Posts by Felonmarmer

Dell wants £10m+ from VMware if Tesco case goes against it

I bought a bag for life from Tesco. The handle broke after a few months so I asked for a replacement. The salesdroid refused because the time had expired. I said I'm still alive. He replied no the guarantee is only for the life of the bag. After standing there just staring at him for a minute, he got me a new bag, but stated this one wasn't for life.

Faith in the internet is fading among young Brits

Chocolate ration is rising to 20g a week.

So twice as many young people think the internet (and wow, what a broad term) is beneficial than harming, the rest say it's neutral. And this is shown as proof the "internet" is dangerous because the harmful score has slightly increased since the last survey.

What could have slightly changed peoples opinion of the internet in the time between surveys, has it got significantly worse since last time, or has there been a campaign by the government and media to scare people into supporting new legislation to control the internet and how people pass dissenting views (some of which are, it's true, bat shit carazy but loonies existed before the internet).

And the idea that protecting children from the devices given to them, and paid for, by their parents (who've tried nothing and they are all out of ideas) is best served by policing EVERYBODY ELSE is as crazy getting the Flat Earthers to regulate satelites.

Vibe coding: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing (Sorry, Linus)

Re: different results over time for exactly the same prompts

To someone who gives work briefs to real programmers, it's the same thing. See it's not meant as a tool for you even if you have to type the prompts. It's a tool for the pointy haired boss who requires you to use it. What do they care about the code not being consistent, their joy comes from delivery on time where time tends to zero.

What is important to people is what gets them their bonus, to PHBs enough dosh for a car upgrade, for their surfs - free pizza at the end of their task.

AI nudification site fined £55K for skipping age checks

So we can fine people in other countries for not following our laws?

So will the UK gov support Saudi when they sue UK distillaries for having a web presence?

UK's Ajax fighting vehicle arrives – years late and still sending crew to hospital

Independant Review?

"In a supplied remark, Captain John Hutton of the Household Cavalry Regiment said..." what he had been ordered to say.

Microsoft Azure challenges AWS for downtime crown

"Microsoft says it has reverted to its "last known good" configuration"

If only they did the same with the operating system.

You have one week to opt out or become fodder for LinkedIn AI training

Re: Model collapse

But they are read by people who comment on how insightful they are!

And the worse the article the more arselicking the author gets from the hordes that comment.

Anyway enough, closed my account.

Tech support world record? 8.5 seconds from seeing to fixing

We had engineers doing programming, while I was a programmer doing engineering.

One discipline is obviously easier than the other! Helped that a lot of what I learnt on was on VMS. Also helped that this was back in the 80's when people who worked with computers had their fingers in a lot of pies.

I dunno, teach these engineers a bit of FORTRAN and ALGOL and they think they can do anything!

Former UK prime minister Sunak becomes human Clippy for Microsoft, Anthropic

He does what now?

I thought he was a career advisor for homeless people.

Explain digital ID or watch it fizzle out, UK PM Starmer told

Re: "they are choosing us, they are choosing Hartlepool, Warrington, Belfast, the East Midlands"

If they are choosing us, it's because they are being bribed with tax exemptions and free data to train the AI that will then be paid for by our taxes to do image processing on xrays. Does it never occur to them that they could do this AI stuff using open source AI run as a nationally owned company and keep the money in the UK rather than it ending up in tax havens?

UK to roll out mandatory digital ID for right to work by 2029

So I assume it will be machine readable by RFID like a digital credit card, but it will also need to be eye readable if you want to use it as an proof of age say if you are buying booze in the offlicence. So within a couple of hours after seeing what the screen looks like there will be spoof apps that display any info you want.

Is GitHub a social network that endangers children? Australia wants to know

The only thing that isn't is single user stuff on a PC not connected to the internet. Which is why a) none of this work for the real problems and b) why it cripples everything else for no (stated) reason. Collatoral damage is the feature, not the bug.

It's time mobile devs started to think seriously about foldable smartphones

"...despite its annoying aspects... pleasant experience comes at a high price. For the $1,999 starting price..."

For 2 grand there better be no annoying aspects.

It's AI all the way down as Google's AI cites web pages written by AI

Ouroboros imminent.

When you consider the amount of human generated content online and how long AI models have been providing answers, 10% from other AI is quite worrying. Almost as if AI content is more palatable to AI than human generated content.

Pre-owned software trial kicks off in UK as Microsoft pushes resale ban

Re: Licences offer an illusion of substance

If every single copy has it's own license , how is it still a license? It would be like applying a license that they could withdraw at any time to a physical object like a book. The license now applies to the medium rather than the content. That can only be true if everything is rented.

Trump teases ‘approximately’ 100 percent tariff for imported semiconductors

Say yep and take your time.

How long does it take to build a fab? I'm sure you can spend a good couple of years just looking for the right site if you try hard enough. By then he'll be too busy trying to get around the constitution to be president for life. And if he fails him and his tariffs are gone or else there's a bigger problem with a little civil war to contend with.

UK VPN demand soars after debut of Online Safety Act

Ofcom has an international arm?

I don't think a site owner in another country where the law is different has to do anything. UK users go to their sites, not the other way around. Ofcom has no reach overseas. They can get the local ISPs to try and block those sites (good luck with that), but fining a foreign company for breaking your laws? Watch out whisky manufacturers in Scotland from the incoming legal barrage from Saudi!

The only companies that are vulnerable to this are the multinationals with regional presence and income collection in those regions.

As a way to solve bad parenting, making law abiding adults give their personal ID to offshore pornographers, while the people you claim to be prtecting just bypass it with a VPN has to be the stupidest idea ever. It's an easy problem to solve - children don't buy their own phones or pay the internet bills, so the person who does needs to be responsible for what their children do with it, just like every other aspect of their lives until they reach adulthood. You don't make people clock into supermarkets with photo ID because school children are pinching sweets.

What will UK government workers do with an extra 26 minutes a day?

Based on self-reported data...

The report finds that what they are pushing is good .

New Zealand kind-of moves to ban social media for under-16s, require age checks for new accounts

Re: OK at age 14 or 16?

Yeah got to run ChatGPT on something to do their homework for them.

OK at age 14 or 16?

Has anyone considered the effects of first allowing children to have smartphones immediately prior to the first important set of exams? Isn't this going to add significant distractions right at a critical point in their education? Earlier and managed or later and unmanaged would be better.

Alternatively just make the person who pays the phone bill legally responsible for all use of the device. As children can't have credit cards, this might make their parents more responsible.

It's fun making Studio Ghibli-style images with ChatGPT – but intellectual property is no laughing matter

We're so pretty, pretty blatant

When you here radio presenters talking about AI images as if it was collage and only can be used for pasting celebrity heads on other bodies more realistically than with scissors and glue you realise that pretty much everyone who is vocal about it doesn't know what is actually going on.

Not that there aren't good arguments against it and good arguments for the other side, but the conversation misses the point which is currently copyright legislation does not apply very well and if shoehorned in to the legal argument it opens up as many loopholes as it seeks to close.

And the worse argument is people arguing that AI isn't intelligent, as if anyone thinks it is, and thinking they are making a genius contribution to the debate. If that what was all that mattered then AI is literally just a tool just like the scissors were, and anything permissible under fair use legislation with scissors would be permissible using AI.

Fair use does not specify the tool used, just the valid reasons for doing it.

Official abuse of state security has always been bad, now it's horrifying

Re: @Doctor Syntax

Those expense scandals were trivial and could be (and were) dealt with by a small expenses oversight committee. Certainly not the sort of issue that would come up before a multinational entity to deal with. Even the PPE scandals, which were much more significant and more or less swept under the carpet, should have been dealt with internally.

Americans set to pay more on all imports: Trump activates blanket tariffs

Re: I feel liberated already...

I'll upvote you just to cancel out one predicted downvote.

Re: Reaganomics

Unless he mistakes his made up numbers on his score card with economic figures.

Icon : Resident of Heard Island agrees with this assessment.

Musk's xAI swallows Musk's X in ego-friendly, all-stock deal

Burn baby burn.

X's CEO, Linda Yaccarino, said "the future could not be brighter"

Everything is already on fire.

Nvidia GPU roadmap confirms it: Moore’s Law is dead and buried

Re: Moore's law

Maybe the plan is just to chuck enough power at dumb silicon until it can fake GenAI enough to design something better and bootstrap up to Singularity, which they then hope to control. They are certainly ego inflated and conceited enough to think they could get away with it.

What's the worst that could happen (see icon)?

UK govt data people not 'technical,' says ex-Downing St data science head

Re: I'd go further

Well sure because debts equal to annual profits are bad for a company but normal for countries.

NASA rewrites Moon mission goals in quiet DEI retreat

Re: Insane

Remain was fairly clear, there were constant push and pull against/for different bits of EU legislation by all UK governments prior to the referendum from start of our membership, it wasn't static, and that would have continued. We already had opt-outs for certain pieces of legislation and were the authors of many of the other pieces of the legislation used by other countries. In fact most of the engineering standards I use were just BS standards renamed to EN BS standards.

Leave on the other hand had many different types of leave (at least 4 I can think of) including second referendum options to decide later all pushed by different pro-leave campaigners, so many in fact that they objected to multiple leave options being on the ballot, because they would have diluted the leave vote and lost. And then when they won they quickly dropped those options and "leave means leave" became the only one. Almost immediately leave voters who believed that they could leave the EU but still be part of the trading agreement regretted their decision, enough to flip the vote the other way had they been a bit more skeptical of the leave arguments before the vote.

But remain is a hard argument to fight as you say, leave is easier because there's loads of options, enough to please everyone until you see which one you get, then half the leavers will oppose the option that prevails, which always was going to be totally out, regardless of the pro-leave arguments, and as warned by those dismissed as "Project Fear".

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

Re: Are you sure obtaining power is cheap?

Who will pay for it is easy. We are already paying more for our energy because of external pressures. Never comes out of energy companies profits, or shareholder dividends.

Signs of bursting can't come soon enough.

The fact they are seriously considering building nuclear reactors specifically to power AI centres, while there is a general shortage of power (in terms of cost per unit) for things that are really necessary shows the bubble will eventually burst.

The world may burn, but they will use the power generated from the heat to power an AI to reject your application for a loan to pay the privatised fire brigade to put the fires out in your house.

AI is not a bad thing, it's just another tool. But so is a chemistry lab - you can make painkillers or people killers with the same chemicals, the only difference is the person putting in the order.

OTF, which backs Tor, Let's Encrypt and more, sues to save its funding from Trump cuts

Not hurting the right people?

I know you want a combination of Mad Max and 1984, but why do you assume you will be in one of the MAGA compounds and not with the hordes out in the wilderness fighting over the last can of beans?

There's only room for the billionaires on the nice side of the fence, and maybe a few slaves to serve them - want the job of Trump's toilet attendant?

Trump orders all government IT contracts consolidated under GSA

Re: ps f47

His version of Top Trumps is very easy to play.

Special rule, if you are actually called Trump, you can say I've seen everything and my card is better.

Tesla Cybertruck recall #8: Exterior trim peels itself off, again

In the spirit of Kirsty MacColl, I'll take that and coin "Electric Landley"

VA IT contract cancellation DOGE boasted about ... was due to end in 10 days anyway

Re: Wasn't it ideal

You are assuming that the sacked workers will get some support from the government. If they take the same ideas that the UK is doing on disability benefits, they will say, look you've been doing IT support for some time now, why can't you get another job doing that - no disability benefit for you.

Court filing: DOGE aide broke Treasury policy by emailing unencrypted database

Bless my unit

Blessings and curses are in the eye of the beholder.

Re: "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity"

The question is how much would you need to pay someone else to even have a date with this fool, let alone form any kind of relationship, regardless of ethnicity.

AI bubble? What AI bubble? Datacenter investors all in despite whispers of a pop

A little bit of column A, B and C

Going for the "too big to fail" government bailout maybe?

Or the release to public pump and dump strategy?

Or they believe it!

France offers US scientists a safe haven from Trump's war on woke

Domestic

Busy trying to rewrite their oath to defend the constitution in their memories.

Printers start speaking in tongues after Windows 11 update

Same as it ever was.

This has been happening for ever, printers and scanners not working after Windows changes. At least this time is definitely a Microsoft problem to fix. If there's any involvement from the printer manufacturer needed the solution from them is always buy a new printer.

101 fun things to do with a locked Kindle e-reader

Worth of onto?

onto - 4 bytes

on to - 5 bytes

Back when Amis was writing, there was no saving in ink, but these days "onto" is 20% more efficient. I could argue that ASCII #20 is not worth reading, but I won't because it will not be worth reading.

Governments can't seem to stop asking for secret backdoors

Lots of countries have laws that prevent spying on their own citizens without certain levels of oversight. But theirs no laws to prevent spying on other countries citizens, and what if your were in a group of nations who share intelligence, like say five countries? You can generally spy by proxy and get the important stuff sent to you filtered from the chaff that you are prevented from doing yourself.

It's the same as attaching FBI agents to CIA operations so they can operate within the US borders, there's always a way to get around those pesky laws if you try hard enough.

Same as it ever was.

Well they all do that because it's an easy solution when the press print the "something must be done" headlines. What could be more important for a legislative body than writing more legislation? If the press aren't satisfied then they lose their righteous rhetoric weapon that the use daily to fight lawmakers over the things that they want relaxed (like making their owners pay tax for example).

A coincidence that his wife is a lawyer? All politicians are one step away from lawyers and lawyers are going to lawyer, regardless of the contents of the quagmire they wade in for a living.

'Cybertruck ownership comes with ... interesting fan mail'

Upgrade

Sitting down and taking your time makes it a posh wizz. Enjoy a selection of reading material with your visit and relax mind and bladder simultaneously.

The software UK techies need to protect themselves now Apple's ADP won’t

Re: Alternate solutions are available

Say they are looking at tractors?

US Dept of Housing screens sabotaged to show deepfake of Trump sucking Elon's toes

Investigation going well

'Appropriate action will be taken,' we're told, "We've narrowed it down to just over a million suspects."

Rather than add a backdoor, Apple decides to kill iCloud encryption for UK peeps

Relying on companies in other countries to look after your interests is optimistic at best. Sticking anything in the cloud doubly so.

But then it's almost like the UK gov also don't think people got up to naughtiness before smart phones and the internet came along, they will just go back to that.

Here's the ugliest global-warming chart you'll ever need to see

Not as ugly as the graphs to come.

But they will be black-market graphs now that Trump's banned any climate research in the US.

You will have to go into a speakeasy to get them...

"Oi Joe, got any temperature data under the counter?"

"There you go perfessor, don't let the feds see you with these. Got some sea level numbers coming in next week if you're interested, smuggled in from Europe on the beer labels. Just pay the beer tariff and you can have them for cost."

Re: Just another alarmist global warming rant

> Any idea why the line weight for 2024 is much thicker, and in red?

Same reason the start of the decades are bold - it's to make it easier to read. Not sure how you can work a conspiracy into that, but climate deniers are nuts (but that's just a theory, as you would say).

National Science Foundation staff axed by Trump fear for US scientific future

Pi = 3

Next doc Trump signs into law?

Yeah I know it's been tried before, but that was when there was some sense enough to stop it. Think of the bigly savings in simplifying calculations, and not having to do floating point operations if you make all measurements integers, who needs measurements less than an inch anyway!

Trump can't quickly or easily kill the CHIPS Act, but he can fire the workers funded by it

Where's the tariff money going?

Trump's claim was that tariffs on chip imports would mean American manufacture would increase, but this is contrary to this claim.

It's almost like he still wants the stuff to be imported and taxed at import by tariffs, so where does the tariff money eventually end up?

An organised criminal drug dealing business will produce their own products, but they will prefer to let others do the work and tax them and this seems no different. Trump in his last term did fairly dodgy financial things such as charging the secret service that protected him for rent in Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower (which also hosted political events - at a price). And these are just the ones that are openly known about. He sees Gaza and Ukraine as money making ventures for property and mining companies in the US, no doubt employing Trump family members in overseeing roles or admin companies taking a big cut.

It's like they voted for Capone.

When there's any doubt, follow the money.