Posts by Dr Fidget

MPs and peers tell UK to stop winging it on AI regulation

With teeth?

A watchdog with teeth - like OFCOM, OFWAT ...?

We've been promised that every watchdog set up by every Government will have teeth and I've yet to see one that actually has.

Britain sending Ukraine an extra 30,000 drones – now 150,000 all up

Standard Operating Procedure

Start/prop up foreign wars with arms sales to improve the arms so we can prop up more wars with arms sales so we can ...

Scotland Yard can keep using live facial recognition on people in London, say judges

Re: Change of atire will help

Just wear an FFP2 mask. Beware of Flu!

Starmer's digital ID reboot raises same old questions as its Blair-era ancestor

A level of trust

Frankly I'd love a single digital ID to replace all my credit, debit cards, my driving licence, my bus pass, my library card, my passport ...

The only problem is that I trust this (or any) Government about as far as I can throw a fit!

So much for power to the people – AI datacenters could jump UK grid queue

Strategic Importance?

Strategic Importance is directly proportional to size sice of the donation (or bribe to you and me)

Doctors told to give Palantir's NHS data platform the cold shoulder

Re: How utterly naive

It doesn't matter what they say today, they can always change their minds tomorrow!

Just like ID cards - even if you trust this Government not to misuse the data (hah!) - there's nothing to stop any future Government from changing the rules.

Memory is running out, and so are excuses for software bloat

Re: Lovely idea - no chance of it ever happening

I remember being chuffed when I realised that "XOR" took 1 byte to set the accumulator to zero whereas "LDA 0" took 2 on the Z80 so I could save another few bytes of my 48Mb RAM on my Nascom 2

Bossware booms as bots determine whether you're doing a good job

Auto-micromanagement

Why are all bosses micromanagers? Have they never heard of the idea of hiring good people, paying them well, treating them well, letting them get on with the job they were hired for and supporting them when needed.

The best manager is conspicuous ONLY in his/her absence.

UK government on the lookout for bargain-priced CTO

AI?

Surely here's a role for an AI. Sounds goo to me, cheap and not susceptible to "donations".

AI layoffs to backfire: Half quietly rehired at lower pay

Replace the CEO?

When are they going to start replacing CEOs and the like with AI? - it's got to be far and away the easiest fit for ChatGPT etc.

Financial 'stretch' for UK to join Europe's Starlink rival, says minister

It always amazes me how poor the 6th biggest economy seems to be - unless it comes to weaponry and war.

MIT boffins claim liquid sodium battery could one day power aircraft while sucking up CO2

Re: Huge quantities of molten sodium flying through the air?

You have looked at how explosive aviation fuel is haven't you?

How do you explain what magnetic fields do to monitors to people wearing bowling shoes?

A new CFO at the company I worked for assured us he was totally "tech savvy" and then called in tech support because his PC wouldn't read his 3.5" floppy disk. Turned out he'd stuck the disk label across the disk shutter. Remove label, insert disk and voila!

Oh Brother. Printer giant denies dirty toner tricks as users cry foul

Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies

UK businesses eye AI as the cheaper, non-whining alternative to actual staff

Frankly, as far as an awful lot of businesses are concerned, if there was a decent profit from boiling babies in a bathtub, that's what they'd do. Especially if it boosted the CEO's annual bonus.

Dropbox to shed another 500 staff, CEO takes 'full responsibility'

CEO takes 'full responsibility' - and accepts massive bonus and pay rise do doubt

Fragile Agile development model is a symptom, not a source, of project failure

YAMP

Yet Another Management Paradigm - Don't worry , there'll be another one along in just a moment. It too will solve all known problems, cure all ills ... just like the last one :)

Endless OS 6: How desktop Linux may look, one day

Re: Wayland?

You can make something idiot-proof but you can't make it proof against deliberate malice

The eight-bit Z80 is dead. Long live the 16-bit Z80!

Nascom 2

God, I remember with such fondness the Nascom 2 which came as a circuit board and a bag full of chips and a bare Hall-effect keyboard. It had a 2K (yes that's 2K) OS on a ROM complete with the assembler source code.

I was a freelance COBOL programmer when my roomie brought one home and I sat down to scoff - an hour later I was gob-smacked. At the time at RX I was waiting 24 hours for a test compile of a COBOL program just to find I'd missed a full stop at the end of a line somewhere and here was a machine I could probably write a COBOL syntax checker on which would run immediately.

Microsoft is a national security threat, says ex-White House cyber policy director

An old fable

I would remind the US Government (and everybody else) of the fable of the Horse, the Man and the Wolf. Pick your own contenders for the roles ...

Tech titans assemble to decide which jobs AI should cut first

Re: Bollocks

Most CEOs could be replaced by a random number generator (hi! ERNIE). Their staff do the work offering them a set of actions, then they pick one and, usually, they've got no more idea if it's the best one than the office cleaner would have - but if it all goes tits-up you can be sure that they've got someone to blame it on.

UK elections are unaffected by China's cyber-interference, says deputy PM

Just means that they haven't had their back-hander from China yet.

Whistleblower raises alarm over UK Nursing and Midwifery Council's DB

When I was a freelance COBOL programmer I worked on a system (for the Saudi Arabian Royal Commission IIRC) that allowed 3 possible values for the Sex field. Various comments about camels were raised :-)

GCHQ's NCSC warns of 'realistic possibility' AI will help state-backed malware evade detection

i.e. the Government and GCHQ spying on members of the general public who have the gall to criticise them

Why do IT projects like the UK's scandal-hit Post Office Horizon end in disaster?

Ignorance and lack of useful skills

Most members of Government (and this one in particular) have absolutely no knowledge of IT, systems, analysis or anything else besides how to get rich, give bungs to their mates, ancient Greek and Latin etc. We're some what short of anyone with basic mathematical or analytical skills up at the top, just the ability to give orders and dodge responsibility.

COVID-19 infection surge detected in wastewater, signals potential new wave

Well, sod you lot.

Must be nice to be young, healthy without any aged relatives in care homes or other friends or relatives who are at risk.

I do hope you get a nice strong dose of long Covid and then try and get a bed in the overcrowded NHS hospital - or are you in the 1% and can afford private care and you don't give a f*ck about anybody else?

National Grid latest UK org to zap Chinese kit from critical infrastructure

Re: Biggest issue I see

USA?

UK government woefully unprepared for 'catastrophic' ransomware attack

Re: Bit unfair

So what's the point of having a monarchy (apart from bamboozling the public)?

Think tank calls for monitoring of Chinese AI-enabled products

Who are ASPI?

"ASPI is an independent, non-partisan think tank that produces expert and timely advice for Australia’s strategic and defence leaders." - at least that's what they say about themselves.

Based in Canberra and Washington DC - Hmm.

Mark Zuckerberg would kick Elon Musk's ass, experts say

Willy waving

Why don't they just post the length of their dicks?

IBM's motto is 'Think' – its CEO reckons AI can do that as well as some workers

Including the CEO?

First one to be replaced by an AI chatbot (a simple one should suffice) should be the CEO - and probably most, if not all, of the board

Why UK watchdog abandoned its Apple monopoly probe

Re: So now the UK is out of the EU...

More likely Rishi or one of his mates has shares in Apple

Scientists speak their brains: Please don’t call us boffins

Re: Hmmm

‘I’ll tell you,’ said Vimes. ‘A monarch’s an absolute ruler, right? The head honcho—’

‘Unless he’s a queen,’ said Carrot.

Vimes glared at him, and then nodded.

‘Okay, or the head honchette—’

‘No, that’d only apply if she was a young woman. Queens tend to be older. She’d have to be a … a honcharina? No, that’s for very young princesses. No. Um. A honchesa, I think.’

Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett

Subsidies? All UK chip industry needs is tax, rule tweaks, claims rightwing thinktank

Surely there's a 'chum' somewhere

I thought the Tory way of handling things like this was to find a 'chum' (Eton old-boy, neighbour down the road, somebody I met at the golf club, ...) who may make a decent donation to the party (or the PM of the day) and bung them a few £millions, no questions asked.

Techies ask PM to 'prepare UK chip strategy as a matter of urgency'

Boondoggle

It'll be just another massive handout to a Tory part donor or one of the PM's chums. Later, it will turn out to be a massive failure/cock-up but, by then, Rishi won't be PM and we'll all be told to get over a minor bit of fiscal 'carelessness' by the Daily Mail etc.

Brit civil service claims there's enough money for mammoth ERP refresh project

Re: IR35

Especially if they make nice big donations to the Conservative Party

EU takes another step towards US data-sharing agreement

Who's national security?

"access to personal data from Europe by US intelligence agencies would be limited to what is necessary and proportionate to protect national security." - as defined by?

San Francisco politicians to vote on policy endorsing lethal force for robots

Yet again - Sir Terry said it so well

“Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses.”

― Terry Pratchett, Thud!

Is it time to retire C and C++ for Rust in new programs?

Re: Wait a minute ...

What's in it for Micro$oft?

Your job was probably outsourced for exactly the reason you suspected

Outsourced CEOs

Funny how it's so difficult to outsource board members such as CEOs

Get over it: Microsoft is a Linux and open source company these days

Words & actions

When words and actions disagree, believe the actions - 'nuff said.

Logitech's MX Mechanical keyboard, Master 3S mouse

Re: Corporate user?

Not to mention that the roll-out will be to senior management first (so they can sign the emails their secretary wrote for them) and last of all any worker who actually uses a keyboard all day.

UK Home Office dangles £20m for national gun licence database system

Re: Database?

And proof that they went to Eton - or live down the road from a Cabinet Minister

Actual metal being welded in support of the UK's first orbital 'launch platform'

Blue streak?

I'm old enough to remember Blue Streak - cancelled after £billions spent 'cos it cost too much

Pension cold-calling financial services biz cops largest ever fine from UK data watchdog

Failed cronyism

Serves them right for not giving Boris the Liar a big enough bung

Hitting underground pipes and cables costs the UK £2.4bn a year. We need a data platform for that, says government

Eton OB?

So did the CEO of Atkins go to Eton with Boris the Liar or does Atkins run the sweet shop at the end of one of his cronies streets?

Intel's €80bn European chip plant investment plan not bound for UK because Brexit

Need an Eton OB

If Intel had en Eton old boy on the board he could get a decent backhander from Bojo no problem

You want me to do WHAT in that prepaid envelope?

It's important, really importan

In 2015 my results came back requesting another sample - end result, positive. Then a colonoscopy showing up a tumour.

At this point I had NO SYMPTOMS whatsoever.

I ended up with a stay in hospital, a loss of 50cm of lower bowel, an incision running from sternum to groin held together with 36 stables and an ileostomy bag for 6 months while the gut healed.

Not a lot of fun but if it hadn't been for this test I'd be DEAD now!

O2 UK overcharged exiting customers by £40.7m over 7+ years: Ofcom slams senior managers, fines it £10.5m

O2 Engineers

Since early January I've had b*gger all phone signal at home and all I see from O2 is a "Looks like a nearby phone mast isn’t working as it should, sorry. Our engineers are likely to be on the case already, and your service might come and go until we fix it." message.

I assume that O2 engineers wear a tutu, have little wings and a twinkly wand - or is that the fairies at the bottom of my garden?

UK.gov awards seats on £2bn 'digital outcomes' framework to suppliers – one of which doesn't even have a website

Re: So..

The UK is a Banana Republic