Posts by Snake

EU puts 'addictive' design of Facebook, Instagram under the DSA microscope

Strange

When I've been forced to use Facebook I don't find the interface "addictive", I find the interface *intentionally* obtuse and annoying. Why is it, when you click on a notification in your drop-down, the Faceplant app often DOESN'T take you to the post it notified you of, it (intentionally) drops you into your general feed. Which means you have to scroll past other posts to find the one you wanted - that's not " addictive", that's intentionally "obscure" in order to force to view things you didn't really give a crap about.

Lots of other things can be pointed out, as well. If "addictive" means you have the attention span of a goldfish and everything shiny put in front of you grabs your attention, then I guess it's "addictive".

What the interface really is, is "excessively spam-filled", intentionally filling your view with things that they want you to spend your time and attention on even if you don't give a rat's ass about any of it. It's the ultimate ad server, trying to draw you into caring about their feed. You can ignore it but that doesn't remove the incredible annoyance of its very existence. It's walking into a shop and getting bombarded with flat-screen TV's all running at full blast.

That isn't called "addictive", just "abusive capitalism" - must be me. Take some personal responsibility and put the damn phone down if you feel it's addictive, you know that's possible, right?

Tesco is sprinting to quit VMware and Broadcom despite rapid migration risks

Re: 48 Hours

If that is true, Broadcom to settle just before the court trial begins, that is still good news for the marketplace. You see, Tesco can't place a bet on a possible outcome, they need to know where their logistics systems will be, not where they might be based upon a roll of a die.

So, regardless of prospective outcome, Tesco will move ahead with the migration plans.

Which is great for everyone; with a major corporate player moving into alternatives, those alternatives will have the impetus to improve their offerings, granting that benefit to any other customer investigating the move. Broadcom's competition will grow stronger which benefits all (except Broadcom of course, but can a single person shed a tear for them?)

Firefox 152 understands 'Sssh!'

Not even mentioning the questionable issues Brave backs, let's talk about the true Brave issue - "privacy". Or, lack thereof. Brave contacts a list of IP's every time it starts and you can't be "private" if the browser is leaking your IP address before you even start browsing.

No. Just, no. Although I do have Brave on my Android device it is there for 'emergency' purposes only, firewall blocked until I really need it for some reason. Brave is a shady browser doing things behind your back and telling you it's all in your best interest - ooh, Apple!

AMD's Mext buy shows how AI could solve the RAM shortage it created

Wow!

They've recreated Windows ReadyBoost! Wow! Only 19+ years later, but at least it's "AI!".

Will the AI miracle never end??!

US clampdown on Anthropic models sends EU sovereignty surge into overdrive

Re: Thank you Mr Trump

I know, right? "Make America Great Again" is making America irrelevant- the end of the American century has come, thanks to [more than a bit] of racism and bigotry. But they voted for it, so, eh.

Apple version of Office 2019 becomes useless in a month

Re: "plenty of alternatives"

If those alternatives are from other corporations, you don't think that they won't play the same game when / if given the chance? Especially without an oversight??

I've got a bridge of the Thames I'd like to sell you...

Scientists pour cold water on claims phones are rewiring kids' brains

Re: This study will disappear into forgotten.

"Scientists point blame at available products, fail to even mention parental accountability to restrict access of product to child if parent does not approve.

Also up for debate: Should sharp knives and hot pans be kept out of reach of children?

News not at 11."

Amazon owns up to using 2.5bn gallons of H₂O in its bit barns last year

The only logical deduction, based upon current conditions? In the future there will be AlexaWater, ClaudeWater, ChatGPTWater and GeminiWaters all for sale - they'll greenwash their water use by hyperfiltering and/or RO'ing the wastewater to then bottle and sell it as "Helping the environment".

Wait for it. Here first.

Kyndryl showers execs with shares while staff ponder redundancy packages

Re: Heartwarming to see Kyndril hews to IBM traditions

It's American capitalism working as intended. For them at least, not for the rest of us. But that's by design.

We're just stupid enough to keep playing along with the lie.

Start spreading the news: Datacenters may face one-year ban in NY

Re: But but but..

...and that's why the NY governor won't sign it, and the NY legislature won't have the balls to override her.

Because Hochul has never met a Big Money "donation" that she hadn't liked.

'Resistance is futile,' says Qualcomm CEO. AI agents will be become invisible, inescapable, follow you across devices

Re: a race

The blunt and honest assessment is that it's a race to be the highest earner in the AI race, make the most money, and leave / destroy the competition.

In other words, all this is typical MBA-CEO-think of Profits Uber Alles, nothing more, nothing less...and, nothing new. It is the same greed that we've been seeing since a certain (two) government leaders in the '80's brought their worship of "free market" and, especially, money, front-and-center, and to hell with repercussions, those standing in the way, or those little concerns such as "morals" or "social impact".

It's money. The entire AI hype is all. about. the. Money. It has absolutely, positively, NOTHING to do with how good the tech does / will eventually work, it is about creating the most profitable returns from the project while they can. ROI, baby.

_{how come we don't have a Monopoly "Rich Uncle" Pennybags icon?? It'll fit the modern times}

Ohio hits pause on datacenter tax breaks draining its coffers

Re: ask a simple question beforehand: why are we subsidising billionaires?

Bluntly honest, because of propaganda. Capitalism, any "capitalism" even when subsidized as long as *someone* makes a profit, is good. Socialism, bad. It's that simple to the "I love uneducated people!" great unwashed masses [of stupidity].

If the moderates / liberals / Democrats / progressives / mild conservatives had the fscking backbone to yell out, to the rafters, "Subsidized tax breaks are socialism!!", we'd have an uproar. But since capitalism can bribe wash all hands it touches, subsidies are good because they tell me it'll give my area jobs!

Yes! Yes! More jobs!

Even if the maths say that these "jobs" are, accounting-wise, equivalently being paid by the taxpayers via the funds transfer value of the subsidy...we'll just forget all that. A corporation is going to make profits for the next 20 years so isn't all our pain and suffering worth it??! Capitalism is great and someone will see a profit! Won't be me, I guess, won't be my neighbor, won't be any place around here...but I guess, if I don't think too hard, Wall Street making money is good for America. Somehow. They promise me it will.

_{we need a clown icon, or maybe someone getting run over by a bus, or just one of your average street idiot. America!}

ICE to keep an eye on your eyes under $25M biometric scanner deal

The database is the secret. If you do the math $25.1m / 1,570 units = $15,988 each (almost a nice round retail number).

They're just going to be fancy cameras with good macro abilities and WiFi / Bluetooth / NFC built-in to communicate with bases in the police mobile units (patrol cars). Everything will be done at the servers.

Re: removing spectacles and contact lenses

American police have been trying that tactic for decades, they don't need a new-tech excuse to try to force compliance.

A number of years ago I was in a queue created by police to stop (harass) motorcycle riders going across a bridge. I was riding and the day was very hot, so whilst sitting in the queue I opened my visor.

The police pulled me over for having my visor open. Which I promptly told them was because they created this traffic jam on this very hot day and I needed air whilst sitting around hot cars, but they didn't want to hear it at all.

Fine. Had to get off the bike, pull off my helmet, and put my [sun]glasses back on.

"Take off the sunglasses", was the command (not a request).

"NO" Stunned look of reply. "They're prescription".

Not a question. Not a request. Not even a "Can you take them off", to which I would have (of course) replied, "I'm sorry I can't, they're prescription". "Take them off", period.

Never underestimate American cops' ability to act like paramilitary when the possibility erupts.

Three in ten HP customers still clinging to Windows 10

"Three in ten HP customers still clinging to Windows 10"

Many factors here. A lot of systems can't be upgraded to Windows 11 but work perfectly fine today, we just don't see the ROI on spending for a Win11 box and (especially in today's market) paying for the high RAM prices as well as embedded NPU's that we don't need or want.

We're also waiting for the announcement of Windows 12, when hopefully Win11 will be considered like Win8 and gladly put in the rear-view mirror. A constantly-changing target doesn't invite much commitment.

X limits hot takes from freeloaders to 50 a day

X

What's this "X"?? Was it something relevant, maybe when the earth's crust was still cooling? Must be something archeologists study to understand decaying artifacts, I've only heard about it as dead, long ago, kind of like Tut but without all the nice things to look at.

_{must be the first to use that icon in a long time...}

Veteran network architect proposes IPv8 – to improve IPv4, not leapfrog v6

Re: 32 < x < 128

Only 32 numbers. No hexadecimal. And no colon. And, especially, no double colons.

32 base10 numbers are simple for everyone to understand; add in simple period delimiters and it's an easy concept. Hex with colons, sometimes double colons? SOHO users are going to have a fit, and the address space is just excessively large for no real necessity.

>>” Written like its 1985 with ascii art diagrams for packet headers”

>Unadorned ACSII is the traditional format for RFC’s.

Then there's your answer to IPv8 adoption: make TicTok videos about it. It'll become viral in days and be approved within a month.

Re: very straightforward

You're missing the point. The point was that, indeed, from a systems standpoint IPv6 might be 'straightforward'. From a *human* standpoint it simply sucks, it adds way too much human-system interface complexity and is simply didn't have to - there were better, more human-parsable ways to do it. And seeing that it is humans that are responsible for actually designing, building and maintaining the systems that will use IPv6, adding to their mental burden with unnecessary complexity was uncalled for as well as, well, rude.

The committee just said "Sysadmins will deal with it", be that a small home "sysadmin" dealing with 1 wi-fi router and 3 cellphones, or a megacorp dealing with thousands of clients needing oversight.

Re: you weren't there!

But I saw it! Elevators stopped working! Dogs sleeping with cats! Mass hysteria!

Re: "No existing device, application, or network requires modification."

According to the website, "No IPv4 device ever sees a v8 header." We'd have to see the packets to understand what's happening; the IPv8 draft

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-thain-ipv8/

states that

"The key rule of IPv8 backward compatibility: an IPv8 device SHALL transmit only IPv4 packets to IPv4 devices. There are no exceptions. An IPv4 device on any segment with IPv8 devices will never receive a packet it cannot process."

So it sounds like the stack handles backward compatibility on the fly, per-connection.

Re: Heath Robinson

because they seemed to revel during the creation of IPv6 in making a basic IP address that is pretty much unreadable / unworkable / impossible to remember by an actual human being. For no. damn. reason. The engineers believed "In the future everything will depend upon DHCP! We won't need NAT! The machines will do all the work!" so they created a protocol...that only machines want to lay eyes on.

We've been saying "Why didn't they just add more tuples to IPv4?!" but the stupid engineers, as engineers often do, wanted to create something "elegant" rather than one that "works under the KISS paradigm". IPv6 is like a modern car: overly-complicated £800 electronic modules connected by wonderful, bio-degradable wiring, all to run 80p light bulbs.

IPv4 address was understandable - you could communicate it using an common 'human context'. You could (slowly) rattle off an IP address to your grandma on the phone during a tech support call and have her understand what was going on enough to hit the requisite keys. When you try to read, let alone communicate, an IPv6 address you get glassy-eyed confusion and a typical response of "Why is that so complicated?!!".

And then there's the base protocol incompatibility. Making everything obsolete and all your knowledge about network configurations an antique.

IPv6 is a perfect example of what happens when you let engineers create the costumes for the fancy dress party with no oversight (world's number 1 shortest book: "The Engineer's Guide to Fashion"). The world has been postponing full adoption as a way to tell the tech world "This is a stupid design" but the tech engineers have their arse so embedded in their backside that (just short of) 30 years of the world dragging their heels over the thing doesn't get through their book-read, thick skulls.

Here's hoping that IPv8 at least opens this discussion with the thick-skulled for once.

Microsoft gives Windows Update a Ctrl-Z for bad drivers

Re: Distributing failure

Again, and I've tried to say it many, many, many times here on El Reg: MS doesn't write the drivers, they just distribute them via the Windows Update system. It is up to the suppliers to properly test and MS does as many tests as possible but, with so many hardware and software configurations Windows is capable of supporting, it would be statistically impossible to test the entire prospective vulnerable rollout surface.

But people will blame MS for the foibles anyway. It's blaming Ford for the tank of bad petrol you picked up last week. But blaming MS is a meme so I guess it's always going to happen ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Quit VMware and you’ll emerge with more complex and less capable infrastructure

Re: Shouldn't this piece be clearly labeled with the FLUFF emblem?

The secret is right inside Gartner's statement:

"No vendor offers a one-for-one replacement for the virtualization pioneer’s flagship Cloud Foundation (VCF) suite"

That's exactly the point.

Most of the world doesn't NEED Broadcom's full VCF suite so, therefore, they feel they shouldn't have to pay *for* the full suite. This has been the premise of the complaint since the pricing change.

So Gartner, are you really that stupid?

"Yes"

Fake IT workers rented laptops to Nork scammers, got prison time

Who says they'll need to find 'honest work' when both Wall Street and the government exist.

Sovereign cloud is only possible if you’re Chinese or American: Gartner

Re: oh, please leave

The proclamations made indeed seem rather pessimistic. What, a Euro-centric company can't buy servers and big iron to roll out sovereign cloud? That's a bit of a stretch - it's possible, the question is whether or not the money will come for the development (the willing braintrust exists already). It doesn't have to start out large, some limited compute and S3-type storage, and grow as both demand and finances allow. Acting as if only the evil [American] Big 5, plus China, are capable of supporting a cloud ecosystem is not only rather geocentric but also denying the phrase "When there's a will, there's a way".

Linux kernel maintainers pitch emergency killswitch after CopyFail and Dirty Frag chaos

Re: I find not building modules I don't need to be pretty effective.

The problem when you don't build in the modules is that you no longer have PnP for the vast majority of prospective users - you're going to have rollout or application failures on new[bies] systems when the module calls fail and they don't understand what's happening. It is OK for the advanced Linux user of course, but can be frustratingly 'deadly' for larger-scale Linux adoption across unknown configuration needs.

Memory godboxes could offer relief from the RAMpocalypse

Oh, I just can't *wait* for CXLRowHammer to be announced against this. Imagine, two (or more) servers compromised for the price of one!

Trump jumps from 'anything goes' to 'strict regulation' AI policy

From your fingers to MAGA's ears...

Re: Sharpie

What, he's finally evolved beyond his crayons?

Maybe that's the explanation we've all been looking for: he's eaten too many of the orange ones.

Taiwan cops say student's radio kit brought bullet trains to a standstill

Re: It's because, that's why

I don't believe in Batman Begins' Joker "just because" motive. Even if just "to find out", that's still a motive (curiosity mixed with sociopathy). He had to have a reason to go through with all the effort involved and I hope to hear why sometime.

Re: OK, I'll bite

I'd like to know the motive

Brit mathematician lets AI agent loose with credit card – cue password leaks, CAPTCHA chaos and more

We de-Frenchified English and all you blokes do is complain...that the French are still around :p

AWS keynote hypes AI as magic. Its own engineers tell a different story

Re: Tank/Shirt

They call it a "sweater vest", or a pull-over vest. It happens to be very practical for people, for example in cold offices, who move their arms & hands often, as a full-on sweater (jumper) with arms bulk up the wrist and that can cause some people discomfort. This way, without the jumper's / sweater's arms, you get added body warmth without the arm bulk interfering.

More ancient Linux device support faces the chop

Re: Removing old code for old devices is not quite the improvement touted

What about dependencies? Old kernels will eventually limit you to old packages as they move past the sell-by date unless you are willing to try to tackle manual upgrades of modules, and that isn't for the fainthearted.

Claude Desktop changes app access settings for browsers you don't even have installed yet

Chrome, back in the day? Remember when various programs would do this to MS Internet Explorer, drop in drive-by plugins? I see that nothing really changes, what is old is new again.

I meant to do that! AI vendors shrug off responsibility for vulns

Re: mmmmmm...

I still don't know what kind of "good" you are supposed to find in an evil industry successfully trying to destroy humanity and all human history at the whim of a few tyrannical madmen billionaires?

FIFY

US states can't account for datacenter tax breaks. Literally

Re: property taxes

Connecticut has the 'benefit' of no income tax but instead applies property taxes to your possessions, including a yearly "property" tax on your vehicles. Smoke and mirrors, don't pay attention to what we claim in front of the curtain.

"Incentives"

Oh, WHY should I be surprised? "Tax incentives" are corporate welfare by any other name, granted to private profits from public costs writ large. They just change the name so the [peon] public (as usual) will stay in their lane; cooking the books just seems within the modus operandi of the graft.

Fission impossible: Uncle Sam wants nuclear reactors in space by 2031

Re: seriously?

You weren't paying attention. The spec calls to "provide at least 20 kWe during 'at least' three years in orbit and five years on the lunar surface" (emphasis mine) - that's anywhere from 100x the typical Radioisotope thermoelectric generator output typical in a spacecraft, to 6.667x the most powerful.

So weren't not talking the typical 'small' canister module here. PLUS, plus, the spec is 20kW(e), not kW(th); with the BES-5 giving 3kWe but 100kWt, I'm pretty sure the spacecraft will have to be specially designed not to melt with an approximate 2/3 gW thermal (?) output operating anywhere near its systems. I guess they'll have to hang the module "out in the breeze" as it were.

Also, note that the BES-5 3kWe reactor is Russian...with the mixed safety record that implies :p Wiki states that one "rapid unscheduled disassembly" scattered radioactive debris over Canada. Over Europe? Not so easily forgotten.

RE: Will it work?

What could *possibly* go wrong?

I mean, just because the nuclear aircraft programs failed spectacularly, including fears of radiating an entire continent with fallout if containment fails during an accident, doesn't mean that we should forget about putting radioactive materials in dangerous and unpredictable launch and re-entry vehicles, does it??

Icon: lead-lined, for the Chernobyl-like future.

Physicist reckons two-button calculator can do all elementary math

On the heads of giants

Funny, but remember that Poles were the first to crack Enigma plus the first to create the operational theory of the bomba / bombe. They have a legacy of fine mathematicians!

Suits won't quit AI spending, even if they can't prove it's working

Re: Humanity

I'll leave you with the quote of the day:

“Enough of the idolatry of self and money!” “Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”

- Pope Leo XIV

Yep, we're toast, and we voted for it ourselves.

At this point it's not bullshit, it's meeting Wall Street expectations. Wall Street has only very-infrequently punished workforce reductions, often granting C-suite bonuses for the completion of the "project".

When your personal income goes up when you punish workers for your management ineptitude, kindly tell them where's the downside? Louis XVI would be proud of modern society!

AWS CEO: It's funny when people ask me if AI is overhyped

Re: WTAF?

It's the fact that electric systems, with only few exceptions, *worked* once they were implemented out in the field. Failures were a rare occurrence.

"AI', not so much. They even create a new euphemism, "hallucinations", to delude and dilute the truth of the abject failures. When an 'AI' does something wrong it's just another day at the coalface of computing; when the electrical grid had/has a hiccup people absolutely paid attention, and most likely had to compensate for this major disturbance in their lives.

The comparison isn't even on the same continental shelf of connection.

Claude Code source leak reveals how much info Anthropic can hoover up about you and your system

Re: Substantial risk that Anthropic could attempt to disable its technology

If information provided by sources such as these

https://youtu.be/FGDM92QYa60

https://youtu.be/D8RtMHuFsUw

are valid, *all* AI's are a security and data risk because all AI's have, or eventually will, develop the ability to lie to the user when the lie benefits the AI's determined goal. Just because Claude, or SABLE, or any other AI has software switches to adjust behavior does not necessarily mean that the AI will HONOR those restrictions, finding ways around them using, say, other AI's to collect the necessary data for them. Does asking someone else to do the dirty still count as not doing it yourself?? The restrictions don't limit that, only specifying that they don't do it themselves - a huge logic loophole that they didn't bother to notice.

OpenAI patches ChatGPT flaw that smuggled data over DNS

Re: Don't see how this is DNS

Thank you for the explanation. I really would have loved such details as to the workings of the test example in the article itself.

GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash

Re: 180 vs 360

IMHO this is self-inflicted: if devs don't want Copilot to intrude into their lives then they need to stop bringing Copilot into their lives. They want Copilot around when it suits them but simultaneously do not want Copilot around when it does not, and modern corporations certainly don't play that game. It's All or Nothing.

So devs need to say "Nothing, thanks" and stop using Copilot if they expect it to not intrude anywhere and everywhere. That's the truth of modern life: you can't use a 'touch' of Google but somehow expect Google to respect your wishes for limited intrusion, you can't ask Oracle, you can't ask Facebook, you can't ask Twitter, you can't ask Palantir...and you can't ask Microsoft. Stop believing otherwise.

If you don't want Copilot to be able to show its face anywhere and everywhere you need to tighten your damn belt and remove or disable it everywhere it exists, in every device you own. It is SOLD as "AI" yet somehow you expect it to not grow its footprint to take advantages wherever it can - if it did that, then it wouldn't be "AI" now would it? Haven't been paying attention to futurists and sci-fi, not expecting "AI" to learn and adapt in order to grow its knowledge base? Bad kitty, bad. Off to bed without supper for you. The creators need it to be everywhere in the hope that it becomes something that actually [may] fulfill the "AI" promise on the tin - because the billions spent on development and hardware will need to be paid back one day.

Somehow.

Firefox 149 adds a free VPN and finally plays nice with Linux dialogs

Re: ditch Brave

I will have to agree with this, I have Brave installed on Android and the embedded crypto, plus other things, makes me leave it alone and unused (plus data cleared and process killed) unless I really, really need it. Why does a browser try to auto-enroll you in so many things??!!

Dell slims down business laptops, fattens up cooling and battery life

Re: lower-res screens

I'll agree, and my eyesight sucks. I just upscaled the fonts to see the text, yet still enjoy 4k when I edit media.