Posts by Trigun

CrowdStrike file update bricks Windows machines around the world

At times like this I always imagine someone, somewhere having that "ohhh crud" bum-puckering feeling just after releasing an update or change and realising with dawning horror that things are going wrong in a very real and insanely grand way. Call me a soiftie, but I have some sympthy - even if it's the person's actual fault.

Man behind deepfake Biden robocall indicted on felony charges, faces $6M fine

Here's the equation that the guy should have run before hand:

1) Frought election year

2) Political polarisation like never before

3) Great fear (rightly) about AI and deep fakes

4) Insane penalties for election fraud of any type

5) Governments are not renown for levity

Adding all of that together, perhaps maybe NOT go and do something some profoundly unwise.

Got to admit though (despite the utter failure to think about the above) that I wince at the potential penalties. I suspect he''ll take a plea deal. Even then, it's going to hurt a lot for a long time.

Apple crushes creativity and its reputation in new iPad ad

Re: Hey Chat - you promised it was an original hallucination!

Why did I have the voice of GlaDOS in my mind when reading that? lol

IBM sued again for alleged discrimination – this time against White males

I responded to one of your other posts so I'm repeating a little:

DEI (Didn't Earn It) simply discriminates immutable characteristics is the absolute killer of meritocracy and human ambition. We're seeing this across the west in many areas. Most noticeably is with Hollywood, Comics industry, Game industry. Worst is that we have it in government and our *armed services*. With regards the armed services: Both the US and UK had a hiring issue before DEI was implemented and since its implementation recruitment has dropped off of a cliff since. We've got to the point in the UK where retired senior officers (because serving ones cannot) in the army, navy and airforce have written a collective letter to our government to object. We've also had member of your own miliary make comments on our government doing this.

I've also noticed DEI brings out the worst in some people: anti-white, ant-male racist/sexists because it gives a societal green light to such people - and no, I'm not accusing you of this as I don't know you - just saying others exhibit this. Think how it was normalised to talk about black people back in the 1970's and before. Disgusting.

I thoroughly object to treating a bunch of people as sub-citizens based off of their immutable characteristics - whatever those happen to be - and anyone trying it with me with find out the hard way that it's a mistake to do so.

"You can dress your racist ideology up in pseudo-intellectual babble, but it doesn't change the core racism of your message."

I'm trying to argue a point which the I believe that the supreme court argued in your country from what I understand (if I'm wrong then I'll stand corrected): But it makes sense to me. Want to have a decent discussion? Don't shove you assumptions that anyone who does not agree with you is an 'ist or 'phobe.

You are also making an egregious mistake: You are assuming that everyone who shares your skin colour has the same benefits that you do. Utter foolishness to assume that. There are people in my country who look like me who range from ultra rich to absolute dirt poor. It would be utter idocy to treat them the same based upon skin colour. From what I've read and seen, your country is much the same? You can acknowlege your benefits but to promote discrimination against people who may not have had those benefits because they look like you is not right to say the least.

I'll also point out that there are plenty of people who are not white who are ultra rich. If anything you have a CLASS problem I believe. You know what sorts that out? Doing what I suggested.

By the way: I'm not saying that you don't have some racism, but just keep in mind that fighting racism with more racism (even if you try to redefine the term to not make you look & sound horrible) doesn't work and makes things worse and usually leads to a complete over correction - as with Disney.

Your problem is looking at this as a majority racial issue while failing to acknowledge that there are many white men who have never benefited from such historic status - at least not in any significant way. Really, it's too broad a generalisation much in the same way that current day feminism attacks all men as if every single man is responsible for the ghastly actions of a minority.

By the way: Affirmative Action not only is by itself racist against those not being affirmed, but also against the very people it was supposed to help. That's why, in part, it got dropped because the stats showed black people in the U.S. who benefited from the policy dropping out in much larger numbers. Why? Because imbalance wasn't addressed when they were growing up and so when such people got to college/uni age they were not ready for it. I've always said that this issue needs to be 1) addressed at a young age, 2) not based off of race but need instead, 3) the cultutal element must also be addressed in neighbourhoods which require help. it reiuires time, effort and money but governments always go for the easy option so it never truly gets fixed.

Re: When you have centuries of bias in your favour

How you deal with something is as important as you chosing to deal with it in the first place. The way it's being dealt with now leaves white men increasingly resentful, bitter and angry while many women and non-white people are shouting "Not in my name!" but are ignored or treated badly because they don't conform to genuine bigotry.

Re: Do you hear that noise?

That's true I guess. If it's down racial lines then I have a definate problem with that statement.

I noticed that 5 or so years back creeping in starting with 'Black'. 'White' came in later but I don't think it's a reaction, but more a continuance of a trend as the people who use both tend to be into the identity politics side of things.

Putting the messanger aside for a moment, what is said about DEI (which is morphing into Bridge) and it being anti white male is correct. Disney is also being done for this as well.

We've also had similar attempts at discriminationin the UK re Royal Air Force fast promotion for anyone but white guys (yes, they tried this and yes I have confirmation from the Ministry of Defence via my MP), Covid relief by the Welsh government (we're prioritising women, people of colour and lgbt - so who does that leave out?). More broadly we've had a dance company drop ballet as "it's too white", plus issues in our universities.

I was brought up not to discriminate based off of race, sex etc - it's a societal contract - but that concept has been ditched in recent years by an alarming number of companies and, more worringly, institutions - particularly in entertainment, marketing and hiring. You can be left wing, right wing, in the middle wing - whatever you like - but this vile nastiness needs to go because it's earning a colosally stupid prize in the future for everyone.

TikTok ban could escalate US-China trade war, ex-White House CIO tells The Reg

In my opinion TikTok enhances the bad parts of social media - addiction, narcissism, hatred, etc. Some of the things I've seen with regards hatred towardrs men and "white people" would turn your stomach and there's a derranged element to some of it as well.

As such, I think getting rid of it is not a bad thing. However, HOW you do that is important and sneaking this through in a dishonest way by piggybacking it on to the whole money for Ukraine/Israel/etc is definitely a bad way to do it. But maybe that's the only way that they can get it through.

Additionally, I don't think that the real is China. or at least it's not the only reason. This comes from U.S. social media companies losing market share.

I think this is going to get challenged in any event.

FTX crypto-crook Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years in prison

"The court declines to order restitution due to the complexity of the case and the number of victims. It instead grants the government's motion to authorize the United States to compensate victims with finally forfeited assets through a remission process, as restitution would be impractical in this case."

An understandable move, but as erver with these massive financial crimes:

1) The public (U.S. in this case) has to make it good when some may well have pensions etc which were invested and so lost money in the first place

2) I suspect people outside of the U.S. will not be compensated. I get why, but very much sucks for them.

I'm often not a fan of people getting over-long prison sentences, but I think Sam Bankman-Freid deserves what he got if he serves all of it (it's federal prison so possibly he will?). Why? Because of the magnitiude of the crime, the attempted (and possibly actual) corruption of politicians, the loss to individuals and (this is postulation admittedly) reponsibility for some self-deletions of people who lost everything.

UK elections are unaffected by China's cyber-interference, says deputy PM

China may well have done what is claimed (be surprised if they didn't), but that would simply put them on the same level as the elite establishment (which includes most Conservative and Labour politicians) with regards undermining faith in democracy in the UK. Both parties act in concert, ignoring the promises that they make and that has been the case in a very obvious way for at least 20 years. How can you have a democracy when both main parties look and sound the same? What a joke (and yes, I am remarkably black pilled with regards our politicians).

Twitter's lawsuit against anti-hate-speech crusaders gets SLAPPed out of court

If you weren't so heavily biased you'd notice that I didn't defend him: I simply pointed out that he adds a different perspective and that's a refreshing change from the same chorus of voices preaching the same messages from the mouths of various governments and from the media (both online and offline). The latter part is my real beef with what's been going on in the last deacde: That the MSM is in lock-step with the establishment and that, not Musk, should worry the dickens out of you. Or at least it should worry at least as much.

People like to dunk on Elon Musk (which is their right) but one thing I will say is that he does give some balance against people who also want to shut down speech apart from their own. It's always good to have comptetition rather than a one sided narrative - whoever's narrative that happens to be.

UK awards £1.73M to AI projects to advance net zero goals

Net zero is pie in the sky as far as I can see. Better to keep pushing reasonable green policies and investing in things like properly recyclable plastics, etc.

Google gooses Safe Browsing with real-time protection that doesn't leak to ad giant

I think I'll stick with Brave or Firefox. Mostly cause I've seen what Google is like with regards data and ad services.

European Union lawmakers line up to defend world's first AI Act

Really what we need is something that keeps a spotlight on training data and built in bias - deliberate or not. If Google Gemini isn't a wake up call for inapporpiate bias, nothing is.

March Patch Tuesday sees Hyper-V join the guest-host escape club

Microsoft have struggled with this since they changed their way they test and (if I remember correctly) now test on VMs instead of actual hardware. More efficient but far more prone to allowing hardware config base issues through. They also fired much of the QA testing team at the same time, I think - probably didn't help matters either

Attacks on UK fiber networks mount: Operators beg govt to step in

Re: Better parenting, not thicker steel

"mostly young, male"

*ahem* That's not very inclusive of you. Surely we should be giving 50% equity of accusations of damage to comms infrastructure to women. It's only fair!

Re: Woosh

*ahem* r/wooosh

Also: Fair enough

Re: Using phrases such as "Genetically predisposed to violence" ...

What I'm getting at is that's vastly over generalisaing. I didn;'t vote for Brexit, but K know people who did and they certainly don't hold those views. Seems to be just a way of demonising a bunch of people.

Re: Root cause

"or which the left-wing *eco extremist Volcano Group* has claimed responsibility"

Sounds like a group out of a Bond film

Re: "simply vandalism"?

I vote for "- Vermin Media pissed me off last Saturday by going down when the footie was on, so I'll set fire to anything I see", but with a twist:

"- Vermin Media pissed me off last Saturday by PUTTING MY BILL UP BY 8.8%, so I'll set fire to anything I see"

Ok I'll take the bait on this one. Wishing death on those who you don't agree point s a bit oif a dirty finger back at you as being the problem.

Re: Using phrases such as "Genetically predisposed to violence" ...

Please don't go down that particular route: It's a bit lazy, doesn't help and builds resentment.

Attorney sues Microsoft for $1.75M, claiming his email has been useless since May

After it became obvious that MS weren't going to fix it soon, I would have created a temp mail box elsewhere, logged into my DNS portal and redircted the MX, SPF etc to that - just so that I could function.

I'd then use the onmicrosoft email to test the old account.

That said, this gentleman might not have the knowledge to do this.

Laid-off 60-year-old Kyndryl exec says he was told IT giant wanted 'new blood'

If the average age is 50-55 instead of 35, then I can see why a company would be worried about that: You need younger people to be coming up through the system and no to have all upper positions clogged up. However.

If you're going to ask people to step aside, then be up front, honest and make it both voluntary and lucrative for older people to exit and perhaps retire.

Don't simply dump people on the heap of obselence once you've used up thier younger years.

Social media may harm kids. US Surgeon General says so

Those are certainly positives, but you've completely skipped the (very) bad bits: echo chambers, political and social extremism of all sorts, intolerance (by all sides), "othering" particular groups (and I don't just mean minorities). The list goes on.

Also, girls are suspected to be more susceptable to the negatives of social media, making them feel more anxiety and feeling attacked (this a generalisation, of course).

A large part of why people are as crazy as sometimes they are online is down to the above and it's wide spread and seemingly getting worse. It's also affecting institutions and certainly the media, who have behaved like activists rather than (at much as they can be) neutral parties trying to bring us the news.

UK's GDPR replacement could wipe out oversight of live facial recognition

Re: The reward for your support

That last part made you sound pretty bad. We're trying to push past judging people on the colour of their skin, but clearly we have a way to go. Just dump the race stiring and racism please.

The rest of what you said: Some truth there, although if you put Labour in charge you will get something quite similar with regards outcome, just via a different route.

Here's the truth as I see it:

No matter the skin colour, no matter the party: With a some exceptions, our politicians don't have the populace's best interest at heart because they pursue their fecking ideologies FIRST and what's good for the populace a distant second.

Microsoft to let Internet Explorer 11 haunt Windows some more

Re: Still a lot of ancient industrial hardware that needs it

Indeed! I'd want to try and get that VM and those coolers on their own VLAN and completely away from the interwebs.

UK and Japan ink agreement for semiconductor and security cooperation

Interesting stuff and it sounds positive.

First ever 64-bit version of Windows rediscovered … and a C compiler for it too

Re: Windows ME

Ahh but did you called it Windows ME as in the letters M and E, or Windows ME as in referring to yourself (i.e it was ME wot dun it)?

I think the official name was the latter, but everyone I know (including me) called it the former.

Guess who is collecting and sharing abortion-related data?

Re: The USA

I get your sentiment, but the US, from what I've observed, is far from what China presently is. I would say the UK (my own country) is closer to China on that score but, again, definitely not anywhere near it (China) - yet. I think all of the five eyes countries need to re-evaluate their laws with regards privacy and authoritarianism as things have slipped quite a bit in the last decade.

Autonomy founder Mike Lynch flown to US for HPE fraud trial

As others have said, I think that HP were quite possibly negligent due to not doing their own due diligence. However, intentional fraud is still criminal and it feels rare enough that people in financial circules are appropriately prosecuted (looking at you, bankers from 2008!).

Re: Interesting...

I tend to agree. There are some strange rules in the US, depending on the state, and I have heard some similar stories of people being charged costs for being in prison/jail.

Personally, I'm not sure that making the accused pay for such is enitrely just, although I suppose that he (the accused) could chose not to be released on bail. I would at least expect that such costs would be refunded/not charged if he is found not guilty.

No more feature updates for Windows 10 – current version is final

Re: Truly, certainly not

I will admit that I've not tried any recently, but when I used such an app with windows 8 (heaven help me) back in the day, it was quite flawed due to the way it wasn't (possibly couldn't be) integrated into the OS, so a crashing app might lock or crash it. As I say, been a while, so things may have changed. I might hunt one down, although it might not be worth it as I'm starting to lean into linux (Mint) a bit more as I don't like where Microsoft is headed with windows.

Re: Truly, certainly not

Give me windows 10 with a windows 7 START menu and I'm happy.

Online Safety Bill age checks? We won't do 'em, says Wikipedia

I'm pretty free speech minded, but even I can see a need sometimes to have restrictions.

However, (normal) porn sites are not THE most harmful things on the internet. Social media is probably one of the most harmful (and biased) things that I have ever encountered in person.

As for wikipeida. While they are there "doing the right thing", maybe they could also "do the right thing" and fix the collosal bias in any page which is remotely political or cultural.

They could also implement a system to prevent malicious arsecannons from rewriting someone's personal pages just because they disagree with them, etc.

Re: Most harmful thing to children in the UK

Now, now, don't be exclusionary. All our parties are quite harmful, and not just to children.

China again signals desire to shape global IPv6 standards

I can't stand IPv6. I realise that a new version is definately need, and I know IPv6 is future proof, but I still "don't like like it" (insert Little Britain vocie over here)

More ads in Windows 11 Start Menu could be last straw for some

Unlike some, I don't actively hate windows, but ads will definitely drive me more towards linux.

Semiconductor world in for a rough ride as chip bubble bursts at the high end

Re: Semiconductor world in for a rough ride as chip bubble bursts?

Yeah, saw a pi 4 a while ago on amazon going for stupid money. Glad I don't use them much, but I get your pain.

Re: Semiconductor world in for a rough ride as chip bubble bursts?

Sadly, I have to agree with what you say. I do use SMT, but it's useful to be able to easily swap ICs if you blow the living daylights out your pet poject. Also, 5V stuff is also going the way of the dinosaurs.

As for resistor/capacitor sizes: 0805. My aging eyeballs aren't as old as they used to be :).

Re: Semiconductor world in for a rough ride as chip bubble bursts?

Yep. Try buying a regular microcontroller for an electonics project: Your choices will be quite limited by the type and by the number availble. Also, the availability of many discrete logic ICs is way down and the prices way up, along with many DIP parts seemingly being withdrawn, leaving only SMD. That last bit may just be my imagination, but I've hit that wall a few times too often recently (SRAMs and some logic).

Bad time to be an electreonics hobbyist and it must be way worse if you have a business based off of that industry.

Ex-Twitter Brits launch legal challenge against dismissal

Well, not seen that Twitter has broken the law as yet. I.e Yet to be determined.

On another note (and this is not aimed specifically at you):

I find it genuinely bewildering at the almost foam-at-the-mouth reactions to the Twitter and Elon Musk situation. It's almost as if people miss Trump and have found another thing to scream and rage at because social media has wound them up so much for so long. It's incredibly depressing.

It sucks mightily to lose your job (had it happen a few times to me), but sometimes businesses change and you cannot say that twitter hasn't changed under Elon Musk (whether you like those changes or not). However, Elon Musk needs to follow the law like everyone else, although if he hasn't then he won't be the first.

That being said; Practically speaking, I'm not sure what else those laid off expect to get if their jobs no longer exist - unless they've been cheated out of money or something similar (beyond the proper process).

But maybe I've missed something (which is entirely possible).

Native Americans urge Apache Software Foundation to ditch name

Re: Bit ridiculous

He also gets quite annoyed if you avert your eyes:

(God) "What are you doing now?"

(King Arthur) "I'm averting my eyes, Oh Lord"

(God) "Well don't."

Patients wrongly told they've got cancer in SMS snafu

Re: This should be

There are some terrible plunders which do deserve firing, but beyond that I completely agree with you.

Where I work you're far more likely to get a bad outcome if you lie or cover up what you have done wrong. In IT, not knowing the source of an problem can slow a fix down considerably.

Nexperia calls in the lawyers to save Welsh chip fab deal

I don't think trading with china is bad, but we shouldn't sleep walk into the CCP* (via it's puppet companies) digging it's claws further into western companies and/or infrastructure. Like many governments, the CCP isn't "nice" - they feel that they want to be top dog in the world (they deny it, but their actions say otherwise), and if they have to ruin other countries in the process then they'll happily do it and with few scrupples. A good example is the belt & road initiative and the dept that has incurred to various nations.

We (the west) need to accept the CCP for what it is and act accordingly to protect ourselves and our interests in an effective and balanced (trade-wise) way.