Posts by Doctor Syntax

UK's Ministry of Defence pins hopes on AI to stop the next massive email blunder

What's "explainable AI". I thought the essence of AI was that wasn't explainable. Its popularity is certainly inexplicable.

Mistakenly sold NASA command trailer could be yours – for $199K

"A listing on eBay with a $50,000 minimum bid and $290,000 buy-it-now price ended in May with no takers."

A reminder that something is worth what you can get somebody to pay for it, no more and no less (which principle should really have settled the HP/Autonomy case).

MX Linux 25 loses systemd toggling power as Debian 13 looms

Re: It definitely reduces the appeal ...

"I'll continue with Debian on some systems for now, as long as I can continue to _not_ use most of the systemD creeping features"

More to Devuan instead.

Re: It definitely reduces the appeal ...

Only if they're rounded corners.

Re: A regrettable KDE choice

I'm running KDE with X on Devuan Excalibur (6.12 kernel) and it will open multiple tabs in Konsole, no problem. The one thing to watch out for is that out of the box it wrote complaints to the X error log about not being able to use pipewire - every few seconds. If that's a problem install libpiewire-0.3-modules-x11.

AWS wiped my account of 10 years, says open source dev

Re: I'm confused

I would totally believe that Amazon could screw up in the most bizarre way imaginable - or more than that.

Re: Amazon's identity verification is provably broken

My experience of Amazon - admittedly only limited to deliveries - is that if something goes wrong what happens next is totally unpredictable. Unpredictable like a courier being sent out to collect the undelivered item for return. It's as if only the happy path gets coded.

Make Redmond angry by setting up Windows 11 with a local account

Re: Far Too Complicated!!

You have to use Windows?

Deal with it.

Re: No workaround needed for Windows 11 Pro

"if Microsoft wasn't so disconnected from their user's needs."

In the Microsoftverse only Microsoft has needs.

Re: Depressing that this is even necessary.

Or keep them on Keepass, copied or synced as required. so you always have them on any device you're using.

Tech bro denied dev's hard-earned bonus for bug that overcharged a little old lady

"And the dev was probably the closest thing to telecoms expert they had,"

Not a a fact in evidence. If the boss and his mate started a telecoms business it's likely that they fancied themselves as experts or thought "how difficult can it be?".

"and it's not automatically the boss's responsibility to question that."

The boss would have recruited Ivan. It would have been his responsibility to recruit someone able to fill in any gaps in the knowledge that he and his mate had.

It sounds like receiving the complaint was how they detected it.

From TFA:

"After as much testing as was possible at a three-person startup, the team felt it worked well and put it into production.

But when the very first live customer called in, their call didn't terminate properly."

The first point here is that in a 3 person operation the team must necessarily included at least one if not both of the other two. Clearing it for production was not the sole responsibility of the developer.

Secondly, was Ivan the resident telecoms expert (and if there wasn't one whose fault was that) responsible for knowing all the ins and outs of call termination? If the S/W met all tests specified the developer can hardly be responsible for testing for an unspecified condition unless they knew it should have been specified.

"The boss is right ."

The boss is paid to take responsibility.

Windows 11 leads as October looms, but millions still cling to Windows 10

Re: "an uphill struggle remains to get Windows 11 on desktops"

"I was the one who wrote that."

Of course you were.

"As for orphaned or gauging ISVs... Are there "any" ISVs doing the kind of application you need in *nix?"

If it's orphaned there aren't going to be any ISV doing it for any platform. You now have a free choice of where to rebuild. Are you going to choose the option that's already left you stranded once.

It might surprise you to know that Unix and Unix compatibles are a very good platform on which to build. Before I retired I spent a couple of decades or so developing snd running systems built on RDBMSs on Unix platforms which ran operations for organisations large and small. They were reliable systems with long uptimes that did the job or, as you put it, ticked all boxes

I also spent a while developing on Windows. The client's approach was ad hoc. They spent more time on putting together new systems for individual contracts than they would have spent on something adaptable and even longer than they'd have spent on putting something together adaptable to run on SCO which would have been the platform of choice at the time. What an over-complicated mess Windows was as a platform back then and from what I hear it's got a lot worse since.

The basic Unix platform would always be the one to choose for an application with a projected lifetime of decades. Windows would be the choice for a platform you can go into a shop and buy today to treat as disposable because you're treating the application as disposable.

Re: Debian 13 (Trixe) is out on Friday

apt distupgrade

Re: Abomination

I don't regard mac usrs as peasants. Peasants don't usually flash money around. We actual peasants were brought up on frugality and a strongly independent outlook.

Re: "an uphill struggle remains to get Windows 11 on desktops"

Somebody above wrote "Migrating bespoke internal applications is a bitch." and that was in the context of one version of Windows to another. Tencontinued in the same vein for ISV supplied applications especially if the ISV has lost interest or gone broke. Might this notme an opportunity for a clean sweep with more control over the underlying OS?

Antivirus vendors fail to spot persistent, nasty, stealthy Linux backdoor

Re: This is the very design of PAM

"What is actually more concerning is how this is being deployed. It requires a privilege mode session or process to integrate it into a system, and how that was done is more of interest,"

I'd have thought that the likeliest way would have been to get it integrates into a distro repository.

When hyperscalers can’t safeguard one nation’s data from another, dark clouds are ahead

Re: It’s back to basics: business models

Obviously not your company because of the way they went. But if the EU insisted - unlikely but possible - that the only way MS could continue to run their stuff in the EU would be at arm's length through some sort of franchise arrangement it would be made possible in short order. Necessity is the mother of invention, etc.

Millions of age checks performed as UK Online Safety Act gets rolling

Re: This will be extended to all web sites eventually

A couple of wooshes, I see,

Re: Does it really matter?

"More that we need to look at it cohesively as a data leakage problem, rather than focusing on this one element."

You usually fix leaks one at a time. This is another, and it's a big one.

Re: Madness

Totally unexpected - surely they'd have hired somebody with a STEM background (I don't think a degree in geography counts).

Microsoft briefly turned off Indian company’s cloud, perhaps due to EU sanctions on Russia

Re: Gaslighting

From a customer PoV ti would be safer to have the service provided by a locally owned franchisee set up under local law that allowed them to use the US company's IP under strictly hands-off terms. IOW if the USG tels MS (for isntance) that it can't provide Teams to LittleOldRightPondCo but LittleOldRightPondCo is actually dealing with RightPondFranchiseeCo then RightPondFranchiseeCo's use of MS's IP for Teams is subject to a contract that allows them to continue providing it to LittleOldRightPondCo unless the Right Pond giov also tells them not to.

Re: Gaslighting

"A company which is headquartered in the USA CANNOT put their EU operations out of reach of American laws"

The interesting situation in TFA seems to be illustrating that trying to follow this in respect of an Indian operation it isn't as simple as that as it can be challenged in the Indian court. I suppose the upshot of this is that MS will be spinning this along the lines of "see, your local law does protect you.".

Re: Not the first and probably not the last

Having not listened, when it's too late they will claim they weren't told.

Long live the nub: ThinkPad designer David Hill spills secrets, designs that never made it

Re: I miss them

Make the most of it You are extremely lucky if you can make use of that - or maybe you're just extremely shortsighted and sit a couple of inches away from the screen.

"purposeful evolution model for ThinkPad. I didn't think that it needed to be reinvented every year. I thought it needed to be improved t's the same way Porsche treats the 911 or Jeep with the Wrangler. They don't start over every year. They build on a heritage."

This needs to be engraved on the eyeballs of every user interface designer who thinks the opposite.

Florida jury throws huge fine at Tesla in Autopilot crash

Re: Did the driver get fined?

As far as I can make out from the article there is no fine involved. It was a civil case about damages. The driver and Tesla shared the compensatory damages $129m with the driver paying 2/3 of that and Tesla then got hit with $200m punitive damages as well. All of it goes to the plaintiffs.

I doubt damages, not even punitive damages, could be called a fine.

A criminal case might have issued fines as well but if there was such a case it would have been a separate matter.

Rampant emoji use suggests crypto-stealing NPM package was written by AI

So it steals cryptocurrency. But isn't crime what cryptocurrency's for?

Enterprise software giants weaponize AI to kill discounts and deepen lock-in

Re: Lock-in is not intelligent to begin with

Lock-in is very intelligent for the vendor.

For customers the only way to win is not to play.

Tested: Microsoft Recall can still capture credit cards and passwords, a treasure trove for crooks

Re: Recall

That covers a lot of users, especially home users.

Gadget geeks aghast at guru's geriatric GPU

Re: A graphics card?

Same here. I was going to post "What's a graphics card?".

Re: Oh, Linus is running a recent graphics card!

Why ask a question that would get WONT_ANSWER

Best just to ignore him and run Devuan or a similarly systemd-free distro

As ransomware gangs threaten physical harm, 'I am afraid of what's next,' ex-negotiator says

The best preventetive would be to announce "I may not know who you are but there are undoubtedly people who do, so if we get one of these notes I can afford to and will make it amply worth the while of any of them who delivers your freshly cut off balls, hands and head in that order a week apart."

Re: Someone knocking at the door. Somebody ringing the bell…

If you were to draw senior manglement's attention to this and explain tha they'd likely be the recipient of the threats and that by that time it would be too late for the security measures that would protect their hides then they might be receptive.

AI is contributing to Meta’s growth – just not the kind anyone cares about

"We don't expect that our genAI work is going to be a meaningful driver of revenue this year or next year,"

Plenty of time to not worry about it.

New Google AI model maps world in 10-meter squares for machines to read

Re: ...an error rate 24 percent lower than other models...

"We need an El Reg standard for approximate comparisons between vague amounts of something or else."

Obviously it must be the firkin as in "two firkin small" or "two firkin big".

Top spy says LinkedIn profiles that list defense work 'recklessly invite attention of foreign intelligence services'

Re: Did IQs drop

I suppose that when I joined the Civil Service in the 1970s I must have been cleared for my role but if so I newver found out to what level.

Re: Common Sense

It's about demonstrating how stupid people who think they're smart can be.

Re: LinkedIn? Why?

"It is long past time for it to go away."

It's long past the time the lot of thme went away.

Windows 10 @ 10: How Microsoft led developers round in circles

Re: So many toolkits, frameworks, APIs, versions and confusion

It probably results from a constant churn and deprecation of the programmers.

Tesla starts sort-of Robotaxi service in San Francisco by invite only

Fully self driving - the driver is just part of the vehicle.

US lowers tariffs on major tech exporting nations - but buyers will still pay more

Re: "manufacturing jobs continue to decline"

Are overseas suppliers going to play ball or are they going to look at a diminishing and unpredictable US market and decide that they'd rather find a customer elsewhere who can pay full price?

Servers hated Mondays until techie quit quaffing coffee in their company

Re: Disks

I used to work with a Sequent which had a LOT* of huge (4Gb I think) disks. Folk lore was that if they were shut down they wouldn't start up again. That was left running for a years. Eventually it had to be moved & they started up without problems.

* Part of the reason for the number was that they were mirrored at disk controller level and pairs of mirorred pairs were mirrored at database level. Whoever set it up wasn't taking chances.

Re: the company couldn't be bothered to spend any money to fix the problem

Or the CFO

AWS Lambda loves charging for idle time: Vercel claims it found a way to dodge the bill

Re: Congratulations

It sounds to me like they've invented timesharing.

Users left scrambling for a plan B as Dropbox drops Dropbox Passwords

Re: Maybe they just saw the writing on the wall?

If you read tp the bottom of the NCSC's screed there seems to be an assumption that the password manager will be a 3rd party job. Their advice on choice works out as "whatever works for you" so anyone ho's confused will stay that way.

Re: KeePass

Isn't ti a bit of a problem remwmbering which site has X{cRMS1A9D(q"z+Y\8]Y and which has f+X#kOk43ntLtcL-(R~' ?

Bitter fight over 2020 Microsoft quantum paper both resolved and unresolved

"You don't think that your microwave oven is a fraud because you can put your mac and cheese in it and it will cook."

I wouldn't want a mac and cheese to put intoa microwave oven so I don't believe microwave ovens can exist.