATO is for a country to want to join, and for all existing members to agree.

About as different to China as you can possibly get.

Microsoft: You own the best software keyboard there is. Please let us buy it

More realistic

They'll bring back Swype, but with Swiftkey's swiping capabilities and Swype's prediction capabilities. Worst of both worlds.

US Supreme Court puts Texas social media law on hold

Re: Interstate commerce?

Problem with that is there's no product being exported. The customer is actively crossing the state boundary, rather than the company doing it. i.e. the service would have no presence in Texas if the customer didn't load up the site to bring it in. The servers and company all remain outside the state.

Interstate commerce?

Putting aside the 1st Amendment part of it all, would this not also violate the whole part of the constitution which gives the power over interstate trade to the federal government, not states?

If these social media companies are based in, say, California and people access the sites in Texas, isn't that interstate trade?

I suppose it'd be different if they had a physical presence in Texas itself but if they didn't, it doesn't seem like Texas would have jurisdiction?

Re: I wonder what would happen if...

>The Texas state law also attempts to prohibit social media companies from not allowing Texas-based users to access their sites.

That sounds remarkably like trying to interfere in inter-state trade by forcing them to trade inter-state? Not sure that'd stand up in court either.

IBM ordered to pay $1.6b to BMC

What's there to appeal?

IBM had a contract saying they wouldn't move mutual customers over to their own systems. They did so.

That seems pretty cut and dry?

Quantum internet within grasp as scientists show off entanglement demo

Re: "the quantum internet 'could become a secure communications network' "

Was thinking the same thing. What happens with govt interception and the like? Current governments don't even like normal E2E encryption, let alone a quantum system which would impossible to intercept.

BOFH: Where do you think you are going with that toner cartridge?

Re: HP Laserjet 5

The LJ 4 and LJ5 will basically work forever. The parts are super simple to swap out, so you can keep it going and going.

Got myself a second hand LJ4 when I was at uni in 2006. Think I printed 50,000 pages on it over a couple of years. Cartridges were £20 a pop. Worked out 1/10th the price I could print at the uni.

Only thing worse

Only thing worse than copiers and copier contracts? Franking machines and franking machine contracts.

People think toner cartridges are expensive? Try franking machine inkjet cartridges. They make them seem cheap.

Campaigners warn of legal challenge against Privacy Shield enhancements

Re: Colour me confused

No. The EU cookie law was an entirely different law. EU privacy directive, amended in 2009, effective from 2011.

New York City rips out last city-owned public payphones

Re: Redundancy?

IIRC, most internet comes in the form of cable or fibre in the USA.

UK style FTTC or ADSL is much more rare.

Beijing needs the ability to 'destroy' Starlink, say Chinese researchers

The system can use ground stations anywhere in the world. There's lots of them to spread the load, and give local connectivity (eg. you want a UK connection to use a UK base station).

So, satellites over China could use base stations in the USA without any real issue. You just get more latency.

Clearview AI fined millions in the UK: No 'lawful reason' to collect Brits' images

Re: I'm in two minds about this, because it ignores the elephant in the room

Precisely this. When sharing said data, especially if it is special category data, they would need to be explicit as to who they were sharing it with, and for what purpose it would be processed. A catch all "we share with others" is not enough under GDPR.

Re: I'm in two minds about this, because it ignores the elephant in the room

Consent. If I put a photo on Google's site, I give consent under Google's terms for its use there. I do not give carte blanche to every random company to take it and use it how they see fit.

And, if Google were to sell that data, they'd still need explicit, informed consent for that particular use too.

Re: And the enforceability of this fine is done how?

If they ever want to do business in the UK, they'll care.

Bing! Microsoft tests search box in the middle of Windows 11 desktop

Desperate to get Bing users

This is yet another attempt to get people to use Bing. I'm honestly surprised they've not been sued for the same old nonsense it keeps doing, with the existing start menu search box - leveraging its dominance in desktop computing to force people onto its other services.

This box? If you can't swap out the search source? Would pretty much guarantee that competitors lodge complaints.

AMD approaches '30%' x86 CPU market share, thanks to servers 'n' laptops

Laptops

We have periodically tried out AMD powered laptops and the result has nearly always been the same - the battery life on them is considerably lower than their Intel equivalents.

Now, this is likely not all AMD's fault to be honest - but manufacturers seem to build their AMD laptops that bit cheaper than their Intel ones. Overall quality usually seems lower.

So we end up sticking with Intel in laptops. Desktops though? More than happy to have an AMD chip in a desktop.

IBM's autonomous Mayflower ship breaks down in second transatlantic attempt

Re: That's twice.

Its a classic example of forgetting the basics.

Like those fingerprint padlocks you can unlock by unscrewing the case.

Google cancels bi-annual performance reviews, shifts to GRAD system

Makes sense. Don't perform well, get a rocket fired at you. Or it could by more wile e cayote - they strap them to a rocket and launch it?

UK competition watchdog probes school software contract revisions

Funny thing is, 3 year contracts are not standard

Most of the other companies have their MIS solutions listed on the GCloud 12 procurement framework site. Which awards 2 year contracts, with options for 2 1 year extensions at the wish of the customer.

At least 1 of their competitors is explicitly advertising 1 year contracts as well.

So, where they got the idea that 3 year contracts are standard from is a mystery.

Debian faces firmware furore from FOSS freedom fighters

Re: The silent majority

Rather a large assumption there - that the "purity" crowd aren't publishing to the same frequency.

They may well be doing so, but a) their views are less popular so they get read less and/or b) there's just not that many of them and therefore the numbers of such articles is low due to that.

Assuming there's some widespread bias about an issue that the majority of people neither know nor care about is rather odd.

Elon Musk buys 9.2% of Twitter, sends share price to the Moon

Re: Twitter is overhyped

330m monthly active users last I saw.

The metaverse of fantasy worlds is itself still a fantasy

So as far as I can tell

The idea will be a 3D internet. But as its being pushed purely by companies, it'll be a bunch of walled gardens, and no doubt things like moving assets between services will involve a cost. Getting any assets in the first place will involve a cost too - either buying them from said companies, or paying to be allowed to import your own.

Its all about milking money, not about creating a true collaboration environment.

Russia bans foreign software purchases for critical infrastructure

Does it apply to firmware?

Eg. the OS on Cisco routers or telecoms kit?

Suspect there's gonna be some holes in their available options!

BT must 'prioritize' between 'shareholders and workers' says union boss

Re: Simplistic View

I'd suggest you keep wild sweeping accusations to yourself tbh.

Re: Simplistic View

Current inflation is supply lead - there are constraints on a great many things, meaning higher prices as people fight for those supplies.

What you're talking about is demand lead inflation - where people are paid more and more, forcing prices up. That isn't currently happening anywhere near as much.

Its why the Bank of England putting interest rates up was a bad move, as it won't do what they want.

The fix to the issue is increased supply - more gas, more electricity, more grain imports etc...

Ubiquiti sues Krebs on Security for defamation

Re: Excellent? No so good anymore

Huh? What products need different controllers? Do you mean different entirely different segments?

Ubiquiti's Unifi networking range all uses one controller.

Their CCTV platform all uses one controller.

Their phone system uses one, etc...

Or do you expect one controller to handle all that? If so, that'd be a bit odd as no other company does either from what I can tell.

FTC sues Intuit for false advertising, says 'free' TurboTax isn't always free

Bizarre system

To a Brit, the US tax system is bizarre. The last time I filed a tax return? Never. Its automatic for "normal" employees (as most people don't claim anything back). For everyone else, you can file on the government site, and don't need to pay for some special software to do it. Of course, you can pay accountants or buy software if you want, but the free, normal, way of doing it is available to all.

How on Earth is there not just a simple government portal for that?

OVHcloud datacenter 'lacked' automatic fire extinguishers, electrical cutoff

Re: got what you didn't pay for

Well, yes. OVH are clear about what their services offer. I've used them for years for development and gaming server hosting. Would I put stuff from work there? No, that's on Azure, suitably redundant.

Gotta pick the service that fulfils your needs. Anyone who uses OVH for critical services, and doesn't put in place their own redundancy is asking for trouble. And that's from a happy OVH customer.

Russia labels Meta an 'extremist' organization, bans Instagram

Re: I pity the Russian people

The downvoting is odd at times.

But realistically, at the moment, "globalisation" has gone a bit too far. Its a great idea, for non-strategic stuff. But for strategic industry? That should not be overseas IMO.

But we're starting to see some sense from governments. New chip fabs being mooted in the EU, for example. They just need to go further and ensure critical tools are not being manufactured entirely by countries that we can't actually call allies.

Re: I pity the Russian people

You're not wrong. We are hugely reliant on China.

But, secondary sanctions would be on specific companies rather than the country as such. Eg. Sanctions on, say, Foxconn, rather than China.

If it is legal within Ukraine? Sure, its their platform.