Posts by gnasher729

FBI prevails over convicted fraudster in $345M destroyed Bitcoin dispute

Re: I wonder why they wiped his drives

“ Perhaps the better question is why they aren't legally bound to return them. ”

There is this thing called “backups”. If I had 345 million worth of bitcoin, guess how many backup copies I would have.

AI benchmarks are a bad joke – and LLM makers are the ones laughing

This particular problem is rather trivial (solutions in my head are n = 1, 11 and 37). I’d be curious what happens with more difficult problems.

Rideshare giant moves 200 Macs out of the cloud, saves $2.4 million

Re: ...unless you have no other option

Now ask about the last version of macOS running _legally_ on a hackintosh. Running on VMd that run on a Mac is legally fine.

Re: Multi-user?

“ I' run my iMac with several different accounts, does anyone know if you can use multi GUI users on the same remote machine?'”

You can have multiple GUIs running, but only one GUI is being displayed. (Only actually tried two, using one while the other burnt a DVD, and it worked just fine).

Real prices

The cheapest Mac Mini (quad core, gigabit Ethernet) is £599. One level below the M3 Ultra is a Mac mini with M4 Max, 8 cores, 10 Gbit Ethernet, for £2100. 200 of them are £120,000 or £420,000, and of course you spend money on racks etc. Anyway, a lot less than 2.4 million over three years. And I don’t know if they had 200 cores or 200 CPUs. 200 cores would be just 50 M4s or 25 M4 Max.

Microsoft: Don't let AI agents near your credit card yet

My AI bought a dozen 8TB SSDs for $20 each for me. Each with 4MB of storage.

You'll never guess what the most common passwords are. Oh, wait, yes you will

Re: Forcing regular change is counterintuitive

I left one company, with my current password set to <highlycomplexpassword>37. Guess how long I worked there.

But then, I usually use Safari generated passwords for websites. One turned out was used in a breach. So I know one company that most definitely stored my password as clear text.

Literal crossed wires sent cops after innocent neighbors in child abuse case

I would assume that BT can easily tell where a phone ought to be according to their records, enough for the police to get a warrant.

But then when the police doesn’t find anything in their search, BT should also be able to verify 100% whether traffic went to this place or not. Like BT engineer presses a button, some message is sent to the router that received the porn wherever it is, and police standing at the family‘s router and detecting whether it received that message or not.

UK data regulator defends decision not to investigate MoD Afghan data breach

This is just shameful. They put the lives of people at risk who helped the UK army in their operations in Afghanistan. That wasn’t a mistake. That wasn’t carelessness. That was not giving a f*** about people’s lives who gave much needed support to the UK.

Windows 11 update knocks out USB mice, keyboards in recovery mode

Re: This Isn't Going to Inconvenience Anyone In 2025... /S

PS2 is one thing, but USB mice/keyboards are quite common. And it is an absolute failure, not one USB keyboard or mouse works, so this has never been tried out.

If I was responsible, I’d have a cupboard full with all kinds of devices that you want to work, and try them systematically.

Plus this USB support doesn’t disappear. Someone must have deliberately removed it.

Apple goes all in on AI acceleration with M5 MacBook, iPad, and Vision Pros

Re: Puzzled

It means the M5 does non AI-related work up to 15% faster than the M4. Which is of little consequence if you have an M4, but if you have M1/M2 it might convince you to upgrade. Or wait for the M6.

'Fax virus' panicked a manager and sparked job-killing Reply-All incident

In Germany, there was a time when you would get a fax “This is a holdup! Fax us all your money!” and then everyone would pull their banknotes out of their wallets and fax it. Usually the fax was from some company you were working with! “Dies ist ein Überfax! Faxen Sie uns all Ihr Geld” - words very similar to what an armed bankrobber would say.

Benioff retreats from idea of sending troops in to clean up San Francisco

If he talks absolute nonsense, and some time later realises it was indefensible bullshit, then a reasonable person _would_ say that they were wrong the first time round. It wouldn’t be a cognitive problem, but quite the opposite.

US PC shipments hit the buffers as Trump’s tariffs take their toll

Re: Funny, I was reading

I think a good number of MAGA farmers won’t work again as farmers because the three biggest importers (China, South Korea and Japan) are not renewing their contracts. Instead switching to Brazil and Canada.

London cops unplug iPhone crime ring said to nick 40% of city's mobiles

For the people who lose important data on their phone: For 99p a month you get the cheapest iCloud account that will permanently backup up to 50 GB. If your phone disappears, you buy a new one, activate it, and everything is back on the new phone within a few hours.

“Find my” can tell you where your phone is. Even the last location if the phone is turned off. So how do you suggest that can be done without someone knowing where your phone is?

College student went on a destructive rampage, then confessed to ChatGPT, cops say

Just wondering, how serious are they in the USA about paying (in cash) for such damage? I’m quite sure in Germany you will pay until the damage is paid for, and if it takes you 50 years.

Tesla on the wrong tracks with Fail Self Driving, Senators worry

There is really no need to recognise trains. There is a huge need to recognise fast moving very heavy objects.

Intel reportedly wants TSMC's help to end its reliance on ...TSMC

Reported elsewhere they apparently also asked Apple for investment. Maybe to build iPhones with manly power-consuming Intel chips instead of woke Apple/Arm processors for the US market.

Workers: Yes, RTO makes sense. No, we’re not going to do it

I once booked a cruise from England. The sales guy was working from a home near the beach in Florida.

Word to the wise: Don't tell your IT manager they're not in Excel

Re: My code doesn't compile

To be honest, I’d like it if a C or C++ compiler could translate rich text or word files, so you can use all the text formatting capabilities. Very useful for larger comment sections.

Re: "Surely an IT manager should know the difference between Word and Excel?"

I’ve heard that about a three year old who got all frustrated and upset because a printed magazine didn’t work like his iPad when he tapped with his fingers on the pretty pictures. For a three year old it’s funny. Not for a grown-up man.

Why Microsoft has the name of an old mouse hidden in its Bluetooth drivers

It’s not just Microsoft. When Apple released MacOS 10.4.10 it turned out that lots of software assumed this was between 10.4.1 and 10.4.2, so software that required say 10.4.6 at least got the test wrong and refused to run.

I started losing my digital privacy in 1974, aged 11

Re: Why would you ever delete patient data?

Obviously if they did jobs that US citizens refused to do, got paid and paid taxes, health insurance and so on, then they belonged there.

Most of the people complaining are just lazy dim witted thugs with nothing ever to be proud of in their life.

Inventor who encouraged Elon Musk to make Optimus says most humanoid robots today are 'terrifying'

Can anyone tell me why a robot ought to have two legs and not two? My dog with her four legs got up and down the stairs, or the sofa, or in and out of the car just fine.

Spectre haunts CPUs again: VMSCAPE vulnerability leaks cloud secrets

Apple claims they have Spectre under control at minimal cost. For Apple-designed Arm processors only obviously.

Apple's 'Awe Droppings' fall close to the tree

Re: Let's translate

Actuallly, Tim Cook bribed Trump without the guy even noticing he was bribed - lots of people complaining that apple should have stood up to him. And the reality: No tariffs on iPhones for a maybe $100,000 bribe.

Re: Yes!

Two weeks of bending phones, and then it stops, never to happen again. I remember someone claiming he used faceID with a photo, over the panic was over, it never happened again.

“Massive fire hazard” according to the information you posted if you have broken cables, throw the phone in the bath tub, or put screws through the battery. And if you break the glass the broken glass could hurt you. Yes, massive hazards.

UK Home Office dangles £1.3M prize for algorithm that guesses your age

Just trust them.

So this person comes and claims they are 13. Goes straight to school appropriate for the age. Benefits go to the guardian who may give them some pocket money. No alcohol until 18. No driving license. Eventually they might get a state pension at age 66 = 53 years from now. “Friends” will be suspect of bring pedophiles. No sex before the age of consent.

However, if they commit a crime they will be treated as adults unless they can prove they are too young. And explain that all very very well if they are suspect of lying.

Investors throw another $13B on the Anthropic cash bonfire

End of 1996, Tescos received a shipment of baked beans with a selll-by date in Jan. 2000. Their systems couldn’t handle it, so they just changed the date to Dec. 1999, but they knew they had less than two years time to fix this particular problem before it became very inconvenient, and three years until total breakdown.

US cuffs 475 at Hyundai–LG battery plant – feds tout largest single-site raid

Re: some progress.

I remember around Brexit time, an employment agency boss claiming on TV she could easily fill 40 open jobs with British employees.

She found three.

One didn’t turn up on the first day.

A second one didn’t return the second day.

So the company in question got 37 foreign and one British worker.

Re: Hmmmm, what day is Kristallnacht this year?

Coward, learn your history. 8 million Jews were not murdered during Kristallnacht. Kristallnacht was smashing Jewish owned businesses. Comparing these events with Kristallnacht is quite appropriate. It is done to cause damage and to make people used to things.

Apple iOS 26 set to dump 75M iPhones on the e-waste pile

Re: Hmm

According to Apple’s numbers, less than 2% of new phones are bought to replace a phone less than a year old. So Victor Meldrew is quite wrong in this case. Never was the brightest chap.

Re: "75 million iPhones"

They do actually trade in old devices. You get less than on eBay, but it will be a lot less trouble.

As a software developer, it would be possible that a new software version doesn’t work on your phone, but it would be highly unusual that an existing version running on your phone would require a newer iOS version to continue running. Why would a software maker do that? The old version _does_ work.

This is such nonsense. My iPhone XR will continue working for years running iOS 18.6.

Microsoft open-sources the 6502 BASIC coded by Bill Gates himself

Re: Does it mention...

At the time Germany had laws that said there is no copyright, but copying work for free that a competitor created at huge cost is “unfair competition” which is illegal. That wasnt just software, but also things like phonebooks, dictionaries and so on.

So it was explicitly _not_ fair to just copy. As long as you copied from a competitor.

Techie fooled a panicked daemon and manipulated time itself to get servers in sync

Re: been there, done that ...

Higher slew rates: You might have a music player that is unaware of time slew and that might cause trouble. Or there is a 100m world record attempt and you take the time with 10% slew.

Re: been there, done that ...

I wrote some software that needed to stay within 5 minutes from a server time. So I gathered a dozen idevices and checked their drifting behaviour.

My manager had an eight year old iphone with a drift of 5 seconds per day, so it would have failed after 60 days. (All other phones were within 0.2 seconds per day). I’m not sure, but I suppose mechanical force might damage the clock chip.

US spy chief claims UK backed down over Apple backdoor demand

Re: Good

If you are not happy with what Obama did about Russia and Ukraine then I assume you will really really want Trump to do more. I fully agree with that. Give them rockets that reach Moscow. Use the China tariffs to pay for it.

Re: Or not

That one was utter stupidity. The killer had two Samsung phones that he completely destroyed, and one iPhone that he kept. So what are the chances that there were any secrets on that phone.

AMD Ryzen CPUs fry twice in the face of heavy math load, GMP says

Re: Is There Any Automatic Thermal and Clock Management ?

The processor itself should have hardware that shuts it down when it gets too hot, as a last measure to prevent damage. Of course this should never happen since other hardware should reduce power usage first.

Trump stomps feet, pulls out 't-word' again over China rare earths ban

They will learn some time before Christmas.

Re: Scary

What alternative universe are you living in?

I don’t know what is going on in his brain, but he cannot charge China any tariffs. He can only charge US residents, who may stop buying Chinese goods because Chinese price plus 200% tariffs makes the goods too expensive.

Now with tariffs on aluminium (just 50%) there are US companies suffering badly, because higher aluminium prices make them uncompetitive, and US manufacturing is actually being lost. I also read that Canada and Brazil are taking sales away from US manufacturers because foreign buyers feel that the USA run by Trump cannot be trusted.

Cupertino must stop calling Apple Watches 'carbon neutral,' German court rules

Excuse me, but how would a German court care about SCOTUS?

Trump's gold-plated smartphone can't seem to decide which design to copy

The margins will be exactly the same after tariffs. The end user price will go up. Who other than the most stupid Americans would think otherwise?

Often heard opinions that iPhone users just buy their iPhone as a status symbol.

Now we have a phone here that people should buy to demonstrate their loyalty to Trump. The disadvantage is that they demonstrate to everyone who sees it that they are just sheeple following their great leader.

NIMBYs threaten to sink Project Sail, a $17B datacenter development in Georgia

Re: should be requirements

Just change the regulations so they can use 40l of water per person who is employed there and gets paid.