Posts by Doctor Syntax

Control Altman delete: OpenAI fires CEO, chairman quits

Re: Scandalous revelations coming out in 3...2...1

Or https://time.com/6300522/worldcoin-sam-altman/?

Lawyer guilty of arrogance after ignoring tech support

Re: Some places do get it right

"you had to take a 1 hour training session from the office manager"

Somehow that reminded me of the time when you had to pass the chief technician's test to drive the departmental mini. He was a bit deaf and had obviously been used to driving cars with bigger, slower revving engines. He didn't know the engine was really labouring when he drive it and he complained about people changing up too late.

Re: Are you sure, this isn't the plot of an IT Crowd epsiode?

"Comedy and satire are built on reality."

Yes, but this is Reality being lapped.

Re: Too many to count

There have been one or two where random chance is the only explanation.

Re: Guy was an arse BUT..

"to discover she had somehow moved every heavy item of furniture & plugged into a dead data wallport"

I'd have been tempted to say "put it back as you found it and then raise another ticket if it's still not working".

Re: Seems to me that ...

"PS: Pluto is a planet, dammit."

And very annoying to have it downgraded just after somebody had composed the extra piece for Holt's suite.

Re: clicking on the screenshot

"you're sure you are not updating the output print file from the compiler rather than the code itself?"

You don't make that mistake with punched cards.

Re: @Doctor Evil: Clicking on "close window"

"Not a Microsoft Windows Issue"

I think it is. Prior to Microsoft putting Close there it used to be the button on the left hand end of the title bar along with the system menu so it wasn't going to be clicked in error that way. As a consequence a lot - maybe all - software released prior to that didn't have a safety dialog because they didn't need it.

I've come to the conclusion that anyone who wants to change a user interface feature just because they can should first have some interface in their daily life changed, say their car steering set to work the other way round or the brake and accelerator pedals swapped.

On behalf of lawyers I should say that there was at least one who showed signs of self-awareness. His car registration was FIB 1.

Windows users can soon ditch Bing, Edge, other bundleware – but only in the EU

Re: UK workarounds ?

Good idea. I can always use my old address in Lisburn - Oh, I forgot. I don't need to. My only bit of kit which dual boots int0 Windows* won't go beyond 10 anyway.

* I keep it mostly to remind myself of what I'm missing and reassure myself I made the right decision years ago. Tomorrow I'll maybe run this month's patches and marvel at how long it takes and how many times it reboots.

"On the other hand, Europeans have to wait for Copilot"

So - a double win for being in the EU.

Copilot coming to Windows 10 to help navigate the OS's twilight years

Re: Why are Microsoft being so obstinate?

Money? That'll be the OEM licences they're looking for.

Re: Déjà vu all over again

Or Clipilotana

Britain proposes 'super-complaints' to help keep the internet safe

Re: Suyer-complaints process and preventing exposing users to “harmful content”

"If your msgs pass through a server then it ain't end-to-end-encryption"

What about asymmetric key encryption, e.g.PGP?

It's just the atheist fundamentalists being as predicable and boring as any other belief system's fundamentalists.

I suppose when you pass legislation that's inherently broken it's entirely consistent to propose equally broken stuff to surround it. I wonder how long it'll take for ministers - of any political persuasion - to grasp this.

UK won't rush to regulate AI, says first-ever minister for digital brainboxes

Re: UK won't rush to regulate AI

But if we didn't have a minister for AI some other minister might rush to regulate it and then where would we be? Instead we have a department that can evaluate the options and in fulness of time take the appropriate decision. Probably not to do anything because then you can't be blamed for the results of what you did do.

Re: Congratulations, Viscount

As far as I can make out his qualifications are that his family owned the Daily Telegraph for 60 years, his father was science correspondent there and wrote a book about AI several decades ago, he himself has been interested in AI & sci-fi since about age 5, he has an MBA from Carnegie-Mellon and was a management consultant. In terms of ministers responsible for science and technology over the years that seems to make him a high-flier.

HP sued over use of forfeited 401(k) retirement contributions

Re: Who benefits if this changes

"The first is why the people suing HP here are doing it, because presumably they wouldn't gain from having the rule changed."

Possible altruism.

Probably lawyers.

I thought the vesting period was to take on employees and then replace them without having to make any contributions.

Re: Seems mean...

On the other hand, for defined benefits schemes HMRC instructed employers to take a contribution holiday because schemes were seriously over-funded.

Then Brownomics introduced rampant inflation to increase the liabilities and low interest rates to decrease funds' ability to pay (interest declared here) and defined benefits schemes were closed to new members because they were now grossly underfunded. Whoever made the original decision would, of course, remain oblivious to this as HMRC pensions, like those of all Civil Servants (interest also declared here) was, at least back then, essentially a Ponzi scheme underpinned by the taxpayer.

Francis Maude mulls mulligan on muddled merger of UK govt tech services

Re: Francis Maude

"If anyone can explain and give an example of the actual difference in handling between 'OFFICIAL' and 'OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE' please let me know."

Sir Humphrey might have expressed it as "OFFICIAL means everybody knows. OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE means only the Russians know."

It would need updating for the post-Cold War era - s/Russians/Chinese/

"the centre is now frequently providing multiple (and mixed) signals,"

That sounds like too many chiefs. Merging GDS back in will provide a few more. What was the problem again?

Canonical intros Microcloud: Simple, free, on-prem Linux clustering

Windows Server ... wins because any idiot can just run a wizard from a clean install and create a HA cluster with storage and VM and other role capabilities....Linux has a long way to go on making this "admin friendly"

As opposed to something like https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/16/microsoft_windows_server_patch/ ?

On the whole I expect a system administrator to be something more than a GUI jockey.

Japan Airlines fuels up on hydrogen hype with eye on cleaner skies

"the critical mission of decarbonizing commercial aviation,"

Whether it decarbonises aviation or not depends on the source of the hydrogen. Just developing the planes on the basis that somebody else is going to produce hydrogen is throwing the problem over the wall.

Use AI to accelerate adoption of central bank digital currencies, says IMF head

Digital currencies and AI. What could possibly go wrong?

Airbus to test sat-stabilizing 'Detumbler' to simplify astro-garbage disposal

"so that a future deorbiting mission can come and collect the defunct satellite."

It may be that tumbling prevents an EoL satellite from firing thrusters to deorbit itself. In that case stopping the tumbling would eliminate the need for a deorbiting mission.

RHEL and Alma Linux 9.3 arrive – one is free, one merely free of charge

Re: RHELatives

RHELiberated

FBI Director: FISA Section 702 warrant requirement a 'de facto ban'

"A warrant requirement would amount to a de facto ban"

I can't imagine a clearer admission of current wrongdoing.

To pay or not to pay for AI's creative 'borrowing' – that is the question

Re: Two questions for the price of one

"The secondary question is whether certain materials going into certain training sets were obtained in a way that wouldn't have been legal if a human were reading or viewing them."

Some books include words to the effect of "not to be stored in an electronic storage system" as a condition of sale. That would be a clear infringement if such a book was used without specific permission. Even if the trained model doesn't contain verbatim text the training data would be an electronically stored copy falling foul of the condition.

As to the wider issue, if the trained model is not a derivative work of all the previous works that were in the training set what's the point of training it on that data as opposed to random lists of words? Would such a trained model be simply fair use of the individual works? My understanding of fair use would be that I can embed one or several quotes from some author(s) into a work which is mostly my own. I'm not sure that embedding the entirety of another's work would count as fair use and much less so the concatenation of several such works in their entirety.

If I were to produce a work which was simply a collection of material from other sources my understanding is that I would have database rights to the collection but not necessarily to the material which went into it. I think I'd have to agree that the training of the model would add database rights for the trainer. However, unless the original material can be passed off as fair use then surely the trained model remains a derivative work of its training material. As such it must surely also include the collected rights of the authors of the training material.

If the production of the derived work is the infringing act then it seems somewhat disingenuous to offer protection against legal costs of those who use a product of it. It's misdirection as to where the potentially infringing act occurred.

Rivian bricks infotainment systems in 'fat finger' fiasco

Re: What, no speedo?

... and a bit tricky to take into the dealer for a fix. Made worse, of course, by the fact that an upmarket product for a self-elected elite of Very Special People will have a sparse dealer network.

Simple solution - a phased rollout system that hits the CEO's device, whatever sort of device that may be, a couple of days before those of paying customers.

UK telcos didn't collude to put Phones 4u out of business – judge

It seems I got away lightly. Just a short DBA contract for holiday cover with the parent company.

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean AI's not after you

Re: horses can talk.

Well played, sir.

Re: you think that horses can talk.

"horses can communicate to some degree"

Throwing the rider off is the second most effective way exceeded only by throwing rider off and rolling on them.

BT staff would be able to get more sensible answers more quickly if the upper management were replaced by chatbots. They wouldn't get their intelligence insulted regularly by [de]motivational training events. And there'd be less faffing about with disruptive reorganisations every few months.

Yes, there are lots of opportunities for AI at BT.

I see BT didn't let their standards slip when appointing senior staff. He fits right in.

NCSC says cyber-readiness of UK’s critical infrastructure isn’t up to scratch

"They may have to prioritize profits and shareholder value rather than spending on cybersecurity resilience."

The relevant regulators should ensure that shareholder value depends on all aspects of resilience.

Passive SSH server private key compromise is real ... for some vulnerable gear

"OpenSSL and LibreSSL, and thus OpenSSH, are not known to be vulnerable to the aforementioned key deduction method"

Not the most reassuring form of words. I'd have preferred "not" and "known" to have been the other way about. The paper implies this is the case for the last couple of decades but given that old kit may still be around...

Google Photos' AI Magic Editor won't change pictures of IDs, receipts, faces, or bodies

"removing unwanted objects, like people in the background"

That's nothing, soviet photographers could remove people from the foreground.

48-nation bloc to crack down on using crypto assets to avoid tax

Re: Avoid or evade?

It's what the judge decides.

Re: Wild Goose

No problem. You just go back as member of the House of Lords.

That's going to wind up Nadine - she got turned down & Cameron just goes straight in.

AWS staffer shows off the workplace that used to be a prison

I'll order a cellphone.

Bright spark techie knew the drill and used it to install a power line, but couldn't outsmart an odd electrician

Re: Ouch! don't trust anything.

Matching fibres involves matching colours in transmitted light and in various fluorescence conditions. Yes other factors such as cross-section shape, indeed texture and, where relevant, polarising properties are elements of fibre matching but I doubt anyone claiming fibre expertise would survive telling the court that they had a colour deficiency.

Re: Ouch! don't trust anything.

Although part of the work involved making comparisons of textile fibres there was no testing when I joined the forensic lab. One of our older colleagues was, in fact red/green colour blind so that was one aspect of the work he couldn't tackle. When we were recruiting several new staff a few years later we decided we'd better borrow a set of cards.

EU lawmakers scolded for concealing identities of privacy-busting content-scanning 'experts'

Maybe you are being a little too cynical - or maybe not enough. I'd see it as self-selection by the experts; there's an opportunity so why not take it. The fact remains, of course, that whatever the selection mechanism none of them has put forward a proof of concept implementation.

UK signals legal changes to self-driving vehicle liabilities

Re: Why?

"Less people dying."

Where are the self-driving cars that achieve this?

Re: Why?

And back in the world of real devices?

"Or give them a reward for saving so many lives compared to the bad old days when humans used to drive?"

Spot the evidence-free assumption.