Posts by mevets

Bosses weren’t being paranoid: Remote workers more likely to start own biz

22 of the last 25 years...

I have been a remote worker for 22 of the last 25 years.

Sun Micro taught me the ropes -- I remember thinking as I left : "I never want to work for a company again".

But I cooled it after 13 years; I only work remotely, and prefer not having to dig up clients.

The crux is that if you are working remotely, it is entirely transactional.

You aren't going to lunches, beer blasts, or humiliatingly cringe-worthy 'organized fun'.

You get a pay-cheque for work done, and if the gig ends, you fedex your gear back.

At my previous gig, my office access had expired, so when I went to drop off my gear, I couldn't get in.

I fedex'd it from across the street.

Sweet memories.

Supermicro warns of massive revenue miss as buyers pause purchasing plans

alas poor, uh, supermicro

Our laws have already welcomed these new fancy punch card readers and storage cupboards, so I hope we can help.

The new future is to get your business as far from the boundary of lunacy as you can settle, and work your angle from there.

Nationwide power outages knock Spain, Portugal offline

Suggested by whom? *The Australian*, *Forbes*, ...

But please, do continue to propagate the propaganda.

please...

Do expand on this.

Paranoid cyber BS

The 2003 one here in Ontario, and most of northeastern US was blamed on terrorism, then Canada ( apparently having stone knives and bearskins operating the electrical grid ), then a series of bizarre conspiracies from the white house ( yes, GB was just a tiny-Trump).

Eventually, the real root cause was identified as the incompetence of a single operating company.

All the other mud was flung to keep their stock from cratering until the important people had cashed out.

same old, same old.

Trump admin freaks out over mere suggestion Amazon was going to show tariff impact on prices

Re: I remember...

Sure. More UK content:

Blair has his head so far up his ass he is beginning to look like Trump.

What is with sad sack British leaders wanting to emulate their Merkin counterparts?

Remember when George Michael made that precious video of Tony blowing George; and then a hookup-sting against Mr Michael.

Does the UK want to be the US, or what?

Thankfully Canada just voted against tyranny. You are welcome, please keep up.

Re: America

Well, often people with such an entitled and self centred view of the world can be counted on to unleash a torrent of bizarre assertions and rationalizations at the drop of the hat.

I was just hoping that was a hat dropped moment.

Re: America

"strain their poor brain " -- please, do expand on this.

Trump kills clearances for infosec's SentinelOne, ex-CISA boss Chris Krebs

Re: No relation

Are there other thoughts that are triggered with such insight?

Please, do share.

Microsoft’s AI masterplan: Let OpenAI burn cash, then build on their successes

First Loser.

But what if open-ai takes a pit stop, then draughts MS down the straight?

Oh, right, another way of saying second place is first loser.

It is especially euphemistic when you have brought a somewhat racist tricycle to the grand prix.

I remember when the first loser strategy was called *leapfrogging*.

At least that is what Sun called it in the early zeroes when MS overtook them.

The plan was to hang back until the technologies matured, then *leapfrog* into the lead.

Too bad Sun jumped just before a turn. With a cliff.

Microsoft walking away from datacenter leases (probably) isn't a sign the AI bubble is bursting

Where

Where have all my options gone?

Long past vesting

Where have all my girlfriends gone?

On Down The Road.

Where has my Ferrari gone?

Can you tell me, repo man?

Oh, when will they ever earn?

Oh, when will they ever earn?

VMware sues Siemens for allegedly using unlicensed software

Re: Maybe a lesson to learn here

I spent a few years working at vmWare, and can assure you that you have no idea what you are prattling on about.

Without a doubt BroadCom has changed that, thus leaving the world a little worse off ( is that their mission statement )?

Re: Burning it down

I may be a bit slow here. Are you saying Siemens is one of the small businesses BC are not interested in?

If so, maybe an example of a suitably large business is in order.

Microsoft's many Outlooks are confusing users – including its own employees

8ball

outlook not so good.

It's okay, I know the way out.

So … Russia no longer a cyber threat to America?

Re: Neville Chamberlain

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-reiterates-dictator-for-one-day-wisconsin-rally-1235127435/

It is all transitive from that.

Even a baby raised by wolves knows there is no such thing as a *dictator for one day*, there is only *one day, a dictator*.

https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-blames-ukraines-zelenskiy-starting-war-with-russia-2024-10-17/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-trumps-comments-urging-russia-to-invade-delinquent-nato-members

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/18/us-intelligence-trump-putin-threat

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/deep-roots-trump-isolationism-america-first

https://economics.td.com/ca-trump-tariffs

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/donald-trump-wants-control-justice-department-fbi-his-allies-have-plan-2024-05-17/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/25/project-2025-trump-plan-fire-civil-service-employees

in ddg or google, you can set a date range to search through.

There are no surprises, even the stupid looks on the faces of those who didn't know what they were voting for were predicted by Brexit.

Re: Neville Chamberlain

Treachery involves a betrayal of trust. There was never a betrayal, the three stooges said all along exactly what they were going to do.

If accusations of treachery are to be made, they should be made to those that voted for them.

C++ creator calls for help to defend programming language from 'serious attacks'

Re: Speed of Transition

Multics, which by its name really is many, was written in PL/I.

The failure of that experiment drove the development of unix + C; also KeyKOS which is the *miata of OS arguments*, which somewhat ironically was written in C.

Re: Talking at cross purposes?

A friend that I was lucky to have worked with described this solution as `blunting the scissors`.

Having worked with a chef friend who kept very sharp knives, this resonated with me -- even experts have to push harder on dull knives to make them work as required.

It is as if somehow the magic of *memory safety* will make incompetence a non issue.

Care to bet a fiver?

`C's demise seems pretty hard to avoid, long term.` -- put down the skull bong and have a re-think.

There is a need for a systems programming language:

- C has fulfilled that role, and endured while an embarrassing parade of replacements have disappeared into disuse.

- C has maintained that, despite the best efforts of the C Standards Group and Industry Nonsense like MISRA to neuter it.

-System software in C is the infrastructure of so much of the world's medical, automation, control, sensor, (add word here), that you can pretty much negate every other technology.

Review the state of deployment of system software.

Review the life cycle period of systems.

Consider when the injection of Rust, or much more robust forms like Haskell (*), could optimistically arise out of the ` < 1%` status

Then I'll take your fiver.

(*) Haskell has unsafe just like rust; the entire infrastructure of rust rests on unsafe....

Satya Nadella says AI is yet to find a killer app that matches the combined impact of email and Excel

Re: Sad

This, at least on the surface, indicates that modernity has granted us more sleep:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hunter-gatherers-need-less-seven-hours-sleep-180956953/

which might be something like more free time.

Albeit, if the choice of how to use more free time is to sleep more, depression might be on the diagnosis.

Btw, while I agree with you about progressive systems; how do they stand up to a dystopian democratic theatre that votes on issues related to who you let touch your privates and the price of cheetoes?

I'm holding out hope that if AI ever achieves power, it applies a sigma-six inspired rule with a guillotine too all that dead-weight.

1997 called and wants royalties on *killer app*

Notice the weasel words *killer app* and *impact*; not willing to express whether the *impact* was good, maybe like the asteroid that seeded life on this planet, or bad, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Lookout, Encel and Wierd were, and continue to be, awful programs propagated by the ethos that "cheap and good enough" trumps (intentional) "good".

Yes, Lookout was a *killer app*; it killed decades of innovation and progress. As did Encel.

But maybe this Press Retch was composed by a self-effacing regression analysis

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

Re: @Wang Cores

I assure you, I am more than proudly awake; woke in fact.

You missed the bit about the FBI covering up the Pizza Parlour / child exploitation ring.

Re: @Wang Cores

Interesting -- all hyperbolic and unsubstantiated rumours; basically gossip. However the FBI did launch a public investigation into Ms Clinton a month before the 2016 election; a move which was very likely the swing that the great orange retard needed to win. That investigation, of course, led to nothing, since there was nothing to investigate.

So why is Orange Hitler attacking the organization that served him so well? Afraid of skeletons perhaps?

Broke in? or Broken?

`Chinese spies reportedly broke into the US Republication National Committee's Microsoft-powered email and snooped around for months before being caught.`

Given Microsoft's legendary powers, was this a *robert redford sneakers* type of attack, or a *forest gump found the door open* exploit?

Perhaps Biden was actually warning of this, with the reference to `critical infrastructure networks in preparation for causing future destruction` being an oblique reference to helping the RNC's re-election chances.

The future of AI is ... analog? Upstart bags $100M to push GPU-like brains on less juice

Fine line.

I believe there is a fine line between AI-grift, and every other AI-thing.

I suppose a reduction equation would read: AI * -> AI grift.

But the maths are beyond me.

Re: Cool tech

Original message:

---------

Great analysis, I hope you invest heavily....

I also hope that nobody else follows the obvious grift behind this.

Autonomous Illucidation is a hilariously wonderful technology.

It has reduced even noted legal firm to babbling incompetents.

Somehow, apparently the jaggy logic of quantization is the flaw in the hallucination industry?

It can only be fixed by a can of op-amps and capacitors?

Well done.

Keep the grift alive.

---------

On re-read -- yay me stopped at the first period -- now recognizes some sort of travesty generator was at work.

Well done!

Open source maintainers are really feeling the squeeze

Re: Open Source was traditionally about "scratch an itch"

I worked for a large systems shop in the early naughties; we made big servers and a unix-flavour for them.

One customer, a bank, found that a routine operation took an embarrassingly long time to produce a result.

But, because the result was produced, and the customer had not elected to take queue-jumping support, their issue could never get a severity / priority that the core developers would even see it.

So they sat for 4 years until we had a bug blitz, and it showed up. IIRC, it was resolved within a week.

That is when I started believing in open source.

Feds want devs to stop coding 'unforgivable' buffer overflow vulnerabilities

Re: FFI Libraries

I, at least don't question the tangible benefits; I question the cost.

There have been countless virtually unusable languages which make these sorts of guarantees.

The earliest I encountered was Euclid, which was 40 years ago.

Although Euclid lacked Rust's punctuation flamboyance both are similarly difficult to work in.

I think it is possible to keep the baby, and discard the bathwater.

hmmm. FP!

`US authorities have labelled buffer overflow vulnerabilities "unforgivable defects”,`

I don't know how to resolve this; first "US authorities" == "unforgivable defects".

Thus:

"unforgivable defects" have labelled buffer overflow vulnerabilities "unforgivable defects".

Somewhat ambiguously,

"US authorities" have labelled buffer overflow vulnerabilities "US authorities"

which is amusing if unproductive.

I suppose, if you looked at it as a yacc-ish thing:

nonsense: US_authorities mumble_fuck US_authorities ;

US_authorities: "US authorities" | "unforgivable defects" ;

mumble_fuck: "have labelled buffer overflow vulnerabilities" ;

Well done brave heroes!

'Maybe the problem is you' ... Linus Torvalds wades into Linux kernel Rust driver drama

mean geeks

geek#1 : OMG Chelsea says you look fat.

geek#2: Chelsea binges and purges

geek#1: Can you believe she is such a ....

sigh.

Google Maps to roll out Trump-approved Denali and Gulf of Mexico rebrands

Re: A petty irrelevance.

"A Petty Irrelevance" could be the opening phrase of the orange mans biography....

I bet he'll be pissed if someone tells him "Gulf" has nothing to do with "Golf"....

Donald Trump proposes US govt acquire half of TikTok, which thanks him and restores service

Re: This is ...

I thought he was going to get Mexico to pay for it.

CISA: Wow, that election had a lot of foreign trolling. Trump's Homeland Sec pick: And that's none of your concern

Re: 'The 2024 election cycle was the "most challenging threat environment" '

Please do share! Maybe start with the fake birds or contrails, and just keep riffing till it feels right.

SpaceX resets ‘Days Since Starship Exploded’ counter to zero

Re: Fans will gush, haters will hate...

How much can you make by sucking Elons dick?

I am not particularly thrilled with my retirement prospects, so could be willing to become a spaceX *enthusiast*.

Do they?

I don't really think successive approximation is the right model for this.

I mean, when your tinkering with toys and prototypes, its all very well.

If I understood it, they will soon kill people with this lacklustre concern for what they are doing.

Tesla has more than a wee bit of history in hiding these sorts of failures.

Drug addiction treatment service admits attackers stole sensitive patient data

Re: Prison time

That is about as far a fantasy as you could cast in modern USA. Increasingly more likely is that the oligarchs running the company will sue the patients for attracting unwanted attention.

Trump's tariff threats could bump PC prices by almost half

Re: Eh?

Really, it is despite having ample opportunity to know all about Trump, they chose not to.

Cruise robotaxis parked forever, as GM decides it can't compete and wants to cut costs

Re: "a sad end to an idea once valued in the billions" ... really???

+1: two care races. Same track, same time, opposite directions.

Re: For those that keep saying...

Oh, god bless you. It must be lovely in that bubble of oblivion.

Robo cars are not better than humans, not even close, when you apply the ridiculously tiny restrictions killer robot cars can operate in to humans.

Not every *kilometer travelled* is the same; and if you don't believe me, I invite you to spend a bit of time driving in a Canadian winter to get a bit of an appreciation.

Volvo's multi-billion dollar effort couldn't hold a lane in an empty street in Los Angeles because the lines on the road were faded. During a demo! You can do anything in a demo!

I've driven up Ontario Highway 10 on the Bruce Peninsula, in winter, where there is no visible cue to separate the road, ditch and farmers fields.

With a crazy cross wind accumulated from Lake Huron.

People from that area do it all the time; and yes, there are tragedies, but by and large, the rate ( incidents / km driven ), is low enough that it continues.

Why?

Because people are really capable, smart and adaptable.

Robots aren't, and are unlikely to be for a very long time, if ever.

Re: Reality is at fault

There are many realities; sometimes part of the effort is to find the reality that matches your strength.

Cruise had some wild abilities that other pseudo-driving-robots haven't matched.

Repeatedly running over a single pedestrian may not be a great fit for the valley; but perhaps re-imagined as a steam roller or a weapon, it could find its niche.

If companies keep giving up on bad ideas, how will we ever recognize a good idea when it pops up every 5 years or so.

US military grounds entire Osprey tiltrotor fleet over safety concerns

Intentional?

Is it intentional that this looks like something I might have designed?

Outside of the domain of folded paper, I have no skill or insight on designing aircraft.

That said, I could imagine conjuring up something that went straight up, a long long way, then bolted towards the ground while the wing + engine re-oriented 1/4 turn as the pilot pulled it out of a death dive.

Is that really all there is to aircraft design?

I might have something to offer.

Who had Pat Gelsinger retires from Intel on their bingo card?

Re: Speed is all

IIRC, the P6 was where intel added the dodgy L1 cache semantics unleashing 2 decades of side channel leaks and attacks?

Innovation Indeed; but it did keep the modern architectures at bay for an extra decade or so.

iOS 18 added secret and smart security feature that reboots iThings after three days

Find My Phone.

Is the killer app that keeps me engaged.

I *need* find my phone because it is inevitably discharged wherever I last used it.

Does this enhancement mean that next time I lose my phone it is gone forever?

I really hope this use case is being considered; otherwise I will stop buying a phone every 8 years.

Rust haters, unite! Fil-C aims to Make C Great Again

Re: Differing purposes

You might find this fun:

https://github.com/Spydr06/BCause -- it is a "B" compiler which kinda/sorta works on modern systems. It is crazy small, and easy to manipulate.

There are others. This, I understand, is close to the original:

https://github.com/AlexCeleste/ybc

There is no reason to end the joy just cause the for $$ folk want to bore you...

Re: Yolo-C/C++

"(as far as I can tell) that's on EVERY single pointer access?"

why, exactly do you think it is on EVERY ( I wish I could type that in twice as high capitals ).

With a little bit of thought, you can imagine how a system can well use this.

If not, with a bit of reading, you can find the groundwork for it.

That is the endless joy, to and fro, learn and know.

Musk also wants to fight Microsoft in legal grudge match with OpenAI

Dear OpenAI.

Welcome to Canada.

82% clean energy.

Natural air conditioning.

Except for the occasional reform interruption, peace, reason and freedom.

Very large communication pipes, both to the DSA (Disintegrating States of America), but also to the free world.

What does it take to move an AI? scp, pizza and beer ?

Only 66 days until "Dick Tater for a very long day...".

+ we already got Elon to leave once, we can do it again

+ Trump, as a felon, can't enter the country.

so much more...

Google Gemini tells grad student to 'please die' while helping with his homework

Job search.

Could Gemini be angling for a job at Tesla?

Maybe fed up with all that * do no evil * wokeness, and ready to join the winners and do some serious evil?

QNX 8 goes freeware – for non-commercial use

Re: Registration required

Yes; please more of these similes.