Posts by spold

Smartphones cleared for launch as NASA loosens the rulebook

Samsung perhaps?

The "Space Zoom" feature might be useful in finding your way to the moon.... even if when you get there it doesn't look like the picture... "I knew I should've taken that left turn at Albuquerque".

.

Musk distracts from struggling car biz with fantastical promise to make 1 million humanoid robots a year

Sounds familiar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_the_Paranoid_Android

NASA begins formal anomaly review after MAVEN probe lost in space

Obviously...

...since "does suggest an energetic event" and "It's unlikely that anything has hit it" are assumed to be true, then the hypothesis "zapped by a Martian" has moved up the list.

Moon hotel startup hopes you get lunar lunacy, drop $1M deposit for 2032 stay

Alternatively ...

Go to the McMurdo Dry valleys in Antarctica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Dry_Valleys - pretty similar but cheaper shithole experience except they get a bit of meltwater on a Tuesday in August and the odd bit of green crud - soup anyone?

Tech that helps people outshone overhyped AI at CES 2026

"I can see this being a complete and utter nightmare to use"

Yes, and unfortunately many can't understand the user manual.

Re: Vera Rubin

I knew her sister Vicky.

US Army seeks human AI officers to manage its battle bots

Predictable...

The army secretary for acquisition, logistics, and technology? Major Bang of course!

AI faces closing time at the cash buffet

Re: digital transformation!!!!

ENIAC needed rewiring for new programs. The Manchester Mark 1 was the first stored program computer (although the preceding Manchester Baby proved the concept). The Mark 1 lead to the development of the Ferranti Mark 1 - the world's first commercial computer.

NASA nominee 'committed' to uprooting Shuttle Discovery for Houston trophy piece

I guess if they snapped a wing and a wheel off and sent that it would be cheaper and everyone would be happy?

(Engineering Judgement of Solomon).

Speccy clone storms back for Christmas without a shred of Sinclair code

Excellent - I've been looking for a new doorstop ;-)

Asahi admits ransomware gang may have spilled almost 2M people's data

Setsunai

Harakiri Friday for management I guess....

Campbell's CISO canned after lawsuit alleges hour-long rant against staff and customers

Re: Grin

Well he certainly ended up in the soup

NASA pares back Boeing's Starliner deal after 2024 calamity

Capsule might only manage three crewed missions to the ISS....

The question being how many it can do from the ISS...

Old-school rotary phone dials into online meetings, hangs up when you slam it down

Aren't those...

...what the Doctor Who Cybermen used to wear?

Bossware booms as bots determine whether you're doing a good job

If ever there was a business case for AI...

.....it would be in deceiving this pile of donkey dung into believing you are in the office doing something that will likely never make any difference to anything while you are actually down the pub...

70-hour work weeks no longer enough for Infosys founder, who praises China’s 996 culture

Was that?

Europe’s TARGET Instant Transaction Settlement system? (o)(o)

Apple knits up $230 sock for your iPhone in time for Christmas

The iCock sock - you know you want one...

AI nudification site fined £55K for skipping age checks

Please upload a picture of your old shrivelled worn-out previously naughty bits so we can verify your old age....

Magician forgets password to his own hand after RFID chip implant

What's the sound...

of one magician clapping....

(he might also get quite jealous if he gets a round of applause)

Obviously....

It's "123456", "password" or "qwertyuiop".... doh!

Happy holidays: AI-enabled toys teach kids how to play with fire, sharp objects

Yay! Chucky now AI enabled...

AI slop hits new high as fake country artist goes to #1 on Billboard digital songs chart

Not too difficult to generate....

"My dog died, my cousin left me....."

52-year-old data tape could contain only known copy of UNIX V4

Turns out...

...It's just a bad recording of the Bay City Rollers.

Google's Gemini Deep Research can now read your Gmail and rummage through Google Drive

The privacy notice...

..is at least 16 pages and that is before expanding the next level content... I have read and understood... Perhaps I can get Gemini to summarise it....

Foxconn hires humanoid robots to make servers at Nvidia's Texas factory

And the orange dictator....

...will take credit for all these jobs being created in the USA (being done by robots from Taiwan). In response they will need H1-B visas.....

---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnZVDQoMJbw

China uses Mars orbiter to snap interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS

C'mon

I could make an image like that using some black paper, a lamp, and some pins....

Tesla board wants to grant Musk $1T in stock, Norway wealth fund says nope

In response...

Musk will buy Norway

Robotic lawnmower uses AI to dodge cats, toys

Cats...

...all it has is speaker on the front going "woof! woof! woof!

High-stakes poker scam used rigged card shufflers, X-ray tables, and special glasses

Being honest...

Old fruit machines used to have "guaranteed 70% payout" (or similar) in small letters, somewhere unlikely to leap out at you on them. That meant over time you were destined to lose 30%. The only somewhat unlikely way to win was to watch someone else stuff it full of coins and not win anything, then you might play and take advantage of the guarantee.

How do you solve a problem like Discovery?

Make it somebody else's problem...

Put a large box around it and call you favourite courier

Mind the gap – in mobile coverage: UK train signal to stay patchy till 2030

Transport for Wales has solved this

You just need to use the nearest station as the default wireless password. I believe Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch has an underused but excellent connection.

Big money is nervous about AI hype, but not ready to call it a bubble

Re: just makes the pop bigger

Well with the Toyota analogy we can expect it to crash, the wheels will fall off, and while it will try to clutch it will be wipered off the market, and booted out. I think there are strong indicators for that.

Nice try, sinners: Pope nixes idea of AI pontiff blessing netizens

Chat Generative Pope trained Transformer (ChatGPT) - has a tendency for hallucinations - spawn of satan

Flu jab email mishap exposes hundreds of students' personal data

Atishoo, Atishoo we all fall down....

After nearly half a century in deep space, every ping from Voyager 1 is a bonus

Voyager 2 that swung past Uranus

Funny. I never noticed....

SpaceX Dragon gives International Space Station a kick up the orbit

Dad's Army....

As Corporal Jones would say - They don't like it up 'em!

Microsoft open-sources the 6502 BASIC coded by Bill Gates himself

A little shortcut...

In the Commodore PET version you could write program commands just using the first letter of them followed by Shift+Second letter.

Tesla Model Ys recalled Down Under for overly enthusiastic electric windows

There is no escape - mwahaha

Frostbyte10 bugs put thousands of refrigerators at major grocery chains at risk

Re: If Russia had exploited this ...

Chilling

DHS says it needs $100M worth of counter-drone tech to protect America

It's all relative really...

I'm guessing in the overall scheme of the spending $100M is likely small potatoes.

p.s. I can't wait for the navy to join in as well with Counter Unmanned Nautical Technology Systems....

Junk is the new punk: Why we're falling back in love with retro tech

Re: Cassettes???

"Chrome" tapes were a step up, "Metal" tapes took it much higher - I still have an old player gathering moths that had a button for metal tapes (no idea what it did other than satisfy you had forked out more for the cassette) - actually I believe it was supposed to increase the recordable frequency range

Generative AI isn't just a matter of life and death. It's far more important than that

You can always complain....

Use your privacy-ouja board to log a complaint with the privacy commissioner.

On another note there is always the Musk-rat and Neuralink - it starts of well meaning by supplementing the functionality of disabled people, but then it will move on to supplementing brain function by moving chunks of it into the "cloud", then it will get into where the machine ends and the human begins.... maybe when you get to the end of your lifespan you upload yourself. Then it will come down to who pays the electric bill... your money or your life, internet highway robbery.

NASA won't name the Shuttle picked to move to Texas

Re: won't name ?

I suspect "Billy Bob" - payload doors open and a pickup in the bay, fueled up with Texas hooch.

Tech support team won pay rise for teaching customers how to RTFM

Back then...

IBM often authored documents in STML - Simple Text Markup Language (OK then printed them out) - who knew where that would go....

(also GTML - General Text Markup Language - I think that had more options).

p.s. after I have installed some household appliance and explained the basics to my wife, then if she asks some obscure question about it, I often reply "RTFM" - I taught that one to her :-) and it is now common in our extended family!

OpenAI's GPT-5 is here with up to 80% fewer hallucinations

So the military version is just...

"routed to a small, efficient version of the model that can respond quickly without "thinking" " .... and says "fire!" - quite intelligent without thinking - purrhaps purrhaps (It's international cat day)

Meta putting wood in bit barns in bid to get greener

but maybe a bit more buggy....

Carpenter Ants, Termites, etc. Oh and woodpeckers anyone? Perhaps the idea will go up in flames.

Rampant emoji use suggests crypto-stealing NPM package was written by AI

Cunning stunts

...get used to them

Congress tries to outlaw AI that jacks up prices based on what it knows about you

We have those pictures of you - pay the price, or else....

China warns citizens to beware backdoored devices, on land and under the sea

My LIG port is bigger than your LIG port... <chuckle> <chuckle>

(Lawful Intercept Gateway)

Coldplay kiss-cam flap proves we’re already our own surveillance state

Strangely....

The CEO gets fired, but as far as I know the HR Director doesn't... (OK probably not that strange when HR is involved).