Posts by Doctor Syntax

Microsoft kills standalone SharePoint and OneDrive plans, because they’re not suite enough

"unlimited cloud storage"

Just like unlimited data plans etc. Either it gets canned once it's too expensive of there's a small print definition of "unlimited" somewhere in paperwork referred to somewhere in the paperwork.

Elon Musk merges xAI into SpaceX to spread universal consciousness via a sentient sun

Re: I for one would be very glad

You're better off without it.

Re: In other words

Alternatively he occasionally reaches out from Lala land into reality. The reality here, I suppose, is that the US space programme is so dependent on Space X that somehow the costs AI is going to drag it into will have to be covered by public funds.

Let them eat Pi: RAM shortage bumps Raspberry prices as much as $60

When that bubble bursts there's going to be a lot of slack manufacturing capacity, unsold stock and even surplus stuff installed, some of it possibly in DCs that weren't even turned on because they didin't get a grid connection.

And even at best memory prices have a habit of being cyclic - high prices, build out production - glut - close fabs - shortage - high prices.

Help! Does anyone on the bus know Linux?

Re: Yes, I know Linux.

"Just using the command line to do things makes them shake their heads and do something else."

But you know you only use command line because it's quicker than the GUI alternatives or something which neither Linux nor Windows GUIs could even manage.

BSD

Re: Yes, I know Linux.

Try being introduced as someone who charges for IT advice. That might help.

Re: Special AU Bus Borkage

Possibly a display width limitation.

Want digital sovereignty? That'll be 1% of your GDP into AI infrastructure please

"how can they achieve digital sovereignty under private cloud providers Dell and HPE, who are also American companies"

By not using AI although it matters a good deal less on who makes the S/W than who controls the service that runs on it. The hierarchy is:

The service

The software

The hardware

The main risk is having services provided by businesses under extra-territorial control. The risk with S/W is the subscription model moving it up into the service tier. The hardware is mostly not a problem except possibly appliances such as routers and firewalls with embedded software.

This is where FOSS come in. It allows for user choice about who runs the service and avoids the subscription risk.

Re: Er

Maybe you can't run a database without using Oracle. I spent the whole of my IT career, the second half of my working life, running databases without Oracle.

Re: A balanced view

"pathetically beg people to subscribe"

It's putting two begs into one askit.

Buy into AI and/or don't take money away from big US corporates.

Re: Them again!

"it all made sense"

But only in its own twisted way.

Re: Good grief

I'm not sure there's time enough to wait because you don't know when it will become critical. The ideal time to start was way back. The next best time to start is now. The worst time to start is wait. That's not to say those DCs at fire sale prices won't be handy.

"they do not need to be at the scale of what US Big Tech is currently doing"

This. You need service providers big enough to run a their customers' own loads, not the world's. Multiple providers is the essence of digital sovereignty. The "you can't manage the scale" lot just haven't grasped it.

Microsoft spends billions on AI, converts just 3.3% of Copilot Chat users

Re: Imagine that.

All the quantum folk must be upset that AI's keeping them away from their turn for a bubble.

Improving W11 quality doesn't enable them to promise wonders for investors so no chance of that happening.

Patch Tuesday meets Groundhog Day as Windows hibernation bug returns

"You have to force a shutdown by holding the power button down"

So do that.

It reboots? That's good. You know it will boot. So just shut down instead of hibernating. Booting's too slow? First world problem.

Capgemini to sell the biz that works for US government amid criticism of ICE contract

Re: CGS “ operates under a Special Security Agreement”

"apply French/European law and gain access to CGS’s US-based computer systems and client data on those systems"

What law would allow them to do that? Extra-territorialism is a US speciality.

Good luck with trying not to have done those things. Which things you did will be decided after you got shot.

Open-source AI is a global security nightmare waiting to happen, say researchers

Re: FTFY

In this case it's open as in "open door".

In this case it's the "exposed to the internet" that provides the "open" bit.

Microsoft's 'atypical' emergency Windows patches are becoming awfully typical

Re: Don't say "AI Slop"!

I see what you did there with Microslop Coprolite

'Mercian firms

King Offa would like a word with you.

Re: And ?

"If you use MS then this is your life from now on."

That line is worth a thousand upvotes.

Techie's one ring brought darkness by shorting a server

Re: Lucky to still have his finger

No doubt there are circumstances where a spanner with a right angle bend is the only one that will fit.

AI security startup CEO posts a job. Deepfake candidate applies, inner turmoil ensues

The best interview I ever had had only one question: "Are you still interested?" Of course I'd previously been body-shopped into them for a couple of years. When I went freelance I got most of my work through word of mouth. Even without that an aggressive interview approach would have been a warning that this is probably a sample of the company culture. In an interview the employer is being examined by the interviewee as well as the other way around.

Re: Back to in-person application.

If an advanced fee were involved it would be a signal fro a legitimate applicant to stay away.

Re: Test

"The deepfake only has to replace the face, maybe adjust the accent, not the whole candidate."

Oh, I don't know:

Q1. Show us your shoes.

Q2. Now take them off and show us your feet.

Q1. Tell me how, in a video interview, you would detect that the other person was a deepfake.

Q2. Apply those to criteria to me. Am I a deep fake?

Q3. From my point of view, apply those criteria to yourself.

Q4. Assume I am a deep fake and from my point of view apply those criteria to me.

Q5. From your point of view apply those criteria to yourself.

Q6. Assume you are a deep fake, apply those criteria to yourself. Are you a deep fake?

Q7. How many GPU cores does it take to fake you?

Thousands more Oregon residents learn their health data was stolen in TriZetto breach

Re: Encryption?

There are schemes which are supposed to work with encrypted data. Presumably they're computationally expensive as you say. But the application is going to need the keys and they will either be stored on the host system, and hence vulnerable, or provided by the client and vulnerable in transit. That just makes illegal access more difficult but not impossible.

"company/executive ending fines that actually happen in cases of negligence might make some stop and think about security"

For those who haven't thought ending the business is a preventative measure in itself.

Sufficient lawsuits to wipe them out would be even more effective in protecting data. No business, no data to fail to safeguard.

Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

Re: Not a Trump thing.

"But much panic and FUD, and circumventing normal medical rules to flog vaccines that hadn't been properly tested, but the drug dealers made billions."

Certainly much FUD although we may not be referring to the same material.

But let's stand back a moment and consider.

This was a novel disease-causing agent. History tells us what damage can be wrought by those, in fact they don't need to be novel, just long enough after the last outbreak to leave the population immunologically ill-prepared. Without treatments and with severe enough symptoms the deaths can account for several tenths of the population in very short order. Time is of he essence.

In those circumstances it would be grossly irresponsible of the medical profession and then government not to take urgent action.

That includes epidemiological modelling using what ever data was to hand which, initially was a small sample from China. Yes, as time went on it would be refined but it's no use saying we'll wait for a more precise worst case prediction before deciding on what action is justified if by that time, in absence of action, it's killed 10% of the world population. Note that : worst case prediction justifies action; not responding to worst case prediction is no better and no less irresponsible that crossing fingers and hoping for the best.

It's no use arguing that the historical pandemics were taken against a background of no effective medical knowledge. In the early days that was very much the situation with Covid - it's a novel disease so by definition there's no knowledge of effective treatment beyond nursing care. That included ventilators given that it's a respiratory disease but they have the problem of being invasive which carries risk, so use in any given case is a matter of balance, and scarce which would be a more severe limiting factor. What medical knowledge would say is that as a viral disease it won't respond to antibiotics so no amount of penicillin would be of use except against secondary infections. Anti-retroviral treatments might be possible but in short supply. The best options would be to reduce spreading rate and get cracking on a vaccine in parallel with which, start very quick trials of treatments to improve outcomes of infections that weren't prevented. From the latter it was discovered that CPAP machines were as effective as ventilators in many case, non-invasive, cheaper and available in quantity; and also anti-inflammatories also improved outcomes.

As to vaccines, a few years earlier, before the use of m-RNA, development would have been a slow process. About the turn of the year the Chinese provided the genome of the virus which meant that development could start immediately and take a feew weeks. Where time was the essence that was important. No, clinical trials were not avoided. They were certainly telescoped but again time was of the essence. They showed effective immunity and, on that scale, no side effects. Like everything else in medicine balance of risks was involved. Yes, use at scale beyond clinical trials caused some deaths, more would have been caused by waiting. It isn't even possible to say whether those who died from those side effects wouldn't have died from Covid otherwise.

Frankly I think that everyone involved in the vaccine production and trials did a brilliant job producing an effective response at essential speed deserves congratulations. They do not deserve ignorant denigration and nit-picking.

Re: Follow the money

'entirely located within the EU, and physically and logically separate from other AWS Regions'

Note that they didn't say it's really separated from them. Never be bemused by a list, always look to see what's not in it.

The whole thing is headed by an Amazon exec. What happens when a US President says "I'm sanctioning Europe. Stop providing IT services to them. And Amazon, don't forget to tell that exec of yours with that sovereign thing that that includes him."?

Re: "It is amusing to see Reform struggling to comprehend matters"

Nah. I think he's just the little squirt trying to hang out round the big bullies because he wants to be like them. I doubt they even notice him most of the time.

Re: It is unfortunate, but true

Points to Ukraine.

Re: Not a Trump thing.

Certainly Trump gets a good blasting there but this line near the start is the significant one in the view of many of us "In the Trump‑redux era of 2026, European enterprises are finally taking data seriously"

The key word in there is "finally". It's Trump's behaviour that's finally waking people up to what they should have been taking seriously well before his arrival on the scene.

After GDPR came in, for instance we've seen all sorts of privacy fig-leaves put in place to make it OK to keep sending EU citizens' data* to the US for processing and that was even before the CLOUD Act.

* that included UK citizens originally and Brexit has not improved that situation.

Re: Not a Trump thing.

On my way back here to say something similar - if you're fighting a virus getting rid of any parasite load would be a good idea.

"if you were in an area where parasites are endemic" that might well cover the White House.

Re: Maybe people will start listening now?

There are a lot of people who, if they'd had the vision, would have seen this coming long ago. Recent developments have made it more obvious. Carney's speech seems to have been analysed in the sort of press they're likely to have read. Many of then - maybe your lot, maybe not - are starting to wake up.

How far up the IT chain does the "can't do anything about it" run? Do you have any suggestions if someone a bit further up the chain starts asking questions in anticipation of questions from further up? When it all goes critical are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

Re: Not a Trump thing.

There's a big difference between a virus and intestinal worms.

Broadcom 'bulldozes' VMware cloud partners as March deadline looms

Re: Why am I ashamed of my tribe ?

This particular article dealt with resellers. Car analogy incoming:

The individual car owner might well swap brands next time he buys a car. A car dealer who has an agency for a particular manufacturer will be in trouble if the manufacturer consolidates their dealer network into a few dealerships of which they're not one.

I suppose many of those affected will have seen this coming since Broadcom made its first move and started dealing with other suppliers.

Musk distracts from struggling car biz with fantastical promise to make 1 million humanoid robots a year

Re: "tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring"

"Optimus might be well suited to tasks like bomb defusing/disposal. If it screws up, who cares? But I think there are already bots for that."

The one I saw was a remote-controlled trolley with a shotgun mounted on it. The theory is that it blows the detonating mechanism apart without actually triggering it. The reason I saw it was that it was behind the lab where I worked. The suspicious parcel had been placed there to be accessible. Of course, being inside the building I'd have been out of sight of cowhorsefrog and, therefore, by his logic, doing no work.

Re: process their pay

"Most people here who have answered to me, are examples of this, they cant actually say what these people or themselves do"

OK, let me tell you some of the things that I did as a Civil Servant,.

One of the first jobs that I got given was making bits of clothing from a bomber sufficiently presentable to his family for identification which mostly consisted of removing bits of bomber from them.

Examined other messy things that you probably would preferred not to have done.

Examined scenes of crime where I needed an armed police or army escort.

Worked in a building that was targetted by bombers, unsuccessfully when I worked there, successfully later.

Taken a sample from a rifle that was subsequently discovreed to have been booby-trapped. A similarly booby-trapped shotgun had killed two police officers a few weeks earlier.

In conjunction with a pathologist, excavated the remains of a murder victim buried 7 years earlier. That was one of the armed escort jpbs.

Written reports that could help convict or exonerate people accused of crimes.

Given evidence in court on such matters under cross-examination.

Now you tell us what you've done.

Re: "tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring"

"the only people actually doing real work that we can see?"

What do you do that's visible to those outside your place of work?

Re: process their pay

"That's how the farmer gets $0.20 for a kilo of grapes and the consumer pays $16.00 for a kilo of grapes."

I doubt most of the difference goes in paying those whose jobs involve just coming into the office as you seem to think. I'd guess most of the mark-up is the supermarket's although it will cost money to transport them (probably refrigerated).

However, as to AUTOMATING (your shout) office jobs, most weekend papers have a column dedicated to customers and taxpayers who got screwed by banks, finance companies, travel companies, property companies, government departments etc and cannot get hold of anyone to sort things out until a journalist rings the press office. That's auomation at work.

BOFH: Eight pints of a lager and a management breakthrough

Re: I assumed…

I thought the OP was in Australia the loaded diaper is leaking everywhere at present.

Re: I assumed…

I suppose the Agnew gambit will be renamed to the "Vance Gambit".

Re: Ah yes, 6-Sigma.

We went from TQM with a mantra of "get it right first time every time" to ISO 9000 with a mantra of "continuous improvement". Nobody has ever explained how, if we'd been getting it right first time, every time, we could continuously improve on that.