Posts by ragnar

Copilot's crudeness has left Microsoft chasing Google, again

To be fair, how often have you seen human-written meeting notes that commented on how people were receiving information in the meeting?

That stuff should be discussed overtly, therefore should be in the text of the meeting.

Lebanon now hit with deadly walkie-talkie blasts as Israel declares ‘new phase’ of war

Re: If an Icom IC-V82

There are photos of IDF soldiers using Palestinian children as human shields and countless accounts of them murdering civilians. Not sure what kind of moral superiority point you are trying to make, and also not sure why you feel Hamas' activities are relevant to Israel's culpability for civilian deaths in Lebanon.

Oracle's Java pricing brews bitter taste, subscribers spill over to OpenJDK

Re: FALSE

What does Marx have to do with "giving away software products...totally free"?

Have you ever actually picked up one of his books?

A decade after collapsing, crypto exchange Mt Gox repays some investors

Re: Good news

Because it doesn't meet the definition of a ponzi scheme?

Devs claim Apple is banning VPNs in Russia 'more effectively' than Putin

Re: I want to know...

How? Russian users would have no ability to sue an American corporation when the American corporation is complying with federal sanctions.

Protest group says Google has fired more staff over sit-ins opposing work for Israel

Re: shrug

Here is a comprehensive legal analysis for why Israel meets the definition of an apartheid state:

https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

You obviously didn't speak too closely with your Palestinian co-workers, or you would have discovered many points of direct and indirect discrimination. Here is a brief list:

https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-palestinian-citizens-of-israel

Re: shrug

> "Genocide means killing an entire population"

No it doesn't. It has a precise definition in international law. By *your* definition, even the holocaust would not qualify as a genocide, since large numbers of Jews survived.

You may read the UN's legal analysis of why Israel's current actions meet the legal definition of genocide here:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5573-report-special-rapporteur-situation-human-rights-palestinian

It's quite accessible and goes through each item in the legal definition carefully. Not that you'll care, since it's obvious you come with predetermined ideas and a strong pro-Israel bias.

> "it definitely ain't an apartheid country"

Again, apartheid has a legal definition. You may read a comprehensive legal analysis of why Israel is an apartheid state here:

https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

It would be wise to not comment about matters where you appear to lack the requisite understanding of what's happening on the ground, or the definitions of terms you throw around. Doubly-so, when you're trying to play the wise old owl.

Despite two previous court victories, Tesla settles third Autopilot liability case

Re: Is there a better advertisement

Also that Mercedes-Benz are the first car manufacturer to have a level-3 autonomous driving system certified.

Tesla's lead has been squandered.

Blue Origin to fly another 90-year-old into outer space

Re: Typo!

Why not?

"a word naming an attribute of a noun, such as sweet, red, or technical."

If red counts, why not black?

Whistleblower raises alarm over UK Nursing and Midwifery Council's DB

Re: "Journey of Improvement"

Dare I ask how that is typically used within a sentence?!

Canadian arrested for 'stealing secret' to speedy Tesla battery production

Re: Open secrets

What on earth has Biden got to do with the claim that Musk is the first openly drug abusing CEO??

Disease X fever infects Davos: WEF to plan response to whatever big pandemic is next

Since when was El Reg full of conspiracy theorist commentards frothing about the WEF and WHO? Somewhat disappointing.

Re: @ComputerSays_noAbsolutelyNo - Seriously WEF?! WTF! Don't feed the trolls

And if we all fund it, they cater for all of us?

Linus Torvalds flames Google kernel contributor over filesystem suggestion

Re: Meh!

It *is* a 'red top' publication. I think the editorial line has always been happy to dip into 'tabloid', as long as there's an IT angle.

Wait, hold on, everyone – Mozilla thinks Apple, Google, Microsoft should play fair

Re: zero cost

You're just arguing in a way that sounds obtuse.

You are getting value: the development of Firefox.

You are providing value: your usage of Firefox drives advertising revenue and kickback fees from the likes of Google.

CISA boss swatted: 'While my own experience was certainly harrowing, it was unfortunately not unique'

Re: Some light relief

Why do you keep saying tech.report?

And surely you're aware that there were a gazillion electoral fraud cases brought to caught by Trump's cronies and the common pattern was that Guliani, Sidney Powell et al would stand outside the court and say they had lots of evidence, file case papers with no evidence, the case would be thrown out due to no evidence and then they would stand outside and continue with their previous bleating about a stolen election to push their domestic political agenda.

They've had countless opportunities to provide some actual evidence. Give it up.

IT consultant fined for daring to expose shoddy security

Re: "double jeopardy which has long been held to be unacceptable in English law"

> That particular nasty flaw in the English legal system is why protection against it was written into the US constitution.

No it isn't.

The US constitution was written centuries before this 'particular nasty flaw' was introduced into the English legal system, in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

What makes a hard error hard? Microsoft vet tells all

"Not that this is much more useful than the current endemic crop of poor quality coders who do no error checking whatsoever and instead propagate everything up the exception stack"

What kind of company do you work for?!

Nearly 200 Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes grounded after door plug flies off mid-flight

Didn't they force Congress to pass a law exempting them from having to comply with a recent aviation law, something batshit insane like that? America's safety regulation system is not fit for purpose.

Re: 16000ft iPhone drop test

It looked like a soggy grass verge/ditch from the photo I saw.

Infosec experts divided over 23andMe's 'victim-blaming' stance on data breach

The numbers don't add up

> 6.9 million users had their data compromised after some 14,000 accounts were broken into via credential stuffing

It's ridiculous to blame customers recyling credentials for this data leak and shame on the so-called security professionals for doing so.

If that was the only problem, there would only be 14,000 users with data compromised.

Former Adobe software engineering leader convicted of insider trading

Re: Yes ..... But !!!!

Not the US politicians that are legally allowed to insider trade either.

Windows boss takes on taskbar turmoil, pledges to 'make Start menu great again'

Re: Typing in the start menu

Mind blown

FCC really, truly won't give SpaceX nearly a billion bucks for Starlink rural broadband

SpaceX argued that they were being asked to *switch on* service in a new area, where the attack was going to take place. They didn't remove service.

Tesla to remote patch 2M vehicles after damning Autopilot safety probe

Re: The so-called "autopilot", which is anything but

That's not the problem; it's a misdirection. Tesla also market a "full self driving capability" - which it clearly doesn't have.

Rackspace runs short of Cloud Files storage in LON region

Re: Why have regions?

It's a bold move. Encryption standards become obsolete over time. Who knows what novel techniques or processing power will be available in twenty years? How will quantum computers affect present-day encryption?

You'd be very trusting to assume that your encrypted data is safe forever.

HP exec says quiet part out loud when it comes to locking in print customers

Re: HP and Linux

Perhaps there's no need for them to publish new drivers continuously? It's a defined set of functionality for the product. If the reported bugs are squashed, there's no point in doing more releases.

UK signals legal changes to self-driving vehicle liabilities

I think the implication was that it's a controlled lane, separated from the meatsack drivers, entirely filled with computer controlled vehicles that are completely aware of the lane and each other, and thus crashes would be exceptionally rare except for mechanical failure.

It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

Re: You own the car, and it retaining your information is no different...

You're just revealing you didn't read the article properly. I'll help:

"store each intercepted, recorded, and downloaded copy of text messages in non-temporary computer memory in such a manner that the vehicle owner *cannot access it or delete it*"

UK policing minister urges doubling down on face-scanning tech

Re: How to use statistics

Don't we need to know the number of people attending Wimbledon to answer this?

King Charles III signs off on UK Online Safety Act, with unenforceable spying clause

Re: Perhaps Ofcom will take inspiration from the Home Office

Except he's also explicitly admitted that he lets bills proposed by his (inevitable right wing) friends in parliament sail through, so mysteriously it's only the progressive bills with a social justice angle that fall foul of his parliamentary games. He's a pompous bellend of the highest order.

Amazon had secret algorithm to hike prices, claims FTC

Re: The FTC should make a decision

They're using the data they get from third party stores hosted on their own platform, that competitor companies do not have access to, to maximise their own profit. Aka using their dominant position in the market for commercial advantage.

Re: Find it on Amazon for a price check

No, because they're using the algorithm to price match listings on their own platform. If you buy from third party sites, this doesn't apply.

Apple jacks prices to juice profits because $19.3B a quarter isn't enough

I switched to iPhone from Android because I was tired of my usable phones running out of security updates and wanted to continue using them for things like internet banking.

Apple is in a league of its own on this front, still updating very old models. Although Google and Samsung subsequently announced a slightly improved policy, they still lag considerably, both in the length of the upgrade cycle and the scope of the updates.

I'm happy to trade inferior specs for security.

Web Summit CEO's comments on Israeli conflict 'war crimes' sparks boycott

He's right.

Shame on the companies that have pulled out, especially the likes of Stripe who should know better.

Unity CEO 'retires' in the wake of fee fiasco

> Unity's share price, which was $38.97 before it changed pricing plans, ... , bounced from $29.56 to $30.11 in after-the-bell trading – suggesting investors are quite happy with the changes.

Just as a general reporting note, I don't think we can draw any strong conclusions about investor sentiment from a change in the share price of <2%. It's hardly moved, which suggests indifference.

The iPhone 15 has a Goldilocks issue: Too big or too small. Maybe a case will make it just right

Re: While the world slowly turns n burns.

Once you start to remove the convenience of mobile banking, mobile email etc. you're really cutting back on key functionality for your smartphone. Mobile websites are not comparable in experience to good quality native apps.

But hey, if you want to run the risk of being hit by an exploit, knock yourself out. Most people deserve and should expect security updates for their phone.

Sonos secures a victory in audio patent fight against Google

Re: The patent system is not fit for purpose.

Google seems to have got much worse than this lately, since they stopped using the "invention" maybe? Hey Google? <speaker in other room answers, not the one next to me>.

SUSE to flip back into private ownership after just two-and-a-bit years

Re: It sounds like ...

This is a pretty mistaken comment. De-listing means the company has much more freedom to be run without being under the thumb of the beancounters and a stock market focused on short term gains only

Tesla knew Autopilot weakness killed a driver – and didn't fix it, engineers claim

Re: "Autopilot"

"I don't think that's actually a thing. It's still just hypothetically possible (not yet implemented)."

Certainly autoland is here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland

Re: Risk tolerance

> I'd be more comfortable if the systems were SAE level 3 or higher - but AFAIK no level 3 systems are currently offered to the public?

Mercedes-Benz are ahead of Tesla and have just had a Level 3 system certified

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/27/23572942/mercedes-drive-pilot-level-3-approved-nevada

Google opens up Chrome 117 Developer Tools box, drops in a few spanners

The heading doesn't say spanner in the works though - it says spanners are being dropped into a toolbox, i.e. more tools added. Not confusing for this native speaker!

Alarm raised over Mozilla VPN: Wonky authorization check lets users cause havoc

Mozilla isn't "any random company" - they're a relatively trusted cornerstone of the web and millions use their browser due to its increased privacy over Chrome.

Re: Does anyone take this seriously?

> "I gave him a length of CAT6, two RJ45s and a crimping kit and asked him to make me 1m patch lead...he could not do it...but he has been led to believe by his lecturers that he is ready for a management position in the tech industry"

How often do you think managers in the tech industry have to do this? It's utterly irrelevant to the job.

38 percent of tech job interviews offered exclusively to men: report

Re: Look at the stats

Such as?

Missing Titan sub likely destroyed in implosion, no survivors

Re: A fitting epitaph

They did - they had to sign waivers saying the vehicle was not certified and could kill them.

Multi-tasking blunder leaves UK tax digitization plans 3 years late, 5 times over budget

Re: The civil service went to a brewery but left thirsty and sober despite wanting to party

"The NAO said the program had been affected by the UK's departure from the EU and the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant resources had to be diverted to other areas."

You are ignoring the above: the government massively increased the workload on the civil service, while simultaneously crowing about how it was being shrunk down to 1930's levels.

Man sues OpenAI claiming ChatGPT 'hallucination' said he embezzled money

Because lying implies intent, which a generative AI does not have.

It's a hallucination because the AI has backed itself into a corner where its context is completely incorrect - it's merrily turning out words, just as it always does, but with a worldview that's completely wrong.

Spectre of layoffs looms over Intel following dismal sales

"Those paper losses would be much smaller if they hadn't paid a dividend"

No they wouldn't. Dividends are taken out after the profit or loss for the period. They don't feed into that number.

Tesla wins key court battle over Autopilot crash blame

Re: Idiots aside

Exactly, you can't expect the man on the street to know the limitations of an aeroplane autopilot.

Auto pilot = automatic pilot.

Automatic = (of a device or process) working by itself with little or no direct human control.

"an automatic kettle that switches itself off when it boils"

It's a completely reasonable expectation to hold based on the deliberately misleading name.