Posts by Doctor Syntax

Boffins devise voice-altering tech to jam 'vishing' schemes

Re: Speech Distortion

You're making a common error here: you're assuming PR messages are intended to have meaning. They're no. They're just intended to be issued.

Re: Normal voices already baffle most speech recognition systems

It took a long time to figure out the problem with Northern Powergrid's ACD front end. My house name, when spoke, sounds to have a number in it so it tried and failed to find it as a street number and name. It would inform me that it wasn't an address in their region. At least it would drop me into a queue for a real person to answer.

Re: Solution

I take it you're relatively young, so in good health, and live alone. That means you're not worried about missing calls relating to hospital appointments or not recognising calls from your other half's friends whose numbers you don't know.

Re: OK, but...

"Oh, and never answer any questions in the affirmative until you are generally sure that the caller is who they purport to be."

Ask them to prove who they are.

It never failed to catch out HSBC's marketing department making spam calls. They asked me to prove who I was by asking for details of a recent transaction. They couldn't understand why I wouldn't just answer. I then told them they couldn't possibly be my bank because I'd made it clear to my bank that I'd need them to be able to identify themselves properly and I wouldn't even tell them whether or not they'd guessed right. It was always followed up by a peevish letter a few days later saying that they hadn't been able to contact me - the in order to try to flog me some service I didn't need was omitted. This was repeated about once a quarter. They never learned. It's worrying that their expectations were justified that just about everyone else would give details of financial transactions a random caller who introduced themselves as their bank without proving it.

"the crook's ASR system attempts to convert their vocal response to text, so the back-end model can decipher what was said, devise a response"

I want one of those for when we finally lose POTS in favour of VOIP. As a compensation for the loss of resilience against local power failure it would be great to dump unwanted calls - especially about smart meters - into an automated maze of twisty little passages.

Techie traveled 4 hours to fix software that worked perfectly until a new hire used it

Re: I touch it and it breaks!

Or the break-everying force field some people seem to carry.

I remember a student whose usual greeting was "wanna hear a tale of woe?"

Brain activity much lower when using AI chatbots, MIT boffins find

Re: The surprise is that it's a surprise to some... or maybe not

"My own, possibly unkind, response is to ask whether there was enough consideration of the brain capacity (aka intelligence) of those who choose to use AI, cf those who are choose to work without."

Assuming this was a properly conducted experiment they wouldn't have chosen, they'd have been chosen, at random, by the investigators.

"A drug with these impacts would probably already have been banned."

And would have the usual clamour insisting it's harmless and should be unbanned.

It would be interesting to compare with good old-fashioned library research, even where the library is scanned books (the EEG would be a bit cumbersome in a real library).

ScyllaDB paddles toward scale and profit with Raft-powered upgrade

Maybe "Only Fools and Horses" had a bigger following there than I realised.

Cassandra was a prophetess nobody believed and Scylla a human devouring monster. What are we to make of databases named like this?

Brit space sector struggles to compete with £90K graduate banking salaries

Re: Not Medicine!

If you are self-employed or, to be specific, employed by your own freelance company then the fee charged to the client has to cover the cost of such overheads as well as your actual salary. You should not regard a freelance fee as being the same as a salary,it is not.

Re: self inflicted bullshit

And yet we have the situation where employers want to shove employees out of the door at 50 to make room for younger talent.

Managing long careers will demand reconsideration. Personally I left one career in my early 40s having had quite enough and having developed IT skills as a sideline that could then become my next career. I finally quit about 20 years later having had enough of idiot managers - or at least one idiot manager. I suppose I might have gone back after a short break but I'd been freelance for a decade and navigated IR35 successfully at that time but the thought of going back into that particular fray would have put me off.

Perhaps there could be scope to solve two problems and once - recruit teachers from the older age group. That would mean that teachers would come into the profession with industrial experience to share. To make it feasible it would probably need the previous employment's pension to be paid a half rate as teaching salaries would never match industrial rates and would reduce the strain on the pension fund.

Re: self inflicted bullshit

"Was the world worse off when only 6% of people went to uni?"

My immediate reaction to that when it was first proposed was to wonder whether there would be enough jobs requiring a degree to justify that. I haven't seen reason to change my mind. There are undoubtedly more jobs requiring a degree but that's just requirement inflation and has been accompanied by a loss of jobs for which the training would have been an apprenticeship. Perhaps it's the loss of those and the industries they formed which is one of the reasons we don't manufacture stuff.

Re: self inflicted bullshit

"It seems endemic in government that the inevitable consequential costs of policy decisions are simply ignored."

Any consequences, not just costs.

Re: > banker salary in London

Your question mark belongs after the 1st 3 words. The rest are redundant.

Re: Not Medicine!

Charging and being paid are, one hopes, different sides of the same balanced transaction. Are you suggesting they're not?

Salesforce adds AI to everything, jacks up prices by 6%

Re: Nice of them to open the market

"Unfortunately, I fear price is not decisive in big contracts."

No, it's lock-in that counts.

LibreOffice adds voice to 'ditch Windows for Linux' campaign

Re: As I've said before

On reflection a simpler option for the site would be to ask which version of Windows you're looking to replace. Home 10 gets Zorin and Mint as answers.

Re: As I've said before

So what are these Windows Home, Windows Pro and Windows Enterprise things, then? And what about the monthly reports that Patch Tuesday has borked such and such a build? And Windows Server $YEAR? I thought there was just Windows.

Sigh.

RTFA. The Document Foundation are pushing LibreOffice as a means of making the switch from a soon to be unsupported OS to an up to date OS with an up to date Office suite.

Re: No real reach

On the whole Linux raises few support issues than Windows IME on the basis that it Just Works while Windows Only Just Works.

Re: No real reach

The alternative to 97 might have been Google.

Re: 430 million

They will do 1) - for money. They probably won't do 2) because it denies them the money from sale of replacement H/W which includes a new licence. They might. I suppose come up with a W11 version for older H/W but only as a new purchase. Follow the money.

Re: Distro chooser is not fit for purpose

You get pointed to a list headed by Devuan also incuding MX and Antix plus. They're just buried down a list which includes some with systemd and a note that it can't recommend them.

Re: Distro chooser is not fit for purpose

Interestingly I ran it today in whay you might term granny mode and it didn't ask that. I rather thing you must have entered something that told it you knew more about Linux.

Either that or they've taken it out. I did give feedback saying that when I clicked on ni systemd on a more advanced search it would list it put Devuan at the top but then listed a whole lot more some of which it said it couldn't recommend because they had systemd. If that's what's happened they've solved the wrong problem because with other criteria it will list still list options and eliminate them on the basis of being, for instance, 64 bit only.

Re: Problems

"In the Linux world, the app stack and OS are separately governed (and probably never talk)."

Opening Synaptic, the application I use to install programs and anything else on Devuan, the status bar tells me that there are 656546 packages available. Now that's not all applications because it includes libraries - e.g. the QGiS application brings in a whole load of its own libraries and even more if you install its map server. But the point is that this is a curated collection of applications put together to work together by the distro. I'm not sure that Windows has that level of integration.

For something not from the distro there are other solutions for combining the executable together with whatever underpinnings it needs, much as happens in the Windows world.

The timing in relation to the Danish announcement will be more a reflection of this being very much a concern in Europe at present as people are finally realising that being dependent on the whim of the USG is not a secure IT policy, even if it has taken a particularly whimsical POTUS to make them realise this. Denmark is, of course, more at risk from his whims than most although less so than the International Criminal Court.

Re: That's bullshit

The installer will check for OS version and refuse if it's too old. I just checked on a W2K virtual box so presumably they'll just move that up from Vista or wherever the limit currently is. But there's always https://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/

Re: As I've said before

"They need to PICK ONE and recommend that one distro, whichever their Linux guys believe would be the easiest to install for someone with zero Linux knowledge."

If you work through it you will see that it caters for various levels of knowledge. Some options will lead to producing Zorin or Mint as top choices others to Devuan. In that respect it sort of works. It does need to weed out its habit of offering distros and then telling you it wouldn't recommend them and then, yes, prune it to the top three or so.

Why not a single choice? Well, the user might then go to find somebody to help and say it recommended Zorin and find the expert says they usually suggest Mint. If it's offered Mint as well that's fine, there's no conflict between chooser and expert, otherwise it makes confusion worse.

Re: If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice

"My biggest bugbear - and a systemic failure of a businesses I have ever worked in over 35 years - is the inability to record non-decisions.

Now that sounds a little weird. but if it does, then maybe you aren't cut out for grown up management."

I think it describes a lot of managers.

Re: Distro Chooser

"I agree that the final presentation of results is a little overwhelming"

Or underwhelming!

I got it to list several distros that it then couldn't recommend due to various criteria in my answers. If they couldn't be recommended, exclude them from the list. Then prune the answers to the top 3 or so.

I'm a little surprised they didn't suggest installing LO on the existing W10 as a first step, just to show the sky doesn't fall in if you venture outside the Microsoft cage.

Re: That's bullshit

If you only need W7 for some specific application like that surely a small partition on a dual-boot laptop is enough.

Pulsant and Nine23 offer sovereign service for UK govt, regulated sectors

Re: Go Pulsant and Nine23

"Watch what they do not what they say."

Even more to the point, watch what Trump might tell them to do.

A classic crash from Classic Outlook when opening or creating emails

Re: You will never change my mind ...

" I would much rather have a native Linux application that handled email, encryption and calendar"

apt install thinderbird

Or other package manager as appropriate.

It's not rocket science.

Re: "For me"

"Your MDs, FDs, CEOs COOs all of whom will go "What on earth is this shite ?" if you try to pull the same stunt with them"

Those in the EU who are paying attention - like, for instance the Danish government - will be starting to ask their IT departments what happens if Trump decides to tell Microsoft to pull the plug on the likes of Exchange. Are you lot going to have an answer?

Even if manglement doesn't ask you, do you have a plan B? No? What are you doing to earn your salaries?

Couldn't happen? It did when Trump decided he could and would sanction the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.

Re: You will never change my mind ...

Ossifies management? There's plain evidnece here that it ossifies IT, possibly even worse than management.

Re: You will never change my mind ...

For me the Seamonkey mail client window is email, contacts and calendar.* If I weren't running them combined with a browser it would be Thunderbird - more or less the same codebase. Obviously any email client is going to be combined with contacts. Calendar has been an add-on for yonks. Now it's rolled into a tabbed interface rather than being a separate window. If the pig's head is removed from Microsoft's arse where it's obviously stuffed, you'd notice people have been promoting this, especially in Thunderbird form, for ever.

Unlike Outlook they can exchange data with a server by open standard protocols - no proprietary crap. In that way I have calendar sync either way with my mobile phone.

And for avoidance of doubt, it's not just about me: you can even use either on your Windows - no need for whatever app Microsoft provide for mail this month.

* It's also an RSS reader and usenet client. It can also be an IRC client but not addons for more recent chat protocols

Bots are overwhelming websites with their hunger for AI data

Re: Nepethes

Nepenthes is the botanical name for the genus of carnivorous pitcher plants. Insects are lured, slither into the pitcher, drown in its contents and are digested.

Re: Too Late

"Suddenly an individual server would be DDoS which killed the server, for the bot to return as the server recovered and so on for the best part of a day"

If the site owning the bot could be identified would it not be possible to sue for damages. Sue under whatever small claims procedure is available. Although that means large sums can't be claimed it negates the advantage of size on their part. If all the sites they're traversing started to do that the trawlers would get bogged down in suits. Once they overlook a judgement send the bailiffs in to sequester a server.

Re: Delivery drivers here

Invoice them for the extra load they place on the server along with an addition to the T&Cs stating this.

Penn State boffins create silicon-free two-dimensional computer

So does the S stand for sulphur in these devices? It usually stands for silicon.

Re: An operating frequency of 25 kHz

Whitespace sounds like the ideal language for programming this.

‘AI is not doing its job and should leave us alone’ says Gartner’s top analyst

Re: The org now uses AI to automate all steps in parallel...

In auch situations ceoemail.com is your friend. The CEO won't see your complaint directly but I suspect CEOs are building support teams in direct proportion to the shittiness of their alleged customer service.

At some point, I suppose the CEO complaints team will have its own website. That will then become AI-powered and we'll start complaining to the CEO again.

Microsoft brings 365 suite on-prem as part of sovereign cloud push

Re: 365 Personal Edition

365 Classic edition.

Re: Time is a flat circle

EU isolationist mindset?

It's the US isolationist mindset that has them worried. I suspect it's not data leakage and GDPR that are the first consideration either. Trump - just like that - sanctioned the ICC so Microsoft pulled their email service. EU businesses and governments will be worried about the same thing happening to them if they use Microsoft 365. The effects of it going from 365 to 0 would be immediate, the effects of a data grab would be more delayed and probably less visible.

" they need email, chat, fileshare to just work"

Exactly. And I suppose Microsoft are hoping they don't notice the email bit because even if they have Azure/365 on prem, if they depend on Microsoft for email that would still be exposed.

Obviously Denmark are most concerned. Trump's bandwidth for foreign affairs (the political kind) is probably exceeded at present. He may well decide to take a swipe at somebody he perceives as weaker like any frustrated bully.

Doomed UK smartphone maker Bullitt Group finally liquidated

If you were CAT or Motorola would you put yourself on the hook for supporting products made by another company that o longer existed?

Japan builds near $700M fund to lure foreign academic talent

"the geologically slow wheels of the British Parliament"

Make that wheel in the singular. I'm not sure they'd even fund a unicycle but w wheel on a stick like they use to measure roads might just be affordable.

Put Large Reasoning Models under pressure and they stop making sense, say boffins

Re: Breaking: Intelligence works like Intelligence.

ISTM that sentience is a pre-requisite for intelligence. Without it all you have is a lot of number juggling and maybey some randomness.

Re: Breaking: Intelligence works like Intelligence.

Intelligence is not present in LLMs. The situation with those advocating it is open to debate.