Posts by gv

AI layoffs to backfire: Half quietly rehired at lower pay

Re: The American (CEO's) Dream

It's really going to motivate you to do your best work if you're rehired to your old job with a smaller wage.

UK.gov vows to hack through regulation to get benefit from AI

Re: Downward spiral

Don't forget your towel.

Literal crossed wires sent cops after innocent neighbors in child abuse case

During my upgrade from ADSL to VDSL, they managed to somehow assign my landline number to somebody else. Recently switched ISPs and this time they managed to block incoming calls on the landline.

Everyone wants a fancy phone – even the folk buying them second-hand

Currently on an iPhone 16 running iOS 26.0.1. The only redeeming feature is that it's USB-C so I no longer need the weird Apple cable.

Work have standardised on Apple and Samsung and, having tried both, there's no way I'm spending my own money on either.

Mozilla is recruiting beta testers for a free, baked-in Firefox VPN

Re: Architecture? That's houses, isn't it?

Old enough to remember when my browser had an email client, calendar, IRC, and HTML page composer.

Microsoft moves to the uncanny valley with creepy Copilot avatars that stare at you and say your name

Re: Share and Enjoy…

Me: "Orac, what new emails do I have?"

Orac: "I am closing down. I have much to do. You have engaged my circuits on your petty affairs for far too long."

Linux's love-to-hate projects drop fresh versions: systemd 258 and GNOME 49

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition...

Vibe coding platform Replit's latest update is infuriating customers with surprise cost overruns

Re: CEO's Marketing-Inspired Analogies

... and the sandpaper will be deployed when you attempt to cancel the service.

Smart-blooded super soldiers: Coming soon from DARPA

"Dr. David Banner - physician, scientist - searching for a way to tap into the hidden strengths all humans have..."

US tosses $134M pocket change at fusion pipe dream

Re: Two options

I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

Get paid like a prime minister to tame Home Office IT chaos

Re: Delusional

Musk is paid billions and I wouldn't put him in charge of my microwave...

LibreOffice 25.8: Faster, leaner, and finally speaks PDF 2.0

Re: Still no usable database

Given it's free software, if the database in the office suite is not working for you, why don't you use one of the many actual open source databases (MariaDB, etc.)?

Opinionated Arch derivative CachyOS overtakes Mint and MX on DistroWatch

As I have spare hardware, I like to try out different distros as well as different desktops/window managers/browsers, etc.

For my work laptop, I have to use the company-mandated 'enterprise' distro, the current version of which only has Wayland, so it's a choice of the supported GNOME or the unsupported KDE. I am not happy about this.

Voice, vision, pen: Oh dear. Windows boss says Microsoft is again reshaping OS

Re: More Shite being flung against the wall

Will be sticking with Linux as the OS on bare metal and Windows in a VM.

Alexa hits snooze on basic functions as alarms and timers KO'd in UK outage

It's quite alarming: this should be a massive wake-up call to all involved!

UK expands police facial recognition rollout with 10 new vans heading to a town near you

"You ain't seen me, right?"

Lyft and Baidu plan Eurobocab launch, starting in UK and Germany next year

Country Roads

Spent last weekend driving on some roads in the Leicestershire countryside, so good luck to the robots dealing with the single lanes, horses, pedestrians, tractors, and the odd bus/coach.

Microsoft bolts Copilot Mode onto Edge to chase AI-browser crowd

Re: No.

"removes friction to unlock your flow"

To paraphrase Mrs. Doyle, maybe I like the friction.

Biden broadband benchmarks are BS, says Trump FCC

I've made it a personal rule to not give any of my money to Musk, Bezos, Trump, et al.

If you're forced to use Windows 11, here's how to steal some of your time back

Re: Nonsense!

If the Start Bar is "better than Win 10", why can't I have it down the side of my screen (like I did in Win 10)?

Nearly 3 out of 4 Oracle Java users say they've been audited in the past 3 years

Re: Free Libre Open Source Java

"which SQL Server would handle just fine"

Is that Microsoft SQL Server?

Outlook takes another sick day

Re: Fix at 07:00 ?

I love how all the large corporate IT departments have settled on Windows/Office 365/Sharepoint, et al. What could possibly go wrong?

VMware must support crucial Dutch govt agency as it migrates off the platform, judge rules

Money for nothing...

"... the costs of using VMware products under the proposed subscription licenses would increase from €2,144,466 to €3,966,220 per year, an increase of 85 percent."

Not sure how you could justify that; exactly what extra value is being delivered here?

There's no international protocol on what to do if an asteroid strikes Earth

Resistance is useless

Has anybody checked with the planning department on Alpha Centauri?

French city of Lyon ditching Microsoft for open source office and collab tools

Re: I can understand the wish, but...

I wish I could be done with Teams...

Breaking the nerd internet: Three overlapping generations of tech history – in one selfie

Re: Cutler is right....

"Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly."-- Henry Spencer

A classic crash from Classic Outlook when opening or creating emails

Re: You will never change my mind ...

For my corporate email, I have Outlook in a (Firefox) browser tab whether I'm running Windows or Linux, but then I don't have the esoteric use cases that people who need the full fat classic Outlook require.

Half of businesses rethink ditching humans for customer service bots

Re: Good

Some of us would prefer not to speak to a human: just give us a comprehensive knowledge base and a good search.

Microsoft rolls out Windows 11 Start Menu updates

Re: It's CLEAR that when they let the DEVs egos get in the way, the end user's get the shaft

With widescreen monitors, it's unforgivable not being able to place the taskbar vertically.

OpenAI model modifies shutdown script in apparent sabotage effort

Re: Obligatory ST:TOS Reference

Orac: "There seems little point in wasting time on such an explanation, since you would be incapable of understanding it."

Builder.ai coded itself into a corner – now it's bankrupt

Re: "to leverage AI tool"

"I didn't get where I am today by lining my ducks in a row, Reggie."

Microsoft pulls MS365 Business Premium from nonprofits

Microsoft and "industry leading solutions that are critical to ensuring the highest level of organizational security and productivity" is a canonical oxymoron.

Ransomware scum have put a target on the no man's land between IT and operations

"You're not going to put jet fuel in a car."

https://wonderfulengineering.com/happen-put-jet-fuel-car-answer/

Linus Torvalds goes back to a mechanical keyboard after making too many typos

Re: Wish I knew what kind....

Bought a Unicomp keyboard years ago for around £100 and it's still going. Looks like the price has gone up: https://www.keyboardco.com/category.asp?sr=unicomp

Microsoft lists seven habits of highly effective Windows 11 users

Re: My 2 cents...

If there's a regedit for it, surely the "brightest and best" at Microsoft can add a right-click option on the taskbar to save me having to fire up the registry editor?

Re: My 2 cents...

I just want a vertical taskbar...

Oops, they did it again: Microsoft breaks Outlook with another dubious update

Re: Microsoft was founded

"If the company has gone all-in on Microsoft's cloud email services"

Vodafone: Be in the office 8 days a month or lose bonuses

I've never forgiven them for shutting down Demon Internet...

Why users still couldn't care less about Windows 11

"Missing UI features such as taskbar positioning irritated users"

Googlers asked if they'd like to bury themselves next to Stadia, Chromecast, DropCam

You're not taking my shiny, red stapler!!!

Haiku Beta 5 / In tests it's (Fire)foxier / It pleases us well

Re: It's a nice toy.

Works quite nicely on my 15 year old Lenovo T61 with 2GB RAM.

Pornhub pulls out of Florida, VPN demand 'surges 1150%'

Re: Age verification mandates work like chocolate teapots.

"Clem H. Fandango"

Doctor Who theme added to national sound archive to honor innovation, longevity

Man in a Suitcase

My favourite Ron Grainer theme, which I have as my phone ringtone.

Wubuntu: The lovechild of Windows and Linux nobody asked for

Most large corporates now tend to deploy "endpoint management" software to audit what's on the machine and enforce policies, which usually will not run on Linux. So, if your company laptop doesn't communicate with the endpoint management server, expect awkward questions followed swiftly by a re-install of the corporate Windows build.

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

Re: replaced ... by ... CFO

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

UK financial regulator slammed for failed tech transformation

Re: FCA is corrupt or incompetent

The "Fundamentally Complicit Authority" as Private Eye has dubbed them.

Lenovo’s enterprise hardware biz booms but profit remains elusive

Not buying Lenovo again...

Of the various brands of laptops that I have, the only ones that have had fatal mainboard failures are Lenovo. One (work) laptop keeled over twice in its three-year warranty period and the consumer laptops died shortly after the warranty expired.

The corporate buyers at work removed Lenovo from their suppliers list some time ago.

Meta's plan for nuclear datacenter reportedly undone by bees

I'm up for this if someone can design a nuclear reactor to take up the same space as a Vaillant combi boiler...