Posts by Doctor Syntax

BBC tapped to stop Britain being baffled by AI

Re: Why a TV licence?

Think of it as a subscription.

UK plans right for flat owners to demand gigabit broadband

Re: @Doctor Syntax

Meeting regulatory requirements is a cost of doing business, not some sort of cross-subsidy. There were - probably stall are - rules about BT not subsidising one sort of business from another. It was attempts to get into non-regulated areas that started BT manglement on their loss-making international ventures in the 90s.

Re: @Doctor Syntax

"Rural. Its different from Urban. One having a sparser population than the other. As a result there is often an infrastructure difference. You feeling ok today?"

I'm feeling fine living as I do in a rural location. We have neighbours on both sides of the road back down to the pub, church and cricket field and there are houses strung along the road with very few gaps all the way back to the exchange. Off the lane there's an estate with 48 houses and a smaller one with a few retirement flats. A couple of hundred metres up the road is are three more houses and another cluster a hundred or so metres further up. That may be sparse by urban standards, it's not isolated. You need to get out more.

Fair enough we do have good connections on this side of the valley. It's not clear why the other side isn't as well served - except for the fibre that was laid for the mobile mast.

Re: Real Estate tenure in the UK…

"which is a bit Matt 25:29"

Quite. Exactly the same in the UK which is why I'd quoted it above.

That's an interesting looking operation. What a shame the community has to get together to do what the national provider has failed to do and that they have succeeded for much more remote locations than those where the national provider has failed.

Re: @Doctor Syntax

"Compare that to ass end of nowhere which is out of the way of existing infrastructure"

Why the Americanism? And why the assumption that rural properties are particularly remote or isolated?

There is the little matter of universal provision to remember. I see that, like Openreach, you don't remember.

There are not locations "out of the way of the existing infrastructure". They are on it. Some of that infrastructure was installed in the days of aluminium conductors which doesn't help. They have been left with either long ADSL connections or else equally bad, long connections to FTTC access. Meanwhile those with short FTTC runs are being offered FTTP while those with a mile or so long zig-zagged overhead cables to the same cabinet, get nothing.

It's definitely a case of those that have shall be given more and those that have not shall have the little they have taken away from them as a VOIP replacement for analogue is likely to be problematic.

BT inherited an obligation from its nationalised existence. It is not meeting it.

I suppose there's more money to be made from installing fibre in flats than providing an effective service to rural properties.

Sometimes buildings are managed through agents. For the agent there is a cost: doing something. They'd rather collect their cut for doing nothing.

Our first flat was an attic flat with a dormer window that let in showers of water onto our dining table when it rained. It took a lot of haranguing to get it fixed although the leak must have been causing deterioration to the structure of the building. They were also uninterested in a crack opening up where the back staircase seemed to be falling away from the main building.

DVSA's clapped-out booking system gets bot slapped as new boss rides in

Re: Why not

"Should be bread and butter for Google/AWS/Azure" - True

"with whom the government" - There's the problem

There's an effective non-technical solution for this. Announce those responsible will be prosecuted for fraudulent bookings with a one week amnesty on cancellations.

Purdue makes 'AI working competency' a graduation requirement

AI may be of help with dealing with CAD.

"Draft me a Penrose triangle"

NATO's battle for cloud sovereignty: Speed is existential

"Modern conflict no longer rewards the side with the most data, It rewards the side with the ability to connect it, understand it and act on it first."

That connecting and understanding thing - the word is "information". It was always information that mattered but data can be measured in Tb so you can always claim to have lots of that, even if you've got no information from it.

Former UK chancellor George Osborne finds something to do at OpenAI

Re: Wonderful choice... not

"Another one who has never had a proper job."

Unlike the current one who's had lots of proper jobs - some of them even existed.

Chancellors have a habit of being unsuccessful but if you want to find a really unsuccessful one then you have to go back a bit further to Gordon Brown.

Re: A valid move

It's a sensible move on their part. They're going to need someone who has experience of dealing with things when all the money's been spent.

Apple blocks dev from all accounts after he tries to redeem bad gift card

Re: Local copies of, almost, everything here

"But then again, it's the scenario you didn't think about (and there's always one) that's going to get you."

Quite. NextCloud drive died a little way from completing a sync to number 2 laptop when number 1 was away fro repair. It had temporarily become a SPoF. So the new NC server (might as well replace it with a newer Pi) has mirrored drives.

Re: Local copies of, almost, everything here

"yes, but you’re not an average user"

"Average" is a misleading word. If you're thinking of "mode" rather than "mean" you might find your "average" user doesn't have a lot of paid-for account-locked content. They may have their own material but then, the situation with that might depend on the nature of the device. For the "average" PC user it might well be local-first but any backup might be what they didn't manage to fight off Microsoft snaffling to One\Drive.

It seems that all too often it's just a matter of what the user chooses - or, rather, fails to choose - as their SPoF.

Re: Let the buyer beware.

As I read it he bought the Apple gift card as a way of paying Apple. In that case buying a gift card from Apple he'd be paying Apple directly unless he bough another gift card from somewhere else to use to buy the gift card from Apple. Given the convoluted way things are done these days I wouldn't be entirely surprised by that but fiarly surprised.

Re: Local copies of, almost, everything here

In my case, what account?

Sync to local Nextcloud. Periodically, sync no 2 laptop to Nextcloud. Considering syncing local Nextcloud to remote instance but that wouldn't be on a big corp.

Snake is right in one respect: the bigger the supplier the worse the service.

Wrong word

Let me correct that. On reflection: Automated victim punishment

"I will leave as fast as I can even if this is fixed,"

Don't say that. Do it, but don't say it in advance. As to having only copies of terabytes of stuff on somebody else's computer - surely he should have known better.

Also, the purchaser of such a card is the one who's been scammed, having paid money for junk. This is automated victim blaming.

Microsoft security update breaks MSMQ on older Win systems

Internet Information Services (IIS) sites failing with "Insufficient resources to perform operation" errors

This must be a great inconvenience to those Chinese crews who have put a lot of work into using them as back doors into networks.

Hot for its bot, McKinsey may cut thousands of jobs

Re: monthly

Of course! Thanks for that correction.

Re: the one case...

Complicated words are essential. They sound impressive. Being impressive is more important than being understood. In fact they stop the board understanding what's going on.

Re: their super sophisiticated bot

Only 0.9?

China's Ink Dragon hides out in European government networks

Re: su VoiceOfTruth

Nice one, good catch.

Re: Tools

"Email's been around since dot, so gotta be easy right?"

Sendmail?

England keeping pen and paper exams despite limited digital expansion

Re: There is no requirement for a specific make of pen

"The rules state the device being used must not have an active internet connection"

And just hope the kids haven't found a way to bypass that.

Why do bit barns keep bumping up our bills, Senators ask DC operators

Re: Confused

In particular, ask themto explain 'Some areas of "significant datacenter activity" have seen wholesale electricity prices rise by as much as 267 percent in the past five years.'

Browser 'privacy' extensions have eye on your AI, log all your chats

Maybe it's just be but I'd instantly distrust anything called "Urban".

Mozilla Corporation installs Firefox driver in CEO reboot

Re: "its market share has stabilized on the desktop ..."

... but we're not going to let it end there.

Re: Thanks for the foundation of LibreWolf, Waterfox and formerly Pale Moon! But that's about it!

No shame in forgetting the name of Stephen Elop.

You could also take a look at LibreWolf.

US freezes $42B trade pact with UK over digital tax row

Re: I luv you UK

A lot of us have been saying it outloud for a long while. There are none so deaf as those who will not hear.

Isuppose he looked at Nixon/Agnew & learned from that.

Does this mean avoiding wasting UK power resources on AI data centres? I'd call that a win.

From Georgia to Essex, AI datacenters are testing public goodwill

Re: NIMBYs are a funny lot

Real plants.

UK.gov doubles hardware spending framework to £24B in 6 months

Laptops but no servers. The big stuff will still be done on somebody else's computer.

Delays? What delays? Oracle insists its $300B cloud contract with OpenAI is on track

A runaway train is also on track. Right until it hits the buffers.

GAO report details faltering Veteran’s Administration records upgrade program

"Back in September, the GAO highlighted how the VA could benefit from the use of AI."

Then they'd have two problems.

Roomba maker iRobot gets cleaned out in Chapter 11

Fir puns will be kept in abiesance.

"Picea Robotics"

That should spruce things up.

Delay to European Central Bank messaging project cost the Bank of England £23M

Don't be silly. By the time Trump's done with the US economy the Fed Res will be messaging them asking for loans.

Techie 'forgot' to tell boss their cost-saving idea meant a day of gaming

Re: Dension DMP3

Pi and SSD?

Re: Have you found a way to work without really working?

"And so are you."

Not really. I've just sent an email to ask for extra material to be added to tomorrow's visit to the archives and I've another to send for January's visit. Wander down to the gate to bring the bin back up and that's about it for the day.

Retirement.

I remember somebody at a client site who'd just come back from Norway saying it was a great place. You could get anything for 20 quid. A bottle of beer. A sandwich...

Starlink claims Chinese launch came within 200 meters of broadband satellite

Re: Drugs in ink cartridges?

Somebody misunderstood the instructions. They were supposed to be smuggling printer ink disguised as heroin.

Re: SpaceX deflecting much?

"It definitely is on the Launcher firm to check the schedules and orbital trajectories"

In the circumstances finding and hitting a 200metre gap sounds like good work.

Legal protection for ethical hacking under Computer Misuse Act is only the first step

"It may sound like extra work for under-funded, under-loved security teams, except that a hundred good guys hammering at your gates aren't attackers."

Neither are those who are drowning FOSS developers in AI slop reports but too many of them can amount to a DDoS.

Honeypots can help defenders, or damn them if implemented badly

"they suspect the trio are a traveling band of threat actors."

I know street entertainers can be annoying but calling them that is a bit harsh.

User insisted their screen was blank, until admitting it wasn't

Re: "Mr. {my-name], my screen has gone away! You must come asap! PLEEEEASE!"

"... no colours any more I want them to turn white ..."

The computer will do what you tell it to do. That might be not what you meant or the result of what you meant might not be what you wished for. But you got what you told it to do.