Posts by Doctor Syntax

A friendly guide to local AI image gen with Stable Diffusion and Automatic1111

The chair could be stable (and there are a couple of spare castors - all they need it to be attached to the chair) but not the table. And whose is the leg to the left of the table leg? I assume you have a bloke in marketing who wears ladies' shoes.

"A compatible Nvidia or AMD graphics card with at least 4GB of vRAM. Any reasonably modern Nvidia or most 7000-series Radeon graphics cards (some higher-end 6000-series cards may work too) should work without issue. We tested with Nvidia's Tesla P4, RTX 3060 12G, RTX 6000 Ada Generation, as well as AMD's RX 7900 XT"

As a humble laptop and Pi user I'm beginning to see why H/W makers are so keen on AI.

Mars is slam-dunked by hundreds of basketball-sized meteorites every year

You are GPT4 and I claim my £5

"You could think of it as a sort of 'cosmic clock' to help us date Martian surfaces,"

That assumes that the rate of bombardment has remained unchanged. Evolution of the solar system might have caused it to change over the timescale we're looking at.

Windows: Insecure by design

Re: New Code Issues

They're now replacing sudo with a "better" thing.

Sudo was an attempt to replace su with a "better" thing - unfortunately it fails one of Saltzer and Schroeder's design principles: "Separation of privilege: Where feasible, a protection mechanism that requires two keys to unlock it is more robust and flexible than one that allows access to the presenter of only a single key."

Re: Three cheers for Linux! I guess..

If you want an example of things to do:

SWMBO runs a patchwork class. Most weeks of the year I photograph the example she's made for next week's project.

The image usually needs a bit of adjusting - the "squares are never quite square - so Gimp rotates it to the best alignment. Sometimes it's even been used to pull it a bit squarer. And on a few occasions when only a quarter or a half has been completed Gimp miraculously (so the class thinks) works it up into a complete square.

Gwenview, the standard KDE image viewer crops it (Gimp could but somehow GV is easier).

The finished image is pasted into the handout's cover sheet in LibreOffice and exported as PDF. Sometimes additional images of the same pattern from online are added. The PDF name is set st start with 'A'.

SWMBO's handwritten notes are scanned onto NAS as PDFs, the default name starts with 'B'. Drag into the same directory as the cover sheet (which directory is shared via a Pi NextCloud server with SWMBO's laptop.)

Fire up a terminal in that directory and type pdfunite [AB]*.pdf projecname.pdf to assemble the handout as a single PDF. Yes, there are GUI alternatives but sometimes CLI is just slicker.

Pre-COVID I used to print multiple copies of the notes but now SWMBO emails them to the class to print for themselves (they need the templates on the last page(s) as hard copy).

Re: I hear you loud and clear

"Until then, as a freelance programming consultant, I unfortunately must have the same platform my customers use and, for some strange reason, none of them are on Linux."

Been there, done that, feel sorry for you. Delphi on NT/2K. I couldn't believe the hoops it had to jump through just to run an external process.

Re: how much punishment are you willing to take?

There's a huge gap between corporates and home users. It's filled by SMBs who like to - no, have to - sweat their assets. Does your local bar/restaurant change its PCs, including those running PoS, so often? Your local garage? Your doctor, dentist or optician? Corner shop? Any other local business you use?

Re: New Code Issues

Systemd is the biggest sinner in the Linux world in that respect. Debian, or its systemd-free derivatives are quite conservative in avoiding bleeding-edge stuff so in that world it really is very largely bug-fix only stuff.

Re: Win11 designed to wear you down.

"I would install Linux as some sort of duel boot but not sure how to do it. Internet seems devoid of info in 2024."

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=h_&q=how+to+install+linux+on+windows+11+dual+boot&ia=web

Re: Win11 designed to wear you down.

Don't install on the same drive Windows is on. Because Microsoft updates are known to overwrite the GRUB loader that start Linux.

If you've already got Windows installed and there's enough space on the drive for a second OS then you can install Linux on the same drive. It's better mannered than Windows, will recognise the existing OS and put it on the boot menu.

The only thing that's necessary is to shrink the Windows partition to free up the space which you can do in Windows anyway.

Re: Three cheers for Linux! I guess..

I'll add Pinta as a less powerful but simpler image editor than GIMP (I treat them as complementary).

Re: Still Disingenuous

A lot of us have stories like this:

A cousin-in-law got hit with early ransomware back in W7 days (booby-trapped email from an acquaintance's hacked or spoofed address). Fortunately it very badly written ransomware & quickly recovered by Photorec running from a live CD. Cleaning up the files (you wouldn't believe how much cached shrapnel photorec can find) was certainly a job for Unix pipelined commands but that's no problem as I was using those before Windows existed*.

But my CiL, now in her nineties is still running the same PC on Zorin, and has been for years without needing to run "greps and bashes". Why should she? She has a Windows-like GUI running browser (Firefox), email (Thunderbird), and word-processor and spreadsheet (LibreOffice). I can't remember what she uses for photographs and she's particularly keen on looking up places on Google Earth. Even her Windows-using children have no problems with it.

As I said, a lot of us have similar experiences so we know that every time somebody like you comes out with stuff like your "greps and bashes" we know that all you're doing is repeating a lot of utter bollocks you've read somewhere and don't know enough to recognise your echo-chamber for what it is.

*Back in the day I was running RDBMS under Unix in a business where the more senior IT management were wedded to VMS. Sometimes I wonder how that went for them in later years.

Re: Will most people know or care though?

"And that's all Microsoft need to do, make windows work well enough for the majority of users"

And that, despite what all the doubters think, is something Linux has done for years.

Re: I'm hard pressed to imagine what practical use it would be for anyone.

It doesn't. One reason for delaying irolling it out might be the realisation of the big slap they're likely to get.

Re: I hear you loud and clear

The ERP systems I worked with ran on servers under varieties of Unix. Linux has largely replaced Unix for running servers. If you have such an ERP system today surely you're running - or could run - on a Linux server platform. Aren't you simply accessing the server with a web-browser? If so, why can't the web-browser run on Linux unless it has to be some ancient version of IE?

Re: when I'll have the time to deal with it

"So it will take a really good reason."

Win XP and its successors want to phone home. That's a really good reason.

Re: I hear you loud and clear

It's another of those ill-thought-out defaults: system clock is set to what it thinks is local time. The sensible thing thing, especially if making provision for travel between time zones, is to keep the system clock at UTC and show local time by applying the current local time zone's offset. Linux adopts the sensible option.

Re: how much punishment are you willing to take?

"The Microsoft ecosystem Just Works(tm"

I think you're confusing that with Only Just Works(tm).

Re: Something we all know, but isn't said out loud enough in the press

Maybe you don't spend much time here. Microsoft doesn't exactly get an easy ride from el Reg.

"What other business could get away with having products that are so bad that every month ... we have a ... Patch Tuesday,"

These days elReg Patch Tuesday reports seem to list other vendors as well. But Windows seems to have started a tradition the others have followed which is possibly worse than being the only one.

Incidentally today I learned about https://0patch.zendesk.com/ which some may find useful.

Re: Happily switch to Linux, but.....

I don't know about i-devices but for Android DAVx5 (no, I can't explain the name) is what you need to connect to Next/OwnCloud.

Isn't the person at home for whom cross-training would be a nightmare already a nightmare with Windows?

Re: I hear you loud and clear

Dual boot or VM, neither is difficult. Dual booting with SCO did take some sysadmin skills once upon a time but these days checking you've enough free space is available and not ticking the "Use all the disk" box is about all all the admin knowledge needed to set up a dual boot Linux to try out.

Microsoft CEO of AI: Your online content is 'freeware' fodder for training models

Re: Copyrights as a structural obstacle

I'm not sure I'd want a trained musician replacing a trained nurse to look after me if I were ill and I'm not sure that the talents which enable the musician to be a musician would have enabled them to train to be a good nurse instead. And we've seen a couple of examples of people with musical degrees running tech companies.

On the basis that you seem to believe that humans are fungible I assume you're in management.

Re: LinkedIn

It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it?

We train

You cheat

They steal

Re: Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it

I'm sure Tim Patterson would agree with that and possibly Gary Kildall were he still alive.

American interest in electric vehicles short circuits for first time in four years

Re: The sight of a Telsa accelerating with a half million watts of power is heartwarming

"If" usually has to do a lot of heavy lifting.

Re: The infrastructure plan is a clusterfscked boondoggle

"Yes we had to charge, went for a coffee"

And as long as EVs are relatively few then that's fine. If you had to queue you might have been able to have dinner and an overnight stay. With a majority of vehicles being EVs the existing charging structure would become a bottleneck.

Bill Gates says not to worry about AI gobbling up energy, tech will adapt

Well played, sir.

For the record: You just ordered me to cause a very expensive outage

Re: Sometimes, when the stars & planets align just right ...

Like a cat with its tail straight up? When done by humans it's called mooning.

Re: "I felt no inclination to do so"

I'd want the instruction to do so signed off before cutting anything.

Re: "I felt no inclination to do so"

"might make it all too easy for the moron to shift the blame on to him"

Somebody who's obviously there trying to shift the blame onto somebody has a distinct ring of dog and homework about it.

Re: Can confirm

Head of trading was presumably the type not to think that at some point in the future he might have needed a big favour.

Re: "Norman" who is an electrical engineer by trade and during one phase of his career

What's Norman doing in his current phase?

Re: Electrical Engineer?

In Blighty the scope of the term "engineer" depends on who's saying it. For a BSc (Eng) in might be a BSc (Eng). For a member of the appropriate Chartered iIstitute it might be a member of a Chartered Institute. For others it might be a skilled tradesman. It's not like it is in Oregon.

Re: "I felt no inclination to do so"

I think that on the whole I'd be more likely tohave done the same as Norman, leaving the moron with nobody to blame. Or maybe jst come back a few minutes later to observe the scene from the back of the crowd.

Former Fujitsu engineer apologizes for role in Post Office IT scandal

Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

I'm beginning to think he was told they needed someone to make a statement on behalf of the company, that it was just a formality and they could draft most/?all of it for him.

Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

Until recently he didn't know that in court an "expert witness" has some legal training, training that he neither had, nor was offered. In particular he did not know about disclosure.

I spent 14 years in a job where being an expert witness was at the core of the work. No legal training was given. OTOH I was constantly thinking, as should any witness, expert or other wise "If I get this wrong someone could be wrongly convicted".

Apart from that the one warning I would give to anyone who is being called as a witness, especially as an expert is "be careful of the side that's calling you; they may well want you to say more than you intend so you must stand your ground against them as well as against counsel on the other side".

Re: Pending report from the inquiry..

Np you're not. But that doesn't mean your thought is correct.

Re: ...what was he doing with his time?

I'd guess that even if he-d read them they wouldn't have included a critical warning. The expert witness' worst problems come from the side that calls them. The examination that turns into a cross-examination trying to get them to over-commit. The statement that had to be retyped because it had to be on a different form, the original mentioned suspects who are no longer before the court. etc.

TeamViewer can't bring itself to say someone broke into its network – but it happened

Probably a scammer got one of their staff to install Teamviewer on their work PC so they could sort out a problem.

ISS 'nauts told to duck and cover after dead Russian sat sprays space junk

Re: "a debris-generating event in Low Earth Orbit."

Collision with an existing piece of junk?

AI to boost datacenter capex by 28.5% and become the top server workload

I can't help thinking that AI and Crypto-mining should both be taxed out of existence on environmental grounds.

Microsoft founder Paul Allen's tech museum closes, sells off collection

The letter sold was described as signed by Einstein. It wasn't drafted by him but by a group headed by Leo Szilard.

"It wasn't created by the government so isn't a government document"

If it affected government policy then one would expect it to become a government document. I believe the Library of Congress holds several copies of Magna Carta. It certainly didn't create them.

AI query optimization in IBM's Db2 shows you can teach a tech dinosaur new tricks

"infused with GenAI"

Do they expect to get into hot water with it?

Elon Musk to destroy the International Space Station – with NASA's approval, for a fee

Re: Language

Mass is actually a verb but it's not used in the same way as weigh, so not as in TFA. It relates to forming a large crowd, a mass of people.

Re: Can't help wondering

OTOH what will be the energy requirements for sending the equivalent mass up to those orbits direct from Earth when we finally get round to it?

Perseverance pays off as Mars rover's SHERLOC brought back from the brink

Amazing. Utterly amazing.

To the crew >>>>

WhisperGate suspect indicted as US offers a $10M bounty for his capture

Re: Motivations

Or cover for his private for-profit activities.