Posts by Doctor Syntax

The bell tolls for TikTok as lifelines to avoid January 19 US ban vanish

It looks as if at least one senator has just realised that a lot of voters, his voters, or, even more significantly, potential voters use TikTok, irrespective of what we might feel about its merits, and would be very unhappy to have it taken away from them. I suppose he'll get credit from both sides - for at least trying and for leaving it so late as to have no effect.

In the meantime, if the argument is that it's dangerous to have social media operating on one's country owned by companies in the jurisdiction of another, then governments here, in the rest of the world, should be considering similar bans on US-owned companies, especially here where we have GDPR. Instead what we have is all sorts of legal jiggery-pokery to pretend that it's OK to have personal data exported to a country where such protection is unknown.

Allstate accused of quietly paying app makers for driver data

Sued (civil) not charged 9riminal). Pity.

Hulk smash Musk and Zuck! Actor Mark Ruffalo and non-billionaire pals back network tech underpinning Bluesky

Just a thought but here's something that might work. There's a protocol described here: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc977 All it needs is a few servers federated with each other and a few clients to interact with them. Perahaps they were to put a bit of their money into promoting this.

Re: Nah

First you have to define "extremist"

Let's start off with "Everything pushed by A/Cs" and then make such exceptions as might be necessary.

Re: Nobody's mentioning the Mastodon in the room

"schools who insist that parents use WhatsApp for communications"

If such thins as WhatsApp and schools insisting on it had existed when my children were of school age the insistence would have met with pretty short shrift.

Microsoft, PC makers cut prices of Copilot+ gear in Europe, analyst stats confirm

"Vendors are pushing AI PCs with a premium. Businesses want to move to AI PCs"

The first is true. But is the second? Do businesses even want to change PCs on the scale that vendors want?

One of the hardest tasks in the world seems to be a rethink.

Europe hopes Trump trumps Biden's plan for US to play AI gatekeeper

Re: The answer is very simple

You have put your thumb exactly on the longer term consequences.

Re: No limit for the Netherlands but for EU?

"What stops any banned EU member state from sending someone to Amsterdam and buy the GPU's there?"

US law - applies to the whole world. According to them.

UK floats ransomware payout ban for public sector

Re: Require that the likes of Microsoft and Google ensure core data is protected?

Microsoft and Google are only going to be able to do that if you (pay to) use them as your store. They'll love that, they will be able to rake in money and still change T&Cs, change charging tiers and discontinue services at whim.

Absolute Linux has reached the end – where to next?

Re: Not necessarily the best approach

And it will be expensive. Nobody's going to do that for every user for free. Not even Microsoft who does nothing for free, is going to do that for every user.

A more practical one would be something like a netinst iso which then presents you with a long menu of what you want to do and then install the appropriate options. An even more practical one is what Debian (and Devuan) do which is a netinst iso and a limited menu of bundles or, for convenience, if you're going to build more than one installation, an iso which comprises not only the netinst functionality but a lot of the addition S/W that's commonly downloaded.

Re: Debian can be tiny

There's also

Less code != doesn't include what I need

You could build a very small distro with a kernel, busybox and whatever additional libraries, if any, busybox needs. You're probably not going to do that.

You're probably not going to install the whole of Debian either.

The trouble is that your Goldilocks set of packages in between those extremes probably isn't going to be the same as mine and neither will be the same as the OP's nor anyone else's. The price of producing a distro that will satisfy a reasonable number of people is accepting that everyone will agree it contains cruft and nobody will agree on what that cruft is. The best we can hope for is that if we plot perceived amount of cruft against the number of people finding the useful we'll find that the curve flattens out.

Sonos CEO steps down after smart speaker app upgrade hit bum note

It sounds as if he found doing the CEO stuff a bit too hard to handle, continuing to extract monay a bit less so.

Re: Software testing

Are you sure?

Re: $7,500 a month

"Pointing out that I was checking their writing ability and logical thought was not enough to spare me the reprimand"

You should have invented some name for the test, pointed out that it was accepted good practice and expressed surprise that as HR professionals they didn't recognise it.

Re: "henceforth “always establish rigorous quality benchmarks

I thought that was an opt-in alpha and beta was everything else.

UK prepared to throw planning rules out the window for massive datacenters

Re: Life is peaceful there

"History suggests councils are all too keen to offer concessions to large, tax dodging international companies."

It helps if they, the councillors or council officials have suitable plots of land to sell.

Re: The math ain't mathing

AIUI (and as all the definitions I can find online UI) "Circular Economy" means recycling old products to make new ones without having to use more raw materials. I don't think you're describing that.

OTOH it's possible that previous, current governments share the same offline definition as yourself but I'm not sure about that.

Re: Possible gains that almost certainly won't happen

"The only fly in the ointment here is that district heating is something that was pioneered by Soviet Russia, and was thus Not Invented Here "

There used to be a powerstation-supplied district heating scheme in central London rather a long time ago. But Battersea's been shut down.

Re: Build them in the great northern wilds

"there is very good fibre backbone running through the area and that is not general knowledge."

It is now.

Re: Life is peaceful there

"I don't know how strong the connectivity is"

But the delays, the delays - remember it's a nanosecond a foot. They have to be near all those trading screens in the city. If they're going to to the job right they really should be inside the M25, even inside the N Circular. How about planting a couple in Downing Street. It's time there was a bit of logic there.

Tesla recalls 239,382 vehicles over rearview camera problems

Re: I can't wait to hear what...

"Or does he have to pretend to be a grown up when doing Tesla stuff?"

Can he even manage to achieve that?

The only electrically operated mirror malfunction I've had in the years that they've been a thing has been the one on SWMBO's car that was destroyed by the eejit who also left a lot of scrapes in the paintwork, door handles etc. When replacing it I was amazied at how many variations there are for what I'd consider one model of car, including the variations of electrical connection.

Nvidia snaps back at Biden's 'innovation-killing' AI chip export restrictions

Re: Maybe Nvidia need to make the pilgramage to Mar-a-Lardon

They won't be able to export them to Greenalnd or Denmark until they capitulate.

Pastor's divine 'dream' crypto scheme indicted by Uncle Sam

Following the link about setting up his own currency there's a line from the judgement: "During the hearing, the judge himself stated it was his belief that the council owned the physical hard drive but that I am the owner of the Bitcoin,"

It seems his proposal is to set up a scheme that's backed up by the Bitcoin he owns but has no access to. I suppose most people might see a few flaws in that but this being crypto it's not likely to be a problem for him.

Microsoft tests 45% M365 price hikes in Asia-Pacific to see how much you enjoy AI

Re: Changed to "Classic"

Linking it with Broadcom raises an interesting thought. As per reports here some larger installations have moved off, others will be planning to. What if the "could we?" mindset takes hold and starts looking for other opportunities.

Re: More AI Please

AI and any government or manglement, what could possibly go wrong?

Oh dear. Hoped irony would be obvious.

And it's on somebody else's computer over which, and the policies of which, you have no control.

The Pi also provides the server for the AIO's scan to server function and whatever else I might choose to put on a small home server.

Re: “listen, learn, and improve”

Liquid Lunch and Lurch?

"big business is likely to continue to pay as there are no realistic alternatives at the level they operate."

Let's try an alternative view of that:

While big business look for no realistic alternatives they are likely to continue to pay

" I might be willing to pay more for a version which doesn't..."

As soon as they realise that could be a money maker it might be possible. OTOH the price might have to relect loss of slurping access.

"your options are extremely limited if you want to actually recover deleted or changed files"

I use NextCloud. I wouldn't say the UI is a model of clarity but as it saves multiple versions it's possible to cope with the occasions when yesterday's - or an hour ago's - version of the file suddenly seems like the best idea.

Another useful aspect is sharing. I use it to share calendars between phone & laoptop and files between my laptop and my wife's.

However it sits on a Pi upstairs so I'm not beholden to any third party although I also have been testing another hosted by Mythic Beasts to allow sharing with 3rd parties.

"If I didn't have over twenty-five (maybe thirty?) years' worth of email, calendar & contacts history in my Outlook .PST files"

Searches for import PST to Thunderbird. Nope, nothing.

Re: Vendor lock-in

"in a vice" was the expression I had in mind. It can squeeze harder.

UK unveils plans to mainline AI into the veins of the nation

How many other ways did they consider to spend the equivalent budget to better effect? (Rhetorical question, does not need an answer.)

There isn't much choice. I suppose it's too much to hope for a party to just promise to do its best* to make sense of events as they unfold. It's setting out to do specific things that causes the trouble.

* And backs that up by having capable, intelligent candidates.

Azure networking snafu enters day 2, some services still limping

And trusting them with your entire business.

FTFY

It's the sort of things they think their big bucks will avoid. Reality is a bitch.

Is it really the plan to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal? It's been a weird week

Re: I’m just a little confused which way politically the author leans

Straight reportage is sooo confusing.

Re: Insane troll logic budget

"This time around Trump will cause inflation far faster so will not be able to leave the bill for the next president."

I've no doubt the bill will be left for the next president - or, more accurately, the US population at the time of the next president - but there should be little doubt who ran it up.

Re: Trolling or attention-seeking

Between trump & Putin this fits only needs the characters replacing to fit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/Caricature_gillray_plumpudding.jpg/1024px-Caricature_gillray_plumpudding.jpg

Chinese cyber-spies peek over shoulder of officials probing real-estate deals near American military bases

Tell me again how back doors are secure against anyone not authorised to use them.

Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club

As long as websites are able to confine themselves to a very restricted browser list nothing will improve.

What happens when someone subpoenas Cloudflare to unmask a blogger? This...

"thoroughly debunked by many lawyers in articles available on the internet"

And in an actual court?

Re: First Amendment

But in which jusidiction is the subpoena to Cloudflare being served?

The channel stands corrected: Hardware is a refresh cycle business now

Re: Money dear boy

Many people would consider a decent computer one that could perform typical office tasks.

Court docs allege Meta trained its AI models on contentious trove of maybe-pirated content

I'm sure they'd assure you that that's because it hasn't been trained on anything in copyright so wouldn't be able to reproduce it. With their fingers crossed behind their backs.

Rollable laptop displays to roll off the production line from April, says Samsung

Re: I don't give a damn about the rollable bit...

"a premium quality laptop with a 5:4 screen again"

I remember those, or at least 4:3. The screen folded down over the keyboard. So the keyboard had to be narrow so no numeric keys, arrow keys compressed into a tiny area & so on. I'd guess your premium quality would want a wide keyboard. The thing is, the screen proportions dictate the proportions of the entire laptop. If that were the case what size and weight would the entire package be? In the case of my laptop the front to back size when closed would go up from about 10.5" to 12.5" That's a bit unwieldy and I doubt many would want to buy one.

Re: Hmm

At one time I had a square X terminal. That was OK but only a mega-pixel. These days I'd want more pixels. And bigger, my eyes not being as young as they were.

Re: Hmm

Different use cases.

These days I spend a good deal of time dealing with maps but also a little working on panoramas. Currently working on a book - in fact I should be doing that rather than being here - where I'm planning on splitting maps with a wide E/W spread or panoramas across the double spread. Width is what counts for that.

Apart from the material being edited most graphics applications have palettes, toolbars & whatnot to the sides* so again, width is important although with a tall screen it would simply be a matter of re-jigging the layout.

I also find it useful to have the document being written and source material side-by-side and again a wide screen is best there; vertical stacking would be OK but probably suboptimal.

* Back in the day that also applied to a lot of IDEs I used.