Posts by Falmari 990 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Dec 2011
jake I should of written 'NT4 due to limited DirectX support' not 'lack of'. So Doom may have run depends on what level of DirectX it needed. At the time DirectX on NT4 was not common code there was a limited NT4 version and a 95 etc version. DirectX was not the only reason a game may not run on NT4 for instance NT4 was true 32bit, 95 etc were 16/32.
Then of course more so than today game coders tried to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the PC chances are they would do something that would not be compatible with NT4 or Win2x. As I said most games never included NT4 as a supported platform though I do remember seeing a couple that included Win2x support.
Doom was probably my first experience of multi player gaming that was in 95, 4 of us played it over the company's network, the main reason we stayed late in the office, it certainly wasn't to code.
@jake "If you absolutely have to run Windows software of the era, use NT4 or Win2K"
Not for games. 3D games would not run on NT4 due lack of DirectX support but chances are most would probably run on Win2K as it had the same level of DirectX support as win 95, 98 and ME. But most games of that period were targeted for win 95, 98 and ME and not claimed to work on NT4 or Win2K.
@Howard Sway "Get back to me when it can do "honest and accurate"" Never going to happen it can only be as "honest and accurate" as the sellers description to the AI. But if it did do "honest and accurate" then the sellers of Chinese knock offs won't use it. ;)
How is AI going to make the product info more complete? Consistent, and engaging blah blah I can see, but not more complete. It can only ever be as complete as the sellers brief description, just hopefully better written.
@icesenshi "And this is why exactly, because you said so?"
No, not on my say so. But on how Incorporation works, it limits the liability of the owners and separates the firm's assets and income from its owners and investors. So as the code was developed by the company it would be a company asset and therefore owned by the company not Kurtzer.
@Snake "what matters is who owned the copyright to the code. If the code was copyrighted to the management (not uncommon), then he had the right to do whatever he pleased with it regardless of the fact that the current management has its nickers in a knot over it."
Sylabs, Inc as an incorporated company surely owned the copyright to the code not Kurtzer who as CEO is an employee. In his role as CEO he has the power to make the decision to open source technology. But would be acting on behalf of his employer Sylabs, Inc on on his own behalf.
If Kurtzer reason for open sourcing Fuzzball was to start a competing company and use that technology to the detriment of Sylabs. Then he was acting against his employer's best interest and solely in his own. If that can be proved then there is a lot Sylabs can do about it suing for damages is the civil side, there may even be a criminal side.
Of course all speculation as it just you said I said at the moment.
@that one in the corner Exactly starting at the north pole every direction is south. Every point 1 mile south of the north pole is a point on the circumference of a circle with a spherical radius of 1 mile whose center is the north pole.
Therefore 1 mile south, 1 mile east then 1 mile north means you are back at the north pole from which it is impossible to travel west as every direction is south. It's a trick question.
I have not heard the polar bear puzzle but the travel a distance from the north pole then travel west or east then travel same distance north as you did south is used as a trick question. I remember that trick question being asked by the lecturer in one of the first cartography lectures on my degree. Remember as everyone throwing out an answer including me got it wrong.
Their nuclear analogies are not analogous to AI.
"To continue the nuclear analogy, if a corporation decided they wanted to sell a lot of enriched uranium in supermarkets, and someone decided to take that enriched uranium and buy several pounds of it and make a bomb, wouldn't we say that some liability resides with the company that decided to sell the enriched uranium?"
A better analogy would be:- If a corporation decided they wanted to publish a book that explained the process of how to enriched uranium, and someone decided to read that book they would still require the skills, knowledge and means to produce enriched uranium and someone that did have the skills, knowledge and means to produce enriched uranium probably wouldn't need the book.
So AI may come up with the design for a new bioweapon. But it is going to require a lot more skill, knowledge and resources compared to building a Blue Peter model out of toilet rolls and sticky backed tape.
Finally a tip for all the Dr Evils out there don't waste your time with AI there are plenty of bioweapons out with the right money in the right place designs will be available. But why build your own just choose from one of the many in stockpiles held by various country's around the world.
@AC "It will be interesting to compare reactions on this article against where each person's previous posts stood on the "ChatGPT just stores the text it saw in its training and prints it out again, word for word" versus the "no it doesn't, it uses (long winded description)" debate."
Why, is it because OpenAI's classifier "struggled with prose it hadn't seen in its training dataset"? That just means their classifier does not really work, because it failed to accurately classify data not in the training data. They exclude data that is in the training set because that data will be classified as it was trained to be classified.
You can't test the accuracy of a model no matter how it works (just stores the text or uses (long winded description)) on its training data as the model has been trained to fit the data. Therefore the results will fit the model.
BTW unlike you my post is not AC.
I had another look at the patents it seems Touchstream does not use a dongle the phone talks to a server via the internet and tells it what it wants played. The server identifies what is to be played and tells the media player on the tv to load and play that internet content.
Still not mirroring dongle or not the content played comes from the internet via the tv's internet connection.
@Sampler It's not screen mirroring the feed is coming from the internet not your phone. The phone tells the dongle what it wants to play the dongle fetches it from the internet via your TV's internet connection. That's a very simplistic description but that's the gist of it.
The patent goes into much more detail about how the feed is handled, selected and controlled, but does that make it worthy of a patent? Probably not, I say probably as I really haven't read the patents just had a quick look..
@Howard Sway "Claims of software being "open" should only be accepted if source is available at no cost for use in any damn way you want."
Like MS are using opensource code any damn way they want, when using opensource code to train CoPilot.
Of course not, because opensource does not mean "use in any damn way you want" and neither does FOSS.
The judgements referred to free and open source. They were not allowed to advertise their software as free and open source I am assuming that means FOSS rather than just open source.
"Defendants and their owners, principals, agents, managers, officers, directors, members, servants, employees, successors, assigns, and all other persons acting in concert and participation with them (collectively, the “Enjoined Parties”) ARE HEREBY ENJOINED from:
2. Advertising, promoting, representing or referring to ONgDB as a free and open source drop-in replacement of Neo4j Enterprise Edition distributions"
@doublelayer BTW thanks for the link.
@TheMaskedMan "Or are they pirate copies uploaded by third parties without permission? If so, are the authors actively seeking to have the infringing copies removed? If not, why not?"
To try and get infringing copies removed they would have to know the sites those copies are on. That would require the AI companies to declare where the data came from.
Has any of these AI companies ever stated what each item of data is a model was trained on, and from were it was obtained?
Have you ever seen a sellotape dispenser, a spool of tape at one end, the tape snipes off at the other end. Where the tape meets the horizontal plane there is a reverse bend to the bend of the tape on the spool. As you pull tape through the diameter of the tape on the spool decreases as does the angle of the reverse bend.
The only difference in Apples patent is that they can control the angle of that bend by moving the spindle up and down the Y axis with springs. Moving the spindle along the Y axis to maintain angle of the feed to the X axis is as old as the hills and is commonly used to keep the stress constant.
@John Brown (no body) "AFAICT, they are only patenting a method of rolling a glass coated screen"
No they are not. There is no method, they are just describing rolling a glass coated screen around a spindle. They are simply describing rolling a flat surface that has multiple layers around a spindle and the various forces that will apply to those layers.
This description would apply to LG's TV screen that will certainly contain more than one layer.
BTW I have read the patent application linked in the article and I saw no method. But maybe I missed something if so please point out what that method is.
@DS999 "Is there a way to kick a country out of the EU?"
No there is no mechanism to do that. The best they can do is Article 7 that would allow for suspension of voting rights at the Council level. There is a small problem Article 7 requires a unanimous vote from leaders. So Article 7 proceedings have been started against both Poland and Hungary and then just stopped.
Hotel California: Until 2009 when Article 50 came into force, there was no mechanism to leave. Though if a country stopped paying I think it would have been pretty clear to the EEC/EU said country had left.
Hey its healthy to distrust Microsoft I do, just as I do for all the other tech companies, hell all large companies.
The FTC really fucked up the judge even pointed out they did not even look into what could happen if MS possibly pulled other Activision/Blizzard games from PlayStation.
FTC's year and half investigation (told about acquisition in feb 2022) and all they have is CoD and MS bad.
@Annihilator ”I'm... not sure I follow the logic of that statement.”
Here is the logic when applied to a game like CoD which is a multiplatform game. When it comes to multiplatform games neither MS nor Sony have removed access to their rival when they acquired such a game. The most likely reason is it would be detrimental to their players as it would reduce the player pool of available players to compete against.
An example of this is when MS acquired Mojang who made Minecraft. MS has not made Minecraft an Xbox exclusive, in fact they have done the opposite. It is available on more platforms than before and still available on PlayStation. That is an example of giving players more choice.
Also, possibly the reason why Minecraft is Microsoft’s highest revenue generating game franchise.
That was one of the points covered by the judge in the recent injunction case.
The reason why FTC lost the case was they focused mainly on CoD. There was no evidence/expert witness testimony on any other aspects of the deal*.
* BTW I read all 53 pages of the PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION OPINION and I can see why MS/Activision were so keen to get into court.
@Liam Proven "RH's users _can_ give the source away. However then RH can simply end their contract and they cease to get updates. That too is 100% legal and GPL compliant."
But is it compliant with contract law? Can the RH contract penalise a user for exercising their rights under GPL, by ending the RH contract. Is that not an unfair contract by asking the user to sign away their rights.
@TrueJim "AI models are not copying works, but they are analyzing works."
These cases claim "OpenAI made copies of Plaintiffs' books during the training process of the OpenAI Language Models without Plaintiffs' permission."
So is it, AI models are not copying works, but they are analyzing copies of works. and if so, does making those copies infringe the author's copyright.
The question that's being asked is this: Does OpenAI infringe copyright when it scrapes copyrighted works from the internet?
In my opinion it does. But that is just my opinion.
@t245t "Yes, that is precisely why Lorie Smith took-up the case. "
What case? How can Lorie Smith's company be forced to create websites celebrating marriages, (same sex or otherwise) when her company does not offer that service. We know her company does not offer that service from the linked Supreme Court pdf.
"Lorie Smith wants to expand her graphic design business, 303 Creative LLC, to include services for couples seeking wedding websites."
"No such scenario occurred - really ?"
Yes really? The scenario refers to an event she claims happened in 2016 in her court filings which did not in fact happen. If you follow the link in the article you will see that she claims she was contacted by Stewart (contact details included in fillings) to produce designs possible a website for his pending marriage to Mike. The reporter contacted Stewart who claimed that did not happen, and this was “the very first time I’ve heard of it.”
Also Stewart is married with a child, was married at the time, lives in a different state and is himself a website designer. So why would he contact an out of state company for a service they do not offer, that he is able to perform himself.
There should never have been a case. Lorie Smith's case is based on a what if and fiction.
@RegGuy1 "Maastricht was a no brainer -- unless of course you were a gammon." or from Denmark, France or Ireland who all held referendums. The first Danish referendum rejected the treaty. In France the referendum was 50.8% in favour.
Seems 3 of the 12 members did not see it as a no brainer.
$1.75 million seems a lot for the failure of a $6 per month service.
Form the complaint.
"5. Starting in 2010 the Plaintiff Law Offices of David M. Schlachter, LLC (“Law Office”) utilized a new product on the market that Defendant was providing, Office 365.
6. At the time, this was a free service that provided free email and website.
7. Commencing July 2017 this service became subscription only.
8. Plaintiff Law Office switched its web hosting to another service but paid Defendant for email use.
9. From July 2017 until January 2021 Plaintiff law office paid $5 a month per email address used.
10. Commending around January 2021 the cost increased to $6 per email address used.
11. On May 10, 2023, Mr. Schlachter could not longer access his email, the one he paid Defendant for (@lawdms.com). "
Does not seem the lawyer thought the service was that important, after all he was running MS's free email and website version for 7 years. Only started paying when it was no longer free, moving web hosting to another service provider and paying MS for the email.
NP, but to be honest I have no idea why I looked it up. ;)
BTW I am not a lawyer so the info is not some AI "hallucination" and here are the links to prove it. ;)
https://www.naacq.com/news-releases/news-release-details/north-atlantic-acquisition-corp-announces-termination-business
https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/54825-04#funding
They maybe a US corp but they are owned by an EU (Belgian) corp BICS, who are in turn owned by Proximus (Belgian).
I know the article says BICS are former parents but it seems BICS still own TeleSign as the merger with North Atlantic Acquisition Corporation was cancelled.
As all three companies are listed in the complaint it is really Another day, another Big corp finding out
But like you the article made my day ;)
The report has its own bias. It is selective in the data it shows, by only showing data on selected demographics to support its narrative. When data is included that does not fit the narrative it is ignored. Also a large part of the data is answers to a questionnaire given by respondents who are not employed in tech jobs. 77% of the respondents work in HR.
An example of 'only showing data on selected demographics to support its narrative' can be seen on page 7 "Opportunity Gap and Hiring Bias" also the image shown in the Reg article. The two graphs "Positions Sending Interview Requests to Only Men" and "Positions Sending Interview Requests to Only White Candidates" are to support the narrative of a male bias, a white bias and therefore a white male bias.
But without the results of the other demographics there is no evidence to suggest any form of bias. For all we know "Positions Sending Interview Requests to Only Asian Candidates" may be higher than Only White Candidates.
Page 12 "The Wage Gap and Wage Bias" displays the "Wage Gap by Race and Gender" seems to be an example of data that does not fit the narrative being ignored. Unlike other parts of the document where a group having some success in closing the wage gap is noted they fail to do that here. Maybe because the group in question is "White Men".
This report says more about the bias of its authors than it does about the "State of Wage Inequality in the Tech Industry"
@Howard Sway "That's not really the question here."
No it is a valid question and one that needs to be asked.
Do you really think that for ( int i = 0; i < N; ++i ) array[ i ] = 0; requires attribution, that code that contained that line infringes copyright.
To me as a programmer it is really worrying that you consider @Mishak's question unimportant.
My last employer of 23 years was an early adopter (v1.1) of C# .Net for the Windows part of our products. So in that time I written a fair bit of C#, 95% of which is sitting in files with their copyright comments. If snippets of code like @Mishak's example are copyrightable than all I can say is it a good job I have retired. As I can't see how I could ever write C# for another company as I would be forever infringing my last employer's copyright.
Don't get me wrong I believe that MS are infringing copyright with CoPilot, just it is training part that infringes. Snippets of code should be judge like code produced by humans, but training data is not snippets it is the whole source there is little argument that that is not copyrighted.
@Lil Endian "all it needs is to say "software that produces output that does this"
I agree all that is important is "output that does this" Labeling a system as AI or not AI does not make a difference to the output it produces.
I looked at page two, seems anything can be AI. "(c) Statistical approaches, Bayesian estimation, search and optimization methods."
The article is not wrong the author is just speculating that the reforms could lead to third party app stores that charge less that Apples standard 30% commission. Apple do have a 30% commission rate.
There was no need to mention that Apple reduce the commission to 15% for SMBs with app revenue of $1 million or less. A fact well known Reg readers and reported in other articles by the Reg, so irrelevant as they were not speculating less than 15% commission.
Today you can see if you inspect their source (<meta content="origin" name="referrer">) Google and the other search engines use that mechanism. But in 2013 the link provided in the article shows most browsers would not have supported that and would have populated the referrer string with the full URL.
@hayzoos "There are two points where the referrer string is controlled."
No it is just the user agent, that would be the browser. When you click on a link the browser creates the referrer string from the URL of that page.
If you follow this link google.com your browser will create the referrer string “https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2023/06/17/google_searchers_from_years_past/” because that is the url of this page.
A search engine (Google, Bing, duckduckgo) page is no different. Follow this link Duckduckgo.com then follow a link on that page your browser will generat a referrer string from that pages URL “https://duckduckgo.com/?va=v&t=ha&q=david+bowie&ia=web/” a URL that has the search items in it. But just like the Register example above it is because that is the URL of the page the link was on.
In both examples the browser controls the referrer string not the site with the link.
Having listened to his Youtube video it seems he did have a functional "backup plan" that would cover an internet outage. As his smart home is hosted locally he could access the devices through his server. He even has backup batteries for his devices to handle limited power outages.
His point was unlike him most people won't they will just have alexa and their smart lights etc will stop working if Amazon withdraw Alexa.
Humanity really has no need of advice on how to kill someone from ChatGPT. I think you will find that over the millennia we got killing people down pat.
In my opinion it is not evil or unreliable, just not needed.
It would only be unreliable if it was not the advice you were asking for. Say you asked how to make a Tequila Sunrise and it told you how to kill someone. ;)
ChatGPT evil what next Midsummer Murders, look how many different ways to kill they have shown
@codejunky "If it was true that it was to the benefit of the energy companies I doubt we would have issues of the government being the ones complaining about the slow roll out."
It is because it is true the roll out has been slow. The government and the energy companies have failed to convince the public that smart meters benefit anyone other than the energy companies. The public are not legally required to have smart meters, you have the right to refuse a smart meter if you don’t want one.
The reason the target date keeps getting moved is not due to a lack of trying on the energy companies part. They have harassed, bullied and even misled customers into thinking smart meters are a legal requirement to get smart meters fitted. The main reason is that a lot of customers are refusing to sign up for them.
My electric provider for the past 5 years has been sending me a letter every quarter asking to fit a smart meter. I told the no the first time, but still the letters come, only to go straight in the bin.
"If the FTC is successful in its emergency attempt to bar the move, its administrative case against the merger would be able to proceed as normal. Its next scheduled hearing is on August 2, weeks after the merger's July 18 deadline will have come and gone."
This seems to suggest that the FTC would not be able to proceed as normal. Does it mean that the FTC have to make a decision on the merger before the merger's deadline. But a restraining order would allow them to delay their decision until after July 18 thereby running the clock out on the merger.
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