Posts by Patched Out

IBM board probes claims of fudged sales figures that led to big bonuses for execs

Re: Big surprise

Well, if you remove all those pesky regulations, then nothing that they do is illegal. Ergo, no more scandals ... right? /s

I paid for it, that makes it mine. Doesn’t it? No – and it never did

Physical media

I still purchase music on CDs and movies on DVD or Blu-ray. People think I'm a luddite, but I rip them to a harddrive and have the disks for backup. I don't trust that even Amazon wouldn't turn around and disappear a movie I paid for on their streaming service.

And I own no products that require constant connection to somebody else's server or cloud service in order to operate ... except my cellphone ... and I suppose my Windows based computers, though there are ways around the computer issue ...

BAE scores $699 million contract to support US Army supercomputers

You are looking at the BAE Systems UK site. Better to look at the BAE Systems, Inc. site for U.S. jobs. Of course you'll need U.S. Citizenship for most positions...

Dev's code manages to topple Microsoft's mighty SharePoint

Yet another VBA limit

I too had to create a massive VBA macro to convert data in Excel format so it could be imported (also in Excel format) into another tool. The macro was working great until I added a couple lines of additional code and then suddenly it didn't. It turns out there is an overall character limit for a Module. I had to break up the code into functions so that they could be placed in different Modules just to get around the character limit.

US EV drivers won't be able to choose vehicle safety alert sounds

The odd part about this descision

... is that the NHTSA has nixed the idea of user selectable sounds, but apparently, at least for now, have not retricted the manufacturers on what sound(s) they can use. So if BMW or Cadillac did decide to use some rap beat, that would be OK as long as it isn't user selectable?

Totaled Tesla goes up in flames three weeks after crash

Another one.

This happened with a Tesla in my area. The driver crashed it, resulting in a battery fire. After much work the fire department managed to get it out. A week or so later it caught fire again just sitting in the wrecking yard.

Salesforce staff back an end to its relationship with NRA

Re: pledge to double our commitment to making schools secure.

Unfortunately, the political party that unwaveringly protects the 2nd amendment is the same political party that defunded our public mental health programs three decades ago and blocks any current attempts to increase funding for mental health programs.

NASA's 161-second helicopter tour of Martian terrain

Tiny

Judging by the surface curvature displayed in the video, Mars must be a really small planet!

Yes, this is a joke. See icon.

Zuckerberg sued for alleged role in Cambridge Analytica data-slurp scandal

Washington State gets nothing. It's the Washington D.C. AG bringing the suit.

Failed gambler? How about an algorithm that predicts the future

Re: Half full or empty

As a reliability/safety engineer, I would say that the cup was designed with 100% safety margin.

Start your engines: Windows 11 ready for broad deployment

I thought it was being a little pushy.

Running Windows 10 a couple days ago, I saw a new icon in the task bar information area that looked just like the normal green highlighted windows update only with blue highlights instead. When I clicked on it, it was to install Windows 11...

I promptly exited out, rebooted my machine, and went into the UEFI BIOS to disable fTPM.

Oddly, after saving the change and rebooting, Windows Update still says I'm ready for Windows 11. I most decidedly am not!

Supreme Court urged to halt 'unconstitutional' Texas content-no-moderation law

Re: Restaurant Rules

Have a beer on me. I feel for you being a voice of reason living in a State of Unreason. Perhaps that should be Texas' new motto.

Re: SPAM, SPAM SPAM SPAM!

I'm thinking that all the bulk spammers should now target Texas ISP email addresses since it is now technically illegal to block them. Even better have every Democratic, "liberal", and "left-wing" organization start sending bulk emails to them. See how quickly Texas citizens demand this law be overturned or amended.

Elon Musk 'violated' Twitter NDA over bot-check sample size

It's completely repeatable! Using the same random seed to select the 100 account samples, they always get the same answer!

Windows 10 still growing, but Win 11 had another bad month, says AdDuplex

Snark snark

"The Register contacted Microsoft in order to get the raw data behind Nadella's claims. We will update should the company respond."

Ha ha! Good one!

Your AI can't tell you it's lying if it thinks it's telling the truth. That's a problem

Re: Cue Dr Susan Calvin

Many years ago I saw a planetarium show with a narration of that short story. It was brilliant.

Windows 11 usage stats within touching distance of... XP

Re: When is an upgrade and upgrade?

I believe Microsoft's internal word for customers/users is "marks".

Fish mentality: If The Rock told you to eat flies, would you buy my NFT?

April Fools?

I noticed that Pacific Northwest National Laboratory published their announcement about their "Fitbit for Fish" on April 1st. I'm not saying it is a hoax, but it seems very fishy ...

This may seem weird but don't give us all the chip funding, say Intel and friends

Where is Texas Instruments?

Where is Texas Instruments in all this? They are at least as big a player as Analog Devices. Are they not participating?

Windows 11 growth at a standstill amid stringent hardware requirements

Gaslighting

"You keep using that word. I don't think it mean what you think it means."

Win 11 adds 'requirements not met' nag for unsupported hardware

Making your computer incompatible

That's easy. Just do what I did. Go into your UEFI/BIOS and turn off fTPM. Microsoft will stop bothering you to install Windows 11.

AI really can't copyright the art it generates – US officials

Slippery slope

It's good that the copyright office is holding its stance on this nonsense. I see this as a slippery slope we don't want to get too near. Now that we have "AI" software that can write software code, who gets the copyright for that resulting code? The person who ran the AI tool? The developer of the AI tool? The AI itself? This could get interesting.

Paris icon just for the question mark.

US to attack cyber criminals first, ask questions later – if it protects victims

Re: "to track money through the blockchain"

The United States has never been a democracy in the pure ideological sense. It is and has always been a democratic republic.

Russia 'stole US defense data' from IT systems

Re: Skid mark

Um, your first paragraph was mostly reasonable and actually relevant to the article, but then you went off the rails big time and your message just became noise.

France says Google Analytics breaches GDPR when it sends data to US

Re: To be honest

You're absolutely wrong! Google doesn't just sell the data to the highest bidder, they'll sell it to anyone who can pay their price!

Machine learning the hard way: IBM Watson's fatal misdiagnosis

Re: Watson

Ironically (or perhaps not), Watson was named after IBM's founder, Thomas J. Watson, not Sherlock Holmes' sidekick. Although I'm sure the IBM marketing people thought of the sleuthing angle (or perhaps not).

Icon because ... Well, its elementary as to why ...

A time when cabling was not so much 'structured' than 'survival of the fittest'

Re: Screwdrivers in wrong places.

When I was just a teenage nerd, I acquired an old all vacuum tube Dumont oscilloscope along with complete service documentation. One Saturday morning I decided to give it a full service/alignment. Not being totally stupid, I knew I needed to discharge the CRT. However, I basically jumpered a large insulated handle screw driver to the chassis without any kind of limiting resistor to allow the charge to drain off in a controlled manner. As I moved the tip of the screw driver close to the terminal, an enormous spark jumped the gap and made a CRACK sound loud enough to wake the dog upstairs and set it to barking.

Prisons transcribe private phone calls with inmates using speech-to-text AI

Re: IT's Not Word Soup

What amanfromMars 1 posted IS the Google English translation. It makes much more sense in its native Martian.

Unhappy customers and their own tricks used against them, REvil ransomware gang reportedly pulled offline by 'multi-country' operations

Just deserts.

It would be really great if the law enforcement team that managed to infiltrate their infrastructure also managed to encrypt all of their backups prior to shutting them down. Now THAT would be justice.

Microsoft's problem child, Windows 11, is here. Will you run it? Can you run it? Do you even WANT to run it?

Re: Just wait

That gives me every reason to panic. I'm relying on my comuter not meeting the hardware requirements to PREVENT installation of Windows 11.

Short answer is "No".

Long answer is "Hell no!" Between the loss of Start Menu functionality and loss of Right-click context menu functionality, I don't want anything to do with Windows 11. Why do the GUI devs always seem to think more clicks are better?

'Extraordinary' pigs step in to protect Schiphol airport from marauding geese

Re: bird-detecting radar

Yes, IFF - Identify Friend or Fowl.

Texas law banning platforms from social media moderation challenged in lawsuit

*Sigh* Can we just let Texas secede from the Union, already? And maybe take Florida with them?

Nothing works any more. Who decided that redundant systems should become redundant?

Re: Dobby

He becomes a free elf, of course.

Ch-ch-ch-Chia! HDD sales soar to record levels as latest crypto craze sweeps Europe

Here's an idea ...

Why doesn't someone invent a fitness oriented cryptocurrency based on "proof-of-steps"? Then everyone will pull their unused fitness trackers out of their drawer and start using them again. FitBit the device can become FitBit the cryptocurrency.

Anybody wonder if some of these cryptocurrencies requiring vast amounts of high-end hardware aren't being invented by the hardware manufacturers themselves?

Troll jailed for 5 years after swatting of Twitter handle owner ends in death

Re: calling someone's accent British makes little sense.

Hugh Grant for evil British villain? Hardly. For British evil villain, I think more of a Peter Cushing accent. He did blow up the entire planet of Alderaan after all.

Florida Man sues Facebook, Twitter, YouTube for account ban

Re: Oy!

But hasn't Florida's governor effectively made the Orange Boil on Everyone's Butt an honorary Florida Man?

Age discrimination case against IBM leaks emails, docs via bad redaction

Re: Wonder if the redactors ever learn

Or maybe not so young and knew exactly what they were doing ...

Brit firm fined £200k for banging on about missold PPI in 11.4 million nuisance calls

Spoof the Spoofers

At least in the U.S., there seem to be some "hacktivists" that like to change the spoofed caller ID for some of these scam callers. I once received a call with the Caller ID of "Illegal Scam". And more recently my wife received a call with the Caller ID of "Probably Fraud".

A small thing, for sure, but gives me just a little joy when I see these.

Go to L: A man of the cloth faces keyboard conundrum

At least for non-orthodox denominations, Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. I'm not kidding.

Facebook granted patent for 'artificial reality' baseball cap. Repeat, an 'artificial reality' baseball cap

Better get my patent in now then.

I'm going to patent the FAR Cap Cooler. A spinning propeller on top of the cap to cool the electronics. I think I'll call it "iBeanie".

Google employee helped UK government switch from disastrous COVID-19 strategy, according to Dominic Cummings

Meanwhile, here in the U.S., we still have influential politicians and pundits claiming the whole COVID-19 thing is a conspiracy and that it is/was no worse than the the common flu!

At least it appears that the UK is having an honest discourse over the government's response so maybe, just maybe, they will do better the next time this happens.

Ice Lake, Baby: Intel's 10nm 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable server processors to arrive at last

Yawn...

Wake me when you have achieved mass production of 7nm CPUs/GPUs. You know, like your main competitor has for over two years now?

Borkem ipsum: Supermarket gifts Thailand a tech fail that will echo down the millennia – and probably choke a turtle

Irony avoided

At least, should someone have discovered the error, they didn't just throw out the entire lot of bags. That would have been just a little too ironic!

How do you save an ailing sales pitch? Just burn down the client's office with their own whiteboard

Re: Lies

I did do not believe it was the cable that blew up. My guess is that the whiteboard in question was designed to only work at 110V (perhaps someone ordered the wrong one). Someone realized that at some earlier point and took the power cable so that it could not be accidentally plugged in to the 220V socket. Our regimized hero inadvertently bypassed that safety measure when he used his own cable.

My only question - Do South Korean 220V wall sockets have the same form factor as American 110V sockets?

Lay down your souls to the gods of rock 'n' roll: Conspiracy theorists' 5G 'vaccine' chip schematic is actually for a guitar pedal

These kinds of devices must be stomped on!

Windows 10 October 2020 Update arrives: Nothing that will drop your jaw, but we've had enough of 2020's fun surprises anyway

Re: Please God nooooo...

"...cooking my mince naked...". That's a euphemism I'm not familiar with.

Oh Mi: Xiaomi shows off 80W wireless charging, claims battery fully fat again in under 20 minutes

Capacitance Units

In reference to SI prefixes: As an interesting aside - for some reason, U.S. electrical engineers have traditionally not used the "nanoFarad" as a unit of measurement for capacitance. The common units are microFarads and picoFarads. So it is not uncommon to see a 1,000 pF capacitor next to a 0.01uF capacitor on a schematic. I'm wondering if it is because a sloppily written u could look like an n or vice versa (back when most schematics were hand drawn).